2018年9月15日托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Consolidated Industry in the United States

2018年9月15日托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Consolidated Industry in the United States

Laws of incorporation passed in the United States in the 1830s and 1840s made it easier for business organizations to raise money by selling stock to members of the public. The ability to sell stock to a broader public made it possible for entrepreneurs to gather vast sums of capital and undertake large projects. This led to the emergence of modern corporations as a major force in the United States after 1865. These large, national business enterprises needed more systematic administrative structures. As a result, corporate leaders introduced a set of managerial techniques that relied on systematic division of responsibilities, a carefully designed hierarchy of control, careful cost-accounting procedures, and perhaps above all a new breed of business executive: the middle manager, who formed a layer of command between workers and owners. Efficient administrative capabilities helped make possible another major feature of the modern corporation: consolidation (combining many things into one).

1. Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information

A. Corporate leaders expanded the role of middle managers, who now had the responsibility to introduce systematic techniques of cost-accounting and a carefully designed hierarchy of control

B. Corporate leaders replaced the former hierarchy of control with a new system, the main advantage of which was that it divided responsibilities among middle managers.

C. Corporate leaders were transformed into middle managers as a result of innovations such as the systematic division of responsibilities and the introduction of careful cost-accounting procedures.

D. Corporate leaders introduced a variety of innovative managerial techniques, the most important probably being the middle manager, a new executive layer below owners.

Businessmen created large, consolidated organizations primarily through two methods. One was horizontal integration—the combining of multiple firms engaged in the same enterprise into a single corporation. The consolidation of many different railroad lines into one company was an example. Another method, which became popular in the 1890s, was vertical integration—the taking over of all the different businesses on which a company relied for its primary function. Thus, Carnegie steel controlled mines and railroads as well as steel mills.

2. Why does the author provide the information that” Carnegie Steel controlled mines and railroads as well as steel mills”?

A. To challenge the idea that railroads generally integrated horizontally

B. To help explain vertical integration by providing an example of a company using it

C. To help explain how a company’s primary function influenced the method of integration it used

D. To show that vertical integration was a much more effective technique for consolidation than horizontal integration was

The most celebrated corporate empire of the late nineteenth century was John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. Shortly after 1865, Rockefeller launched a refining company in Cleveland, Ohio, and immediately began trying to eliminate his competition. Allying himself with other wealthy capitalists, he proceeded methodically to buy out competing refineries. In 1870, he formed the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, which in a few years had acquired twenty of the twenty-five refineries in Cleveland, as well as plants in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore. He built his own barrel factories, warehouses, and pipelines. Standard Oil owned its own railroad freight cars and developed its own marketing organization. By the 1880s, Rockefeller had established such dominance within the petroleum industry that to much of the nation he served as a leading symbol of monopoly.

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