Music student: Textbooks on the history of orchestral music generally
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28 Feb 2024, 08:39
Music student: Textbooks on the history of orchestral music generally devote only a small amount of coverage to the music of the past fifty years. The textbook authors generally wish to reflect the consensus among musicologists and critics regarding what are the greatest works in musical history. Thus, the consensus of these experts must be that the vast majority of history's greatest orchestral music was produced more than fifty years ago, since __________.
The music student has concluded the following:
the consensus of these experts must be that the vast majority of history's greatest orchestral music was produced more than fifty years ago
The support provided for that conclusion is the following:
Textbooks on the history of orchestral music generally devote only a small amount of coverage to the music of the past fifty years. The textbook authors generally wish to reflect the consensus among musicologists and critics regarding what are the greatest works in musical history.
Those premises provide some support for the conclusion. At the same time, we can pick up on the fact that there is a gap in the argument. The gap is basically the following: the evidence is that the textbooks devote only a small amount of coverage to the music of the past fifty years and the conclusion is about what the experts believe about when the greatest orchestral music was produced.
If we think about the evidence and the conclusion, we see that the music student has gone from noting textbooks' small amount of coverage of the orchestral music of the past 50 years to concluding that experts believe, basically, that the orchestral music of the past 50 years doesn't include much great music and that most great orchestral music was produced more than 50 years ago.
Does the fact that there is just a small amount of coverage indicate what experts believe? Maybe, but there must be some kind of assumption or additional fact connecting the two.
Which of the following, if correct, would most logically complete the music student's argument?
The word "since" before the blank is a support indicator. So, the choice that logically fills the blank will provide additional support for conclusion, which directly precedes "since" in the passage.
A) the authors intended the textbooks to cover each orchestral musical period in proportion to how much of history's greatest orchestral music was produced in that period
This choice does just what we need.
The correct answer must provide additional support for the conclusion.
Meanwhile, as discussed above, the argument has a gap in it in that it jumps from a premise about the amount of coverage in textbooks of the last 50 years to a conclusion about what experts believe.
So, this choice provides additional support for the conclusion by connecting the evidence about the amount of coverage of the music of the past 50 years to the belief of experts by connecting the two. After all, if "the authors intended the textbooks to cover each orchestral musical period in proportion to how much of history's greatest orchestral music was produced in that period," then the fact that there is not much coverage of the orchestral music of the past 50 years indicates that the authors must be going with the idea that not "much of history's greatest orchestral music was produced in that period."
Thus, if it's also true that "The textbook authors generally wish to reflect the consensus among musicologists and critics regarding what are the greatest works in musical history," then as the music student has concluded, "the consensus of these experts must be that the vast majority of history's greatest orchestral music was produced more than fifty years ago."
So, this choice logically completes the argument by filling a gap between the premises and the conclusion. We could say that this choice works like an assumption on which the argument depends.
Keep.
B) no expert judge of musical quality considers most of the orchestral music produced in the past fifty years to be among history's greatest
This choice is tempting because it could seem to support the conclusion. After all, if it's true that "no expert judge of musical quality considers most of the orchestral music produced in the past fifty years to be among history's greatest," then it sort of follows that "the consensus of these experts must be that the vast majority of history's greatest orchestral music was produced more than fifty years ago."
At the same time, this choice doesn't do what we need since it doesn't fit the context of the argument as a whole.
After all, the fact that "no expert judge of musical quality considers most of the orchestral music produced in the past fifty years to be among history's greatest" doesn't help to explain why the music student has gone from the fact that "textbooks on the history of orchestral music generally devote only a small amount of coverage to the music of the past fifty years" to the conclusion that "the consensus of these experts must be that the vast majority of history's greatest orchestral music was produced more than fifty years ago."
Instead, this choice just jumps in from a different angle by simply stating that experts don't consider most music from the past 50 years to be among history's greatest.
OK, that fact might support the conclusion, but what does it have to do with the rest of the argument? Nothing.
Eliminate.
C) the orchestral music to which the textbooks devote the most coverage is typically that which the authors have spent their careers studying
The choice weakens the case for the conclusion of the argument in the passage.
After all, if the textbooks simply devote the most coverage to music the authors have studied, then the fact that the books devote only a small amount of coverage to the orchestral music of he past 50 years isn't a reason to believe anything about the consensus of experts. Rather, if this choice were true, all that would be going on would be that the authors didn't devote much coverage to the music of the past 50 years because they haven't studied it much.
Eliminate.
D) almost all the orchestral music covered in the textbooks is considered to be among history's greatest by experts who have spent their careers studying music
This choice provides no support for the conclusion of the argument. The fact that the music covered is considered among the greatest doesn't indicate anything about experts' consensus on when most great orchestral music was produced.
Simply put, the fact that all the music covered is the greatest is not a reason to conclude that experts believe that there was more great music produced during one period than during another.
Eliminate.
E) almost all expert judges of musical quality have developed their expertise at least in part by studying textbooks on the history of orchestral music
This choice could support the conclusion since, if experts developed their expertise by studying textbooks that don't devote much coverage to the orchestral music of the past 50 years, then it makes sense that the experts could end up believing that most great orchestral music was produced more than 50 years ago.
At the same time, this choice does not make sense in the context of the argument as a whole. After all, it doesn't make sense that "the textbook authors ... wish to reflect the consensus among musicologists and critics" and that, at the same time, the experts get their ideas from the textbooks.
So, the authors of the textbooks would be seeking to reflect the consensus of experts who got their information from the textbooks? We can see that such a circular process doesn't make any sense.
Eliminate.
Correct answer: A