Music student: Textbooks on the history of orchestral music generally devote only a small amount of coverage to the music...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
Music student: Textbooks on the history of orchestral music generally devote only a small amount of coverage to the music of the past fifty years. The textbook authors generally wish to reflect the consensus among musicologists and critics regarding what are the greatest works in musical history. Thus, the consensus of these experts must be that the vast majority of history's greatest orchestral music was produced more than fifty years ago, since __
Which of the following, if correct, would most logically complete the music student's argument?
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| Textbooks on the history of orchestral music generally devote only a small amount of coverage to the music of the past fifty years. |
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| The textbook authors generally wish to reflect the consensus among musicologists and critics regarding what are the greatest works in musical history. |
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| Thus, the consensus of these experts must be that the vast majority of history's greatest orchestral music was produced more than fifty years ago |
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Argument Flow:
The student starts with an observation about textbook coverage, then explains why textbooks are structured this way (they follow expert consensus), and finally draws a conclusion about what that expert consensus must be. The argument flows from observable evidence to underlying explanation.
Main Conclusion:
Music experts believe that most of history's greatest orchestral music was created more than fifty years ago.
Logical Structure:
The argument uses textbook coverage patterns as evidence for expert opinion. If textbooks reflect expert consensus AND textbooks barely cover recent music, THEN experts must think recent music isn't among the greatest works. The missing piece would strengthen this logical chain.
Prethinking:
Question type:
Logically Completes - We need to find a statement that logically fills in the blank to complete the music student's reasoning chain
Precision of Claims
The argument deals with coverage quantity (small amount vs vast majority), time periods (past 50 years vs more than 50 years ago), and expert consensus about musical greatness
Strategy
The music student is making a logical argument: textbooks cover little recent music → authors want to reflect expert consensus → therefore experts think most great music is old. We need to find what assumption or connecting piece makes this logic work. The missing piece should explain why limited textbook coverage of recent music proves that experts think most great music is older
This choice provides the crucial missing link in the argument. It establishes that textbook coverage is proportional to the amount of great music from each period. If authors cover periods proportionally based on how much great music was produced in each era, and recent music gets minimal coverage, then logically most great music must come from earlier periods. This creates the direct connection between textbook coverage patterns and expert consensus about musical greatness that the argument needs.
This choice is too extreme and goes beyond what the argument needs. The argument concludes that the 'vast majority' of great music is older, not that 'most' recent music isn't among the greatest. Additionally, this choice focuses on what experts don't consider great, rather than establishing the proportional relationship between coverage and greatness that would logically complete the argument.
This choice introduces an irrelevant factor about authors' personal career focus. Even if authors cover music they've studied most, this doesn't establish any connection between coverage amounts and expert consensus about which periods produced the greatest music. This shifts the focus away from the logical relationship the argument is trying to establish.
This choice reverses the logical direction we need. It tells us that covered music is considered great, but we need to know that coverage is proportional to greatness. Just because covered music is great doesn't mean the amount of coverage reflects the proportion of great music from different periods.
This choice creates a circular reasoning problem. If experts develop expertise by studying textbooks, and textbooks reflect expert consensus, then we have a circular relationship that doesn't help establish the logical connection between current textbook coverage patterns and independent expert judgment about musical periods.