Exams › IBPS PO › English

Let us understand the definition of metaphysics, a purely speculative science, which occupies a completely isolated position and is entirely independent of the teachings of experience. It deals with mere conceptions—not, like mathematics, with conceptions applied to intuition—and in it, reason is the pupil of itself alone. It is the oldest of the sciences. (__________)

1. And it would struggle to survive without the architecture of mathematical support that it draws its strength from
2. Yet it continued to baffle mankind because of its abstractions
3. But it has never had and never will have the good fortune to attain to the sure scientific method
4. And it would still survive, even if all the rest were swallowed up in the abyss of an all-destroying barbarism
5. This critical science is not opposed to the dogmatic procedure of reason in pure cognition; for pure cognition must always be dogmatic

Correct answer: But it has never had and never will have the good fortune to attain to the sure scientific method

Solution

The passage defines metaphysics as a speculative science independent of experience. The missing sentence should logically conclude that, despite being ancient, it has not achieved the certainty of a true scientific method. Option 3 fits this idea exactly and maintains the formal tone of the passage.

Related IBPS PO English questions

• We have in America a collection of speech that is neither American, Oxford English, nor colloquial English, but a mixture of all three.
• Alice Walker’s *The Temple of My Familiar*, far from being a tight, focused narrative, is instead a circuitous novel that roams freely and imaginatively over a half-million...
• Jayashree was habitually so accommodating and erratic that her friends could not understand her sudden hostile outburst against her employers.
• The village headman was unlettered, but he was no fool; he could see through the sophistry of the businessman’s proposition and promptly turned him down.
• Directions (Q121–125): In each of the following questions, a short passage is given with one of the lines missing and represented by a blank. Select the best of the five answer choices given to make the passage complete and coherent. The Time Traveler (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully free of the trammels of precision. (__________)
• Aggregation of risks is somewhat new to banks in India. While some banks have started thinking in that direction by trying to put in place integrated limit frameworks and integrated risk policies, as well as using CBS solutions for technological integration, the effort required is beyond such requirements. Risk aggregation would mean aggregating the individual risk measures to decide the most appropriate asset class that would contain the risk to the desired level dictated by the risk appetite. Capital allocation (about how much) would be based on such strategies...........

⚔️ Practice IBPS PO English free + battle 1v1 →