6. Which of the following metaphors could the author most appropriately use to summarize his own assessment of the American economic system (lines 35-60)?
(A) A windmill
(B) A waterfall
(C) A treadmill
(D) A gyroscope
(E) A bellows
7. It can be inferred from the passage that Woodrow Wilson s ideas about the economic market
(A) encouraged those who "make the system work" (lines 45-46)
(B) perpetuated traditional legends about America
(C) revealed the prejudices of a man born wealthy
(D) foreshadowed the stock market crash of 1929
(E) began a tradition of presidential proclamations on economics
8. The passage contains information that would answer which of the following questions? Ⅰ.What techniques have industrialists used to manipulate a free market? Ⅱ.In what ways are " New World" and " Old World" economic policies similar? Ⅲ. Has economic policy in the United States tended to reward independent action?
(A) Ⅰonly
(B) Ⅱonly
(C) Ⅲ only
(D) Ⅰand Ⅱ only
(E) Ⅱand Ⅲ only
9. Which of the following best expresses the author s main point?
(A) Americans pride in their jobs continues to give them stamina toda
(B) The absence of a status quo ante has undermined United States economic structure. (C) The free enterprise system has been only a useless concept in the United States
(D) The myth of the American free enterprise system is seriously flawed.
(E) Fascination with the ideal of "openness" has made Americans a progressive people. < p>
. Woodrow Wilson was referring to the liberal
. idea of the economic market when he said that
. the free enterprise system is the most efficient
. economic system. Maximum freedom means
(5) maximum productiveness; our "openness" is to
. be the measure of our stability. Fascination with
. this ideal has made Americans defy the "Old
. World" categories of settled possessiveness versus
. unsettling deprivation, the cupidity of retention
(10) versus the cupidity of seizure, a "status quo" defended or attacked. The United States, it was believed, had no status quo ante. Our only "sta- tion" was the turning of a stationary wheel, spin- ning faster and faster. We did not base our (15) system on property but opportunity---which meant we based it not on stability but on mobil- ity. The more things changed, that is, the more rapidly the wheel turned, the steadier we would be. The conventional picture of class politics is (20) composed of the Haves, who want a stability to keep what they have, and the Have-Nots, who want a touch of instability and change in which to scramble for the things they have not. But Americans imagined a condition in which spec- (25) ulators, self-makers, runners are always using the new opportunities given by our land. These eco- nomic leaders (front-runners) would thus he mainly agents of change. The nonstarters were considered the ones who wanted stability, a (30) strong referee to give them some position in the race, a regulative hand to calm manic specula- tion; an authority that can call things to a halt, begin things again from compensatorily stag- gered "starting lines."
(35) "Reform" in America has been sterile because it can imagine no change except through the extension of this metaphor of a race, wider inclu- sion of competitors, "a piece of the action," as it were, for the disenfranchised. There is no (40) attempt to call off the race. Since our only sta- bility is change, America seems not to honor the quiet work that achieves social interdependence and stability. There is, in our legends, no hero- ism of the office clerk, no stable industrial work (45) force of the people who actually make the system work. There is no pride in being an employee (Wilson asked for a return to the time when everyone was an employer). There has been no boasting about our social workers---they are (50) merely signs of the system s failure, of opportu- nity denied or not taken, of things to be elimi- nated. We have no pride in our growing interdependence, in the fact that our system can serve others, that we are able to help those in (55) need; empty boasts from the past make us ashamed of our present achievements, make us try to forget or deny them, move away from them. There is no honor but in the Wonderland race we must all run, all trying to win, none (60) winning in the end (for there is no end).
