People with a rare hearing disorder perceive pitched sounds, such as

People with a rare hearing disorder perceive pitched sounds, such as musical notes, to be of a higher frequency than do people without the disorder. For example, when the note “A” is played on a piano, these people hear it as an “A-sharp,” the next note higher on the piano. This is why some children, when asked to match a note that is played for them, consistently sing the next higher note.

The proposed explanation is most vulnerable to the criticism that it fails to

A. mention any possible method of alleviating this disorder among children. Irrelevant

B. provide any indication of how common the hearing disorder is among children. Irrelevant

C. consider the hearing abilities of adults who have tested the ability of children to correctly sing pitches. Incorrect

already know those children have hearing problem

D. recognize that the hearing disorder would affect the perception of a note sung by an individual. Correct

this can be true, author avoiding this choice; they chose higher tones because hearing disorder would changes their perception

E. consider that pitches can differ significantly from one piano to another. Irrelevant


I think answer D

People with a rare hearing disorder perceive pitched sounds, such as musical notes, to be of a higher frequency than do people without the disorder. For example, when the note “A” is played on a piano, these people hear it as an “A-sharp,” the next note higher on the piano. This is why some children, when asked to match a note that is played for them, consistently sing the next higher note.

The proposed explanation is most vulnerable to the criticism that it fails to

A. mention any possible method of alleviating this disorder among children. - Alleviating the disorder is IRRELEVANT
B. provide any indication of how common the hearing disorder is among children. - IRRELEVANT
C. consider the hearing abilities of adults who have tested the ability of children to correctly sing pitches. - NEEDS FURTHER ANALYSIS
D. recognize that the hearing disorder would affect the perception of a note sung by an individual. - NEEDS FURTHER ANALYSIS
E. consider that pitches can differ significantly from one piano to another. - IRRELEVANT

We want to understand which of C and D is not taken into account by the author :-

D - hearing disorder would affect the perception of a note sung by an individual : It is covered in the example given by the author "For example, when the note “A” is played on a piano, these people hear it as an “A-sharp,” the next note higher on the piano." - So as they hear it as an A-Sharp, they play the note A-sharp. Singing is anyway irrelevant to the context of the passage. - INCORRECT

C - the adults testing the child's abilities may themsleves suffer from the same disorder because of which they hear the notes played by the childern a note higher. Makes Sense.

ANSWER CHOICE ANALYSIS -

A) To alleviate the disorder is not mentioned in the explanation
B) Irrelevant
C) Argument has not differentiated the abilities in adults and children
D) CORRECT
E) Only a single piano has been used - so irrelevant

Official Explanation:

People with a rare hearing disorder perceive pitched sounds, such as musical notes, to be of a higher frequency than do people without the disorder. For example, when the note “A” is played on a piano, these people hear it as an “A-sharp,” the next note higher on the piano. This is why some children, when asked to match a note that is played for them, consistently sing the next higher note.

The proposed explanation is most vulnerable to the criticism that it fails to

A. mention any possible method of alleviating this disorder among children.
B. provide any indication of how common the hearing disorder is among children.
C. consider the hearing abilities of adults who have tested the ability of children to correctly sing pitches.
D. recognize that the hearing disorder would affect the perception of a note sung by an individual.
E. consider that pitches can differ significantly from one piano to another.

Question Type: Weaken
Boil It Down: Because children with the disorder hear a note as higher, they sing the note higher as well.
Goal: Find the option that best shows a criticism one could have about this argument.

Analysis:

Argument structure:

(P) = Premise/Evidence/Support (C) = Conclusion/ Observation

P: An A is heard as an A sharp
C: Some children sing one note higher than what is heard

This question turns out to be one of the more challenging weaken examples in the question pool. The argument is trying to explain an observation based on knowledge about a disorder. The evidence deals with a fact that some children hear a note as one note higher than what was played. From this, it tries to explain the observation that some children sing a heard note, one not higher. This is a case of mismatched terms where the conclusion introduces a term that was not presented in the evidence. In this case, the mismatch in terms are singing in the conclusion and hearing in the evidence. Although related, these two concepts are different. The correct answer choice will point out this difference, namely that hearing is not the same as singing. This makes the evidence less relevant to the conclusion, thereby weakening the argument.

A. mention any possible method of alleviating this disorder among children.
Incorrect. The core of the argument addresses the dynamics of the disorder. It is not concerned with alleviating the disorder, whereas answer choice A addresses alleviating the disorder. As such, this answer choice is irrelevant.

B. provide any indication of how common the hearing disorder is among children.
Incorrect. The core of the argument addresses the dynamics of the disorder. It is not concerned with how common the disorder is, whereas answer choice B addresses the commonality of the disorder. As such, this answer choice is irrelevant.

C. consider the hearing abilities of adults who have tested the ability of children to correctly sing pitches.
Incorrect. In effect, this answer choice says that the evidence is false. For weakeners, we assume that the evidence is correct. In other words, we grant the evidence and ask whether, given this evidence, how might the conclusion be weakened. Answer choices that attack the premises are never correct. As such, answer choice C, which in effect attacks a premise/evidence, is not correct.

D. recognize that the hearing disorder would affect the perception of a note sung by an individual.
Correct. This answer choice rightly exposes the difference between hearing and singing. In the argument analysis, it was mentioned that the evidence is based off information about hearing one note higher and from this tries to explain the observation about children singing one note higher.

E. consider that pitches can differ significantly from one piano to another.
Incorrect. Even if pitches differ from one piano to another, the argument is interested in the relative higher pitch that some children perceive when they hear and/or sing a note. This argument is unaffected by different pitches across pianos. As such, this answer choice is irrelevant.



Don’t study for the GMAT. Train for it.

­Agreed! I chose the same answer due to similar reasoning. However, upon further thought, I believe it is faulty due to the following reason:
The vulnerability of the argument relies on the fact that people who perceive the notes sung by children, may hear it at a pitch higher due to suffering from the rare hearing disease. True.
However, do consider the actual scenario in (D). Say a music teacher is judging the pitch sung by the student. He plays the note 'A' on the piano which he hears as A# himself (hearing disorder) and when the child matches the pitch, he hears an A# too. Meaning, even though there might be a positive error towards the higher pitch, it is him who is suffering from the disease. If both were to suffer from this disease then when A is played on the piano, the perceived pitch sung by the diseased child should be two notes higher. So the question stem only allows one possible scenario that the people perceiving the sound and not the children singing it are suffering from it.

Thus, invalidating the vulnerability posed and that option in a real world scenario. I find this to be a flaw in the last sentence of the question stem.