During the last few years, there has been an (36) increase in the number of shops, stores and supermarkets which provide (37) for serf-service. Their general purpose is to provide goods of every (38) attractively and cleanly and in perfect condition, so that the customer earl serve herself, and then pay for the goods with the least (39) . The organizers of a self-service store have their difficulties. They must display a great number of goods in a (40) space without covering up anything. They must deal with (41) foodstuffs requiting different ranges of temperature; and they must arrange a (42) flow of customers past the cash registers without (43) the operators. (44) , rotating circular shelves, islands of display stands, racks for tubed foods, and multi-tiered mobile stalls, (45) . These are at zero Fahrenheit for frozen food, 28-32 degrees for meat and fish, and 40-50 degrees for dairy produce and provisions. Some of the advantages of self-service seem to be that there is no waiting to be served; there is a wide variety of choice, and it is claimed that prepacked meat and vegetables are hygienic. Shopping is said to be more "stream-dined" and more economical. (46) .
Passage Four Handwriting analysis (graphology) circumvents the law by frying to determine an employee’s traits (e. g. stability) according to some handwriting group stereotype to which he or she belongs. (Indeed, some graphologists have m little respect for the law and m much confidence in their stereotyping that they have proposed using the technique in lieu of court proceedings to identify and prosecute criminals!) The analysis works by comparing the speed, size, slant, form, pressure, layout, and continuity of an individual’s handwriting with various patterns and typologies, and assimilating this person’s script into these types. As a result the individual judged ceases to be an individual and becomes little more than a composite of traits. This end result differs little from judgments based on race, sex, religion, etc. Granted, no individual is totally unique. Any evaluation of character, or for that matter skills, turns, in some measure, on employing generic ideas about virtue, vice, and technical competence. Still, there is a human individuality which manifests itself in our imagination and in the innovative arguments we choose to advance. Standardized handwriting analysis is far less respectful of individuality in this latter sense than other modes of screening. Individuals who are asked to write a personal essay describing their qualifications in their own terms; and who are given an opportunity in an interview to describe their motivations in seeking a particular job retain far more of what makes them distinctive. This more personalized format gives the individual an opportunity to express unusual or provocative opinions the employer may not have previously considered. Upon reflection, the employer may think these comments so pertinent that s/he awards the job to this candidate. Handwriting analysis, though, is ostensibly purely formal. It does not provide the candidate with any opportunity to distinguish himself or herself in this substantive fashion. At best, graphology will yield some vague assessment such as "the candidate is highly creative". It is worth remembering what the driving force is behind graphological testing. Handwriting analysis, like automated telephone screening, is increasingly being used early in the hiring process because it purports to deliver salient, accurate information cheaply. Yet precisely because these techniques are standardized, the data has reduced value. Judgments about the precise relevance of some perceived character traits to a job are rarely straightforward. Good interviewers learn through training and through interaction itself to qualify previous judgments. Perhaps the candidate who fails to make eye contact has a guilty conscience (as it is standardly assumed). On the other hand, perhaps the candidate is a recent immigrant from a country where eye contact is considered rude. Alternate interpretations sometimes suggest themselves in a face-to-face encounter with individuals who are fully present in their living, acting, and speaking personhood. Handwriting analysis, done at a distance by an expert who has never even met the candidate, will not stimulate the evaluator’s imagination in the way the in-person interview 6r personal essay might. On the contrary, the cheapness of the technique stems from its elimination of the important human activity of hypothesizing about the case at hand. The expression "in this latter sense" in paragraph 2 refers to ______.
A. human individuality as revealed in humans’ capacity to think and argue creatively.
B. technical competence.
C. human individuality shown in general skills.
D. individuality shown through respect.
Passage Two The procedures followed by scholars studying literature are often unsatisfactory: the control over a cognitive project as a whole is often lost. The literary scholar seems to be collecting data, which is a preliminary operation, without making use of them. Like a diligent ant gathering food it will never eat, the contemporary literary scholar seems intent upon writing footnotes of a book s/he will never try to read. I propose that at the outset of a research project it is necessary to render explicitly the questions the scholar will try to answer, what methods will be used and the reason why s/he thinks that it may be worthwhile answering such questions. More over, the work of the people concerned with the study of literature seems casual. For instance, much research is devoted to one author, often on the occasion of an anniversary. Now there is no reason to think that our observations will be more valid, urgent, appropriate, useful, or interesting if the author of the texts we are concerned with was born or died or the texts were written fifty, one hundred, or two hundred years ago. This seems to be celebration and not research producing knowledge. It does not seem to make any sense to determine one’s research program by looking at the calendar. The widespread habit of limiting the scope of a research project to a single author often leads to a confined understanding of the author and the texts, which, in turn, offers marginal results. The average literary scholar considers these results satisfactory. But for what purpose are they satisfactory Often the research strategies and methods of the literary scholar are repetitive. A new operation that is anologous to previous ones is often considered worthwhile. It is on these premises that many texts concerning literature are produced and accepted. I propose instead that in a concrete project that tries to produce knowledge, any statement needs verification. But there is a point where it is unnecessary to repeat the same operation on new data, because the result has already been established: rather than additional confirmation of what is already known, it is the exploration of what is still unknown that deserves priority. Contemporary literary research seems to be based on habits that originated in the past and that bear little resemblance to research projects as they are intended now in other fields. If our main aim were the proposal of some objects as cultural models, then it would be useful to our purpose to try to attract our society’s attention toward these objects and the persons who produced them. It would be reasonable to perform our actions on the occasion of anniversaries, because we would not be doing research, but celebration and propaganda. Celebration aims at confirming certitudes and strengthening bonds of solidarity among the participants. It does not produce knowledge, but it confirms what is already known. Legitimating by means of the power of words has been for many centuries the main job of the man of letters. In the view of the writer, scholars studying literature need to ______.
A. research more diligently.
B. establish a clear purpose before commencing research.
C. decrease the number of footnotes.
D. avoid writing special works to celebrate anniversaries.