PrepTest 107, Section 3, Question 12
Music critic: Some people argue that, unlike certain(42 more words not shown)
The music critic's reasoning is(8 more words not shown)
- Atakes for granted(6 more words not shown)
- Bconfuses two different(5 more words not shown)
- Coverlooks the possibility(8 more words not shown)
- Dconfuses two different(5 more words not shown)
- Etakes for granted(7 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What makes this music “religious”? We need to keep track of the standard being used.
The opening comparison points to Handel's works that set religious texts to music. Their religious content is explicit: the words themselves come from religious material. The critic responds by asking us to consider the experience of hearing Vierne's organ symphonies in Notre Dame. Those works seem divinely inspired to the critic.
That could be a powerful experience. But having a religious feeling while listening is different from identifying religious content in the work. Even if we accept the critic's description of the experience, it doesn't settle the classification raised in the opening comparison.
What we’re looking for
The flaw question asks why the response misses that distinction. I want an answer that captures the shift from music's religious content to the spiritual impression it creates. We don't have to decide whether instrumental music can be religious, and we don't need to dispute anyone's experience in the cathedral. The problem is treating these two grounds for calling music religious as interchangeable.
Working the answers
- A
The critic doesn't claim that all religious music is inspiring. The support runs from the impression produced by these works to the conclusion that these works are religious. A instead starts with music being religious and says it must be inspiring. That is a different claim, with a much broader scope.
- BCorrect
The critic moves between two senses of “religious”: religious in its subject matter or content, and religious in the sense of seeming divinely inspired or evoking a spiritual response. The experience offered in the second sense does not answer the original distinction in the first sense.
The shift is in the way the music is classified. We don't need the identical word repeated twice in adjacent sentences to see that a different standard has taken over. The critic's “Quite the contrary” presents the second standard as if it directly refuted the first.
- C
The critic is discussing Vierne's works, not declaring all organ music divinely inspired. Other organ music could lack any religious association. Think of organ music at a baseball game: its existence would not by itself tell us anything about these symphonies. Allowing that other music is uninspired does not address the critic's shift here.
- D
“Symphonies” refers to the same works throughout. The argument does not change what counts as a symphony. The movement occurs in why the critic calls the music religious, not in which compositions are being discussed.
- E
Again, the critic does not generalize to all organ symphonies. The conclusion concerns Vierne's works. The critic could accept that other organ symphonies are secular and still make the same argument about these. E attacks an unrestricted claim that the critic never makes.
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