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 diatonic scale is of an earlier date than the flute found
at the Neanderthal campsite.
(0
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

https://www.beatthegmat.com/neanderthal- ... 18463.html

refer to the above post for detailed discussion of above question.

Perhaps we could look at this one a little bit more...it is from the Official Guide and is one of the more difficult questions.

First the question stem: "Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the hypothesis?"

So this is a regular strengthen question and our first job is to simply identify the main conclusion.

The stimulus:

"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."

The conclusion (hypothesis) is "the diatonic musical scale was developed and used thousands of years before it was adopted by Western musicians."

From here we get the Most Important Premise (the evidence that the argument actually relies on): "The spacing of the four holes from the fragment are just what is required to play the 3rd through 6th notes of the 7 - note diatonic scale."

Now we can simply compose a "mantra" which is what we are looking for in the correct answer. To do this we try to bring together the MIP and the Conclusion. In this case we could say "The fact that the fragment is the 3rd through 6th notes of the diatonic scale means that they could play that scale."

Now we take this to the answer choices and we look for the one that makes the 3rd through 6th notes evidence lead us to the 7-note diatonic scale.

Choice A is not what we are looking for.
Choice B is also not helpful so what if some instrument is even older?
Choice C is also beside the point, does it really matter that this is from a cave bear bone or some other bone?
Choice D seems nice, but what if there is something simpler? Does that really matter?

Choice E is exactly what we are looking for! We have notes 3 - 6 already right? But it is a 7-note scale. What about the other notes, 1, 2 and 7? Choice E let's us know that these notes could possibly be part of this instrument since the bone is long enough. This does not guarantee the conclusion, but it sure helps!

Now if this seemed pretty straightforward to you, I want you to consider that this is question 121 or 124 in the Official Guide 13th edition. So this is a tough question! But not if we do it right.

For more information on the MIP technique see the article "The MIP Technique: Critical Reasoning the Tim Duncan Way" https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/02/ ... duncan-way

conclusion: tha diatonic scale was used thousands of years ago.

Any proof that supports this statement will strengthen the argument.

D does exactly that. All other options do not.

ANs: D

Also IMO i think option E is the best.the other options seem to be out of scope with the relevant information described in the stimulus but option E does not get out of range that much!

mparkala did you mean option D or did you mean E?

E is the OA.

David@VeritasPrep wrote:Perhaps we could look at this one a little bit more...it is from the Official Guide and is one of the more difficult questions.

First the question stem: "Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the hypothesis?"

So this is a regular strengthen question and our first job is to simply identify the main conclusion.

The stimulus:

"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."

The conclusion (hypothesis) is "the diatonic musical scale was developed and used thousands of years before it was adopted by Western musicians."

From here we get the Most Important Premise (the evidence that the argument actually relies on): "The spacing of the four holes from the fragment are just what is required to play the 3rd through 6th notes of the 7 - note diatonic scale."

Now we can simply compose a "mantra" which is what we are looking for in the correct answer. To do this we try to bring together the MIP and the Conclusion. In this case we could say "The fact that the fragment is the 3rd through 6th notes of the diatonic scale means that they could play that scale."

Now we take this to the answer choices and we look for the one that makes the 3rd through 6th notes evidence lead us to the 7-note diatonic scale.

Choice A is not what we are looking for.
Choice B is also not helpful so what if some instrument is even older?
Choice C is also beside the point, does it really matter that this is from a cave bear bone or some other bone?
Choice D seems nice, but what if there is something simpler? Does that really matter?

Choice E is exactly what we are looking for! We have notes 3 - 6 already right? But it is a 7-note scale. What about the other notes, 1, 2 and 7? Choice E let's us know that these notes could possibly be part of this instrument since the bone is long enough. This does not guarantee the conclusion, but it sure helps!

Now if this seemed pretty straightforward to you, I want you to consider that this is question 121 or 124 in the Official Guide 13th edition. So this is a tough question! But not if we do it right.

For more information on the MIP technique see the article "The MIP Technique: Critical Reasoning the Tim Duncan Way" https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/02/ ... duncan-way

Thank you very much for your explanation but i am still confused about the explanation of A and B on OG. A, OG said" To the extent that this is even relevant, it tends to weaken the hypothesis; it makes less likely the possibility that Neanderthals used other types of musical instruments employing the diatonic scale." B, OG said " This also weakens the hypothesis, because it states that there is no known evidence of a certain type that would support the hypothesis." I think these two opinions are all irrelavant.
Thanks inadvance!

Crystal W wrote:Thank you very much for your explanation but i am still confused about the explanation of A and B on OG. A, OG said" To the extent that this is even relevant, it tends to weaken the hypothesis; it makes less likely the possibility that Neanderthals used other types of musical instruments employing the diatonic scale." B, OG said " This also weakens the hypothesis, because it states that there is no known evidence of a certain type that would support the hypothesis." I think these two opinions are all irrelavant.
Thanks inadvance!

I tend to agree that they are irrelevant.

Regarding choice A, either they used the scale or they didn't. That they would have used the scale on only one type of instrument is irrelevant.

Regarding choice B, the whole point of the argument is that this flute is evidence of use of the scale at a particular time. While I could see how one could argue that the fact that no instruments that played the scale and are from earlier times have been found is maybe not completely irrelevant in that it in a way indicates a lack of evidence, really this hypothesis is not about times earlier than the time the flute was made. So what B says is not really relevant.

Overall, my take is that the quality of official explanations to official questions is sometimes not at the level of the quality of the questions themselves.

My approach to B and D would be the following. We have to strengthen the idea that the diatonic scale was invented long before the Renaissance, and we have to do this on the basis of a single piece of evidence: a fragment of a bone flute on which there are holes that could have played four of the seven notes of the diatonic scale. Therefore:

1. Option B states that no musical instrument that is known to have used a diatonic scale is of an earlier date than the fragment of the flute in question. In other words, all musical instruments known to have used a diatonic scale come from the same time as, or times later than, that of the fragment of a bone flute. But this information tells us nothing about this particular fragment of the bone flute: the fact mentioned is not evidence either that the fragment could or that it could not have played the diatonic scale, and that it could is the idea that has to be established. I therefore tend to agree with Marty that this option is irrelevant and that the explanation in the Official Guide could be improved.

2. My reason for rejecting option D is that the passage is nowhere talking about FLUTES - of which, after all, there are various kinds. In other words, option D widens the scope to the point of making itself irrelevant. The principal piece of evidence and the conclusion of the musicologists involve a fragment of a single bone flute: nothing else. Furthermore, option D contains one of those typically misleading pieces of information that are there to trap the unwary: SIMPLEST. (Quite a number of students choose this option because of this word.) The tendency is to think: flutes are the simplest; Neanderthals were simple, unintelligent creatures: therefore they could only have had simple musical instruments, such as the one from which this bit of a flute comes. All these suppositions overlook the fact that this is not the idea that we must consider, which is simply whether the flute to which this fragment belongs could or could not have played the diatonic scale. Nor does it take into account that the fact that simple (or complex) flutes of various kinds could play the diatonic scale does not either support or weaken the claim that this particular fragment of an ancient flute could have played it.


3. If you use the Negation Test on option E and replace LONG ENOUGH with TOO SHORT, the claim of the musicologists remains without any evidence to sustain it, and this is therefore the correct answer.

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