DIRECTIONS for the question:The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question. Humans today make music. Think beyond all the qualifications that might trail after this bald statement: that only certain humans make music, that extensive training is involved, that many societies distinguish musical specialists from nonmusicians, that in today’s societies most listen to music rather than making it, and so forth. These qualifications, whatever their local merit, are moot in the face of the overarching truth that making music, considered from a cognitive and psychological vantage, is the province of all those who perceive and experience what is made. We are, almost all of us, musicians — everyone who can entrain (not necessarily dance) to a beat, who can recognize a repeated tune (not necessarily sing it), who can distinguish one instrument or one singing voice from another. I will often use an antique word, recently revived, to name this broader musical experience. Humans are musicking creatures……. The set of capacities that enables musicking is a principal marker of modern humanity. There is nothing polemical in this assertion except a certain insistence, which will figure often in what follows, that musicking be included in our thinking about fundamental human commonalities. Capacities involved in musicking are many and take shape in complicated ways, arising from innate dispositions ……. Most of these capacities overlap with nonmusical ones, though a few may be distinct and dedicated to musical perception and production. In the area of overlap, linguistic capacities seem to be particularly important, and humans are (in principle) language- makers in addition to music-makers — speaking creatures as well as musicking ones. Humans are symbol-makers too, a feature tightly bound up with language, not so tightly with music. The species Cassirer dubbed Homo symbolicus cannot help but tangle musicking in webs of symbolic thought and expression, habitually making it a component of behavioral complexes that form such expression. But in fundamental features musicking is neither language- like nor symbol-like, and from these differences come many clues to its ancient emergence. If musicking is a primary, shared trait of modern humans, then to describe its emergence must be to detail the coalescing of that modernity. This took place, archaeologists are clear, over a very long durée: at least 50,000 years or so, more likely something closer to 200,000, depending in part on what that coalescence is taken to comprise. If we look back 20,000 years, a small portion of this long period, we reach the lives of humans whose musical capacities were probably little different from our own. As we look farther back we reach horizons where this similarity can no longer hold — perhaps 40,000 years ago, perhaps 70,000, perhaps 100,000. But we never cross a line before which all the cognitive capacities recruited in modern musicking abruptly disappear. Unless we embrace the incredible notion that music sprang forth in full-blown glory, its emergence will have to be tracked in gradualist terms across a long period. This is one general feature of a history of music’s emergence……. The history was at once sociocultural and biological……. The capacities recruited in musicking are many, so describing its emergence involves following several or many separate strands.
“Think beyond all the qualifications that might trail after this bald statement ” In the context of the passage, what is the author trying to communicate in this quoted extract?
Although there may be many caveats and other considerations, the statement is essentially true.
The “bald statement” is the plain assertion “Humans today make music.” The author then lists the qualifications that might trail after it: only certain humans make music, extensive training is involved, societies distinguish specialists from nonmusicians, most people today listen rather than make music.
He immediately says: “These qualifications, whatever their local merit, are moot in the face of the overarching truth that making music … is the province of all those who perceive and experience what is made.” So he admits the caveats may have some merit but insists the basic statement holds. That is exactly the reading that, although there may be many caveats, the statement is essentially true.
The reading that a bald statement is one trailed by qualifications reverses the meaning: “bald” means plain and unqualified, and the qualifications are what the author asks us to look beyond.
The reading about giving free reign to musical expressions brings in an idea the passage never discusses; the extract is about the truth of a claim, not about musical freedom.
The reading that a bald statement needs no qualifications to infer its meaning misses the point: the author concedes that qualifications can be attached; his point is that they do not overturn the statement’s truth, not that its meaning is self-evident.
Hence, the answer is Although there may be many caveats and other considerations, the statement is essentially true.
Similar Questions
Zombie cells may contribute to age-related chronic inflammation: this finding could help scientists understand more about the aging process and why the immune system becomes less effective as we get older. Zombie or “senescent” cells are damaged cells that can no longer divide and grow like normal cells. Scientists think that these cells can contribute to chronic health problems when they accumulate in the body. In younger people, the immune system is more effective at clearing senescent cells from the body through a process called apoptosis, but as we age this process becomes less efficient. As a result, there is an accumulation of senescent cells in different organs in the body, either through increased production or reduced clearance by the immune system. The zombie cells continue to use energy though they do not divide, and often secrete chemicals that cause inflammation, which if persistent for longer periods of time can damage healthy cells leading to chronic diseases.
Identify the odd sentence out and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.
The last paragraph of the passage refers to “middle-class, white, professional men”. Which one of the following qualities best describes the connection among them?
Study the following sets of concepts and identify the set that is conceptually closest to the concerns and arguments of the passage.
According to the passage, who or what was an “alienist”?
“Conversely, when a defendant struck officials as unlike themselves, whether by dint of disease, gender, confession, or race, the precariousness of judgments about mental state was exposed.” Which one of the following best describes the use of the word “confession” in this sentence?
According to the incentive or moral hazard argument, which one of the designs below is most consistent with the claim that some inequality can raise growth?
Which one of the options below best summarises the passage?
The primary function of the three-part case for a positive income inequality–economic growth link in the first half of the passage is to show that:
The passage refers to "democratization". Choose the one option below that comes closest to the opposite of this process.
Important Questions from Non Grammar
- In formulating Principle VI (a), the ILC clarified the term "waging of a war of aggression" because:
- The author attributes the growing public frustration with the UN primarily to which pair of continuous failures?
- A primary point of divergence between the US Conservative position and the Secretary-General's Conservative position on security matters, according to the summary is:
- According to the critique's conclusion, the immediate, insurmountable barrier preventing the implementation of any reform, major or minor, is:
- The Secretary-General's 'Agenda for Peace' proposed a specific military capability intended to address the gap between traditional peace-keeping and full military action. This proposed unit was explicitly characterized by the summary as being:
