PrepTest 154, Section 1, Question 14
Although early jazz music featured a great deal(43 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(6 more words not shown)
- AFor a piece(14 more words not shown)
- BThe later music(8 more words not shown)
- CSome of the(17 more words not shown)
- DMany types of(10 more words not shown)
- EThe later music(17 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
How far can a musician wander from the melody before the music stops being jazz? The author hasn't given us a rule that answers that.
Early jazz involved plenty of improvisation: musicians could creatively vary what they played instead of simply repeating fixed notes. But those variations stayed fairly close to simple, catchy melodies. The later music strays farther. The author treats that difference as enough to exclude it from jazz.
Why should that feature define the whole category? Perhaps music can move farther from its starting melody and still count as jazz. We need to know what makes the music jazz, rather than assume every later example must preserve this feature of the early examples.
What we’re looking for
To weaken the argument, look for a reason the greater departure from melody might not justify excluding the later music. We don't have to settle a complete definition of jazz. We need to make this single-feature classification less convincing.
Working the answers
- A
Slow down here. Requiring some improvisation is a rule about what jazz must include. The later music already includes improvisation. The author's complaint is that it strays too far from the melody, not that it has none.
A tells us neither how far improvisation may stray nor whether satisfying this one requirement makes something jazz. We can't use a minimum requirement to settle the disputed limit.
- B
Being influenced by jazz isn't the same as being jazz. Music could borrow ideas from an earlier style while becoming something classified differently. B gives us a historical influence without addressing whether the later music's features justify keeping it in the jazz category.
- C
An artist's earlier career doesn't fix the genre of everything that artist later performs. A musician could perform jazz at one point and another kind of music later. We need a reason to classify this music as jazz, not merely a fact about its performers.
- D
Improvisation occurs outside jazz too. That shows improvisation alone doesn't identify a work as jazz, but it doesn't establish that the later music must belong outside jazz. Nor does it tell us how to classify music that strays far from its melody. The presence of other improvisational genres doesn't weaken this exclusion in the way we need.
- ECorrect
This gives us a reason to question excluding the later music over the one difference the author emphasizes. It has much more in common with early jazz than with any other kind of music. Perhaps those many shared features matter more to its classification than how closely its improvisation follows the melody.
This isn't a proof that the music must be jazz. The answer makes the author's categorical dismissal less convincing, which is enough for a weaken question. We can choose it without pretending to have solved every question about the genre's boundaries.
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