LR Question 16 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Curator: Since ancient times, the fine arts were…
QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption
CONCLUSION: Governments must finance art.
REASONING: Previously aristocrats and religious institutions financed art. Now societies should be stewards of cultural heritage without the help of aristocrats and religious institutions.
ANALYSIS: The argument doesn’t explicitly make a link between cultural heritage and the fine arts. We tend to take that as a given, but the right answer makes it explicit as a necessary assumption.
___________
- The argument is telling us what to do now. This answer choice addressed what we should have done in the past.
- It isn’t necessary that private support becomes unnecessary. It only has to be true that private support from aristocrats and religious institutions becomes unnecessary.
- This doesn’t matter, because the argument is saying we shouldn’t depend on them even if they are willing.
- CORRECT. If this isn’t true then we could fulfill our obligations as cultural stewards without funding the arts.
- This would support the conclusion, but it doesn’t have to be true that government support is necessary in every era. We’re only concerned with what to do in our own era.
More Resources for Necessary Assumption Questions
- Negations Article: Learn about negations on the LSAT.
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- Negations Drill: Practice your negation skills.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Intro to Conditional Reasoning: Learn conditional reasoning basics.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Necessary Assumption questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers necessary assumption questions.
Quick comment on B:
That’s indeed a flaw based on which (B) can be eliminated.
Let me add one more:
even if it said “support from aristocracies and religious institutions”, it would still be wrong, because it is not necessary to assume that.
It would be sufficient to say that if government plays that role, the rest becomes unnecessary for providing subsidies. But it still gives no reason why it should be government who takes that role (it could be someone else, for instance, and still deem aristocracies and religious institutions unnecessary).