Logical reasoning PrepTest 112 · Section 1 · Question 26

Question prompt

In the paintings by Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: E

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Argument

Valid or Flawed

Flawed

Question Type

Strengthen with Sufficient Premise Questions

Stimulus Summary

Phenomenon - Vermeer used the same objects multiple times in his paintings.
Explanation 1 - He didn’t have a lot of props
Rebuttal - The props were very expensive
Explanation 2/Conclusion - Unsure, but it wasn’t a lack of props

Answer Anticipation

This argument falls into a common pattern - phenomenon/explanation. Here, there’s a bit of a twist, though. The author rebuts one explanation for the phenomenon (a lack of props), but she never brings up an alternative. Instead, she just concludes that the first explanation is wrong.
Why does she believe it’s wrong, and that Vermeer had plenty of props he could have used in his paintings? Because those props that did appear in his paintings were expensive.
However, having expensive props doesn’t mean that Vermeer had a lot of props - it doesn’t even mean he had a lot of money. Maybe they were family heirlooms, but Vermeer was actually quite broke himself. Let’s find an answer that guarantees this possibility isn’t true - that having expensive props means that you have many props.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Vermeer often borrowed the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    If he borrowed the expensive props, then that suggests he might not have had a lot of money, which cuts against the argument’s conclusion.
  2. B
    The props that recur Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    This could be true if he had many props or just those that showed up in his paintings, so this doesn’t get us any closer to the correct answer.
  3. C
    The satin jacket and Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Similar to (A), this answer suggests that Vermeer himself may not have had direct access to many props, instead relying on family, thus cutting against the conclusion.
  4. D
    The several recurrent items Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    This would provide an explanation for why he reused those props outside of owning no others, but that doesn’t mean that he did own other props. Maybe he only kept things of sentimental value to him, and he Marie Kondo’d himself to only a handful of items!
  5. E
    If a dearth of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem
    This answer connects having expensive props to lacking props. If we take the contrapositive of this statement, it says: If there are expensive props in Vermeer’s paintings, then the recurrent objects are not due to a dearth of props. That connects the premise to the conclusion, and so this is the correct answer.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 8%
  2. B 19%
  3. C 3%
  4. D 13%
  5. E Credited 58%

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