AMCAT Reading Comprehension-3
AMCAT PASSAGE
The great event of the New York cultural season of 1882 was the visit of the sixty-twoyear-old English philosopher and social commentator Herbert Spencer. Nowhere did Spencer have a larger or more enthusiastic following than in the United States, where such works as ―Social Statics and ―The Data of Ethics were celebrated as powerful justifications for laissezfaire capitalism. Competition was preordained; its result was progress; and any institution that stood in the way of individual liberties was violating the natural order. ―Survival of the fittest —a phrase that Charles Darwin took from Spencer—made free competition a social as well as a natural law. Spencer was, arguably, the single most influential systematic thinker of the nineteenth century, but his influence, compared with that of Darwin, Marx, or Mill, was short-lived. In 1937, the Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons asked, ―Who now reads Spencer? Seventy years later, the question remains pertinent, even if no one now reads Talcott Parsons, either. In his day, Spencer was the greatest of philosophical hedgehogs: his popularity stemmed from the Page 54 fact that he had one big, easily grasped idea and a mass of more particular ideas that supposedly flowed from the big one. The big idea was evolution, but, while Darwin applied it to species change, speculating about society and culture only with reluctance, Spencer saw evolution working everywhere. ―This law of organic progress is the law of all progress, he wrote, ―whether it be in the development of the Earth, in the development of Life upon its surface, in the development of Society, of Government, of Manufactures, of Commerce, of Language, Literature, Science, [or] Art. Spencer has been tagged as a social Darwinist, but it would be more correct to think of Darwin as a biological Spencerian. Spencer was very well known as an evolutionist long before Darwin‘s ―On the Origin of Species was published, in 1859, and people who had limited interest in the finches of the Galápagos had a great interest in whether the state should provide for the poor or whether it was right to colonize India.
1. Why did Spencer have a large enthusiastic following in the United States?
Option 1 : Because he believed in Darwin's theory of evolution
Option 2 : Because his work was perceived to justify capitalism
Option 3 : Because he was a English philosopher Option 4 : None of these
2. Which of the following will the author agree to?
Option 1 : Mill, Marx and Darwin are more famous than Spencer as of today.
Option 2 : Spencer is more famous than Mill, Marx and Darwin as of today.
Option 3 : Mill, Darwin, Marx and Spencer are equally famous
Option 4 : Mill, Darwin, Marx and Parsons are very famous today today.
3. What does Talcott Parson's statement, "Who now reads Spencer?" imply?
Option 1 : No one read Spencer in 1937
Option 2 : He is asking a question to his students.
Option 3 : Everyone should read Spencer Option 4 : None of these
4. What could possibly "laissez-faire" mean as inferred from the context in which it has been used in the passage?
Option 1 : Restricted Option 2 : Not interfered by the government
Option 3 : Unprincipled Option 4 : Uncompetitive
5. According to the author, why was Spencer so popular in the 19th Century?
Option 1 : He supported capitalism
Option 2 : He extended Darwin's theory of evolution to a lot of things.
Option 3 : He had one broad and simple idea and many specific ideas flowed from it.
Option 4 : He was a friend of Parson's.
6. What is the author most likely to agree to in the following?
Option 1 : Darwin's idea of evolution preceded that of Spencer
Option 2 : Both Darwin and Spencer got the idea of the evolution at the same time
Option 3 : Spencer's idea of evolution preceded that of Darwin
Option 4 : Darwin and Spencer worked on totally different models of evolution
7. What must have been the most-likely response/reaction of the New York audience to Spencer's talk in 1882?
Option 1 : Vindication Option 2 : Surprise Option 3 : Happiness 4 : Depression
8. Which people is the author referring to in the statement: "people who had limited interest in the finches of the Galápagos"?
Option 1 : People who were not interested in the bird finch
Option 2 : People who were not interested in finches in particular from Galapagos.
Option 3 : People who were not interested in animal species or natural evolution
Option 4 : People who did not have interest in birds.
Category: Amcat, Amcat English, Amcat Passage
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