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I am just not getting how this one is working for some reason.

Premise: Kostman's painting of Rosati was not a very accurate reproduction of Rosati
Conclusion: Reproduction of Kostman's painting will not be very accurate reproduction of Kostman's painting

The error, as I see it, has to do with transferring the quality of one thing to the quality of another, similar, thing. Just because Kostman's painting was not a very accurate reproduction of Rosati does not mean that your painting will not be a very accurate reproduction of Kostman's.

(A) I have no idea. Is it that George's speech was filled with half-truths and misquotes of someone else (as in, he was quoting someone else) and - thus - the reproduction made of it (the tape recording) cannot be of good sound quality (aka, of good reproduction?).

Am I reading that right? Even if so, is this not fairly ridiculous?

(B) Paint an ugly scene --> Paints an ugly picture looks tempting. However, that "unless the picture is a distorted representation" makes this one wrong. There was no conditional set up in the original argument.

(C) Resemble & Brown --> Brown. Because this is all very conditional, like (B), this seems incorrect as well.

(D) The conclusion looks really good. However, this one does not have the third person involved. All we have are Jo and Layne while, in the original argument, we had another person (not just Kostman and Rosati). It seems that (D) would be correct had it said, "Joe imitated Layne. But Joe could not have imitated Layne very well. Thus, you imitating Joe could not be done well, either."

(E) This is talking about similarities, not differences. Eliminate.

Post removed.

WaltGrace83 wrote: The error, as I see it, has to do with transferring the quality of one thing to the quality of another, similar, thing. Just because Kostman's painting was not a very accurate reproduction of Rosati does not mean that your painting will not be a very accurate reproduction of Kostman's.

I think you're on the right track WaltGrace83, you just need to carry it a bit further.

This question is really orbiting the idea of which characteristics are properly transferable. The original argument tries to transfer a characteristic from the original to the copy, but the characteristic is one that really cannot be transferred.

If I paint a true reflection of an ugly scene, it stands to reason that the painting could be ugly (it may not have to be, but it's reasonable that it would be). If my eyes are like my mother's, again, it's reasonable that they might be the same color. These characteristics would be reasonable to transfer to a copy/reflection - not a guaranteed transfer, but reasonable.

But if someone says something vicious and hateful, a video recording of that is not itself 'vicious and hateful'. If someone says something particularly moronic, an article quoting those stupid things is not itself moronic.

That's essentially what's happening with the original situation in the stimulus: just because Kostman's painting was inaccurate, that doesn't mean the reproduction will itself be inaccurate. And just because George's speech is of poor quality (surely, half-truths and misquotes would make it terrible quality!), that doesn't mean that the audio recording of it will itself be poor quality.

(D) doesn't even attempt to transfer a characteristic over - we are never told *any* characteristic of Layne. And (E) gives us one characteristic of the first novel (literary prize) and then leaps to a totally different characteristic of the second novel (enthralling).

I think you got hung up on the idea of there being THREE ITEMS in the original: 1) actual Rosati 2) Kostman's painting of Rosati and 3) your reproduction of Kostman. Trying to shoehorn (A) into this view feels unnatural and arbitrary. Focus instead on the nature of the transferred characteristic, and I think the differences among the answer choices will become a lot clearer.

What do you think?

Okay, so I was about to type up a rationale of why I am skeptical of the answer and think I just answered it myself. My typed rationale is below and as I was typing I realized exactly how the answer is A. Read it through and maybe you'd get it!

Funny enough I actually did this question today and got it wrong but I'm still skeptical on the answer for this one.

Okay so the flaw in the argument as I saw it was that just because what someone is copying wasn't good, doesn't mean my copy isn't good either.

For example, let's say my friend does a shitty rendition of a song, and I copy his rendition, it doesn't mean MY rendition is a bad rendition of HIS rendition. It could be perfectly spot in with the t's crossed and i's dotted. That's how i saw it.

A) seems very VERY unsupported, mainly because of "sound quality." The sound quality can be PERFECT...

and that's where I realized where I went wrong lol

basically, the sound quality can be good despite his speech being inaccurate (i think)

someone correct anything if I'm wrong.

Walt!

Still studying away I see! Have you been testing? Where are you scoring these days?