In a recent psychological survey - Music/Emotions

[mikej326]

Question:

In a recent psychological survey, participants aged 40 to 60 were asked to name the song that had made the greatest emotional impact on their lives. Remarkably, in 86 percent of cases, the participant named a song that was popular when he or she was between thirteen and seventeen years old. Clearly, music has an inherently greater emotional effect on teenagers than on people of other ages.

Each of the following, if true, weakens the argument presented above EXCEPT



A) All of the other questions asked during the survey centered around the participants' teenage years.

B) People are more likely to have deeper emotional responses to life events, and to associate contemporaneous songs with those events, during the teenage years than at other times of life.

C) People tend to retain and recall emotionally infused memories with greater depth, detail, and accuracy than other memories.

D) People tend to listen to a much greater number of songs during the teenage years than at other times of life.

E) Most of the songs cited by the survey respondents retained their popularity for twenty or more years.





I originally answered B, but the correct answer is C. After reading the explanations of answers, I understand why C is correct. I view this as more of an irrelevant answer rather than one that strengthens. My thought process is that the conclusion of the argument relates to teenage years, while answer C simply focuses on the relationship of music and emotional memories. There is no tie-in to music having a greater emotional effect for teens.

I am having a hard time coming to terms with B being incorrect, and hope someone can explain more thoroughly than the CAT explanation. From reading the explanation, is it simply that music is associated with emotional (often time teenage) events, yet the conclusion states that music has an effect (rather than association)?

Thanks in advance for reading/commenting

[RonPurewal]

If you get a question that says "Everything weakens ... EXCEPT", then it is VERY unlikely that the correct answer will be a strengthener. (That would make the problem too easy!)

In essentially all such problems, you should expect the correct answer (= the choice that doesn't weaken the argument) to be something that's simply irrelevant.

I originally answered B, but the correct answer is C. After reading the explanations of answers, I understand why C is correct. I view this as more of an irrelevant answer rather than one that strengthens. My thought process is that the conclusion of the argument relates to teenage years, while answer C simply focuses on the relationship of music and emotional memories. There is no tie-in to music having a greater emotional effect for teens.

^^ Yep, that's why C is the correct answer. Because it doesn't weaken the argument. In fact, it doesn't ____ the argument at all, regardless of what ____ is. It's irrelevant.

I am having a hard time coming to terms with B being incorrect, and hope someone can explain more thoroughly than the CAT explanation. From reading the explanation, is it simply that music is associated with emotional (often time teenage) events, yet the conclusion states that music has an effect (rather than association)?

Rather than going around in circles, I'll just give you an analogy.

Of the facts that the average 60-year-old professional knows, over 75% were first learned when the person was between the ages of 14 and 21 years old. Therefore, the human brain must be best able to memorize facts between the ages of 14 and 21.

Choice C is like this:
In high school and college, most future professionals spend a large number of hours memorizing facts to pass tests, and will never spend nearly as many hours memorizing facts after that point.

It's probably clear what's going on here.
The "weird thing" (= the thing that actually NEEDS EXPLANATION) is the fact that such a high % of facts were learned in such a short period of time. (If learning were random, we'd expect the timeframe to cover 3/4 of the years that the person can remember.)
The argument just assumes that people learn better in those years.
But this answer choice raises the objection that they spend more time trying to learn facts during those years (so they can pass tests). So, probably not "better" at all"”just trying harder.

The same is true here.
The WEIRD THING THAT NEEDS EXPLANATION is the fact that such a large % of people recollected songs from such a short age span.
The argument just assumes that music must affect people more strongly during those years.
Choice C raises the possibility that life events"”i.e., NOT music"”are actually what affects teenagers most strongly. The music just happens to be there at the time, so it hitches a ride with those emotions.

"Music affects teenagers more than other people" plays the same role as "People 14-21 are better able to memorize facts" in the analogy.
"Life events are more emotional" plays the same role as "Nah, they just study harder."

[SushenM649]

But then by that logic, doesn't C also become irrelevant? Essentially giving us both C and B as two irrelevant answers to choose from. Thanks. Also any strategy you would recommend to be vary of such traps? Thanks!

[RahulW457]

@Ron - Can you please guide as to how is A even relevant?
The other questions have the effect? But i am not able to understand HOW?

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

The logic is this: if all of the other questions asked during the survey centered around the participants' teenage years then it's likely that participants would be thinking about their teenage years already and would be likely to pick a song that they'd heard at that time. In that case the survey would be biased and wouldn't give fair data.

If that seems hard to spot, consider the stage we describe as 'Pause and state the goal' in the CR strategy guide. In this case we mean, think about the kind of thing that would weaken the argument. How could it be possible that the survey provides these results yet it not be the case that music has a greater emotional effect on teenagers than on people of other ages? One solution is that it's a bad survey, and that's what answer A plays on.