Which one of the following, if true, would most weaken the author's contention that fifteenth-century Venetian artist...
Julie-VAugust 11, 2019
Choosing the Right Answer
Hi LSAT Max,
In the previous thread, there was a student who was down to options (B) and (C) but seemed to choose the incorrect answer choice. I also find myself having this problem where I'm left with the right and one wrong answer but almost always choose the wrong one.
If there's any general advice that you can give on how to avoid this problem and improve, I would greatly appreciate it! I would love to find some sort of effective strategy so I can avoid this mistake which can cost me precious points on the actual exam.
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Great question. The test writers often design each question to have one incorrect answer that's very difficult to remove, which is why you find that often you're down to two answer choices. The best advice is to make sure you're answering exactly what the question you're being asked is asking you to answer. Every LSAT question goes through all kinds of analysis before it's put on a test, so you can be 100% confident that there is one right answer and there are four incorrect answer choices.
Let's look at (B) and (C) now to see why one of them is incorrect and the other is correct.
(B) says, "The style of the historical writing produced by fifteenth-century Venetian authors was similar in its inclusion of anecdotal details to secular paintings produced during that century in Tuscany."
Even if there were similar anecdotal details between fifteenth-century Venetian writings and secular paintings in Tuscany, that wouldn't be evidence of Venetian painters being exposed to large-scale religious paintings. This could be an indication of one-way influence, where Venetian writings were widely circulated, or no influence, where these styles developed independently. Regardless, we can't make the leap to state that Venetian painters were exposed to large-scale religious paintings also, so this is why we can get rid of (B).
(C) says, "Many of the artists who produced Venetian narrative paintings with religious subjects served as apprentices in Tuscany, where they had become familiar with the technique of painting frescoes."
(C) weakens the author's contention. If Venetian artists who produced the Venetian narrative paintings were apprenticing in Tuscany and becoming familiar with the technique of painting frescoes, they were being exposed to large-scale representations of religious stories that were painted in Tuscany. This certainly undermines the contention that they didn't have experience with these types of paintings. Thus, (C) is the correct answer choice.
Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any other questions!
