Reading Comprehension Home Exercise- 16 PASSAGE A

The pioneers of the teaching of science imagined that its introduction into education would remove the conventionality, artificiality, and backward- lookingness which were characteristic of classical studies, but they were gravely disappointed. So, too, in their time had the humanists thought that study of the classical authors in the original would banish at once the dull pedantry and superstition of mediaeval scholasticism? The Professional schoolmaster, was a match for both of them, and has almost managed to make the understanding of chemical reactions as dull and as dogmatic an affair as the reading of Virgil’s Aeneid.

The Chief claim for the use of science in education is that it teaches a child something about the actual universe in which he is living, in making him acquainted with the results of scientific discovery, and a t he same time teaches him how to think logically and inductively by studying method. A certain limited success has been reached in the first of these aims. But practically none at all in the second. Those privileged members of the community who have been through a secondary or public school education may be expected to know something about the elementary physics and chemistry of a hundred years ago, but they probably know hardly more than any bright boy can pick up form an interest in wireless or scientific hobbies out of school hours.

As to the learning of scientific method, the whole thing is palpably a farce. Actually, for, the convenience of teachers and the requirements of the examination system, it is necessary that the pupils not only do not learn scientific method but learn precisely the reverse, that is to believe exactly what they are told and to reproduce it when asked,  whether it seems nonsense to them or not. The way in which educated people respond to such quackeries as spiritualism or astrology, not to say more dangerous ones such as racial theories or currency myths, shows that fifty years of education in the method of science in Britain or Germany has produced no visible effect whatever. The only way of learning the method of science is the long and bitter way of personal experience, and until the educational or social systems are altered to make this possible, the best we can expect is production of a minority of people who are able to acquire some of the techniques of science and a still smaller minority who are able to use and develop them.

1.       The author implies that the ‘Professional schoolmaster’  has

A.      No interest in teaching science

B.      Thwarted attempts to enliven education

C.      Aided true learning

D.      Supported the humanists

2.       The author’s apparently believe that secondary and public school education in the sciences is

A.      Severely limited in its benefits

B.      Worse than that in the classics

C.      Grossly incompetent

D.      A stimulus to critical thinking

3.       If the author were to study current education in science to see how things have changed since he wrote the piece, he would probably be most interested in the answer to which of the following questions?

A.      Do students know more about the world about them?

B.      Do students spend more time in laboratories?

C.      Can students apply their knowledge logically?

D.      Have textbooks improved?

4.       All of the following can be inferred from the  text except

A.      At the time of writing, not  all children received a secondary school education

B.      The author finds chemical reactions interesting

C.      Science teaching  has imparted some knowledge of facts to some children

D.      It is relatively easy to learn scientific method

Answer:

1.        B     The author says that the professional schoolmaster was a match for people who tried to bring new ideas and attitudes into education. This means that the schoolmaster succeeded in making the new subjects dull. And so B is the best answer. 

2.       A    the author tells us that some pupils might have learned some facts but that they would not have learned anything of the scientific method. He expresses himself very forcefully but still not strongly enough to make B   or C the correct answers. The correct answer. A is best – strong without being excessive.

3.       C    The author says that practically no progress has been made towards the aim of helping the student to think, logically. The last sentence confirms that he would expect good science education to enable students to use scientific knowledge.

4.       D   In an “Except” question we are looking for something that is wrong. The word “relatively” in option D clearly makes this statement wrong.