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Test: English Language Proficiency Test
Passage adapted from Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell (1918)
...Security and liberty are only the negative conditions for good political institutions. When they have been won, we need also the positive condition: encouragement of creative energy. Security alone might produce a smug and stagnant society; it demands creativeness as its counterpart, in order to keep alive the adventure and interest of life, and the movement toward perpetually new and better things. There can be no final goal for human institutions; the best are those that most encourage progress toward others still better. Without effort and change, human life cannot remain good. It is not a finished Utopia that we ought to desire, but a world where imagination and hope are alive and active.
| 1. | According to the author, which of creativity or security causes a society to progress? For what reason? |
Creativity, since creative societies will produce great works of art
Security, since secure societies necessarily attain the negative conditions for good political institutions
Creativity, since creative societies are more likely to turn into finished Utopias
Security, since secure societies necessarily protect the rights of political and creative institutions
Creativity, since creative societies will never cease to improve themselves
