By the twentieth century, making workers more “cost-efficient” had become the single most important management goal in large-scale industries. Everywhere in industrial America managers were drafting work rules and designing tasks with an eye to increasing worker output.
The leading supporter of productivity was Frederick Winslow Taylor, whose time-andmotion studies revolutionized the industrial workplace and whose writings, especially The Principles of Scientific Management, had unquestionable authority among industrial engineers and factory managers. Taylor was obsessed with order and efficiency. Taylor also grew up at a time when the processes of motion were fascinating to many Americans. Artists such as Thomas Eakins were painting the human form in ways that showed its dexterity. In the 1870s, in California, the English-born photographer Eadweard Muybridge was developing a multiple-camera technique to record an animal in motion. Muybridge’s experiments, which laid the groundwork for motion pictures, started out to settle a bet whether all four of a racehorse’s hooves simultaneously left the ground at some point during its stride (he showed that they did), but they attracted national attention for demonstrating that machines could measure movement. Picture frame by picture frame, Muybridge revealed what the naked eye could not see, and by breaking down complex movement his cameras made it understandable and potentially subject to control.
In the iron and steel factories that Taylor visited during the 1870s and 1880s, he saw only disorder and inefficiency on shop floors where skilled workers controlled the rhythms and division of labor. Taylor believed that scientific study could break down the industrial process into its simplest parts, which, once understood, would allow managers to increase production and lower costs by reducing unnecessary motion and workers. Stopwatch in hand, he recorded the time workers spent on each particular task and then suggested changes in the jobs to improve efficiency. In his most famous demonstration, at the Bethlehem Steel Company in 1898, Taylor designed fifteen kinds of ore shovels, each for a specific task and each to be used in a specific way. He was able to show that 140 men could do the work of 600. The company thereupon fired the “excess” shovelers, cutting its ore-shoveling costs by half. It also gave the remaining shovelers a raise in salary.
The other side of Taylor’s plan was to provide motivations for workers to exceed production goals by rewarding them with extra pay when they did so. Under Taylor’s proposal, however, workers lost. Jobs became more tedious and monotonous, and the character and speed of work were defined by management rather than the workers themselves. Skill and tradition yielded to “scientifically” ordained rules from which workers could not deviate.
Managers, the “white shirts” in workers’ parlance, were not able to be on the floor all the time observing work, so they measured output instead. They weighed the tonnage of coal, for example, in determining the “efficiency” of miners, rather than going into the mines themselves. By evaluating workers mainly by looking at their output, managers lost effective contact with the work culture and failed to grasp and respect the difficulties or skills involved in producing. Managers also adopted Taylor’s ideas piecemeal, preferring the emphasis on worker productivity while ignoring his calls for higher wages. Indeed, most managers looked for ways to cut wages for poor work rather than raising them for better work.
“Taylorism,” as Taylor’s ideas came to be known, did not take hold everywhere. His program called for redesigning the physical layout and work patterns of the whole factory and for precise record keeping and cost accounting to watch over every aspect of the flow of goods and work. Few manufacturers could bear the costs of complete retooling and reorganization of heavy industries, and workers fought against management’s efforts to reduce them to robots. Also, the mechanization of industry itself was an uneven process. Such basic industries as logging, for example, continued to rely on manual labor and horse-drawn transportation into the early twentieth century. The widespread adoption of Taylorism waited until the twentieth century, especially the 1920s, when a “cult of productivity” and the widespread replacement of steam power with electricity encouraged fuller mechanization of both capital and finished goods industries.
1
By the twentieth century, making workers more “cost-efficient” had become the single most important management goal in large-scale industries. Everywhere in industrial America managers were drafting work rules and designing tasks with an eye to increasing worker output.
According to paragraph 1, by the twentieth century the main aim of managers in large-scale industries had become to
Aestablish better work rules
Bredesign tasks
Cincrease worker productivity
Drevise management goals
2
The leading supporter of productivity was Frederick Winslow Taylor, whose time-andmotion studies revolutionized the industrial workplace and whose writings, especially The Principles of Scientific Management, had unquestionable authority among industrial engineers and factory managers. Taylor was obsessed with order and efficiency. Taylor also grew up at a time when the processes of motion were fascinating to many Americans. Artists such as Thomas Eakins were painting the human form in ways that showed its dexterity. In the 1870s, in California, the English-born photographer Eadweard Muybridge was developing a multiple-camera technique to record an animal in motion. Muybridge’s experiments, which laid the groundwork for motion pictures, started out to settle a bet whether all four of a racehorse’s hooves simultaneously left the ground at some point during its stride (he showed that they did), but they attracted national attention for demonstrating that machines could measure movement. Picture frame by picture frame, Muybridge revealed what the naked eye could not see, and by breaking down complex movement his cameras made it understandable and potentially subject to control.
According to paragraph 2, Eadweard Muybridge’s experiments established each of the following EXCEPT:
AAll four of a racehorse’s hooves simultaneously leave the ground at some point during its stride.
BMovement can be measured by machines.
CCameras can reveal aspects of complex movements that cannot be seen with the naked eye.
DComplex movements could be observed but not controlled.
3
In the iron and steel factories that Taylor visited during the 1870s and 1880s, he saw only disorder and inefficiency on shop floors where skilled workers controlled the rhythms and division of labor. Taylor believed that scientific study could break down the industrial process into its simplest parts, which, once understood, would allow managers to increase production and lower costs by reducing unnecessary motion and workers. Stopwatch in hand, he recorded the time workers spent on each particular task and then suggested changes in the jobs to improve efficiency. In his most famous demonstration, at the Bethlehem Steel Company in 1898, Taylor designed fifteen kinds of ore shovels, each for a specific task and each to be used in a specific way. He was able to show that 140 men could do the work of 600. The company thereupon fired the “excess” shovelers, cutting its ore-shoveling costs by half. It also gave the remaining shovelers a raise in salary.
According to paragraph 3, what was Taylor’s impression of the iron and steel factories of the 1870s and 1880s?
ATheir shop floors were not well organized or efficient.
BThere was no control over the rhythms and division of labor.
CThey had given too much power to industrial managers.
DThey did not have enough skilled workers on their shop floors.
4
In the iron and steel factories that Taylor visited during the 1870s and 1880s, he saw only disorder and inefficiency on shop floors where skilled workers controlled the rhythms and division of labor. Taylor believed that scientific study could break down the industrial process into its simplest parts, which, once understood, would allow managers to increase production and lower costs by reducing unnecessary motion and workers. Stopwatch in hand, he recorded the time workers spent on each particular task and then suggested changes in the jobs to improve efficiency. In his most famous demonstration, at the Bethlehem Steel Company in 1898, Taylor designed fifteen kinds of ore shovels, each for a specific task and each to be used in a specific way. He was able to show that 140 men could do the work of 600. The company thereupon fired the “excess” shovelers, cutting its ore-shoveling costs by half. It also gave the remaining shovelers a raise in salary.
According to paragraph 3, what made it possible for 140 men to do the work of 600?
AWorking half the time over more days
BReceiving more money for their work
CBeing timed by Taylor with a stopwatch
DUsing different shovels designed for different tasks
5
The other side of Taylor’s plan was to provide motivations for workers to exceed production goals by rewarding them with extra pay when they did so. Under Taylor’s proposal, however, workers lost. Jobs became more tedious and monotonous, and the character and speed of work were defined by management rather than the workers themselves. Skill and tradition yielded to “scientifically” ordained rules from which workers could not deviate. Managers, the “white shirts” in workers’ parlance, were not able to be on the floor all the time observing work, so they measured output instead. They weighed the tonnage of coal, for example, in determining the “efficiency” of miners, rather than going into the mines themselves. By evaluating workers mainly by looking at their output, managers lost effective contact with the work culture and failed to grasp and respect the difficulties or skills involved in producing. Managers also adopted Taylor’s ideas piecemeal, preferring the emphasis on worker productivity while ignoring his calls for higher wages. Indeed, most managers looked for ways to cut wages for poor work rather than raising them for better work.
The phrase “contact with” in the passage is closest in meaning to
Aconnection with
Bpatience with
Ccontrol of
Dfaith in
6
The other side of Taylor’s plan was to provide motivations for workers to exceed production goals by rewarding them with extra pay when they did so. Under Taylor’s proposal, however, workers lost. Jobs became more tedious and monotonous, and the character and speed of work were defined by management rather than the workers themselves. Skill and tradition yielded to “scientifically” ordained rules from which workers could not deviate. Managers, the “white shirts” in workers’ parlance, were not able to be on the floor all the time observing work, so they measured output instead. They weighed the tonnage of coal, for example, in determining the “efficiency” of miners, rather than going into the mines themselves. By evaluating workers mainly by looking at their output, managers lost effective contact with the work culture and failed to grasp and respect the difficulties or skills involved in producing. Managers also adopted Taylor’s ideas piecemeal, preferring the emphasis on worker productivity while ignoring his calls for higher wages. Indeed, most managers looked for ways to cut wages for poor work rather than raising them for better work.
According to paragraph 4, under Taylor’s proposal, working conditions became worse in each of the following ways EXCEPT:
AWork became less varied.
BThere was less respect for the skills involved in production.
CManagement looked for ways to cut wages for poor work.
DManagers were constantly watching workers as they worked.
7
The other side of Taylor’s plan was to provide motivations for workers to exceed production goals by rewarding them with extra pay when they did so. Under Taylor’s proposal, however, workers lost. Jobs became more tedious and monotonous, and the character and speed of work were defined by management rather than the workers themselves. Skill and tradition yielded to “scientifically” ordained rules from which workers could not deviate. Managers, the “white shirts” in workers’ parlance, were not able to be on the floor all the time observing work, so they measured output instead. They weighed the tonnage of coal, for example, in determining the “efficiency” of miners, rather than going into the mines themselves. By evaluating workers mainly by looking at their output, managers lost effective contact with the work culture and failed to grasp and respect the difficulties or skills involved in producing. Managers also adopted Taylor’s ideas piecemeal, preferring the emphasis on worker productivity while ignoring his calls for higher wages. Indeed, most managers looked for ways to cut wages for poor work rather than raising them for better work.
According to paragraph 4, what was an effect of managers’ relying on output as the measure of worker efficiency?
AManagers no longer understood what was really involved in doing the work.
BManagers had to spend more time on the floor observing production.
CManagers began justifying the enforcement of work rules by emphasizing that they were traditional.
DManagers had to offer higher pay to get workers to exceed production goals.
8
“Taylorism,” as Taylor’s ideas came to be known, did not take hold everywhere. His program called for redesigning the physical layout and work patterns of the whole factory and for precise record keeping and cost accounting to watch over every aspect of the flow of goods and work. Few manufacturers could bear the costs of complete retooling and reorganization of heavy industries, and workers fought against management’s efforts to reduce them to robots. Also, the mechanization of industry itself was an uneven process. Such basic industries as logging, for example, continued to rely on manual labor and horse-drawn transportation into the early twentieth century. The widespread adoption of Taylorism waited until the twentieth century, especially the 1920s, when a “cult of productivity” and the widespread replacement of steam power with electricity encouraged fuller mechanization of both capital and finished goods industries.
In paragraph 5, why does the author provide information about the way the logging industry operated?
ATo help explain why the widespread adoption of Taylorism did not occur until the twentieth century
BTo argue that logging was an example of an industry that became more productive after it adopted Taylorism
CTo make the point that the logging industry lacked a tradition of precise record keeping and cost accounting
DTo help support the idea that full mechanization depended on the replacement of steam power with electricity
9
The leading supporter of productivity was Frederick Winslow Taylor, whose time-andmotion studies revolutionized the industrial workplace and whose writings, especially The Principles of Scientific Management, had unquestionable authority among industrial engineers and factory managers. Taylor was obsessed with order and efficiency. Taylor also grew up at a time when the processes of motion were fascinating to many Americans. Artists such as Thomas Eakins were painting the human form in ways that showed its dexterity.[■] In the 1870s, in California, the English-born photographer Eadweard Muybridge was developing a multiple-camera technique to record an animal in motion. [■] Muybridge’s experiments, which laid the groundwork for motion pictures, started out to settle a bet whether all four of a racehorse’s hooves simultaneously left the ground at some point during its stride (he showed that they did), but they attracted national attention for demonstrating that machines could measure movement. [■] Picture frame by picture frame, Muybridge revealed what the naked eye could not see, and by breaking down complex movement his cameras made it understandable and potentially subject to control.[■]
Look at the four squaresthat indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage
Taylor was determined to apply this new understanding of motion to the improvement of industrial processes.
Where would the sentence best fit？Click on a square sentence to the passage.
10
Frederick Taylor’s program to increase productivity through time-andmotion studies revolutionized the industrial workplace.
ATaylor held that breaking down the industrial process into its simplest parts could identify and cut down on unnecessary motions, thus cutting costs by decreasing the number of workers needed.
BTaylor worked with the photographer Eadweard Muybridge to develop a technique for using machines to measure motion more precisely than could be done with the naked eye.
CTaylor’s idea of paying workers more for exceeding production goals was not adopted by managers, and his scientifically defined work process was too expensive for most large industries to adopt right away.
DTaylor believed that the only way to increase worker productivity was to increase workers’ pay before asking them to use more advanced tools.
ESince, under Taylor’s proposal, managers would spend more time on record keeping and cost accounting and less time supervising the shop floor, workers would need to be more highly skilled.
FTaylorism became fully adopted in most industries only in the 1920s, when a “cult of productivity” and the replacement of steam power with electricity encouraged greater mechanization of production.
