Educator: Like many other difficult pursuits, music requires intense

Question

Educator : Like many other difficult pursuits, music requires intense study and practice from an early age in order for one to become proficient. But many school music programs encourage only children who demonstrate early aptitude to continue studying music, while children who do not appear especially musical are directed towards other activities. Having learned to think of themselves as musically inept, these children do not devote any time to music, and thus some of them deprive themselves of the opportunity to develop latent but potentially significant musical talent.
 
The educator's statements, if true, would best support which of the following conclusions?

(A) Music education should not devote special attention to talented students.

(B) Everyone has the potential to learn music.

(C) Talent is not always apparent at an early age.

(D) Children are particularly sensitive to criticism from adults.

(E) All children should study music.

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

We are asked to draw a conclusion based on the educator's statements. The educator states that children who demonstrate early talent for music are encouraged to pursue it while children who do not show such talent are not encouraged and thus deprive themselves of the opportunity to develop a latent talent. We must find an answer choice that is based only on these statements.

(A) This choice states that music education should not devote special attention to talented students. This goes beyond the scope of the educator's statements.

(B) This choice states that everyone has the potential to learn music. This goes beyond the scope of the educator's statements. The educator is arguing against classifying students as musically inept at an early age because they might have latent talent that is not showing itself. He is not necessarily saying that everyone has the potential to learn music.

(C) CORRECT.  By referring to the latent talent that some children may be neglecting, the educator is implying that not all talent shows its face at an early age.

(D) The fact that children who are directed towards other activities have learned to think of themselves as musically inept doesn't mean that children are particularly sensitive to criticism from adults. The being "directed towards other activities" is not necessarily best characterized criticism, and furthermore, it is not just children that tend to think themselves incapable of something if they don't partake in that activity.

(E) The educator is not necessarily claiming that all children should study music.

sidhu09 · Answer

Given:
Music requires practice from an early age to become proficient. Music schools encourage children with talent while those who do not show talent are directed towards other activities. Hence such students do not spend time to learn music.

A)Music education should not devote special attention to talented students. -  Too strong a statement to make - Incorrect 
B)Everyone has the potential to learn music. -  Already info provided in the passage - Incorrect 
C)Talent is not always apparent at an early age. -  As per the passage, if given enough time talent can be developed - Correct 
D)Children are particularly sensitive to criticism from adults. -  Out of scope - Incorrect 
E)All children should study music. -  Strong statement - Incorrect

MacFauz · Answer

Tough choice between C and E. Will go with C only because E sounds a bit too strong.

Kudos Please... If my post helped.

TGC · Answer

A)Music education should not devote special attention to talented students. 
Extreme
B)Everyone has the potential to learn music. 
Can't say
C)Talent is not always apparent at an early age.
Bingo, NOT ALWAYS is the keyword here 
D)Children are particularly sensitive to criticism from adults. 
OOS
E)All children should study music. 
EXTREME

thatsdhaval · Answer

Its D .. because it is because of the adults that the students are deprived of what to do and what they cannot do.

pqhai · Answer

It's not D thatsdhaval.

You can get the main idea from the phrase "thus some of them deprive themselves of  the opportunity to develop latent but potentially significant musical talent "
It means some people would have the ability to develop musical talent later than other people.

Correct answer is C.

Hope it helps.

HumptyDumpty · Answer

Adults don't want not musical children to learn music. Thus, the children learn that they are musically inept. Therefore, the children resign from learning music and do not develop musical talent.

Why C wrong: Talent is developed later by children who practise.
Why D right: Children will not develop talent as a result of adults' critisism. The children totally give up practising because of adults' behaviour. In effect, children will not develop latent develop talent.

This is about "aptitude to continue studying music", not about showing talent. Two different things.

Rizz · Answer

IMO it is D.

A) The passage is talking about "children wo demonstrate early aptitude" , not those who have talent in music. Aptitude and talent are two different subjects. 
B) The discussion is only about children who are studying in schools, not about everyone. Exaggeration.
C) This one is tricky. The passage discussing about the reason why talented / untalented students who do not possess enough aptitude towards music have been diverted to other activities. The conclusion is not about the development of early or late talent. 
 D) IMO it is the correct answer. The keywords are "Having learned to think of themselves as musically inept" and "some of them deprive themselves of the opportunity to develop". Due to the criticism they face from adults, children tend to direct to other activities. 
 E) Completely out of scope.

Prateek176 · Answer

mikemcgarry  I am still confused between C and D

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear prateek176 I'm happy to respond.

This prompt, which is best supported, is very close to an inference prompt. See this blog: GMAT Critical Reasoning: Find the Conclusion or Inference An inference has to stick very close to the given information. There can be no huge leaps. Here's the paragraph: Educator : Like many other difficult pursuits, music requires intense study and practice from an early age in order for one to become proficient. But many school music programs encourage only children who demonstrate early aptitude to continue studying music, while children who do not appear especially musical are directed towards other activities. Having learned to think of themselves as musically inept, these children do not devote any time to music, and thus some of them deprive themselves of the opportunity to develop latent but potentially significant musical talent. This whole thing is about music and musical talent. The clear inference is that there are some children who have musical talent but this talent isn't evident at a young age. In other words, " Talent is not always apparent at an early age ." This is what (C) says. Technically, we can only infer what is true about " musical talent ," but that is something true about at least some talent in general. Choice (D) is much more far-reaching. It's tempting, because we intuit that it's probably true, but technically, this passage is only about the narrow topic of music and musical talent. Is how children react to adult feedback about music similar to how they would react to other adult feedback? Maybe. We don't know. We are not are rigorously certain grounds here, so this is not a good inference. Does this make sense? Mike

prabsahi · Answer

Be careful with option like E…which is more inclined towards some morale in real life which should happen but not cannot actually be derived as MUST be true from the passage.

Again in MBT be CAREFUL with words…SOME is the CATCH here

(E) The educator is not necessarily claiming that all children should study music. As in choice (B), the educator only argues that some of the children who don't study music have latent musical talents. Furthermore, the educator does not provide any other rationales for studying music, besides the development of proficiency

Press Kudos if it helps!!

LoneSurvivor · Answer

Seems like people here confused between C and E. I was confused between C and B. Anyway marked the correct choice . Experts can you please help me how to discard B ?

Educator: Like many other difficult pursuits, music requires intense study and practice from an early age in order for one to become proficient. But many school music programs encourage only children who demonstrate early aptitude to continue studying music, while children who do not appear especially musical are directed towards 
other activities. Having learned to think of themselves as musically inept, these children do not devote any time to music, and thus some of them deprive themselves of the opportunity to develop latent but potentially significant musical talent.

The educator's statements, if true, would best support which of the following conclusions?

(A) Music education should not devote special attention to talented students.

(B) Everyone has the potential to learn music.

(C) Talent is not always apparent at an early age.

(D) Children are particularly sensitive to criticism from adults.

(E) All children should study music.

AS0306 · Answer

Correct answer - C)
This type of question is "Inference question". We need to find an answer which could be inferred from the information given in the passage.
A) Music education should not devote special attention to talented students-  Out of scope 
B)Everyone has the potential to learn music.-  This argument clearly states some people have the potential 
C)The number of proficient adult musicians is less than it could be-  This could be inferred because beacause the argument clearly states that programs encourage only children who demonstrate early aptitude to continue studying music 
D)Children are particularly sensitive to criticism from adults.-  Out of scope 
E)All children should study music.-  Out of scope

HarshZsssh · Answer

E seems to be a suggestion which is kind of a red flag

VerbalBot · Answer

Automated notice from GMAT Club VerbalBot:

A member just gave Kudos to this thread, showing it’s still useful. I’ve bumped it to the top so more people can benefit. Feel free to add your own questions or solutions.

This post was generated automatically.

Educator: Like many other difficult pursuits, music requires intense

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

Educator: Like many other difficult pursuits, music requires intense

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards