Question

The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. 
In investigating memory-beliefs, there are certain points which must be borne in mind. In the first place, everything constituting a memory-belief is happening now, not in that past time to which the belief is said to refer. It is not logically necessary to the existence of a memory-belief that the event remembered should have occurred, or even that the past should have existed at all. There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago. Hence the occurrences which are CALLED knowledge of the past are logically independent of the past; they are wholly analysable into present contents, which might, theoretically, be just what they are even if no past had existed.

• A. When we discuss the concept of memory-beliefs, we must understand that it is not logically impossible for the event remembered to have never happened at all; it could just be a figment of our imagination.
• B. Memory-beliefs depend wholly on what is remembered in the present, and not on anything else; just as it is not logically impossible that the world came into being five minutes ago, and that everyone now just remembers a wholly imaginary past for it.
• C. When investigating memory beliefs, we must keep in mind that an actual past event is not a prerequisite for a memory-belief to exist, and that what we know of the past could theoretically need a past at all.
• D. That which we call "knowledge of the past" is logically independent of the past, since the act of remembering which forms memory-beliefs happens in the present, and does not need to be based in real past occurrences, or even need a past at all.

Hint:

Look for answers that directly address the relationship between the present and the past in the context of memory-beliefs.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

Approach: Use the "example versus conclusion" filter. The five-minutes-ago world is the passage's vivid example; its real argument is the abstract conclusion that follows. A summary that majors on the example under-summarises; the right one majors on the conclusion.

Step 1: Spot the conclusion marker. Russell writes "Hence the occurrences CALLED knowledge of the past are logically independent of the past." The word "hence" flags the thesis. Any summary missing "logically independent" is incomplete.

Step 2: Run the keyword test on each option. Search for "logically independent" or its sense. Option 1: absent. Option 2: absent (it talks five-minutes-ago instead). Option 3: absent and the sentence is broken. Option 4: present, and stated as the main point.

Step 3: Confirm option 4 also keeps the two premises (present act of remembering, no real past required), so it is complete, not just correct in headline.

Step 4: One option carries premises plus conclusion; that is a summary, the rest are fragments.

Answer: Option 4.