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ACT Exam  >  ACT Questions  >  Adapted fromWaldenby Henry Thoreau (1854)Stil... Start Learning for Free
Adapted from Walden by Henry Thoreau (1854)
Still we live meanly, like ants; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.
Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not, but whether we should live like baboons or like men is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you.
Q. The author thinks that contemporary life in the United States is too __________.
  • a)
    prejudiced
  • b)
    immoral
  • c)
    straightforward
  • d)
    hectic
Correct answer is option 'D'. Can you explain this answer?
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Most Upvoted Answer
Adapted fromWaldenby Henry Thoreau (1854)Still we live meanly, like an...
The author is not concerned with morals and never mentions prejudice or inspiration (or a lack of either) in the passage, so we can immediately discard the answer choices “immoral” and “uninspiring,” leaving us with “straightforward,” “hectic,” and “unorganized.” The author wouldn’t likely think that modern life is “straightforward”; he argues in the passage that his contemporary era was unnecessarily complex in its pursuits. This leaves us with the correct answer, “hectic.” This is visible in quotations from the passage such as “I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand,” and “[The nation] lives too fast.”
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Passage adapted from Edmund MorelsKing Leopold’s Rule in Africa(1904)Everywhere [in the Congo] we see the same policy [of forced labor] at work, with the same results. What are the chief symptoms of the effects of that policy upon native life?Outwardly the most striking effect is depopulation: slaughter, mutilation, emigration, sickness, largely aggravated by cruel and systematic oppression; poverty, and even positive starvation, induced by unlimited taxation in food-stuffs and live stocks; a hopeless despair, and mental depression engendered by ears of grinding tyranny; neglect of children by the general maltreatment of women, one of the mostodiousand disgraceful features of the system— these are some of the many recorded cases of depopulation which, in certain districts, has assumed gigantic proportions…What a sum total of human wretchedness does not lie behind that bald word “depopulation”! To my mind, the horror of this curse which has come upon the Congo peoples reaches its maximum of intensity when we force ourselves to consider its everydayconcomitants; the crushing weight of perpetual, remorseless oppression; the gradual elimination of everything in the daily life of the natives which makes that life worth living. Under a prevailing system, every village is a penal settlement. Armed soldiers are quartered in every hamlet; the men pass nearly their whole lives in satisfying the ceaseless demands of the “Administration,” or its affiliates the Trusts…The cumulative effects of depopulation and infantile mortality by dragging women away from their homes for forced labour requisitions— seizing them as “hostages,” and “tying them up,” whether virgins, wives, mothers, or those about to become mothers, in order to bring pressure to bear upon brothers, husbands, and fathers for the adequate supply of rubber or food taxes; flinging them into “prison,” together with their children, often to die of starvation and neglect…What has come over the civilized people of the globe that they can allow their government to remain inactive and apathetic in the face of incidents which recall in aggravated form the worst horrors of the over-sea slave trade, which surpass the exploits of Arab slave catchers? What could be worse than scenes such as these, which can be culled by the dozen…The Congo Government boasts that, in stopping the intertribal warfare, it has stopped the selling of tribal prisoners of war into domestic slavery. The condition of the domestic slave under the African system is blissful beyond words, if you compare his lot with that of the degraded serf under the Leopoldian system…Enough has been said to show that under this system of “moral and material regeneration,” constituting a monstrous invasion of primitive rights which has no parallel in the whole world, the family life and social ties of the people are utterly destroyed…Why are these people allowed to suffer thus cruelly? What crime have they collectively committed in past ages that they should undergo to-day so terrible an expiation? Are they “groaning and dying” under this murderous system as a great object-lesson to Europe?... Belgium, technically unconcerned, is morally responsible, and Belgium will suffer… If the Congo Basin were capable of being colonized by the Caucasian race, the policy we condemn and reprobate would still be a crime against humanity, an outrage upon civilization. But the Congo territories can never be a white man’s country; the “Congo State” is naught but a collection of individuals— with one supreme above the all— working for their own selfish ends, caring nothing for posterity, callous of the present, indifferent of the future, as of the past, animated by no fanaticism other than the fanaticism of dividends— and so upon the wickedness of this thing is grafted the fatuous stupidity and inhumanity of the Powers in allowing the extermination of the Congo races to go on unchecked, barely, if at all, reproved.Q. Which of the following best describes the authors purpose in writing this passage?

Adapted from “Gin-Shops” by Charles Darwin(1836)We will endeavor to sketch the bar of a large gin-shop, and its ordinary customers, for the edification of such of our readers as may not have had opportunities of observing such scenes; and on the chance of finding one well suited to our purpose, we will make for Drury Lane. The filthy and miserable appearance of this part of London can hardly be imagined by those have not witnessed it. Wretched houses with broken windows patched with rags and paper: every room let out to a different family, and in many instances to two or even three; fruit manufacturers in the cellars, barbers and red-herring vendors in the front parlors, cobblers in the back; a bird-fancier in the first floor, three families on the second, starvation in the attics, Irishmen in the passage, a "musician" in the front kitchen, and a charwoman and five hungry children in the back one; filth everywhere, a gutter before the houses and a drain behind, clothes drying and slops emptying, from the windows; girls of fourteen or fifteen, with matted hair, walking about barefoot, and with only white coats to cover them; boys of all ages, in coats of all sizes and no coats at all; men and women, in every variety of scanty and dirty apparel, lounging, scolding, drinking, smoking, squabbling, fighting, and swearing.You turn the corner. What a change! All is light and brilliancy. The hum of many voices issues from that splendid gin-shop which forms the commencement of the two streets opposite; and the gay building with the fantastically ornamented parapet, the illuminated clock, the plate-glass windows surrounded by stucco rosettes, and its profusion of gas-lights in richly-gilt burners, is perfectly dazzling when contrasted with the darkness and dirt we have just left.Yet, the gin shop is dazzling in appearances only. Soon it grows late and the throng of men, women, and children, who have been constantly going in and out, dwindles down to two or three occasional stragglers--cold, wretched-looking creatures, in the last stage of emaciation and disease. The knot of Irish laborers at the lower end of the place, who have been alternately shaking hands with, and threatening the life of each other, for the last hour, become furious in their disputes, and finding it impossible to silence one man, who is particularly anxious to adjust the difference, they resort to the expedient of knocking him down and jumping on him afterwards. The man in the fur cap, and the potboy rush out; a scene of riot and confusion ensues; half the Irishmen get shut out, and the other half get shut in; the potboy is knocked among the tubs in no time; the landlord hits everybody, and everybody hits the landlord; the barmaids scream; the police come in; the rest is a confused mixture of arms, legs, staves, torn coats, shouting, and struggling. Some of the party are borne off to the station-house, and the remainder slink home to beat their wives for complaining, and kick the children for daring to be hungry.Gin-drinking is a great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a greater; and until you improve the homes of the poor, or persuade a half-famished wretch not to seek relief in the temporary oblivion of his own misery gin-shops will increase in number and splendor. If Temperance Societies would suggest an antidote against hunger and filth gin-palaces would vanish. In the meantime, they shall only grow in prominence.Q. From the context of the whole of this passage, what does the author feel is primarily responsible for the vice of gin-drinking in England?

Directions:Read the passages and choose the best answer to each question.PassageHUMANITIES: Michael Nyman: Minimalist ComposerMany people take classical music to be therealm of the symphony orchestra or smaller ensemblesof orchestral instruments. Even more restrictive isthe mainstream definition of “classical,” which only(5) includes the music of generations past that has seem-ingly been pushed aside by such contemporary formsof music as jazz, rock, and rap. In spite of itswaning limelight, however, classical music occupiesan enduring niche in Western culture, always the(10) subject of experimentation on the part of composersand performers.Of the various schools of composition thatemerged in the 20th century, Minimalism remains oneof the most influential. English composer Michael(15) Nyman has emerged as one of the great writers,conductors, and performers of experimental and oftenminimalist pieces of music. In fact, it was he whocoined the term “Minimalism,” in a review of anothercomposer’s work. Nyman’s compositions vary greatly(20) in mood and orchestration, but generally reflect thecharacteristic tenets of minimalist fare; composer-author David Cope defines these as silence, conceptualforms, brevity, continuity, and strong patterns.A 1976 commission led Nyman to form what(25) he once called “the loudest unamplified street band”possible. Eventually coined the Michael Nyman Band,his group comprised several saxophonists and someplayers of ancient string and woodwind instruments ofvarious medieval-sounding names. When Nyman set(30) to developing material for his band, he implementedpiano segments for himself, a rich string section, andeventually, amplification of all the instruments. In thissetting, the composer honed his style of deliberatemelodies, malleable rhythms, and precise ensemble(35) playing. Nyman’s popularity grew within classicalcircles. He would often profit from it, accepting com-missions from celebrated orchestras, choreographers,vocalists, and string groups. These works, though,would not reach his largest audience.(40) Nyman will be remembered by the masses for hisstunning film scores. His most famous achievementwas the music for The Piano (1993), winner of theCannes Film Festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or awardfor best picture. In the U.S., the film was nominated for(45) six Academy Awards, and won three. However, a nom-ination was not even granted to Nyman’s soundtrackfor the Best Score award. Despite this oversight, thesoundtrack remains among the bestselling film musicrecordings of all time. Its grace is achieved through(50) skillful use of the piano to replace the female lead’svoice, which is absent throughout the film. Similarlyemotive is Nyman’s composition for Gattaca (1997),a film that tells the tale of a world obsessed with highlysophisticated bioengineering, which creates a society(55) woefully stratified according to genetic purity. Nymanlayers repetitive melodies played on string instrumentsto create an atmosphere of soaring highs temperedwith sorrow, but these melodies overcome hopelessmelancholy to finish on an uplifting note. The austere(60) blues and greens of the film’s cinematography blendwith Nyman’s round melodies to impose a trance onthe audience, infusing a cold future reality with vividromance.Following Nyman’s snub by the Academy, the(65) composer admitted the critics tend to look down theirnoses at his work. He concedes that giving a sold-out performance at a major concert hall does littleto impress them. According to Nyman, there willalways be some stuffed shirts anxious to cry foul at(70) the new and different. Though rarely awarded for hismany accomplishments, Nyman certainly remains animportant figure in the innovation of classical musicand represents a substantial reason for its persistentpopularity.Q.One of the main arguments the author is trying to make in the passage is that

Directions:Read the passages and choose the best answer to each question.PassageHUMANITIES: Michael Nyman: Minimalist ComposerMany people take classical music to be therealm of the symphony orchestra or smaller ensemblesof orchestral instruments. Even more restrictive isthe mainstream definition of “classical,” which only(5) includes the music of generations past that has seem-ingly been pushed aside by such contemporary formsof music as jazz, rock, and rap. In spite of itswaning limelight, however, classical music occupiesan enduring niche in Western culture, always the(10) subject of experimentation on the part of composersand performers.Of the various schools of composition thatemerged in the 20th century, Minimalism remains oneof the most influential. English composer Michael(15) Nyman has emerged as one of the great writers,conductors, and performers of experimental and oftenminimalist pieces of music. In fact, it was he whocoined the term “Minimalism,” in a review of anothercomposer’s work. Nyman’s compositions vary greatly(20) in mood and orchestration, but generally reflect thecharacteristic tenets of minimalist fare; composer-author David Cope defines these as silence, conceptualforms, brevity, continuity, and strong patterns.A 1976 commission led Nyman to form what(25) he once called “the loudest unamplified street band”possible. Eventually coined the Michael Nyman Band,his group comprised several saxophonists and someplayers of ancient string and woodwind instruments ofvarious medieval-sounding names. When Nyman set(30) to developing material for his band, he implementedpiano segments for himself, a rich string section, andeventually, amplification of all the instruments. In thissetting, the composer honed his style of deliberatemelodies, malleable rhythms, and precise ensemble(35) playing. Nyman’s popularity grew within classicalcircles. He would often profit from it, accepting com-missions from celebrated orchestras, choreographers,vocalists, and string groups. These works, though,would not reach his largest audience.(40) Nyman will be remembered by the masses for hisstunning film scores. His most famous achievementwas the music for The Piano (1993), winner of theCannes Film Festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or awardfor best picture. In the U.S., the film was nominated for(45) six Academy Awards, and won three. However, a nom-ination was not even granted to Nyman’s soundtrackfor the Best Score award. Despite this oversight, thesoundtrack remains among the bestselling film musicrecordings of all time. Its grace is achieved through(50) skillful use of the piano to replace the female lead’svoice, which is absent throughout the film. Similarlyemotive is Nyman’s composition for Gattaca (1997),a film that tells the tale of a world obsessed with highlysophisticated bioengineering, which creates a society(55) woefully stratified according to genetic purity. Nymanlayers repetitive melodies played on string instrumentsto create an atmosphere of soaring highs temperedwith sorrow, but these melodies overcome hopelessmelancholy to finish on an uplifting note. The austere(60) blues and greens of the film’s cinematography blendwith Nyman’s round melodies to impose a trance onthe audience, infusing a cold future reality with vividromance.Following Nyman’s snub by the Academy, the(65) composer admitted the critics tend to look down theirnoses at his work. He concedes that giving a sold-out performance at a major concert hall does littleto impress them. According to Nyman, there willalways be some stuffed shirts anxious to cry foul at(70) the new and different. Though rarely awarded for hismany accomplishments, Nyman certainly remains animportant figure in the innovation of classical musicand represents a substantial reason for its persistentpopularity.Q.The second paragraph (lines 12–23) states that, at the time of Michael Nyman’s emergence as a composer, Minimalism was

Directions:Read the passages and choose the best answer to each question.PassageHUMANITIES: Michael Nyman: Minimalist ComposerMany people take classical music to be therealm of the symphony orchestra or smaller ensemblesof orchestral instruments. Even more restrictive isthe mainstream definition of “classical,” which only(5) includes the music of generations past that has seem-ingly been pushed aside by such contemporary formsof music as jazz, rock, and rap. In spite of itswaning limelight, however, classical music occupiesan enduring niche in Western culture, always the(10) subject of experimentation on the part of composersand performers.Of the various schools of composition thatemerged in the 20th century, Minimalism remains oneof the most influential. English composer Michael(15) Nyman has emerged as one of the great writers,conductors, and performers of experimental and oftenminimalist pieces of music. In fact, it was he whocoined the term “Minimalism,” in a review of anothercomposer’s work. Nyman’s compositions vary greatly(20) in mood and orchestration, but generally reflect thecharacteristic tenets of minimalist fare; composer-author David Cope defines these as silence, conceptualforms, brevity, continuity, and strong patterns.A 1976 commission led Nyman to form what(25) he once called “the loudest unamplified street band”possible. Eventually coined the Michael Nyman Band,his group comprised several saxophonists and someplayers of ancient string and woodwind instruments ofvarious medieval-sounding names. When Nyman set(30) to developing material for his band, he implementedpiano segments for himself, a rich string section, andeventually, amplification of all the instruments. In thissetting, the composer honed his style of deliberatemelodies, malleable rhythms, and precise ensemble(35) playing. Nyman’s popularity grew within classicalcircles. He would often profit from it, accepting com-missions from celebrated orchestras, choreographers,vocalists, and string groups. These works, though,would not reach his largest audience.(40) Nyman will be remembered by the masses for hisstunning film scores. His most famous achievementwas the music for The Piano (1993), winner of theCannes Film Festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or awardfor best picture. In the U.S., the film was nominated for(45) six Academy Awards, and won three. However, a nom-ination was not even granted to Nyman’s soundtrackfor the Best Score award. Despite this oversight, thesoundtrack remains among the bestselling film musicrecordings of all time. Its grace is achieved through(50) skillful use of the piano to replace the female lead’svoice, which is absent throughout the film. Similarlyemotive is Nyman’s composition for Gattaca (1997),a film that tells the tale of a world obsessed with highlysophisticated bioengineering, which creates a society(55) woefully stratified according to genetic purity. Nymanlayers repetitive melodies played on string instrumentsto create an atmosphere of soaring highs temperedwith sorrow, but these melodies overcome hopelessmelancholy to finish on an uplifting note. The austere(60) blues and greens of the film’s cinematography blendwith Nyman’s round melodies to impose a trance onthe audience, infusing a cold future reality with vividromance.Following Nyman’s snub by the Academy, the(65) composer admitted the critics tend to look down theirnoses at his work. He concedes that giving a sold-out performance at a major concert hall does littleto impress them. According to Nyman, there willalways be some stuffed shirts anxious to cry foul at(70) the new and different. Though rarely awarded for hismany accomplishments, Nyman certainly remains animportant figure in the innovation of classical musicand represents a substantial reason for its persistentpopularity.Q.The author implies by the phrase “snub by the Academy” (line 64) that Michael Nyman

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Adapted fromWaldenby Henry Thoreau (1854)Still we live meanly, like ants; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not, but whether we should live like baboons or like men is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you.Q. The author thinks that contemporary life in the United States is too__________.a)prejudicedb)immoralc)straightforwardd)hecticCorrect answer is option 'D'. Can you explain this answer?
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Adapted fromWaldenby Henry Thoreau (1854)Still we live meanly, like ants; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not, but whether we should live like baboons or like men is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you.Q. The author thinks that contemporary life in the United States is too__________.a)prejudicedb)immoralc)straightforwardd)hecticCorrect answer is option 'D'. Can you explain this answer? for ACT 2025 is part of ACT preparation. The Question and answers have been prepared according to the ACT exam syllabus. Information about Adapted fromWaldenby Henry Thoreau (1854)Still we live meanly, like ants; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not, but whether we should live like baboons or like men is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you.Q. The author thinks that contemporary life in the United States is too__________.a)prejudicedb)immoralc)straightforwardd)hecticCorrect answer is option 'D'. Can you explain this answer? covers all topics & solutions for ACT 2025 Exam. Find important definitions, questions, meanings, examples, exercises and tests below for Adapted fromWaldenby Henry Thoreau (1854)Still we live meanly, like ants; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not, but whether we should live like baboons or like men is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you.Q. The author thinks that contemporary life in the United States is too__________.a)prejudicedb)immoralc)straightforwardd)hecticCorrect answer is option 'D'. Can you explain this answer?.
Solutions for Adapted fromWaldenby Henry Thoreau (1854)Still we live meanly, like ants; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not, but whether we should live like baboons or like men is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you.Q. The author thinks that contemporary life in the United States is too__________.a)prejudicedb)immoralc)straightforwardd)hecticCorrect answer is option 'D'. Can you explain this answer? in English & in Hindi are available as part of our courses for ACT. Download more important topics, notes, lectures and mock test series for ACT Exam by signing up for free.
Here you can find the meaning of Adapted fromWaldenby Henry Thoreau (1854)Still we live meanly, like ants; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not, but whether we should live like baboons or like men is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you.Q. The author thinks that contemporary life in the United States is too__________.a)prejudicedb)immoralc)straightforwardd)hecticCorrect answer is option 'D'. Can you explain this answer? defined & explained in the simplest way possible. Besides giving the explanation of Adapted fromWaldenby Henry Thoreau (1854)Still we live meanly, like ants; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not, but whether we should live like baboons or like men is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you.Q. The author thinks that contemporary life in the United States is too__________.a)prejudicedb)immoralc)straightforwardd)hecticCorrect answer is option 'D'. Can you explain this answer?, a detailed solution for Adapted fromWaldenby Henry Thoreau (1854)Still we live meanly, like ants; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not, but whether we should live like baboons or like men is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you.Q. The author thinks that contemporary life in the United States is too__________.a)prejudicedb)immoralc)straightforwardd)hecticCorrect answer is option 'D'. Can you explain this answer? has been provided alongside types of Adapted fromWaldenby Henry Thoreau (1854)Still we live meanly, like ants; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not, but whether we should live like baboons or like men is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you.Q. The author thinks that contemporary life in the United States is too__________.a)prejudicedb)immoralc)straightforwardd)hecticCorrect answer is option 'D'. Can you explain this answer? theory, EduRev gives you an ample number of questions to practice Adapted fromWaldenby Henry Thoreau (1854)Still we live meanly, like ants; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not, but whether we should live like baboons or like men is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you.Q. The author thinks that contemporary life in the United States is too__________.a)prejudicedb)immoralc)straightforwardd)hecticCorrect answer is option 'D'. Can you explain this answer? tests, examples and also practice ACT tests.
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