Q21 - Most opera singers who

[roflcoptersoisoi]

(A) We're not told anything about young opera singers that don't have great vocal power in the stimulus only those that do. Just because those that do have great vocal power are most likely to ruin their voices, doesn't mean that those that don't are unlikely to.

(B) I picked this during the PT and during BR, so LSAC duped my ass twice lmao. I picked this because this is explicitly mentioned in the stimulus. But you need to pay attention to the organizational and reasoning structure of the passage to know why this is wrong, if you don't then this will be an extremely tempting answer choice and you'll fall right into the trap set up by those guys at LSAC. This is in fact not supported by the stimulus because it is proffered by a hypothesis that the author contests. Indeed, the author says that some people think the reason for which most of these young opera singers lose their voices early is because their voices haven't matured and therefore lack the power for such demanding roles. The other refutes this in the next sentence and then introduces his own competing hypothesis. It follows that this isn't supported by the stiumulus.

(C) This is tempting but it's not at all supported. Perhaps any opera singer with minimal technical training, whether it be a few weeks or months of technical training is able to, or should sing demanding roles.

(D) Not supported. Perhaps there are some young singers that have the technical training to sing without straining their vocal cords. We're only told that most of them of them lose their voices because they don't have the technical training to avoid straining their vocal cords. This however does not preclude the possbility of their being some young singers that have the technical training to avoid straining their vocal cords.

(E) Bingo. This is indeed supported. The author offers as a competing hypothesis that the reason these young opera singers lose their voices early is because they don't have the technical ability to avoid straining their cords. So accordng to the stiumulus, it follows that most young opera singers add demanding roles to their repetoirs lose their voices because they cannot avoid straining their cords.
Not perfect but it at least has some support.

[JeremyK460]

Here are my thoughts. This thread has been awesome. I loved this question and hope the discussion continues!

My Thought Process:
My first line of thought is whether the argument explicitly mentions most young opera singers. Nothing in the argument explicitly states this group with that sort of quantity. The argument explicitly mentions stuff about most young singers and most young opera singers. The next line of thought is whether the argument has the right kind of information to support a statement about most young opera singers.

(E) The concept of most young singers is a more general, less qualified concept than most young opera singers. Applying categorical logic here: species and genus are inversely related to comprehension and extension; genera (young singers) is the larger group with less qualities than its species (young opera singers) & vice versa. I don’t know the exact quantification layout for whether this answer choice is something that must be true or not, but, with good POE, I candidly selected E as the best answer. I spent a solid hour messing around with the numbers - kinda fun. Here’s my analogy…

P: Most young athletes play significantly more minutes
P: Most young basketball players suffer leg injuries and retire early
C: Most young basketball players who suffer leg injuries play significantly more minutes


General: Young Athletes: 100
Specific: More Time: 50
Specific: Short Careers: 30

Specific: Young NBA Players: 30
Specific: Injuries: 30
Specific: Lose Years of Prime: 20

Conclusion: Most NBA Players who have gotten injured were playing significantly more time than normal.

Breakdown / List:
Most opera singers who add demanding roles to their set at a young age lose their voices early because their voices haven’t matured yet (too much strain).
Young singers with power vocals are most likely to ruin their voices because most young singers don’t have technical training essential to protect their vocal cords.
These young singers who misuse their voices like that have short lived careers.

Approach:
Think about how the statements relate to each other and if and how they can be synthesized to form an inference. Also, I have to be mindful of whether there’s an argument and how the argument functions.

Answer Choices:
(A) I guess this is possible, but it’s hard to find support for this premise. I can only find the inverse of this statement (premise 3) which doesn’t seem like the most valid inference.

(B) was very tempting for a minute! This is supported by the first and second premises: most of the opera singers who add demanding roles to their set at a young age lose their voices early because their voices haven’t matured yet (too much strain). However, the author calls the truth of this concept into question! Had this answer said something along the lines of ‘losing their voices early might not be because of their not yet developed vocal cords’ then perhaps it’d be a pretty strongly supported statement. Thoughts?!

(C) This is a lot. This would mean that literally no one except opera singers with many years of technical training should be trying to sing demanding roles. There could be some young opera singers with a total lack of any technical training that could be naturally talent and never go through a single vocal issue.

(D) Only mature ones? No way! The statements don’t support this.