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.
What do you understand by `boffins' ?
Engineers or scientists
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.
Similar Questions
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 object of an ergonomist is ............
What is the more common or traditional policy ?
An ergonomist himself needs a knowledge of ........................
Ergonomics is the study of ..............
Important Questions from Reading Comprehension
What is the meaning of ‘intrigued’?
What are ice shelves?
What are icebergs?
When the iceberg turns upside down, it appears ________.
The use of science in its simple form has helped man to ____________
