Read carefully the passages given below and answer the questions. In modern scientific story, light was created not once but twice. The first time was in the Big Bang, when the universe began its existence as a glowing, expanding, fireball, which cooled off into darkness after a few million years. The second time was hundreds of millions of year later, when the cold material condensed into dense nuggets under the influence of gravity, and ignited to become the first stars. Sir Martin Rees, Britain’s astronomer royal, named the long interval between these two enlightenments the cosmic “Dark Age”. The name describes not only the poorly lit conditions, but also the ignorance of astronomers about that period. Nobody knows exactly when the first stars formed, or how they organised themselves into galaxies or even whether stars were the first luminous objects. They may have been preceded by quasars, which are mysterious, bright spots found at the centres of some galaxies. Now, two independent groups of astronomers, one led by Robert Becker of the University of California, and the other by George Djorgovski of Caltech, claim to have peered far enough into space with their telescopes (and therefore backwards enough in time) to observe the closing days of the Dark Age. The main problem that plagued previous efforts to study the Dark Age was not the lack of suitable telescopes, but rather the lack of suitable things at which to point them. Because these events took place over 13 billion years ago, if astronomers are to have any hope of unravelling them they must study objects that are at least 13 billion light years away. The best prospects are quasars, because they are so bright and compact that they can be seen across vast stretches of space. The energy source that powers a quasar is unknown, although it is suspected to be the intense gravity of a giant black hole. However, at the distances required for the study of Dark Age, even quasars are extremely rare and faint.

Recently some members of Dr Becker’s team announced their discovery of the four most distant quasars known. All the new quasars are terribly faint, a challenge that both teams overcame by peering at them through one of twin telescopes in Hawaii. These are the world’s largest, and can therefore collect the most light. The new work by Dr Becker’s team analysed the light from all four quasars. Three of them appeared to be similar to ordinary, less distant quasars. However, the fourth and most distant, unlike any other quasar ever seen, showed unmistakable signs of being shrouded in a fog of hydrogen gas. This gas is leftover material from the Big Bang that did not condense into stars or quasars. It acts like fog because new-born stars and quasars emit mainly ultraviolet light, and hydrogen gas is opaque to ultraviolet. Seeing this fog had been the goal of would-be Dark Age astronomers since 1965, when James Gunn and Bruce Peterson spelled out the technique for causing quasars as backlighting beacons to observe the fog’s ultraviolet shadow. The fog prolonged the period of darkness until the heat from the first stars and quasars had the chance to ionise the hydrogen (breaking it into its constituent parts, protons and electrons). Ionised hydrogen is transparent to ultraviolet radiation, so at that moment the fog lifted and the universe became the well-lit place it is today. For this reason, the end of the Dark Age is called the “Epoch of Re-ionisation”, because the ultraviolet shadow is visible only in the most distant of the four quasars. Dr Becker’s team concluded that the fog had dissipated completely by the time the universe was about 900 million years old, and one-seventh of its current size.

Read carefully the passages given below and answer the questions. Improvement in quality of the human species is not necessarily alternative to a growth in quantity. A larger population may mean greater possibilities in the division of labour and economies of scale. These possibilities may contribute to the growth of per capita income, to better levels of living, and to better education. But beyond certain points, quantity and quality may well become competitive. The question whether the allocation of available resources between quantity and quality has been on the whole well done in the history of mankind, is impossible to answer. Among other things it implies the objectively impossible assessment of all kinds of ethical and cultural values and standards. Some facts, though, may perhaps help to give at least a general idea about what the general tendency has been. When the Neolithic Revolution occurred about ten thousand years ago, there were – as we have seen – fewer than 20 million people on the earth. In 1950 A.D. there were almost 2,500 million. Now, of the adult portion of this population, about 50 percent were totally illiterate. A mere glance at these figures immediately suggests that far too much of the available resources was used up by the quantitative increase of mankind at the expense of its qualitative improvement. We must invest more of our resources in the qualitative improvement of man. As Julian Huxley once said, we must place meaningful quality above meaningless quantity. There must be a combined effort in both the public and the private sectors toward such a goal. In this regard it should be remembered that what is needed is not merely more technical knowledge. What man today desperately needs is the kinds of education that allows him to make wise use of the techniques he possesses. ‘We live at a time when man, lord of all things, is not Lord of himself. He feels lost amid his own abundance…… To modern man is happening what was said of the Regent during the minority of Louis XV: he had all the talents except the talent to make use of them.’

A well-known and reputable economist recently wrote that ‘we do not know what the purpose of life is, but if it were happiness, then evolution could just as well have stopped a long time ago, since there is no reason to believe that men are happier than pigs or than fishes. What distinguishes men from pigs is that men have greater control over their environment, not that they are more happy. And on this test, economic growth is greatly to be desired’. The basic criticism of such a piece of logic was written centuries ago by Plato (Eutidemos, XI): ‘ Wealth is not a blessing in itself; if directed by ignorance wealth is a greater evil than poverty because it can push things more strongly than poverty in the wrong direction; if directed by wisdom and knowledge, wealth is a blessing’. ‘Control over environment’ may be used as it was used at Coventry and Hiroshima. If this is the purpose of human life, then I, for myself, would rather be a pig. We do not know what human happiness is. But we know what it is not. We know that human happiness cannot thrive where intolerance and brutality prevail. There is nothing more dangerous than technical knowledge when unaccompanied by respect for human life and human values. The introduction of modern techniques in environments that are still dominated by intolerance and aggressiveness is a most alarming development. Ethical progress has to accompany technical and economical development. While teaching techniques, we have to teach also respect for the dignity and worth and indeed the sanctity of human personality. Urgent action is needed lest the last state turn out to be worse than the first.

Read carefully the passages given below and answer the questions. Improvement in quality of the human species is not necessarily alternative to a growth in quantity. A larger population may mean greater possibilities in the division of labour and economies of scale. These possibilities may contribute to the growth of per capita income, to better levels of living, and to better education. But beyond certain points, quantity and quality may well become competitive. The question whether the allocation of available resources between quantity and quality has been on the whole well done in the history of mankind, is impossible to answer. Among other things it implies the objectively impossible assessment of all kinds of ethical and cultural values and standards. Some facts, though, may perhaps help to give at least a general idea about what the general tendency has been. When the Neolithic Revolution occurred about ten thousand years ago, there were – as we have seen – fewer than 20 million people on the earth. In 1950 A.D. there were almost 2,500 million. Now, of the adult portion of this population, about 50 percent were totally illiterate. A mere glance at these figures immediately suggests that far too much of the available resources was used up by the quantitative increase of mankind at the expense of its qualitative improvement. We must invest more of our resources in the qualitative improvement of man. As Julian Huxley once said, we must place meaningful quality above meaningless quantity. There must be a combined effort in both the public and the private sectors toward such a goal. In this regard it should be remembered that what is needed is not merely more technical knowledge. What man today desperately needs is the kinds of education that allows him to make wise use of the techniques he possesses. ‘We live at a time when man, lord of all things, is not Lord of himself. He feels lost amid his own abundance…… To modern man is happening what was said of the Regent during the minority of Louis XV: he had all the talents except the talent to make use of them.’

A well-known and reputable economist recently wrote that ‘we do not know what the purpose of life is, but if it were happiness, then evolution could just as well have stopped a long time ago, since there is no reason to believe that men are happier than pigs or than fishes. What distinguishes men from pigs is that men have greater control over their environment, not that they are more happy. And on this test, economic growth is greatly to be desired’. The basic criticism of such a piece of logic was written centuries ago by Plato (Eutidemos, XI): ‘ Wealth is not a blessing in itself; if directed by ignorance wealth is a greater evil than poverty because it can push things more strongly than poverty in the wrong direction; if directed by wisdom and knowledge, wealth is a blessing’. ‘Control over environment’ may be used as it was used at Coventry and Hiroshima. If this is the purpose of human life, then I, for myself, would rather be a pig. We do not know what human happiness is. But we know what it is not. We know that human happiness cannot thrive where intolerance and brutality prevail. There is nothing more dangerous than technical knowledge when unaccompanied by respect for human life and human values. The introduction of modern techniques in environments that are still dominated by intolerance and aggressiveness is a most alarming development. Ethical progress has to accompany technical and economical development. While teaching techniques, we have to teach also respect for the dignity and worth and indeed the sanctity of human personality. Urgent action is needed lest the last state turn out to be worse than the first.

Directions: Find the best possible replacement for the underlined part of the sentence in the question.

Directions: Find the best possible replacement for the underlined part of the sentence in the question.