Cause of failure number one, is the habit of quitting when the going gets hard. No matter who you are or how skilled you may be in your occupation, there will be times when the going gets hard and unpleasant circumstances will overtake you. If you yield easily to these obstacles, you may as well write yourself off as far as becoming a great success is concerned. But, assuming that you will follow the success rules when you meet with opposition of any nature, instead of quitting, you will turn on more willpower, stoke the fires of a stronger faith in your own ability, and make up your mind that come what may you will not sell yourself short. Do that and you will soon succeed.
I had one of the greatest insights of my life when Thomas A. Edison told me how he reacted to failure when he was trying to perfect the incandescent electric lamp. Before he found the solution to his problem he tried more than ten thousand different ideas, every one of which was a failure. Just think of that, a man keeping on despite ten thousand failures with faith unshaken, and at long last being crowned with victory. One failure is sufficient to make the average person quit. Perhaps this is why there are so many average persons and there was only one Thomas A. Edison.
On the basis of the passage it can be said that ___________.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → we get success because we do not quit.
The passage opens with quitting as the first cause of failure and says that if, instead of quitting, you turn on more willpower and faith, "you will soon succeed". Edison's story proves the point: he did not quit, and was "at long last ... crowned with victory".
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 2: we fail because we don't have confidence. — Incorrect. Wrong cause: faith in one's ability is mentioned, but the cause of failure the passage names is the habit of quitting.
Option 3: we don't get success because we are average. — Incorrect. Result, not cause: the passage reverses this: people stay average because they quit after one failure, not the other way round.
Option 4: we don't fail when we have insight. — Incorrect. Wrong link: "Insight" appears only in the writer's remark about his talk with Edison; the passage does not say insight prevents failure.