Serendipity: The Accidental Scientists reading Answers

Scientists And Serendipity Reading answers practice test is provided with answers and explanations. This passage comprises 13 questions divided into three question types: list of headings, summary completion, and multiple choice questions.

Table of contents:

• Solution for Scientists And Serendipity
• Scientists And Serendipity IELTS Reading Practice Test
• Passage
• Questions
• Answers with Explanations

Solution for Scientists And Serendipity

Scientists And Serendipity Reading answers are listed in the table below. Check your answers for serendipity: the accidental scientists practice test with our answer table, then correct the mistakes.

Answer Table

1. iv	5. iii	9. Sri Lanka	13. B
2. ix	6. vii	10. A
3. i	7. Horace Walpole	11. C
4. v	8. Fairy Tail	12. B

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Passage

We’ve provided the reading passage of Scientists And Serendipity. Read the passage and carefully complete the questions. Check the answers with our Scientists And Serendipity reading answers with locations            

Scientists And Serendipity

 

A. paradox lies close to the heart of scientific discovery. If you know just what you are looking for, finding it can hardly count as a discovery, since it was fully anticipated. But if, on the other hand, you have no notion of what you are looking for, you cannot know when you have found it, and discovery, as such, is out of the question. In the philosophy of science, these extremes map onto the purist forms of deductivism and inductivism: In the former, the outcome is supposed to be logically contained in the premises you start with; in the latter, you are recommended to start with no expectations whatsoever and see what turns up.

B. As in so many things, the ideal position is widely supposed to reside somewhere in between these two impossible to-realize extremes. You want to have a good enough idea of what you are looking for to be surprised when you find something else of value, and you want to be ignorant enough of your end point that you can entertain alternative outcomes. Scientific discovery should, therefore, have an accidental aspect, but not too much of one. Serendipity is a word that expresses a position something like that. It’s a fascinating word, and the late Robert King Merton—‘the father of the sociology of science’—liked it well enough to compose its biography, assisted by the French cultural historian Elinor Barber.

C. Serendipity means a ‘happy accident’ or ‘pleasant surprise’; specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful without looking for it. The first noted use of ‘serendipity’ in the English language was by Horace Walpole (1717-1792). In a letter to Horace Mann (dated 28 January 1754) he said he formed it from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes ‘were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of’. The name stems from Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka.

Scientists And Serendipity

D. Besides antiquarians, the other community that came to dwell on serendipity to say something important about their practice was that of scientists. Many scientists, including the Harvard physiologist Walter Cannon and, later, the British immunologist Peter Medawar, liked to emphasise how much of scientific discovery was unplanned and even accidental. One of Cannon’s favourite examples of such serendipity is Luigi Galvani’s observation of the twitching of dissected frogs’ legs, hanging from a copper wire, when they accidentally touched an iron railing, leading to the discovery of ‘galvanism’; another is Hans Christian Oersted's discovery of electromagnetism when he unintentionally brought a current-carrying wire parallel to a magnetic needle.
The context in which scientific serendipity was most contested and had its greatest resonance was that connected with the idea of planned science. The serendipity sts were not all inhabitants of academic ivory towers. Two of the great early-20th-century American pioneers of industrial research—Willis Whitney and Irving Langmuir, both of General Electric—made much play of serendipity, in the course of arguing against overly rigid research planning.

E. Yet what Cannon and Medawar took as a benign method, other scientists found incendiary. To say that science had a significant serendipitous aspect was taken by some as dangerous denigration. If scientific discovery were really accidental, then what was the special basis of expert authority?

F. In this connection, the aphorism of choice came from no less an authority on scientific discovery than Louis Pasteur: “Chance favours the prepared mind.” Accidents may happen, and things may turn up unplanned and unforeseen, as one is looking for something else, but the ability to notice such events, to see their potential bearing and meaning, to exploit then occurrence and make constructive use of them are the results of systematic mental preparation. What seems like an accident is just another form of expertise. On closer inspection, it is insisted, the accident dissolves into sagacity.

G. In 1936, as a very young man, Merton wrote a seminal essay on “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action.” It is, he argued, the nature of social action that what one intends is rarely what one gets: Intending to provide resources for buttressing Christian religion, the natural philosophers of the Scientific Revolution laid the groundwork for secularism; people wanting to be alone with nature in Yosemite Valley wind up crowding one another. We just don’t know enough—and we can never know enough— to ensure that the past is an adequate guide to the future: Uncertainty about outcomes, even of our best-laid plans, is endemic. All social action, including that undertaken with the best evidence and formulated according to the most rational criteria, is uncertain in its consequences.

Questions

Questions 1-6

Reading passage 3 has seven paragraphs, A-G
Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-F from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-x, in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.

List of headings

(i) The origin of serendipity
(ii) Horace Walpole’s fairy tale
(iii) Arguments against serendipity
(iv) Two basic knowledge in the paradox of scientific discovery
(v) The accidental evidences in and beyond science
(vi) organisation’s movement Opposing against the authority
(vii) Accident and mental preparation
(viii) Planned research and anticipated outcome
(ix) The optimum balance between the two extremes

1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
3. Paragraph C
4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
6. Paragraph F

Questions 7-9

Complete the summary below, using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 7-9 on your answer sheet.
b
The word “serendipity’ was coined in the writing of 7.______ -to Horace Mann. He derived it from a 8._______, the characters were always making fortunate discoveries by accident. The stem Serendip was a former name for 9._______.

Questions 10-13

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.

Question 10: What does ‘inductivism’ mean in paragraph A?
A observation without anticipation at the beginning
B Looking for what you want in the premise
C The expected discovery
D The map we pursued

Question 11: Scientific discovery should
A be much of an accidental aspect
B be full of value
C be between the two extremes
D be sceptical

Question 12: The writer mentions Luigi Galvani’s observation to illustrate
A the cruelty of frog’s dissection
B the happy accident in scientific discovery
C the practice of scientists
D the rigid research planning

Question 13: Why does the writer mention the example in Yosemite Valley in paragraph G?
A To illustrate the importance of a systematic plan
B To illustrate there is an unpredictable reality towards the expectation
C To illustrate the original anticipation
D To illustrate that intention of social action is totally meaningless

Answers for Scientists And Serendipity With Explanations

Scientists And Serendipity Reading answers with explanations is given below. Refer to the following answers with an explanation section in order to correct your errors.

(Note: The text in italics mentions the location and referring lines written in the reading passage.)

1. Answer: iv

Explanation: In the first four lines of paragraph A, “paradox lies close to the heart of scientific discovery. If you know just what you are looking for, finding it can hardly count as a discovery, since it was fully anticipated. But if, on the other hand, you have no notion of what you are looking for, you cannot know when you have found it, and discovery, as such, is out of the question”.

2. Answer: ix

Explanation: In the first four lines of paragraph B, “As in so many things, the ideal position is widely supposed to reside somewhere in between these two impossible to-realize extremes. You want to have a good enough idea of what you are looking for to be surprised when you find something else of value, and you want to be ignorant enough of your end point that you can entertain alternative outcomes”.

3. Answer: i

Explanation: In the first three lines of paragraph C, “Serendipity means a ‘happy accident’ or ‘pleasant surprise’; specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful without looking for it. The first noted use of ‘serendipity’ in the English language was by Horace Walpole (1717-1792)”.

4. Answer: v

Explanation: In the first para of paragraph D, “Many scientists, including the Harvard physiologist Walter Cannon and, later, the British immunologist Peter Medawar, liked to emphasise how much of scientific discovery was unplanned and even accidental. One of Cannon’s favourite examples of such serendipity is Luigi Galvani’s observation of the twitching of dissected frogs’ legs, hanging from a copper wire, when they accidentally touched an iron railing, leading to the discovery of ‘galvanism’; another is Hans Christian Oersted's discovery of electromagnetism when he unintentionally brought a current-carrying wire parallel to a magnetic needle”.

5. Answer: iii

Explanation: In the entire paragraph E, “Yet what Cannon and Medawar took as a benign method, other scientists found incendiary. To say that science had a significant serendipitous aspect was taken by some as dangerous denigration. If scientific discovery were really accidental, then what was the special basis of expert authority?”.

6. Answer: vii

Explanation: In the second, third and fourth lines of paragraph F, “Accidents may happen, and things may turn up unplanned and unforeseen, as one is looking for something else, but the ability to notice such events, to see their potential bearing and meaning, to exploit then occurrence and make constructive use of them are the results of systematic mental preparation”.

7. Answer: Horace Walpole

Explanation: In the third line of paragraph C, “The first noted use of ‘serendipity’ in the English language was by Horace Walpole”.

8. Answer: Fairy Tale

Explanation: In the fourth line of paragraph C, “28 January 1754) he said he formed it from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip”.

9. Answer: Sri Lanka 

Explanation: In the fifth line of paragraph C, “he name stems from Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka”.

10. Answer: A

Explanation: In the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh lines of paragraph A, “In the philosophy of science, these extremes map onto the purest forms of deductivism and inductivism: In the former, the outcome is supposed to be logically contained in the premises you start with; in the latter, you are recommended to start with no expectations whatsoever and see what turns up”.

11. Answer: C

Explanation: In the first few lines of paragraph B, “As in so many things, the ideal position is widely supposed to reside somewhere in between these two impossible-to-realize extremes. You want to have a good enough idea of what you are looking for to be surprised when you find something else of value, and you want to be ignorant enough of your end point that you can entertain alternative outcomes. Scientific discovery should, therefore, have an accidental aspect, but not too much of one”.

12. Answer: B

Explanation: In the fifth,sixth and seventh lines of paragraph D, “”.
One of Cannon’s favourite examples of such serendipity is Luigi Galvani’s observation of the twitching of dissected frogs’ legs, hanging from a copper wire, when they accidentally touched an iron railing, leading to the discovery of ‘galvanismo

13. Answer: B

Explanation: In the third to eighth lines of paragraph G, “Intending to provide resources for buttressing Christian religion, the natural philosophers of the Scientific Revolution laid the groundwork for secularism people wanting to be alone with nature in Yosemite Valley wind up crowding one another. We just don’t know enough—and we can never know enough—to ensure that the past is an adequate guide to the future: Uncertainty about outcomes, even of our best-laid plans, is endemic”.

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