Logical reasoning PrepTest 149 · Section 1 · Question 13

Incorrect. This answer is too extreme and, if anything, is contradicted by the stimulus. There, it's noted that songwriters get paid for each play, so even if a song is only played a couple times but doesn't catch on, there would still be a payment.

Incorrect. The stimulus notes that writers of hit songs are often asked to write songs for movie soundtracks, but that's a far cry from saying they're the only ones to be asked to write such songs.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Must Be True

Stimulus Summary:
Hit songs are played on the radio a lot, making songwriters money as they get paid per play. Hit songwriters are asked to write hit movie songs, but they often decline because they get paid once for those songs.

Answer Anticipation:
This is a difficult stimulus to summarize and to form an anticipation for since it doesn't have a lot of strong statements—rather, it describes an overall scenario. We should take a look to see if any concepts are brought up more than once, and then see if we can form any inferences from them.

Writers of hit songs serve as the subject of most of the stimulus. We learn that they make money from each play, and they're asked to write songs for movies, which they sometimes decline. It does appear as if, at least in some cases, they would prefer the pay-per-play to the lump some, as they do turn it down. However, since that only happens "sometimes," any answer on that front would need to be weak.

The stimulus also discusses hit songs frequently. They're played on the radio thousands of times, and movie soundtrack songs are sometimes hits. There's another weak inference there—some movie soundtrack songs are played on the radio a lot. Again, though, it'd have to be a weak answer choice!

Answer Explanation:
The stimulus notes that songs written for movie soundtracks "frequently become hits," and a "hit song is played thousands of times [on the radio]". Putting these two statements together allows us to infer this answer choice.

Key Takeaway:
When the language in a stimulus is very weak and wishy-washy as it is here, expect the correct answer to be similarly weak! Don't pick an answer that's stronger than the premises. And, in fact, if the premises aren't all certain, the correct answer tends to be weaker than the stronger statements in the stimulus, instead matching the weakest language.

The exception to this is when two strong statements overlap, in which case they can form a strong inference.

Incorrect. The stimulus notes that songwriters "sometimes" decline to write a movie song because of the up-front payment, so this answer stating that "[m]ost songwriters" prefer one type of payment over another is too strong.

Incorrect. The stimulus notes that songwriters get "much" of the money they earn from radio airplay, but it never states that this makes up the entirety of money earned for any songwriters. There are presumably other revenue streams (touring, merch, studio sessions).