The two passages discuss recent scientific research on music. They are adapted from two different papers presented at a scholarly conference.
Passage A
Did music and human language originate separately or together? Both systems use intonation and rhythm to communicate emotions. Both can be produced vocally or with tools, and people can produce both music and language silently to themselves.
Brain imaging studies suggest that music and language are part of one large, vastly complicated, neurological system for processing sound. In fact, fewer differences than similarities exist between the neurological processing of the two. One could think of the two activities as different radio programs that can be broadcast over the same hardware. One noteworthy difference, though, is that, generally speaking, people are better at language than music. In music, anyone can listen easily enough, but most people do not perform well, and in many cultures composition is left to specialists. In language, by contrast, nearly everyone actively performs and composes.
Given their shared neurological basis, it appears that music and language evolved together as brain size increased over the course of hominid evolution. But the primacy of language over music that we can observe today suggests that language, not music, was the primary function natural selection operated on. Music, it would seem, had little adaptive value of its own, and most likely developed on the coattails of language.
Passage B
Darwin claimed that since "neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of producing musical notes are faculties of the least [practical] use to man...they must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with which he is endowed." I suggest that the enjoyment of and the capacity to produce musical notes are faculties of indispensable use to mothers and their infants and that it is in the emotional bonds created by the interaction of mother and child that we can discover the evolutionary origins of human music.
Even excluding lullabies, which parents sing to infants, human mothers and infants under six months of age engage in ritualized, sequential behaviors, involving vocal, facial, and bodily interactions. Using face-to-face mother-infant interactions filmed at 24 frames per second, researchers have shown that mothers and infants jointly construct mutually improvised interactions in which each partner tracks the actions of the other. Such episodes last from one-half second to three seconds and are composed of musical elements—variations in pitch, rhythm, timbre, volume, and tempo.
What evolutionary advantage would such behavior have? In the course of hominid evolution, brain size increased rapidly. Contemporaneously, the increase in bipedality caused the birth canal to narrow. This resulted in hominid infants being born ever-more prematurely, leaving them much more helpless at birth. This helplessness necessitated longer, better maternal care. Under such conditions, the emotional bonds created in the premusical mother-infant interactions we observe in
Homo sapiens today—behavior whose neurological basis essentially constitutes the capacity to make and enjoy music—would have conferred considerable evolutionary advantage.
Which one of the following most accurately characterizes a relationship between the two passages?
Correct
Incorrect
The correct answer is (A).
Evolutionary Value of Music
Step 1: Read the Passage Strategically
Sample Highlighting
The two passages discuss recent scientific research on music. They are adapted from two different papers presented at a scholarly conference.
Passage A
Did music and human language originate separately or together? Both systems use intonation and rhythm to communicate emotions. Both can be produced vocally or with tools, and people can produce both music and language silently to themselves.
Brain imaging studies suggest that music and language are part of one large, vastly complicated, neurological system for processing sound. In fact, fewer differences than similarities exist between the neurological processing of the two. One could think of the two activities as different radio programs that can be broadcast over the same hardware. One noteworthy difference, though, is that, generally speaking, people are better at language than music. In music, anyone can listen easily enough, but most people do not perform well, and in many cultures composition is left to specialists. In language, by contrast, nearly everyone actively performs and composes.
Given their shared neurological basis, it appears that music and language evolved together as brain size increased over the course of hominid evolution. But the primacy of language over music that we can observe today suggests that language, not music, was the primary function natural selection operated on. Music, it would seem, had little adaptive value of its own, and most likely developed on the coattails of language.
Passage B
Darwin claimed that since "neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of producing musical notes are faculties of the least [practical] use to man...they must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with which he is endowed." I suggest that the enjoyment of and the capacity to produce musical notes are faculties of indispensable use to mothers and their infants and that it is in the emotional bonds created by the interaction of mother and child that we can discover the evolutionary origins of human music.
Even excluding lullabies, which parents sing to infants, human mothers and infants under six months of age engage in ritualized, sequential behaviors, involving vocal, facial, and bodily interactions. Using face-to-face mother-infant interactions filmed at 24 frames per second, researchers have shown that mothers and infants jointly construct mutually improvised interactions in which each partner tracks the actions of the other. Such episodes last from one-half second to three seconds and are composed of musical elements—variations in pitch, rhythm, timbre, volume, and tempo.
What evolutionary advantage would such behavior have? In the course of hominid evolution, brain size increased rapidly. Contemporaneously, the increase in bipedality caused the birth canal to narrow. This resulted in hominid infants being born ever-more prematurely, leaving them much more helpless at birth. This helplessness necessitated longer, better maternal care. Under such conditions, the emotional bonds created in the premusical mother-infant interactions we observe in Homo sapiens today—behavior whose neurological basis essentially constitutes the capacity to make and enjoy music—would have conferred considerable evolutionary advantage.
Passage Notes
Passage A
Paragraph 1
Music/lang origins: separate or together?
Similarities
Paragraph 2
Neur. evidence: music/lang same system
Similarities > Differences
Big difference: people better at lang
Paragraph 3
Auth: music/lang evolved together
Lang took primacy
Music on coattails of lang
Passage B
Paragraph 1
Darwin: music mysterious
Auth: music evolved to create mother/child bonds
Paragraph 2
Evid: ritual interactions between mothers/infants
Interactions have mus. elem.
Paragraph 3
Evol. advantage of behavior:
Bigger brain " earlier birth " need more care
Musical behavior creates emotional bonds
Discussion
In Comparative Reading, your work has an added element: After determining Purpose and Main Idea for each passage, you need to understand the relationship between the two passages. Most, if not all, of the questions will focus in some way on this relationship.
Passage A begins with a question that reveals the Scope of the passage: the question of whether music and language developed together. The paragraph structure is straightforward: The author poses the question in paragraph 1; introduces research indicating the similarities (and one difference) in paragraph 2; and concludes in paragraph 3 that music and language likely evolved together, but that language is the primary driver of natural selection. Passage A's Purpose: To set forth evidence that music and language likely developed in tandem. Its Main Idea: Given the common neurological basis for music and language, it seems likely that they developed together as brain size increased, but music developed "on the coattails of language."
Passage B starts out with a quote from Darwin, but you get a strong statement of the author's belief before the end of paragraph 1: Music has evolutionary benefits in the bonding of mothers and infants. Paragraph 2 is devoted to research on mother-infant interactions and paragraph 3 to the possible evolutionary benefits. Passage B's Purpose: to argue that the ability to produce music has evolutionary benefits related to emotional bonding between mother and child. Its Main Idea: Music is likely a bonding mechanism that has conferred evolutionary advantage.
Remember that your work isn't done— you must define the relationship between the passages before moving on. The author of passage A believes that music developed in tandem with language, but regards music as almost an unnecessary side effect of language with no evolutionary benefit. The author of passage B believes that music represents a useful ability that confers an evolutionary benefit by solidifying the mother/infant relationship. The authors thus disagree regarding the evolutionary significance and advantages of music ability in humans.
Both passages have the same Topic (music) and both are concerned with the development of musical ability in humans, but the data presented differs greatly: Passage A focuses on neurological data, while passage B concerns itself primarily with observed human behavior.
(A) Logic Reasoning (Method of Argument)
Step 2: Identify the Question Type
Don't be thrown by the wording in the question type. Even if you identified this as a Global question, the task is still the same: determine in general terms what each passage does in relation to the other. The relationship question is very common in Comparative Reading, so learning to attack it effectively will earn you points on Test Day.
Step 3: Research the Relevant Text
There's no specific place to research this answer; instead, use the relationship between the passages that you determined during Step 1 to answer this question.
Step 4: Make a Prediction
The data presented by the two authors was very different in nature; their conclusions differed as well. The key difference is their view of the evolutionary significance of musical ability; even though the answer choices are general, knowing that they fundamentally disagree on their main point should help you eliminate choices.
Step 5: Evaluate the Answer Choices
(A) sums up the passages' relationship neatly and is therefore correct.
(B) is a Distortion. Not only does passage A actually answer the question it poses, but passage B also sets out to answer a slightly different question—the question of whether music has evolutionary benefit.
(C) is nearly a 180. Passage B doesn't support passage A—it reaches an entirely different conclusion.
(D) is unsupported. Both authors are clear and consistent in the presentation of their cases; if anything, passage B is more strongly worded because passage A uses tentative language like "it would seem".
(E) is a 180 because the passages' conclusions differ.
