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gmatdelhi
- Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Wed Oct 21, 2009 1:52 am
- Location: Delhi
- GMAT Score:730
Q. Beauty is subjective. What is beautiful to one person is not always beautiful to someone else. Consider a performance of any piece of serious contemporary music. Some members of the audience discover in it subtle and delightful patterns, which they find beautiful. Others hear arbitrary and discordant sounds, which they find ugly.
Which of the following statements, if true, would most weaken the argument above?
a) No current controversy exists over the beauty of certain lost works of art that are now unknown.
b) Performances of serious contemporary music often vary considerably in quality.
c) Those who fail to find performances of serious contemporary music beautiful disagree among themselves about what is beautiful
d) Those who find performances of serious contemporary music beautiful never like them as much as they like performances of older music.
e) Some performances of older classical music have been found beautiful by all who heard them.
OA: E
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This is how I went about answering the question:
1. Weaken type qs.
2. Conclusion: Beauty is subjective
3. Premise: example of one style of music that is liked by some, and disliked by others
4. Possible assumptions -
A1 - the only factor that has caused some to like this type of music and others to dislike it is their OPINION of the music. What could other factors be? Maybe the people who didn't like the music was because they have hearing problems (very random, but was just trying to make a point that their COULD be other reasons...?!)
A2 - the fact that music is subjective, implies that beauty (including all other things like art, writing, etc) is also subjective - that this generalization is justified.
In my first look through the answer choices, I though E made most sense. But I was skeptical because it said "some" and also because just because everyone who heard the music liked it does not imply that beauty is not subjective. Maybe it was the kind of music that everybody likes. How can you generalize?
Afterthought: Weaken answer choices are not expected to "destroy" the argument, but cast doubt on the conclusion, which is what this does. If it had generalized, it would've destroyed the argument. But it still manages to cast a doubt.
Then I looked through the list again and chose B. This is because it attacks my first assumption (A1). Another factor that could have caused some people to dislike the music could have been that they heard the music being played by musicians who did not play so well.
Afterthought: If this was the reason people did not like the music, it would imply that all of them like this type of music, which actually contradicts the conclusion, as it implies that beauty is NOT subjective (since everyone would've liked it had it been played well).
Ah, I guess of kind of understood why the answer is E. But please someone validate my thoughts on this. The explanation video has not helped too much.
Suggestion to BTG Prac Qs creators: Will be helpful if you design the answer explanation/video where you identify the question type, conclusion, premises and assumptions. Anyone else agree with this?
Which of the following statements, if true, would most weaken the argument above?
a) No current controversy exists over the beauty of certain lost works of art that are now unknown.
b) Performances of serious contemporary music often vary considerably in quality.
c) Those who fail to find performances of serious contemporary music beautiful disagree among themselves about what is beautiful
d) Those who find performances of serious contemporary music beautiful never like them as much as they like performances of older music.
e) Some performances of older classical music have been found beautiful by all who heard them.
OA: E
----
This is how I went about answering the question:
1. Weaken type qs.
2. Conclusion: Beauty is subjective
3. Premise: example of one style of music that is liked by some, and disliked by others
4. Possible assumptions -
A1 - the only factor that has caused some to like this type of music and others to dislike it is their OPINION of the music. What could other factors be? Maybe the people who didn't like the music was because they have hearing problems (very random, but was just trying to make a point that their COULD be other reasons...?!)
A2 - the fact that music is subjective, implies that beauty (including all other things like art, writing, etc) is also subjective - that this generalization is justified.
In my first look through the answer choices, I though E made most sense. But I was skeptical because it said "some" and also because just because everyone who heard the music liked it does not imply that beauty is not subjective. Maybe it was the kind of music that everybody likes. How can you generalize?
Afterthought: Weaken answer choices are not expected to "destroy" the argument, but cast doubt on the conclusion, which is what this does. If it had generalized, it would've destroyed the argument. But it still manages to cast a doubt.
Then I looked through the list again and chose B. This is because it attacks my first assumption (A1). Another factor that could have caused some people to dislike the music could have been that they heard the music being played by musicians who did not play so well.
Afterthought: If this was the reason people did not like the music, it would imply that all of them like this type of music, which actually contradicts the conclusion, as it implies that beauty is NOT subjective (since everyone would've liked it had it been played well).
Ah, I guess of kind of understood why the answer is E. But please someone validate my thoughts on this. The explanation video has not helped too much.
Suggestion to BTG Prac Qs creators: Will be helpful if you design the answer explanation/video where you identify the question type, conclusion, premises and assumptions. Anyone else agree with this?
