OE
(1) Identify the Question Type

The question stem asks what would be most useful in evaluating the argument, so this is an Evaluate the Argument question.

(2) Deconstruct the Argument

The author claims that the painting in question must have been completed between 1507 and 1509. What support is there for this claim? The part about 1507 seems fairly reasonable. How could Michelangelo paint a coin that did not exist yet? However, it’s possible that Michelangelo had advance notice of what the new coin would look like. Perhaps he was shown the design in advance. He might even have designed the coin himself!

The second restriction makes sense, too. If Michelangelo abandoned the pigment in 1509, then it shouldn’t show up on his paintings after that point. However, this argument is specifically about when the painting was completed. Perhaps Michelangelo started with the old pigment and then finished in 1510 or later with the cheaper pigment.

(3) State the Goal

In an Evaluate the Argument question, the goal is to choose a question or piece of information that would make it easier to determine if the conclusion is valid. In this case, information about either of the two limiting dates would be useful. Did Michelangelo have advance notice about the coin? Did he start in one year and finish later?

(4) Work from Wrong to Right

(A) An answer of “yes” to this one might seem to cause trouble for the argument. Maybe Michelangelo still had the chance to use the more expensive pigment after 1509. However, the premise states definitively that Michelangelo abandoned that pigment sometime in 1509, and you do not want to contradict the premise! This answer choice would be helpful if the premise had said that the pigment was no longer produced, but that’s not the issue. The pigment may well have been around after 1509, but Michelangelo wasn’t using it.

(B) CORRECT. This addresses the 1509 side of the conclusion. If Michelangelo worked on the painting for several years, he might have started with the more expensive pigment and then finished in 1510 or later with a different pigment. However, if he did not work on the painting for several years, then he must have completed it in 1509 or earlier, since he stopped using the expensive pigment after that year.

(C) This is an interesting question, but it does not help to evaluate the conclusion. An answer of “yes” wouldn’t impact the argument at all, as it’s already clear that Michelangelo knew of the coin—he painted it! An answer of “no” would make it less likely that Michelangelo had seen the coin even in 1507, but if anything, this would just narrow the range further (maybe the coin became well known in 1508 or 1509).

(D) It would certainly be helpful to test the painting for age. However, notice that like all of the answer choices in this problem, (D) is a yes/no question. A yes/no answer by itself won’t help you to evaluate the author’s conclusion. “Yes” just means that the claim can be tested scientifically, and “no” means that it can’t. In order to evaluate, you would need to know the results of such a test!

(E) This question is out of scope. The argument dates the painting between 1507 and 1509. Knowing that Michelangelo’s style changed in that same period wouldn’t make it any easier to tell if the painting was completed before 1507 (in the old style) or after 1509 (in the new style).