ballest127
Hi Experts,
Could you please post OE of Q4 and Q5?
I cannot locate where to find the answers.
Thank you very much.
Explanation
4. Given the information in the passage, Porter’s identification of the ancestry of Duncanson and Johnston provides conclusive evidence for which one of the following statements?
Difficulty Level: Hard
Explanation
Paragraph 2 clearly announces the Duncanson/Johnston investigation (lines: An example of this aspect of Porter’s research occurs in his essay “Robert S. Duncanson, Midwestern Romantic-Realist.” The work of Duncanson, a nineteenth-century painter of the Hudson River school, like that of his predecessor in the movement, Joshua Johnston, was commonly thought to have been created by a Euro-American artist. Porter proved definitively that both Duncanson and Johnston were of African ancestry. Porter published this finding and thousands of others in a comprehensive volume tracing the history of African-American art.) as “An example of this aspect of Porter’s research.” And “this aspect” refers to the previous paragraph, specifically to Porter’s effort to explore the “cultural territory.” So even before we hit lines referred above, we expect to encounter an example of the linkage that Porter found between Africa and America.
(A) It’s certainly true that Duncanson and Johnston were of African ancestry, and that they were part of the Hudson River School. But were they “defining” members of that school? Can we draw inferences from their work about the School as a whole? No—not enough evidence. Moreover, just how did Porter figure out the ancestry of the artists? It might have been through their use of African “iconography,” but again, we cannot be sure; maybe in this case Porter’s evidence was African themes, or painting styles. So two key elements of (A) are not supported by the text (and choice (A) has a third problem; see the discussion of (E), below.)
(B) Not enough information about the Hudson River School style vs. Duncanson and Johnston’s styles is provided to justify (B)’s inference. Duncanson and Johnston’s work may be 100% in line with School style and yet still reveal evidence of the painters’ African ancestry.
(C) Here again, as with (A), the specific evidence that Porter used to infer Duncanson and Johnston’s African ancestry is never mentioned, so we cannot be sure that their work is reflective of African crafts from the given centuries. Another problem with (C), of course, is that it alludes to Duncanson and Johnston as “Euro-American,” a phrase originally applied to them but abandoned after Porter’s findings.
(E), like (A), infers that Duncanson and Johnston must have demonstrated West African influences in their art. But West Africa is never mentioned in paragraph 2, so whatever African influence Porter found in Duncanson and Johnston’s work, it need not have been West African in origin. Yes, West African craft pieces were part of Porter’s original research project (Paragraph 1). But did they play a role in the Duncanson/Johnston investigation? No way to tell.
Answer: D
5. Which one of the following can most reasonably be inferred from the passage about the study that Porter left unfinished at his death?
Difficulty Level: Medium
Explanation
All we know about Porter’s unfinished work is that’s an area that remains wide open for study (lines: influence of African art on the art of the Western world generally, a body of research whose riches scholars still have not exhausted), and that it widened the scope of his earlier interests, from African American art in particular to “the art of the Western world generally” (lines: influence of African art on the art of the Western world generally, a body of research whose riches scholars still have not exhausted). All of the choices, which we must examine in turn, begin with the words “If completed,” meaning they’re all hypothetical; and since they are hypothetical, it’ll be dangerous to depart from the scope of what we discussed above.
(A), (B) That Porter later revised his 1943 book does not, in and of itself, imply that his unfinished book would have contradicted (A) or amended (B) his conclusions in the earlier one. Indeed, why would it have done so, since the new book was to cover a different topic?
(C), like (A) and (B), inappropriately relates the unfinished book to the 1943 one, since the former was to have gone beyond African American art to Western art generally. Even if African-American artwork were to be mentioned in the unfinished work, there’s no way to tell whether Porter would have done the kind of specific updating that (C) describes.
(D) simply asserts that the new book’s scope would have been broadened beyond that of Porter’s 1943 volume. Quite so. (Notice that (D) uses the word “scope” in exactly the same way that we at Kaplan do!) The earlier work dealt with the influence of African art on African-American artists, and the later work expanded the study to its influence on the Western world in general.
(E) drags in “Porter’s contemporaries.” If that refers to Locke, he appears in Paragraph 2 not Paragraph 3, and in a context totally unrelated to Porter’s later unfinished work. If that refers to other writers, they go unmentioned in the text.
Answer: D
Hope it helpsThis is not Official explanation rather belongs to Kaplan LSAT