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. The primary function of a scholar is different from the search for a cure for cancer because

• A. the answers to the scholar's question have no consequence, unlike the results of the research involving a cure for cancer
• B. the answer sought by the scholar is selfish, unlike the consequences of cancer research which are for the common weal
• C. the primary function of a scholar is satisfaction of his mental curiosity, while research involving a cure for cancer demands a constant, systematic and planned pursuit by several scholars
• D. several scholars work for a cancer cure while a single scholar works with a selfish motive

Hint:

Look at the last two sentences of the passage, which directly compare curiosity to the cancer cure effort.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

This question asks about the distinction the author draws between a scholar's usual motive and the special case of scholars working toward a cure for cancer. Check each option against what the passage actually says about consequences and motive.

1. The answers to the scholar's question have no consequence, unlike cancer cure results: The passage directly contradicts this. It says a scholar's answers "may have enormous consequences", it only adds that consequences are not the reason the scholar asks the question. So this option misstates the passage.
2. The scholar's answer is selfish, unlike cancer research which is for the common weal: The passage never calls the scholar's motive selfish. It only says the primary drive is curiosity, which is a neutral, not a selfish, motive in the author's framing.
3. The primary function of a scholar is satisfaction of his mental curiosity, while cancer cure research demands a constant, systematic and planned pursuit by several scholars: The passage says the scholar's primary function is the "satisfaction of curiosity", and separately notes cancer research is something "thousands are working" on, that is, a large, organized, ongoing group effort aimed squarely at a practical result. This option captures both halves of that contrast correctly.
4. Several scholars work for a cancer cure while a single scholar works with a selfish motive: This introduces the idea of a "selfish motive", which is not supported anywhere in the passage.

The correct option is that a scholar's primary function is to satisfy curiosity, while the hunt for a cancer cure is a large, planned, consequence-driven group effort, matching option 3.

Let's summarize:

• The passage never says a scholar's work has no consequences; it says consequences are not the reason for the work.
• The real contrast in the passage is between curiosity-driven individual pursuit and consequence-driven organized research, not between selfishness and public good.

So the correct answer is option 3.