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If the artificial is not better than the natural, to what end are all

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Bunuel
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If the artificial is not better than the natural, to what end are all [#permalink] New post   14 Dec 2019, 03:27
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If the artificial is not better than the natural, to what end are all the arts of life? To dig, to plow, to build, to wear clothes—all are direct violations of the injunction to follow nature.

Which one of the following is an assumption made by the author of the passage?

(A) The arts of life have no useful end.

(B) The artificial is not better than the natural.

(C) Digging, plowing, building, and wearing clothes are better than nature.

(D) The injunction to follow nature should not be violated.

(E) The arts of life are indirect means of following nature.
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If the artificial is not better than the natural, to what end are all [#permalink] New post   22 Dec 2019, 21:01
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First let's understand the passage.

If the artificial is not better than the natural, to what end are all the arts of life? - it means that arts of life are all artificial and are not better than natural
To dig, to plow, to build, to wear clothes—all are direct violations of the injunction to follow nature. - This statement is where we find the difficulty lies in comprehension- The author says that to dig,to plow, to build,to wear clothes are violating the injunctions to follow nature- what are these injunctions? -" that natural is better than artificial." This means that to dig,to plow, to build,to wear clothes are better than natural, thereby violating the injuction.

lets look at the options

(A) The arts of life have no useful end.-the author is trying to understand what are the uses of arts of life.so incorrect

(B) The artificial is not better than the natural.-"It's stated in the passage explicitly" .Incorrect

(C) Digging, plowing, building, and wearing clothes are better than nature.- " this is what the author assumes as these arts are violating the injunction that natural is better than artificial." Correct

(D) The injunction to follow nature should not be violated.-" The author does not say so ,rather he gives the instances of violation". Incorrect

(E) The arts of life are indirect means of following nature -" This is actually a weakener. If the arts of life are nothing but following nature than there is no violation of the injunction ."The conclusion specifically states that there has been a violation, if this statement is true than nothing has been violated as all these arts are present in nature already and are better than the one's practiced. Incorrect
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Bunuel
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Re: If the artificial is not better than the natural, to what end are all [#permalink] New post   18 Jan 2020, 11:44
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Bunuel wrote:
If the artificial is not better than the natural, to what end are all the arts of life? To dig, to plow, to build, to wear clothes—all are direct violations of the injunction to follow nature.

Which one of the following is an assumption made by the author of the passage?

(A) The arts of life have no useful end.

(B) The artificial is not better than the natural.

(C) Digging, plowing, building, and wearing clothes are better than nature.

(D) The injunction to follow nature should not be violated.

(E) The arts of life are indirect means of following nature.


TWIN QUESTION: https://gmatclub.com/forum/if-the-artif ... 14654.html
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Re: If the artificial is not better than the natural, to what end are all [#permalink] New post   05 Jan 2022, 02:59
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This is tough, and I struggled mainly because I took the first sentence literary and was not aware that the first sentence is a rhetorical question.

For example, when people say, “what’s the point of doing this?”, they mean that there is no point doing it.

Much the same way, the first sentence, “If the artificial is not better than the natural, to what end are all the arts of life?”, was, in fact, a rhetorical question because the person saying this actually meant that the artificial is better than the natural.

Had I seen the hidden intent of the interlocutor, the whole thing would have been pretty straightforward. Damn! Why couldn’t I see that?!
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Re: If the artificial is not better than the natural, to what end are all [#permalink] New post   14 Jun 2023, 07:49
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