Passage 1

To discover the relation between rules, paradigms, and normal science, consider first how the
historian isolates the particular loci of commitment that have been described as accepted rules. Close
historical investigation of a given specialty at a given time discloses a set of recurrent and quasi-
standard illustrations of various theories in their conceptual, observational, and instrumental
applications. These are the community’s paradigms, revealed in its textbooks, lectures, and laboratory
exercises. By studying them and by practicing with them, the members of the corresponding
community learn their trade. The historian, of course, will discover in addition a penumbral area
occupied by achievements whose status is still in doubt, but the core of solved problems and
techniques will usually be clear. Despite occasional ambiguities, the paradigms of a mature scientific
community can be determined with relative ease.

That demands a second step and one of a somewhat different kind. When undertaking it, the historian
must compare the community’s paradigms with each other and with its current research reports. In
doing so, his object is to discover what isolable elements, explicit or implicit, the members of that
community may have abstracted from their more global paradigms and deploy it as rules in their
research. Anyone who has attempted to describe or analyze the evolution of a particular scientific
tradition will necessarily have sought accepted principles and rules of this sort. Almost certainly, he
will have met with at least partial success. But, if his experience has been at all like my own, he will
have found the search for rules both more difficult and less satisfying than the search for paradigms.
Some of the generalizations he employs to describe the community’s shared beliefs will present more
problems. Others, however, will seem a shade too strong. Phrased in just that way, or in any other
way he can imagine, they would almost certainly have been rejected by some members of the group
he studies. Nevertheless, if the coherence of the research tradition is to be understood in terms of
rules, some specification of common ground in the corresponding area is needed. As a result, the
search for a body of rules competent to constitute a given normal research tradition becomes a source
of continual and deep frustration.

Recognizing that frustration, however, makes it possible to diagnose its source. Scientists can agree
that a Newton, Lavoisier, Maxwell, or Einstein has produced an apparently permanent solution to a
group of outstanding problems and still disagree, sometimes without being aware of it, about the
particular abstract characteristics that make those solutions permanent. They can, that is, agree in their
identification of a paradigm without agreeing on, or even attempting to produce, a full interpretation
or rationalization of it. Lack of a standard interpretation or of an agreed reduction to rules will not
prevent a paradigm from guiding research. Normal science can be determined in part by the direct
inspection of paradigms, a process that is often aided by but does not depend upon the formulation of
rules and assumption. Indeed, the existence of a paradigm need not even imply that any full set of
rules exists.

1. What is the author attempting to illustrate through this passage?

(a) Relationships between rules, paradigms, and normal science

(b) How a historian would isolate a particular ‘loci of commitment’

(c) How a set of shared beliefs evolves into a paradigm

(d) Ways of understanding a scientific tradition

(e) The frustrations of attempting to define a paradigm of a tradition

2. The term ‘loci of commitment’ as used in the passage would most likely correspond with which
of the following?

(a) Loyalty between a group of scientists in a research laboratory

(b) Loyalty between groups of scientists across research laboratories

(c) Loyalty to a certain paradigm of scientific inquiry

(d) Loyalty to global patterns of scientific inquiry

(e) Loyalty to evolving trends of scientific inquiry

3. The author of this passage is likely to agree with which of the following?

(a) Paradigms almost entirely define a scientific tradition.

(b) A group of scientists investigating a phenomenon would benefit by defining a set of

rules.

(c) Acceptance by the giants of a tradition is a sine qua non for a paradigm to emerge.

(d) Choice of isolation mechanism determines the type of paradigm that may emerge
from a tradition.

(e) Paradigms are a general representation of rules and beliefs of a scientific tradition.
Passage 2

Our propensity to look out for regularities, and to impose laws upon nature, leads to the psychological
phenomenon of dogmatic thinking or, more generally, dogmatic behaviour: we expect regularities
everywhere and attempt to find them even where there are none; events which do not yield to these
attempts we are inclined to treat as a kind of ‘background noise’; and we stick to our expectations
even when they are inadequate and we ought to accept defeat. This dogmatism is to some extent
necessary. It is demanded by a situation which can only be dealt with by forcing our conjectures upon
the world. Moreover, this dogmatism allows us to approach a good theory in stages, by way of
approximations: if we accept defeat too easily, we may prevent ourselves from finding that we were
very nearly right.

It is clear that this dogmatic attitude, which makes us stick to our first impressions, is indicative of a
strong belief; while a critical attitude, which is ready to modify its tenets, which admits doubt and
demands tests, is indicative of a weaker belief. Now according to Hume’s theory, and to the popular
theory, the strength of a belief should be a product of repetition; thus it should always grow with
experience, and always be greater in less primitive persons. But dogmatic thinking, an uncontrolled
wish to impose regularities, a manifest pleasure in rites and in repetition as such, is characteristic of
primitives and children; and increasing experience and maturity sometimes create an attitude of
caution and criticism rather than of dogmatism.

My logical criticism of Hume’s psychological theory, and the considerations connected with it, may
seem a little removed from the field of the philosophy of science. But the distinction between
dogmatic and critical thinking, or the dogmatic and the critical attitude, brings us right back to our
central problem. For the dogmatic attitude is clearly related to the tendency to verify our laws and
schemata by seeking to apply them and to confirm them, even to the point of neglecting refutations,
whereas the critical attitude is one of readiness to change them — to test them; to refute them; to
falsify them, if possible. This suggests that we may identify the critical attitude with the scientific
attitude, and the dogmatic attitude with the one which we have described as pseudo-scientific. It
further suggests that genetically speaking the pseudo- scientific attitude is more primitive than, and
prior to, the scientific attitude: that it is a pre-scientific attitude. And this primitivity or priority also
has its logical aspect. For the critical attitude is not so much opposed to the dogmatic attitude as
super-imposed upon it: criticism must be directed against existing and influential beliefs in need of
critical revision — in other words, dogmatic beliefs. A critical attitude needs for its raw material, as it
were, theories or beliefs which are held more or less dogmatically.

Thus, science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of
observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of
magical techniques and practices. The scientific tradition is distinguished from the pre-scientific
tradition in having two layers. Like the latter, it passes on its theories; but it also passes on a critical
attitude towards them. The theories are passed on, not as dogmas, but rather with the challenge to
discuss them and improve upon them.

The critical attitude, the tradition of free discussion of theories with the aim of discovering their weak
spots so that they may be improved upon, is the attitude of reasonableness, of rationality. From the
point of view here developed, all laws, all theories, remain essentially tentative, or conjectural, or
hypothetical, even when we feel unable to doubt them any longer. Before a theory has been refuted
we can never know in what way it may have to be modified.

1. In the context of science, according to the passage, the interaction of dogmatic beliefs and critical
attitude can be best described as

(a) a duel between two warriors in which one has to die

 (b) the effect of a chisel on a marble stone while making a sculpture

(c) The feedstock (natural gas) in fertilizer industry being transformed into fertilizers

(d) A predator killing its prey

(e) The effect of fertilizers on a sapling

2. According to the passage, the role of a dogmatic attitude or dogmatic behaviour in the development
of science is

(a) critical and important, as, without it, initial hypotheses or conjectures can never be made

(b) positive, as conjectures arising out of our dogmatic attitude become science

(c) negative, as it leads to pseudo-science

(d) neutral, as the development of science is essentially because of our critical attitude

(e) inferior to critical attitude, as a critical attitude leads to the attitude of reasonableness and
rationality

3. Dogmatic behaviour, in this passage, has been associated with primitives and children. Which of
the following best describes the reason why the author compares primitives with children?

(a) Primitives are people who are not educated and hence can be compared with children, who
have not yet been through school

(b) Primitives are people who, though not modern, are as innocent as children

(c) Primitives are people without a critical attitude, just as children are

(d) Primitives are people in the early stages of human evolution; similarly, children are in the
early stages of their lives

(e) Primitives are people who are not civilised enough, just as children are not

4. Which of the following statements best supports the argument in the passage that a critical attitude
leads to a weaker belief than a dogmatic attitude does?

(a) A critical attitude implies endless questioning and therefore, it cannot lead to strong beliefs

(b) A critical attitude, by definition, is centred on an analysis of anomalies and ‘noise’

(c) A critical attitude leads to questioning everything and in the process generates ‘noise’
without any conviction.

(d) A critical attitude is antithetical to conviction, which is required for strong beliefs

(e) A critical attitude leads to questioning and to tentative hypotheses

5. According to the passage, which of the following statements best describes the difference between
science and pseudo-science?

(a) Scientific theories or hypotheses are tentatively true whereas pseudo-sciences are always true

(b) Scientific laws and theories are permanent and immutable whereas pseudo-sciences are
contingent on the prevalent mode of thinking in a society

(c) Science always allows the possibility of rejecting a theory or hypotheses, whereas pseudo-
sciences seek to validate their ideas or theories

(d) Science focuses on anomalies and exceptions so that fundamental truths can be uncovered,
whereas pseudo-sciences focus mainly on general truths

(e) Science progresses by collection of observations or by experimentation, whereas pseudo-

sciences do not worry about observations and experiments

Passage 3
Feminism is an essentially pluralist movement. Early historians of the feminist movement claim that
the movement was borne from the experiences of every woman who has resisted or tried to resist
domination. From this proposition, three major premises follow. First, feminism places great
importance on subjective experience. This implies that much of feminist theory is inductive, moving
from the particularities of an individual’s perception of the world to general statements about the
nature of the world. Second, feminism is not easily reducible to generalities. The diversity of
viewpoints incorporated into the movement resists systematization, but the difficulty of forming a
coherent whole from the parts of the theory should be viewed as detrimental. Third, feminism
attempts to transform the personal into the political. The individual’s experiences of gender
domination transcend the typical boundaries that divide the public and private sphere. Predictably,
feminist political theory assumes the intermingling of these domains.

Differences among feminist theories arise from two major sources. The first is from the differences
inherent in various interpretations of events and the second is from the differences in the nature and
character of experiences. Varieties of interpretations led to the establishment of several major schools
of feminist thought, including liberal feminists, radical feminists, and socialist feminists, while the
diversity of experiences accounts for the cultural feminist, psychoanalytic feminist, and black feminist
movements. These experiential movements should not be seen as complete, for as the feminist ethos
takes root in other countries with different traditions, new theoretical perspectives will develop.

1. The passage is primarily concerned with

A. evaluating a theory
B. tracing the history of a movement
C. suggesting the likely progression of an idea
D. describing a perspective
E. rejecting a criticism

2. Which of the following would most undermine the author’s conclusion in the final
paragraph?
A. Although the traditions in other countries may differ, the experiences of women in those countries
are fairly similar.
B. The societal structure of some countries will make it difficult for feminism to take hold.
C. Most feminist scholars identify themselves with interpretation based schools of feminism.
D. Because women’s experiences in society are always changing, so too will the theoretical
perspectives gained from them.
E. Many other countries already have the seeds of a feminist movement.

3. The author implies which of the following about feminism?

A. It offers a systematic and coherent view of the world.
B. Its primary characteristic is its rejection of male hierarchical structures.
C. It seeks to intertwine the political and theoretical worlds.
D. It values diversity.
E. It uses the experiences of women to attempt to transform the world.