To ask or not to ask ?

The general rule of thumb of tackling a question that you don't know is to find for the answers either by looking up for informations that you know where to find or ask people who know the answers.

What I encounter in work is :

If you don't know the answer, don't know where to find the answer and don't look for the answer by asking people you are totally DOOM if anything goes wrong. Agree ? Ok, there's no excuse for that and I agree with it.

How about this, if the preceptor told you that there will be no spoon feeding from him in the first place but then if you have any questions you may ask, which of his words that you should follow? In a case of you don't know the answer but you know exactly where to seek for answer from a protocol reference book, right just before you managed to get the answer from the protocol the preceptor ask you questions and intimidate you why didn't you ask him the questions how would you reply? Telling the truth that you are about to get the answer from the protocol but instead you get a very intimidating word 狡辩 (sophistry/quibble), saying that you are not serious in clerking case and refused to accept any of you truthful answers.

Now I really don't know what should I do in handling this kind of people, only solution seems to be keep your mouth shut and reply with a smile... what to do, he is the one who judge your performance, work sxxks !