Question

Read the following passage and answer the question that follows.

The ignorant man is not the unlearned, but he who does not know himself, and the learned man is stupid when he relies on books, on knowledge and on authority to give him understanding. Understanding comes only through self-knowledge, which is awareness of one's total psychological process. Thus education, in the true sense, is the understanding of oneself, for it is within each one of us that the whole of existence is gathered. What we now call education is a matter of accumulating information and knowledge from books, which anyone can do who can read. Such education offers a subtle form of escape from ourselves and, like all escapes, it inevitably creates increasing misery. Conflict and confusion result from our own wrong relationship with people, things and ideas, and until we understand that relationship and alter it, mere learning, the gathering of facts and the acquiring of various skills, can only lead us to engulfing chaos and destruction. As society is now organized, we send our children to school to learn some technique by which they can eventually earn a livelihood. We want to make the child first and foremost a specialist, hoping thus to give him a secure economic position. But does the cultivation of a technique enable us to understand ourselves? While it is obviously necessary to know how to read and write, and to learn engineering or some other profession, will technique give us the capacity to understand life? Surely, technique is secondary; and if technique is the only thing we are striving for, we are obviously denying what is by far the greater part of life. Life is pain, joy, beauty, ugliness, love, and when we understand it as a whole, at every level, that understanding creates its own technique. But the contrary is not true: technique can never bring about creative understanding. Present-day education is a complete failure because it has overemphasized technique. In overemphasizing technique we destroy man. To cultivate capacity and efficiency without understanding life, without having a comprehensive perception of the ways of thought and desire, will only make us increasingly ruthless, which is to engender wars and jeopardize our physical security. The exclusive cultivation of technique has produced scientists, mathematicians, bridge Iwiracrarspace conquerors; but do they understand the total process of life? Can any specialist experience life as a whole? Only when he ceases to be a specialist. Technological progress does solve certain kinds of problems for some people at one level, but it introduces wider and deeper issues too. To live at one level, disregarding the total process of life, is to invite misery and destruction. The greatest need and most pressing problem for even individual is to have an integrated comprehension of life, which will enable him to meet its ever-increasing complexities. Technical knowledge, however necessary, will in no way resolve our inner, psychological pressures and conflict; and it is because we have acquired technical knowledge without understanding the total process of life that technology has become a means of destroying ourselves. The man who knows how to split the atom but has no love in his heart becomes a monster. We choose a vocation according to our capacities; but will the following of a vocation lead us out of conflict and confusion? Some form of technical training seems necessary; but when we have become engineers, physicians, accountants- then what? Is the practice of a profession the fulfilment of life? Apparently with most of us it is. Our various professions may keep us busy for the greater part of our existence; but the very things that we produce and are so entranced with are causing destruction and misery. Our attitudes and values make of things and occupations the instruments of envy, bitterness and hate.



This passage was most likely written in order to:

• A. persuade readers to shun technology.
• B. coax the readers to transcend technological limits.
• C. inspire readers to understand life as a whole.
• D. provoke a social movement against present-day education.

Hint:

Focus on how strongly and how often the author attacks present-day education specifically, not just the general theme of self-understanding.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

Step 1: Understanding the Question:
This is a purpose question: we are not asked what the passage says, but why the author wrote it, so tone and repeated emphasis matter as much as content.

Step 2: Key Approach:
Look at which subject the author names most directly and how forceful the language around it is. A mild, reflective tone points to "inspire," while sharp, accusing language points to a call for action.

Step 3: Detailed Explanation:
The author never tells readers to abandon technology; he calls basic technical training "necessary," so option 1 is too extreme.
Option 2 talks about "technological limits," a phrase the passage never frames as its subject; the real subject is the lack of self-understanding behind the use of technique.
Option 3 is close to the passage's theme but reads too gently against lines like "Present-day education is a complete failure" and "we destroy man," which are sharper than a simple encouragement to self-reflect.
Option 4 fits both the target (present-day education, named directly and repeatedly) and the tone (forceful, critical, ending on "envy, bitterness and hate"), which reads as a push for change at the level of the system, not just the individual.

Step 4: Final Answer:
Given the author's direct and repeated attack on present-day education in strong language, the passage's purpose is best described as provoking a social movement against present-day education, option 4.