GMAT Exam  >  GMAT Questions  >  Direction: Read the following Passage and Ans... Start Learning for Free
Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Question.
“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by the opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoiseurs.
Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from strange. Art, despite its religious and magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators stage-managing the cult of artists in order to enhance the market value of museum holdings, entrepreneurs have found validation and profit in big-name art. Speculators, thieves, and promoters long ago created and fed a market where cultural icons could be traded like commodities.
This trend toward commodification of high-brow art took an ominous, if predictable, turn in the 1980s during the Japanese “bubble economy.” At a time when Japanese share prices more than doubled, individual tycoons and industrial giants alike invested record amounts in some of the West’s greatest masterpieces. Ryoei Saito, for example, purchased van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet for a record-breaking $82.5 million. The work, then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, suddenly vanished from the public domain. Later learning that he owed the Japanese government $24 million in taxes, Saito remarked that he would have the paining cremated with him to spare his heirs the inheritance tax. This statement, which he later dismissed as a joke, alarmed and enraged many. A representative of the Van Gogh museum, conceding that he had no legal redress, made an ethical appeal to Mr. Saito, asserting, “a work of art remains the possession of the world at large.”
Ethical appeals notwithstanding, great art will increasingly devolve into big business. Firstly, great art can only be certified by its market value. Moreover, the “world at large” hasn’t the means of acquisition. Only one museum currently has the funding to contend for the best pieces–the J. Paul Getty Museum, founded by the billionaire oilman. The art may disappear into private hands, but its transfer will disseminate once static fortunes into the hands of various investors, collectors, and occasionally the artist.
Q. It can be inferred from the passage that Harriet Sherman would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements regarding admission to museum exhibits?
  • a)
    Tickets should be available on a first-come-first-served basis.
  • b)
    Those with a genuine interest in art should not have to pay inflated prices.
  • c)
    Museums need the income from ticket sales in order to buy great art.
  • d)
    Tickets should be distributed without prior announcement.
  • e)
    No one should be able to purchase more than one or two tickets.
Correct answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer?
Most Upvoted Answer
Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Questio...
This is an INFERENCE question. It’s clear from the word ‘inferred’, of course, but the phrase ‘most likely to agree with’ is also a powerful indicator that you have encountered an Inference question on the GMAT. Use the notes that you have made for Topic, Scope, and Purpose, and look for an answer choice that is directly supported by the passage.
In order to answer this Inference question, use your passage map to locate where Sherman’s argument was presented – in the first paragraph. Sherman was angry because people with a genuine interest in art were forced to pay very high prices for tickets that were supposed to be free.
Choice (A) is a 180-degree reversal of her point: it was the first-come-first-served rule that allowed opportunists to get so many tickets.
Choice (B) is a strong choice, and is supported by the fact that Sherman was angry that those with a genuine interest in art had to pay high ticket prices.
Choice (C) may be true, but it is beyond the scope of this passage.
Choices (D) and (E) represent possible solutions to the problem raised by Sherman, but there is no support in the passage that either Sherman of the author would find them satisfactory.
Choice (B) is the correct answer.
Free Test
Community Answer
Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Questio...
Explanation:

Harriet Sherman and Museum Exhibits Admission:
- Harriet Sherman's criticism of the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the "Van Gogh's van Goghs" exhibit suggests that she would be most likely to agree with the statement that those with a genuine interest in art should not have to pay inflated prices.
- Sherman's concern about opportunists snatching up free tickets and scalping them at high prices indicates a belief that access to museum exhibits should not be hindered by financial barriers.
- She would likely support the idea that admission to museum exhibits should be accessible to all, regardless of their ability to pay high prices.
- This aligns with the notion that individuals who truly appreciate art should not be excluded based on their financial means.
- Therefore, the statement that those with a genuine interest in art should not have to pay inflated prices would resonate with Harriet Sherman's concerns about equitable access to museum exhibits.
Attention GMAT Students!
To make sure you are not studying endlessly, EduRev has designed GMAT study material, with Structured Courses, Videos, & Test Series. Plus get personalized analysis, doubt solving and improvement plans to achieve a great score in GMAT.
Explore Courses for GMAT exam

Similar GMAT Doubts

Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Question.“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by the opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoiseurs.Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from strange. Art, despite its religious and magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators stage-managing the cult of artists in order to enhance the market value of museum holdings, entrepreneurs have found validation and profit in big-name art. Speculators, thieves, and promoters long ago created and fed a market where cultural icons could be traded like commodities.This trend toward commodification of high-brow art took an ominous, if predictable, turn in the 1980s during the Japanese “bubble economy.” At a time when Japanese share prices more than doubled, individual tycoons and industrial giants alike invested record amounts in some of the West’s greatest masterpieces. Ryoei Saito, for example, purchased van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet for a record-breaking $82.5 million. The work, then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, suddenly vanished from the public domain. Later learning that he owed the Japanese government $24 million in taxes, Saito remarked that he would have the paining cremated with him to spare his heirs the inheritance tax. This statement, which he later dismissed as a joke, alarmed and enraged many. A representative of the Van Gogh museum, conceding that he had no legal redress, made an ethical appeal to Mr. Saito, asserting, “a work of art remains the possession of the world at large.”Ethical appeals notwithstanding, great art will increasingly devolve into big business. Firstly, great art can only be certified by its market value. Moreover, the “world at large” hasn’t the means of acquisition. Only one museum currently has the funding to contend for the best pieces–the J. Paul Getty Museum, founded by the billionaire oilman. The art may disappear into private hands, but its transfer will disseminate once static fortunes into the hands of various investors, collectors, and occasionally the artist.Q.Which of the following would be the most appropriate title for the passage?

Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Question.“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by the opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoiseurs.Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from strange. Art, despite its religious and magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators stage-managing the cult of artists in order to enhance the market value of museum holdings, entrepreneurs have found validation and profit in big-name art. Speculators, thieves, and promoters long ago created and fed a market where cultural icons could be traded like commodities.This trend toward commodification of high-brow art took an ominous, if predictable, turn in the 1980s during the Japanese “bubble economy.” At a time when Japanese share prices more than doubled, individual tycoons and industrial giants alike invested record amounts in some of the West’s greatest masterpieces. Ryoei Saito, for example, purchased van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet for a record-breaking $82.5 million. The work, then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, suddenly vanished from the public domain. Later learning that he owed the Japanese government $24 million in taxes, Saito remarked that he would have the paining cremated with him to spare his heirs the inheritance tax. This statement, which he later dismissed as a joke, alarmed and enraged many. A representative of the Van Gogh museum, conceding that he had no legal redress, made an ethical appeal to Mr. Saito, asserting, “a work of art remains the possession of the world at large.”Ethical appeals notwithstanding, great art will increasingly devolve into big business. Firstly, great art can only be certified by its market value. Moreover, the “world at large” hasn’t the means of acquisition. Only one museum currently has the funding to contend for the best pieces–the J. Paul Getty Museum, founded by the billionaire oilman. The art may disappear into private hands, but its transfer will disseminate once static fortunes into the hands of various investors, collectors, and occasionally the artist.Q.The passage supplies information for answering which of the following questions?

Although we still celebrate the late twentieth-century as victory of democracy, our understanding of what democracy entails in both theory and practice is increasingly subject to a variety of qualifying definitions, many of which now seem to devalue the role of elections and electoral accountability. This is so obviously seen in the politics of the European Union (EU), where the efforts to resolve conflicting issues in arenas where democratic authority is incapable as well as the efforts to depoliticize issues that relate to European integration have led to the development of a distinct political system in which the exercise of popular control and electoral accountability proves very difficult.European Unions democratic deficit within the context of the more widespread drift towards forms of decision-making eschews electoral accountability and popular democratic control. However, EU should not be seen as an exception or sui generis but best be regarded as a political system that has been constructed by national political leaders as a safeguarded sphere in which policy making can evade the constraints imposed by representative democracy. The rationale that lies behind it conforms closely to current thinking about the role of non-majoritarian institutions, on the one hand, and about the putative drawbacks of popular democracy, on the other.Overall, EU can better be conceived as an outcome, or as the consequence of a longer developmental trajectory, in which the democratic process grows and mutates, and in which the mechanisms that allow democracy to function change and adapt. As the experience of the EU suggests, the combination of popular democracy and legitimacy is proving increasingly problematic in making key decisions - not only in Europe, but also further afield. To put it another way, the fact that conventional forms of democracy and representative government are difficult to apply at the level of the EU is not so much exceptional as symptomatic, and if we could democratize the European Union along conventional lines, then we probably wouldnt need it in the first place.According to the passage the decision making process in EU is

Directions: Read the Passage carefully and answer the question as follow.I have seldom felt so proud of being a representative of the people as now, when it gives me an opportunity to advocate a cause which cannot be represented or defended in this chamber by those directly and particularly affected by it, owing to the leven of prejudice that the beliefs and ideas of the past have left in the mind of modern man. The cause of female suffrage is one sure to strike a sympathetic chord in every unprejudiced man, because it represents the cause of a set of people who, deprived of the means to defend themselves, are compelled to throw themselves upon the mercy of another set of people.But it is not on this account alone that this cause has my sympathy and appeals to me. It also has the irresistible attraction of truth and justice, which no open and liberal mind can deny. If our action as legislators must be inspired by the eternal sources of right, if the laws passed here must comply with the divine precept to give everybody his due, then we cannot deny women the right to vote, because to do so would be to prove false all the precepts and achievements of democracy and liberty which have made this century what may be properly called the century of vindication.Female suffrage is a reform demanded by the social conditions of our times, by the high culture of woman, and by the aspiration of all classes of society to organize and work for the interests they have in common. We cannot detain the celestial bodies in their course; neither can we check any of those moral movements that gravitate with irresistible force towards their center of attraction: Justice. The moral world is governed by the same laws as the physical world, and all the power of man being impotent to suppress a single molecule of the spaces required for the gravitation of the universe, it is still less able to prevent the generation of the ideas that take shape in the mind and strive to attain to fruition in the field of life and reality.Q.Which of the following, does the passage imply, could be a characteristic of a liberal mind?

Top Courses for GMAT

Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Question.“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by the opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoiseurs.Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from strange. Art, despite its religious and magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators stage-managing the cult of artists in order to enhance the market value of museum holdings, entrepreneurs have found validation and profit in big-name art. Speculators, thieves, and promoters long ago created and fed a market where cultural icons could be traded like commodities.This trend toward commodification of high-brow art took an ominous, if predictable, turn in the 1980s during the Japanese “bubble economy.” At a time when Japanese share prices more than doubled, individual tycoons and industrial giants alike invested record amounts in some of the West’s greatest masterpieces. Ryoei Saito, for example, purchased van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet for a record-breaking $82.5 million. The work, then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, suddenly vanished from the public domain. Later learning that he owed the Japanese government $24 million in taxes, Saito remarked that he would have the paining cremated with him to spare his heirs the inheritance tax. This statement, which he later dismissed as a joke, alarmed and enraged many. A representative of the Van Gogh museum, conceding that he had no legal redress, made an ethical appeal to Mr. Saito, asserting, “a work of art remains the possession of the world at large.”Ethical appeals notwithstanding, great art will increasingly devolve into big business. Firstly, great art can only be certified by its market value. Moreover, the “world at large” hasn’t the means of acquisition. Only one museum currently has the funding to contend for the best pieces–the J. Paul Getty Museum, founded by the billionaire oilman. The art may disappear into private hands, but its transfer will disseminate once static fortunes into the hands of various investors, collectors, and occasionally the artist.Q.It can be inferred from the passage that Harriet Sherman would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements regarding admission to museum exhibits?a)Tickets should be available on a first-come-first-served basis.b)Those with a genuine interest in art should not have to pay inflated prices.c)Museums need the income from ticket sales in order to buy great art.d)Tickets should be distributed without prior announcement.e)No one should be able to purchase more than one or two tickets.Correct answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer?
Question Description
Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Question.“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by the opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoiseurs.Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from strange. Art, despite its religious and magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators stage-managing the cult of artists in order to enhance the market value of museum holdings, entrepreneurs have found validation and profit in big-name art. Speculators, thieves, and promoters long ago created and fed a market where cultural icons could be traded like commodities.This trend toward commodification of high-brow art took an ominous, if predictable, turn in the 1980s during the Japanese “bubble economy.” At a time when Japanese share prices more than doubled, individual tycoons and industrial giants alike invested record amounts in some of the West’s greatest masterpieces. Ryoei Saito, for example, purchased van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet for a record-breaking $82.5 million. The work, then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, suddenly vanished from the public domain. Later learning that he owed the Japanese government $24 million in taxes, Saito remarked that he would have the paining cremated with him to spare his heirs the inheritance tax. This statement, which he later dismissed as a joke, alarmed and enraged many. A representative of the Van Gogh museum, conceding that he had no legal redress, made an ethical appeal to Mr. Saito, asserting, “a work of art remains the possession of the world at large.”Ethical appeals notwithstanding, great art will increasingly devolve into big business. Firstly, great art can only be certified by its market value. Moreover, the “world at large” hasn’t the means of acquisition. Only one museum currently has the funding to contend for the best pieces–the J. Paul Getty Museum, founded by the billionaire oilman. The art may disappear into private hands, but its transfer will disseminate once static fortunes into the hands of various investors, collectors, and occasionally the artist.Q.It can be inferred from the passage that Harriet Sherman would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements regarding admission to museum exhibits?a)Tickets should be available on a first-come-first-served basis.b)Those with a genuine interest in art should not have to pay inflated prices.c)Museums need the income from ticket sales in order to buy great art.d)Tickets should be distributed without prior announcement.e)No one should be able to purchase more than one or two tickets.Correct answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer? for GMAT 2024 is part of GMAT preparation. The Question and answers have been prepared according to the GMAT exam syllabus. Information about Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Question.“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by the opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoiseurs.Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from strange. Art, despite its religious and magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators stage-managing the cult of artists in order to enhance the market value of museum holdings, entrepreneurs have found validation and profit in big-name art. Speculators, thieves, and promoters long ago created and fed a market where cultural icons could be traded like commodities.This trend toward commodification of high-brow art took an ominous, if predictable, turn in the 1980s during the Japanese “bubble economy.” At a time when Japanese share prices more than doubled, individual tycoons and industrial giants alike invested record amounts in some of the West’s greatest masterpieces. Ryoei Saito, for example, purchased van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet for a record-breaking $82.5 million. The work, then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, suddenly vanished from the public domain. Later learning that he owed the Japanese government $24 million in taxes, Saito remarked that he would have the paining cremated with him to spare his heirs the inheritance tax. This statement, which he later dismissed as a joke, alarmed and enraged many. A representative of the Van Gogh museum, conceding that he had no legal redress, made an ethical appeal to Mr. Saito, asserting, “a work of art remains the possession of the world at large.”Ethical appeals notwithstanding, great art will increasingly devolve into big business. Firstly, great art can only be certified by its market value. Moreover, the “world at large” hasn’t the means of acquisition. Only one museum currently has the funding to contend for the best pieces–the J. Paul Getty Museum, founded by the billionaire oilman. The art may disappear into private hands, but its transfer will disseminate once static fortunes into the hands of various investors, collectors, and occasionally the artist.Q.It can be inferred from the passage that Harriet Sherman would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements regarding admission to museum exhibits?a)Tickets should be available on a first-come-first-served basis.b)Those with a genuine interest in art should not have to pay inflated prices.c)Museums need the income from ticket sales in order to buy great art.d)Tickets should be distributed without prior announcement.e)No one should be able to purchase more than one or two tickets.Correct answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer? covers all topics & solutions for GMAT 2024 Exam. Find important definitions, questions, meanings, examples, exercises and tests below for Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Question.“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by the opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoiseurs.Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from strange. Art, despite its religious and magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators stage-managing the cult of artists in order to enhance the market value of museum holdings, entrepreneurs have found validation and profit in big-name art. Speculators, thieves, and promoters long ago created and fed a market where cultural icons could be traded like commodities.This trend toward commodification of high-brow art took an ominous, if predictable, turn in the 1980s during the Japanese “bubble economy.” At a time when Japanese share prices more than doubled, individual tycoons and industrial giants alike invested record amounts in some of the West’s greatest masterpieces. Ryoei Saito, for example, purchased van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet for a record-breaking $82.5 million. The work, then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, suddenly vanished from the public domain. Later learning that he owed the Japanese government $24 million in taxes, Saito remarked that he would have the paining cremated with him to spare his heirs the inheritance tax. This statement, which he later dismissed as a joke, alarmed and enraged many. A representative of the Van Gogh museum, conceding that he had no legal redress, made an ethical appeal to Mr. Saito, asserting, “a work of art remains the possession of the world at large.”Ethical appeals notwithstanding, great art will increasingly devolve into big business. Firstly, great art can only be certified by its market value. Moreover, the “world at large” hasn’t the means of acquisition. Only one museum currently has the funding to contend for the best pieces–the J. Paul Getty Museum, founded by the billionaire oilman. The art may disappear into private hands, but its transfer will disseminate once static fortunes into the hands of various investors, collectors, and occasionally the artist.Q.It can be inferred from the passage that Harriet Sherman would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements regarding admission to museum exhibits?a)Tickets should be available on a first-come-first-served basis.b)Those with a genuine interest in art should not have to pay inflated prices.c)Museums need the income from ticket sales in order to buy great art.d)Tickets should be distributed without prior announcement.e)No one should be able to purchase more than one or two tickets.Correct answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer?.
Solutions for Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Question.“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by the opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoiseurs.Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from strange. Art, despite its religious and magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators stage-managing the cult of artists in order to enhance the market value of museum holdings, entrepreneurs have found validation and profit in big-name art. Speculators, thieves, and promoters long ago created and fed a market where cultural icons could be traded like commodities.This trend toward commodification of high-brow art took an ominous, if predictable, turn in the 1980s during the Japanese “bubble economy.” At a time when Japanese share prices more than doubled, individual tycoons and industrial giants alike invested record amounts in some of the West’s greatest masterpieces. Ryoei Saito, for example, purchased van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet for a record-breaking $82.5 million. The work, then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, suddenly vanished from the public domain. Later learning that he owed the Japanese government $24 million in taxes, Saito remarked that he would have the paining cremated with him to spare his heirs the inheritance tax. This statement, which he later dismissed as a joke, alarmed and enraged many. A representative of the Van Gogh museum, conceding that he had no legal redress, made an ethical appeal to Mr. Saito, asserting, “a work of art remains the possession of the world at large.”Ethical appeals notwithstanding, great art will increasingly devolve into big business. Firstly, great art can only be certified by its market value. Moreover, the “world at large” hasn’t the means of acquisition. Only one museum currently has the funding to contend for the best pieces–the J. Paul Getty Museum, founded by the billionaire oilman. The art may disappear into private hands, but its transfer will disseminate once static fortunes into the hands of various investors, collectors, and occasionally the artist.Q.It can be inferred from the passage that Harriet Sherman would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements regarding admission to museum exhibits?a)Tickets should be available on a first-come-first-served basis.b)Those with a genuine interest in art should not have to pay inflated prices.c)Museums need the income from ticket sales in order to buy great art.d)Tickets should be distributed without prior announcement.e)No one should be able to purchase more than one or two tickets.Correct answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer? in English & in Hindi are available as part of our courses for GMAT. Download more important topics, notes, lectures and mock test series for GMAT Exam by signing up for free.
Here you can find the meaning of Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Question.“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by the opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoiseurs.Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from strange. Art, despite its religious and magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators stage-managing the cult of artists in order to enhance the market value of museum holdings, entrepreneurs have found validation and profit in big-name art. Speculators, thieves, and promoters long ago created and fed a market where cultural icons could be traded like commodities.This trend toward commodification of high-brow art took an ominous, if predictable, turn in the 1980s during the Japanese “bubble economy.” At a time when Japanese share prices more than doubled, individual tycoons and industrial giants alike invested record amounts in some of the West’s greatest masterpieces. Ryoei Saito, for example, purchased van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet for a record-breaking $82.5 million. The work, then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, suddenly vanished from the public domain. Later learning that he owed the Japanese government $24 million in taxes, Saito remarked that he would have the paining cremated with him to spare his heirs the inheritance tax. This statement, which he later dismissed as a joke, alarmed and enraged many. A representative of the Van Gogh museum, conceding that he had no legal redress, made an ethical appeal to Mr. Saito, asserting, “a work of art remains the possession of the world at large.”Ethical appeals notwithstanding, great art will increasingly devolve into big business. Firstly, great art can only be certified by its market value. Moreover, the “world at large” hasn’t the means of acquisition. Only one museum currently has the funding to contend for the best pieces–the J. Paul Getty Museum, founded by the billionaire oilman. The art may disappear into private hands, but its transfer will disseminate once static fortunes into the hands of various investors, collectors, and occasionally the artist.Q.It can be inferred from the passage that Harriet Sherman would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements regarding admission to museum exhibits?a)Tickets should be available on a first-come-first-served basis.b)Those with a genuine interest in art should not have to pay inflated prices.c)Museums need the income from ticket sales in order to buy great art.d)Tickets should be distributed without prior announcement.e)No one should be able to purchase more than one or two tickets.Correct answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer? defined & explained in the simplest way possible. Besides giving the explanation of Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Question.“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by the opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoiseurs.Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from strange. Art, despite its religious and magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators stage-managing the cult of artists in order to enhance the market value of museum holdings, entrepreneurs have found validation and profit in big-name art. Speculators, thieves, and promoters long ago created and fed a market where cultural icons could be traded like commodities.This trend toward commodification of high-brow art took an ominous, if predictable, turn in the 1980s during the Japanese “bubble economy.” At a time when Japanese share prices more than doubled, individual tycoons and industrial giants alike invested record amounts in some of the West’s greatest masterpieces. Ryoei Saito, for example, purchased van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet for a record-breaking $82.5 million. The work, then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, suddenly vanished from the public domain. Later learning that he owed the Japanese government $24 million in taxes, Saito remarked that he would have the paining cremated with him to spare his heirs the inheritance tax. This statement, which he later dismissed as a joke, alarmed and enraged many. A representative of the Van Gogh museum, conceding that he had no legal redress, made an ethical appeal to Mr. Saito, asserting, “a work of art remains the possession of the world at large.”Ethical appeals notwithstanding, great art will increasingly devolve into big business. Firstly, great art can only be certified by its market value. Moreover, the “world at large” hasn’t the means of acquisition. Only one museum currently has the funding to contend for the best pieces–the J. Paul Getty Museum, founded by the billionaire oilman. The art may disappear into private hands, but its transfer will disseminate once static fortunes into the hands of various investors, collectors, and occasionally the artist.Q.It can be inferred from the passage that Harriet Sherman would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements regarding admission to museum exhibits?a)Tickets should be available on a first-come-first-served basis.b)Those with a genuine interest in art should not have to pay inflated prices.c)Museums need the income from ticket sales in order to buy great art.d)Tickets should be distributed without prior announcement.e)No one should be able to purchase more than one or two tickets.Correct answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer?, a detailed solution for Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Question.“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by the opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoiseurs.Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from strange. Art, despite its religious and magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators stage-managing the cult of artists in order to enhance the market value of museum holdings, entrepreneurs have found validation and profit in big-name art. Speculators, thieves, and promoters long ago created and fed a market where cultural icons could be traded like commodities.This trend toward commodification of high-brow art took an ominous, if predictable, turn in the 1980s during the Japanese “bubble economy.” At a time when Japanese share prices more than doubled, individual tycoons and industrial giants alike invested record amounts in some of the West’s greatest masterpieces. Ryoei Saito, for example, purchased van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet for a record-breaking $82.5 million. The work, then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, suddenly vanished from the public domain. Later learning that he owed the Japanese government $24 million in taxes, Saito remarked that he would have the paining cremated with him to spare his heirs the inheritance tax. This statement, which he later dismissed as a joke, alarmed and enraged many. A representative of the Van Gogh museum, conceding that he had no legal redress, made an ethical appeal to Mr. Saito, asserting, “a work of art remains the possession of the world at large.”Ethical appeals notwithstanding, great art will increasingly devolve into big business. Firstly, great art can only be certified by its market value. Moreover, the “world at large” hasn’t the means of acquisition. Only one museum currently has the funding to contend for the best pieces–the J. Paul Getty Museum, founded by the billionaire oilman. The art may disappear into private hands, but its transfer will disseminate once static fortunes into the hands of various investors, collectors, and occasionally the artist.Q.It can be inferred from the passage that Harriet Sherman would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements regarding admission to museum exhibits?a)Tickets should be available on a first-come-first-served basis.b)Those with a genuine interest in art should not have to pay inflated prices.c)Museums need the income from ticket sales in order to buy great art.d)Tickets should be distributed without prior announcement.e)No one should be able to purchase more than one or two tickets.Correct answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer? has been provided alongside types of Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Question.“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by the opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoiseurs.Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from strange. Art, despite its religious and magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators stage-managing the cult of artists in order to enhance the market value of museum holdings, entrepreneurs have found validation and profit in big-name art. Speculators, thieves, and promoters long ago created and fed a market where cultural icons could be traded like commodities.This trend toward commodification of high-brow art took an ominous, if predictable, turn in the 1980s during the Japanese “bubble economy.” At a time when Japanese share prices more than doubled, individual tycoons and industrial giants alike invested record amounts in some of the West’s greatest masterpieces. Ryoei Saito, for example, purchased van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet for a record-breaking $82.5 million. The work, then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, suddenly vanished from the public domain. Later learning that he owed the Japanese government $24 million in taxes, Saito remarked that he would have the paining cremated with him to spare his heirs the inheritance tax. This statement, which he later dismissed as a joke, alarmed and enraged many. A representative of the Van Gogh museum, conceding that he had no legal redress, made an ethical appeal to Mr. Saito, asserting, “a work of art remains the possession of the world at large.”Ethical appeals notwithstanding, great art will increasingly devolve into big business. Firstly, great art can only be certified by its market value. Moreover, the “world at large” hasn’t the means of acquisition. Only one museum currently has the funding to contend for the best pieces–the J. Paul Getty Museum, founded by the billionaire oilman. The art may disappear into private hands, but its transfer will disseminate once static fortunes into the hands of various investors, collectors, and occasionally the artist.Q.It can be inferred from the passage that Harriet Sherman would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements regarding admission to museum exhibits?a)Tickets should be available on a first-come-first-served basis.b)Those with a genuine interest in art should not have to pay inflated prices.c)Museums need the income from ticket sales in order to buy great art.d)Tickets should be distributed without prior announcement.e)No one should be able to purchase more than one or two tickets.Correct answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer? theory, EduRev gives you an ample number of questions to practice Direction: Read the following Passage and Answer the following Question.“Strange Bedfellows!” lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed “Van Gogh’s van Goghs” exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by the opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoiseurs.Yet, Sherman’s bedfellows are far from strange. Art, despite its religious and magical origins, very soon became a commercial venture. From bourgeois patrons funding art they barely understood in order to share their protegee’s prestige, to museum curators stage-managing the cult of artists in order to enhance the market value of museum holdings, entrepreneurs have found validation and profit in big-name art. Speculators, thieves, and promoters long ago created and fed a market where cultural icons could be traded like commodities.This trend toward commodification of high-brow art took an ominous, if predictable, turn in the 1980s during the Japanese “bubble economy.” At a time when Japanese share prices more than doubled, individual tycoons and industrial giants alike invested record amounts in some of the West’s greatest masterpieces. Ryoei Saito, for example, purchased van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet for a record-breaking $82.5 million. The work, then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, suddenly vanished from the public domain. Later learning that he owed the Japanese government $24 million in taxes, Saito remarked that he would have the paining cremated with him to spare his heirs the inheritance tax. This statement, which he later dismissed as a joke, alarmed and enraged many. A representative of the Van Gogh museum, conceding that he had no legal redress, made an ethical appeal to Mr. Saito, asserting, “a work of art remains the possession of the world at large.”Ethical appeals notwithstanding, great art will increasingly devolve into big business. Firstly, great art can only be certified by its market value. Moreover, the “world at large” hasn’t the means of acquisition. Only one museum currently has the funding to contend for the best pieces–the J. Paul Getty Museum, founded by the billionaire oilman. The art may disappear into private hands, but its transfer will disseminate once static fortunes into the hands of various investors, collectors, and occasionally the artist.Q.It can be inferred from the passage that Harriet Sherman would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements regarding admission to museum exhibits?a)Tickets should be available on a first-come-first-served basis.b)Those with a genuine interest in art should not have to pay inflated prices.c)Museums need the income from ticket sales in order to buy great art.d)Tickets should be distributed without prior announcement.e)No one should be able to purchase more than one or two tickets.Correct answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer? tests, examples and also practice GMAT tests.
Explore Courses for GMAT exam

Top Courses for GMAT

Explore Courses
Signup for Free!
Signup to see your scores go up within 7 days! Learn & Practice with 1000+ FREE Notes, Videos & Tests.
10M+ students study on EduRev