Q3 - Critic: Rock music is musically bankrupt

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Necessary Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
The only thing rock music had going for it was cool cover art. Since music is now distributed digitally, rock music has nothing going for it.

Answer Anticipation:
In order to get to the conclusion, the author needs to establish that there is no longer cool art distributed with the LPs. They can no longer have cover art (since albums aren't a thing), but maybe the digital delivery still includes cool art in some manner. That possibility has to be ruled out for this argument to work.

Correct answer:
(A)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Bingo. If we negate this - Digital music is distributed with cool art - it kills the argument, as rock music still has this digitally distributed artwork going for it.

(B) Opposite. If this is true, then rock music does have something still going for it.

(C) Out of scope. Limiting the cool art to rock music has no impact on the argument since a genre of music can have something going for it that is also a benefit of another genre.

(D) Out of scope/opposite. This answer doesn't state that rock LPs are still released. Even if they are, this hurts the conclusion, since the cool-art rock albums would have something going for them.

(E) Out of scope comparison. Even if it was just as musically bankrupt and socially destructive, the argument still works. It doesn't need to be more so.

Takeaway/Pattern:
When an argument talks about one change (here, the switch to digital), make sure that it establishes that the other relevant things change (here, the art).

#officialexplanation

[notfiona]

I don't understand how the negation of (A) weakens the argument. If digital music is distributed with accompanying innovative visual art, how does that challenge the conclusion that rock music has nothing going for it? The way I see it, whether or not digital music is distributed with innovative visual art has no impact on what rock music has going for it.

If someone could shed some light on this question, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

[shaorahman]

The first sentence "Rock music is musically bankrupt and socially destructive, but at least the album covers of rock LPs...often featured innovative visual art", tells us that while rock music might have no inherent appeal, their LPs did have innovative visual art.

The supporting premise tells us that with the arrival of digital music, LPs are seemingly obsolete. The conclusion then tells us that therefore, there is nothing appealing about rock music.

We want to choose an answer that, when negated, essentially tells us "Hey, maybe it still has something going for it". This brings us to answer choice A, which when negated, suggests that digital rock music still features innovative visual art. Thus, rock music still has something going for it!

A) Digital music is not distributed with accompanying innovative visual art
NEGATION: Digital music IS distributed with accompanying innovative visual art

OTHER ANSWERS
B) Out of scope. The number of rock LPs currently in existence today are irrelevant to our discussion of if rock music still has something going for it.

C) Out of scope. We are only concerned with rock LPs anyway, and so it doesn't matter if rock LPs were the only ones to have innovative album cover art.

D) I wasn't sure how to classify this answer choice (opposite?), but let's say that we negate it to say "The LPs being produced today DO NOT have innovative album cover art". If this is the case, even if the few LPs produced today were of rock music, it would actually strengthen the conclusion that rock music has nothing going for it.

E) Out of scope. If we were given a threshold of the amount of sophistication/social destruction allowed for rock music to "have something going for it", this might be a viable answer choice. But we are given no such thing and therefore its negation does not weaken our argument

I hope my explanation makes sense to you and is accurate!

Shao

[ganbayou]

Hello
I still do not understand why A is the answer...can we have an explanation from MLSAT teachers?

I thought the answer should be Digital music IS distributed with accompanying innovative visual art.
So digital music includes the good point of rock music (visual art) so digital music has everything now, and that is why rock music has nothing going for it.
This is how I thought so I did not like any answers first and in the end chose B.
Which part of my thinking is wrong?
Thank you

[LewenW112]

My takeaway from this question is: don't presuppose things the question did not tell you. I assumed that digital music is a whole other genre that's different from rock music, while the question is intended to discuss both the digital production and LP production of rock music. Since neither digital rock music nor rock LP feature visual art, rock music has nothing going for it.