#12 - Parallel Reasoning

[allisonellen7]

Hi there!
I am struggling to see why E is correct over C. Is it just because C states that the two evolved from the other species when the passage doesn't explicitly say that blues and spirituals evolved from West African culture? Thanks in advance!

[BethRibet]

Hi Allison,

Thanks for the question. You've hit on one flaw in answer choice C, but another is the phrase "recently discovered", which has no equivalent in the original passage.

Hope this helps!

Beth

[Catallus]

I don't see why the phrase "from which they both evolved" at the end of answer choice (C) would be considered a flaw in (C). The passage directly states that "blues and spirituals may well arise from a common reservoir of experience," and the correct answer choice for #10 affirms that this passage seeks to "uncover the shared origin of both the blues and spirituals." Thus, it's relatively clear that the author regards blues and spirituals as sharing an origin, so I looked for that important feature in the answer choices. Hence, I chose (C) over (E), reasoning that although the two shrub species in (E) are "similar to a third, older species," this does not mean that the two shrubs both descended/evolved from that third shrub species—all we know is that it's older. (C), by contrast, provides a shared evolutionary origin. So why is (E) better than (C)?

The best I can figure is that (C) calls for a "reclassification" of one of the species, while the passage seems to be seeking a "more full[]" "understanding" of blues but never explicitly calls for a reclassification of blues. I see Beth's point that (C) mentions "recently discovered," but I'm struggling to see why that matters—or why it outweighs (E)'s problem of not accounting for shared origin.

Any help would be appreciated!

[Dana D]

Hey Catallus,

The passage is not saying that blues and spirituals both evolved from a shared entity - they tap into a 'shared reservoir of experience', which refers to the inspiration behind both spirituals and blues rather than a set, third entity.

For example, both blues and spirituals might address the topic of loss, but they do not come from loss, that's a shared experience both happen to have. Similarly, both blues and spirituals exhibit underlying aesthetics of African American culture, but the author does not set out to prove they both evolved from this culture.

Does that make sense?

[Catallus]

The passage is not saying that blues and spirituals both evolved from a shared entity - they tap into a 'shared reservoir of experience', which refers to the inspiration behind both spirituals and blues rather than a set, third entity.

For example, both blues and spirituals might address the topic of loss, but they do not come from loss, that's a shared experience both happen to have. Similarly, both blues and spirituals exhibit underlying aesthetics of African American culture, but the author does not set out to prove they both evolved from this culture.

Thanks for your response!

Question #10 for this same passage, combining the question stem and the correct answer, states that "The primary purpose of the second paragraph is to (A) uncover the shared origin of both the blues and spirituals." So based on the correct answer to #10, it seemed to me like the author is trying to prove evolution from "shared origin." If that's not so, how is this question consistent with #10?

[Dana D]

Hey Cattalus,

I think you are interpreting 'origin' too literally here - blues and spirituals both might have evolved from the shared reservoir of experience, but we're not talking about biological evolution here. Similarly, when #10 tells us the author wants to uncover the shared origin of both blues and spirituals, we are looking to find where both types of music might have evolved from or took inspiration from, rather than to identify one singular factor which both music types linearly developed from.

Again, for this question (E) would still be correct over (C) because (C) also called for the complete reclassification of the shrub types - which in terms of the stimulus would mean reclassifying blues and spirituals as West African music.