Martial artists

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Martial artists

by pandeyvineet24 » Sun Jan 10, 2010 7:16 pm
Some martial artists study modern grappling styles in an effort to learn about a lost Korean grappling style known as Yusul. This pursuit, however, is ultimately futile due to the enormous variation within modern grappling styles. In fact, all grappling styles known to martial artists have incorporated at least some elements of other, non-grappling styles into their execution.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the criticism of the martial artists' pursuit?

(A) All grappling styles, whether ancient or modern, have common elements absent in other, non-grappling styles. correct
(B) Most ancient grappling styles have either been lost or transformed into other fighting styles.
(C) All martial artists study some type of modern fighting style.
(D) Many martial artists who study modern grappling styles do not conclude anything about ancient grappling styles from their studies.
(E) Even those modern grappling styles that have not incorporated elements of other fighting techniques differ from Yusul in significant ways.

Please post your reasoning as well ?
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by komal » Thu Jan 28, 2010 12:14 am
Some martial artists study modern grappling styles in an effort to learn about a lost Korean grappling style known as Yusul. This pursuit, however, is ultimately futile due to the enormous variation within modern grappling styles. In fact, all grappling styles known to martial artists have incorporated at least some elements of other, non-grappling styles into their execution.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the criticism of the martial artists' pursuit?

Premise : Some martial artist study modern grappling styles to learn ancient grappling style

Premise : All grappling styles (ancient and modern) have elements of non-grappling styles

Conclusion : Learning modern grappling is of no use (futile) because all of them have elements of non-grappling styles

We can weaken the argument by attacking the conclusion.



(A) All grappling styles, whether ancient or modern, have common elements absent in other, non-grappling styles.
CORRECT : This weakens the argument by attacking the conclusion (stating that ALL grappling styles have common elements which are not found in NON-GRAPPLING STYLES)

(B) Most ancient grappling styles have either been lost or transformed into other fighting styles.
INCORRECT : Issue is not whether grappling styles have been lost or not, issue is about incorporating common elements from each other.

(C) All martial artists study some type of modern fighting style.
INCORRECT : We are not concerned about ALL martial artists and which style they study. We are concerned about SOME martial artists who study modern style in an effort to learn the lost korean style.

(D) Many martial artists who study modern grappling styles do not conclude anything about ancient grappling styles from their studies.
INCORRECT : again it is 'many' v/s 'some' modern martial artists

(E) Even those modern grappling styles that have not incorporated elements of other fighting techniques differ from Yusul in significant ways.
INCORRECT : This is irrelevant/out of scope. Argument is about ancient and modern grappling styles in general and not only Yusul.

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by money9111 » Thu Jan 28, 2010 2:49 am
pandeyvineet24..this is a great question. would it be possible to hide the answer at the bottom next time? i was all set to go through the answers when and upon reading answer choice A i see CORRECT... lol it threw me off haha THANKS!
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by vijay_venky » Thu Jan 28, 2010 9:52 pm
Looking at the structure,

simply put,
P1. some --> learn GS to learn about ancient grappling style Yusul
(Conclusion) This pursuit futile.
P2. Enormous variation within modern grappling styles
P3. All GS known to MA have atleast some(>=1) of the non-grappling styles.

how are the premises leading to the conclusion?
because P2 and P3, P1 is futile.
There is a flaw in the argument here itself. The argument never says the elements of the ancient GS are absent in the modern GS. So anything that attacks this part of the argument is a winner.

Option A precisely does this, so the winner.