CAT 2025 Slot 2 · VARC · RC passage 4: Instrumental Embodiment in the Sciences

The full passage and all 4 questions (Q17–Q20) from CAT 2025 Slot 2, with answers and solutions.

The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.

Different sciences exhibit different science cultures and practices. For example, in astronomy, observation – until what is today called the new astronomy – had always been limited to what could be seen within the limits of optical light. Indeed, until early modernity the limits to optical light were also limits of what humans could themselves see within their limited and relative perceptual spectrum of human vision. With early modernity and the invention of lensed optical instruments – telescopes – astronomers could begin to observe phenomena never seen before. Magnification and resolution began to allow what was previously imperceptible to be perceived – but within the familiar limits of optical vision. Galileo, having learned of the Dutch invention of a telescope by Hans Lippershey, went on to build some hundred of his own, improving from the Dutch 3x to nearly 30x telescopes – which turn out to be the limit of magnificational power without chromatic distortion. And it was with his own telescopes that he made the observations launching early modern astronomy (phases of Venus, satellites of Jupiter, etc.). Isaac Newton's later improvement with reflecting telescopes expanded upon the magnificational-resolution capacity of optical observation; and, from Newton to the twentieth century, improvement continued on to the later very large array of light telescopes today – following the usual technological trajectory of "more-is-better" but still remaining within the limits of the light spectrum. Today's astronomy has now had the benefit of some four centuries of optical telescopy. The "new astronomy," however, opens the full known electromagnetic spectrum to observation, beginning with the accidental discovery of radio astronomy early in the twentieth century, and leading today to the diverse variety of EMS telescopes which can explore the range from gamma to radio waves. Thus, astronomy, now outfitted with new instruments, "smart" adaptive optics, very large arrays, etc., illustrates one style of instrumentally embodied science – a technoscience. Of course astronomy, with the very recent exceptions of probes to solar system bodies (Moon, Mars, Venus, asteroids), remains largely a "receptive" science, dependent upon instrumentation which can detect and receive emissions.

Contemporary biology displays a quite different instrument array and, according to Evelyn Fox-Keller, also a different scientific culture. She cites her own experience, coming from mathematical physics into microbiology, and takes account of the distinctive instrumental culture in her Making Sense of Life (2002). Here, particularly with the development of biotechnology, instrumentation is far more interventional than in the astronomy case. Microscopic instrumentation can be and often is interventional in style: "gene-splicing" and other techniques of biotechnology, while still in their infancy, are clearly part of the interventional trajectory of biological instrumentation. Yet, in both disciplines, the sciences involved are today highly instrumentalized and could not progress successfully without constant improvements upon the respective instrumental trajectories. So, minimalistically, one may conclude that the sciences are technologically, instrumentally embodied. But the styles of embodiment differ, and perhaps the last of the scientific disciplines to move into such technical embodiment is mathematics, which only contemporarily has come to rely more and more upon the computational machinery now in common use.

Question 17 · RC Inference Questions

None of the following statements, if true, contradicts the arguments in the passage EXCEPT:

  1. A

    Isaac Newton's discovery of gravity was accomplished without the help of instruments.

  2. B

    because of the relatively recent entry of computational machinery in mathematics, the field is only now beginning to develop a scientific culture.

  3. C

    like telescopy, microscopy has also sought to move beyond the visible spectrum to be able to detect objects that are invisible in that spectrum.

  4. D

    some scientific instruments may be classified as both receptive and interventional in their functions.

Pick an option, then check.
Answer & solution

Answer: Option B

Translate the stem. 'None contradicts, EXCEPT' means exactly one of them does contradict the passage. So the task is: which statement, if true, clashes with the passage?

Option 2 clashes. The passage says mathematics is 'the last of the scientific disciplines to move into such technical embodiment', relying lately on computational machinery. Note what that claims and what it does not. It says mathematics came late to instrumental embodiment; it treats mathematics throughout as an established scientific discipline. Option 2 says the field is 'only now beginning to develop a scientific culture', which confuses late instrumentation with having no scientific culture at all. That contradicts the passage.

Option 1 does not contradict. The passage's claim is about instruments in observational trajectories; it never says every discovery, Newton's included, required instruments.

Option 3 does not contradict. The passage describes telescopy moving beyond the optical into the full electromagnetic spectrum. Microscopy doing something parallel sits comfortably with the argument that sciences are instrumentally embodied.

Option 4 does not contradict. 'Receptive' and 'interventional' are described as styles, and astronomy is called 'largely' receptive, with probes as exceptions. An instrument that is both fits that hedged picture.

Shortcut: rewrite a 'None... EXCEPT' stem as 'which one contradicts?' before reading the options, then test each for a claim the passage denies rather than merely fails to mention. Silence is not contradiction – that is what rules out options 1, 3 and 4.

Hence, the answer is option 2.

Question 18 · RC Inference Questions

All of the following statements may be rejected as valid inferences from the passage EXCEPT:

  1. A

    Isaac Newton's experiments with reflecting telescopes were the earliest versions of the "new astronomy" referred to in the passage.

  2. B

    interventionist instruments, or instruments that intervene directly in scientific inquiry, are different from embodied instruments, or instruments that embody scientific inquiry.

  3. C

    the author distinguishes between the receptive and interventionist uses of instruments in the sciences by comparing astronomy and biology, respectively.

  4. D

    the advances in telescopy made by Newton with reflecting telescopes allowed early modern astronomers to observe the phases of Venus and the satellites of Jupiter.

Pick an option, then check.
Answer & solution

Answer: Option C

Three options are invalid inferences; one is valid. Hunt for the valid one.

Option 1 is invalid. The 'new astronomy' is defined as opening the full electromagnetic spectrum, beginning with radio astronomy in the twentieth century. Newton's reflecting telescopes stayed 'within the limits of the light spectrum', so they are not an early version of it.

Option 2 is invalid, and the distinction it draws is one the passage denies. Receptive and interventional are two styles of instrumental embodiment; the passage's conclusion is that 'the sciences are technologically, instrumentally embodied. But the styles of embodiment differ.' Interventional instruments are embodied instruments.

Option 4 is invalid on chronology. The phases of Venus and the satellites of Jupiter were observed by Galileo with his own refracting telescopes, launching early modern astronomy. Newton's reflecting telescopes came later.

Option 3 is valid. The first paragraph ends by calling astronomy largely 'receptive', dependent on instruments that detect and receive emissions; the second says that in biology 'instrumentation is far more interventional than in the astronomy case'. The comparison, and the order astronomy-then-biology, is exactly as the option states.

Shortcut: in an 'all may be rejected EXCEPT' question the right answer is usually the blandest option – the one that merely describes what the author does, rather than making a fresh claim about the content. Option 3 reports the passage's structure, and structure claims are easy to verify.

Hence, the answer is option 3.

Question 19 · RC Inference Questions

Which one of the following observations is a valid conclusion to draw from the statement that "the sciences involved are today highly instrumentalised and could not progress successfully without constant improvements upon the respective instrumental trajectories"?

  1. A

    The use of instruments in scientific trajectories must be respected in order to see successful progress in them.

  2. B

    In both astronomy and microbiology, progress has been the consequence of improvements in the instruments they use.

  3. C

    The growth of scientific technologies has led to the embodiment of progress in the trajectories of improvement.

  4. D

    Highly instrumentalised work in the sciences has resulted in the progressive improvement of scientific constants.

Pick an option, then check.
Answer & solution

Answer: Option B

Note first which sciences 'the sciences involved' refers to. The sentence opens 'Yet, in both disciplines', and the two disciplines under discussion are astronomy and biology, specifically microbiology.

Now read the claim: progress depends on constant improvement of instruments. Turned into a conclusion, progress follows from instrumental improvement in those two fields. Option 2 says precisely that, and names the right two disciplines.

Option 1 replaces the causal claim with a prescription about instruments being 'respected'. The sentence makes a statement of dependence, not a recommendation.

Option 3 reverses the relationship. In the passage it is the sciences that are instrumentally embodied; 'embodiment of progress in the trajectories of improvement' reshuffles the terms into something the passage does not say.

Option 4 introduces 'scientific constants', a phrase borrowed from 'constant improvements'. Constants in the scientific sense are nowhere in this passage.

Shortcut: for a conclusion drawn from one quoted sentence, keep only the option that preserves the sentence's logical form – here, cause and effect – and reject options that convert it into advice, reverse it, or reuse a word in a different sense.

Hence, the answer is option 2.

Question 20 · Reading Comprehension

To which one of the following instruments would the characterisations of instruments in the passage be least applicable?
  1. A
    Milestone
  2. B
    Scalpel
  3. C
    Kitchen oven
  4. D
    Saxophone
Pick an option, then check.
Answer & solution

Answer: Option A

Extract the characterisations the passage actually gives. Instruments are either receptive – they detect and receive, like telescopes – or interventional, acting on their object, like gene-splicing tools. And they sit on a trajectory of constant improvement, from 3x to 30x to reflecting telescopes to very large arrays.

A scalpel is clearly interventional, and surgical instruments have been refined continuously.

A kitchen oven acts on its object and has a long trajectory of technical improvement, from hearth to convection.

A saxophone acts to produce sound, is played and manipulated, and has been refined in design since its invention.

A milestone fits neither characterisation. It neither receives emissions nor acts on anything – it is a passive marker that is read. Nor does it sit on a trajectory of magnification or refinement; a milestone today is what a milestone was. It is the least applicable.

Shortcut: test each candidate with one question – does it do something, and has it been improved over time? Three of the four pass both tests at once.

Hence, the answer is option 1.

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