Reading Comprehension

PT104 · S2 · P1 · Q4 Miles Davis

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The career of trumpeter Miles Davis was one of the most astonishingly productive that jazz music has ever seen.

Topic

Miles Davis's career

Frameworks

Theme / Example, Highlight Something Noteworthy

Main Point

Davis's career was incredibly productive and under-appreciated, both due in part to how many stylistic evolutions Davis went through over the years.

P1 - Thesis

We might have alternatively thought of this passage with a "Theme / Example" framework, since this first paragraph really lays out the overarching theme that the rest of the paragraphs unpack: a lot of zigzags.

P2 - First Stylistic Zigzag

Davis starts as bebop but then develops "cool jazz" (slower tempos and less soloing).

P3 - Second Stylistic Zigzag

Davis breaks free from chord patterns and seeks a more open, unified sound like that of orchestral pieces. Soloists have less constraints.

P4 - Third Stylistic Zigzag

Davis starts taking on more conventions of rock music -- electrified instruments and a cut-and-paste recording process that's a violation of the norms of jazz. He takes some heat from the critics.

P5 - Author's Causal Explanation

Here the author tries to explain why Davis was frequently maligned by contemporary critics and thus has not received his proper due as the genius he was -- critics are afraid when artists broaden possibilities or defy genre categorization (as apparently they rely on those things to do their jobs).

4.

Which one of the following best describes the author's attitude toward Miles Davis's music?

  1. uneasy ambivalence

    Opposite

    We're looking for something like "a genius with an astonishingly productive career". This is a mild negative, and we want a strong positive.

    1% picked this

  2. cautious neutrality

    Contradicted: Not Neutral

    We're looking for something like "a genius with an astonishingly productive career". That is not a neutral assessment. (in fact, as far as we can remember, there has never been a correct answer on Attitude that said 'neutral' -- maybe one, at most)

    1% picked this

  3. grudging respect

    Out of Scope: grudging

    We're looking for something like "a genius with an astonishingly productive career", so the respect half of this answer seems fine. But "grudging respect" means, "I kind of hate you, but I also respect you." A lot of basketball fans didn't like Kobe but they had a grudging respect for his talents. A lot of Americans didn't like Trump but they had a grudging respect for his willingness to go against the political orthodoxy. We don't have any support in this passage for the idea that the author didn't like Miles Davis, so we can't support grudging.

    4% picked this

  4. moderate commendation

    Too Weak

    We're looking for something like "a genius with an astonishingly productive career". That is a more-than-moderate commendation. Usually, on Attitude questions, we are expecting to pick a mild positive or a mild negative answer (and to see a strong positive or strong negative as a trap answer). But our textual support here matches a strong positive, so in this case it's just not accurately capturing the author's admiration to say she moderately commends Davis.

    7% picked this

  5. Correct

    appreciative advocacy

    Why this is right

    This is the only un-tempered positive. We know the author is "appreciative". Unlike (C) and (D), this answer doesn't put some ceiling on the positivity by saying that it's a grudging respect or a moderate amount of approval. The advocacy half of this is a surprise. What does it mean to say "appreciative advocacy"? It would be like our attitude towards a TV show we binged and loved. If we're telling the world that HBO's Westworld (or BBC's Peep Show) was a genius show that for various reasons was never fully embraced by critics, we're conveying our appreciation while advocating that other people check out this show. And in the legal sense, a legal advocate is someone providing legal counsel to you / someone defending you in court. So we can also match up the idea of 'advocacy' with the fact that the author is defending Miles against the bad rap he got with music critics.

    Skill tested: Author's Attitude · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    87% picked this

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