June 2007 PrepTest, Section 3, Question 3
Carolyn: The artist Marc Quinn has displayed, behind a glass plate, biologically replicated fragments of Sir John Sulston's DNA, calling it a "conceptual portrait" of Sulston. But to be a portrait, something must bear a recognizable resemblance to its subject.
Carolyn: The artist Marc Quinn has displayed, behind a glass plate, biologically replicated fragments of Sir John Sulston's DNA, calling it a "conceptual portrait" of Sulston. But to be a portrait, something must bear a recognizable resemblance to its subject.
Arnold: I disagree. Quinn's conceptual portrait is a maximally realistic portrait, for it holds actual instructions according to which Sulston was created.
Carolyn: The artist Marc Quinn has displayed, behind a glass plate, biologically replicated fragments of Sir John Sulston's DNA, calling it a "conceptual portrait" of Sulston. But to be a portrait, something must bear a recognizable resemblance to its subject.
Arnold: I disagree. Quinn's conceptual portrait is a maximally realistic portrait, for it holds actual instructions according to which Sulston was created.
Carolyn: The artist Marc Quinn has displayed, behind a glass plate, biologically replicated fragments of Sir John Sulston's DNA, calling it a "conceptual portrait" of Sulston. But to be a portrait, something must bear a recognizable resemblance to its subject.
The dialogue provides most support for the claim that Carolyn and Arnold disagree over whether the object described by Quinn as a conceptual portrait of Sir John Sulston
should be considered to be art
should be considered to be Quinn's work
bears a recognizable resemblance to Sulston
contains instructions according to which Sulston was created
is actually a portrait of Sulston
Explanations
Carolyn and Arnold disagree.
Carolyn argues that Quinn's "portrait" can't be a portrait, because portraits "must bear a recognizable resemblance3 to its subject."
Arnold says, "Quinn's conceptual portrait is a maximally realistic portrait." In other words, Arnold says Quinn's piece is indeed a portrait.
The question asks us to find the thing these two disagree about, so we're going in armed to the teeth. The answer will be something like, "whether or not Quinn's piece is a portrait."
Let's see.
Nope. They'd probably both agree Quinn's piece is art. But we don't know, frankly, so we can't pick this answer.
No way, they'd both agree that Quinn's work is Quinn's.
Nah. A little tricky, as Carolyn would clearly say no to this allegation. But we don't know definitively how Arnold would respond to this. We just know that Arnold thinks the conceptual portrait constitutes a portrait.
Nope. Somewhat like C, we know Arnold would affirm this, but we don't have evidence for how Carolyn would react to this.
Finally, yes. They disagree about whether the conceptual portrait is a portrait. Carolyn says no. Arnold says yes. This is the answer.
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