Art theft from museums is on the rise. Most stolen art is sold to weal

I picked B as well but the OA is D.

I think the way to rule out B is that stem assumes that "most valuable pieces" are stolen because customers are most interested in buying these valuable pieces. This however does not mean that not-so valuable pieces are not in demand.

Hi,

I am happy to help cause IMO D.

Conclusion: museums ought to focus more of their security on their most valuable pieces
Major Premise: since thieves steal what their customers are most interested in buying

Option B: Talks about art pieces that are not very valuable. Nothing about the ones that are valuable(which is stated in conclusion). An assumption should be something that directly relates to the conclusion. By negation test assuming that "Art pieces that are not very valuable are also in demand by wealthy private collectors." does not translate to same security for all items(atleast directly). There might be same demand for both items but that does not translate to same security necessarily...

Option D: IF "Most museums provide the same amount of security for valuable and not-so-valuable art" its in direct contradiction to the conclusion which asks for better security for valuable arts.

Hope this helps.

Art theft from museums is on the rise. Most stolen art is sold to wealthy private collectors. Consequently, since thieves steal what their customers are most interested in buying, museums ought to focus more of their security on their most valuable pieces.
The argument depends on assuming which one of the following?
The argument is that museums should focus more security on the most valuable pieces, since those are the most likely to be stolen (and these pieces are in demand by wealthy private collectors.)
(A) Art thieves steal both valuable and not-so valuable art. Given that thieves steal what their customers are interested in buying, this statement cannot be supported.
(B) Art pieces that are not very valuable are not very much in demand by wealthy private collectors.Out of scope - The argument is centered on valuable pieces.
(C) Art thieves steal primarily from museums that are poorly secured. There's no mention of the level of security of the museum.
(D) Most museums provide the same amount of security for valuable and not-so-valuable art. The negation strategy for assumption question works here. If most museums didn't provide the same amount of security (provided more security for valuable art), the argument has no function.
(E) Wealthy private collectors sometimes sell their stolen art to other wealthy private collectors.What wealthy private collectors do with the stolen art is not relevant to the argument.

Guys make sure this OA is wrong, CORRECT OA is B .....

THE OFFICIAL ANSWER IS B
OptimusPrepJanielle

YOUR KUDOS HELP ME IN MY PREP , give kudos if you find this useful
here is my explanation for every one else

A-->this cannot be an assumption , as it might be that thieves do not want to steal not so valuable art atall
B--> this is the correct answer

IF you negate B you get -->> Art pieces that are not so valuable ARE VERY MUCH IN DEMAND ....collectors
This completely breaks the argument as , if not so valuable art is also in high demand then giving more security to Valuable
art might not ( rather will not) reduce the number of thefts
C--> this is not a necessity , they may well steal from highly secured museaums
D---> MOST FAMOUS WRONG ANSWER
MOST museum provide the same amount of security for valuable and not-so-valuable art.

what if they do not provide the same level of security ? is it a must that they must have the same level of security for the above conclusion to hold ?
Will it not hold if they were already giving more security to more valuable art than they were to less valuable art ?? it certainly would still hold then

SO D IS WRONG

E-->Irrelevant

Is it certain that D is the correct OA?

VeritasPrepBrian Please help - Is D better than B here?

I am rooting for B here.
Negating B breaks the argument.

Thanks for looping me in! The answer to this one is B...here's why:

Why it's B: The first two sentences are really just background context, so the whole argument is basically this sentence with one premise and one conclusion: Consequently, since thieves steal what their customers are most interested in buying, museums ought to focus more of their security on their most valuable pieces. And note: the premise and conclusion talk about different things! The premise is about "what customers are most interested in buying" and the conclusion is about "most valuable pieces." There's a wordplay gap there (a common Assumption setup: two different-but-related things passed off as being the same, so the assumption is that they're directly linked).

B deals directly with that gap - it shows that you wouldn't want to focus on the less valuable pieces because they're not the ones that people are the most interested in buying and so they won't be ones that thieves steal. And as others have mentioned, if you negate B it blows that gap apart: "Art pieces that are not very valuable ARE not very much in demand by wealthy private collectors." This shows that thieves want to steal these pieces so you'd better protect them - the opposite of the conclusion!!

Why it's not D: Note the specificity of the conclusion, which is that "museums ought to focus more of their security on the most valuable pieces." Let me ask you this: if you tell me you're studying for the GMAT and want a high score and I say "since you want a high score and GMAT Club has a lot of study resources proven to help you get a high score, you should really check out GMAT Club" is my argument flawed? Sure you're already on GMAT Club but basically you've already taken my advice...it doesn't make my advice flawed or wrong. That's the issue with D: giving the advice "hey protect your most likely to be stolen items" doesn't assume "you're not already doing that." If the conclusion were "museums need to fundamentally shift their security strategy to focus on protecting these items" then that assumes that a change is needed (so they're not already doing that). But as the advice is presented it doesn't assume anything about whether they're doing it or not.

Thank you for your reply, Brian!

I chose B for exactly the same reasons that you mentioned, but the OA given here is D. That's why I wanted to confirm. (I should have been confident about my take on the answer )

Also, one more point pertaining to the stem is that the current security for the most valuable items (MVI) is ATMOST comparable (less than or equal to) to that of other items. That's why the conclusion states to increase the security of the MVI.
Option D should have considered "ATMOST" part and not equal. Right?

IMO: D is correct.

a general conclusion of an argument: museums ought to provide different levels of security.

Negate Option D:Most museums do not provide the same amount of security for valuable and not-so-valuable art.....it implies museums already offer different levels of security; Hence, the conclusion falls apart.

D

You need to protect (no pun intended) the conclusion. Answer D does this. Negate the answer and you'll see it weakens the conclusion.

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Please help how do we negate D and B?

The OA for this question should actually be (B), not (D) -- the original post has been fixed!

To find an assumption on which the argument depends, asking "Does the author absolutely HAVE to assume this statement in order to reach his/her conclusion?" is usually more helpful than asking, "What is the opposite of this statement?"

If we do not assume (B), then it's possible that not-so-valuable art pieces are in fact in significant demand by wealthy private collectors. And if that's the case, the thieves would happily steal all of that "not-so-valuable" artwork while security is focused on protecting the most valuable pieces. The author HAS to assume (B) for his/her conclusion to hold up, so (B) is an assumption on which the argument depends.

Does the author HAVE to assume that "most museums provide the same amount of security for valuable and not-so-valuable art," as stated in (D)?

Not really -- maybe museums currently provide a bit more security for valuable art, and the author still thinks that they should shift MORE security toward those pieces. Or, maybe museums are all messed up and actually have more security on not-so-valuable art -- in that case, the author's argument DEFINITELY still holds up, and the museums should really shift their priorities.

Because the author doesn't HAVE to assume that the amount of security is currently the exact same for valuable and not-so-valuable art, (D) is not an assumption on which the argument depends.

In short, the argument works just fine regardless of whether we assume (D), but the argument definitely fails if we don't assume (B). That makes (B) the answer.

I hope that helps!