Music education

[siddhu161]

Educator: Like many other difficult pursuits, music requires intense study and practice from an early age in order for one to become proficient. But many school music programs encourage only children who demonstrate early aptitude to continue studying music, while children who do not appear especially musical are directed towards other activities. Having learned to think of themselves as musically inept, these children do not devote any time to music, and thus some of them deprive themselves of the opportunity to develop latent but potentially significant musical talent.

The educator's statements, if true, would best support which of the following conclusions?

a. Music education should not devote special attention to talented students.
b. Everyone has the potential to learn music.
c. The number of proficient adult musicians is less than it could be.
d. Children are particularly sensitive to criticism from adults.
e. All children should study music.

Answer please.

[Sankeerthana]

Answer: C

[Brent@GMATPrepNow]

Educator: Like many other difficult pursuits, music requires intense study and practice from an early age in order for one to become proficient. But many school music programs encourage only children who demonstrate early aptitude to continue studying music, while children who do not appear especially musical are directed towards other activities. Having learned to think of themselves as musically inept, these children do not devote any time to music, and thus some of them deprive themselves of the opportunity to develop latent but potentially significant musical talent.

The educator's statements, if true, would best support which of the following conclusions?

a. Music education should not devote special attention to talented students.
b. Everyone has the potential to learn music.
c. The number of proficient adult musicians is less than it could be.
d. Children are particularly sensitive to criticism from adults.
e. All children should study music.

When looking for conclusions, always watch out for a rewording of one of the premises.

For example, consider these two premises:
PREMISE: Gary is taller than Sue
PREMISE: Gary makes the bubbles that go in champagne
What kind of conclusion can we make here?

Some students make the mistake of trying to identify a conclusion that incorporates all of the premises (which is very hard in this case). If we can't come up with our own conclusion, we should look for an answer choice that is a rewording of one of the premises. So, for this example, a valid conclusion would be "Sue is shorter than Gary"

--------------------------------------------

Back to the original question...

The end of the passage reads some of them deprive themselves of the opportunity to develop latent but potentially significant musical talent
In other words, some people never get a chance to develop into great musicians.
In other words, the number of proficient adult musicians is less than it could be.

So, the answer is C

Cheers,
Brent

[BTGmoderatorAT]

c. The number of proficient adult musicians is less than it could be.

*Have you got zero musical talent, but a burning desire to play, then we can be a musician and can learn to play an instrument even an old age..Are there some differences between the way children and adults learn?

[DavidG@VeritasPrep]

c. The number of proficient adult musicians is less than it could be.

*Have you got zero musical talent, but a burning desire to play, then we can be a musician and can learn to play an instrument even an old age..Are there some differences between the way children and adults learn?

It's true that it's hypothetically possible for someone who never received musical training as a child to develop proficiency as a result. But take a look at that last line again: some of them deprive themselves of the opportunity to develop latent but potentially significant musical talent. Note also, that in this question, we're trying to determine what conclusion we could derive if the statements are true. Well, if some children deprive themselves of the opportunity to develop their latent talent, it stands to reason that some of them will also fail to become proficient adults.