Barbara Strozzi was a singer and composer of madrigals, aria

Let's go through your questions one at a time:

Question 2

Take another look at the piece of the passage relevant to question 2:

In saying "supposedly feminine qualities", the author is not doubting that Strozzi's music contains the listed qualities. She is doubting that those qualities are feminine. The word "supposedly" shows that the author disagrees with the prevailing views of Strozzi's works because they were limited by a gender-biased viewpoint. This is expressed in answer choice (C):

Answer (C) is correct for question 2.

With this analysis in mind, read answer choice (D):

The author states that earlier appreciation of Strozzi's music was "irrelevant and polemical in its incompleteness." This is different than stating that the music did not actually contain the cited qualities-- it just means that the author considers a sole focus on the music's "supposedly feminine qualities" to be an incomplete evaluation of Strozzi's work. (D) is out.

Question 8

Let's take another look at the quote in question, along with its context in the passage:

Here, the author sets up a comparison between Strozzi's music and that of her contemporaries. The two points of comparison in this section are:

• Strozzi's work addresses a more intimate audience, and
• Strozzi's music expresses more of her own feelings, whereas the music of her contemporaries expresses more the feelings of fictive characters

Take a look at answer choice (C) in light of this comparison:

From the above analysis, we can see that the quote has nothing to do with confidence. We also do not know if the author would consider intimate and self-expressive music more or less confident than the dramatic works of Strozzi's contemporaries. We can eliminate (C).

Now, here is answer choice (A):

This is a good fit, because Strozzi's music expresses "her own feelings," in contrast to the music of her contemporaries, which expresses the feelings of fictive characters. (A) is the correct answer for question 8.

Question 9

For answer choice (A) to be correct, we would need to know "the exact family relationship between Giulio Strozzi and Barbara Strozzi." From the passage, we know that Strozzi "grew up in the home of Giulio Strozzi, a renowned poet" which "guaranteed her and early and full exposure to Venetian musical and literary society." This is compared to Francesca Caccini, who "was the daughter of professional musicians and therefore exposed to music from infancy." The author concludes that "this parallel suggests that such an environment may have been essential for the development of a female composer."

In saying that the situations of the two composers are "similar," the author is highlighting that both women had early exposure to music, not that they were both the daughters of prominent musicians. This is clear from the phrase "such an environment."

The passage only tells us that Barbara grew up in Giulio's house, which absolutely does not tell us the exact family relationship between the two. Maybe Giulio is her grandfather, or her uncle, or her cousin. Maybe they have the same last name but aren't related at all! The point is, we don't know based on the passage. We cannot infer the exact relationship between Barbara and Giulio Strozzi, so (A) is out.

The evidence for (C), on the other hand, is strong: Strozzi " achieved some measure of public recognition" for her work, and therefore her "compositions [were] known to her contemporaries." (C) is the right answer for question 9.

I hope that helps!
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P1 - About BS - achivements.
P2 - Limited appreciation and reason.
P3 - What influenced her success.
P4 - BS was different than her contemprories. How is defined.

1. According to the passage, Barbara Strozzi’s music attracted attention early in the twentieth century because of
Lines to read - presumably, among the very few women of the period to have pursued a career as a composer and to have achieved some measure of public recognition. This historical distinction attracted attention to her works early in the present century

C) The scarcity of seventeenth-century women composers

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2. The author’s use of word “supposedly” in the line 18 implies which of the following?
At first i have selected C and E. With following part in inclined towards C. Author seems to be sure of what he is saying.
"Such an appreciation now appears irrelevant as well as polemical in its incompleteness because we are in a better position – with regard to both historical knowledge and social awareness"

C) The author disagrees with the judgment she is discussing.

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3. With which of the following statements would the author of the passage be most likely to agree?

D) Late-twentieth-century music historians have more accurate historical information than their early-twentieth-century counterparts.

Such an appreciation now appears irrelevant as well as polemical in its incompleteness because we are in a better position – with regard to both historical knowledge and social awareness – to attempt a more precise evaluation of a somewhat anomalous figure like Barbara Strozzi.

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4. The author of the passage bases her assertion that Strozzi is one of the very few seventeenth-century Italian women composers (lines 7-12) on which of the following assumptions?
>>>> she is the only known woman among the many aria and cantata composers of seventeenth-century Italy,

C) The music of any woman composer whom her seventeenth-century contemporaries regarded as noteworthy would be known to modern scholars.

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5. The author of the passage implies that which of the following was most essential to the success of both Francesca Caccini and Barbara Strozzi?

Similarly, Francesca Caccini, the most prominent and successful Italian woman composer of the period, was the daughter
(35)of professional musicians and therefore exposed to music for infancy.

(B) Their early firsthand exposure to music and musicians

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6. It can be inferred from the passage that all of the following made Barbara Strozzi "a somewhat anomalous figure" (lines 24-25) EXCEPT:

All except E is defined in last para.
(E) She wrote moving baroque vocal works.

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7. The author of the passage implies that composers of Italian baroque music typically

Whereas other composers sought (and found) a public forum for their effective expression in the the- (45) ater and the Church

(C) aspired to reach large segments of the public with their works

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8. The author of the passage quotes Barbara Strozzi in lines 53-54 most probably in order to
her songs are addressed to a more intimate audi-ence, expressing less the feeling of fictive characters than her own

A) Support the claim that strozzi’s worself-revealingvealing

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9. The passage provides information to answer which of the following questions?

A) What was the exact family relationship between Giulio Strozzi and Barbara Strozzi? - not clear
B) What is the evidence that indicates that Barbara Strozzi never sang in an opera? - no evidence
C) Were Barbara strozzi’s compositions know to her contemporaries?
D) Did Barbara Storzzi know Francesca Caccini? - no sure.
E) What instruments provide the accompaniment for Barbara Strozzi’s vocal works? - not given

Left with C, but cant find it either. workout - How to be sure about C ?
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1. According to the passage, Barbara Strozzi’s music attracted attention early in the twentieth century because of
C) The scarcity of seventeenth-century women composers - Correct

With the notable exception of Francesca Caccini (1587 – c. 1640), she is the only known woman among the many aria and cantata composers of seventeenth-century Italy, and is, presumably, among the
very few women of the period to have pursued a career as a composer and to have achieved some measure of public recognition.

2. The author’s use of word “supposedly” in the line 18 implies which of the following?

A) The author doubts the historical authenticity of the quotation that follows.
B) The author doubts the accuracy of the facts she is reporting.
C) The author disagrees with the judgment she is discussing.
D) The author does not believe that Stozzi’s music has the qualities cited in the quotation.
E) The author is not sure of the significance of the quotation.

Question A - I was in a fix between C and D and ended up choosing option D. How can we eliminate option D?

3. With which of the following statements would the author of the passage be most likely to agree?

A) The music of the seventeenth-century Italy is less frequently performed today than it was 50 years ago.
B) Contemporary music historians no longer discuses the music of a given composer in terms of its particular individual style.
C) The cantata tradition of seventeenth-century Italy is much better understood today than it ever has been. - Correct
D) Late-twentieth-century music historians have more accurate historical information than their early-twentieth-century counterparts.
E) Music historians of the early twentieth century were uninterested in the details of social life in seventeenth-century Venetian musical circles.

Such an appreciation now appears irrelevant as well as polemical in its incompleteness because we are in a better position – with regard to both historical knowledge and social awareness – to attempt
a more precise evaluation


4. The author of the passage bases her assertion that Strozzi is one of the very few seventeenth-century Italian women composers (lines 7-12) on which of the following assumptions?

A) Public recognition is an indispensable part of a career as a composer.
B) Strozzi and Caccini were influenced by the same composers.
C) The music of any woman composer whom her seventeenth-century contemporaries regarded as noteworthy would be known to modern scholars.
D) The cantata tradition of the mid-seventeenth-century includes composers and performers of madrigals and arias as well as cantatas.
E) More women pursued careers as composers in seventeenth-century Italy than is evident from music published in the seventeenth-century.

Question B -Please provide an explanation for question 4

5. The author of the passage implies that which of the following was most essential to the success of both Francesca Caccini and Barbara Strozzi?
B) Their early firsthand exposure to music and musicians - Correct

Barbara’s presence in Giulio’s household guaranteed her and early and full exposure to Venetian musical and literary society. Similarly, Francesca Caccini, the most prominent and successful
Italian woman composer of the period, was the daughter of professional musicians and therefore exposed to music for infancy. This parallel suggests that such an environment may have been essential for the development of a female composer.

6. It can be inferred from the passage that all of the following made Barbara Strozzi "a somewhat anomalous figure" (lines 24-25) EXCEPT:

(A) She was a woman composer during the seven­ teenth century. - Incorrect - women composers during that period were rare
(B) She was intimately involved in Venetian literary and musical society. - her songs are addressed to a more intimate audience
(C) She did not write dramatic works for voice. - Incorrect - She is not a composer of dramatic works
(D) She did not perform operatic works. - Incorrect - yet she apparently never sang in opera in spite of Opera being very popular
(E) She wrote moving baroque vocal works. - Correct

We can eliminate options to get to answer E as writing moving baroque vocal works is not stated as an exception to the 17th-century norms.

7. The author of the passage implies that composers of Italian baroque music typically
(A) composed more operas than cantatas - Incorrect - not mentioned
(B) preferred sacred to secular musical forms - Incorrect - not mentioned
(C) aspired to reach large segments of the public with their works - Correct
(D) avoided emotional expression in their works - Incorrect
(E) wrote music for solo voices rather than for choral ensembles - Incorrect

Whereas other composers sought (and found) a public forum for their effective expression in the theater and the Church, her world remained more private.
Question C - how can we infer whether the other composers were composers of Italian baroque music?

Is it because of the below statement-
But though Strozzi’s music certainly shares fully the aesthetic aim of her contemporaries, and of the baroque in general – to move the passions

8. The author of the passage quotes Barbara Strozzi in lines 53-54 most probably in order to
A) Support the claim that strozzi’s works are self-revealing- Correct her songs are addressed to a more intimate audience, expressing less the feeling of fictive characters than her own

9. The passage provides information to answer which of the following questions?

A) What was the exact family relationship between Giulio Strozzi and Barbara Strozzi? - Incorrect -Barbara was born in the house of Giulio Strozzi
B) What is the evidence that indicates that Barbara Strozzi never sang in an opera? - Incorrect - no evidence has been mentioned
C) Were Barbara strozzi’s compositions know to her contemporaries?
D) Did Barbara Storzzi know Francesca Caccini? - Incorrect
E) What instruments provide the accompaniment for Barbara Strozzi’s vocal works? - Incorrect - not mentioned

Question D-I am unable to find option C in the passage

AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , MagooshExpert , GMATGuruNY , VeritasKarishma , VeritasPrepBrian , MartyMurray , other experts - please enlighten
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Skywalker18 aragonn

Hey guys,

The answer to Q9 that you're both looking for is hidden here: "she is the only known woman among the many aria and cantata composers of seventeenth-century Italy, and is, presumably, among the very few women of the period to have pursued a career as a composer and to have achieved some measure of public recognition."

workout u1983 GMATNinja GMATNinjaTwo broall Gnpth

Hi Experts, I was wondering if one of you could please clarify my doubts on the following questions. Would greatly appreciate it!

Q2: I am not able to see why option C is correct. I choose option D instead because of this particular line from the passage "Such an appreciation now appears
irrelevant as well as polemical in its incompleteness". Isn't the author doubting on the mentioned qualities?

Q8: I am not able to understand why option A is correct? My main confusion is how can we deduce from line 53-54 that strozzi’s works are self-revealing? I was able to understand that her songs expressed less feelings of the fictive characters that she created than her own but I am not able to see how we can deduce that her songs were "self revealing"? I opted for option C instead.

Q9: I was confused between option A and C and ended up picking option A instead. In the paragraph we are given "Born in 1619 in Venice, she grew up in the home of Giulio Strozzi....Similarly, Francesca Caccini was the daughter of professional musicians and therefore exposed to music for infancy". I chose option A solely because of the word "similarly". The passage states that "similarly" FC was the daughter of the professional musicians. Can't we deduce based on the word "similarly" that BS was the daughter of GS?

Hi Gladiator59

Can you please help me resolve some doubts on this passage?

Doubt 1:
But appreciation of her style was limited by pre-vailing convention to an isolation of its supposedly femi-nine qualities: “great spontaneity, exquisite grace, mar-velously fine taste.”
What does the above sentence mean actually?

Doubt 2:

her songs are addressed to a more intimate audi-ence, expressing less the feeling of fictive characters thanher own: “These harmonic notes,” she writes, “are the language of the soul, and instruments of the heart.”

IN question 8, how/ why are we saying that her work is self-revealing?
Can't the answer be that the author presents the statement to qualify an assertion that her works were not dramatic. Aren't the sentences connected?


Looking forward to your response.

Regards
Nitesh

aragonn GMATNinja VeritasKarishma Gladiator59 u1983



Why is C preferred over A?
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Hi adkikani

I got Q4) wrong too.Upon rereading I found A to be very strongly worded as compared to C.That said in the heat of the moment if C wasn't present I'd go with A.There is no drastic meaning change between A & C.

I wouldn't kill myself for making A.

I am not an expert, but I would like to answer this:

See the question:
The author of the passage bases her assertion that Strozzi is one of the very few seventeenth-century Italian women composers (lines 7-12) on which of the following assumptions?

Revisit the section from the passage:

Now, I rejected A on two reasons:
i) If you see the question stem, it's about Strozzi is among very few SEVENTEENTH CENTURY Italian composers. The context as per the passage is how is she known in 20th century too? If we choose option A, we just justify her being famous in SEVENTEENTH CENTURY only and not throughout.

ii) If you look by the definition of assumption, it's an UNSTATED PREMISE and here the public recognition thing is already being taken care in the passage ( a very VAGUE way to eliminate option A)

How C fits in?

Option C creates a linkage between the public appeal to a figure and knowing of that history by MODERN scholars of music and hence it's a legit unstated premise to link the two centuries altogether.

Hope this helps, feel free to revert if you disagree with this explanation.

Regards,
Rishav

redskull1 made a really good point about the wording of the answer choices!

I'd just like to elaborate on why (C) is an absolutely necessary assumption, while (A) is not.

Take a look at (A):

The author's evidence that Strozzi is one of the very few female composers is certainly tied to public recognition. Here is the evidence from the passage:

• "she is the only known woman among the many aria and cantata composers of seventeenth-century Italy," and
• "[Strozzi is] among the very few women of the period to have pursued a career as a composer and to have achieved some measure of public recognition."

However, does the author need to assume that public recognition is an indispensable part of anyone's career as a composer? As redskull1 pointed out, that is a very strong claim and is not 100% necessary in order for the author to assert that Strozzi, in particular, was one of the few female Italian composers of her time.

Compare that to (C):

This answer choice specifically addresses a gap in the evidence presented above. The author says that Strozzi is on of "very few women of the period... to have achieved some measure of public recognition," and that she is the only woman (with one exception) known by modern scholars to have composed certain kinds of music. So, how does the author know that the few women composers known to modern scholars are the only ones who actually achieved public recognition in their own time?

The author must assume that if a composer achieved public recognition in her own time, modern scholars would know about that composer. Otherwise, there could be droves of female composers who achieved public recognition, but records of their achievements have been lost in the intervening centuries. Because the author must assume the information in this answer choice, (C) is our answer.

I hope that helps!
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Hello Sir GMATNinja,

what still caught me off guard was the "... whom her seventeenth-century contemporaries regarded as noteworthy"
Is this really the assumption that we need to make her?

Have the seventeenth century contemporaries considered her as noteworthy? I've gave myself a long time to find the better answer when I ended up between A) and C) but I still don't get why that contemporaries phrase needs to be in there, thats why I got rid of it.

Very, very subtle in my opinion.
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Don't know if it is just for me. Took 16 mins to solve this one. Fhew.

Got 3 wrong.

How about others

Take another look at this excerpt:

"[she] is among the very few women of the period to have pursued a career as a composer and to have achieved some measure of public recognition."

By definition, "contemporaries" are simply people who lived at the same time as the person in question. If we don't assume (C), then it's POSSIBLE that seventeenth-century women composers wrote some music that WAS regarded as noteworthy by their contemporaries but that is NOT known to modern scholars.

This would erode the author's argument. If this music WAS regarded as noteworthy by other people in the same era, then that music must have attained some amount of public recognition! Without assuming (C), it's possible that those (hypothetical) women composers DID achieve public recognition even though their music is not known to modern scholars.

Choice (C) simply ensures that any music that WAS regarded as noteworthy would be known to modern scholars. If that weren't the case, we could have noteworthy music -- music that must have attained some measure of public recognition -- that is NOT known to modern scholars.

I hope that helps!
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I felt the way the passage is shown here, with gaps b/w the lines increased time and reduced accuracy, because I felt the paras were distorted. I took 11 mins and 2 mistakes. Q1 and Q3

GMATNinja or anybody else,

Can you explain why the choice E in question no 6 was correct?

6. It can be inferred from the passage that all of the following made Barbara Strozzi "a somewhat anomalous figure" (lines 24-25) EXCEPT:

(A) She was a woman composer during the seven­ teenth century.
(B) She was intimately involved in Venetian literary and musical society.
(C) She did not write dramatic works for voice.
(D) She did not perform operatic works.
(E) She wrote moving baroque vocal works.

The paragraph states, "the baroque in general – to move the passions - her life and her work distinguishes her form these contemporaries in various ways". It seems her baroque made distinguishes her these contemporaries; this implies that her baroque made her "a somewhat anomalous figure".

You are not quoting the full sentence, and that may be why you're misinterpreting the passage here.

Here's what the author wrote, in full:


The author here is making a couple of points:

• Strozzi's music shares fully the aesthetic aim of her contemporaries (and of the baroque in general).
• Strozzi's life and her work distinguishes her from these same contemporaries in various OTHER ways (which the rest of the paragraph enumerates).

Yes, the point of this paragraph is to elaborate on what made Strozzi different. That said, once we read the full sentence — including the incredibly important "but though" at the start of this sentence — we can see that the author begins the paragraph by describing a contrast between what Strozzi had in common with her peers (the baroque) and what made Strozzi anomalous (everything else listed in the paragraph).

On top of this, every other answer choice can be eliminated based on the passage. But I hope this helps clarify why (E) is the correct choice.
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Question is asked attracted attention early in the 20TH CENTURY ( not 17th century)
The passage is from 1990- 20th century




It means she was famous because of her style not because she was women and women were few . Even some men music remain relatively ignored. So indeed her style was appreciable and thus attracted attention.

So the answer should be A or D but not C

C) The scarcity of seventeenth-century women composers- why would be she famous in 20th century because of women scarcity in 20th century.

Please suggest GMATNinja, GMATNinjaTwo VeritasKarishma

From what you have quoted from the passage, "This historical distinction attracted attention to her works early in the present century"

This distinction of "a woman composer" attracted attention in 20th century.
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Hello experts , Could you please help in clarifying my doubt in Question 2:

2. The author’s use of word “supposedly” in the line 18 implies which of the following?

A) The author doubts the historical authenticity of the quotation that follows.
B) The author doubts the accuracy of the facts she is reporting.
C) The author disagrees with the judgment she is discussing.
D) The author does not believe that Stozzi’s music has the qualities cited in the quotation.
E) The author is not sure of the significance of the quotation.


I chose option E as opposed to option A primarily because per the sentence "Such an appreciation now appears
irrelevant as well as polemical in its incompleteness
because we are in a better position – with regard to both
historical knowledge and social awareness –"

I was of the opinion that the above states, the qualities mentioned are not of relevance today and hence the author was unsure of the significance of the quotation. I was under the impression that the quotation is the qualities. Can you please advise what is the flaw in my reasoning?


Regards,
P