Comprehension

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 immerse themselves with their limited and relative perceptual spectrum of human vision. With early modernity and the invention of lenses for 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 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 magnification-resolution capacity of optical observation; and, from Newton to the twentieth century, improvement continued 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 telescope. 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 contemporary has come to rely more and more upon the computational machinery now in common use.

Question: 1

To which one of the following instruments would the characterisations of instruments in the passage be least applicable?

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In understanding the use of instruments in scientific inquiry, consider their role in testing hypotheses or gathering data directly related to the subject matter.
Updated On: Jul 4, 2026
  • Milestone
  • Scalpel
  • Saxophone
  • Kitchen oven
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The Correct Option is A

Approach Solution - 1

Approach: The passage treats instruments as tools that act on or sense the world — they either receive/detect (telescope) or intervene/manipulate (scalpel, gene-splicer). Find the option that is not a tool used on anything.

Step 1: Fix the working sense of "instrument." Across the passage an instrument does something — it observes, magnifies, detects, or cuts and intervenes. That is the receptive-vs-interventional framing the author builds.

Step 2: Test the options. A scalpel is purely interventional — it cuts, exactly the biology-style tool. A saxophone is a musical instrument you actively play and manipulate to produce sound — it is operated on. A kitchen oven is a tool that acts on food, transforming it. Each of these is an active tool.

Step 3: Spot the outlier. A milestone is a roadside marker of distance/progress. You do not operate it on anything; it neither receives nor intervenes — it merely marks. The passage's whole characterisation of instruments (receptive or interventional) simply does not apply to it.

Answer: Milestone.
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Approach Solution -2

Approach: The passage's telescopes, microscopes and gene-splicing tools all share one feature, a designed mechanism that a person operates to either detect something or change something. Test each option for having such an operable mechanism.

A scalpel has a blade you control to cut tissue, a saxophone has keys and a reed you manipulate to shape sound, and an oven has controls and heating elements you set to transform food. Each has moving or adjustable parts built for a specific operation.

A milestone is a fixed marker stone with no moving parts, no controls, and nothing to operate, it simply sits by the road showing a distance. Since it has no mechanism to detect or intervene with anything, it falls entirely outside the passage's idea of an instrument.

Answer: Milestone.
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Question: 2

Which one of the following observations is a valid conclusion to draw from the statement that “the sciences involved are today highly instrumentalised and could not progress successfully without constant improvements upon the respective instrumental trajectories”?

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Instrumental progress is crucial in scientific fields, as tools directly affect the capacity to make new discoveries and improve existing knowledge.
Updated On: Jul 4, 2026
  • In both astronomy and microbiology, progress has been the consequence of improvements in the instruments they use.
  • Highly instrumentalised work in the sciences has resulted in the progressive improvement of scientific constants.
  • The growth of scientific technologies has led to the embodiment of progress in the trajectories of improvement.
  • The use of instruments in scientific trajectories must be respected in order to see successful progress in them.
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The Correct Option is A

Approach Solution - 1

Approach: The quoted line says the sciences are highly instrumentalised and cannot progress without constant improvement of their instruments. A valid conclusion must restate that exact cause-effect (better instruments \(\to\) progress) without smuggling in new ideas.

Step 1: Pin the logic. Cause = improvement in instruments; effect = scientific progress. The passage's two worked examples are astronomy and microbiology (biology).

Step 2: Match Option 1. "In both astronomy and microbiology, progress has been the consequence of improvements in the instruments they use" is a clean paraphrase: it names the same two fields and keeps the same direction of causation. This is the conclusion.

Step 3: Eliminate the rest. Option 2 talks about "improvement of scientific constants" — the passage never says instruments improve any constants; this is a distortion of the phrase "instrumental trajectories." Option 3 ("embodiment of progress in the trajectories of improvement") is word-salad that reverses the logic — progress drives nothing here; instruments drive progress. Option 4 ("instruments must be respected to see progress") misreads "respective" as "respected" and turns a causal claim into a moral one — out of scope.

Answer: Option 1.
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Approach Solution -2

Approach: Convert the quoted line into a simple logical form, "these sciences cannot progress without improving their instruments," which just means progress depends on instrument improvement. A valid conclusion must use the same two variables, sciences and instrument improvement, without swapping in new ones.

Option (1) keeps exactly those two variables and even names the two sciences under discussion, astronomy and microbiology, restating that their progress followed from improving their instruments. Nothing has been added or changed.

Option (2) swaps in a new variable, "scientific constants," which the passage never links to instruments at all. Option (3) turns the relationship backwards, talking about progress being "embodied in" trajectories instead of instrument improvement causing progress. Option (4) swaps "respective" (each science's own) for "respected" and adds an obligation ("must be") that was never part of the original claim.

Since only option (1) preserves the original variables and their direction of cause and effect, it is the valid conclusion.

Answer: Option (1).
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Question: 3

None of the following statements, if true, contradicts the arguments in the passage EXCEPT:

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Scientific progress often relies on the development of new technologies, and fields such as mathematics can develop new cultures of discovery with the help of computational machinery.
Updated On: Jul 4, 2026
  • Some scientific instruments may be classified as both receptive and interventional in their functions.
  • Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity was accomplished without the help of instruments.
  • Like telescopes, microscopy has also sought to move beyond the visible spectrum to be able to detect objects that are invisible in that spectrum.
  • Because of the relatively recent entry of computational machinery in mathematics, the field is only now beginning to develop a scientific culture.
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The Correct Option is D

Approach Solution - 1

Approach: The stem is a double negative: "None contradicts the arguments EXCEPT" means exactly one statement does contradict the passage — find that one. The other three must be consistent (or neutral) with the passage.

Step 1: Decode the question. Three options will agree with or be compatible with the passage; one will clash with it. Hunt for the clash.

Step 2: Test Option 4. "Because of the relatively recent entry of computational machinery in mathematics, the field is only now beginning to develop a scientific culture." The passage says mathematics is only recently becoming technically/instrumentally embodied — but it treats mathematics as an established scientific discipline all along. Saying it is "only now beginning to develop a scientific culture" confuses late instrumental embodiment with late existence of a culture. That contradicts the passage. This is the EXCEPT.

Step 3: Confirm the others are consistent. Option 1 (some instruments are both receptive and interventional) fits the passage's framework — it does not clash with the receptive/interventional split, it just notes overlap. Option 2 (Newton discovered gravity without instruments) does not contradict anything in the passage, which never claims gravity was found with instruments. Option 3 (microscopy, like telescopes, reaches beyond the visible spectrum) sits comfortably with the passage's account of instruments extending perception.

Answer: Option 4.
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Approach Solution -2

Approach: For a statement to contradict the passage, the passage must actually rule it out. Check each option for whether the passage explicitly forbids it, or is simply silent on it.

Option (1), instruments being both receptive and interventional, is never forbidden, the passage sets up receptive and interventional as two styles without ever saying a single instrument cannot show features of both, so this is a permitted possibility, not a contradiction.

Option (2), Newton finding gravity without instruments, is a topic the passage never even raises, it only discusses Newton's telescopes. Silence on gravity is not the same as a contradiction, so this survives too.

Option (3) mirrors the passage's own comparison almost exactly, microscopy pushing beyond the visible spectrum parallels the telescope's expansion into the full electromagnetic spectrum, so this aligns with, rather than contradicts, the passage.

Option (4) is different, like arguing a scientist who only recently started using a calculator has therefore only just begun practising science, using recently introduced tools and a subject only just beginning to exist as a discipline are two different claims, but option (4) conflates them. The passage treats mathematics as a well-established field that has simply, and recently, become more tool-dependent, not a field that lacked a scientific culture until it picked up computers, this is the one option the passage's own framing rules out.

Answer: Option (4).
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Question: 4

All of the following statements may be rejected as valid inferences from the passage EXCEPT:

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When reading comprehension passages, identify the key distinctions the author makes between different concepts, such as the uses of instruments in scientific inquiry.
Updated On: Jul 4, 2026
  • The author distinguishes between the receptive and interventionist uses of instruments in the sciences by comparing astronomy and biology, respectively.
  • Interventionist instruments, or instruments that intervene directly in scientific inquiry, are different from embodied instruments, or instruments that embody scientific inquiry.
  • Isaac Newton’s experiments with reflecting telescopes were the earliest versions of the “new astronomy” referred to in the passage.
  • The advances in telescope made by Newton with reflecting telescopes allowed early modern astronomers to observe the phases of Venus and the satellites of Jupiter.
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The Correct Option is A

Approach Solution - 1

Approach: Another double-negative stem: "All may be rejected as valid inferences EXCEPT" means three options are invalid inferences and exactly one is a valid inference. Find the single supportable statement.

Step 1: Decode. Reject three that distort the passage; keep the one the passage actually warrants.

Step 2: Test Option 1. "The author distinguishes between the receptive and interventionist uses of instruments by comparing astronomy and biology, respectively." This is the passage's core move — astronomy is described as largely receptive, biology as interventional. Directly supported. This is the valid inference.

Step 3: Reject the rest. Option 3 says Newton's reflecting telescopes were the earliest "new astronomy" — false; the passage dates the new astronomy to the twentieth-century radio discovery, well after Newton. Option 4 says Newton's reflecting telescopes let astronomers see the phases of Venus and satellites of Jupiter — false; those were Galileo's observations with his own telescopes, before Newton. Option 2 invents a distinction between "interventionist" and "embodied" instruments that the passage never draws — the passage says all instruments are embodied, with receptive or interventional styles; this is a fabricated contrast.

Answer: Option 1.
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Approach Solution -2

Approach: Instead of fact-checking every option in turn, first find the sentence in the passage that the correct option must be paraphrasing, then confirm no other option can make the same direct match.

The passage's whole comparison rests on one explicit contrast, astronomy is described as a largely "receptive" science while biology, especially with biotechnology, is called "far more interventional." Option (1) states exactly this contrast, tying receptive to astronomy and interventionist to biology, so it directly matches wording the passage itself uses. That is enough to confirm it as the valid inference.

None of the remaining options can be matched to an actual passage statement in the same direct way. Option (2) invents a category, "embodied instruments," that the passage never separates from interventionist ones, it treats all instruments as embodied in one style or another. Option (3) and option (4) both misplace historical credit, the passage assigns the phases-of-Venus and Jupiter's-satellites observations to Galileo's own telescopes, and dates the "new astronomy" to twentieth-century radio astronomy, not to Newton's reflecting telescope. Since these three cannot be traced to any passage statement, and option (1) can, option (1) is the one valid inference.

Answer: Option (1).
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