The question asks us to choose the option that the author is least likely to agree with i.e. the option he is likely to disagree with. Option 3, which talks of ‘homogeneity with each change’ (uniformity) in folk music is clearly incorrect, as the passage is about the perpetual state of renewal folk music is under and about the plurality and diversity observed in the British folk tradition.

Option 1—the power of folk resides in its contradictory ability to influence and be influenced by the present while remaining rooted in the past— is inferred by the author’s description of folk as sonic ‘shabby chic’ (stylish while being, at the same time, old), and having ‘the rare distinction of occupying fashionable and unfashionable status simultaneously’.

Option 2—folk forms, despite their archaic origins, remain intellectually relevant in contemporary times—is inferred from paragraph 2: ‘folk is hip again, influencing artists, clothing and furniture designers, celebrated at music festivals, awards ceremonies and on TV, reissued on countless record labels’.

Option 4—the plurality and democratising impulse of folk forms emanate from the improvisation that its practitioners bring to it— is inferred from Cecil Sharpe’s description of folk: ‘each rendition of a ballad to an acorn falling from an oak tree; every subsequent iteration sows the song anew’.