46- ] Model SAT Tests
Test Forty Six
The
questions that follow the next two passages relate to the content of both , and
to their relationship . The correct response may be stated outright in the
passage or merely suggested .
Questions
1 - 13 are based on the following passages .
The
following gpassages deal with the importance of money to Americans . The first
is taken from a commencement address made by American philosopher George
Santayana in 1904 . The second is taken from an essay written by British poet W
. H . Auden in 1963 .
Passage
1
American life , everyone has heard
, has extraordinary intensity ; it goes at a great rate . This is not due , I
should say , to any particular urgency in the object pursued . Other nations
have more pressing motives to bestir themselves than America has : and it is
observable that not all the new nations , in either hemisphere , are energetic .
This energy can hardly spring either from unusually intolerable
conditions which people wish to overcome , nor from unusually important objects
which they wish to attain . In springs , I should venture tto say , from the
harmony which subsists between the task and the spirit , between the mind’s
vitality and the forms which , in America , political and industrial tradition
has taken on . It is sometimes said that the ruling passion in America is the
love of money . This seems to me a complete mistake . The ruling passion is the
love of business , which is something quite different . The lover of
money would be jealous of it ;he would spend it carefully ; he would study to
get out of it the most he could . But the lover of business , when he is
successful , does not think out what further advantages he can get out of his
success . His joy is in that business itself and in its further operation , in
making it greater and better organized and a mightier engine in the
general life . The adventitious personal profit in it is the last thing he
thinks of , the last thing he is skillful in bringing about ; and the same zeal
and intensity is applied in managing a college ,or a public office , or a naval
establishment , as is lavished on private business , for it is nt a motive of
personal gain that stimulates to such exertions . It is the absorbing ,
satisfying character of the activities themselves ; it is the art , the
happiness , the greatness of them . So that in beginning life in such a society
,which has developed a native and vital tradition out of its practice , you
have good reason to feel that your spirit will be freed , that you will begin
to realize a part of what you are living for .
Passage
2
Political and technological
developments are rapidly obliterating all cultural differences and it is
possible that , in a not remote future , it will be impossible to distinguish
human beings living on one area of the earth’s surface from those living on any
other , but our different pasts have not yet been completely erased and
cultural differences are still perceptible . The most striking difference
between an American and a European is the difference in their attitudes towards
money . Every European knows , as a matter of historical fact , that , in
Europe , wealth could only be acquired at the expense of other human beings ,
either by conquering them or by exploiting their labor in factories . Further ,
even after the Industrial Revolution began , the number of persons who could
rise from poverty to wealth was small ; the vast majority took it for
granted that they would not be much richer nor poorer than their fathers .
In consequence , no European associates wealth with personal merit or poverty
with personal failure .
To a European , money means power ,
the freedom to do as he likes , which also means that , consciously or
unconsciously , he says : “I want to have as much money as possible myself and
others to have as little money as possible .”
In the United States , wealth was
also acquired by stealing , but the real exploited victim was not a human being
but poor Mother Earth and her creatures who were ruthlessly plundered . It is
true that the Indians were expropriated or exterminated , but this was not , as
it had always been in Europe , a matter of the conqueror seizing the wealth of
the conquered , for the Indian had never
realized the potential riches of his country . It is also true that ,in the
Southern states , men lived on the labor of slaves , but slave labor did not
make them fortunes ;what made slavery in the South all the ,ore inexcusable was
that , in addition to being morally wicked , it didn’t even pay off handsomely
.
Thanks to the natural resources of
the country , every American , until quite recently , could reasonably look
forward to making more money than his father , so that , if he made less , the
fault must be his ;he was either lazy or inefficient . What can American values
, therefore ,is not the possession of money as such , but his power to make it
as a proof of his manhood ; once he has proved himself by making it , it has
served its function and can be lost or given away . In no society in history
have rich men given away so large a part of their fortunes . A poor American feels
guilty at being poor , but less guilt than an American rentier* ( * A
rentier lives on a fixed income from rents and investments . ) who has
inherited wealth but is doing nothing to increase it ; what can the latter do
but take to drink and psychoanalysis ?
1 .
In Passage 1 , the underlined word “spring” means
(A)
leap (B) arise (C) extend (D) break (E) blossom
2 .
The lover of business in the lines beginning ‘But the lover of business, /to ….the
greatness of them’ can be described as all of the following EXCEPT
(A)
enthusiastic (B) engrossed (C) enterprising (D) industrious (E) mercenary
3 .
The author of Passage 1 maintains that Americans find the prospect of
improvising business organizations
(A)
pleasurable (B) problematic (C) implausible (D) wearing (E) unanticipated
4 .
The underlined word “engine” most nearly means
(A)
artifice (B) locomotive (C) mechanical contrivance (D) financial windfall (E)
driving force
5 .
The author of Passage I contends that those who grow up in American society
will be influenced by its native traditions to
(A)
fight the intolerable conditions afflicting their country
(B)
achieve spiritual harmony through meditation
(C)
find self-fulfillment through their business activities
(D)
acknowledge the importance of financial accountability
(E)
conserve the country’s natural resources .
6 .
In Passage 2 , in the first sentence at the beginning of paragraph one the
author asserts that technological advances
(A)
are likely to promote greater divisions between the rich and the poor
(B)
many eventually lead to worldwide cultural uniformity
(C)
can enable us to tolerate any cultural differences between us
(D)
may make the distinctions between people increasingly easy to discern
(E)
destroy the cultural differences they are intended to foster
7 .
The underlined word “striking” in Passage 2 means
(A)
attractive (B) marked (C) shocking (D) protesting (E) commanding
8 .
In taking it for granted that they will not be much richer or poorer than their
fathers , Europeans do which of the following ?
(A)
They express a preference .
(B)
They refute an argument .
(C)
They qualify an assertion .
(D)
They correct a misapprehension
(E)
They make an assumption .
9.
Until quite recently , according to the first sentence at the beginning of
paragraph two Passage 2 , to Americans the failure to surpass one’s father in income
indicated
(A)
a dislike of inherited wealth
(B)
a lack of proper application on one’s part
(C)
a fear of the burdens inherent in success
(D)
the height of fiscal irresponsibility
(E)
the effects of a guilty conscience
10
. The author’s description of the likely fate of the American rentier
living on inherited wealth is
(A)
astonished (B) indulgent (C) sorrowful (D) sympathetic (E) ironic
11
. In Passage 2 the author does all of the following EXCEPT
(A)
make a categorical statement
(B)
correct a misapprehension
(C)
draw a contrast
(D)
pose a question
(E)
cite an authority
12
. The authors of both passages most likely would agree that Americans engage in
business
(A)
on wholly altruistic grounds
(B)
as a test of their earning capacity
(C)
only out of economic necessity
(D)
regardless of the example set by their parents
(E)
for psychological rather than financial reasons
13
. Compared to the attitude toward Americans expressed in Passage 1 , the
attitude toward them expressed in Passage 2 is
(A)
more admiring
(B)
less disapproving
(C)
more cynical
(D)
less patronizing
(E)
more chauvinistic