flute

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flute

by Mani_mba » Tue Aug 05, 2008 11:38 pm
The spacing of the four holes on a fragment of a bone flute excavated at a Neanderthal campsite is just what is required to play the third through sixth notes of the diatonic scale—the seven-note musical scale used in much of Western music since the Renaissance. Musicologists therefore hypothesize that the diatonic musical scale was developed and used thousands of years before it was adopted by Western musicians.
Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the hypothesis?
A. Bone flutes were probably the only musical instrument made by Neanderthals.
B. No musical instrument that is known to have used a diatomic scale is of an earlier date than the flute found at the Neanderthal campsite.
C. The flute was made from a cave-bear bone and the campsite at which the flute fragment was excavated was in a cave that also contained skeletal remains of cave bears.
D. Flutes are the simplest wind instrument that can be constructed to allow playing a diatonic scale.
E. The cave-bear leg bone used to make the Neanderthal flute would have been long enough to make a flute capable of playing a complete diatonic scale.

Please justify your answer.
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by Vignesh.4384 » Wed Aug 06, 2008 2:21 am
IMO E

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by Fab » Wed Aug 06, 2008 7:13 am
I would say D.

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by pranavc » Wed Aug 06, 2008 7:17 am
IMO E

The justification.

A. Irrelevant to the conclusion/hypothesis
B. The issue is about western music adopting the diatonic scale much after it was developed - not whether Neanderthals were the first ones to develop an instrument that could capture the diatonic scale.
C. Cave-bears are irrelevant to the conclusion.
D. The idea Flutes being the simplest instruments has absolutely no bearing on the conclusion.

By process of elimination, E is the right answer.

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by sudhir3127 » Tue Aug 12, 2008 3:43 am
can we know the OA. how does E says that diatonic musical scale was developed and used thousands of years before being adopted by western musicians ?

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by santa_dem » Tue Aug 12, 2008 3:49 am
IMO E only weakens the conclusion, as it means they could have made a full scale, and only did 4 notes, so maybe they did not use the 7 scale after all.

D sounds good to me.

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by ildude02 » Tue Aug 12, 2008 10:43 am
IMO E:

It says that even if they had the cpabilities to develop something else, they intentionally made the one they would want to "use" ..which is that they know how to use the insturment for diatonic scale.

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by kris77 » Thu May 12, 2016 12:43 pm
I will Go with option E in this case.