Beginning in the 1950s, popular

Answer choices

1. A

   Unsupported2% picked this

   The number of amateur musicians who play popular music

   The stimulus is silent on amateur musicians. It tells us about professional musicians and bands but says nothing about amateurs increasing or decreasing. We can't infer their numbers from the given information.

   2%
2. B

   Unsupported1% picked this

   Most professional musicians are able to play both electric and

   The stimulus says nothing about whether musicians can play multiple types of instruments. The premises are about volume and band size, not about individual musicians' instrument repertoires. There's no support for "most professional musicians can play both electric and nonelectric instruments."

   1%
3. C

   Unsupported18% picked this

   The number of professional musicians in some bands

   The stimulus says the average number of musicians per band has decreased. While that's consistent with some specific bands growing, the stimulus doesn't support that claim. (And the natural direction of inference, from "average decreased," is that band sizes are generally shrinking — not growing.)

   18%
4. D

   Correct75% picked this

   The total number of professional bands has increased as a result

   Why this is right

   This follows directly from the math. More total professional musicians + fewer musicians per band = more bands. If the total pool went up and the average band got smaller, then to absorb the larger pool into smaller bands, the number of bands has to have gone up. (D) is the cleanest inference from the two given trends — and the stimulus explicitly attributes both trends to electrification, so it's also reasonable to attribute the band-count increase to electrification.

   Skill tested: Most Supported · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   75%
5. E

   Unsupported3% picked this

   Many professional musicians play in more than

   The stimulus doesn't say musicians play in multiple bands. It's about per-band averages and total musician counts, not about whether one musician can be counted in multiple bands. Nothing in the passage supports this claim.

   3%