Music student: Textbooks on the history of orchestral music generally

Question

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 __

Which of the following, if correct, would most logically complete the music student's argument?

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

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

C) the orchestral music to which the textbooks devote the most coverage is typically that which the authors have spent their careers studying

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

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

MartyMurray · Accepted Answer

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.

Furthermore, this choice is different from the conclusion in a key way. The conclusion is basically that experts believe that  most of the greatest orchestral music  was produced more than fifty years ago. This choice is about  "most of the orchestral music produced in the past fifty years."

Notice that those two sets of music are different. In other words, the fact that experts believe that  "most of the orchestral music produced in the past fifty years"  is not the greatest does not mean that  most of the greatest orchestral music  was produced more than fifty years ago. After all, even if most of the music produced in the past 50 years is not the greatest, it could be that most of the greatest music was produced in the past 50 years.

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

Aim4gmat2024 · Answer

i usually dont use the concept of 'pre thinking' for CR questions, but i used here to expect a answer option.

Pre thinking the options : i need a option which tells that the newer generation of authors analyse the best of their ancestor music . A and c were the options which was related to such pre thinking.

mandilwar · Answer

option 2 is still very tempting to me as it cover 2 aspects, why there is not much music of the last 50 years as they were considered not great, and there was a mutual consensus among the experts on this view. 
Question says, if correct then which should complete the sentence, one part is mentioned in the statement that the music older than 50 years was considered great and the next part is mentioned in the option b that music less than 50 years were not good.

mandilwar · Answer

Hi Marty

Option 2 is still very tempting to me as it cover 2 aspects, why there is not much music of the last 50 years as they were considered not great, and there was a mutual consensus among the experts on this view. 
 Question says, if correct then which should complete the sentence, one part is mentioned in the statement that the music older than 50 years was considered great and the next part is mentioned in the option b that music less than 50 years was not good, which in my understanding "supports the conclusion". Is there something I am missing here?

Regards

Raman109 · Answer

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. - Premise. "music of the past fifty years" is generally covered less in the Textbooks.

The textbook authors generally wish to reflect the consensus among musicologists and critics regarding what are the greatest works in musical history. - Premise. Whats ends up in the textbooks: there is a consensus that they are the greatest works of 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 __ - Conclusion.

Which of the following, if correct, would most logically complete the music student's argument?

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 - true.

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 is out of scope. It says that most of the orchestral music produced in the past fifty years is not of the greatest quality, but that some"say 2%" can be the greatest? and that some can be more than in the time before 50 years?

C) the orchestral music to which the textbooks devote the most coverage is typically that which the authors have spent their careers studying - irrelevant

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- out of scope.

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- irrelevant

KarishmaB · Answer

Premises: History of orchestral music textbooks have little coverage of last 50 years (say only 10 pages out of 500) Textbook authors generally wish to reflect the consensus among musicologists and critics regarding what are the greatest works in musical history. (They want to say piece A is great if critics say it is great) Conclusion: Consensus of these experts must be that most of greatest orchestral music is older than 50 years. (Critics must be saying that work of last 50 years is not good) There is a gap in the logic of the argument and the missing premise should fill it up logically. The Gap: The author says that coverage of last 50 years is little and textbook writers like to reflect the opinions of critics regarding the greatest works. The author concludes - Hence, critics do not like work of last 50 years. These are disjoint thoughts. Number of pages has nothing to do with what they think of the quality of the works. So how can the author conclude this? Look at option (A). It plugs this gap. (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 If the amount of coverage of a period (number of pages allocated) depends on how great they think the works of that period were (more pages for better works), then it all makes sense. then fewer pages implies the author thinks the works are not good and since they are reflecting the thoughts of the critics, we can conclude that the critics think the works of last 50 years are not good. Hence (A) works. 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 is pretty much what our conclusion says. If we give this as a fact, then of course the conclusion works. But this does not work with the rest of the argument. What was all that discussion about pages and reflecting opinion of critics and the missing link between them then? It doesn't help us logically lead to the conclusion using the rest of the data given hence it doesn't logically plug this blank. We have to follow the thought process of the author. He said those previous things for a reason. Remember the blank should tie the entire argument together. C) the orchestral music to which the textbooks devote the most coverage is typically that which the authors have spent their careers studying No connection between the pages and the author's opinion reflecting the critic's opinion. 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 Doesn't relate to the number of pages. 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 We are talking about textbooks reflecting the opinion of experts, not the other way around. Answer (A) Here is another best completes discussion: https://youtu.be/02hcfVqIr-g

Music student: Textbooks on the history of orchestral music generally

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Music student: Textbooks on the history of orchestral music generally

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