Logical Reasoning

PT18 · S4 · Q6 People who listen to certain recordings

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People who listen to certain recordings of music are in danger of being unduly influenced by spoken messages that have been recorded backwards on the records or tapes.

The View

Certain recordings of music could influence listeners, because they have a spoken message that has been recorded backwards on the records or tape.

Evaluate / Goal

This is a weird question given that it's just one sentence + What Must Be True.

For younger people trying this old-ass question from test 18, you may not know but back in the 1960s and 1970s, recording artists got really experimental with music recordings and sometimes recorded stuff that would play backwards on the recording.

Parents freaked out that hard rock bands were brainwashing their unsuspecting children with Satan-worshipping messages. (I'm serious)

In the 90s, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott had a big hit where the chorus involved some backwards lyrics.

None of this is particularly useful, but the context of having heard of people recording backwards and parents worrying that Ozzy Ozbourne or The Beatles were whispering subliminal messages into listeners like Charles Manson sort of helps one process the conversation here.

We have no idea what we're looking for, so let's just beware of anything we didn't talk about or anything that sounds stronger than what we could derive.

A consequence of the view above is that

the spoken messages must be
Out of Scope: louder
Why do they have to be louder? Wouldn't equal volume still work for the author? When two people are speaking to me at the same time, at equal volume, I can be influenced by either of their words.
1% picked this
backwards messages can be added
Too Strong: preserving all qualities
The author's position doesn't change if we negate this and say that adding the backwards message compromises a musical quality of the recorded performance somewhat.
21% picked this
the recordings on which such
Out of Scope
Out of Scope: chosen for this purpose We have no information about why certain artists may choose to put backwards messages on certain recordings.
5% picked this
Correct
if such messages must be
Why this is right
If you heard a message recorded backwards, do you think it would influence you? Probably not, right? We'd think, "It'll just sound like garbled nonsense. I won't have any idea what it's saying. It could be kill the mailman or bet on the Yankees, we'd never know. But somehow this author thinks that these backwards messages could influence us. This answer just spells out that confusing logic: if the messages need to be comprehended to influence us (and we're only going to ever hear them backwards on this recording), then that would mean that we can somehow comprehend these backwards messages?
Skill tested: Must be True · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
67% picked this
when people listen to recorded
Out of Scope / Strong: full attention
The author doesn't need to assume that we always pay full attention to music. The author even uses soft wording like, "We're in danger of being unduly influenced", not that we necessarily will. He might think that we don't need full attention (90% might be good enough) to be swayed by these hidden messages.
6% picked this

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