Read the passage and choose the right sentence from the options to fill in the…
2021
Read the passage and choose the right sentence from the options to fill in the blank:
Conventional education makes independent thinking extremely difficult. _________________ To be different from the group or to resist environment is not easy and is often risky as long as we worship success.
- A.
Creativity is crushed by orthodoxy.
- B.
Innovative thinking is the key.
- C.
This has ruined many careers.
- D.
Conformity leads to mediocrity.
Attempted by 1 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
Concept
A sentence-insertion (cloze) item is solved by COHERENCE, not by which option sounds clever. The correct sentence must (1) keep the same tone and stance as the passage, (2) connect logically to the sentence before it, and (3) prepare the ground for the sentence after it. Test every option against this before-and-after fit, not in isolation.
Application
Map the two anchor sentences around the blank:
Before: "Conventional education makes independent thinking extremely difficult." — a negative, diagnostic claim about what conventional education does to the mind.
After: "To be different from the group or to resist environment is not easy and is often risky..." — this assumes a pull toward sameness/the group already exists.
So the blank must name the RESULT of suppressed independent thinking and must introduce the idea of group sameness, so that "to be different from the group" in the next line has something to push against. "Conformity leads to mediocrity." does exactly this: conformity is the direct product of education that discourages independent thought, and mediocrity is its result; it also seeds the "group" idea that the following sentence builds on.
Contrast
Why each of the others breaks the chain:
"Creativity is crushed by orthodoxy." — right tone but wrong vocabulary; it introduces orthodoxy and creativity, terms the passage never uses, so it drifts away from the author's actual line of thought.
"Innovative thinking is the key." — an optimistic, prescriptive slogan; it reverses the passage's pessimistic, diagnostic tone, so it does not belong in this paragraph at all.
"This has ruined many careers." — "this" lacks a referent here and shifts to professional, worldly consequences, which the passage never discusses.
Result: the sentence that completes both the tone and the logical bridge is "Conformity leads to mediocrity." This also matches the original passage from J. Krishnamurti's "Education and the Significance of Life."