#22 - Critic: Most chorale preludes were written for the

[hännah]

I cannot figure out why my answer is wrong, so if anyone has an idea why please help me figure it out!

The question reads as follows:

[Admin Edit - question text removed due to LSAC copyright restrictions. The PrepTest reference in the title is enough for us to identify the question, however.]

Answer choices a and b a clearly not the correct answers.

For me c, d and e are all not true. But apparently c is the correct answer.

Can anyone explain it to me what I am missing?

Your help would be very very much appreciated!!

Thanks,

Hannah

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Hännah,

Thanks for the question! This is a tricky question, and it is complicated by the fact that it is a Cannot Be True question.

The justification for answer choice (C) is contained in the last three sentences of the stimulus. In the last sentence, in particular, the author states that Bach is a master artist, and that master artists never create in order to express their own feelings (italics added for emphasis). That is pretty broad, but that is the claim being made by the critic, so we just have to accept it as true (although, personally, I think it is BS ).

With the critic's statements accepted, we now know that Bach never created to express his own feelings, and that applies to all works, chorale preludes and otherwise. Thus, when we get to (C), and the answer claims he did write to express his feelings, we know that is impossible and cannot be true. Therefore, it is the correct answer.

With (D) and (E), look again at the first sentence--I think you may be reading a bit too much into what the critic very carefully says there. But, if you are still uncertain, let me know and I'll add a more comprehensive response.

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[kristinaroz93]

is choice c here an eample of a sufficient occuring without the necc condition?:
Master artist --> never create to express own feelings
B is a master artist
--------------------------
Bach--> never creates to express own feelings''

So c has the sufficient occur (that something was created by Bach), but then says he used his feelings to create the other pieces (which means the orginal necc condition didn't occur and that is impossible)


Also, how can I eiminate choice D? The first sentence says "Most chorale preludes were written for the organ and most great chorale preludes written for the organ were written by JS Bach" So how can it be true that most of Bach's pieces were written for instruments other than the organ? Was he in a subgroup not encompassed by what most did? ahh I am confused here.

[Clay Cooper]

Hi Kristina,

Thanks for your follow-up.

To answer its first question, yes, you could certainly consider answer choice C as a violation of a conditional rule that we are given in the stimulus. For instance, if we transcribed the last part of the stimulus (which says that master artists never create to express their own feelings) as CBMA --> xCEOF (if it was created by a master artist, then it was not created to express its creator's own feelings), then answer choice C is an example of a situation that violates this rule; it describes Bach writing music (thus CBMA is true and the rule is activated) but claims that this music was created to express Bach's own feelings (CEOF), which we know is not possible based on our rule. Thus, the sufficient condition is in effect but the necessary condition is false, and therefore answer choice C cannot be true under the rule given in the last part of the stimuls.

Finally, your second question: don't let the stimulus overwhelm you here. Imagine there are ten choral preludes, and that six of them were written for the organ (making true the first two parts of this statement), and finally that of the six written for the organ, four of those were written by Bach (making true the final part). Now imagine that Bach, in his career, wrote one hundred pieces of music, and that of those hundred pieces, fifty-one were written for the piano; in such a scenario, it would be true that most of what Bach wrote was for instruments other than the organ, and yet all of the evidence you quoted could also be true.

Here the question is approaching a numbers and percentages question, and it is helpful (to me, anyway) to supply numbers (as exemplified in my explanation above) to determine what is and is not possible in the given scenario.

I hope that helps! Keep up the hard work.

[kristinaroz93]

Hi Clay,
Oh well that makes sense now. Plus even I wrote "pieces" which is broad and incorporates other things as well. Yep this makes sense, thank you=)

And I am taking from this that the conditional reasoning info i gave in the beginning was correct then , yes? =)

[Robert Carroll]

Kristina,

Indeed, answer choice (C) claims that the sufficient condition is true while the necessary condition is false. If that could happen, the the "necessary" condition wouldn't be necessary, so this does violate the conditional, as you identified.

Robert Carroll