njihan wrote:
D was my second choice.
I picked A.
(A) There is no securely dated self-portrait of Brandon that he painted when he was significantly younger than 63.
My thinking was: if there's not securely dated painting, how can you reasonably say that the painting is of PB when he was 63?
I decided not to pick D because I thought, saying what PB would have done, or would NOT have done, is too iffy and not something that can be confirmed.
The way I approached A):
- It might be true that PB has other undated, younger self-portraits of himself, but it only adds to the mystery. It doesn't solve the current one.
Here I borrow an LSAT formula from a different site: (powerscore, but I can't link here yet)
Stimulus Premise 1:Brandon was 63 years old in 1930.
Stimulus Premise 2: The painting (i.e., the self-portrait) shows a young, dark-haired man who is obviously Brandon, but clearly is not a man of 63.
Answer Choice D (premise 3): Brandon at age 63 would not have portrayed himself in a painting as he had looked when he was a young man.
Conclusion: The recent dating of the Brandon self-portrait to 1930 is surely wrong.