Bunuel wrote:
12 Days of Christmas GMAT Competition with Lots of FunArt critic: In a recent study, people were asked to rate how realistic they found depictions of horses created by expert artists. Equestrians—people who ride horses, and so are very familiar with their shape and proportion—almost always rated the depictions of horses made by expert artists as significantly less realistic than did the rest of the group. A similar phenomenon likely explains why even expert artists have noted the difficulty in creating depictions of human hands that audiences find realistic: People are intensely familiar with the shape and proportions of human hands.
Which of the following would be most useful to evaluate the art critic’s conclusion?
(A) Whether the people rating artwork in the study included expert artists
(B) Whether expert artists consider horses at least as difficult to realistically depict as hands
(C) Whether the shapes and proportions of human hands are much less varied than the shapes and proportions of horses
(D) Whether some people, such as certain doctors or surgeons, are more familiar with the shapes and proportions of hands than is the rest of the population
(E) Whether, for the few depictions in which there was no disparity in the ratings made by equestrians and the rest of the study participants, the artists were also equestrians
Manhattan Prep Official ExplanationStep 1: Identify the Question The word
evaluate in the question stem indicates that this is an
Evaluate the Argument question.
Step 2: Deconstruct the Argument The author first describes a study in which people very familiar with horses thought that artists’ depictions of horses were less realistic than did people not familiar with horses. The author extrapolates from that study to draw a conclusion about a different phenomenon: Artists generally struggle to make depictions of hands that look realistic to people because (according to the author)
people are intensely familiar with the shapes and proportions of human hands. The author thinks our familiarity with hands makes it hard for artists to depict hands realistically.
Step 3: Pause and State the Goal The author makes two assumptions: First, that the reason equestrians rated the horse art as less realistic was specifically because they were so familiar with horses. And second, the author assumes that this same phenomenon would also apply to human hands, though the study did not address hands. The right answer choice would evaluate one of these assumptions. For example, perhaps there is a reason to think hands would not be subject to the same issue, and there is another reason artists find them difficult to realistically depict—possibly they are just really hard to draw.
Step 4: Work From Wrong to Right(A) Whether expert artists were or were not included, the results of the study are the same: Familiarity with horses tends to result in rating depictions of them as less realistic. This choice does not address
why this is the case or whether hands would be any different.
(B) The opinion of expert artists regarding the difficulty of depicting horses compared with the difficulty of depicting human hands is irrelevant because it does not explain why the trend revealed by the study is true, nor does it address whether it is appropriate to assume something similar would occur with hands. Whether expert artists consider horses less, equally, or more difficult to depict than they do human hands, it is still the case that those who are more familiar with horses tend to rate depictions of horses as less realistic.
(C) Whether the shapes and proportions of human hands are
much less varied or more varied than are the shapes and proportions of horses, the outcome is the same: It’s not clear whether hands would be subject to the same phenomenon horses are, when depicted in art. The author explicitly mentions that humans are
intensely familiar with the shape and proportions of human hands. The question is whether such familiarity results in depictions of hands seeming less realistic to the audience.
(D) It would be helpful to know if people especially familiar with human hands found depictions of them less realistic than did the general population. This would show that hands are subject to the same phenomenon horses are. But this choice does not indicate how such “hand experts” might rate artistic depictions of human hands—it’s possible that they would give the same ratings as non-hand-experts.
(E) CORRECT. This answer suggests a possible qualification to the general pattern established in the study. If people familiar with horses tended to rate their depictions as more accurate
when the artist was also particularly familiar with horses, the study would suggest that it is not audience familiarity on its own that tends to result in a depiction looking less realistic, but a significant gap in familiarity between artist and audience. This would weaken the critic’s claim; since all people, artists and audience alike, are said to have
an intense familiarity with the shape and proportion of hands, such a gap in familiarity (between artist and audience) would be greatly diminished or even eliminated. There would need to be another reason that people find depictions of hands unrealistic besides people’s familiarity with their shape and proportion—perhaps hands are just very hard to draw.
On the other hand, if people familiar with horses rate their depictions as inaccurate even when the artist is also especially familiar with horses, the critic’s argument would be strengthened, as this would eliminate a possible explanation for why hands might not be subject to the phenomenon found in the study.
close
14 Dec 2022, 07:00
56%
(02:32)
wrong 
