Question

In the passage, the author is primarily concerned with

• A. identifying the kinds of thinking that are used by technologists
• B. stressing the importance of nonverbal thinking in engineering design
• C. proposing a new role for nonscientific thinking in the development of technology
• D. contrasting the goals of engineers with those of technologists
• E. criticizing engineering schools for emphasizing science in engineering curricula
• A. strengthened when they include courses in design
• B. weakened by the substitution of physical science courses for courses designed to develop mathematical skills
• C. strong because nonverbal thinking is still emphasized by most of the courses
• D. strong despite the errors that graduates of such curricula have made in the development of automatic control systems
• J. strong despite the absence of nonscientific modes of thinking
• A. When a machine like a rotary engine malfunctions, it is the technologist who is best equipped to repair it.
• B. Each component of an automobile—for example, the engine or the fuel tank—has a shape that has been scientifically determined to be best suited to that component's function.
• C. A telephone is a complex instrument designed by technologists using only nonverbal thought.
• D. The designer of a new refrigerator should consider the designs of other refrigerators before deciding on its final form.
• O. The distinctive features of a suspension bridge reflect its designer's conceptualization as well as the physical requirements of its site.
• A. The assumption that the knowledge incorporated in technological developments must be derived from science ignores the many non-scientific decisions made by technologists.
• B. Analytical thought is no longer a vital component in the success of technological development.
• C. As knowledge of technology has increased, the tendency has been to lose sight of the important role played by scientific thought in making decisions about form, arrangement, and texture.
• D. A movement in engineering colleges toward a technician's degree reflects a demand for graduates who have the nonverbal reasoning ability that was once common among engineers.
• T. A technologist thinking about a machine, reasoning through the successive steps in a dynamic process, can actually turn the machine over mentally.
• A. the publication needed drawings that its own staff could not make
• B. architectural schools offered but did not require engineering design courses for their students
• C. college students were qualified to make the drawings while practicing engineers were not
• D. the drawings needed were so complicated that even students in architectural schools had difficulty making them.
• Y. engineering students were not trained to make the type of drawings needed to record the development of their own discipline.
• A. automatic control systems are designed by engineers who have little practical experience in the field
• B. the failures are characteristic of systems designed by engineers relying too heavily on concepts in mathematics
• C. the failures occur too often to be taken lightly
• D. designers of automatic control systems have too little training in the analysis of mechanical difficulties
• ^. designers of automatic control systems need more help from scientists who have a better understanding of the analytical problems to be solved before such systems can work efficiently
• A. weaken the argument that modern engineering systems have major defects because of an absence of design courses in engineering curricula
• B. support the thesis that the number of errors in modern engineering systems is likely to increase
• C. illustrate the idea that courses in design are the most effective means for reducing the cost of designing engineering systems
• D. support the contention that a lack of attention to the nonscientific aspects of design results in poor conceptualization by engineers
• c. weaken the proposition that mathematics is a necessary part of the study of design

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This is a main idea question. It asks for the author's primary purpose in writing the passage. We need to identify the central theme that connects all parts of the text.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
The passage begins by establishing that "non-scientific modes of thought" are crucial in determining the form and function of objects. It emphasizes "visual, nonverbal process" and "non-verbal thinking." It then explicitly argues that "Design courses, then, should be an essential element in engineering curricula" because design relies on this type of thought. Finally, it provides an example of a "costly error" that occurred when design was neglected in favor of pure mathematics.
Every part of the passage serves to build the argument for the value of nonverbal thinking.
(A) The author does identify these kinds of thinking, but the primary goal is to argue for their importance, not just to list them.
(B) This accurately reflects the author's main goal. The entire passage is an argument stressing how vital nonverbal thought is to good engineering and design.
(C) The role is not "new"; the author argues that it has always been present in technology but is now being undervalued.
(E) The author does criticize engineering schools, but this is a supporting point used to illustrate the larger problem of undervaluing nonverbal thought. The main concern is the thinking itself, not just the schools.
Step 3: Final Answer:
The central and recurring theme of the passage is the argument for the value and necessity of nonverbal thinking in the field of engineering design. Therefore, option (B) is the best description of the author's primary concern.

Answer 2

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This is an inference question asking for the author's opinion on engineering curricula. We need to deduce the author's view from the arguments and criticisms presented in the passage.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
The author makes two key statements that reveal their opinion.
1. "Design courses, then, should be an essential element in engineering curricula" (lines 29-30). This implies that adding them is a positive and necessary step.
2. "If courses in design... are not provided, we can expect to encounter silly but costly errors" (lines 44-47). This implies that their absence is a weakness that leads to failure.
From these two points, we can infer that the author believes including design courses makes a curriculum better, or "strengthens" it. This directly supports option (A).
The other options contradict the passage:
(B) The author critiques the overemphasis on analytical/mathematical thought, not the lack of it.
(C) The author argues that nonverbal thinking is not emphasized enough, which is why engineering students can't produce certain drawings.
(D) and (E) The author views the errors and the absence of nonscientific thinking as significant weaknesses, not things that a curriculum can be strong in spite of.
Step 3: Final Answer:
Based on the author's argument that the absence of design courses leads to errors and that they should be an "essential element," we can infer that including them would strengthen engineering curricula. Therefore, option (A) is correct.

Answer 3

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This question asks for the best example of the argument made in the first two paragraphs (lines 1-28). The main point of this section is that technology is a product of both non-scientific, intuitive "conceptualization" and practical, physical constraints, with the non-scientific part being primary.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
Lines 1-28 argue that artifacts exist because they were first "a picture in the minds of those who built them" and that design decisions come from a mix of "experience, physical requirements, limitations of available space, and... a sense of form." A good illustration must capture this blend of mental vision and physical reality.
(E) This statement perfectly illustrates the point. "Designer's conceptualization" refers to the non-verbal, visual "picture in the mind" that the author emphasizes. "Physical requirements of its site" refers to the constraints like space, experience, and materials that the author also mentions. This option captures the dual nature of design as described in the passage.
Let's analyze the other options:
(A) The passage is about design, not repair.
(B) This is the opposite of the passage's point, which argues that form is not purely scientifically determined.
(C) The word "only" makes this incorrect. The passage states that some decisions do depend on scientific calculations.
(D) This describes a part of the design process, but it doesn't illustrate the core concept of how nonverbal thought and physical constraints combine to create form.
Step 3: Final Answer:
Option (E) provides a concrete example that effectively captures the blend of a designer's mental vision and real-world physical constraints, which is the central argument of the first part of the passage.

Answer 4

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This question asks for the best introductory sentence for the entire passage. A good introduction sets up the main problem or topic that the passage will then explore in detail.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
The entire passage is an argument against the idea that technology is purely a product of science. It highlights the overlooked contributions of "non-scientific modes of thought." Therefore, the best introduction would be one that states this common misconception and hints at the counter-argument the author will make.
(A) This statement does exactly that. It presents the common "assumption" (that technology is derived from science) and then introduces the passage's main topic: the "non-scientific decisions made by technologists." The rest of the passage is an elaboration of this statement.
Let's analyze the other options:
(B) This is too extreme. The author doesn't say analytical thought is no longer vital, only that it's not the whole story.
(C) This is the opposite of the author's point. The author argues that we have lost sight of the role of non-scientific thought.
(D) This is too narrow. The passage is about a mode of thinking, not specifically about types of degrees.
(E) This is a detail from within the passage (describing the nonverbal process), not an overview of the entire argument. It's an example, not an introduction.
Step 3: Final Answer:
Option (A) perfectly encapsulates the central conflict that the passage is written to address: the mistaken belief that science is the sole source of technological innovation, and the author's correction that non-scientific thought is also crucial.

Answer 5

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This question asks us to explain the meaning of the word "paradoxical" in the context of the passage. A paradox is a situation that seems contradictory but is nevertheless true. We need to identify the contradiction described in lines 36-43.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
The situation is that the "Historic American Engineering Record" needed special drawings to document the history of American engineering. One would logically expect that engineering students would be the ideal candidates for this job. However, the passage states that "the only college students with the requisite abilities were not engineering students, but rather students attending architectural schools."
The paradox is the contradiction: the students of a particular field (engineering) were not equipped to document the history of that very same field, while students from another field (architecture) were.
Option (E) captures this contradiction perfectly: "engineering students were not trained to make the type of drawings needed to record the development of their own discipline."
Let's analyze the other options:
(A) The paradox is not about the staff, but about the contrast between students of different disciplines.
(B) This is irrelevant to the specific contradiction the author points out.
(C) The comparison in the text is between engineering students and architectural students, not students vs. practicing engineers.
(D) The passage does not state that the drawings were complicated, only that they required certain "abilities."
Step 3: Final Answer:
The paradoxical situation is that the very people studying engineering were not the ones qualified to visually document it, a task that fell to students of architecture. Option (E) is the most accurate description of this irony.

Answer 6

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This question asks for the reason why the author considers failures in automatic control systems to be significant ("not merely trivial aberrations"). We need to find the cause that the author assigns to these failures in the last paragraph of the passage.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
The author discusses the "absurd random failures that plague automatic control systems" at the end of the passage. The final sentence (lines 53-55) provides the explicit reason: "...they are a reflection of the chaos that results when design is assumed to be primarily a problem in mathematics."
This statement directly links the failures to a design philosophy that overemphasizes mathematics and neglects the nonverbal, intuitive aspects of design that the author has been championing throughout the passage.
Option (B) is a direct paraphrase of this conclusion. The failures are characteristic of systems where engineers have relied too heavily on mathematics.
Let's analyze the other options:
(A) The passage doesn't mention the engineers' level of practical experience.
(C) While this might be true, the author gives a more specific, causal reason than just the frequency of failures.
(D) The passage critiques the lack of nonverbal design skills, not specifically the analysis of mechanical difficulties.
(E) The author argues for less reliance on pure science/mathematics in design, not for more help from scientists.
Step 3: Final Answer:
The passage explicitly attributes these failures to a design process that treats engineering as a purely mathematical problem. Therefore, option (B) is the correct answer.

Answer 7

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This question asks for the rhetorical purpose of a specific example—the failing railroad cars. We need to understand how this example functions within the author's overall argument in the final paragraph.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
The author introduces the example right after making a specific claim: "If courses in design... are not provided, we can expect to encounter silly but costly errors occurring in advanced engineering systems" (lines 44-47). The railroad car, where a fan sucked snow into the electrical system, is presented as a concrete illustration of such a "silly but costly error."
This error occurred because the designers focused on the sophisticated controls (the mathematical/analytical side) but failed to consider a basic, real-world physical interaction (the nonscientific, design side). This supports the author's main point that neglecting the nonscientific aspects of design leads to failures.
Option (D) accurately summarizes this. The "lack of attention to the nonscientific aspects of design" (like how a fan and snow interact) resulted in "poor conceptualization" (a flawed design).
Let's analyze the other options:
(A) The example strengthens, not weakens, the argument.
(B) The example illustrates the cause of errors, not that their number will necessarily increase.
(C) The example shows the cost of not having design skills, but doesn't explicitly compare design courses to other means of reducing cost.
(E) The author doesn't argue that mathematics is unnecessary, only that it is insufficient on its own. The example doesn't weaken the need for math, but highlights the need for something more.
Step 3: Final Answer:
The railroad car example serves as direct evidence for the author's claim that neglecting nonscientific design considerations leads to real-world engineering failures. Option (D) best describes this purpose.