PrepTest 148, Section 1, Question 20
Patterson: Bone flutes dating to the Upper Paleolithic(48 more words not shown)
Garza responds to Patterson by(6 more words not shown)
- Aarguing that the(12 more words not shown)
- Boffering evidence to(9 more words not shown)
- Cpresenting a counterexample(8 more words not shown)
- Dpresenting an argument(12 more words not shown)
- Eusing Patterson’s evidence(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The oldest instrument we've found needn't be the first instrument anyone made. Imagine earlier people making music by drumming on coconuts. If the coconuts decayed, we wouldn't expect them to be sitting around for archaeologists to find.
What we’re looking for
That's the kind of possibility Garza raises. Bone survives especially well, and people used it intensively in the Upper Paleolithic. Earlier wooden instruments might have disappeared. The evidence we have could reflect which materials survived, rather than when music began. Garza adds a consideration that challenges the jump from earliest surviving evidence to earliest music. For the description of the response, that's what I'd look for.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The “body of evidence” is the surviving bone flutes, and Patterson's purpose is to date music's origin. Garza explains why those finds may not be enough for that purpose: older instruments made of other materials might not have survived. We don't have to demand absolute proof from Patterson. This is a reason to doubt even the proposed likelihood, because preservation could explain why our evidence starts where it does.
- B
Garza doesn't deny that these flutes are the earliest evidence we have. That could be completely true while earlier music left no surviving evidence. The challenge is to what Patterson infers from the finds, not to the premise that these are the oldest finds.
- C
Garza doesn't present an actual earlier instrument or other instance of music predating the Upper Paleolithic. That would be a counterexample to Patterson's proposed origin. Instead, Garza explains why earlier evidence might be missing. A reason to suspect missing evidence isn't itself a newly discovered example.
- D
There is no separate, similar argument offered for comparison. Garza stays with the original archaeological evidence and brings in a fact about how different materials survive. That's a direct objection, not an analogy between two arguments.
- E
Garza introduces additional information about preservation; this isn't an attempt to use the bone-flute evidence itself to establish the opposite history. Nor does Garza establish that music definitely began earlier. The response gives us a reason Patterson's conclusion might be mistaken, which is different from drawing an incompatible conclusion from the same evidence.
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