Passage A: Andrew Carnegie: A Friend of the People 1 What makes a successful life? A look at the life of Andrew Carnegie offers some clues. Carnegie was a nineteenth-century industrialist who rose from poverty to build a steel empire. He ultimately became the richest man in the world. His success was largely a product of his study of business and industrial trends and of his management of his relationships with well-connected people.

2 Carnegie was poor when he arrived in the U. S. at the age of 13, but his habits of study and personal skills enabled him to rise quickly. He worked long days and weeks in a textile mill, but read widely and applied himself to the study of bookkeeping at night. At 14, he landed a job as a messenger in a telegraph office. He again studied to get ahead, memorizing a street map of Pittsburgh, the locations of local businesses, and the faces of important businessmen. He also became one of only three people in the U. S. at the time to learn to decipher Morse code by ear. His work paid off when he was promoted to the position of telegraph operator, and his skills soon made him the fastest operator in his office. At 17, Carnegie caught the attention of a railroad superintendent, Thomas A. Scott, who hired him as his personal secretary. In this quick succession of events, it is easy to see how Carnegie used his immense drive and skill to lay a foundation for his later success.

3 As a developing and eventually successful businessman, Carnegie advanced through a continued close attention to relationships and to his era’s business and industrial trends. He worked closely at Scott’s side. There he learned about stocks and making sound investments. At the close of the Civil War, he left the railroad. He’d decided that he could better realize his goal of attaining a “fortune” by building upon his interests in iron. When he later expanded into the steel industry, Carnegie assessed the current technology and decided to apply what is known as the Bessemer process to his production method. This enabled him to increase production while keeping his prices low. Ultimately, this allowed him to rule the industry. As he built his companies, he carefully maintained and grew his relationships with Scott and the railroad’s president, J. Edgar Thomson. He named his first steel mill after Thomson, and he offered both men opportunities to invest in his ongoing ventures.

4 Beyond his business achievements, he was a man who gave much to others. He donated hundreds of millions of dollars to education, the arts, free public libraries, and foundations dedicated to world peace. His generosity has improved the lives of generations of people. He died a rich man, in more ways than one.
Based on the first text, what did Carnegie's relationship with Thomas A. Scott contribute to his eventual success?
A.
business sense and connections
B.
an entry into the steel business
C.
telegraphing and secretarial skills
D.
a fortune to invest in stocks