An archaeological dig sponsored by five universities unearthed five st

Question

An archaeological dig sponsored by five universities unearthed five stone tablets incised with an undeciphered ancient script. The universities agreed that each would take one tablet to decipher. Because of the prestige involved for the university that cracks the script, critics of current academic practices fear that the universities will jealously guard their scholars' work until decipherment is complete, and this prevention of scholars building on each others' work will result in the script never being deciphered.

Which of the following, if true, would tend to weaken most seriously the critics' argument?

A. Without healthy competition, the intellectual life of the university stagnates and research loses forward momentum.

B. The decipherment of other ancient scripts has generally been the work of a single person working alone.

C. Universities will give substantial funding to projects they consider prestigious.

D. A university atmosphere generally provides an open forum for the exchange of ideas, which enhances the growth of intellectual projects.

E. When deciphering a code, the military always works in secrecy to prevent any leaks to the enemy that will warn them to change their code.

ezhilkumarank · Answer

I have a question here. Can we say that option D resembles a shell game?

hemanthp · Answer

What is a Shell Game? Looks like the answer but isn't? I picked that.

ezhilkumarank · Answer

For info about the shell game, please refer to this post. https://gmatclub.com/forum/headache-cr-100776.html#p779517 Quoting suyashjhawar. :-D :-D :-D Shell game -- a coin is placed in one of the three shell and the shells are quickly shuffled and the participants are asked to bet on the shell wherein they think the coin is present. See below. shell_game.jpg

geturdream · Answer

its B. 
The stimulus says : 
The script will never be deciphered because the universities wont share each others work.

To weaken this we can prove that to decipher the script they wont need any help.

Option B states that The decipherment of other ancient scripts has generally been the work of a single person working alone.

So this weakens the argument.

dreambeliever · Answer

IMO B

Conclusion is - if scholars work in isolation then the code might not get cracked.

Without healthy competition, the intellectual life of the university stagnates and research loses forward momentum.
 while healthy competition might be good it doesnot say whether healthy competition involves working in groups or in isolation 
The decipherment of other ancient scripts has generally been the work of a single person working alone. if other scripts could be cracked by one person working in isolation then there should not be much concern about working in isolation this time. So this weakens the argument  
Universities will give substantial funding to projects they consider prestigious.  -- irrelevant 
A university atmosphere generally provides an open forum for the exchange of ideas, which enhances the growth of intellectual projects. this just says that working in isolation within the university is hard. irrelevant 
When deciphering a code, the military always works in secrecy to prevent any leaks to the enemy that will warn them to change their code.  military works in isolation but the statement does not say whether that helps them to crack codes or if codes are often never cracked

vivesomnium · Answer

Without healthy competition, the intellectual life of the university stagnates and research loses forward momentum.:  Irrlevant, no one is talking about intellectual environment of the univeristy 
The decipherment of other ancient scripts has generally been the work of a single person working alone. :  The conclusion fears that the scholars alone and not building on each others' work will never be able to decipher. But this example directly contradicts by saying generally in past single scholars have been able to decipher to code. 
Universities will give substantial funding to projects they consider prestigious.:  Question of funding is not important here. Noone are we presented with any correlateion of successful decoding with the finding available 
A university atmosphere generally provides an open forum for the exchange of ideas, which enhances the growth of intellectual projects.  Here it is clearly stated in teh argument that university will jealously guard the work done on code - so it is unlikely that it will be dicussed in the 'open forum' university has! also, the exchange of ideas in such open forum might or might not be with other scholars who can provide any helpful insights! 
When deciphering a code, the military always works in secrecy to prevent any leaks to the enemy that will warn them to change their code.  This is irrelavant - military decosing a code is not similar to archaeologist scholars in purpose or in consequence. and the script cant be changed, while military code can be! no analogy.

gautammalik · Answer

Nice question.
Question type - weaken the argument.
Conclusion - "this prevention of scholars building on each others' work will result in the script never being deciphered"
(A) - "healthy competition" is not discussed in argument. Its about "jealousy"
(B) - Weakens.
(C) - Funding has already been provided. Out of scope.
(D) - Even in open forum because of "jealousy" students may not share knowledge. Does not weaken.
(E) - military is not one person, but is group of soldiers, commanders etc. Irrelevant.

(B) wins.

tuanquang269 · Answer

Premise 1: 5 Us sponsored 1 archaeological dig and found 5 stone tablets that were not deciphered before

Premise 2: Each U take 1 tablet. Who crack the script will be honored

Conclusions: U will guard their scholars' work => prevent the scholars building on each others' work from deciphering

Which of the following, if true, would tend to weaken most seriously the critics' argument?

-Without healthy competition, the intellectual life of the university stagnates and research loses forward momentum. => Strengthen one
-The decipherment of other ancient scripts has generally been the work of a single person working alone. => Contender
-Universities will give substantial funding to projects they consider prestigious. => irrelevant
-A university atmosphere generally provides an open forum for the exchange of ideas, which enhances the growth of intellectual projects. => Contender
-When deciphering a code, the military always works in secrecy to prevent any leaks to the enemy that will warn them to change their code. => military will protect the work within the country from enemy. If 5 University located in 1 country, this one is not strength to attack conclusion

Between B and D, I chose B because I think that D is normal atmosphere, but now the 5 tablets is the most secret in history of archaeology that will make the prestige for one school and create the competitive atmosphere.

gmatprav · Answer

I chose D. but none seemed good to me. My doubt with B is how is it relevant to this particular deciphering in question? 5 different tablets are with 5 different universities. "Each would take one tablet to decipher" I understood this as each univ deciphers one tablet and collaboration is needed to decipher the whole, so single person deciphering this particular puzzle didn't make sense. Did I miss anything?

samsmalldog · Answer

and this  prevention  of scholars building  on each others' work  will result in the script never being deciphered.

B seems fit that.

gmatprav · Answer

Can you please elaborate? I didn't understand.

samsmalldog · Answer

Background :An archaeological dig sponsored by five universities unearthed five stone tablets incised with an undeciphered ancient script. The universities agreed that each would take one tablet to decipher.

Premise :Because of the prestige involved for the university that cracks the script, critics of current academic practices fear that the universities will jealously guard their scholars' work until decipherment is complete,

Conclusion :and this  prevention  of scholars building on  each others' work  will result in the script never being deciphered.

The answer would weaken the critics' argument, so if the answer attack or weaken the main conclusion, choose it.

The red part is the main point of the conclusion:prevent working with each other will result that the work will never finished. i,e,  work alone --> never deciphered.

B.The decipherment of other ancient scripts has generally been the work of a single person working alone.
This answer hits the point, "generally" told us that it's  usual  to work alone in decipherment, like there is one teacher teaching in the class and it works,, this answer actually weaken the conclusion

D.A university atmosphere generally provides an open forum for the exchange of ideas, which enhances the growth of intellectual projects.
irrelevent, told us nothing about  work alone  and  decipherment

NEVER EVER  attack background information, In weaken question we must focus on the MAIN CONCLUSION. or you will go too far.

hope it helps,

Jack.

profeta305 · Answer

My understanding of why B is wrong. Can anyone, please, clarify this for me?

B: states that the decipher of scripts (scripts=a whole script) is done by a single person, alone. The Universities have taken different stones of a single script. This means that the Universities need to come together to form one whole team of 1 (the equivalent of a single person), which is not being done.

For this reason I believe B is wrong.

VarunBhardwaj · Answer

The argument : An archaeological dig sponsored by five universities unearthed five stone tablets incised with an undecipherable ancient script. The universities agreed that each would take one tablet to decipher. Because of the prestige involved for the university that cracks the script, critics of current academic practices fear that the universities will jealously guard their scholars' work until decipherment is complete, and this prevention of scholars building on each others' work will result in the script never being deciphered. Five stone tablets are found and all are incised with an undeciphered ancient script.It is NO WHERE written that all these tablets are a part of a big tablet and all need to be put together to get it deciphered. I think you are watching too much of TOMB RAIDER movies :lol:

Consider these tablets as some ancient coins with some symbols on it and symbols are independent and standalone.

RAHUL_GMAT · Answer

The link which you shared is not working. - It is restricted.
Can you please open it?

Bunuel · Answer

Here is that post:

sarphant123 · Answer

Kaplan's Explanation - 
Identify the Question Type: The word "weaken" signals that this is a Weaken question.
 
Predict a Weakener that disproves the central assumption. 
Untangle the Stimulus: The conclusion of the argument is that the ancient script will never get deciphered. 
The author’s evidence is the conjecture that, because universities want the prestige of being first to crack the script, they won't share their progress, which will prevent the scholars from building on each other’s work. 
Predict the Answer: The author is suggesting that the lack of cooperation is going to prevent the script from being deciphered. That assumes that university researchers cannot succeed unless they build upon each other’s work. 
A good weakener would show that the researchers can succeed without building on each other’s work. 
Evaluate the Choices: 
(B) is correct. It suggests that the researchers can succeed when working alone, thus weakening the author's assumption that people need to build upon each other's work to succeed. (A) is much broader than the terms of the argument. This suggests that the competition will provide momentum for university research, but does not directly counter the author's assertion that the script will not be deciphered. 
(C) would not weaken the argument. Extra funding does not guarantee success, so the author's argument still stands. 
(D) would not weaken the argument. Even if there were open forums within universities, the author could still claim that universities need to work together and share ideas with each other. If they don't, then the author can still claim that the script will not be deciphered. 
(E) would not weaken the argument. What works for the military does not necessarily work for universities. Moreover, there's no indication that individual military groups are working independently. 
Thus, this would not provide a relevant enough comparison to affect the author's argument. 
TAKEAWAY: To weaken an argument that presupposes that something is necessary for success, look for an answer that shows why it's not needed.

ameyaagrawal · Answer

Conclusion of the argument says that for success for Certain Job, Scientists need to follow each others work.
In mathematical way - The Job  A  requires  B

You can weaken it by either saying job  A  do not require  B or it actually requires  X  
 
Option B states the same  -  That Job A DO NOT require B

Hoozan · Answer

@Vini800HBS isn't it true that the critics are assuming that gaining prestige is more important than deciphering the script? So what if we have an answer choice that weakens this link. In other words what if we have a choice that shows us that the critics' fear is invalid since the universities in question want to decipher the script more than the rewards that follow?

The argument in my mind is "prestige --> guarding work --> no corporation b/w universities --> not deciphering the argument. So We can weaken the argument by targeting any of the connections above right?

Keeping the above in mind could you commend on (D)?

Also, when I look at In a weaken question I think to myself: "we can either go ahead and find the conclusion and see how to weaken the argument by weakening the assumption OR we could also target the premise and weaken the link thereby weakening the argument"

Is the above thought correct? OR is it always to just target the conclusion?

An archaeological dig sponsored by five universities unearthed five st

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An archaeological dig sponsored by five universities unearthed five st

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