Over the course of the twentieth century, humans built, on average, one large dam a day, hulking structures of steel and concrete designed to control flooding, facilitate irrigation, and generate electricity. Dams were also lucrative contracts, large-scale employers, and the physical instantiation of a messianic drive to conquer territories and control nature. Some of the results of that drive were charismatic mega-infrastructure—the Hoover on the Colorado River or the Aswan on the Nile—but most of the tens of thousands of dams that dot the Earth’s landscape have drawn little attention. These are the smaller, though not inconsequential, barriers that today impede the flow of water on nearly two-thirds of the world’s large waterways. Chances are, what your map calls a “lake” is actually a reservoir, and that thin blue line that emerges from it once flowed very differently.

Damming a river is always a partisan act. Even when explicit infrastructure goals—irrigation, flood control, electrification—were met, other consequences were significant and often deleterious. Across the world, river control displaced millions of people, threatening livelihoods, foodways, and cultures. In the western United States, dams were often an instrument of colonialism, used to dispossess Indigenous people and subsidize settler agriculture. And as dams slowed the flow of water, inhibited the movement of nutrients, and increased the amount of toxic algae and other parasites, they snuffed out entire river ecologies. Declining fish populations are the most evident effect, but dams also threaten a host of other animals—from birds and reptiles to fungi and plants—with extinction. Every major dam, then, is also a sacrifice zone, a place where lives, livelihoods, and ways of life are eliminated so that new sorts of landscapes can support water-intensive agriculture and cities that sprout downstream of new reservoirs.

Such sacrifices have been justified as offerings at the temples of modernity. Justified by—and for—whom, though? Over the course of the twentieth century, rarely were the costs and benefits weighed thoughtfully and decided democratically. As Kader Asmal, chair of the landmark 2000 World Commission on Dams, concluded, “There have been precious few, if any, comprehensive, independent analyses as to why dams came about, how dams perform over time, and whether we are getting a fair return from our $2 trillion investment.” A quarter-century later, Asmal’s words ring ever truer. A litany of dams built in the mid-twentieth century are approaching the end of their expected lives, with worrying prospects for their durability. Droughts, magnified and multiplied by the effects of climate change, have forced more and more to run below capacity. If ever there were a time to rethink the mania for dams, it would be now.

There is some evidence that a combination of opposition, alternative energy sources, and a lack of viable projects has slowed the construction of major dams. But a wave of recent and ongoing construction, from India and China to Ethiopia and Canada, continues to tilt the global balance firmly in favor of water impoundment.  

Correct Option: 1

Rationale: Option 1 accurately reflects the progression of the passage, beginning with large infrastructure projects, moving to their human and environmental costs, then questioning the ideology of modernity behind them, and finally noting the continued expansion of water impoundment.

Why other options wrong: Other options list isolated details or introduce claims not supported by the passage, such as democratic consent or economic profitability being the primary issue.

Difficulty: Medium

This book takes the position that setting in literature is more than just backdrop, that important insight into literary texts can be made by paying close attention to how authors craft place, as well as to how place functions in a narrative. The authors included in this reference work engage deeply with either real or imagined geographies. They care about how human decisions have shaped landscapes and how landscapes have shaped human practices and values. Some of the best writing is highly vivid, employing the language of the senses because this is the primary means through which humans know physical space.

Literature can offer valuable perspectives on physical and cultural geography. Unlike scientific reports, a literary narrative can provide the emotional component missing from the scientific record. In human experience, geographical places have a spiritual or emotional component in addition to and as part of a physical layout and topography. This emotional component, although subjective, is no less “real” than a surveyor’s map. Human consciousness of place is experienced in a multi-modal manner. Histories of places live on in many forms, one of which is the human memory or imagination.

Both real and imaginary landscapes provide insight into the human experience of place. The pursuit of such a topic speaks to the valuable knowledge produced from bridging disciplines and combining material from both the arts and the sciences to better understand the human condition. The perspectives that most concern cultural geographers are often those regarding movement and migration, cultivation of natural resources, and organization of space. The latter two reflect concerns of the built environment, a topic shared with the field of architectural study. Many of these concerns are also reflected in work sociologists do. Scholars from literary studies can contribute an aesthetic dimension to what might otherwise be a purely ideological approach.

Literature can bring together material that spans different branches of science. For example, a literary description of place may involve not only the environment and geography but the noises and quality of light, or how people from different races or classes can experience the same place in different ways linked to those racial or class disparities. Literary texts can also account for the way in which absence—of other people, animals, and so on—affects a human observer or inhabitant. Both literary and scientific approaches to place are necessary, working in unison, to achieve a complete record of an environment. It is important to note that the interdisciplinary nature of this work teaches us that landscapes are not static, that they are not unchanged by human culture. At least part of their identity derives from the people who inhabit them and from the way space can alter and inspire human perspective. The intersection of scientific and literary expression that happens in the study of literary geography is of prime importance due to the complexity of the personal and political ways that humans experience place.

Correct Option: 2

Rationale: The passage explicitly contradicts the idea of replacement. It states that the emotional component is “no less ‘real’ than a surveyor’s map,” establishing its validity, but later asserts, “Both literary and scientific approaches to place are necessary, working in unison, to achieve a complete record.” This implies they are complementary, and one cannot replace the other.

Why other options wrong: Option 1 is supported by the text: “Histories of places live on in many forms, one of which is the human memory or imagination.” Option 3 is supported by the text: “provide the emotional component… gives us a sense of how people relate.” Option 4 is supported by the text: “no less ‘real’ than a surveyor’s map.”

Different sciences exhibit different science cultures and practices. For example, in astronomy, observation – until what is today called the new astronomy – had always been limited to what could be seen within the limits of optical light. Indeed, until early modernity the limits to optical light were also limits of what humans could themselves see within their limited and relative perceptual spectrum of human vision. With early modernity and the invention of lensed optical instruments – telescopes – astronomers could begin to observe phenomena never seen before. Magnification and resolution began to allow what was previously imperceptible to be perceived – but within the familiar limits of optical vision. Galileo, having learned of the Dutch invention of a telescope by Hans Lippershey, went on to build some hundred of his own, improving from the Dutch 3x to nearly 30x telescopes – which turn out to be the limit of magnificational power without chromatic distortion. And it was with his own telescopes that he made the observations launching early modern astronomy (phases of Venus, satellites of Jupiter, etc.). Isaac Newton’s later improvement with reflecting telescopes expanded upon the magnificational-resolution capacity of optical observation; and, from Newton to the twentieth century, improvement continued on to the later very large array of light telescopes today – following the usual technological trajectory of “more-is-better” but still remaining within the limits of the light spectrum. Today’s astronomy has now had the benefit of some four centuries of optical telescopy. The “new astronomy,” however, opens the full known electromagnetic spectrum to observation, beginning with the accidental discovery of radio astronomy early in the twentieth century, and leading today to the diverse variety of EMS telescopes which can explore the range from gamma to radio waves. Thus, astronomy, now outfitted with new instruments, “smart” adaptive optics, very large arrays, etc., illustrates one style of instrumentally embodied science – a technoscience. Of course astronomy, with the very recent exceptions of probes to solar system bodies (Moon, Mars, Venus, asteroids), remains largely a “receptive” science, dependent upon instrumentation which can detect and receive emissions.

Contemporary biology displays a quite different instrument array and, according to Evelyn Fox-Keller, also a different scientific culture. She cites her own experience, coming from mathematical physics into microbiology, and takes account of the distinctive instrumental culture in her Making Sense of Life (2002). Here, particularly with the development of biotechnology, instrumentation is far more interventional than in the astronomy case. Microscopic instrumentation can be and often is interventional in style: “gene-splicing” and other techniques of biotechnology, while still in their infancy, are clearly part of the interventional trajectory of biological instrumentation. Yet, in both disciplines, the sciences involved are today highly instrumentalized and could not progress successfully without constant improvements upon the respective instrumental trajectories. So, minimalistically, one may conclude that the sciences are technologically, instrumentally embodied. But the styles of embodiment differ, and perhaps the last of the scientific disciplines to move into such technical embodiment is mathematics, which only contemporarily has come to rely more and more upon the computational machinery now in common use.

Correct Option: 1

Rationale: The passage begins by stating, “Different sciences exhibit different science cultures and practices.” It later identifies mathematics as one of these scientific disciplines (“the last of the scientific disciplines… is mathematics”). If Option 1 were true—that mathematics is only *now* beginning to develop a scientific culture because of computers—it would contradict the passage’s premise that mathematics was already a science (and thus possessed a science culture) prior to its recent adoption of computational machinery.

Why other options wrong: Option 2 does not contradict the passage; while the text distinguishes between receptive and interventional styles, it does not forbid an instrument from having both functions. Option 3 supports rather than contradicts the general theme of instruments expanding perception beyond human limits. Option 4 does not contradict the passage because the author emphasizes that sciences are “today” highly instrumentalized; the mention of Newton’s telescopes refers to observational astronomy, not necessarily his theoretical work on gravity, and the text acknowledges that early science had different limits.

Difficulty: Hard

How can we know what someone else is thinking or feeling, let alone prove it in court? In his 1863 book, A General View of the Criminal Law of England, James Fitzjames Stephen, among the most celebrated legal thinkers of his generation, was of the opinion that the assessment of a person’s mental state was an inference made with “little consciousness.” In a criminal case, jurors, doctors, and lawyers could watch defendants—scrutinizing clothing, mannerisms, tone of voice—but the best they could hope for were clues. . . . Rounding these clues up to a judgment about a defendant’s guilt, or a defendant’s life, was an act of empathy and imagination. . . . The closer the resemblance between defendants and their judges, the easier it was to overlook the gap that inference filled. Conversely, when a defendant struck officials as unlike themselves, whether by dint of disease, gender, confession, or race, the precariousness Passagof judgments about mental state was exposed.

In the nineteenth century, physicians who specialized in the study of madness and the care of the insane held themselves out as experts in the new field of mental science. Often called alienists or mad doctors, they were the predecessors of modern psychiatrists, neurologists, and psychologists. . . . The opinions of family and neighbors had once been sufficient to sift the sane from the insane, but a growing belief that insanity was a subtle condition that required expert, medical diagnosis pushed physicians into the witness box. . . . Lawyers for both prosecution and defense began to recruit alienists to assess defendants’ sanity and to testify to it in court.

Irresponsibility and insanity were not identical, however. Criminal responsibility was a legal concept and not, fundamentally, a medical one. Stephen explained: “The question ‘What are the mental elements of responsibility?’ is, and must be, a legal question. It cannot be anything else, for the meaning of responsibility is liability to punishment.” . . . Nonetheless, medical and legal accounts of what it meant to be mentally sound became entangled and mutually referential throughout the nineteenth century. Lawyers relied on medical knowledge to inform their opinions and arguments about the sanity of their clients. Doctors commented on the legal responsibility of their patients. Ultimately, the fields of criminal law and mental science were both invested in constructing an image of the broken and damaged psyche that could be contrasted with the whole and healthy one. This shared interest, and the shared space of the criminal courtroom, made it nearly impossible to consider responsibility without medicine, or insanity without law. . . .

Physicians and lawyers shared more than just concern for the mind. Class, race, and gender bound these middle-class, white, professional men together, as did family ties, patriotism, Protestantism, business ventures, the alumni networks of elite schools and universities, and structures of political patronage. But for all their affinities, men of medicine and law were divided by contests over the borders of criminal responsibility, as much within each profession as between them. Alienists steadily pushed the boundaries of their field, developing increasingly complex and capacious definitions of insanity. Eccentricity and aggression came to be classified as symptoms of mental disease, at least by some.

1. Judgement, Insanity, Punishment, Responsibility.

Rationale:

The passage primarily explores the intersection of legal and medical frameworks in the 19th century.

• Judgement: The text discusses the difficulty of making a “judgment about a defendant’s guilt” or mental state (Paragraph 1).
• Insanity: The rise of “alienists” and the definition of mental disease/insanity is a central theme (Paragraphs 2 and 4).
• Responsibility & Punishment: Paragraph 3 explicitly links these two concepts, stating, “The question ‘What are the mental elements of responsibility?’… must be a legal question… for the meaning of responsibility is liability to punishment.”

Why the other options are incorrect:

Option 4: Similar to the above, “Patronage” is a peripheral detail regarding social structures, not a core concept of the text’s argument regarding law and mental health.

Option 2 and 3: While words like “Business” and “Patriotism” appear in the text, they are minor details mentioned in the final paragraph only to illustrate the social bonds between doctors and lawyers. They are not central to the main arguments of the passage.

How can we know what someone else is thinking or feeling, let alone prove it in court? In his 1863 book, A General View of the Criminal Law of England, James Fitzjames Stephen, among the most celebrated legal thinkers of his generation, was of the opinion that the assessment of a person’s mental state was an inference made with “little consciousness.” In a criminal case, jurors, doctors, and lawyers could watch defendants—scrutinizing clothing, mannerisms, tone of voice—but the best they could hope for were clues. . . . Rounding these clues up to a judgment about a defendant’s guilt, or a defendant’s life, was an act of empathy and imagination. . . . The closer the resemblance between defendants and their judges, the easier it was to overlook the gap that inference filled. Conversely, when a defendant struck officials as unlike themselves, whether by dint of disease, gender, confession, or race, the precariousness Passagof judgments about mental state was exposed.

In the nineteenth century, physicians who specialized in the study of madness and the care of the insane held themselves out as experts in the new field of mental science. Often called alienists or mad doctors, they were the predecessors of modern psychiatrists, neurologists, and psychologists. . . . The opinions of family and neighbors had once been sufficient to sift the sane from the insane, but a growing belief that insanity was a subtle condition that required expert, medical diagnosis pushed physicians into the witness box. . . . Lawyers for both prosecution and defense began to recruit alienists to assess defendants’ sanity and to testify to it in court.

Irresponsibility and insanity were not identical, however. Criminal responsibility was a legal concept and not, fundamentally, a medical one. Stephen explained: “The question ‘What are the mental elements of responsibility?’ is, and must be, a legal question. It cannot be anything else, for the meaning of responsibility is liability to punishment.” . . . Nonetheless, medical and legal accounts of what it meant to be mentally sound became entangled and mutually referential throughout the nineteenth century. Lawyers relied on medical knowledge to inform their opinions and arguments about the sanity of their clients. Doctors commented on the legal responsibility of their patients. Ultimately, the fields of criminal law and mental science were both invested in constructing an image of the broken and damaged psyche that could be contrasted with the whole and healthy one. This shared interest, and the shared space of the criminal courtroom, made it nearly impossible to consider responsibility without medicine, or insanity without law. . . .

Physicians and lawyers shared more than just concern for the mind. Class, race, and gender bound these middle-class, white, professional men together, as did family ties, patriotism, Protestantism, business ventures, the alumni networks of elite schools and universities, and structures of political patronage. But for all their affinities, men of medicine and law were divided by contests over the borders of criminal responsibility, as much within each profession as between them. Alienists steadily pushed the boundaries of their field, developing increasingly complex and capacious definitions of insanity. Eccentricity and aggression came to be classified as symptoms of mental disease, at least by some.

1. Judgement, Insanity, Punishment, Responsibility.

Rationale:

The passage primarily explores the intersection of legal and medical frameworks in the 19th century.

• Judgement: The text discusses the difficulty of making a “judgment about a defendant’s guilt” or mental state (Paragraph 1).
• Insanity: The rise of “alienists” and the definition of mental disease/insanity is a central theme (Paragraphs 2 and 4).
• Responsibility & Punishment: Paragraph 3 explicitly links these two concepts, stating, “The question ‘What are the mental elements of responsibility?’… must be a legal question… for the meaning of responsibility is liability to punishment.”

Why the other options are incorrect:

Option 4: Similar to the above, “Patronage” is a peripheral detail regarding social structures, not a core concept of the text’s argument regarding law and mental health.

Option 2 and 3: While words like “Business” and “Patriotism” appear in the text, they are minor details mentioned in the final paragraph only to illustrate the social bonds between doctors and lawyers. They are not central to the main arguments of the passage.

Stoicism was founded in 300 BC by the Greek philosopher Zeno and survived into the Roman era until about AD 300. According to the Stoics, emotions consist of two movements. The first movement is the immediate feeling and other reactions (e.g., physiological response) that occur when a stimulus or event occurs. For instance, consider what could have happened if an army general accused Marcus Aurelius of treason in front of other officers. The first movement for Marcus may have been (internal) surprise and anger in response to this insult, accompanied perhaps by some involuntary physiological and expressive responses such as face flushing and a movement of the eyebrows. The second movement is what one does next about the emotion. Second movement behaviors occur after thinking and are under one’s control. Examples of second movements for Marcus might have included a plot to seek revenge, actions signifying deference and appeasement, or perhaps proceeding as he would have proceeded whether or not this event occurred: continuing to lead the Romans in a way that Marcus Aurelius believed best benefited them. In the Stoic view, choosing a reasoned, unemotional response as the second movement is the only appropriate response.

The Stoics believed that to live the good life and be a good person, we need to free ourselves of nearly all desires such as too much desire for money, power, or sexual gratification. Prior to second movements, we can consider what is important in life. Money, power, and excessive sexual gratification are not important. Character, rationality, and kindness are important. The Epicureans, first associated with the Greek philosopher Epicurus . . . held a similar view, believing that people should enjoy simple pleasures, such as good conversation, friendship, food, and wine, but not be indulgent in these pursuits and not follow passion for those things that hold no real value like power and money. As Oatley (2004) states, “the Epicureans articulated a view–enjoyment of relationship with friends, of things that are real rather than illusory, simple rather than artificially inflated, possible rather than vanishingly unlikely–that is certainly relevant today” . . . In sum, these ancient Greek and Roman philosophers saw emotions, especially strong ones, as potentially dangerous. They viewed emotions as experiences that needed to be [reined] in and controlled.

As Oatley (2004) points out, the Stoic idea bears some similarity to Buddhism. Buddha, living in India in the 6th century BC, argued for cultivating a certain attitude that decreases the probability of (in Stoic terms) destructive second movements. Through meditation and the right attitude, one allows emotions to happen to oneself (it is impossible to prevent this), but one is advised to observe the emotions without necessarily acting on them; one achieves some distance and decides what has value and what does not have value. Additionally, the Stoic idea of developing virtue in oneself, of becoming a good person, which the Stoics believed we could do because we have a touch of the divine, laid the foundation for the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam . . . As with Stoicism, tenets of these religions include controlling our emotions lest we engage in sinful behavior.

Option 4. Consider the following lines: “The Epicureans, first associated with the Greek philosopher Epicurus . . . held a similar view, believing that people should enjoy simple pleasures, such as good conversation, friendship, food, and wine, but not be indulgent in these pursuits and not follow passion for those things that hold no real value like power and money.” Now, if the fourth option is false, it would contradict the views quoted above.

Critical theory of technology is a political theory of modernity with a normative dimension. It belongs to a tradition extending from Marx to Foucault and Habermas according to which advances in the formal claims of human rights take center stage while in the background centralization of ever more powerful public institutions and private organizations imposes an authoritarian social order.

Marx attributed this trajectory to the capitalist rationalization of production. Today it marks many institutions besides the factory and every modern political system, including so-called socialist systems. This trajectory arose from the problems of command over a disempowered and deskilled labor force; but everywhere [that] masses are organized – whether it be Foucault’s prisons or Habermas’s public sphere – the same pattern prevails. Technological design and development is shaped by this pattern as the material base of a distinctive social order. Marcuse would later point to a “project” as the basis of what he called rather confusingly “technological rationality.” Releasing technology from this project is a democratic political task.

In accordance with this general line of thought, critical theory of technology regards technologies as an environment rather than as a collection of tools. We live today with and even within technologies that determine our way of life. Along with the constant pressures to build centers of power, many other social values and meanings are inscribed in technological design. A hermeneutics of technology must make explicit the meanings implicit in the devices we use and the rituals they script. Social histories of technologies such as the bicycle, artificial lighting or firearms have made important contributions to this type of analysis. Critical theory of technology attempts to build a methodological approach on the lessons of these histories.

As an environment, technologies shape their inhabitants. In this respect, they are comparable to laws and customs. Each of these institutions can be said to represent those who live under their sway through privileging certain dimensions of their human nature. Laws of property represent the interest in ownership and control. Customs such as parental authority represent the interest of childhood in safety and growth. Similarly, the automobile represents its users in so far as they are interested in mobility. Interests such as these constitute the version of human nature sanctioned by society.

This notion of representation does not imply an eternal human nature. The concept of nature as non-identity in the Frankfurt School suggests an alternative. On these terms, nature is what lies at the limit of history, at the point at which society loses the capacity to imprint its meanings on things and control them effectively. The reference here is, of course, not to the nature of natural science, but to the lived nature in which we find ourselves and which we are. This nature reveals itself as that which cannot be totally encompassed by the machinery of society. For the Frankfurt School, human nature, in all its transcending force, emerges out of a historical context as that context is [depicted] in illicit joys, struggles and pathologies. We can perhaps admit a less romantic . . . conception in which those dimensions of human nature recognized by society are also granted theoretical legitimacy.

Option 4. The main idea of the fourth paragraph is encapsulated in its opening line: “As an environment, technologies shape their inhabitants. In this respect, they are comparable to laws and customs.” The rest of the paragraph is elaborating upon this point.

Option 3. The reference to Foucault’s prisons or Habermas’s public sphere is an example of ways in which masses are organized. These are not the only ways in which this is done.

The Chinese have two different concepts of a copy. Fangzhipin . . . are imitations where the difference from the original is obvious. These are small models or copies that can be purchased in a museum shop, for example. The second concept for a copy is fuzhipin . . . They are exact reproductions of the original, which, for the Chinese, are of equal value to the original. It has absolutely no negative connotations. The discrepancy with regard to the understanding of what a copy is has often led to misunderstandings and arguments between China and Western museums. The Chinese often send copies abroad instead of originals, in the firm belief that they are not essentially different from the originals. The rejection that then comes from the Western museums is perceived by the Chinese as an insult. . . .

The Far Eastern notion of identity is also very confusing to the Western observer. The Ise Grand Shrine [in Japan] is 1,300 years old for the millions of Japanese people who go there on pilgrimage every year. But in reality this temple complex is completely rebuilt from scratch every 20 years. . . .

The cathedral of Freiburg Minster in southwest Germany is covered in scaffolding almost all year round. The sandstone from which it is built is a very soft, porous material that does not withstand natural erosion by rain and wind. After a while, it crumbles. As a result, the cathedral is continually being examined for damage, and eroded stones are replaced. And in the cathedral’s dedicated workshop, copies of the damaged sandstone figures are constantly being produced. Of course, attempts are made to preserve the stones from the Middle Ages for as long as possible. But at some point they, too, are removed and replaced with new stones.

Fundamentally, this is the same operation as with the Japanese shrine, except in this case the production of a replica takes place very slowly and over long periods of time. . . . In the field of art as well, the idea of an unassailable original developed historically in the Western world. Back in the 17th century [in the West], excavated artworks from antiquity were treated quite differently from today. They were not restored in a way that was faithful to the original. Instead, there was massive intervention in these works, changing their appearance. . . .

It is probably this intellectual position that explains why Asians have far fewer scruples about cloning than Europeans. The South Korean cloning researcher Hwang Woo-suk, who attracted worldwide attention with his cloning experiments in 2004, is a Buddhist. He found a great deal of support and followers among Buddhists, while Christians called for a ban on human cloning. . . . Hwang legitimised his cloning experiments with his religious affiliation: ‘I am Buddhist, and I have no philosophical problem with cloning. And as you know, the basis of Buddhism is that life is recycled through reincarnation. In some ways, I think, therapeutic cloning restarts the circle of life.’

Option: 3. The passage says that the 21st century West is not willing to accept cloning because they believe in and adhere to the idea of not tampering with the original. Option 1 is likely to follow from the passage. Since things were different in the 17th century than what it is today, artists would not mind tampering with the original. Option 2 follows from the passage. Option 3 is opposite to what the passage states. In fact, if 2 follows from the passage, then 3 must also follow from the passage. One might wonder why not 4. The fact that Eastern people do not object to the idea of imitation does not mean that they would not value reconstructed shrine as the original. Only 3 is unlikely to follow, rest all will follow.

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.

Option: 4. This should be an easy question to answer because the question asks us to pick the valid argument. It means that there is one valid argument and the other three are not. 3 is a valid argument because it is the very theme of the passage. 2 also finds mention in the passage. To prove 2, you just have to look at the options and the right answers of the preceding two questions. 1 also is true as per the passage. 4 is also correct.
You must be wondering, then, why option 4 is the right answer if all the other choices are factually correct. For this you have to read the question carefully. It asks you to pick a choice ‘about the emergence of music/musicking’. Options 1,2, and 3, though correct, have nothing to do with the emergence of musicking. Emergence of musicking has been discussed in the last two paragraphs.

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