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Although elementary school children have traditionally received considerable instruction in creating visual art, there has been no such instruction in music. Consequently, in contrast to the situation for visual art, most people as adults do not recognize the artistic intentions of composers. To remedy this situation, a few educators now recommend teaching elementary school students to compose music.
Which of the following, if true, is the strongest basis for arguing that implementation of the recommendation will not lead to the desired result?
Option A
Option B
Option C
Option D
Option E
(This question is from Official Guide. Therefore, because of copyrights, the complete question cannot be copied here. The question can be accessed at GMAT Club)
Although elementary school children have traditionally received considerable instruction in creating visual art, there has been no such instruction in music.
Traditionally, elementary school children have received instruction in creating visual art but not in music.
Consequently, in contrast to the situation for visual art, most people as adults do not recognize the artistic intentions of composers.
The author goes on to relate the lack of instruction to an outcome: most people as adults do not recognize the artistic intentions of composers, while they do recognize the artistic intentions of visual artists.
To remedy this situation, a few educators now recommend teaching elementary school students to compose music.
In order to get adults to recognize artistic intentions of composers, a few educators recommend adding music in the elementary school curriculum.
Gist:
In order to get adults to recognize the artistic intentions of composers (goal), some educators recommend teaching elementary school students to compose music (plan).
Their basis is that elementary school children have received instruction in creating visual art and most people as adults recognize the artistic intentions of visual artists. And on the other hand, elementary school children have not received instruction in composing music and most people as adults do not recognize the artistic intentions of music composers (support).
The educators recommend something for music that they think worked for visual art. There are two clear gaps in the argument.
Firstly, there is no certainty this worked for visual art. Instruction in school may or may not have been responsible for people’s ability to recognize the artistic intentions of visual art. It is not necessary that the two are ‘causally’ related. The two facts (children receiving instruction in visual art and children recognizing the artistic intention in visual art) might simply be coincidental or correlated without any causation.
This is a very common flaw seen in Critical Reasoning arguments.
Two seemingly related events, let’s call them X and Y, and then the author concludes that X must have caused Y. It is not necessary that the two are causally related. E.g. it is possible that
Secondly, just ‘cause something worked for visual art, it is not necessary that it will work for music as well. The way people process the two might be very different.
Highlighting either of the two gaps will get the job done. Of course, there could be other ways also to show that teaching elementary school students to compose music will not lead to people recognizing the artistic intentions of composers. We, here, were able to come up with two.
(A) Incorrect. Whether elementary school students create superior compositions has no bearing on whether those students will go on to ‘recognize’ the artistic intentions of composers once they are adults.
(B) Correct. Traditional education does not facilitate the recognition of artistic intentions. Thus, the two facts – the students being given instruction in creating visual art and most people as adults recognizing the artistic intentions – are not causally related. So, to recommend the same approach for music does not make sense.
(C) Incorrect. How many people enjoy music or how that number compares with the number of people who enjoy visual art has no impact on the argument. There is no relationship of enjoyment of the arts with either instruction in school or the ability to recognize artistic intentions.
(D) Incorrect. The argument is about the listener’s ability to discern artistic intent, and how that can be enhanced. The level of formal instruction that some ‘composers’ have undergone has no impact on either facet.
(E) Incorrect. This option says that the study was ‘controlled’ and ‘longitudinal’. These lead us to believe that the study was thorough. If anything, this strengthens the argument.
Moreover, the option talks about the number of schools in which the study was conducted. We do not have any basis to conclude that the number of schools is too few. Thus, this option does not help weaken the argument.
The author states that the second statement is a ‘consequence’ of the first statement. Now, whether this relationship between the first and the second statement should be taken as a fact or as an opinion of the author is open for debate. Since the correct option B in this question challenges this relationship, we can say that the relationship was meant to be taken as an opinion of the author.
This solution was created by Chiranjeev Singh and Anish Passi.
If you have any doubts regarding any part of this solution, please feel free to ask in the comments section.
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