Logical reasoning PrepTest 106 · Section 1 · Question 24

Flawed

Strengthen with Sufficient Premise Questions / Sufficient & Necessary Questions

Conclusion - We should pay attention only to intrinsic properties of art, not extrinsic properties

Premise - What is relevant is what a painting directly presents to experience, not what it symbolizes

Ugh, these abstract/philosophical arguments are the worst! Luckily, we can use what we know about Sufficient Premise questions to wade our way through this one!

Let’s start with the argument itself. It opens with an “ought to” statement, which is almost always the main point. It moves from that to an extension of the opening line, so the conclusion here is split between two sentences. From there, it moves to an example, which must serve as a premise. The final sentence has “therefore” in it, which means that it’s a conclusion built off of the example.

When an Sufficient Premise question features an intermediate conclusion, the gap can be between that conclusion and the main point, or the premise and that intermediate conclusion, but not both - then we’d need two connections to make the argument valid! And since the intermediate conclusion and main point here include different concepts, we should focus there.

Looking at them, we can see that the intermediate conclusion is about symbolism vs. direct experience, setting them up as opposites of each other. This is used to reach a conclusion about intrinsic vs. extrinsic properties - again, set up as opposites. Since the argument is jumping from the former set to the latter, we should look for an answer that connects them - either something that connects what the painting symbolizes to extrinsic properties (the two things the argument says to ignore), or what it directly presents to experience to intrinsic properties (the two things the argument says to focus on).