What does Occam's razor advise, according to the passage?

Prefer the explanation that assumes the least when explanations fit equally well. (The razor is stated as a rule of thumb: 'prefer the one that assumes the least.')

In the example of the light, which is the simpler explanation?

A dead bulb (The text calls the dead bulb the account that 'asks you to assume almost nothing.')

The author says each extra assumption is 'another place it can fail,' implying that simpler theories are preferred because they:

Have fewer ways to be wrong. (Fewer unproven claims mean 'fewer ways to be mistaken,' which is the reason the razor gives.)

In 'do not multiply assumptions without need,' the word "multiply" most nearly means:

increase the number of ('Multiply assumptions' means to keep adding them, guided by 'without need.')

Occam's Razor: Level 4 Reading Comprehension Questions

When two explanations both fit the facts, which should you believe? A principle known as Occam's razor offers a rule of thumb: prefer the one that assumes the least. If a simpler account and a more complicated one explain the same evidence equally well, the simpler is usually the better bet.

The razor does not claim that the world is always simple. Reality is often tangled, and the plainest story is sometimes wrong. What the razor says is narrower and wiser: do not multiply assumptions without need. Each extra thing an explanation requires you to believe is another place it can fail. A theory that leans on fewer unproven claims has fewer ways to be mistaken.

Consider a light that will not turn on. One explanation is a dead bulb. Another is a fault in the town's power grid combined with a coincidental failure of your neighbor's line and a problem with your switch. Both could explain the darkness, but the first asks you to assume almost nothing, while the second stacks improbable claims on top of one another. Start with the bulb.

Used well, the razor is a tool for allocating doubt, not a substitute for evidence. It tells you where to look first and which stories to distrust, not which is finally true. When new facts arrive, the simplest explanation must yield to them like any other. The razor guides the search; it does not end it.

Comprehension questions