Reading Comprehension Passage 31 MCQ Test With Answers - WHAT HAPPENS

AND WHAT IS OBSERVED

1. WHAT HAPPENS AND WHAT IS OBSERVED A

certain type of superior person is fond of asserting
that "everything is relative." This is, of course,
nonsense, because, if everything were relative, there
would be nothing for it to be relative to. However,
without falling into metaphysical absurdities, it is
possible to maintain that everything in the physical
world is relative to an observer. This view, true or not,
is not that adopted by the "theory of relativity."
Perhaps the name is unfortunate; certainly, it has led
philosophers and uneducated people into confusions.
They imagine that the new theory proves everything
in the physical world to be relative, whereas, on the
contrary, it is wholly concerned to exclude what is
relative and arrive at a statement of physical laws
that shall in no way depend upon the circumstances
of the observer... Both psychology and physics, from
their different angles, are compelled to emphasize
the respects in which one man's perception of a
given occurrence differs from another man's. Some of
these differences are due to differences in the brains
or minds of the observers, some to differences in
their sense-organs, some to differences of the
physical situation: these three kinds may be called
respectively psychological, physiological, and
physical... The kind that concerns us here is the
purely physical kind. Physical differences between
two observers will be preserved when the observers
are replaced by cameras or recording machines and
can be reproduced in a film or on the gramophone...
If there were no reality in the physical world, but
only a number of dreams dreamed by different
people, we should not expect to find any laws
connecting the dreams of one man with the dreams
of another. It is the close connection between the
perceptions of one man and the roughly
simultaneous perceptions of another that makes us
believe in a common external origin of the different
related perceptions. Physics accounts both for the
likenesses and for the differences between different
people's perceptions of what we call the "same"
occurrence. But in order to do this, it is first
necessary for the physicist to find out just what the
likenesses are. They are not quite those traditionally
assumed because neither space nor time separately
can be taken as strictly objective. What is objective is
a kind of mixture of the two called "space-time."
Bertrand Russell, The ABC of Relativity.   The
proposition, "Everything is relative," is not
viable, because

A) it is absurd and nonsensical.

B) only the superior type of people assert it.
C) there is nothing for it to be relative to.
D) of the undeniable fact that certain types of
superior persons assert metaphysical absurdities.
E) if everything were relative, there would be nothing
to judge it by.

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Reading Comprehension Passage 31 MCQ Test With Answers - WHAT HAPPENS
AND WHAT IS OBSERVED

2. The name chosen for the "theory of 4. We need some measure of objectivity, and
relativity" is this may be found in the concept of

A) misleading. A) similar dreams.

B) appropriate. B) space-time.
C) imaginative. C) perceptive physics.
D) nonsensical. D) observational physiology.
E) metaphysical. E) trustworthy observers.

3. The Theory of Relativity would rely on data 5. Bertrand Russell

obtained through
A) is himself a follower of the Theory of Relativity.
A) The Theory of Relativity would rely on data B) is a typical example of certain superior people.
obtained through C) thinks that the supporters of the Theory of
B) careful observers. Relativity are just talking nonsense.
C) different perceptions. D) would like to meet with a careful observer of
D) cameras and recording machines. physical differences.
E) none of the above. E) has become really sceptical about the viability of
psychology as a science.

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 Reading Comprehension Passage 31 MCQ Test With Answers - WHAT HAPPENS
AND WHAT IS OBSERVED

Answer Key:

1: E 4: B
2: A 5: A
3: D

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