CAREFUL READING

Read the following passages carefully. Decide on the best answer and choose the corresponding letter. 

     The most exciting kind of education is also the most personal. Nothing can exceed the joy of discovering for yourself something that is important to you. It may be an idea or a bit of information you come across accidentally or a sudden insight, putting together pieces of information or working through a problem. Such personal encounters are the "payoff" in education. A teacher may direct you to learning and even encourage you in it-but no teacher can make the excitement or the joy happen. That's up to you.
     A research paper assigned in a course and perhaps checked at various stages by an instructor, leads you beyond classrooms, beyond the texts for classes and into the process where the joy of discovery and learning can come to you many times. Preparing a research paper is an active and individual process, and ideal learning process. It provides a structure within which you can make exciting discoveries, of knowledge and of self, that are basic to education. But the research paper also gives you a chance to individualize a school assignment, to suit a piece of work to your own interest and abilities, to show others what you can do. Writing a research paper is more than just a classroom exercise. It is an experience I searching out, understanding and synthesizing, which form the basis of many skills applicable to both academic and nonacademic tasks. It is, in the fullest sense, a discovering of an education. So, to produce a good research paper is both a useful and thoroughly satisfying experience.
     To some, the thought of having to write an assigned number of pages, often more than ever produced before, is disconcerting. To others, the very idea of having to work independently is threatening. But there is no need to approach assignment with anxiety, and nobody should view the research paper as an obstacle to overcome. Instead, consider it a goal to accomplish, a goal within reach if you use the help this book can give you.