NDA (II) 2019 General Ability Test · Question 45 of 148

Correct — C, evaluate and understand. The closing line reads 'Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.' To weigh and consider is to evaluate and understand, which is exactly what option C says.

• (a)only argue — The author explicitly rejects reading 'to contradict and confute', so reading merely to argue is the opposite of his advice.
• (b)only believe — The author warns against reading 'to believe and take for granted', so passive belief is not what he recommends.
• (d)preach and believe — This pairs the rejected aim of believing with preaching, which the passage never endorses — the author asks the reader to weigh and consider instead.

A reading-comprehension item on the author's advice about how to read, keyed to the closing 'weigh and consider' line.

This item is based on the short passage printed above Questions 41-45 in the NDA-II 2019 GAT (Series A) — a verbatim extract widely known as Francis Bacon's essay 'Of Studies'. The passage reads: "Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning, by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider." The answer follows from the closing 'but to weigh and consider', which means to evaluate and understand.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In Bacon's 'Of Studies', reading 'to contradict and confute' is something the author

  • (a)recommends
  • (b)advises against
  • (c)is neutral about
  • (d)calls the chief aim

  Answer(b) advises against — the text says 'Read not to contradict and confute'.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The phrase 'to weigh and consider' in the passage most nearly means

  • (a)to memorise
  • (b)to evaluate thoughtfully
  • (c)to skim quickly
  • (d)to accept without question

  Answer(b) to evaluate thoughtfully — it is the reflective reading the author endorses.