GWD8-22

rainbowmanutd

When storing Renaissance oil paintings, museums conform to standards that call for careful control of the surrounding temperature and humidity, with variations confined within narrow margins. Maintaining this environment is very costly, and recent research shows that even old oil paint is unaffected by wide fluctuations in temperature and humidity. Therefore, museums could relax their standards and save money without endangering their Renaissance oil paintings.









Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?









A. Renaissance paintings were created in conditions involving far greater fluctuations in temperature and humidity than those permitted by current standards.
                   




B. Under the current standards that museums use when storing Renaissance oil paintings, those paintings do not deteriorate at all.
                   




C. Museum collections typically do not contain items that are more likely to be vulnerable to fluctuations in temperature and humidity than Renaissance oil paintings.




D. None of the materials in Renaissance oil paintings other than the paint are vulnerable enough to relatively wide fluctuations in temperature and humidity to cause damage to the paintings.




E. Most Renaissance oil paintings are stored in museums located in regions near the regions where the paintings were created.


我选的B..取非了，在现在情况下，这些油画破坏了，不正好削弱结论吗。。

yanjack22

good explanation

sdcar2010

You did not understand the conclusion of the argument, which says that "museums could relax their standards and save money without endangering their Renaissance oil painting." Note: relax a standard does not mean to remove the standard. It means to lessen part of the standard which has no bearing on the quality of the oil paintings.

When you negate B, you have "Under the current standards that museums use when storing Renaissance oil paintings, those paintings deteriorate." If that is the case, we can still relax the standard in those parts which do not hasten or increase the deterioration of oil paintings. So the conclusion still holds.

Viewed from another angle, B) is too strict to be a necessary assumption. As far as I know, all paintings are deteriorating without exception. What kind of magic standard are we talking about in B)?