COMPREHENSION

Directions for the 21 items which follow :

In this section you have six short passages. After each passage, you will find some questions based on the passage. First, read a passage and answer the questions based on it. You are required to select your answers based on the contents of the passage and opinion of the author only.

Passage 1 (next five questions)

To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind is prone, no superhuman brain is required. A few simple rules will keep you, not from all errors, but from silly errors.

If the matter is one that can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself, Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. Thinking that you know, when in fact you do not, is a bad mistake to which we are all prone. I believe myself that hedgehogs eat black beetles, because I have been told that they do; but if I were writing a book on the habits of hedgehogs, I should not commit myself until I had seen one enjoying this diet. Arisytotle, however, was less cautious. Ancient and medieval writers knew all about unicorns and salamanders; not one of them thought it necessary to avoid dogmatic statements about them because he had never seen one of them.

Passage 2 (next two questions)

Since I had nothing better to do, I decided to go to the market to buy a few handkerchiefs, the old ones had done vanishing trick. On the way I met an old friend of mine and I took him to a nearby restaurant for tea and snacks. Afterwards I went to the shop and selected a dozen handkerchiefs. I pulled out my purse to make the payment, and discovered that it was empty; I then realized that it was not my purse, it was a different purse altogether. How that happened is still a source of wonder to me and I refuse to believe that it was the work of my good old friend, for it was his purse that I held in my hand.

Passage 3 (next three questions)

A profound terror, increased still by the darkness, the silence and his waking images, froze his heart within him. He almost felt his hair stand on end, when by straining his eyes to their utmost, he perceived through the shadows two faint yellow lights. At first he attributed these lights to the reflection of his own pupils, but soon the vivid brilliance of the night aided him gradually to distinguish the objects around him in the cave, and he beheld a huge animal lying but two steps from him.

Passage 4 (next four questions)

We are tempted to assume that technological progress is real progress and that material success is the criterion of civilization. If the Eastern people become fascinated by machines and techniques and use them, as Western nations do, to build huge industrial organizations and large military establishments, they will get involved in power politics and drift into the danger of death. Scientific and technological civilization brings great opportunities and great rewards but also great risks and temptations. Science and technology are neither good nor bad. They are not to be tabooed but tamed and assigned their proper place. They become dangerous only if they become idols.

Passage 5 (next three questions)

It is not luck but labour that makes men. Luck, says an American writer, is ever waiting for something to turn up; labour with keen eyes and strong will always turns up something. Luck lies in bed and wishes the postman would bring him news of a legacy; labour turns out at six and with busy pen and ringing hammer lays the fondation of competence. Luck whines, labour watches. Luck relies on chance; labour on character. Luck slips downwards to self-indulgence; labour strides upwards and aspires to independence. The conviction, therefore, is extending that diligence is the mother of good luck; in other words, that a man's success in life will be proportionate to his efforts, to his industry, to his attention to small things.

Passage 6 (next four questions)

The avowed purpose of the exact sciences is to establish complete intellectual control over experience in terms of precise rules which can be formally set out and empirically tested. Could that ideal be fully achieved, all truth and all error could henceforth be ascribed to an exact theory of the universe, while we who accept this theory would be relieved of any occasion for exercising our personal judgement. We should only have to follow the rules faithfully. Classical mechanics approaches this ideal so closely that it is often thought to have achieved it. But this leaves out of account the element of personal judgement involved in applying the formulae of mechanics to the facts of experience.