Jazz musicians often have classical music upbringing. Rock musicians,

Question

Jazz musicians often have classical music upbringing. Rock musicians, on the other hand, rarely display any classical training. Research on various historic records indicates that Jazz music written as long ago as forty years is still listened widely, while Rock music loses its audience much earlier. Therefore, including classical music elements into Rock music is a viable way to increase longevity of Rock music.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A) All music forms can include pieces from classical music.
B) Classical music can be fit into Jazz and Rock music with equal ease.
C) The current generation has greater choices to listen to in Jazz than in Rock music.
D) Presence of classical elements in music is a key factor in longevity of the Jazz music.
E) Rock musicians can learn classical music and include it in their compositions, even if they did not have classical music upbringing.

gvij2017 · Answer

My 2 cents for this CR problem.

Conclusion: Longevity of rock music is viable by adding classical music element.

Fact1: Jazz music is listened widely even after 40 years. Jazz Musician often had classical music upbringing. 
Fact 2: Rock music rarely had classical music training. Rock music lost its audience very early.

Prethinking: Audience would have loved Rock music for longer duration had rock music influenced by classic element. Longevity of Jazz music is due to addition of classical element.

D goes along with prethinking.

You can understand above in other way. 
A is in contact of X, but B was not in touch with X. A survived longer than B. 
B would have survived longer if B had been in touch with X.

Assumption. X is major factor for longevity of A.

AdityaHongunti · Answer

generis   jennpt  can you please explain how the negation of option E doesnt affect the argument???

BrightOutlookJenn · Answer

AdityaHongunti

Thanks for the tag. 
First of all, this is not a perfect approximation of a GMAT question, and in general, I will always suggest that candidates stick to official sources as much as possible. There are some elements of the phrasing ("upbringing" to describe a musician's background and training; "is still listened widely" is missing a "to") that already make me suspicious and doubtful of the quality of the question. Meanwhile we can also think of plenty of examples of classic rock music from the 1960s and 1970s that are still listened to today ... but I digress.

Even though we are dealing with an imperfect question, I can still support that D is a better answer than E.

To your point, let's negate E. Let's say that rock musicians can't learn classical music and include it in their compositions. OK, are rock musicians the only people who compose rock music? Couldn't they collaborate with other musicians who know how to incorporate classical aspects in their compositions? For E to be an assumption, we would have to separately believe (assume) that the only possible creators of rock music are rock musicians, which I find unlikely.

However, D is clearly what the question author wants us to choose. The question is clearly assuming that the presence of the classical elements is THE REASON that jazz music has such longevity. If it is NOT one of the key reasons for the longevity of jazz, the conclusion has ZERO basis. It is a much stronger answer choice because it hits at the CORE of the argument structure and requires no additional assumptions on our part.

Does this help? Let me know.

Best, Jennifer

Jazz musicians often have classical music upbringing. Rock musicians,

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Jazz musicians often have classical music upbringing. Rock musicians,

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