Schools gave him nothing, and society gave him nothing. But he had a powerful intellect and a resolute will. Isolation fostered not only self-reliance but the habit of reflection, and indeed, of prolonged and intense reflection. He made all that he knew a part of himself. His convictions were his own——clear and coherent. He was not positive or opinionated and he did not deny that at certain moments he pondered and hesitated long before he decided on his course. But though he could keep a policy in suspense, waiting for events to guide him, he did not waver. He paused and reconsidered, but it was never his way to go back on a decision once more or to waste time in vain regrets that all he had expected had not been attained. He took advice readily and left many things to his ministers; but he did not lean on his advisers. Without vanity or ostentation, he was alwaysindependent, self-contained, prepared to take full responsibility for his acts.
26. It is said in the second paragraph that Abraham Lincoln .
A) was illiterate C) was educated very late
B) was never educated D) behaved rudely when he was young
27. We are also told that Abraham Lincoln .
A) never cared much for reading
B) did much reading when he was young
C) never had much chance to read
D) became an enthusiastic reader when he was grown up
28. It is said in the third paragraph that Abraham Lincoln .
A) was anti-social C) had few friends
B) learned little from his friends D) knew very few doctors
29. The habit of reflection helped Lincoln .
A) to develop independence C) to attain clear convictions
B) to become more opinionated D) to become a hesitant person
30. We may say, taking the passage as a whole, that Lincoln was .
A) a failure because of his ignorance
B) a man who triumphed over his disadvantages
C) an exceptionally successful and well-educated person
D) an illiterate man, but with some natural talents
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage:
When the young man who would revolutionize American industry turned down a chance to attend Harvard in 1874 for an apprenticeship in a Philadelphia machine shop, it was hardly because he foresaw the transformation of the world into what it is today-marked by a “fierce, unholy obsession with time, order, productivity, and efficiency,” as Robert Kanigel describes it in his biography, The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency.
The truth was, Taylor's eyes were bad. And yet, 30 years before the first assembly line, armed with a surplus of work, a stopwatch, and a utopian thirst, he systemized scientific management, crusading it nearly singlehandedly through industry after industry. Its anthem was the scrape of the lathe, its banner the instruction card. A century has passed, and with it the promise of a radiant, mechanical heaven in which the interests of management and labor are forever joined. Most of us, though, have it pretty damn good because of Taylor.
At more than 600 pages, Kanigel's biography is an exhausting study of its subject's influence and psychology. Taylor comes across in various roles: fanatical bully; member of the first winning US Open doubles tennis duo; inventor of a process to manufacture high-speed steel that revolutionized industrial output. At times, the man seems little more than a slave to the development of his own system.“Studying the growth of grass plots,”he lamented toward the end of his life, dogged by labor-sympathetic hearings on Capitol Hill, “is a great time consumer.” So was the book. Occasionally, I was tempted to implement my own version of time management. And yet I took its length as a kind of charming inefficiency in the face of the spiritual emptiness that seeps through today's egalitarian consumerism.
But what would life be without this system? “Industrialized countries today enjoy material abundance so great we no longer see it,” Kanigel states. “Many living today have never known life without radios, TVs, home freezers, power mowers, and computers.”
“In the past the man was first. In the future the system will be first,” Taylor was infamous for having said. It must have been a nice thought at the turn of the century, but what about today, when our collective appetites threaten to mar the planet?
