Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
The bridge I glued together from ice-cream sticks in Class 11 held fourteen kilograms before it cracked, and I was prouder of the crack than of the number. It split exactly where my calculations had said it would. For a week, I was certain I would be an engineer.
Over the Diwali break I redrew the menu card of the dhaba near our colony, for nothing, because the old one used four fonts and a clip-art chilli. The owner pinned it up. Nobody remarked on it. But he told me, a little puzzled, that fewer people now asked him what the dishes were. I found that oddly moving, as no load test had been.
People who mean well tell me to pick the safe one. I find that advice facile. Engineering is hardly safe for someone who would be mediocre at it, and design is not frivolous merely because its results are hard to measure. What separates the two, for me, is the kind of wrong I can live with. In engineering, a mistake announces itself: the beam gives way, the code refuses to run. In design, I could be wrong for years and only half suspect it. That ambiguity unsettles me more than any entrance exam.
My physics teacher says that good engineers are designers who have agreed to be checked. A designer at a college open day claimed nearly the opposite: she had trained as a mechanical engineer, then spent ten years unlearning the urge to be sure. I copied both remarks inside my rough notebook. They do not cancel out. The application form closes in three weeks, and I have filled in every box except the one for the course.
According to the passage, what unsettles the writer most about design?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → A designer can be mistaken for a long time without clearly knowing it.
The third paragraph says what unsettles the writer about design.
- In engineering, a mistake “announces itself”. The beam breaks or the code does not run.
- In design, the writer “could be wrong for years and only half suspect it”.
- The writer calls this ambiguity, which means not being clear or certain. It unsettles the writer “more than any entrance exam”.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 2: Others may look down on design as a less serious field than engineering. — Incorrect. Wrong reason: The writer says design is not frivolous. But the writer never says that other people’s opinion is what is unsettling.
Option 3: Good design work often goes by without anyone praising it. — Incorrect. Wrong focus: Nobody remarked on the menu card. Yet the writer found the result “oddly moving”, not unsettling.
Option 4: A design course needs a harder entrance exam than engineering does. — Incorrect. Misread: The entrance exam is used only for comparison. The passage says nothing about which exam is harder.