IMAT 2014 Q8 [Conclusion | Music]

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Despite much opposition to the idea, modern musical trends such as hip­hop have a place in the world of opera. Traditional opera is a powerful musical experience. However, modern musicians should not necessarily stick with the traditional form. Modern musical forms which fuse staged drama, singing and contemporary or ethnic trends in music are also powerful musical experiences. Glydebourne’s youth operas ‘Misper’ and ‘Zoe’, and its Mozart hiphopera, ‘School 4 Lovers’, enjoyed critical and box office success and attracted hip­hop audiences. Moving away from the snobbery of tradition gives a much wider audience access to transformative musical experience.

Which one of the following best expresses the main conclusion of the passage?

A. Creating new operatic performances allows more people to access this exciting art form.

B. Contemporary music forms have a place in performances of opera.

C. Musicians are entitled to fuse new forms and old to create exciting musical experiences.

D. Hip-­hop is as powerful and dramatic as opera.

E. Contemporary music has a place in the musical world in addition to traditional operatic performances.

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Key Steps

  • Read the question (do this for every question!)
  • Read the passage
  • In your own words, make a conclusion for the passage. What is the author’s main idea?
  • Find a sentence in the text that matches the conclusion you made, and underline it.
  • Keep an eye out for giveaway words and phrases
  • Find an answer that matches the underlined sentence.

We know that the passage is about how modern musical trends can play a role in opera as well. It is about the combination of the two forms of music, and this is an important detail because we can eliminate some of the answer choices that are not focused on combination but rather comparing (ex. D and E). Our conclusion should be about how contemporary music can play a role in opera.

A Creating new operatic performances allows more people to access this exciting art form:

This statement does not include anything about contemporary music, so we do not know what is meant by ‘new operatic performances’. This new performances could strictly be opera only because we are not given any specification. Therefore A is incorrect as it does not include contemporary music in the conclusion.

B Contemporary music forms have a place in performances of opera:

This is what the author was trying to prove. The support used by the author is saying that these modern musicals have been successful and are attracting success with wider audiences as well. From this we can conclude that contemporary music has had success with opera performances and therefore they have a place together. This is why B is correct.

C Musicians are entitled to fuse new forms and old to create exciting musical experiences:

This answer is too broad to be our conclusion here. The author is focusing on the combination of opera and contemporary music, and so our conclusion should be specific to this. The author does say that “modern musicians should not necessarily stick with the traditional form” but this is used to support the belief that contemporary music has a place in the performances of operas. It is like this statement (C) is saying that we are allowed to fuse new forms of music (this is something that is a given, a fact), and so why can’t we mix contemporary with opera? Therefore C is not a conclusion but something more general the author uses to help reinforce why we can mix these two forms of music.

D Hip­hop is as powerful and dramatic as opera:

This conclusion is comparing hip hop and opera, while we want a conclusion that shows that they can work together in conjunction. The author is saying that we should be able to mix the two together, and so how dramatic and powerful hip hop is compared to opera is not relevant because they can be different but still pair together. Therefore D is incorrect.

E Contemporary music has a place in the musical world in addition to traditional operatic performances:

The author is trying to prove that we can fuse the two types of music together and move away from the traditional operatic performances by adding in contemporary music. This is why this option is incorrect, the author is trying to prove their unity in the space, not their independence in the space. Therefore E is incorrect.