by ohthatpatrick Fri Jun 15, 2018 3:21 pm
See if you can guess, what I'm going to say about this:
My process of elimination was:
(A) Psg B mentioned infants but I'm not sure about A - leave it for now
(B) Psg B definitely talks about it but psg A didn't - eliminate
(C) Musical capacity a result of evolutionary increases in brain size? I don't recall it being 'a result of' that - eliminate
(D) Evolution of musical capacity spur the development of new neurological systems? A would disagree with 'new' - eliminate
(E) Why does musical capacity vary among people..? Psg A would say because of its low adaptive value, but I don't know what psg B would say - leave it for now
When you're not sure, you either check back to the passage or you leave it for now. You don't want to eliminate something just because you're not sure if it was mentioned.
With (B), you were SURE that maternal bonds were never talked about in psg A. So trust THAT level of conviction and eliminate. But don't trust the wishy-washy feeling you had about (C). Go do research. Tons of correct answers are about throwaway moments in the passage that may not have resonated with you on a first read.
At any rate, if you take a first pass and think that (A) and (E) are the most likely contenders, then you have to go research (A) and (E).
Scan psg A ... does it ever mention 'infancy'?
If you can't find it, then eliminate (A).
Scan psg A ... does it ever talk about 'musical capacity varying so greatly among different individuals'?
It does, around lines 14-17. Does it say WHY musical capacity varies?
No, so we could eliminate (A).
I'm not sure where you got the idea that author thinks "Because music has little adaptive value, different individuals have wide ranges of musical capacity".
There's no point in the passage we can point to that attaches those two ideas.
The idea itself makes sense, I guess.
Since evolution was mainly working on language, we see language as a more standardized ability.
Since music was a side effect with little adaptive value, we see great variety in ability.
But that's not a connection I see the author drawing together.
And, naturally, even if we got past that shaky support from psg A, we can't find anything in psg B to support (E).
Does psg B even talk about musical capacity varying greatly among people?
Not at all, so that's an easy way to eliminate (E).
I think there are two big things at play here you want to focus on with future RC prep:
1. You need better proof before you eliminate something ...
You were sure when you eliminated (B), but you were unsure when you eliminated (C). When in doubt, leave it IN. Often times, without doing some re-reading / scanning, we would not find or be aware of potential support we have for an answer. When we scanned psg A for "infancy" and scanned psg B for "variance in musical capacity" and came up empty, we had definite ways to eliminate them.
1. You need better proof before you pick something ...
If you're looking into (A) and (E) after your first pass, good! If you find support in both passages for either answer, THEN you're allowed to pick that answer. If you haven't found lines in both passages that you can point to, then you haven't found a correct answer. You have to really believe in that standard of proof, so that when you come up short, you're like, "Huh. I can't pick either of these. Do I need to re-consider B, C, or D? Maybe one of them was in there and I just don't remember."
Hope this helps.
