Critical Reasoning

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.

Will post the OA soon. Thanks.

IMO: B

aman88 wrote: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.

Will post the OA soon. Thanks.

IMO B
My reasoning:
According to critics the universities will not mutually help each other to crack the code, but what if the code can be cracked without dependence.