Instructions

Analyse the following passage and provide an appropriate answer the questions that follow.

Silver is especially and repetitively savage about what he sees as the extravagant claims made for particle physics, arguing that once the proton, neutron, and electron were found and their properties experimentally confirmed, the very expensive searches for ever more exotic particles, such as the Higgs Boson, were increasingly harder to justify other than by their importance to particle physicists.
Most of the particles resemble ecstatic happiness: They are very short - lived and have nothing to do with everyday life. His repeated assault goes to the level of sarcasm: "Finding the Higgs Boson will be a magnificent technical and theoretical triumph. Like a great Bobby Fisher game". Of course, this is a tad unfair, even if some of the claims of its practitioners invite such assaults on their field.

Question 5

Which of the following, if true, will weaken the argument described in the passage?

Solution

The main argument of the passage is that scientists trying to gain knowledge about exotic particles will be of no help because it has already been assumed that the even if the exotic particles are found, they will be of no importance. Option C mentions that knowledge has preceded application in all spheres of science. If it is true, it will weaken the main argument of the passage which is based on the assumption that there would be no application of those exotic particles on which research is going on because without knowledge we cannot assume the application.
Hence, option C is the correct answer.


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