Principles and analogies | Humanities passage | Music
About this video
A short LSAT-style analogy passage about what listeners prefer in music. The speaker argues that people prefer coherence, a principle that connects sounds and makes them comprehensible, over both pure simplicity and overwhelming disorder. The question asks you to match that preference to the right answer choice by concept, not by surface words.
You'll be able to
- state the difference between coherence and simplicity in the passage
- match an analogy by underlying concept rather than by shared words
- explain why a distractor fails the analogy test
Key words
- Coherence
- A principle that connects parts so they are comprehensible, the preference the passage describes.
- Intricacy
- A measure of complexity that is needed to hold curiosity, but only in a coherent form.
- Analogy question
- A test item that asks you to match a relationship in one passage to a parallel relationship in an answer choice.
- Distractor
- A wrong answer choice built to look right by repeating words or surface features.
Transcript
- [Narrator] Which one of the following describes a preference that is most analogous to the preference mentioned in the first paragraph of passage A? The question here is asking us to find an analogous preference to a preference that's mentioned in first paragraph passage A.
First step, before we look at the choices at all, is to head up and find that preference that's mentioned in the first paragraph of passage A, let's do it. In music, a certain complexity of sounds can be expected to have a positive effect on the listener. A single, pure tone is not that interesting, a measure of intricacy is required to excite human curiosity.
Sounds that are too complex or disorganized, however, are overwhelming. We prefer, okay, this is what we're looking for. We prefer some sort of coherence, a principle that connects the various sounds and makes them comprehensible. Okay, before we go and look at the choices, we want to put in our head, the essence of what this preference is.
We prefer coherence rather than things that are too simple. We don't want a single pure tone, that's not interesting. We want a little bit of intricacy, but we, more that anything, we want something that is coherent. We'll go and we'll find something that looks like that.
Let's go. A, the preference of some people for falling asleep to white noise, such as the sound of an electric fan. No, we're looking for our preference for things that are coherent, and have some level of complexity. This isn't complex at all. B, the preference of many moviegoers for movies with plots that are clear and easy to follow.
Clear and easy to follow, that sounds like coherence to me. This might be the answer, let's keep on looking. The preference of many diners for restaurants that serve large portions. So, for music analogy would be like, people like a lot of music, as opposed to a lot of food for diners, that's not what we're talking about.
D, the preference of many young listeners for fast music over slower music. So, fast versus slow, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about something that is coherent. And the music in this choice, I'll add, is a little bit of a distraction. We need to be careful about choosing choices that have words that remind you of the question, or words that remind you of a passage, especially when we're talking about analogies questions.
E, the preference of most children for sweet foods over bitter foods. So, sweet and bitter are just different tastes. We're not talking about that in this preference we're talking about things that are coherent, or clear and easy to follow. Our answer is B.
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