Critical Reasoning

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.


Can someone please explain this. Stuart, I would really appreciate your help in explaining this one.

Thanks.
Abhi

only B is supporting the argument

abhi75 wrote: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.


Can someone please explain this. Stuart, I would really appreciate your help in explaining this one.

Thanks.
Abhi

We can summarize the argument as follows:

Flute fragment found with 4 notes of the diatonic scale. Therefore, creators of flute knew about and used the diatonic scale.

In order to reach that conclusion, the author has to assume that the 4 notes on the fragment aren't just coincidentally on the diatonic scale.

Our prediction for a strengthener: some actual evidence that it's not just a coincidence OR something that allows us to extrapolate more info from the 4 notes on the fragment.

Only choice (e) gives us useful information. If we know that the flute could have contained the entire scale, that's more evidence that the creators knew about and used the scale.

This is a great situation to use Kaplan's denial test. Let's look at the opposite of (e):

It is NOT true that 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.

Well, if the flute couldn't have been long enough to encompass the entire scale, then we're very skeptical that the neanderthals were actually using the scale. In other words, the opposite of (e) casts doubt on the conclusion: therefore, (e) itself must be a strengthener.

It's important to remember that strengthening isn't the same as proving. (E) certainly doesn't prove that neanderthals used the scale, it just makes that conclusion more believable.

Hi Stuart,

Thanks for your great explanation. The OA is definitely E. I am always off on these kind of questions. Need to practice more!

-abhi

I went with C as I needed to link the N's and the cave bone used in the flute. C says that the cave bone was used to make the flute and the campsite at which flute was excavated also contained skeletal remains of cave bears.

C linked them, How ever E is a better answer as it not only says that the flute is made of cave bear leg bone, but also long enough which supports the used and developed part in the original stimulus.

Thank you very much Stuart. Your explanation gives me another weapon to fight this freaking question

Excellent explanation Stuart. Thank you

thanks Stuart!!! again

gilliamwibson wrote:thanks Stuart!!! again

Nice question and nice explanation

Nice question

Hi Stuart,


Can you please explain why B is wrong and how to approach strongly support type of questions in general.

CR is a weak area for me

Thanks!

Regards,
Divya

Yeah, Even I don't know why B is incorrect....

Please explain

answer choice B seems to eliminate the doubt that there was an even earlier discovery / usage of the diatonic scale since no instrument was found to be dated earlier. but that only strengthens the conclusion "the diatonic scale was NOT discovered tens of thousands of years ago"

that really doesn't help the conclusion of it being discovered thousands of years ago


answer choice C is strange because if the bone was long enough to play the entire scale then why didn't the neandrathals have all the holes, if they can drill 4 why not the rest? the conclusion was they discovered the entire scale. not just 4 of the notes.

when you negate it and the bone was NOT long enough for the 7 holes for the 7 notes. then that gives an explanation for why they didn't have the 7 holes, they only have the 4 holes that fit. i don't think we can assume music knowledge that a lot of scales share the same notes. wouldn't a more reasonable assumption be, if a scale is different, it shares no notes with any other scale?

any clarification would be much appreciated!