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Verbal·Expression of Ideas·Rhetorical Synthesis
hard
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
  • In 2011, Keller and Schubert asked thirty-five musicians to rate syncopated and unsyncopated rhythms for complexity, arousal, tension, happiness, and enjoyment.
  • Keller and Schubert: Syncopation “produces expectancy violations...by emphasizing weak temporal locations and de-emphasizing strong locations.”
  • Keller and Schubert: “Complexity, arousal, and tension ratings did not correlate significantly with enjoyment...[but] happiness ratings did.”
  • Keller and Schubert: “Syncopated rhythms were enjoyed more and considered happier than unsyncopated rhythms.”
  • Ethan Hein: “If you place your rhythmic accents where listeners expect them, then the music gets boring fast. If you place them where listeners don’t expect them, that’s where the fun starts.”
The student wants to connect one of Keller and Schubert’s findings to Hein’s argument. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
A
Keller and Schubert’s finding that complexity, arousal, and tension ratings are not correlated significantly with enjoyment corroborates Hein’s argument that unsyncopated rhythms get “boring fast.”
B
Arguing that unsyncopated music “gets boring fast,” Hein offers a possible reason why Keller and Schubert’s subjects enjoyed syncopated rhythms more than unsyncopated ones.
C
Hein argues that syncopated rhythms are more exciting than unsyncopated ones, and indeed, Keller and Schubert’s subjects assessed syncopated rhythms for happiness, enjoyment, and complexity, among other qualities.
D
Happiness ratings were correlated with enjoyment in Keller and Schubert’s study of syncopated and unsyncopated rhythms, suggesting that syncopated rhythms are, in Hein’s words, “where the fun starts.”