PrepTest 116, Section 2, Question 1
Pettengill: Bebop jazz musicians showed their distaste for(52 more words not shown)
Pettengill and Romney disagree over(1 more words not shown)
- Abebop jazz was(9 more words not shown)
- Bbebop jazz was(9 more words not shown)
- Cbebop musicians showed(8 more words not shown)
- Djazz music requires(14 more words not shown)
- Ebebop musicians were(9 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe they changed the songs because they liked them.
Pettengill sees radical changes to jazz classics and reads them as a sign of distaste: apparently the musicians thought the originals needed serious fixing before they could be interesting. But where did we get that intention? Someone could love a song and want to try a new version of it. “This is great; let's see what else we can do with it” is very different from “This is terrible; let's repair it.” Changing the music alone doesn't tell us which thought the musicians had.
Romney gives us that other reading. Songs have to be compelling and versatile to survive this sort of reshaping, and the musicians recognized those qualities. Their changes brought out depths that were already there. On Romney's account, the remixes show appreciation for the originals.
What we’re looking for
The question asks where these two disagree. I'd predict the meaning of the musicians' changes: did they express distaste or appreciation? For the right answer, we need to put one speaker on each side of the same claim. Something one speaker never addresses won't do.
Working the answers
- A
They both describe substantial changes. Pettengill calls the reshaping radical, and Romney calls the approach revolutionary. The dispute is over what those changes show about the musicians' attitude toward the originals. A gives us the shared starting point.
- B
Were the new versions actually better? Neither speaker settles that. Pettengill describes the attitude that supposedly motivated the changes; Romney says the changes revealed previously unknown depths. Revealing something in a song doesn't necessarily make the new version better than the original. We can't give the speakers opposite positions on this overall quality comparison.
- CCorrect
Romney says the musicians recognized the classics' compelling, versatile qualities and used them to discover more in the music. That supports appreciation. Pettengill says the same changes showed distaste, as if the classics couldn't be interesting without major alterations. Those are opposing accounts of what the reshaping expressed.
- D
Nobody discusses widespread popularity. Pettengill's criticism of the changes doesn't establish a rule that sticking closely to an original is necessary for popularity. Romney doesn't address that rule either.
- E
Using an earlier song doesn't tell us whether the musicians were influenced by their predecessors' conservative styles. More importantly, neither speaker takes a position against that influence. Their dispute concerns appreciation for the classics, not whether an earlier style influenced a later one.
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