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.
It can be inferred that the authors of the two passages would be most likely to disagree over whether
Correct
Incorrect
The correct answer is (D).
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.
(D) Inference
Step 2: Identify the Question Type
Any question asking what the passages would be "most likely" to agree or disagree over is an Inference question. The passages weren't necessarily written in direct response to each other, so you'll have to infer points of agreement and disagreement.
Step 3: Research the Relevant Text
Whenever you're reading Comparative Reading passages, remember to take some time during Step 1 of the Reading Comprehension Method to predict larger points of agreement and disagreement between the passages; they're almost guaranteed to come up in the questions.
Step 4: Make a Prediction
You can't always predict the answer to Inference questions, but based on your global understanding of the passages, this one should be pretty straightforward. The authors disagree about the reason for the development of musical ability: Author A sees it as a tag-along to language which doesn't serve much purpose of its own, while author B thinks it confers an important evolutionary benefit.
Step 5: Evaluate the Answer Choices
(D) paraphrases this well.
(A) raises an issue only discussed in passage B. You have no idea what the author of passage A thinks about this.
(B) only focuses on something from passage A. Passage B doesn't tackle the neurological data, nor does it discuss the relationship between music and language.
(C) is a Distortion. Passage B says directly that brain size increased rapidly; passage A says only that it increased (first sentence of the third paragraph). That's a difference, but not a disagreement; you don't know what author A thinks about the rate of increase. It's possible this is a point of agreement between the authors.
(E) introduces mother-infant bonding, which isn't mentioned at all in passage A.
