A child learning to play the piano will not succeed unless the child

Question

A child learning to play the piano will not succeed unless the child has an instrument at home on which to practice. However, good-quality pianos, whether new or secondhand, are costly. Buying one is justified only if the child has the necessary talent and perseverance, which is precisely what one cannot know in advance. Consequently, parents should buy an inexpensive secondhand instrument at first and upgrade if and when the child's ability and inclination are proven.

Which of the following, if true, casts the most serious doubt on the course of action recommended for parents?

(A) Learners, particularly those with genuine musical talent, are apt to lose interest in the instrument if they have to play on a piano that fails to produce a pleasing sound.

(B) Reputable piano teachers do not accept children as pupils unless they know that the children can practice on a piano at home.

(C) Ideally, the piano on which a child practices at home should be located in a room away from family activities going on at the same time.

(D) Very young beginners often make remarkable progress at playing the piano at first, but then appear to stand still for a considerable period of time.

(E) In some parents, spending increasing amounts of money on having their children learn to play the piano produces increasing anxiety to hear immediate results.

ID: 500269

KarishmaB · Accepted Answer

The argument talks about 'child' (say 3 - 12 yrs). Option (D) talks about 'very young' which implies a little child (say 3 - 5 yrs). Since very young will be a subset of child, most of my interest in the option is already lost. It is like saying "some children will..." and that is usually irrelevant. 
Secondly it uses "beginners" which means the stage at which they have the second hand cheap instrument. They may show promise but will stop suddenly. Well, all the more reason to wait and watch with a temporary instrument. If you begin with an expensive one, it will go waste. 
If we know that kids show progress initially and then stand still, we would buy a cheaper instrument and see whether they are showing continuous progress to buy an expensive one later.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

KanishkM  I wouldn't say that it's attributing any  fault  to the child, but it does seem to be making a comment on how skill progresses that has no relevance to the quality of the instrument. I'd add D to the "irrelevant" category for that reason. The potential appeal of this answer is that we can imagine someone being "fooled" by the child's initial promise and buying a more expensive piano, only to see the child's progress stall, but this still might be better than buying a more expensive piano right away. In any case, since the argument doesn't say when to buy the better piano and answer choice D doesn't tell us that the child won't eventually improve, D doesn't really do anything for us. (Also, there's no reason to apply this warning about "very young beginners" to all children.)

chetan2u · Answer

The course of action..
First let the kid play in second hand instruments. If the kid has genuine talent, pick up the expensive ones..

Flaw in this argument..

All choices except A fail to talk about the course of action and are invariably out of scope/context.

A clearly gives a reason to believe that the kid inspite of talent may lose interest if the instrument does not take out actual pleasing notes/sounds..

A

nipun21 · Answer

I have a doubt here. How can we assume that the second hand piano will definitely produce a non pleasant sound. Any faulty piano can do so. May be the new piano is not as good as the contemporary one. I ruled out A on that basis only. Please help me on this.

Akash720 · Answer

Hi  nipun21

Yes you can definitely assume that but the argument clearly differentiates between a first hand piano and a second hand piano for a reason. The second hand piano would not be as good as the first hand. 
Argument talks about increasing the ability of the child and stem asks us to find a choice which most doubts the course of action the parents take will increase the child's ability.

A -  This statement clearly creates a doubt as the child's ability will decrease if the recommended course of action is taken. You don't need to assume whether the piano will be a faulty one or will it have all the keys.

B -  Piano teachers acceptance is completely out of scope

C -  Family activities is Out of scope

D -  This doesn't give us a reason on what reduces child's ability

E -  Spending increasing amounts of money is Out of scope

vaibhav1221 · Answer

(A) Learners, particularly those with genuine musical talent, are apt to lose interest in the instrument  if  they have to play on a piano that fails to produce a pleasing sound.

See, here you are not required to assume that a second hand piano definitely provide an unpleasant sound. See the highlighted text above - if - which eradicates the need to assume anything. BUT as a general truth you may assume that the sound that a second hand piano produces is generally not as good as and definitely not better than a new piano.

Hope this helps.

KanishkM · Answer

Question Type ->  Weaken

Course of action -> parents should buy an inexpensive secondhand instrument at first and  upgrade  if and when the child's ability and inclination are proven

We have to weaken the course of action by saying -> to improve the child ability we should do something else than the stated course of action

Out of the answer options, B, C and E are irrelevant.

I took time understanding A and D.
(A) Learners, particularly those with genuine musical talent, are apt to lose interest in the instrument if they have to play on a piano that fails to produce a pleasing sound.
As the piano was faulty, the instrument is the reason for the child's inability to play piano, therefore parents should not buy faulty piano

(D) Very young beginners often make remarkable progress at playing the piano at first, but then appear to stand still for a considerable period of time.
This is saying that the fault is with the child.
This is not even talking about the piano.

Can someone please tell me, if my reasoning for eliminating D is correct or not?

saby1410 · Answer

VeritasKarishma   ChiranjeevSingh   AnishPassiTGC

Do we have to assume for option A that there is a chance that buying inexpensive piano may produce a faulty sound which may lead to a loss in interest to learn.

although option a is the only answer i found which may doubt the argument.

KarishmaB · Answer

That's a fair assumption, I would say. A good quality musical instrument would produce good sound and an inferior quality may not produce good sound. Anyway, as you said, only option (A) has any merit so why to over-analyse? Verbal questions are all about 'best available option'.

Ganeshmantri · Answer

Hi  VeritasKarishma ,

I know this has been discussed a couple of times below. But still, please help me in clarifying my below query:
In Option D, we are told that initially the Child will show good progress but later there will be a standstill. Does that not weaken the claim to 'upgrade if and when the child's ability and inclination are proven'?
Ofcourse, ability and inclination will be shown at first and parents might buy a newer and a better Piano just when they get to know that the remarkable progress at playing the piano at first won't be continued and that the recommendation was wrong?

This, to me is a more evident claim than folks justifying option 'A' using a mere 'IF' in the statement.

Thanks in advance!

TheModo · Answer

Below is my step-by-step process to answering this question.

1.) Read the question stem and identify what the question is asking you to do. 
- Because the stem says, " ...if true, casts the most serious doubt... ", this is a Weaken question.

2.) Read, breakdown, and understand the argument. 
 "A child learning to play the piano will not succeed unless the child has an instrument at home on which to practice." 
- learning + having an instrument at home = success
 "However, good-quality pianos, whether new or secondhand, are costly. Buying one is justified only if the child has the necessary talent and perseverance, which is precisely what one cannot know in advance." 
- These statement are almost paradoxical; HOW can a student have the foresight of their skill level in order for it to justify his or her purchasing of an expensive instrument?
- Because these statements need to be resolved, there is, hopefully, a reason coming...
 "Consequently, parents should buy an inexpensive secondhand instrument at first and upgrade if and when the child's ability and inclination are proven." 
- This statement is the conclusion and is depending on the unstated assumption, or "reason" mentioned above, of "the quality of an instrument does not lead to an increase in ability".

3.) Rearticulate the conclusion, what it depends on, and what you need to do. 
- Parents, without knowing whether their child will become skilled, should buy an inexpensive instrument at first, as opposed to an expensive one, because <unstated assumption> (unstated assumption = "the quality of the instrument does not lead to an increase in ability").
- We need an answer choice that weakens the unstated assumption of "the quality of the instrument does not lead to an increase in ability".

4.) Go through the answer choices, one by one, and determine HOW each affect the argument 
 (A) Learners, particularly those with genuine musical talent, are apt to lose interest in the instrument if they have to play on a piano that fails to produce a pleasing sound. 
 - This answer choice, by saying that a talented student will lose interest if the instrument sounds bad, WEAKENS our previously "unstated assumption" by making it FALSE. If, in fact, instrument quality did NOT lead to an increase in ability, then the student's skill, due to his or her maintained interest, would improve REGARDLESS of the unpleasant sound, and would not be deterred.

(B) Reputable piano teachers do not accept children as pupils unless they know that the children can practice on a piano at home. 
 - This answer choice is a "frameshift" (addresses the wrong conclusion): it does not affect the argument's conclusion, which depends on our unstated assumption ("the quality of the instrument does not lead to an increase in ability").

(C) Ideally, the piano on which a child practices at home should be located in a room away from family activities going on at the same time. 
 - This answer choice is a "frameshift" (addresses the wrong conclusion): the LOCATION of the piano has nothing to do with the QUALITY of the piano.
 
 (D) Very young beginners often make remarkable progress at playing the piano at first, but then appear to stand still for a considerable period of time. 
 - This answer choice is a "frameshift" (addresses the wrong conclusion): the PROGRESS of a student is not what the argument is about.

(E) In some parents, spending increasing amounts of money on having their children learn to play the piano produces increasing anxiety to hear immediate results. 
 - This answer choice is a "frameshift" (addresses the wrong conclusion): the affect of the piano purchase on the PARENTS is not what the conclusion is about.

5.) Choose the answer choice with the greatest and clearest negative impact. 
 (A) Learners, particularly those with genuine musical talent, are apt to lose interest in the instrument if they have to play on a piano that fails to produce a pleasing sound. 
 - Answer choice "A" has no contenders.

Maldonado · Answer

INEXPENSIVE SECOND-HAND PAINTING = NOT A PIECE OF ART

https://www.artnet.com/magazineus/featur ... 1-6-08.asp

"The Gallery Delisle in east Toronto has just announced an exhibition, Nov. 13-27, 2008, of that purported Jackson Pollock painting bought for $5 by gritty retired 18-wheeler-driver Teri Horton, who became famous in the feature documentary film, Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?

The price of the painting now? A mere $50,000,000."

?????????????????

Sorry GMAC

Checkmate.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

Maldonado 
A few things here:

The argument states in a premise that a good-quality piano is expensive, whether we buy it second-hand or not. We don't want to question that premise, even if it might not be true in real life. It's true that we don't know that a poor-quality piano makes unpleasing sounds (maybe it's just ugly to look at, or maybe it doesn't last long), but A at least gives us a reason to reconsider buying a poor piano, even for a beginning student.

Your examples about art and motorcycles are tricky, since we need to distinguish among characteristics such as quality, speed, value, and whether something is "real art." The original argument doesn't require so much complexity. If we know that all good pianos are expensive, then the second-hand part becomes irrelevant. We just need to know whether there is any reason to buy a good piano for a new student. Answer A doesn't prove that we should--maybe it's not a worthwhile investment, or maybe (as we already speculated), a poor piano does not make any bad sounds, but then again, Str/Wkn answers almost never prove the conclusion true or false. They just push in one direction or the other, like evidence in a court case.

Maldonado · Answer

Dear  DmitryFarber ,

That's very kind of you, thank you very much for your response.

I fully agree with every word you wrote. My rationale here was that sometimes correct ACs, even though you can see that they push in the required direction, are not sound enough. To state more explicitly, since GMAT is more of a LOGIC exam sometimes what you are given is not logical  enough ...

Though, the "push in one direction is enough" mentality sometimes gets lost between the lines. I think I am bit excessively critical thinker, and still working on blunting this.

Regards...

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

I would go further and say that the right answer will ALMOST NEVER prove or disprove the conclusion, and if we hold out for that, we will miss a lot of questions. We are just looking for an answer that gives us a reason to change our estimation of the conclusion's likelihood, and that's it.

BhaveshGMAT · Answer

(D) Very young beginners often make remarkable progress at playing the piano at first, but then appear to stand still for a considerable period of time.

I have gone through the thread, but don't quite understand why is answer option D incorrect.

My reasoning for D - What if the ability of the child plateaus after a certain time? Then should not we provide the child a good quality and expensive piano from the start so that the child reaches a higher plateau if at all ?

VeritasKarishma   DmitryFarber  please help!

KarishmaB · Answer

Take a look at this post which tells you why (D) is not correct: https://gmatclub.com/forum/a-child-lear ... l#p2635418 The point is that "very young beginners" is a subset of "children" so anything we say regarding this subset will not have much impact on our conclusion. Whatever we say, we need to say about our set (children). Secondly, option (D), in part, HELPS in rationalising the argument. The argument tells us that we should wait and find out whether the child perseveres. Option (D) says that very young children often do very well in the beginning but then stand still for long. Hence, it does make sense to wait and watch what the young child does before investing a lot of money. Does she come back to the instrument after plateauing or does she give it up completely? Hence, option (D) doesn't cast doubt on the recommendation.

stackskillz · Answer

This is the quick solution I came up with -

Conc: Buy inexpenseive 2nd hand instrument; upgrade after proven.

A) This answers the question - Will the kids lose interest to continue or improve as a result of not playing a good instrument? If the answer is yes, we can see that this causes the problem suggested by the passage - "A child learning to play the piano will not succeed unless the child has an instrument at home on which to practice." - since the child will not continue to practice as a result of losing interest. -  Keep

B) If reputable teachers accept students only with pianos at home, this in a sense 'strengthens' the argument because that would argue for buying any piano, even if it's cheap/2nd hand. -  Drop

C) This suggest where should a piano be located. It's very obvious that the location will not interfere with the conclusion -  Drop

D) How do young beginners progress? Fast, slow or fast and then slow. The rate of progress can happen whether you buy a 2nd hand or 1st hand piano and as such doesn't seem to affect the conclusion stated. This seems to be a constant case if true. On the other hand, we can justify that this strengthens the argument a little bit, since buying a 2nd hand piano would make more sense than a brand new piano. Also this might be overkill, but the conclusion talks about "proving" and the option talks about "remarkable progress". The difference is between "covering a marathon"  and the "finish line". If you can't / couldn't see this, don't worry. The initial facts are more than enough to drop this option. -  Drop

E) This is one of those options that are completely obvious. Does the anxiety of parents prove or disprove the plan stated? Nope.  Drop

A_Nishith · Answer

The course of action..
First let the kid play in second hand instruments. If the kid has genuine talent, pick up the expensive ones..

Flaw in this argument..

All choices except A fail to talk about the course of action and are invariably out of scope/context.

A clearly gives a reason to believe that the kid inspite of talent may lose interest if the instrument does not take out actual pleasing notes/sounds..

Answer:A

A child learning to play the piano will not succeed unless the child

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

A child learning to play the piano will not succeed unless the child

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards