Multiple choice

Directions: The short passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

From the wealth of science we have selected certain parts. And our choice has in no way been influenced by a consideration of the higher interests of humanity. It has simply followed the direction of our natural tendencies. The principles of the greatest convenience and of the least effort, the pleasure procured by speed, change, and comfort, and also the need of escaping from ourselves, are the determining factors in the success of new inventions. But no one has ever asked himself how we would stand the enormous acceleration of the rhythm of life resulting from rapid transportation, telegraph, telephone, modern business methods, machines that write and calculate, and those that do all the housekeeping drudgery of former times. The tendency responsible for the universal adoption of the airplane, the automobile, the cinema, the telephone, the radio, and, in the near future, of television, is as natural as that which, in the night of the ages, led our ancestors to drink alcohol. Steam-heated houses, electric lighting, elevators, biological morals, and chemical adulteration of foodstuffs have been accepted solely because those innovations were agreeable and convenient. But no account whatever has been taken of their probable effect on human beings.

What is the theme of the passage?

  1. Profound changes have been imposed on the habits of men by the applications of science.

  2. The advancement of science has endowed us with the principles of greatest convenience and least effort.

  3. The sciences of inert matter have made immense progress, while those of living beings remain in a rudimentary state, which emphasizes the need of a better knowledge of man.

  4. Science may have brought us all the conveniences of life, but it has corrupted our minds at the same time.

  5. The focus of all science ought to have been the essential nature of man, which unfortunately is not.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

 Option (3) sums up the theme of the passage that the applications of scientific discoveries have transformed the material and mental worlds and they exert on us a profound influence. But this transformation has come without consideration for our nature, which emphasizes on the need of a better knowledge for man. Hence, (3) is the answer.

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