There is no surviving recording of the Duke Ellington Orchestra's performance of a piece that Ellington wrote for the orchestra...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
There is no surviving recording of the Duke Ellington Orchestra's performance of a piece that Ellington wrote for the orchestra late in his career. Two different bands have recently recorded the piece, each claiming to have made an authentic reproduction of the Ellington Orchestra's performance. One of these two recorded performances, however, is much closer to Ellington's own handwritten score, and must therefore be the more authentic of the two.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| There is no surviving recording of the Duke Ellington Orchestra's performance of a piece that Ellington wrote for the orchestra late in his career. |
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| Two different bands have recently recorded the piece, each claiming to have made an authentic reproduction of the Ellington Orchestra's performance. |
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| One of these two recorded performances, however, is much closer to Ellington's own handwritten score, and must therefore be the more authentic of the two. |
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Argument Flow:
The argument starts by establishing that we have no original recording to compare against. It then presents two competing claims of authenticity. Finally, it argues that following the written score more closely proves which performance is more authentic.
Main Conclusion:
The recorded performance that more closely follows Ellington's handwritten score must be the more authentic reproduction of the original orchestra's performance.
Logical Structure:
The argument assumes that being closer to the written score automatically means being more authentic to the actual performance. It uses the written score as a proxy for authenticity, reasoning that: \(\mathrm{Written\ Score\ Closeness} \rightarrow \mathrm{Greater\ Authenticity\ to\ Original\ Performance}\).
Prethinking:
Question type:
Weaken - We need to find information that would reduce our belief in the conclusion that the performance closer to Ellington's handwritten score is more authentic
Precision of Claims
The argument makes a quality claim about authenticity - specifically that closeness to the written score equals greater authenticity of the original performance
Strategy
To weaken this argument, we need to attack the core assumption that following the written score more closely makes a performance more authentic to how Ellington's orchestra actually played it. We should look for scenarios where the written score might not reflect the actual performance, or where authenticity could be determined by factors other than adherence to the score
This choice tells us that Ellington deliberately wrote his scores in code to prevent plagiarism, which means the written scores intentionally misrepresent what his orchestra actually played. This completely destroys the argument's core assumption that following the written score more closely leads to greater authenticity. If the score doesn't reflect the actual performance, then being closer to it would actually make a recording less authentic, not more. This severely weakens the argument.
This choice points out that neither band had original orchestra members. While this might be relevant to overall authenticity, it doesn't address the specific reasoning that closeness to the written score determines which performance is more authentic. The argument could still hold that between these two bands without original members, the one closer to the score is more authentic. This doesn't weaken the core logic.
This tells us that some pieces credited to Ellington were actually composed by Billy Strayhorn. However, we're told this particular piece was written by Ellington late in his career, so this information about other pieces doesn't affect the reasoning about this specific piece. This is irrelevant to weakening the argument.
This mentions that the piece was probably recorded but those recordings were lost. This just restates what we already know from the passage - that no original recording survives. This doesn't challenge the logic that closeness to the written score indicates authenticity. This doesn't weaken the argument.
This describes a saxophonist from the original orchestra who later performed the piece differently from the written score. While this suggests the score might not reflect all performance variations, it's about one musician's later interpretation, not about what the original orchestra actually played under Ellington's direction. This provides some doubt but doesn't directly attack the core reasoning like Choice A does.