Critical Reasoning

A violin constructed to have improved sound would sound different from the best-sounding existing violins.
To professional violinists, a violin that sounds different from the best-sounding existing violins sounds less like a violin and therefore worse than the best-sounding existing violins.
Professional violinists are the only accepted judges of the sound quality of violins.
Would be the best supported by those statements?
(A) Only amateur violinists should be asked to judge the sound quality of newly constructed violins.
(B) Professional violinists supervise the construction of violins.
(C) The best-sounding existing violins have been in existence fro several centuries.
(D) It is currently impossible to construct a violin that the only accepted judges will evaluate as having improved sound.
(E) It is possible to construct a violin that sounds better than the best-sounding existing violins to everyone but professional violinists

OA after discussion [/spoiler]

In my opinion it shd be E.

A - Amatuer violinists -- this ans is out of scope.
B - If professional violinists were supervising than the voilin might have the same sound as that of best sounding existing voilins. So this ans is also incorrect.
C- Nothing has been said about existence of vioins. so out of scope.
D - "Impossible" this word signals that this ans is an extreme anas. So incorrect.
E - Yes it could be possible to build a voilin that sounds beter although prof voilinist consider it worse than best sounding voilins.

Let me know tha OA pls.

I will go with B. Explanations after the OA.

A violin constructed to have improved sound would sound different from the best-sounding existing violins.

in the beginning, very serious claim has been made by the author, hmm

To professional violinists, a violin that sounds different from the best-sounding existing violins sounds less like a violin and therefore worse than the best-sounding existing violins.

Professional violinists are the only accepted judges of the sound quality of violins.


Would be the best supported by those statements?


This question possibly asks for the conclusion that is best supported by these statements
(A) Only amateur violinists should be asked to judge the sound quality of newly constructed violins. <-- Incorrect, irrelevant as the conclusion is related to professional violinists;
(B) Professional violinists supervise the construction of violins. <-- Incorrect, the construction is supervised not by professional violinists, additional information not contained in the stimuli;
(C) The best-sounding existing violins have been in existence for several centuries. <-- Incorrect, the best-sounding violins were in existence for undefined period of time, extra information;
(D) It is currently impossible to construct a violin that the only accepted judges will evaluate as having improved sound. <--

OR if it would possible to construct the violin that the only accepted judges could evaluate as having improved sound, then the conclusion would be false, therefore keep this as not possible to strengthen (support) the conclusion

this conclusion is already, so the decisive statement about impossibility of constructing new violins should support the author's opinion. Correct;

(E) It is possible to construct a violin that sounds better than the best-sounding existing violins to everyone but professional violinists <-- Incorrect, almost opposite to choice D)

Thanks night reader for the explanation , but i still cant get it . I am not able to get the point that its impossible to make such violin . I m totally off track it seems . I chose option E .

OA is D

AIM GMAT wrote:Thanks night reader for the explanation , but i still cant get it . I am not able to get the point that its impossible to make such violin . I m totally off track it seems . I chose option E .

OA is D

Yea, I put this here ...this conclusion is already weak, so the decisive statement about impossibility of constructing new violins should support the author's opinion.

and here is a click for those kinda CRs --> review LSAT Logical Reasoning, pick up all tricks there and set the game rules indeed CR in GMAT has its own rules of thinking

what's the source?

prachich1987 wrote:what's the source?

1000 CR.

At first, i was skeptical about D but the other choices were fairly easy to eliminate and hence, after re examining D against the premise, it made sense. Here's my reasoning:

A) The argument never suggests this. In fact, the word amateur is not even used in the premise.

B) Out of scope

C) Out of scope. The argument suggests nothing about the history of violins

E) The most tempting correct answer. However, pay close attention to the word 'everyone' here. It is too extreme. The argument does not talk about the tastes of any other violinists other than those who are professional. Hence, if even one of the non pro violinists would not consider the sound of the improved violins superior , this choice is invalidated

D) The word impossible may sound extreme, but read the argument closely. It suggests that the best sounding violins are already established and in the opinion of pro's, ANY violin that has an improved sound will sound different to the current best violins will be denounced by the pro's. As the only way to top an established product is to create one that IMPROVES upon the current best product and as any IMPROVED violin will be rejected by the judges, whom the argument confirms as the only accepted judges of the best violin sound, it is indeed impossible to construct a violin that the judges will consider an improvisation upon the current best sounding violins.

The term 'constructed to have improved sound' at the beginning of the argument is a red herring. The argument establishes that the pro violinists are the ones who decide what constitutes an improved sound. The improved sound at the beginning of the argument is actually meant to be a 'different sound' and according to the judges, anything that sounds different from the current best violins is not a violin.

Ravish -

You have it exactly! Very nice explanation. It is very true that the first statement is a bit deceptive. "A violin constructed to have improved sound" would not necessarily succeed in having improved sound. But we are told that the violin would sound different and therefore the only accepted judges would say it is in inferior.

As Ravish describes this all adds up to "impossible" to construct a violin that sounds better.

Nice work...