Answer Question based on either English passage :

Despite its extraordinary name `ergonomics' is not just something which has been dreamed up by boffins to confuse busy businessmen. It is a practical science which can make and is making a valuable contribution to industry. Research being carried out in this field can increase efficiency, improve product design and make employees more contented.

Broadly, ergonomics is the study of the relationship between man and his working environment. It involves designing or redesigning machines and equipments so that due regard is given to the capabilities and limitations -- physical and psychological -- of the human beings who have to use or operate them.

In contrast to the more common, traditional policy of `fitting the man to the machine' by selecting and training the best man for each particular job, the ergonomist endeavours to fit the machine to the man-any man.

He accepts people, in fact, as he finds them with all their quirks and idiosyncracies, and tries to establish their capabilities as machine operators. He then attempts to allocate to the human operator the functions each can perform best. His object is to enable a person of ordinary abilities to carry out his tasks safely and efficiently, with a minimum of instruction.

The ergonomist himself needs a knowledge of a number of sciences and techniques in order to carry out his work.

The passage states the ergonomist's aim in one sentence, in the fourth paragraph: "His object is to enable a person of ordinary abilities to carry out his tasks safely and efficiently, with a minimum of instruction." The word object in the question matches the word object in the text, so the answer is taken directly from that line.

Notice what the phrase "a person of ordinary abilities" is doing. The ergonomist deliberately does not design for an exceptional worker; he designs so that an average person can work safely and efficiently. That is the whole point of fitting the machine to the man rather than the man to the machine.

Making employees more contented appears in the first paragraph, but as one of three results of research in the field, alongside increased efficiency and improved product design — an outcome, not the stated object.

Having a knowledge of a number of sciences and techniques is stated in the last paragraph as a requirement the ergonomist must satisfy to do his work, not as the aim of the work.

Finding people with their quirks and idiosyncracies reverses the passage: he does not go looking for such people, he simply accepts people as he finds them.

Hence the object of an ergonomist is to enable a person of ordinary abilities to carry out his tasks safely and efficiently.

The third paragraph names the traditional policy explicitly: "In contrast to the more common, traditional policy of `fitting the man to the machine' by selecting and training the best man for each particular job...". The phrase in the question — more common or traditional policy — is lifted from that sentence, and the policy it introduces is fitting the man to the machine.

The passage sets up a straight contrast: the old approach takes the machine as fixed and adjusts the worker to it through selection and training, while the ergonomist takes the worker as fixed and adjusts the machine. Recognising which half of the contrast the question asks for settles the answer.

Designing and redesigning machines and equipments is the opposite half of that contrast — it is what ergonomics does, described in the second paragraph, not the traditional policy.

Making a valuable contribution to industry is what the first paragraph says ergonomics achieves; it is a claim about the value of the new science, not a policy.

Confusing busy businessmen is what the first paragraph denies — the writer says ergonomics is not something dreamed up by boffins for that purpose.

Hence the more common or traditional policy is fitting the man to the machine.

The second paragraph gives the definition in the passage's own words: "Broadly, ergonomics is the study of the relationship between man and his working environment." The question repeats the frame ergonomics is the study of, so the answer is the completion of that very sentence — relationship between man and his working environment.

The care needed here is that three of the four options are phrases that genuinely occur in the passage; the test is which one the passage attaches to the phrase "the study of".

Capabilities and limitations of human beings appears in the next sentence, where it explains what designers must give due regard to when redesigning machines. It is a consideration within ergonomics, not the definition of its field of study.

Quirks and idiosyncracies of the workers comes from the fourth paragraph, where it describes the ergonomist's attitude — he accepts people as he finds them. It is a working assumption, not a subject of study.

Research being carried out in the field of industry inverts the first paragraph, which says research in ergonomics contributes to industry; industrial research is not itself the object ergonomics studies.

Hence ergonomics is the study of the relationship between man and his working environment.

This is a vocabulary-in-context question, so the meaning has to be built from the sentence the word sits in: "...`ergonomics' is not just something which has been dreamed up by boffins to confuse busy businessmen."

Two clues fix the sense. First, boffins are the people who dream up ergonomics — and the very next sentence calls ergonomics "a practical science", so the coiners are people who work in science. Second, boffins are contrasted with "busy businessmen", which places them outside the commercial world and inside the technical one.

Boffin is British informal usage for a scientist or technical expert, often with a mild suggestion of someone absorbed in obscure research. So engineers or scientists is the meaning.

Employees cannot be right: employees appear in the passage as the people ergonomics is meant to benefit, not as the originators of the science.

Businessmen is excluded by the sentence itself, since the boffins are said to confuse the businessmen — the two groups are set against each other.

Labourers are manual workers and, like employees, belong to the group whose working conditions ergonomics studies.

Hence `boffins' means engineers or scientists.

The closing paragraph answers this directly: "The ergonomist himself needs a knowledge of a number of sciences and techniques in order to carry out his work." The question reproduces the words himself needs a knowledge of, so the completion is a number of sciences and techniques.

The claim also follows from the rest of the passage rather than sitting on its own. Ergonomics is described as covering machine design, physical capability and psychological limitation all at once, so no single discipline could equip the ergonomist for it — engineering, physiology, psychology and anthropometry are all involved. The multidisciplinary demand is the reason for the sentence.

Only one discipline directly contradicts the phrase "a number of", which is the operative wording in the source sentence.

His own self is not raised anywhere in the passage; the ergonomist's task is to establish other people's capabilities as machine operators, not to examine himself.

His colleagues is likewise absent — the passage discusses the machine operators he designs for, and never his co-workers.

Hence an ergonomist himself needs a knowledge of a number of sciences and techniques.