As is Well Known and has Often been Described, The Machine Industry GMAT Reading Comprehension

Reading Passage Question

As is well known and has often been described, the machine industry of recent times took its rise by a gradual emergence out of handicraft in England in the eighteenth century. Since then the mechanical industry has progressively been getting the upper hand in all the civilized nations, in much the same degree in which these nations have come to be counted as civilized. This mechanical industry now stands dominant at the apex of the industrial system.

The state of the industrial arts, as it runs on the lines of the mechanical industry, is a technology of physics and chemistry. That is to say, it is governed by the same logic as the scientific laboratories. The procedure, the principles, habits of thought, preconceptions, units of measurement and of valuation, are the same in both cases.

The technology of physics and chemistry is not derived from established law and custom, and it goes on its way with as nearly complete a disregard of the spiritual truths of law and custom as the circumstances will permit. The realities with which this technology is occupied are of another order of actuality, lying altogether within the three dimensions that contain the material universe, and running altogether on the logic of material fact. In effect it is the logic of inanimate facts.

The mechanical industry makes use of the same range of facts handled in the same impersonal way and directed to the same manner of objective results. In both cases alike it is of the first importance to eliminate the “personal equation,” to let the work go forward and let the forces at work take effect quite objectively, without hindrance or deflection for any personal end, interest, or gain. It is the technician’s place in industry, as it is the scientist’s place in the laboratory, to serve as an intellectual embodiment of the forces at work, isolate the forces engaged from all extraneous disturbances, and let them take full effect along the lines of designed work. The technician is an active or creative factor in the case only in the sense that he is the keeper of the logic which governs the forces at work.

These forces that so are brought to bear in mechanical industry are of an objective, impersonal, unconventional nature, of course. They are of the nature of opaque fact. Pecuniary gain is not one of these impersonal facts. Any consideration of pecuniary gain that may be injected into the technician’s working plans will come into the case as an intrusive and alien factor, whose sole effect is to deflect, retard, derange and curtail the work in hand. At the same time considerations of pecuniary gain are the only agency brought into the case by the businessmen, and the only ground on which they exercise a control of production.

“As is well known and has often been described, the machine industry of recent times took its rise by a gradual emergence out of handicraft in England.”- is a comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.

This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 5 comprehension questions. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed for the purpose of testing candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information or concepts. Candidates can actively prepare with the help of GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solution and Explanation

1. The author of the passage is primarily concerned with discussing

(A) industrial organization in the eighteenth century
(B) the motives for pecuniary gain
(C) the technician’s place in mechanical industry
(D) the impersonal organization of industry
(E) the material contribution of physics in industrial society

2. The author of the passage suggests that businessmen in the mechanical industry are responsible mainly for

(A) keeping the logic governing the forces at work
(B) managing the profits
(C) directing the activities of the technicians
(D) employing the technological procedures of physics and chemistry
(E) treating material gain as a spiritual truth

3. Which one of the following, if true, would contradict the author’s belief that the role of technician is to be “the keeper of the logic” (lines 45-46)?

(A) All technicians are human beings with feelings and emotions.
(B) An interest in pecuniary gain is the technician’s sole motive for participation in industry.
(C) The technician’s working plans do not coincide with the technician’s pecuniary interests.
(D) Technicians are employed by businessmen to oversee the forces at work.
(E) Technicians refuse to carry out the instructions of the businessmen.

4. The author would probably most strongly agree with which one of the following statements about the evolution of the industrial system?

(A) The handicraft system of industry emerged in eighteenth-century England and was subsequently replaced by the machine industry.
(B) The handicraft system of industrial production has gradually given rise to a mechanistic technology that dominates contemporary industry.
(C) The handicraft system emerged as the dominant factor of production in eighteenth-century England but was soon replaced by mechanical techniques of production.
(D) The mechanical system of production that preceded the handicraft system was the precursor of contemporary means of production.
(E) The industrial arts developed as a result of the growth of the mechanical industry that followed the decline of the handicraft system of production.

5. Which one of the following best describes the author’s attitude toward scientific techniques?

(A) critical
(B) hostile
(C) idealistic
(D) ironic
(E) neutral

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