Collectors prize the ancient life-size clay statues of human figures made on Kali Island but have long wondered how Kalinese artists were able to depict bodies with such realistic precision. Since archaeologists have recently discovered molds of human heads and hands on Kali, we can now conclude that the ancient Kalinese artists used molds of actual bodies, not sculpting tools and techniques, to create these statues. This discovery explains why Kalinese miniature statues were abstract and entirely different in style: molds could be used only for life-size sculptures. It also explains why few ancient Kalinese sculpting tools have been found. In light of this discovery, collectors predict that the life-size sculptures will decrease in value while the miniatures increase in value.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
In this article, the author predicts that the life-size sculptures made on Kali Island will decrease in value while the miniatures increase in value according to a discovery.
He points out that archaeologists have recently discovered molds of human heads and hands, so he concludes that the artists used molds to create artifacts. However, is it possible that they only depict a shape instead of creating the whole sculpture by the shape of the molds? It’s likely that the core of accomplishing a sculpture is head and hand. Even though they indeed used the molds of head and hand, it’s not necessary that other parts of bodies were also depicted by the molds.
He also considers that the discovery can explain why Kailnese miniature statues were abstract and entirely different. Nevertheless, how can he confirm that the artists of miniature statues and life-size sculptures are all the same? It’s common that there were various creative styles at that time. Maybe the miniature statues were primarily created by citizens, who didn’t receive too much art training. On the contrary, the rather difficult one, life-size sculptures were mostly designed by professional artists, who were capable of accomplishing more complicated and larger works.
The author says that Kalinese miniature statues were abstract and entirely different in style, indicating that molds could be only used for life-size sculptures. Nevertheless, it’s reasonable to speculate that there were some natural disasters occurring in this area long time ago hampering the archaeologists’ excavating process. It’s likely that the volcano erupted in few centuries ago, and most of the molds were covered by the ash. Hence, the dearth of the discoveries of tools isn’t equivalent to the usage of them.
Lastly, the author predicts that the life-size sculptures will decrease in value while that of miniatures will increase. There are many variables to influence the value of the art works. Even though the sculptures were designed by the molds, the actual value for the professionals are rather high for the quantity of them are low.
To sum up, the process of inference and the evidence both need to be more careful before the author predicts that the value change of life-size sculptures and miniatures.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/collectors-prize-a…
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 368 350
No. of Characters: 1865 1500
No. of Different Words: 178 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.38 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.068 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.705 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 129 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 104 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.444 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.304 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.338 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.599 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.132 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, hence, however, if, lastly, may, nevertheless, so, while, all the same, on the contrary, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 43.0 55.5748502994 77% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 16.3942115768 18% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1964.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 366.0 441.139720559 83% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.36612021858 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.37391431897 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87238918088 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 185.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.505464480874 0.468620217663 108% => OK
syllable_count: 621.0 705.55239521 88% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 36.2346604411 57.8364921388 63% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.111111111 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.3333333333 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.77777777778 5.70786347227 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.20307192485 0.218282227539 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0614990465915 0.0743258471296 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0524041760556 0.0701772020484 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0964117657274 0.128457276422 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.046325845891 0.0628817314937 74% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.87 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.47 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 98.500998004 90% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.