Guitar strings

[poonamchiK]

Guitar strings often go "dead"--become less responsive and bright in tone--after a few weeks of intense use. A researcher whose son is a classical guitarist hypothesized that dirt and oil, rather than changes in the material properties of the string, were responsible.

Which of the following investigations is most likely to yield significant information that would help to evaluate the researcher's hypothesis?

(A) Determining if a metal alloy is used to make the strings used by classical guitarists

(B) Determining whether classical guitarists make their strings go dead faster than do folk guitarists

(C) Determining whether identical lengths of string, of the same gauge, go dead at different rates when strung on various brands of guitars

(D) Determining whether a dead string and a new string produce different qualities of sound

(E) Determining whether smearing various substances on new guitar strings causes them to go dead

I found this interesting question. It took me a while to think.

OA : E.
But i was still between D and E.

P

[singh.181]

According to researcher dirt and oil rather than changes in material are responsible for "dead" Guitar strings.

We need to evaluate i.e. using some extra info, we either support or weaken the researcher position.

(A) Determining if a metal alloy is used to make the strings used by classical guitarists (If metal alloy are used to make the strings used by the classical guitarists does not affect researcher's position. We are interested whether Dirt or Oil causes those strings go "dead".) IRRELEVANT

(B) Determining whether classical guitarists make their strings go dead faster than do folk guitarists If classical guitarists can make their strings go dead faster than folk guitarists does not affect researcher position. IRRELEVANT

(C) Determining whether identical lengths of string, of the same gauge, go dead at different rates when strung on various brands of guitars If identical length strings go dead faster at different rates depending of the various brand. IRRELEVANT

(D) Determining whether a dead string and a new string produce different qualities of sound qualities of sound produced is IRRELEVANT

(E) Determining whether smearing various substances on new guitar strings causes them to go dead if we rub different substances on new strings and analyze if those strings went dead or not, will help us to evaluate researcher position.

[RonPurewal]

as with all other questions like this, you need to identify the key issue(s) at hand, and then judge whether the choices affect that key issue.

this argument is presented quite simply, with only one key issue -- is the "dead" quality of guitar strings produced by lots of playing, or by the presence of foreign substances such as dirt and oil?

(e) will contribute to resolving this issue, because it will shed light on whether foreign substances cause this problem.

(d) doesn't help, for two reasons:
1, it doesn't address the issue of what causes the strings to go dead
2, it contains information that is already contained in the passage. specifically, we already know that dead strings are "brighter in tone", so the issue of whether they have different sound quality has already been settled in the affirmative.

[gmatwork]

A vs E - Why e and not a?


Why is 'a' wrong? Wouldn't 'a' mean that since metal alloy is used to make strings so material properties should matter and vice versa.

Also, in (e) when they say various substances doesn't that mean any substance? Not just oil or dirt? (e) can apply to anything not just oil or dirt......In (e) scope was too broad because of 'any' so I eliminated it. Please explain how can I avoid doing this in future.

[agarwalmanoj2000]

Why not a?

(A) Determining if a metal alloy is used to make the strings used by classical guitarists

It does not matter what a string is made of
Question here is -
Whether guitar strings go dead by intense use or dirt?
It does not matter what guitar strings are made of, so A is irrelevant.

Why option e?

(E) Determining whether smearing various substances on new guitar strings causes them to go dead

We want to know -
Whether guitar strings go dead by intense use or dirt?

Lets say smearing various substances on new guitar strings cause them to go dead, then we can conclude that dirt causes the strings to go dead.

Lets say smearing various substances on new guitar strings DOES NOT cause them to go dead, then we can conclude that intense use causes the strings to go dead.

Option E helps us to get the answer to the question on hand, so it is the right choice.

Regarding use of "various substance" in option E, it is us as an analogous to dirt.

[RonPurewal]

manoj, nicely done.

[gmatwork]

Thanks, Manoj.

[RonPurewal]

.