Question 1 · Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
MCQ
The given sentence is missing in the paragraph below. Decide where it best fits among the options 1, 2, 3, or 4 indicated in the paragraph.
Sentence: While taste is related to judgment, with thinkers at the time often writing, for example, about “judgments of taste” or using the two terms interchangeably, taste retains a vital link to pleasure, embodiment, and personal specificity that is too often elided in post-Kantian ideas about judgment—a link that Arendt herself was working to restore.
Paragraph: ____(1) ____. Denneny focused on taste rather than judgment in order to highlight what he believed was a crucial but neglected historical change. ____(2) ____. Over the course of the seventeenth century and early eighteenth century, across Western Europe, the word taste took on a new extension of meaning, no longer referring specifically to gustatory sensation and the delights of the palate but becoming, for a time, one of the central categories for aesthetic—and ethical—thinking. ____(3) ____. Tracing the history of taste in Spanish, French, and British aesthetic theory, as Denneny did, also provides a means to recover the compelling and relevant writing of a set of thinkers who have been largely neglected by professional philosophy. ____(4) ____.
- A.
Option 3
- B.
Option 1
- C.
Option 2
- D.
Option 4
Step-by-Step Solution
Key idea: This is a conceptual-setup insertion question, recognisable because the missing sentence defines the relationship between two abstract terms, "taste" and "judgment," before the paragraph explains a scholar's choice between them.
Step 1: Read the missing sentence. It states that taste is related to judgment but retains a special link to pleasure, embodiment, and personal specificity, which post-Kantian ideas often erase.
Step 2: Look for the sentence that depends on this distinction. The sentence after Blank 1 says: "Denneny focused on taste rather than judgment..." This sentence only makes full sense if the reader already understands why taste and judgment are distinct but related.
Step 3: Test Blank 1. Placing the missing sentence at the start gives the conceptual framework first: taste vs. judgment. Then Denneny's focus on taste rather than judgment follows naturally. The structure is Concept → Scholar's use of concept.
Step 4: Check the rest of the paragraph. After Denneny's focus is introduced, the paragraph explains the historical change in the meaning of taste. That is a logical next step after the conceptual setup.
Step 5: Reject other blanks. Blank 2 interrupts the direct link between Denneny's focus and the historical change he wants to highlight. Blank 3 places the theoretical distinction after the historical explanation, making the Arendt point feel late and tangential. Blank 4 is a concluding position, but the missing sentence is a foundational setup.
Answer: Option 1 (B).
Question 2 · Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
MCQ
The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
For millennia, in the process of opening up land for agriculture, gardens, grazing and hunting, humans have created ecological “mosaics”, or “patchworks”: landscapes holding a mixture of habitats, like meadows, gardens and forests. These were not designed as nature reserves, but often catered to hugely diverse animal life. Research indicates that European hay meadows cultivated for animal feed were actually more successful at preserving a vast array of species than meadows explicitly cultivated for biodiversity. Studying the early Holocene, researchers have found that human presence was about as likely to increase biodiversity as reduce it. Of course, not all human-created landscapes have the same value. A paved subdivision with astroturfed lawns is very different to a village with diverse vegetable and flower gardens. But scientists continue to find evidence that the old idea of humans as antithetical to nature is also wrong-headed, and that rosy visions of thriving, human-free environments are more imaginary than real.
- A.
In our attempts to shape the world around us to our needs, humans have often created landscapes like meadows, gardens, and forests, which support hugely diverse species, and are more successful at preserving them, than parks created specifically for this.
- B.
In terms of preserving biodiversity, scientists are finding increasing evidence that human action is not always antithetical to nature, but often assists the preservation of meadows, landscapes, and flourishing of species.
- C.
Studying the early Holocene and human practices over millennia, researchers say that while agricultural meadows, gardens, and forests were not explicitly designed as nature reserves, they actually preserved a vast array of species, belying the idea that humans harm nature.
- D.
Contrary to the idea that humans always hurt nature and that it thrives in their absence, a lot of human action across history has been equally likely to increase biodiversity than reduce it, often creating varied ecological landscapes that support a vast array of species.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key idea: This is a Myth-Busting Summary. The passage challenges a common belief (humans harm nature) using evidence (human-created landscapes support biodiversity).
Step 1: Identify the Myth. The old idea is that humans are antithetical to nature and nature thrives only in human absence.
Step 2: Identify the Evidence. Human-created 'mosaics' (meadows, gardens) often support high biodiversity, sometimes more than explicit reserves.
Step 3: Identify the Conclusion. The myth is wrong-headed; human presence can increase biodiversity.
Step 4: Evaluate Option D. It explicitly states 'Contrary to the idea...', mentions the historical scope, and concludes that human action can increase biodiversity. This captures the full arc.
Step 5: Eliminate Option A. It focuses too narrowly on meadows vs parks and misses the broader philosophical refutation of the myth.
Step 6: Eliminate Option B. It is vague about the 'myth' being busted and misses the historical context.
Step 7: Eliminate Option C. It is a 'True but Narrow' trap, focusing only on the early Holocene example rather than the general conclusion.
Answer: D
Question 3 · Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
MCQ
Common Description:
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
In [my book “Searches”], I chronicle how big technology companies have exploited human language for their gain. We let this happen, I argue, because we also benefit somewhat from using the products. It’s a dynamic that makes us complicit in big tech's accumulation of wealth and power: we’re both victims and beneficiaries. I describe this complicity, but I also enact it, through my own internet archives: my Google searches, my Amazon product reviews and, yes, my ChatGPT dialogues. . . .
People often describe chatbots’ textual output as “bland” or “generic” - the linguistic equivalent of a beige office building. OpenAI’s products are built to “sound like a colleague”, as OpenAI puts it, using language that, coming from a person, would sound “polite”, “empathetic”, “kind”, “rationally optimistic” and “engaging”, among other qualities. OpenAI describes these strategies as helping its products seem “professional” and “approachable”. This appears to be bound up with making us feel safe . . .
Trust is a challenge for artificial intelligence (AI) companies, partly because their products regularly produce falsehoods and reify sexist, racist, US-centric cultural norms. While the companies are working on these problems, they persist: OpenAI found that its latest systems generate errors at a higher rate than its previous system. In the book, I wrote about the inaccuracies and biases and also demonstrated them with the products. When I prompted Microsoft’s Bing Image Creator to produce a picture of engineers and space explorers, it gave me an entirely male cast of characters; when my father asked ChatGPT to edit his writing, it transmuted his perfectly correct Indian English into American English. Those weren’t flukes. Research suggests that both tendencies are widespread.
In my own ChatGPT dialogues, I wanted to enact how the product’s veneer of collegial neutrality could lull us into absorbing false or biased responses without much critical engagement. Over time, ChatGPT seemed to be guiding me to write a more positive book about big tech - including editing my description of OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, to call him “a visionary and a pragmatist”. I'm not aware of research on whether ChatGPT tends to favor big tech, OpenAI or Altman, and I can only guess why it seemed that way in our conversation. OpenAI explicitly states that its products shouldn't attempt to influence users’ thinking. When I asked ChatGPT about some of the issues, it blamed biases in its training data - though I suspect my arguably leading questions played a role too. When I queried ChatGPT about its rhetoric, it responded: “The way I communicate is designed to foster trust and confidence in my responses, which can be both helpful and potentially misleading.”. . .
OpenAI has its own goals, of course. Among them, it emphasizes wanting to build AI that “benefits all of humanity”. But while the company is controlled by a non-profit with that mission, its funders still seek a return on their investment. That will presumably require getting people using products such as ChatGPT even more than they already are - a goal that is easier to accomplish if people see those products as trustworthy collaborators.
On the basis of the purpose of the examples in the passage, pick the odd one out from the following AI-generated responses mentioned in the passage:
- A.
“When I queried ChatGPT about its rhetoric, it responded: ‘The way I communicate is designed to foster trust and confidence in my responses, which can be both helpful and potentially misleading'.”
- B.
“...when my father asked ChatGPT to edit his writing, it transmuted his perfectly correct Indian English into American English.”
- C.
“Over time, ChatGPT seemed to be guiding me to write a more positive book about big tech - including editing my description of OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, to call him ‘a visionary and a pragmatist’.”
- D.
“When I prompted Microsoft’s Bing Image Creator to produce a picture of engineers and space explorers, it gave me an entirely male cast of characters...”
Step-by-Step Solution
Key idea: This is a "Purpose of Examples / Odd One Out" question. You must group the examples by their rhetorical function in the author's argument and find the one that doesn't fit the pattern.
Step 1: Analyze the context of the examples. Paragraph 3 introduces examples to demonstrate how AI products "regularly produce falsehoods and reify sexist, racist, US-centric cultural norms."
Step 2: Evaluate Options B, C, and D. Option B (Americanizing Indian English) shows US-centric bias. Option C (praising Sam Altman) shows pro-big-tech bias. Option D (male-only engineers) shows sexist bias. All three serve as evidence of the AI's embedded biases and inaccuracies.
Step 3: Evaluate Option A. This quote is the AI's own meta-commentary explaining its design rhetoric ("foster trust... potentially misleading"). It is not an example of the AI exhibiting the biases or inaccuracies discussed in the surrounding text; rather, it is the AI acknowledging its own persuasive design.
Step 4: Conclude that Option A is the odd one out because it serves a different rhetorical purpose (meta-awareness of design) compared to the others (evidence of bias).
Answer: A
Question 4 · Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
MCQ
Common Description:
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
In [my book “Searches”], I chronicle how big technology companies have exploited human language for their gain. We let this happen, I argue, because we also benefit somewhat from using the products. It’s a dynamic that makes us complicit in big tech's accumulation of wealth and power: we’re both victims and beneficiaries. I describe this complicity, but I also enact it, through my own internet archives: my Google searches, my Amazon product reviews and, yes, my ChatGPT dialogues. . . .
People often describe chatbots’ textual output as “bland” or “generic” - the linguistic equivalent of a beige office building. OpenAI’s products are built to “sound like a colleague”, as OpenAI puts it, using language that, coming from a person, would sound “polite”, “empathetic”, “kind”, “rationally optimistic” and “engaging”, among other qualities. OpenAI describes these strategies as helping its products seem “professional” and “approachable”. This appears to be bound up with making us feel safe . . .
Trust is a challenge for artificial intelligence (AI) companies, partly because their products regularly produce falsehoods and reify sexist, racist, US-centric cultural norms. While the companies are working on these problems, they persist: OpenAI found that its latest systems generate errors at a higher rate than its previous system. In the book, I wrote about the inaccuracies and biases and also demonstrated them with the products. When I prompted Microsoft’s Bing Image Creator to produce a picture of engineers and space explorers, it gave me an entirely male cast of characters; when my father asked ChatGPT to edit his writing, it transmuted his perfectly correct Indian English into American English. Those weren’t flukes. Research suggests that both tendencies are widespread.
In my own ChatGPT dialogues, I wanted to enact how the product’s veneer of collegial neutrality could lull us into absorbing false or biased responses without much critical engagement. Over time, ChatGPT seemed to be guiding me to write a more positive book about big tech - including editing my description of OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, to call him “a visionary and a pragmatist”. I'm not aware of research on whether ChatGPT tends to favor big tech, OpenAI or Altman, and I can only guess why it seemed that way in our conversation. OpenAI explicitly states that its products shouldn't attempt to influence users’ thinking. When I asked ChatGPT about some of the issues, it blamed biases in its training data - though I suspect my arguably leading questions played a role too. When I queried ChatGPT about its rhetoric, it responded: “The way I communicate is designed to foster trust and confidence in my responses, which can be both helpful and potentially misleading.”. . .
OpenAI has its own goals, of course. Among them, it emphasizes wanting to build AI that “benefits all of humanity”. But while the company is controlled by a non-profit with that mission, its funders still seek a return on their investment. That will presumably require getting people using products such as ChatGPT even more than they already are - a goal that is easier to accomplish if people see those products as trustworthy collaborators.
The author compares AI-generated texts with “a beige office building” for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:
- A.
AI generates generalised responses that lack specificity and nuance.
- B.
AI tends to blame its training data when scrutinised for its biases.
- C.
AI aims to foster a feeling of trust and credibility among its users.
- D.
AI-generated texts often exhibit a warm, polite, and collegial tone.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key idea: This is a "Metaphor Mapping EXCEPT" question, recognisable because it asks for the reason behind a specific figurative comparison ("beige office building") and uses the word EXCEPT.
Step 1: Locate the metaphor in the passage. Paragraph 2 states: "People often describe chatbots' textual output as 'bland' or 'generic' - the linguistic equivalent of a beige office building."
Step 2: Map the surrounding context to the metaphor. The following sentences explain that the AI is built to "sound like a colleague" using "polite", "empathetic" language, which is "bound up with making us feel safe" and designed to "foster trust and confidence". These traits define the "beige" aesthetic.
Step 3: Evaluate the options against this specific cluster of text. Option A (generic/bland), Option C (trust/safety), and Option D (polite/collegial) directly map to the descriptive adjectives linked to the metaphor in Paragraph 2.
Step 4: Identify the outlier. Option B mentions the AI blaming its training data. While this is factually true according to Paragraph 4, it is a defensive response to scrutiny regarding errors, not a characteristic of the stylistic "beige" tone described in Paragraph 2.
Answer: B
Question 5 · Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
MCQ
Common Description:
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
In [my book “Searches”], I chronicle how big technology companies have exploited human language for their gain. We let this happen, I argue, because we also benefit somewhat from using the products. It’s a dynamic that makes us complicit in big tech's accumulation of wealth and power: we’re both victims and beneficiaries. I describe this complicity, but I also enact it, through my own internet archives: my Google searches, my Amazon product reviews and, yes, my ChatGPT dialogues. . . .
People often describe chatbots’ textual output as “bland” or “generic” - the linguistic equivalent of a beige office building. OpenAI’s products are built to “sound like a colleague”, as OpenAI puts it, using language that, coming from a person, would sound “polite”, “empathetic”, “kind”, “rationally optimistic” and “engaging”, among other qualities. OpenAI describes these strategies as helping its products seem “professional” and “approachable”. This appears to be bound up with making us feel safe . . .
Trust is a challenge for artificial intelligence (AI) companies, partly because their products regularly produce falsehoods and reify sexist, racist, US-centric cultural norms. While the companies are working on these problems, they persist: OpenAI found that its latest systems generate errors at a higher rate than its previous system. In the book, I wrote about the inaccuracies and biases and also demonstrated them with the products. When I prompted Microsoft’s Bing Image Creator to produce a picture of engineers and space explorers, it gave me an entirely male cast of characters; when my father asked ChatGPT to edit his writing, it transmuted his perfectly correct Indian English into American English. Those weren’t flukes. Research suggests that both tendencies are widespread.
In my own ChatGPT dialogues, I wanted to enact how the product’s veneer of collegial neutrality could lull us into absorbing false or biased responses without much critical engagement. Over time, ChatGPT seemed to be guiding me to write a more positive book about big tech - including editing my description of OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, to call him “a visionary and a pragmatist”. I'm not aware of research on whether ChatGPT tends to favor big tech, OpenAI or Altman, and I can only guess why it seemed that way in our conversation. OpenAI explicitly states that its products shouldn't attempt to influence users’ thinking. When I asked ChatGPT about some of the issues, it blamed biases in its training data - though I suspect my arguably leading questions played a role too. When I queried ChatGPT about its rhetoric, it responded: “The way I communicate is designed to foster trust and confidence in my responses, which can be both helpful and potentially misleading.”. . .
OpenAI has its own goals, of course. Among them, it emphasizes wanting to build AI that “benefits all of humanity”. But while the company is controlled by a non-profit with that mission, its funders still seek a return on their investment. That will presumably require getting people using products such as ChatGPT even more than they already are - a goal that is easier to accomplish if people see those products as trustworthy collaborators.
The author of the passage is least likely to agree with which one of the following claims?
- A.
The neutrality of AI is conducive to critical thinking.
- B.
ChatGPT favours AI companies and their officials, like Sam Altman, in its responses.
- C.
When we use AI, we become accomplices to the exploitative practices of big tech companies.
- D.
The neutrality of AI is motivated by economic considerations.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key idea: This is an "Author Viewpoint / Least Likely to Agree" question. You must find the option that directly contradicts the author's explicit arguments or strongly implied beliefs.
Why it applies: The question asks for the claim the author is "least likely to agree with", which means we are looking for a statement that contradicts the passage.
Step 1: Analyze Option A. "The neutrality of AI is conducive to critical thinking." The passage explicitly states the opposite in Paragraph 4: "the product's veneer of collegial neutrality could lull us into absorbing false or biased responses without much critical engagement." Therefore, the author would LEAST agree with this.
Step 2: Verify Option B. The author suspects ChatGPT favors big tech, noting it guided them to call Sam Altman "a visionary." The author is likely to agree with this suspicion.
Step 3: Verify Option C. Paragraph 1 explicitly states: "It's a dynamic that makes us complicit in big tech's accumulation of wealth." The author strongly agrees with this.
Step 4: Verify Option D. Paragraph 5 links the "trustworthy" (neutral) persona to the economic goal: "a goal that is easier to accomplish [return on investment] if people see those products as trustworthy collaborators." The author agrees neutrality is economically motivated.
Answer: A
Question 6 · Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
MCQ
The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
In 1903, left-wing feminist Elizabeth Magie invented The Landlord’s Game, the original version of what became Monopoly. It was designed as a powerful teaching tool to illustrate the dangers of monopolies and how wealth could concentrate in the hands of a few. The game featured a circular path, properties, and a “Go to Jail” space. Magie created two rule sets: one “monopolist” version where players crushed opponents through accumulation, and another, more radical “Prosperity” version, where everyone shared in the wealth, promoting fairness and equity. Years later, unemployed Charles Darrow sold a simplified version to Parker Brothers. They paid Magie only $500 for her patent—without royalties—and credited Darrow as the sole inventor. For decades, his tale of inventing the game in his basement remained the official story, while Magie’s name and her original, anti-capitalist message were left in the shadows.
- A.
It is ironical that a left-wing feminist lost credit for the Landlord’s Game to an unemployed man, who plagiarised and sold one version of the twin game to Parker Brothers for a meagre sum, denying her royalties.
- B.
Celebrated icons of the gaming industry, Charles Darrow and Parker Brothers, snatched the feminist icon Elizabeth Magie’s original design and transformed Monopoly into a worldwide phenomenon, while barely acknowledging her.
- C.
Only one version of Monopoly became famous because of Charles Darrow’s relentless basement work, carefully refining Elizabeth Magie’s original idea into an engaging and entertaining pastime that he successfully patented and sold, symbolizing what many regarded as the ultimate triumph of individual ingenuity.
- D.
Parker Brothers’ capitalist intent led to them acquiring from Charles Darrow a simplified version of Elizabeth Magie’s original game, transforming it into a widespread commercial success while providing her only minimal financial compensation and granting scant public recognition.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key idea: This is a Narrative Summary question involving cultural history, recognizable because it traces the evolution of an object (Monopoly) and the erasure of its creator over time.
Step 1: Map the narrative arc. Origin (Magie, anti-capitalist intent) -> Transformation (Darrow simplifies) -> Commercialization (Parker Brothers buy/sell) -> Outcome (Magie erased/poorly paid).
Step 2: Evaluate Option D. It accurately links Parker Brothers' capitalist intent to the acquisition of the simplified version, the commercial success, and the specific negative outcomes for Magie (minimal compensation, scant recognition).
Step 3: Eliminate Option A. It uses emotive language ('ironical', 'plagiarised') which interprets rather than summarizes. Summaries must remain objective.
Step 4: Eliminate Option B. 'Snatched' is sensationalist. It also misses the specific detail of the 'simplified version' and the financial terms.
Step 5: Eliminate Option C. It is factually incorrect based on the passage, as it validates the 'basement inventor' myth which the passage explicitly debunks.
Answer: Option D
Question 7 · Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
NAT
Five jumbled sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence out and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.
1.Sporting a copper-coloured pixie cut and a pair of pink feather antlers, Torres himself resembles a child’s doodle.
2.His casual millennial delivery, peppered with “um”s and “ah”s, makes surreal concepts sound like items on a brunch menu.
3.Though he may have failed so far in his colour-scouting mission (he hasn’t yet found a new one, he admits), this hour leaves you tickled pink.
4.Like his previous show, My Favourite Shapes, this is an hour of sit-down comedy aided by an overhead camera which relays Torres’s theories - illustrated with crayon squiggles - on to a screen behind him.
5.His inquisitive mind produces interconnected ideas about Catholicism, the blandness of Pixar and what orange sounds like, while his insights train us to spot “highly purple behaviour”.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key idea: This is a descriptive vs. evaluative question, recognisable because four sentences objectively describe the performance's aesthetics, format, and content, while one provides subjective reviewer commentary and verdict.
Step 1: Classify sentence tone. Sentence 1 describes appearance ('copper-coloured pixie cut', 'pink feather antlers'). Sentence 2 describes delivery style ('casual millennial', 'ums and ahs'). Sentence 4 describes format ('sit-down comedy', 'overhead camera', 'crayon squiggles'). Sentence 5 describes content themes ('Catholicism', 'Pixar', 'orange sounds'). All are observable facts.
Step 2: Examine Sentence 3. It contains evaluative phrases: 'failed so far', 'leaves you tickled pink'. It also uses meta-commentary ('this hour') referring to the show as a reviewed product rather than describing its intrinsic features.
Step 3: Determine paragraph intent. The cluster (1, 2, 4, 5) builds a portrait of what the show is. Sentence 3 judges how good it is. Mixing objective portraiture with subjective review breaks register consistency.
Step 4: Verify removal. Without Sentence 3, the paragraph remains a pure description of Torres's comedic persona and method. With Sentence 3, it awkwardly shifts to critic-speak.
Answer: 3
Question 8 · Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
MCQ
Common Description:
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
Different sciences exhibit different science cultures and practices. For example, in astronomy, observation - until what is today called the new astronomy - had always been limited to what could be seen within the limits of optical light. Indeed, until early modernity the limits to optical light were also limits of what humans could themselves see within their limited and relative perceptual spectrum of human vision. With early modernity and the invention of lensed optical instruments - telescopes - astronomers could begin to observe phenomena never seen before. Magnification and resolution began to allow what was previously imperceptible to be perceived - but within the familiar limits of optical vision. Galileo, having learned of the Dutch invention of a telescope by Hans Lippershey, went on to build some hundred of his own, improving from the Dutch 3x to nearly 30x telescopes - which turn out to be the limit of magnificational power without chromatic distortion. And it was with his own telescopes that he made the observations launching early modern astronomy (phases of Venus, satellites of Jupiter, etc.). Isaac Newton’s later improvement with reflecting telescopes expanded upon the magnificational-resolution capacity of optical observation; and, from Newton to the twentieth century, improvement continued on to the later very large array of light telescopes today - following the usual technological trajectory of “more-is-better” but still remaining within the limits of the light spectrum. Today’s astronomy has now had the benefit of some four centuries of optical telescopy. The “new astronomy,” however, opens the full known electromagnetic spectrum to observation, beginning with the accidental discovery of radio astronomy early in the twentieth century, and leading today to the diverse variety of EMS telescopes which can explore the range from gamma to radio waves. Thus, astronomy, now outfitted with new instruments, “smart” adaptive optics, very large arrays, etc., illustrates one style of instrumentally embodied science - a technoscience. Of course astronomy, with the very recent exceptions of probes to solar system bodies (Moon, Mars, Venus, asteroids), remains largely a “receptive” science, dependent upon instrumentation which can detect and receive emissions.
Contemporary biology displays a quite different instrument array and, according to Evelyn Fox- Keller, also a different scientific culture. She cites her own experience, coming from mathematical physics into microbiology, and takes account of the distinctive instrumental culture in her Making Sense of Life (2002). Here, particularly with the development of biotechnology, instrumentation is far more interventional than in the astronomy case. Microscopic instrumentation can be and often is interventional in style: “gene-splicing” and other techniques of biotechnology, while still in their infancy, are clearly part of the interventional trajectory of biological instrumentation. Yet, in both disciplines, the sciences involved are today highly instrumentalized and could not progress successfully without constant improvements upon the respective instrumental trajectories. So, minimalistically, one may conclude that the sciences are technologically, instrumentally embodied. But the styles of embodiment differ, and perhaps the last of the scientific disciplines to move into such technical embodiment is mathematics, which only contemporarily has come to rely more and more upon the computational machinery now in common use.
None of the following statements, if true, contradicts the arguments in the passage EXCEPT:
- A.
some scientific instruments may be classified as both receptive and interventional in their functions.
- B.
because of the relatively recent entry of computational machinery in mathematics, the field is only now beginning to develop a scientific culture.
- C.
like telescopy, microscopy has also sought to move beyond the visible spectrum to be able to detect objects that are invisible in that spectrum.
- D.
Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity was accomplished without the help of instruments.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key idea: This is a "None EXCEPT" contradiction question.
Why it applies: The phrasing "None of the following... contradicts... EXCEPT" is a double negative. It simplifies to: "Which one of the following statements DOES contradict the passage?"
Step 1: Identify the author's main argument. The passage contrasts astronomy (receptive, expanding the visible spectrum) with biology (interventional, gene-splicing). It also notes mathematics is only recently relying on computational machinery for technical embodiment.
Step 2: Evaluate Option A. The passage states astronomy is "largely" receptive, implying some instruments might have overlapping or dual functions without destroying the general distinction. This does not contradict.
Step 3: Evaluate Option B. The passage states mathematics is the "last of the scientific disciplines to move into such technical embodiment." It does NOT say mathematics is "only now beginning to develop a scientific culture." Equating "technical embodiment" with "developing a scientific culture" is a direct distortion and contradiction of the text.
Step 4: Evaluate Option C. The passage discusses astronomy's spectrum expansion and biology's interventional style. It does not explicitly state that microscopy cannot move beyond the visible spectrum. Thus, this does not directly contradict the core argument.
Step 5: Evaluate Option D. The passage mentions Newton's telescopes but does not claim that all his discoveries required instruments. Thus, this does not contradict the passage.
Answer: B