Below is the beginning of an essay titled “The Plot Against…
Below is the beginning of an essay titled “The Plot Against People” by New York Times columnist Russell Baker. After reading the passage, check the five statements with are most logically supported by the information given. inanimate: lifeless classified: grouped idle: not busy cunning: slyness Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories—those that break down, those that get lost, and those that don’t work. The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately to defeat him, and the three major classifications are based on the method each object uses to achieve its purpose. As a general rule, any object capable of breaking down at that moment when it is most needed will do so. The automobile is typical of this category. With the cunning peculiar to its bread, the automobile never breaks down while entering a filling station which has a large staff of idle mechanics. It waits until it reaches a downtown intersection in the middle of the rush hour, or until it is fully loaded with family and luggage on the Ohio Turnpike. Thus, it creates maximum inconvenience, frustration, and irritability…. Many inanimate objects, of course, find it extremely difficult to break down. Pliers, for example, and gloves and keys are almost totally incapable of breaking down. Therefore, they have had to evolve a different technique for resisting man. They get lost. Science has still not solved the mystery of how they do it, and no man has ever caught one of them in the act.