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Information and Ideas / Inferences Difficulty: Medium

Dutch painters in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often showed tables filled with large wheels of cheese or carved shards of butter. Some art historians, noting that dairy products were a major component of the Dutch diet, interpret these depictions as reflections of everyday Dutch eating habits. However, a group of researchers recently reviewed hundreds of food-related paintings and found that lemons—which could only be acquired in the Netherlands at great cost, since they had to be imported from warmer climates—feature in Dutch paintings of the period more than three times as frequently as dairy products do, thereby casting doubt on the idea that blank

Which choice most logically completes the text?

dairy products were a more significant component of the Dutch diet of the period than lemons were.

food was a more popular subject among Dutch painters than it was among painters from other countries at the time.

depictions of food in Dutch paintings of the period should be taken as realistic representations of Dutch eating habits.

Dutch painters of the period may have depicted foods for symbolic reasons rather than to show what Dutch people typically ate.

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Explanation

Choice C is the best answer. The text tells us that lemons—an expensive imported product—feature in Dutch paintings of the period more frequently than dairy products do. Since it’s unlikely lemons were eaten more often than dairy, this fact casts doubt on the theory that these paintings realistically depicted Dutch diets.

Choice A is incorrect. In fact, the text suggests the opposite: it says that dairy products were a "major component of the Dutch diet," while lemons were an expensive import item, so we can infer that lemons were eaten much more rarely than dairy products. Choice B is incorrect. The passage doesn’t mention painters from other countries, so there’s no basis to make this inference. Choice D is incorrect. In fact, the text suggests that Dutch painters do have reasons for depicting foods other than to show what Dutch people typically ate. For example, lemons in a painting could indicate wealth or prosperity.