#4 - The reason J. S. Bach is remembered is not that he had

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[calftemo]

Why is (B) wrong? I thought that (B) weakens the correlation between cause (prolific) and effect (remembered) by showing the effect in the absence of the cause. Similarly, (A) also weakens the correlation between cause and effect, but does so by showing the presence of the cause, and absence of the corresponding effect.
Could someone please clarify?

[Jennifer Janowsky]

Hi, there! This is a tricky one, so I hope I can help you out.

Basically, the stimulus in this question is saying that the cause of Bach's lasting fame was the amount of music he produced, rather than the quality of his music overall. So writing lots of music causes fame. This is a cause and effect statement that you are looking to weaken it in the answer choices.

Answer (A) and (B) are very similar in this regard, so let's look a little closer.

Answer (B) states that there are highly regarded composers who wrote very little music. At first this is appealing, because it seems to contradict the stimulus that writing a lot of music leads to fame. However, the stimulus doesn't claim that writing a lot of music is the only way to achieve fame--only that it is one cause of it.

Answer (A), meanwhile, states that there are musicians who produced even more music than Bach, and yet weren't famous. This is a direct violation to the cause/effect relationship in the stimulus: They wrote lots of music and still didn't get famous.

I hope that helps clarify things a bit!

[tae.chung5]

Let me throw out slightly different approaches to eliminate (B). In a simple statement, the conclusion says writing many caused Bach outstanding and it is definitely a causal argument.

In choice (B), the phrase "highly regarded composers who wrote small number" is certainly No Cause-Yes Effect. However before that phrase, it says "a few" are like that. Taking the whole sentences together, No Cause - Yes Effect is only a few. This sounds quite weak to weaken the stimulus conclusion.

In contrast, choice (A) says More Cause (= "more works") - No Effect. Thus, the degree of discrepancy is larger and therefore makes a stronger counter.

Another reason I can think of is the scope. (B) mentions about composers in general. However, (A) specifies the scope to Bach's contemporary. This makes the counter more relevant to the stimulus, therefore weakening the stimulus more strongly than than (B) does.

Let me know if this makes sense. Thanks!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Tae Chung,

You got it! Great job. In answer choice (A) we see a clear mirror to the cause in the stimulus---producing lots of music---without the effect---being remembered. That most clearly would weaken the causal relationship in the stimulus.

Great job!
Rachael

[g_lawyered]

Hi P.S.
I was tempted by answer choice C because it confirmed that "large of the composition have been forgotten" when the argument states that "the compositions survived the ages". To me this part of the answer choice weakens the argument. However, the first part of the answer choice C I had trouble deciphering if it weakened or not. Answer C states "Bach wrote mediocre compositions" and the argument states that SOME of them were outstanding? I found this answer to be half wrong/right and it is why I eliminated it. Is this what makes answer choice C incorrect?
Thanks in advance

[Adam Tyson]

Yes, GGIBA003, you got it. The fact that some were mediocre isn't relevant, because the author is arguing that some had to be outstanding and be remembered simply because there were so many that the odds were in his favor. It doesn't hurt the argument at all to say some were mediocre, because of course some were - that, too, is just playing the odds when you have that many compositions.

[g_lawyered]

Thanks for clarifying that Adam!

[fortunateking]

If this is a cause-effect argument, then the author assumes the cause is the only cause, and the result occurs without the cause as (B) can weaken the argument. So the problem with (B) is it's saying "highly regarded", while in the stimulus is remembered / survive the ages, different.

[Robert Carroll]

fortunateking,

I think the problem with answer choice (B) is that it does not weaken the author's argument. The author doesn't seem to think that producing a ton of works is the only way to be remembered. That's what happened with Bach, so the author thinks - Bach didn't have a particularly great ration of good-to-mediocre works, but just produced so many works that a large number were outstanding even if not a large percent. Another composer could certainly be remembered for having a high ratio, just not Bach. What can't happen is that another composer produce a ton of works and not be remembered. The author regards it as automatic that, if a composer produces a large number of works, some will be outstanding. Answer choice (A) directly undermines that.

Robert Carroll