Many art historians use Roman copies of Greek statues in order

Question

Many art historians use Roman copies of Greek statues in order to learn more about Greek sculpture. A problem with this strategy is that statues were often adapted from Greek prototypes to suit the taste of Roman patrons. Indeed, these statues often have distinctive features that are not specific to Greek style.
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the criticism made above of the art historians' strategy?

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the criticism made above of the art historians' strategy?

A. All Roman copies of Greek statues share a number of important characteristics that are absent from original Roman sculpture. 
B. Most ancient statues were melted down for reusable metal. 
C. All art historians focus on one particular region or nationality in their studies. 
D. Many art historians who study Roman art do not make conclusions about Greek art on the basis of their observations. 
E. even those Roman statues that are not based on Greek artwork are significantly different from other forms of ancient sculpture.

Source - ready4gmat

Masterscorp · Answer

Many art historians use Roman copies of Greek statues in order to learn more about Greek sculpture. A problem with this strategy is that statues were often adapted from Greek prototypes to suit the taste of Roman patrons. Indeed, these statues often have distinctive features that are not specific to Greek style. 
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the criticism made above of the art historians' strategy?  
A. All Roman copies of Greek statues share a number of important characteristics that are absent from original Roman sculpture.  This tell us that there are noticeable differences between Roman and Greek statues, whereas the passage contends that there aren't because some features are universal. Therefore, this answer weakens the original statement. 
B. Most ancient statues were melted down for reusable metal.  Irrelevant, because it doesn't state anything about the style of Greek/Roman statues 
C. All art historians focus on one particular region or nationality in their studies.  Irrelevant too. Just because it may be hard for experts to spot as they are proficient in the style of a particular nationality the differences it doesn't mean that these differences don't exist. 
D. Many art historians who study Roman art do not make conclusions about Greek art on the basis of their observations.  Similar to C 
E. even those Roman statues that are not based on Greek artwork are significantly different from other forms of ancient sculpture.  Not a weakener

sidvarma · Answer

Premise: many art historians use roman statues to learn about greek sculpture. 
Conclusion: This is a bad strategy because Roman statues were basically derivatives of Greek statues and not the most accurate representation of Greek scuplture.

I chose D because it states that many art historians are studying these Roman statues (derivatives of Greek sculpture) but are not making any conclusions about Greek art based on that. It could mean that they are referring to these statues for whatever reasons but they are not using them to infom their learnings.

How is D wrong?

Heisenberg12 · Answer

A. All Roman copies of Greek statues share a number of important characteristics that are absent from original Roman sculpture. -  If this is true, it means that Roman Sculpture and Roman Copies of Greek sculpture are distinct. Therefore, the art historians studying such copies would be able to correctly distinguish between the Greek sculpture and the Roman Sculpture, which would in turn, help them learn about the Greek Sculpture. This opposes the author's claim that studying copies of Greek Sculpture rather than the original sculpture would not help the historians learn more about the Greek Sculpture. 
B. Most ancient statues were melted down for reusable metal.  Irrelevant, because this option does not distinguish between Greek and Roman sculptures. 
C. All art historians focus on one particular region or nationality in their studies. This is a very generalised statement which does not touch the matter at all and is irrelevant.  
D. Many art historians who study Roman art do not make conclusions about Greek art on the basis of their observations. This does not weaken the argument and goes beyond the scope of argument because we are not concerned with art historians who study Roman art.  
E. even those Roman statues that are not based on Greek artwork are significantly different from other forms of ancient sculpture. Same reasoning as in D. This is Out of Scope, in that, we are not concerned with Roman statues not based on Greek Artwork.

PeanutButter429 · Answer

Option (A) mentions distinction from usual Roman Statues, but it doesn't specifically say Greek, could be Persian, Chinese, African. Point is, I think this one can strengthen the argument that you cannot use roman made greek statues to understand greek statues, no?

Option (D) on the other hand mentions that a conclusion isn't made, and it can be implied that it is only used as a reference, which is the safer option between (A) and (D)?

Many art historians use Roman copies of Greek statues in order

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Many art historians use Roman copies of Greek statues in order

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