Day 234 MCAT Practice Question

Passage 9

I have been told that there are many people who read the newspapers on the day

after they have attended a concert or operatic representation for the purpose

of finding out whether or not the performance gave them proper or sufficient

enjoyment…Certain it is that some men who write about music for the newspapers

believe, or affect to believe, that criticism is worthless, and I shall not escape the

charge of inconsistency, if, after I have condemned the blunders of literary men,

who are laymen in music, and separated the majority of professional writers on the

art into pedants and rhapsodists, I nevertheless venture to discuss the nature and

value of musical criticism. Yet, surely, there must be a right and wrong in this as in

every other thing, and just as surely the present structure of society, which rests

on the newspaper, invites attention to the existing relationship between musician,

critic, and public…

I lay down the proposition that the relationship between the three factors

enumerated is so intimate and so strict that the world over they rise and fall

together; which means that where the people dwell who have reached the highest

plane of excellence, there also are to be found the highest types of the musician

and critic; and that in the degree in which the three factors, which united make up

the sum of musical activity, labor harmoniously, conscientiously, and unselfishly,

each striving to fulfil its mission, they advance music and further themselves, each

bearing off an equal share of the good derived from the common effort... In this

collaboration, as in so many others, it is conflict that brings life. Only by a surrender

of their functions, one to the other, could the three apparently dissonant yet

essentially harmonious factors be brought into a state of complacency; but such

complacency would mean stagnation…

The complacency of the musician and the indifference, not to say ignorance,

of the public ordinarily combine to make them allies, and the critic is, therefore,

placed between two millstones, where he is vigorously rasped on both sides, and

whence, being angular and hard of outer shell, he frequently requites the treatment

received with complete and energetic reciprocity. Is he therefore to be pitied? Not

a bit; for in this position he is performing one of the most significant and useful of

his functions, and disclosing one of his most precious virtues. While musician and

public must perforce remain in the positions in which they have been placed with

relation to each other it must be apparent at half a glance that it would be the

simplest matter in the world for the critic to extricate himself from his predicament.

He would only need to take his cue from the public, measuring his commendation

by the intensity of their applause, his dispraise by their signs of displeasure, and

all would be well with him. We all know this to be true, that people like to read that

which flatters them by echoing their own thoughts. The more delightfully it is put

by the writer the more the reader is pleased, for has he not had the same idea? Are

they not his? Is not their appearance in a public print proof of the shrewdness and

soundness of his judgment?...

As a rule, however, the critic is not guilty of the wrong of speaking out the thought

of others, but publishes what there is of his own mind, and this I laud in him as a

virtue, which is praiseworthy in the degree that it springs from loftiness of aim,

depth of knowledge, and sincerity and unselfishness of purpose…

Krehbiel, H. E. (2006). How to listen to music (7th ed.). Project Gutenberg. (Original

work published 1896)

Based on the passage, which of the following best describes the author’s view on

the role of the newspaper in society?

A) Newspapers primarily serve as a source of entertainment for the public

B) Newspapers are essential for maintaining the current structure of society

C) Newspapers are mostly irrelevant to the development of musical criticism

D) Newspapers hinder the progress of musicians, critics, and the public