QUESTION TEXT: Critic: The perennial image of the “city on a hill”…
QUESTION TYPE: Principle
CONCLUSION: The concert hall can’t fulfill the purpose of a civic building.
REASONING: The concert hall is far from the city center. Therefore it doesn’t make the city feel alive or promote social cohesion.
ANALYSIS: The author never tells us what the purpose of a civic building is. Given the example of the art museum, the author seems to be assuming that the purpose of a civic building is encouraging social cohesion. It would be best to state that explicitly – this question could be viewed as a necessary assumption question.
We’re looking for the principle on which the author bases their argument. The principle seems to be that the purpose of a civic building is to encourage social cohesion and make the city feel alive.
Several of the wrong answers talk about the wrong thing. The argument is about what makes a good civic building, if you build one. The argument is not talking about whether we should have civic buildings, what downtown should look like, etc.
___________
- This contradicts the argument. The author says the concert hall can’t be a good civic building because it’s located on a hill. The author thinks civic buildings should be in dense downtown areas.
- The author actually didn’t say that cities need civic buildings. The argument is about what makes a civic building good. That’s a different question from whether we need civic buildings.
- This contradicts the argument. The author says the new concert hall is a bad civic building precisely because it’s located on a spectacular hill, rather than in a dense downtown area.
- The argument is not about designing downtowns. It’s about what makes civic buildings good.
- CORRECT. This is consistent with the idea that the concert hall is a bad civic building and the art museum is fulfilling the purpose. We know the concert hall doesn’t do these things, and the art museum does.
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