According to some sports historians, professional tennis players devel

Agree with Mr. Mike, I actually thought that (A) was the correct answer choice but after reviewing D sounds like a valid answer choice

Bottom-Line: Question's tough; Do not focus on this for study material

Cheers
J

For me, D.

The argument above is most weakened by which of the following statements?
(A) The differences in physical attributes among tennis players are even more pronounced than the sports historians believe. --> Attractive, but maybe not weaken. The more pronounced attributes MAY contend that some players' styles are difference, or it proves that there are more universal styles.

(D) All of the early coaches of today's professional tennis players were professional tennis players themselves earlier in their lives. --> Absolutely weaken, if ALL players conform with the universal style (coach and attribute), the early coaches cannot be pro by themselves. Thus, weaken.

Any comment if wrong.
.

conclusion says- "there is a universally efficient tennis style to which all professional tennis players conform."
to weaken this we have to show that there is nothing like universal style ->> players get affected by their coach who themselves were player..so they share similar tennis playing style because of their coaches influence

Is it too far fetched to assume that as per Option D, (i.e. All of the early coaches of today's professional tennis players were professional tennis players themselves earlier in their lives) these coaches taught the players styles which they themselves learnt, since it is mentioned in the argument premise that coaches influence the player style.

So doesnt this option kind of strengthen the argument assuming that these current coaches were influenced earlier by their coaches earlier?

Dear 5achin,
I'm happy to respond. As I mentioned above, I don't think this is a particularly high quality question. I think it has several flaws. Nevertheless, the logic of the conclusion is very straightforward.

Big Question: Why is one playing style so common?
That's the implicit question that the argument is trying to answer.
Reason #1: it's the best, the "universally efficient tennis style"
That's the argument's answer. Everyone uses it because it's the best.
Choice (D) suggests a completely different answer to the question.
Reason #2: everyone copies from everyone else--i.e. this generation copied from their coaches, who copied from theirs, etc.
In other words, it's not necessarily the best, it's just the one that has been most passed down from coach to player over the successive generations, perhaps because it is most teachable or easily imitated or something of this sort. If this is true, then we can explain everything without assuming that this style is the best. That weakens the argument.

Does this make sense?
Mike

Ok it does make now. I was assuming that since all coaches were players they teach the most efficient style.. Never thought of the style taught need not be efficient but just easy to teach or imitate.
Thanks Mike!

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

The author begins by describing the view of some sports historians, who subscribe to a basic formula: physical attributes + a coach's influence = a player's "unique" tennis style. After dismissing the relevance of modern players' greater strength and endurance, however, the author argues that current styles are really no different from previous styles, implying that the historians' claim of the existence of "unique" tennis styles is bogus. And this implication is stated outright in the last sentence, where the author posits the existence of a universally successful tennis style shared by all professionals. In other words, the author uses the fact that tennis styles haven't changed over the years to argue that there's simply one best way to play tennis; in contrast to the historians' theory of "unique," the author proposes the theory of "universality." But the author ignores a plausible alternative explanation; namely, the role of the tennis coach. If, as (D) has it, the early coaches of today's players were the professionals of yesteryear, then it's reasonable to believe that the style the author considers "universal" may simply be the style (one possible one among many) that was handed down from one generation to the next. Perhaps if the current crop of tennis stars don't go on to teach the next generation, whole new styles will develop. If the current style is learned, then it may not be universally inherent to the game. If (D) is true, the author's claim of "universality" is weakened. That makes (D) the winner.

(A) emphasizes the truth of the first part of the sports historians' view regarding the individuality of physical attributes. Since the author doesn't explicitly disagree that players vary in terms of some attributes, this choice doesn't weaken the argument.

(B) if anything, strengthens the argument: If most current players don't know of the players of previous generations, yet their styles are for the most part similar to that of those players, then we'd be more likely to believe that the author is on to something with the claim that a universally efficient style exists in the world of professional tennis.

(C) makes an irrelevant distinction between strength and endurance. Saying that one has a greater impact than the other has no effect on the argument, which never even begins to rank those two factors.

(E) The factors that contribute to the greater strength and weight of today's players are beyond the scope of this argument. The argument focuses on the similarity of styles that is evident once these factors are discounted. Why the current players are stronger and heartier than the previous bunch is not the issue.

No disrespect to Kaplan, but a lot of their Critical Reasoning questions drive me nuts. I'll get other prep company's questions correct, yet end up bombing Kaplan's CR Questions.

Despite that fact, I actually didn't mind this question. What stood out to me most was the word "efficient" used in the Conclusion and the "Gap" that exists between the author's Premise/observance of "facts".


The author is looking at the playing styles of todays pro tennis players and those of pro tennis players from prior generations and observes that the styles are essentially the same (discounting for increases in strength and endurance). Mike is correct: I do not know how the author could come up with this "fact." But since it is a Premise the author bases the argument on, we'll take it as fact.

From this observance, the author concludes that there must be a "universally EFFICIENT tennis style" and all professional players conform to this "universally efficient tennis style."


The "Gap" I spotted was the following: just because the pro players today and the pro players from prior generations have "similar playing styles", does this mean that there is some universally accepted efficient tennis style that all pro players learn?

Just because the 2 generations play tennis in a similar way, this does not necessarily mean that there is a universal standard that they all "conformed" to learning. Maybe there is another reason why the present and past generations of pro tennis players play with a similar style?


(D) If ALL of the coaches who coached today's pro players early on in their development were ALSO pro players themselves, then it is more likely that these coaches just passed on their own style to the current generation.

Perhaps there isn't some universally accepted "efficient" playing style to which all the pro players conform. What the author observes is just the prior generation "passing on" their style to the current generation. After all, we are told that some sports historians believe that early influence from coaches has an influence on the playing style of pro tennis players.


(D) makes it slightly less likely that the author's claim is correct.

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