Bunuel wrote:
The ends of modern centuries have been greeted with both apocalyptic anxieties and utopian fantasies. It is not surprising that both reactions have consistently proven to be misplaced. After all, the precise time when a century happens to end cannot have any special significance, since the Gregorian calendar, though widely used, is only one among many that people have devised.
Which one of the following, if true, could be substituted for the reason cited above while still preserving the force of the argument?
(A) It is logically impossible for both reactions to be correct at the same time.
(B) What is a utopian fantasy to one group of people may well be, for another group of people, a realization of their worst fears.
(C) The number system based on the number ten, in the absence of which one hundred years would not have the appearance of being a significant period of time, is by no means the only one that people have created.
(D) The firm expectation that something extraordinary is about to happen can make people behave in a manner that makes it less likely that something extraordinary will happen.
(E) Since a century far exceeds the normal human life span, people do not live long enough to learn from mistakes that they themselves made one hundred years before.
Information available with us
• End of centuries are believed to be either end of the world or the start of an ideal world
• The fallacy in this argument is that the end of the century is only according to the Gregorian calendar, while many people in the world use different calendars
Let’s analyse the options
A. Cannot be substituted, this option only states a claim while providing no logic. WRONG
B. The base argument is proving the possibility of a utopia/apocalypse. WRONG
C. Part of the reason why such extremes scenarios are predicted is because of the significance of the number. Could be true.
D. Doesn’t provide a logic. WRONG.
E. Again, doesn’t support the main argument.
Option C is correct.