Question:
Read the passage and answer the question that follows.
The world dismisses curiosity by calling it idle, or mere idle curiosity, even though curious persons are seldom idle. Parents do their best to extinguish curiosity in their children because it makes life difficult to be faced every day with a string of answerable questions about what makes fire hot or why grass grows. Children whose curiosity survives parental discipline are invited to join our university. Within the university, they go on asking their questions and trying to find the answers. In the eyes of a scholar, that is mainly what a university is for. Some of the questions that scholars ask seem to the world to be scarcely worth asking, let alone answering. They ask questions too minute and specialized for you and me to understand without years of explanation. If the world inquires of one of them why he wants to know the answer to a particular question, he may say, especially if he is a scientist, that the answer will in some obscure way make possible a new machine or weapon or gadget. He talks that way because he knows that the world understands and respects utility. But to you, who are now part of the university, he will say that he wants to know the answer simply because he does not know it, the way a mountain climber wants to climb a mountain simply because it is there. Similarly, a historian, when asked by outsiders why he studies history, may come out with an argument that he has learnt to repeat on such occasions, something about knowledge of the past making it possible to understand the present and mould the future. But if you really want to know why a historian studies the past, the answer is much simpler: something happened, and he would like to know what. All this does not mean that the answers which scholars find to their questions have no consequences. They may have enormous consequences, but these seldom form the reason for asking the question or pursuing the answers. It is true that scholars can be put to work answering questions for the sake of the consequences, as thousands are working now, for example, in search of a cure for cancer. But this is not the primary function of the scholar, for the consequences are usually subordinate to the satisfaction of curiosity.
Q. According to the passage, the general public respects
Read the passage and answer the question that follows.
The world dismisses curiosity by calling it idle, or mere idle curiosity, even though curious persons are seldom idle. Parents do their best to extinguish curiosity in their children because it makes life difficult to be faced every day with a string of answerable questions about what makes fire hot or why grass grows. Children whose curiosity survives parental discipline are invited to join our university. Within the university, they go on asking their questions and trying to find the answers. In the eyes of a scholar, that is mainly what a university is for. Some of the questions that scholars ask seem to the world to be scarcely worth asking, let alone answering. They ask questions too minute and specialized for you and me to understand without years of explanation. If the world inquires of one of them why he wants to know the answer to a particular question, he may say, especially if he is a scientist, that the answer will in some obscure way make possible a new machine or weapon or gadget. He talks that way because he knows that the world understands and respects utility. But to you, who are now part of the university, he will say that he wants to know the answer simply because he does not know it, the way a mountain climber wants to climb a mountain simply because it is there. Similarly, a historian, when asked by outsiders why he studies history, may come out with an argument that he has learnt to repeat on such occasions, something about knowledge of the past making it possible to understand the present and mould the future. But if you really want to know why a historian studies the past, the answer is much simpler: something happened, and he would like to know what. All this does not mean that the answers which scholars find to their questions have no consequences. They may have enormous consequences, but these seldom form the reason for asking the question or pursuing the answers. It is true that scholars can be put to work answering questions for the sake of the consequences, as thousands are working now, for example, in search of a cure for cancer. But this is not the primary function of the scholar, for the consequences are usually subordinate to the satisfaction of curiosity.
Q. According to the passage, the general public respects
Show Hint
Find the sentence that uses the word "utility" and match its meaning to the closest option.
Updated On: Aug 18, 2026
- new inventions
- any useful invention
- any invention that makes life easier for them
- a scientist who invents gadgets and machines for them
Show Solution
Verified By Collegedunia
The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
The passage tells us what the public values when a scientist explains his work to them. Match the exact word the author uses against each option.
- New inventions: Being new is not the quality the passage highlights. An invention could be new but still useless, and the passage does not say the public respects newness for its own sake.
- Any useful invention: The passage says, "He talks that way because he knows that the world understands and respects utility." Utility means usefulness, so this option matches the author's own word directly.
- Any invention that makes life easier for them: This narrows utility down to only comfort or convenience. The passage's idea of utility is broader; it could include a new weapon, which does not necessarily make life easier.
- A scientist who invents gadgets and machines for them: This shifts the respect from the invention's usefulness onto the scientist as a person, which is not what the passage says. The public respects the quality of usefulness, not the inventor.
The correct option is that the general public respects any useful invention, since the passage states plainly that the world "understands and respects utility."
Let's summarize:
- Look for the exact noun the author uses, here "utility", and match it to the option using the same idea.
- Avoid options that narrow or shift the meaning, such as tying respect to comfort alone or to the inventor rather than the invention.
So the correct answer is that the public respects any useful invention.
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