#17 - Watching music videos from the 1970s would give the

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Parallel Reasoning—CE. The correct answer choice is (C)

Your task in this Parallel Reasoning question is to select the answer that contains an argument most
similar in structure to that of the stimulus. The argument, reordered for clarity, proceeds:

Premise: watching music videos from the 1970s would give the viewer the impression
that the music of the time was dominated by synthesizer pop and punk rock

Premise: but, because music videos were a new art form at the time, they attracted
primarily cutting-edge musicians

Conclusion: thus, the impression that the music of the 1970s was dominated by synthesizer
music and punk rock would be misleading

Your prephrase of the abstraction of this argument is that the impression left by a certain subset of a
group would be misleading, because the subset is not representative of the group as a whole, having
been selected those who are not representative.

The incorrect answers will fail to match at least one portion of the pattern of argumentation in the
stimulus.

Answer choice (A): This choice is incorrect because its argument results in a definitive conclusion,
that our view can never be accurate, based on immutable facts. The stimulus argument was
conditional, in that if the view of 70s music is obtained by watching music videos from that time,
then the view of the music would be misleading.

Answer choice (B): This choice is incorrect because it fails the Double the Conclusion test. This
conclusion implies that our memory of the shows is accurate, which is the opposite of the conclusion
in the stimulus.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. This choice is correct because its argument,
in the abstract, is that the view of a group will be misleading (here, “distorted”) if it is based on an
unrepresentative subset.

Answer choice (D): This choice also fails the Double the Conclusion. Here the conclusion is about
completeness, rather than accuracy.

Answer choice (E): This choice fails the Double the Conclusion test, because its conclusion is a
probabilistic statement that our understanding will be accurate, rather than a definitive statement that
the impression is misleading.

[Arindom]

Hi,

Could you explain this question? I had a hard time with it.

Thanks.

- Arindom

[Stephanie Oswalt]

Hi Arindom,

Thanks for your question. Generally speaking, we need a bit more input from you before we delve into a discussion of a particular LR question. Ultimately, it won't be us who are taking the test; it's you! Our goal is to help you cultivate the analytical ability to approach these questions on your own, which is why you need to help us help you first.

Here's what I'd like you to do:

1. Describe your approach to the stimulus. Did you understand the argument, if any, from a structural standpoint? What is the conclusion, and what evidence is the author using in support of that conclusion?

2. Did you prephrase an answer to the question in the stem? If so, what was your prephrase?


Thanks,

Stephanie

[Arindom]

Hi,

So, what I thought the argument was saying is that it would be misleading to think that music of the 1970s was dominated by synthesizer pop and punk rock since the music videos of such recordings were a new art form they attracted cutting edge musicians.

Thus,, in my answer choice (my prephrase) I was looking for something that was giving a misleading impression because it was a new format that was dominated by particular elements.

I picked C but because other choices were not as close as the prephrase as I was looking for.

Thanks.

- Arindom

[BethRibet]

Hi Arindom,

The way you approached this is just fine, and as you likely know, C is the correct answer. The basic structure here is that judging item A based on item B would be misleading because item A mostly involves item C. It sounds like you got it.

Hope this helps!
Beth

[calftemo]

Hi!

I struggled with this problem, and eventually chose the incorrect answer (A). I initially understood the stimulus argument structure to be: "This impression would be wrong, because music videos attracted an unrepresentative sample."

My first step in going through the ACs was to eliminate any that had different types of conclusions (eg: different argument strengths and/or structures, etc.). I eliminated (C) for this very reason -- the conclusion in (C) is conditional "... IF they judge by works published in CD-ROM format..." AND has a different strength: "will be" vs. "would be" (in the stimulus). On the other hand, I kept (A) as a contender because it concludes with "CAN" (which I thought is similar to "could").

I understand that (A) says "can NEVER be accurate" (and so is stronger in that regard), whereas (C) says "will be distorted", but at the time, I thought that matching "distorted" to "misleading" was not relevant to the strength of the argument, and moreso, matching the topic/content.

However, since I eliminated (C) as being a 'loser', I clearly made an error such that matching "distorted" and "misleading" wasn't even a consideration while I was taking the test! ( (C) was already out...) Can you please help me figure out where I went wrong so that I don't make this kind of mistake on test day?

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

Thanks for the question, Pretender. It seems to me that, while your prephrase was very good, it missed something crucial that accounts for your rejection of C (and you hit on it in your analysis). The stimulus is, in fact, conditional - there is an implied "if" there. That is, IF all you watched was music videos, then you would get the wrong impression. The argument was not cast as an absolute statement, that any attempt to learn about music of that period will be distorted because of the unrepresentative sample in videos.

C, as you correctly determined, also contains that conditional element - if you only look at CD-ROMs, you'll be getting an unrepresentative sample.

Answer A is not conditional, but absolute - it is simply not possible to get the representative sample we might like to get because only an unrepresentative sample will ever be available to us.

Take another look and you'll see the implied conditional nature of the claims in the stimulus. Conditional reasoning isn't always and only about indicator words, although they are certainly helpful when they appear. Sometimes the conditional nature is more subtle, and is best found in the process of paraphrasing the stimulus.