Though there is a higher and wider significance to life, of what value is our…

Concept

A logical sentence-completion item asks you to supply the clause that best continues an unfinished sentence. The right answer is the one that maintains four things at once: grammatical fit (it must join correctly after the punctuation), logical consistency (it must extend the idea already being argued, not introduce a new one), tonal match (same register as the author), and coherence (subject and tense stay continuous). The clue is the structure already on the page — here a conditional: “if … then.”

Application

Read what the sentence has set up before the blank:

• Premise: “We may be highly educated, but if we are without deep integration of thought and feeling …” — this opens an “if” condition centred on a lack of integration of thought and feeling.

• Consequence so far: “our lives are incomplete, contradictory and torn with many fears.”

• The semicolon then signals a parallel clause that should generalise the same condition to education itself.

The clause “and as long as education does not cultivate an integrated outlook on life, it has very little significance” does exactly this: “as long as … does not cultivate an integrated outlook” restates the lack-of-integration condition, and “it has very little significance” supplies the consequence the whole sentence is building toward. Grammar, tense, tone and idea all stay continuous, so it completes the thought.

Why the others fail

• “the ‘well-educated’ are ignoramus louts” — abusive in tone and a sudden change of subject; it neither continues the conditional nor matches the reflective register.

• “and integrity is the key to spiritual evolution” — introduces a brand-new idea (integrity, spiritual evolution) the sentence never set up; word-similarity to “integration” is a trap.

• “It has been rightly remarked, “I never let school interfere in my education”” — a capitalised free-standing quotation, not a clause that flows after a semicolon, and its anti-schooling jab contradicts the passage’s point.

Cross-check

Substitute the chosen clause back into the full sentence and read it aloud: “… our lives are incomplete, contradictory and torn with many fears; and as long as education does not cultivate an integrated outlook on life, it has very little significance.” It reads as one unbroken, coherent argument — confirming the completion. (The line is from J. Krishnamurti’s Education and the Significance of Life.)