SAT写作素材之洛克菲勒John D.Rockefeller

2014年05月16日17:27 来源：小站整理: 参与（0）阅读（5902）

摘要：SAT是由美国大学委员会委托美国教育测验服务社定期举办的测验，做为美国各大学申请入学的重要参考条件之一。SAT的写作部分是根据，但不是照搬旧版SAT II中的写作改变而来（后者由旧版TSWE）得出，包括选择题和短文。小站教育为同学们带来了写作素材。

SAT近年来被越来越多的人所了解、关注。主要是由于近年来留学低龄化的日益突出，有越来越多的同学想尽早尽快奔赴大洋彼岸留学。虽然SAT整体上来看可能难度上不如中国高考，但是如果备考SAT的同学掉以轻心，即使学习不错、英文很好，也依然很有可能造成成绩悲剧。官方真题Official为备考SAT的同学们找到了英文SAT作文素材，希望对同学们有所帮助。

John D.Rockefeller (1839—1937)

John Davidson Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York in 1839. He attended the Cleveland Central High School and at 16 he became a clerk in a commission house. Determined to work for himself, Rockefeller saved all the money he could and in 1850 went into business with a young Englishman, Maurice Clark. The company, Clark & Rockefeller Produce and Commission, sold farm implements, fertilizers and household goods.

Rockefeller's company was fairly successful but did not bring him the wealth he desired. In 1862 Rockefeller heard that Samuel Andrews had developed a better and cheaper way of refining crude petroleum. Rockefeller sold his original business and invested it in a new company he set up with Andrews called Standard Oil.

One of the business problems that Rockefeller encountered was the high cost of transporting his oil to his Cleveland refineries (40 cents a barrel) and the refined oil to New York ($2 a barrel).

Rockefeller negotiated an exclusive deal with the railway company where he guaranteed sixty car-loads a day. In return the transport prices were reduced to 35 cents and $1.30. The cost of his oil was reduced and his sales increased dramatically.

Within a year four of his thirty competitors were out of business. Eventually Standard Oil monopolized oil refining in Cleveland. Rockefeller now bought out Samuel Andrews for a million dollars and turned his attentions to controlling the oil industry throughout the United States. His competitors were given the choice of being swallowed up by Standard Oil or being crushed. By 1890 Rockefeller's had swollen into an immense monopoly which could fix its own prices and terms of business because it had no competitors. In 1896 Rockefeller was worth about $200 million.

In November 1902, Ira Tarbell, one of the leading muckraking journalists in the United States, began a series of articles in McClure's Magazine on how Rockefeller had achieved a monopoly in refining, transporting and marketing oil. This material was eventually published as a book, History of the Standard Oil Company (1904). Rockefeller responded to these attacks by describing Tarbell as "Miss Tarbarrel".

President Theodore Roosevelt, who had been elected on a program that included reducing the power of large corporations, attempted to use the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to deal with Rockefeller's monopoly of the oil industry. This was largely ineffective and it was not until 1911 that the Supreme Court dissolved the Standard Oil monopoly.

The various press campaigns against Rockefeller had turned him into one of America's most hated men. A devout Baptist, Rockefeller began giving his money away. He set up the Rockefeller Foundation to "promote the well-being of mankind". Over the next few years Rockefeller gave over $500 million in aid of medical research, universities, and Baptist churches. He was also a major supplier of funds to organizations such as the Anti-Saloon League that was involved in the campaign for prohibition. By the time that he died died on 23rd My, 1937, John Davidson Rockefeller had become a popular national figure.

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