Read the following passage and answer the question.
There are several factors that contribute to wisdom. Of these I should put first a sense of proportion: the capacity to take account of all the important factors in a problem and to attach to each its due weight. This has become more difficult than it used to be because of the extent and complexity of the specialized knowledge required of various kinds of technicians. Suppose, for example, that you are engaged in research in scientific medicine. The work is difficult and is likely to absorb the whole of your intellectual energy. You have no time to consider the effect which your discoveries or inventions may have outside the field of medicine. You succeed, as modern medicine has succeeded, in enormously lowering the infant death rate, not only in Europe and America but also in Asia and Africa. This has the entirely unintended result of making the food supply inadequate and lowering the standard of life in the most populous parts of the world. To take an even more striking example, which is in everybody's mind at the present time: you study the composition of the atom from a disinterested desire for knowledge, and incidentally place in the hands of powerful people the means of great destruction. In such ways the pursuit of knowledge may become harmful unless it is combined with wisdom; and wisdom in the sense of comprehensive vision is not necessarily present in specialists in the pursuit of knowledge.
Comprehensiveness alone, however, is not enough to constitute wisdom. There must be also a certain awareness of the ends of human life. Perhaps one could stretch the comprehensiveness that constitutes wisdom to include not only intellect but also feeling. It is by no means uncommon to find men and women whose knowledge is wide but whose feelings are narrow. Such people lack what I am calling wisdom. I think the essence of wisdom is emancipation, as far as possible, from the tyranny of the here and the now. We cannot help the egoism of our senses. An infant feels hunger or discomfort, and gradually with the years his horizon widens, and, in proportion as his thoughts and feelings become less personal and less concerned with his own physical states, he achieves growing wisdom. No one can view the world with complete impartiality; but it is possible to make a continual approach towards impartiality, on the one hand by knowing things somewhat remote in time or space, and on the other hand by giving to such things their due weight in our feelings. It is this approach towards impartiality that constitutes growth in wisdom.
The kind of specialized knowledge which is required for various kinds of skills has very little to do with wisdom. With every increase of knowledge and skill, wisdom becomes more necessary, for every such increase augments our capacity for realizing our purposes, and therefore augments our capacity for harm, if our purposes are unwise. The world needs wisdom as it has never needed it before; and if knowledge continues to increase, the world will need wisdom in the future even more than it does now.
According to the author, what results in growth of wisdom?
Read the following passage and answer the question.
There are several factors that contribute to wisdom. Of these I should put first a sense of proportion: the capacity to take account of all the important factors in a problem and to attach to each its due weight. This has become more difficult than it used to be because of the extent and complexity of the specialized knowledge required of various kinds of technicians. Suppose, for example, that you are engaged in research in scientific medicine. The work is difficult and is likely to absorb the whole of your intellectual energy. You have no time to consider the effect which your discoveries or inventions may have outside the field of medicine. You succeed, as modern medicine has succeeded, in enormously lowering the infant death rate, not only in Europe and America but also in Asia and Africa. This has the entirely unintended result of making the food supply inadequate and lowering the standard of life in the most populous parts of the world. To take an even more striking example, which is in everybody's mind at the present time: you study the composition of the atom from a disinterested desire for knowledge, and incidentally place in the hands of powerful people the means of great destruction. In such ways the pursuit of knowledge may become harmful unless it is combined with wisdom; and wisdom in the sense of comprehensive vision is not necessarily present in specialists in the pursuit of knowledge.
Comprehensiveness alone, however, is not enough to constitute wisdom. There must be also a certain awareness of the ends of human life. Perhaps one could stretch the comprehensiveness that constitutes wisdom to include not only intellect but also feeling. It is by no means uncommon to find men and women whose knowledge is wide but whose feelings are narrow. Such people lack what I am calling wisdom. I think the essence of wisdom is emancipation, as far as possible, from the tyranny of the here and the now. We cannot help the egoism of our senses. An infant feels hunger or discomfort, and gradually with the years his horizon widens, and, in proportion as his thoughts and feelings become less personal and less concerned with his own physical states, he achieves growing wisdom. No one can view the world with complete impartiality; but it is possible to make a continual approach towards impartiality, on the one hand by knowing things somewhat remote in time or space, and on the other hand by giving to such things their due weight in our feelings. It is this approach towards impartiality that constitutes growth in wisdom.
The kind of specialized knowledge which is required for various kinds of skills has very little to do with wisdom. With every increase of knowledge and skill, wisdom becomes more necessary, for every such increase augments our capacity for realizing our purposes, and therefore augments our capacity for harm, if our purposes are unwise. The world needs wisdom as it has never needed it before; and if knowledge continues to increase, the world will need wisdom in the future even more than it does now.
According to the author, what results in growth of wisdom?
Show Hint
- Widening knowledge and narrowing feelings
- Acquiring specialized knowledge which is required for various kinds of skills
- Viewing the world with complete impartiality
- None of the above
The Correct Option is C
Approach Solution - 1
Let's analyze the passage step by step to determine what results in the growth of wisdom as per the author's viewpoint.
- Understanding Wisdom: The passage describes several attributes of wisdom. The author suggests that while knowledge is important, it is not necessarily synonymous with wisdom. Instead, wisdom involves a "sense of proportion" and the capability to consider all important factors in a situation.
- Comprehensive Vision vs. Specialized Knowledge: The passage contrasts specialized knowledge—often limited to a specific field or discipline—with comprehensive vision. The author indicates that while specialized skills are vital, they don't inherently result in wisdom.
- Emancipation and Impartiality: The central idea given by the author is the importance of moving away from a narrow and self-centered view ("the tyranny of the here and the now") towards a broader, impartial perspective. This means striving beyond purely personal concerns and being more impartial in understanding the world.
- Conclusion: From the analysis, it's clear that the author believes the growth of wisdom comes from striving towards viewing the world with as much impartiality as possible. This involves knowing about things remote in time and space and giving them their due weight in our feelings, reflecting a broader and more detached viewpoint.
Given the options:
Widening knowledge and narrowing feelings
- - This option does not align with the passage, as the author indicates that mere knowledge without the balance of feelings doesn't constitute wisdom.
Acquiring specialized knowledge which is required for various kinds of skills
- - Specialized knowledge alone is insufficient for wisdom according to the passage.
Viewing the world with complete impartiality
- - This aligns well with the author's argument that moving towards impartiality contributes to growing wisdom.
None of the above
- - Incorrect, since one of the options actually reflects the author's viewpoint on wisdom.
Thus, the correct answer is: Viewing the world with complete impartiality.
Approach Solution -2
The question asks what the author links to the growth of wisdom. The answer sits in the second paragraph, where the author talks about moving towards impartiality.
- Widening knowledge and narrowing feelings: The author says the opposite is a problem. People with wide knowledge but narrow feelings lack wisdom, so this cannot be right.
- Acquiring specialized knowledge for skills: The author states plainly that specialized knowledge for skills has very little to do with wisdom, so this is wrong.
- Viewing the world with complete impartiality: The author writes that no one can view the world with complete impartiality, but a continual approach towards impartiality is what constitutes growth in wisdom. This matches the idea of growth.
- None of the above: Rejected, since option 3 fits the passage.
The author says it is the approach towards impartiality that constitutes growth in wisdom. So the correct option is C.
Top SNAP English Questions
- A group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings; e.g. left (opposite of right) and left (past tense of leave)
- Read the passage and then determine the best choice for an answer from the questions given below. Base your choice on what this passage states directly or implies, not on any information you may have got from else where.
"The emancipation of women", James Joyce told one of his friends, "has caused the greatest revolution in our time."
Other modernists agree: Virginia Woolf, claiming that in a about 1910 "human character changed" and illustrating the new balance between the sexes, urged, "Read the 'Agamemon' and see whether your sympathies are not almost entirely with Clytemnestra". D.H. Lawrence wrote "perhaps the deepest fight for 200 years and more has been the fight for women's independence".
But if modernist writers considered women's revolt against men's domination as one of their "greatest" and "deepest" themes, only recently, perhaps in the past 15 years has literary criticism begun to catch up with it. Not that the images of sexual antagonism that abound in modern literature have gone unremarked - far from it. We are able to see in literary works the perspective we bring to them and now that women are enough to make a difference in reforming canons and interpreting literature, the landscapes of literary history and the features of individual books have begun to change. - Choose the correct sentence
- Fill in the blanks and choose the correct definition for the punctuation.
______ is used to indicate possession. - Fill in the blanks and choose the correct definition for the punctuation.
______ is used to mark the end of declarative and imperative sentences.
Top SNAP Reading Comprehension Questions
- Read the passage and then determine the best choice for an answer from the questions given below. Base your choice on what this passage states directly or implies, not on any information you may have got from else where.
"The emancipation of women", James Joyce told one of his friends, "has caused the greatest revolution in our time."
Other modernists agree: Virginia Woolf, claiming that in a about 1910 "human character changed" and illustrating the new balance between the sexes, urged, "Read the 'Agamemon' and see whether your sympathies are not almost entirely with Clytemnestra". D.H. Lawrence wrote "perhaps the deepest fight for 200 years and more has been the fight for women's independence".
But if modernist writers considered women's revolt against men's domination as one of their "greatest" and "deepest" themes, only recently, perhaps in the past 15 years has literary criticism begun to catch up with it. Not that the images of sexual antagonism that abound in modern literature have gone unremarked - far from it. We are able to see in literary works the perspective we bring to them and now that women are enough to make a difference in reforming canons and interpreting literature, the landscapes of literary history and the features of individual books have begun to change. - D. H. Lawrence-1885-1930: The Supreme Triumph For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. Whatever the unborn and the dead may know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in the flesh. The dead may look after the afterwards. But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours alone, and ours only for a time. We ought to dance with rapture, that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos. I am part of the sun as my eye is the part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet below know the perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. My soul knows that I am a part of the human race, my soul is an inorganic part of the great human soul, as my spirit is a part of my nation. In my own very self, I am part of my family. There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters. - Apocalypse, 1931.
- Read the following Passage carefully and answer the questions below :
A TED talk (the acronym stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design) is one of the routes to academic stardom that didn’t exist a decade ago. (The 30th anniversary celebration aside, curators only began posting fame-making free online videos in 2006.) Although TED plays an inordinate role in setting the tone for how ideas are conveyed—not only because of the reach of its videos but also through spinoffs like regional “TEDx” events and the TED Radio Hour, one of the few places nonpolicy intellectuals get substantial on-air time—it’s just one of a number of platforms that are changing the ecology of academic celebrity. These include similar ideas-in-nuggets conclaves, such as the Aspen Ideas Festival and PopTech, along with huge online courses and—yes, still—blogs. These new, or at least newish, forms are upending traditional hierarchies of academic visibility and helping to change which ideas gain purchase in the public discourse.
In a famous essay, “The Unbearable Ugliness of Volvos,” first published in the early 90s, the literary scholar Stanley Fish wrote that “the flourishing of the lecture circuit has brought with it new sources of extra income ... [and] an ever-growing list of stages on which to showcase one’s talents, and geometric increase in the availability of the commodities for which academics yearn, attention, applause, fame, and ultimately, adulation of a kind usuallyreserved for the icons of popular culture.” Fish was Exhibit A among professors taking advantage of such trends, and his trailblazing as a lit-crit celebrity inspired the dapper, globe-trotting littheory operator Morris Zapp, a character in David Lodge’s academic satire Small World. But the world Fish was describing, where no one could live-tweet the lectures, let alone post the talks for worldwide distribution, now seems sepiatoned. “If David Lodge’s Morris Zapp were alive and kicking today,” observes John Holbo, an associate professor of philosophy at the National University of Singapore, and blogger at Crooked Timber and the Valve, “he’d be giving a TED talk, not an MLA talk. Which is to say: He wouldn’t be doing Theory. He probably wouldn’t be in an English department.” - Read the following Passage carefully and answer the questions below :
A spectre is haunting the world, just as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto of 1848. This time, however, it is not the spectre of communism but that of neoliberalism. Just as Marx and Engels reported of ‘a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre,’ there is once again an alliance, whether holy or unholy, that has formed to chase the ghost of neoliberalism from the world stage. In any case, it is a curious alliance that has committed to fighting neoliberalism: Religious leaders and artists, environmental activists and globalisation critics, politicians of the left and the right as well as trade unionists, commentators and academics. They all share a passion to unmask neoliberalism as an inhuman, anti-social, and potentially misanthropic ideology or as a cynical exercise by strangely anonymous forces that wish to exploit the world to their own advantage.
The members of this colourful alliance against neoliberalism are as united in their opposition to neoliberalism as they are diverse. This suggests that neoliberalism cannot be too clearly defined as a concept. Rather, it is a broad umbrella under which very different groups with various points of view can meet. In the church of anti-neoliberalism, there is a place for anyone who believes that neoliberalism stands in the way of reaching his or her political goals. This may also explain the lack of any clear and coherent definition of neoliberalism among its dissenters.
Yet the most curious characteristic of neoliberalism is the fact that these days hardly anyone self-identifies as a neoliberal. In former times, ideological debates were fought between, say, conservatives and socialists, collectivists and individualists. While there may not have been any other agreement between these opposing groups, at least they would have agreed about their respective identities. A socialist would not have felt offended by a conservative calling him a socialist and vice-versa. In present-day debates around neoliberalism, on the other hand, most accused of holding ‘neoliberal’ views would not accept being called ‘neoliberal.’ Either they would insist on being something else (whether it is ‘liberal,’ ‘classical liberal,’ or ‘libertarian’), or they would simply claim to be misunderstood by their opponents. In any case, scarcely anybody wants to be a ‘neoliberal’ any more. For example, in an online survey of the readers of Andrew Norton’s blog, out of more than 1,200 participants not a single person selfidentified with the term, while ‘classical liberal,’ ‘conservative,’ and ‘libertarian’ were strong responses. These are strange debates indeed when the enemy you are fighting claims he does not exist. - We can never make our beliefs regarding the world certain. Even scientific theory of a most rigorous and well-confirmed nature is likely to change over a decade or even tomorrow. If we refuse to even try to understand, then it is like resigning from the human race. Undoubtedly life of an unexamined kind is worth living in other respects—as it is no mean thing to be a vegetable or an animal. It is also true that a man wishes to see this speculation domain beyond his next dinner.
From the above passage it is clear that the author believes that
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