What is "It is much worse than that"?

[ilovepsycho]

There seems then to be no place where the cultures meet. I am not going to waste time saying that this is a pity. It is much worse than that. Soon I shall come to some practical consequences. But at the heart of thought and creation we are letting some of our best chances go by default. The clashing point of two subjects, two disciplines, two cultures -- of two galaxies, so far as that goes -- ought to produce creative chances. In the history of mental activity that has been where some of the breakthroughs came. The chances are there now. But they are there, as it were, in a vacuum, because those in the two cultures can't talk to each other. It is bizarre how very little of twentieth-century science has been assimilated into twentieth-century art. Now and then one used to find poets conscientiously using scientific expressions, and getting them wrong -- there was a time when 'refraction' kept cropping up in verse in a mystifying fashion, and when 'polarised light' was used as though writers were under the illusion that it was a specially admirable kind of light.
Of course, that isn't the way that science could be any good to art. It has got to be assimilated along with, and as part and parcel of, the whole of our mental experience, and used as naturally as the rest.


1. "It is much worse than that" can be paraphrased as
a. It is much worse than the meeting of two cultures.
b. It is much worse than a waste of time.
c. 'Pity' is totally inadequate to describe the gravity of the problem.
d. It is much worse than the lack of place for meeting of cultures.

As I have said before that the OAs of my reading exercises have ridiculously wrong answers, it's the same! I think 'C' is right, but OA was 'D'. What do you think of that?

[bhaisahab]

There seems then to be no place where the cultures meet. I am not going to waste time saying that this is a pity. It is much worse than that. Soon I shall come to some practical consequences. But at the heart of thought and creation we are letting some of our best chances go by default. The clashing point of two subjects, two disciplines, two cultures -- of two galaxies, so far as that goes -- ought to produce creative chances. In the history of mental activity that has been where some of the breakthroughs came. The chances are there now. But they are there, as it were, in a vacuum, because those in the two cultures can't talk to each other. It is bizarre how very little of twentieth-century science has been assimilated into twentieth-century art. Now and then one used to find poets conscientiously using scientific expressions, and getting them wrong -- there was a time when 'refraction' kept cropping up in verse in a mystifying fashion, and when 'polarised light' was used as though writers were under the illusion that it was a specially admirable kind of light.
Of course, that isn't the way that science could be any good to art. It has got to be assimilated along with, and as part and parcel of, the whole of our mental experience, and used as naturally as the rest.


1. "It is much worse than that" can be paraphrased as
a. It is much worse than the meeting of two cultures.
b. It is much worse than a waste of time.
c. 'Pity' is totally inadequate to describe the gravity of the problem.
d. It is much worse than the lack of place for meeting of cultures.

As I have said before that the OAs of my reading exercises have ridiculously wrong answers, it's the same! I think 'C' is right, but OA was 'D'. What do you think of that?

It has to be C in my opinion.

[konungursvia]

I like C as well; having said that, multiple choice questions are a stupid form of evaluation, and are completely flawed if there are two answers that can coexist, as C and D can here.

[Excalibur]

I can't agree that D is a possibility:
"...(not) waste time saying that this is a pity. It is much worse than that."

'that' clearly refers back to 'pity' - '"It is much worse than just 'a pity'."

That is, much worse than some feeling of regret or disappointment, and 'a pity' "is totally inadequate to describe the gravity of the problem."

[konungursvia]

It's one thing to disagree with an answer; to say it is not even a possibility is rather a stretch. Answers C and D describe the same state of affairs: the author considers it not only "nice" but in fact politically crucial that cultures communicate with one another. So you're over-stating your case by a fair sight, in my view. "Pity" refers to the lack mentioned in D.

[Soup]

There seems then to be no place where the cultures meet. I am not going to waste time saying that this is a pity. The problem is much worse than there not being a place where the cultures meet.

a. It is much worse than the meeting of two cultures.

b. It is much worse than a waste of time.

c. 'Pity' is totally inadequate to describe the gravity of the problem.

d. It is much worse than the lack of place for meeting of cultures.

[ilovepsycho]

There are two conflicting answers now, but have been heard Konungursvia's opinion, I think the exercise seems to have two answers. I feel 'C' is right better, but 'D' seems also a right possibility.
Do somebody tell me better explanations?

[mara_ce]

There seems then to be no place where the cultures meet. I am not going to waste time saying that this is a pity. It is much worse than that.
c. 'Pity' is totally inadequate to describe the gravity of the problem.
d. It is much worse than the lack of place for meeting of cultures.

I wouldn’t choose C because ‘pity’ is not considered at all.
The text says that it is much worse than a pity, which means that pity is taken into account.

[Raymott]

As I have said before that the OAs of my reading exercises have ridiculously wrong answers, it's the same! I think 'C' is right, but OA was 'D'. What do you think of that?

If this is well-formed piece of English in which the author has written exactly what he means, C seems to be the only answer.
If we allow for the author not expressing himself correctly, perhaps D could be right.
But these questions are coming down to "Guess what the author would have meant if he had written what he intended."
It's not really an exercise in English comprehension at all.

[konungursvia]

I think it's more a matter of error on the part of the author who penned the question. The author probably meant what he said, it's just that axiomatizing it is an error-prone exercise.