Passage (Francis Bacon, *Of Studies*, 1625): "Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation." The triplet *delight, ornament, ability* is best understood as:
Athree distinct purposes for which studies serve, each unpacked in turn in the next sentence.
Bthree synonyms for the same purpose, listed for rhetorical emphasis.
Cthree competing schools of thought about why people study.
Dthree vices that studies are meant to cure.
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: A. three distinct purposes for which studies serve, each unpacked in turn in the next sentence.
Bacon's next sentence reads: *Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business.* Each member of the triplet receives its own gloss in parallel — *delight ↔ privateness, ornament ↔ discourse, ability ↔ business*. This is a classic **listing-then-unpacking** structure.
- **B** is wrong because the three are not synonyms; the next sentence assigns each a different domain.
- **C** introduces an inter-school debate not in the text.
- **D** misreads positive purposes as vices.
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