The vast majority of extant music from the medieval period is recorded

Question

The vast majority of extant music from the medieval period is recorded on manuscripts. The production of medieval manuscripts was very costly, because all manuscripts were painstakingly copied by hand onto an expensive form of parchment. As a result, few people were able to produce or own them, and the Catholic Church, which had literate scribes as well as considerable wealth, produced and maintained most manuscripts during the Middle Ages. Any medieval music not recorded on manuscripts has now been lost to history. Most of the medieval music still in existence is sacred music.

The passage above implies all of the following EXCEPT:

A. The parchment on which medieval music was copied was difficult to produce.
B. Few were qualified for the time-consuming task of copying manuscripts.
C. The Church was selective about what music was copied down.
D. The copying of manuscripts was limited to people who knew how to read.
E. Most of the non-sacred music from the medieval period has been lost to history.

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

The Correct Answer: 
A In question 4, the student is asked to consider which statement cannot be inferred from the passage. The passage makes a number of claims about manuscripts in the medieval period, but the only comment on the parchment from which the manuscripts were made is that it was expensive. It might seem logical to argue that if the parchment was expensive, it must also have been difficult to produce, but there is no statement in the passage that supports this claim in any way, so the conclusion cannot be drawn safely. Therefore, answer choice (A) is correct.

The Incorrect Answers: 
B The passage notes that the manuscripts were “painstakingly copied by hand” and that the only people qualified to do this work were the scribes (who were literate), suggesting that the work required a great deal of time and effort and that few people were able to copy manuscripts. From this, answer choice (B) may be inferred from the passage and is thus incorrect.

C The passage claims that the Church produced most of the manuscripts. The passage also indicates that the majority of extant medieval music is sacred (i.e., deriving from the Church), so it may be inferred that the Church was selective about what music was copied down. Therefore, the passage does imply the statement in answer choice (C). (Note that this does not necessarily suggest that the Church did not value popular music – see answer choice (B) from question 3 – but that it was selective. The two qualities must be distinguished from one another.)

D The passage notes that the manuscripts were “copied by hand” and that the Church had “literate scribes” to do this job, suggesting that within the Church they alone were qualified to copy down manuscripts. As a result, the passage does imply that only the literate (those who know how to read) were allowed to copy down manuscripts. Note that the question does not say that of all members of society, the scribes alone were allowed to copy down manuscripts. It is entirely possible that literate members of the aristocracy copied down manuscripts. What is significant with regard to this question is that scribes were literate, not that they were members of a certain class within society.

E The passage comments, “Any medieval music not recorded on manuscripts has now been lost to history. Most of the medieval music still in existence is sacred music.” From this it may rightly be inferred that most non-sacred music from the medieval period has been lost to history, so the passage implies answer choice (E), and answer choice (E) is incorrect.

sudarshan22 · Answer

+1 for   A  .

A. The parchment on which medieval music was copied was difficult to produce. -->   Correct  ,  Cost is expensive, and that is what is mentioned, but there is no mentioning that it was     difficult to produce  
 B. Few were qualified for the time-consuming task of copying manuscripts. -->  Can be inferred 
C. The Church was selective about what music was copied down. -->  Can be inferred 
D. The copying of manuscripts was limited to people who knew how to read.-->  Can be inferred 
E. Most of the non-sacred music from the medieval period has been lost to history. -->  Can be inferred

Hence,   A  .

teja@6091 · Answer

A. The parchment on which medieval music was copied was difficult to produce.----->all manuscripts were painstakingly copied by hand
B. Few were qualified for the time-consuming task of copying manuscripts..----- >few people were able to produce or own them, 
C. The Church was selective about what music was copied down.-----> the Catholic Church, which had literate scribes as well as considerable wealth, produced and maintained most manuscripts during the Middle Ages
D. The copying of manuscripts was limited to people who knew how to read.-----> few people were able to produce or own them, 
E. Most of the non-sacred music from the medieval period has been lost to history.

Confused between C and E marked E

Srajagopal21 · Answer

I feel both C and A cannot be inferred from the argument.
A - Nothing is mentioned about the difficulty level of producing Parchment. 
C - From the argument "Catholic Church, which had literate scribes as well as considerable wealth, produced and maintained most manuscripts during the Middle Ages"
This just implies that Church did maintain most of the Manuscripts from middle Ages. But this doesn't mean that Church 'MOSTLY' maintained or church was 'SELECTIVE'
You cannot infer 'WHAT ELSE' the church maintained.

How do you say that you can infer C?

sudarshan22 · Answer

Srajagopal21 
I zeroed out option C as per the portion highlighted in red:

The vast majority of extant music from the medieval period is recorded on manuscripts. The production of medieval manuscripts was very costly, because all manuscripts were painstakingly copied by hand onto an expensive form of parchment. As a result, few people were able to produce or own them,  and the Catholic Church , which had literate scribes as well as considerable wealth,  produced and maintained most manuscripts during the Middle Ages.  Any medieval music not recorded on manuscripts has now been lost to history.  Most of the medieval music still in existence is     sacred music.

Hope it helped.

Srajagopal21 · Answer

Sure I get that, but that doesn't still mention anything about what else Church maintained. I agree that most medieval music was maintained by the Church, but how can we infer that Church was selective about music? We Don't know what else the Church maintained.

Any suggestions  daagh ,  chetan2u ,  nightblade354

daagh · Answer

The question I think asks what is implied 'except' 
Since three were only a few people who were literate enough to copy and because the parchments were very expensive, no one, leave alone the church, which is a religious body, would have been interested in choosing all and sundry stuff. Had the church not been choosy about the sacredness, then today we must be having plenty of non-sacred music too. Therefore, C can be implied. 
On the contrary, there is no mention of the parchments being difficult to produce or obtain. Any such thinking would be out of reason

nightblade354 · Answer

Hi  Srajagopal21 ,

I completely agree with you to a certain extent. We are never told that the church was selective. We are told only that the music today is mostly sacred. Now this could mean that the church rooted out certain types, or that they just didn't have the ability to copy any others because it wasn't available to them. This question has some flaws, but it a nice practice question, no doubt.

That said, (A) is a clear winner here. Never is it mentioned that the parchment is difficult to retrieve. When in doubt, always go for the clear cut, 100% correct answer.

Srajagopal21 · Answer

Thanks for your thoughts  daagh  and  nightblade354 , greatly appreciated!

The vast majority of extant music from the medieval period is recorded

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The vast majority of extant music from the medieval period is recorded

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