📘 What’s Inside This CAT RC Practice Post?
📝 Authentic CAT Reading Comprehension Passage: Practice with a real RC passage from a previous CAT exam.
✅ Detailed Questions with Step-by-Step Solutions: Each question is explained thoroughly for better understanding.
🎥 Video Solutions by Prashant Sir: Watch detailed video solutions for quicker concept clarity.
🎥 Passage Analysis Video by Prashant Sir: Understand the passage deeply with a full line-by-line and paragraph analysis.
🔍 In-Depth Passage Analysis: Gain insights through line-by-line and paragraph-wise analysis, supplemented with a quick summary table for efficient revision.
📚 Vocabulary Enhancement: Get a separate post explaining all tough words from the passage.
RC Passage
Direction for the questions 13 to 16: The passage below is accompanied by a set of four questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
Humans today make music. Think beyond all the qualifications that might trail after this bald statement: that only certain humans make music, that extensive training is involved, that many societies distinguish musical specialists from nonmusicians, that in today’s societies most listen to music rather than making it, and so forth. These qualifications, whatever their local merit, are moot in the face of the overarching truth that making music, considered from a cognitive and psychological vantage, is the province of all those who perceive and experience what is made. We are, almost all of us, musicians — everyone who can entrain (not necessarily dance) to a beat, who can recognize a repeated tune (not necessarily sing it), who can distinguish one instrument or one singing voice from another. I will often use an antique word, recently revived, to name this broader musical experience. Humans are musicking creatures.
The set of capacities that enables musicking is a principal marker of modern humanity. There is nothing polemical in this assertion except a certain insistence, which will figure often in what follows, that musicking be included in our thinking about fundamental human commonalities. Capacities involved in musicking are many and take shape in complicated ways, arising from innate dispositions . . . Most of these capacities overlap with nonmusical ones, though a few may be distinct and dedicated to musical perception and production. In the area of overlap, linguistic capacities seem to be particularly important, and humans are (in principle) language-makers in addition to music-makers — speaking creatures as well as musicking ones.
Humans are symbol-makers too, a feature tightly bound up with language, not so tightly with music. The species Cassirer dubbed Homo symbolicus cannot help but tangle musicking in webs of symbolic thought and expression, habitually making it a component of behavioral complexes that form such expression. But in fundamental features musicking is neither language-like nor symbol-like, and from these differences come many clues to its ancient emergence.
If musicking is a primary, shared trait of modern humans, then to describe its emergence must be to detail the coalescing of that modernity. This took place, archaeologists are clear, over a very long durée: at least 50,000 years or so, more likely something closer to 200,000, depending in part on what that coalescence is taken to comprise. If we look back 20,000 years, a small portion of this long period, we reach the lives of humans whose musical capacities were probably little different from our own. As we look farther back we reach horizons where this similarity can no longer hold — perhaps 40,000 years ago, perhaps 70,000, perhaps 100,000. But we never cross a line before which all the cognitive capacities recruited in modern musicking abruptly disappear. Unless we embrace the incredible notion that music sprang forth in full-blown glory, its emergence will have to be tracked in gradualist terms across a long period.
This is one general feature of a history of music’s emergence . . . The history was at once sociocultural and biological . . . The capacities recruited in musicking are many, so describing its emergence involves following several or many separate strands.
RC Line-wise Explanation
Paragraph 1
Original: Humans today make music.
Explanation: People in the modern world are actively involved in producing music.
Original: Think beyond all the qualifications that might trail after this bald statement: that only certain humans make music, that extensive training is involved, that many societies distinguish musical specialists from nonmusicians, that in today’s societies most listen to music rather than making it, and so forth.
Explanation: Ignore typical caveats, such as the idea that only trained or professional individuals create music, or that most people today are passive music listeners rather than active participants.
Original: These qualifications, whatever their local merit, are moot in the face of the overarching truth that making music, considered from a cognitive and psychological vantage, is the province of all those who perceive and experience what is made.
Explanation: These points don’t matter compared to the larger truth: from a mental and psychological perspective, anyone who engages with music is involved in its making.
Original: We are, almost all of us, musicians — everyone who can entrain (not necessarily dance) to a beat, who can recognize a repeated tune (not necessarily sing it), who can distinguish one instrument or one singing voice from another.
Explanation: Nearly everyone has musical ability, like feeling a rhythm, recognizing melodies, or identifying different sounds.
Original: I will often use an antique word, recently revived, to name this broader musical experience. Humans are musicking creatures. . . .
Explanation: The author introduces the term “musicking” to describe the universal human engagement with music.
Paragraph 2
Original: The set of capacities that enables musicking is a principal marker of modern humanity.
Explanation: The abilities that allow humans to engage with music are key traits of being a modern human.
Original: There is nothing polemical in this assertion except a certain insistence, which will figure often in what follows, that musicking be included in our thinking about fundamental human commonalities.
Explanation: This statement isn’t meant to be controversial, but the author does strongly argue for including musicking when considering what all humans share.
Original: Capacities involved in musicking are many and take shape in complicated ways, arising from innate dispositions . . .
Explanation: The skills needed for musicking are diverse and develop in complex ways, rooted in natural tendencies.
Original: Most of these capacities overlap with nonmusical ones, though a few may be distinct and dedicated to musical perception and production.
Explanation: Many of these skills are shared with other areas, but some may be unique to musical understanding and creation.
Original: In the area of overlap, linguistic capacities seem to be particularly important, and humans are (in principle) language-makers in addition to music-makers — speaking creatures as well as musicking ones.
Explanation: Language abilities play a significant role in musicking, and humans are naturally both speakers and music-makers.
Paragraph 3
Original: Humans are symbol-makers too, a feature tightly bound up with language, not so tightly with music.
Explanation: Creating symbols is another human trait, closely connected to language but less so with music.
Original: The species Cassirer dubbed Homo symbolicus cannot help but tangle musicking in webs of symbolic thought and expression, habitually making it a component of behavioral complexes that form such expression.
Explanation: Humans, as symbolic beings (as philosopher Ernst Cassirer suggested), naturally mix music with symbolic behaviors and meanings.
Original: But in fundamental features musicking is neither language-like nor symbol-like, and from these differences come many clues to its ancient emergence.
Explanation: Despite symbolic associations, music differs from both language and symbols in core ways, and these differences help trace its origins.
Paragraph 4
Original: If musicking is a primary, shared trait of modern humans, then to describe its emergence must be to detail the coalescing of that modernity.
Explanation: If music-making is central to being human, then understanding its rise means understanding how modern humans evolved.
Original: This took place, archaeologists are clear, over a very long durée: at least 50,000 years or so, more likely something closer to 200,000, depending in part on what that coalescence is taken to comprise.
Explanation: Archaeological evidence suggests this development spanned tens to hundreds of thousands of years, depending on how we define "modernity."
Original: If we look back 20,000 years, a small portion of this long period, we reach the lives of humans whose musical capacities were probably little different from our own.
Explanation: People living 20,000 years ago likely had musical abilities very similar to those of today.
Original: As we look farther back we reach horizons where this similarity can no longer hold — perhaps 40,000 years ago, perhaps 70,000, perhaps 100,000.
Explanation: Further back in history, human musical capacity likely began to differ more significantly from today’s.
Original: But we never cross a line before which all the cognitive capacities recruited in modern musicking abruptly disappear.
Explanation: There’s no clear point in history when musical abilities suddenly cease to exist.
Original: Unless we embrace the incredible notion that music sprang forth in full-blown glory, its emergence will have to be tracked in gradualist terms across a long period.
Explanation: Music didn’t suddenly appear in a complete form; rather, it developed slowly over time.
Paragraph 5
Original: This is one general feature of a history of music’s emergence . . . The history was at once sociocultural and biological . . .
Explanation: One key point about music’s origin is that it evolved through both social/cultural and biological changes.
Original: The capacities recruited in musicking are many, so describing its emergence involves following several or many separate strands.
Explanation: Since music-making involves many abilities, tracing its history requires examining multiple aspects of human development.
RC Paragraph Explanation
Paragraph 1 Summary
Although modern societies often separate music makers from listeners, the cognitive and psychological reality is that almost all humans are inherently musical beings. The author uses the term “musicking” to describe this universal human engagement with music.
Paragraph 2 Summary
Musicking reflects a key human trait shaped by innate tendencies and shared with other skills like language. Some musical capacities are unique, but most intertwine with broader cognitive abilities, especially linguistic ones.
Paragraph 3 Summary
Humans are also symbolic thinkers, often incorporating music into symbolic systems. However, musicking is fundamentally different from language and symbols, offering important clues about its deep evolutionary roots.
Paragraph 4 Summary
Tracing music’s origins means understanding the emergence of modern humans over tens or hundreds of thousands of years. Musical capacity didn’t appear suddenly but gradually evolved alongside human cognitive development.
Paragraph 5 Summary
Music’s history is both cultural and biological, and because musicking involves many different human capacities, its development must be studied through multiple, interconnected dimensions.
RC Quick Table Summary
| Paragraph Number | Main Idea |
|---|---|
| Paragraph 1 | All humans are inherently musical and engage in “musicking.” |
| Paragraph 2 | Musicking reflects complex human abilities, especially language. |
| Paragraph 3 | Music involves symbolic thought but differs from language and symbols. |
| Paragraph 4 | Music evolved gradually with modern humans over a long historical span. |
| Paragraph 5 | Music’s emergence is both sociocultural and biological in nature. |
RC Questions
Ques 13. Which one of the following sets of terms best serves as keywords to the passage?
Ques 14. “Think beyond all the qualifications that might trail after this bald statement . . .” In the context of the passage, what is the author trying to communicate in this quoted extract?
Ques 15. Based on the passage, which one of the following statements is a valid argument about the emergence of music/musicking?
Ques 16. Which one of the following statements, if true, would weaken the author’s claim that humans are musicking creatures?
