AP ICET 17th September 2021 Shift-1

Read the passage below and choose the correct answer for questions 131-135

"A little learning is a dangerous thing" - when Alexander Pope wrote this famous line he had in mind contemporary poetasters, versifiers, and critics who made themselves ridiculous on account of their shallow and superficial knowledge. But what was said about these people has a ring of universal truth. In every walk of life, be it arts or literature, science or politics, engineering or economics, law or administration, incomplete and superficial knowledge always leads to dangerous consequences. An ill-educated teacher will misguide the students. An incompetent surgeon would play with the lives of his patients. An ill-trained solider will become a danger to his comrades rather than his enemies. A lawyer without a thorough knowledge of law would min his clients, similarly, an inefficient engineer will build bridges which may fall under the weigl1t of the vehicles on it. Therefore, we cannot rely on persons who are not proficient in their subject. Such persons are a danger to themselves and to others also. They never realize their short comings and hence make no progress. A man of little learning is more prone to be conceited than a really learned person, for the latter regards himself as a mere child gathering pebbles on the shores of the ocean of knowledge.

Read the passage below and choose the correct answer for questions 136-140

As long as 340 BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle in his book 'On the Heavens', was able to put forward two good statements for believing that the earth was a round sphere rather than a flat plate. First he realised that eclipses of the moon were caused by the earth coming between the sun and the moon. The earth's shadow on the moon was always round, which would be true only if the earth was spherical. If the earth had been a flat disc, the shadow would have been elongated and elliptical, unless the eclipse always occurred at a time when the sun was directly under the centre of the disc. Second, the Greeks knew from their travels that the North star appeared lower in the sky when viewed in the South than it did in the more northerly regions (since the North star lies over the North pole), it appears to be directly above an observer at the North pole, but to someone looking from the equator, it appears to lie just at the horizon, From the difference in the apparent position of the North star in Egypt and Greece, Aristotle estimated the distance around the earth was 400,000 stadia.