September 2017 LSAT Section 4 Question 14

Although early jazz music featured a great deal of improvisation, this improvisation did not stray too far from the r...

Tegan on July 13, 2020

Answer E doesn't seem strong enough

It seems to me that answer E isn't enough to really weaken the argument. The paragraph says that it can't be Jazz because the improvisation strays too far from the original melody. To me it seems that this argument could care less whether the new Jazz resembles old Jazz more than anything else, if it strays too far from the original melody, then it's not Jazz.

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Annie on July 14, 2020

Hi @Tegan,

This question asks you to pick the answer choice which MOST weakens the argument. This means that it is possible that more than one choice will weaken the argument.

Answer (A) does not weaken the argument. We are told that early jazz featured lots of improv, and that the later music featuring improv is not jazz. The fact that jazz must involve some improv does not mean that other music (aka the later music the author claims is not jazz) couldn't also feature improv.

Answer (B) does weaken the argument a bit. There is an argument to be made that because the later music was heavily influenced by jazz it should be classified as jazz. But, this doesn't strongly weaken the argument as we do not really know what influence means here. It is possible that the later music was strongly influenced by jazz, but even more strongly influenced by classical music. Would that then mean it should be classified as classical?

Answer (C) also does weaken the argument a bit. It is possible that because the same musicians who performed jazz are performing this later music it should be classified as jazz. However, this assumes that musicians can't switch genres. We don't know if these musicians suddenly stopped playing jazz and switched to a new genre.

Answer (D) actually supports the argument. The author is arguing that the later music with lots of improv strays too far to be jazz. This answer tells us that lots of other music types also have improv. This suggests that it is possible that the "later music" may fit into one of these other categories.

Answer (E) is correct. This answer choice both connects the later music with jazz and rules out the possibility that it has closer ties with any other category of music. It strongly weakens the argument because it tells you that the later music is closer to jazz than anything else, implying that jazz is the category it fits in best.