PrepTest 143, Section 1, Question 3
Critic: Rock music is musically bankrupt and socially(42 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(9 more words not shown)
- ADigital music is(7 more words not shown)
- BAlthough very few(10 more words not shown)
- CIn the 1960s(10 more words not shown)
- DThe LPs being(7 more words not shown)
- ERock music is(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why would the artwork have to disappear just because the music went digital? The critic dislikes the music but gives the old LPs credit for their innovative covers. Fine—we can follow that judgment without sharing it. What bothers me is the next step: LP production has almost ended, so rock music supposedly has nothing left going for it.
Couldn't a digital album come with a digital cover? The listener might still get interesting visual art without buying a record. Or perhaps rock music has some other worthwhile feature the critic has overlooked. Losing a format doesn't automatically mean losing everything valuable associated with it.
What we’re looking for
For the required assumption, I'd start with the most direct opening: the critic needs the move to digital music to have removed the innovative artwork, rather than simply moved it to a screen.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This rules out the digital-art possibility we raised. If digital music came with innovative visual art, the very benefit the critic praises could survive the decline of LPs. The argument needs to exclude that possibility to treat the format change as the loss of rock music's redeeming feature.
- B
The percentage of remaining LPs that are rock doesn't tell us whether rock music has anything worthwhile attached to it. Rock LPs could make up most, a few, or none of today's LPs without resolving whether digital releases still offer innovative art. No particular share is required.
- C
Rock's artwork doesn't have to have been unique among musical genres. Pop LPs could also have had wonderful covers, and the critic could still regard the art on rock LPs as something positive about them. The argument doesn't compare the genres' artistic achievements.
- D
The critic doesn't need today's LPs to have innovative covers. In fact, if the remaining rock LPs still had that benefit, it would create another problem for the claim that rock music has nothing going for it. D preserves a possible benefit instead of supplying the required assumption that the praised benefit is gone.
- E
The music doesn't have to have become worse. The critic already considers it musically bankrupt and socially destructive. The proposed change is losing the accompanying artwork, not a further decline in musical quality or social effects. Even unchanged music could lose its one redeeming feature.
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