Logical reasoning PrepTest 135 · Section 4 · Question 20

Question prompt

When teaching art students Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: D

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 Necessary Premise Questions

Stimulus Summary

Colored paper is always the same color, allowing comparisons in different contexts. Paint is hard to make the same color twice, and texture impacts how color is viewed. Therefore, art students should learn about color from paper rather than paint.

Answer Anticipation

The conclusion of this argument is a comparative recommendation - one thing (colored paper) is better than another (paint) at teaching students about color, and so the former should be used. When a comparison like that is made, the relevant metric has to be established, and the elements have to be compared on that metric.
Here, the stimulus does compare the use of colored paper and paint along a metric - the reproducibility of color in each of them, with colored paper having more reproducible color (both because of how it’s made and texture) and thus allowing color to be compared in different contexts. However, the argument never establishes that this is the relevant metric in determining what to use to teach about color! The argument is therefore relying on this comparison being relevant to the recommendation in the conclusion, and the correct answer should establish that.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Two pieces of paper Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    The conclusion of the argument is that colored paper is better than paint at teaching about color. Therefore, it’s only necessary that colored paper of the exact same color has a more similar effect than paint in the same context. Additionally, there’s a difference between texture of applied paint being different (it’s a matter of application, which is easier to alter) than of paper being different (it’s a matter of production, and thus more easily reproduced).
  2. B
    A slight difference in Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    The argument establishes that colored paper’s color can be exactly reproduced, so the argument doesn’t need to assume anything about paper of slightly different shades.
  3. C
    Changing light conditions have Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    The conclusion is that colored paper is better than paint, and that’s based on the reproducibility of the color. If all other things are equal (and reproducibility is a good thing), then the conclusion holds. Therefore, this answer that changing light conditions have less of an effect on color perception for paper than paint is more than necessary for the argument to work - if they were equally affected by light, then the argument could still hold since paper has been established to have another relevant difference that could, on its own, justify the conclusion.
  4. D
    Observing the impacts of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D matches the stem
    This answer matches our anticipation - that an argument making a recommendation of one option over the other needs a premise establishing how that decision will be made. In this argument, it was never established that reproducibility of the color in order to allow for comparisons between contexts was important. This answer choice establishes that it is. If the ability to compare the impact of a color across contexts doesn’t help art students learn about the use of color, then the comparison made in the stimulus is unrelated to the conclusion.
  5. E
    It is important that Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    The point isn’t to teach students how the use of paper and paint is different, but rather about the use of color. The paint/paper is simply a means of conveying color. Therefore, the effects of the materials are out of scope outside of things that impact color..

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 25%
  2. B 11%
  3. C 5%
  4. D Credited 55%
  5. E 3%

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