Logical Reasoning

PT149 · S1 · Q13 Songwriters get much of the money

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Songwriters get much of the money they earn from their songs from radio airplay.

Statements

Scanning for Conditional, Math-y, Causal, or Comparative wording, I don't see anything screaming out to me. So I would just take two read-throughs (the 2nd one going slow enough to feel like I understood every claim) and then head to the answers.

Every claim is hedged somewhat: - Songwriter's get much of their money from radio play - only a fraction of Songwriter's have hits, even fewer have several - Songwriter's with hits are often asked to write for movies - those Songwriter's sometimes decline

There's a mathematical aspect to how you get paid as a songwriter: - hit song on radio, get paid for each play - hit song from movie on radio, got paid an upfront fee

And there's a causal idea related to this -- because of this payment structure, writers of hit songs often decline to write songs for movie sound tracks.

Evaluate

The only place where I sense a possible synthesis would be when hit songwriters "sometimes" decline to write songs for movie sound tracks, because of the payment structure.

They are presumably thinking they'll make less money getting paid up front (for this eventual hit song) than they would if they just released it straight to the radio (where the songwriter is paid for each play).

But this feels a little speculative, and this is a Must Be True.

Goal

With 8 or 9 different claims, there's too much here to have a strong prediction of what the answer will be. So let's just "try on" each answer, asking ourselves whether we could possibly derive this info from only the provided information.

13.

If the statements above are true, which one of the following must be true?

Any songwriter who receives revenue
Reversed Logic Too Strong: any
We were told that if you have a hit song on the radio, then you will get paid for each play. This is saying if you are getting paid for radio play then you have a hit song on the radio That's an illegal reversal. The paragraph never said that the only way to get paid from radio airplay is to write a hit song, which is what (A) is implying.
3% picked this
All songwriters who write songs
Too Strong: all
We were told that songwriters who write a hit will have their hit song played on the radio thousands of times, and that songwriters who write a hit often write songs for movie sound tracks. But we can't say that every single songwriter who writes a song for a soundtrack has already hat a hit song played on the radio thousands of times.
3% picked this
Correct
Some songs written for movie
Why this is right
Ah, there's that lovably weak language: some Is there a way to derive that at least one song written for a movie sound track has been played on the radio thousands of times? Yes, we know two things that allow us to derive this: - songs for movie soundtracks frequently become hits - a hit song is played thousands of times
Skill tested: Must be True · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
65% picked this
Most songwriters prefer the possibility
Too Strong: most
If we weren't ever given a fact about "Most X", then we can't derive a fact about "Most X", simple as that. Does it say anywhere in the passage that something is true of most songwriters? Yes, in a sneaky way. We know that "most songwriters don't ever achieve a hit" (only a fraction do). So can we derive that these songwriters who don't ever achieve a hit prefer continued income to single-up front payments? Heavens no. We don't know anything about these songwriters beyond the fact that they never had a hit. They would probably be happy with any type of income for their songs. (Speaking from personal experience here) :) This answer is trying to bait people into the speculative inference we discussed in our evaluation, where we imagine that the hit songwriters who sometimes decline to write songs for movies are doing so because they prefer the possibility of continued income (via publishing their song straight to radio) to the possibility of up-front payments (if they gave that song to a movie sound track).
17% picked this
Some songwriters earn money solely
Too Strong: solely
We were told that songwriters get much of their money from radio airplay. We can't say that any of them get all of their money from radio airplay.
12% picked this

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