LSAT 118 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q13

LR Question 13 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Art theft from museums is on the rise …

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: Museums should devote more resources to securing their most valuable art.

REASONING: Thieves steal what their customers want. Most stolen art is sold to wealthy collectors.

ANALYSIS: The biggest customers are the private wealthy collectors. So the thieves mostly steal what those collectors want.

Based on that, the argument concludes we should secure the most valuable pieces.

But do we know collectors want the most valuable art?

Not yet. That’s the missing piece.

Because imagine wealthy collectors actually prefer weird niche pieces, emerging artists, or specific works that aren’t necessarily the museum’s most valuable assets.

Then the conclusion doesn’t work. The argument only works if the art most in demand from wealthy private collectors is the most valuable.

Otherwise, focusing security on the most valuable pieces may be the wrong move, because those wouldn’t be the primary theft targets.

___________

1. The argument doesn’t require thieves to steal both categories. Even if they only stole valuable art, the reasoning would still work.
   Negation: Art thieves do not steal both valuable and non-valuable art. (Basically: they could steal one type or neither).
2. CORRECT. The argument concludes “protect the most valuable art” based on “thieves steal what collectors want”. So we need to assume less valuable art isn’t equally attractive to thieves. If the negation was true, we’d have no reason to believe they should focus security on the most valuable pieces.
   Negation: Some non-valuable art pieces are very much in demand by wealthy collectors.
3. This is irrelevant. It tells us something about theft opportunity, not what kind of art is targeted.
   Negation: Art thieves don’t mainly steal from museums with bad security.
4. The recommendation to shift security doesn’t depend on current equality. Even if museums already prioritize valuable art somewhat, the argument could still say they should do more.
   Negation: Most museums don’t provide the same security for valuable and non-valuable art.
5. Resale behavior has nothing to do with which art thieves target in the first place.
   Negation: Wealthy private collectors never sell their stolen art to other wealthy collectors.