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Expression of Ideas Difficulty: Hard

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

  • The Million Song Dataset (MSD) includes main audio features and descriptive tags for popular songs.
  • Audio features include acoustic traits such as loudness and pitch intervals.
  • Many algorithms use these audio features to predict a new song’s popularity.
  • These algorithms may fail to accurately identify main audio features of a song with varying acoustic traits.
  • Algorithms based on descriptive tags that describe fixed traits such as genre are more reliable predictors of song popularity.

The student wants to explain a disadvantage of relying on audio features to predict a song’s popularity. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

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Explanation

Choice B is the best answer. This choice uses relevant information from the notes to explain a disadvantage of relying on audio features to predict a song’s popularity—namely, that it may misidentify features of certain songs. It also contrasts audio features with descriptive tags, which are more reliable predictors.

Choice A is incorrect. This choice only states a fact about the algorithms without evaluating their reliability or accuracy. Choice C is incorrect. This choice only describes the difference between audio features and descriptive tags without indicating why this difference matters for predicting popularity. Choice D is incorrect. This choice only mentions descriptive tags, which are not the focus of the student’s rhetorical goal.