Unit 2
Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension
(35 minutes)
Directions: There are 4 reading passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the centre.
Questions 21 to 24 are based on the following passage:
Automation refers to the introduction of electronic control and automatic operation of productive machinery. It reduces the human factors, mental and physical in production, and is designed to make possible the manufacture of more goods with fewer workers. The development of automation in American industry has been called the “Second Industrial Revolution.”
Labour's concern over automation arises from uncertainty about the effects on employment, and fears of major changes in jobs. In the main, labour has taken the view that resistance to technical change is unfruitful. Eventually, the result of automation may well be an increase in employment, since it is expected that vast industries will grow up
, maintaining, and repairing automation equipment. The interest of labour lies in bringing about the transition with a minimum of inconvenience and distress to the workers involved. Also, union spokesmen emphasize that the benefit of the increased production and lower costs made possible by automation should be shared by workers in the form of higher wages, more leisure, and improved living standards.
To protect the interests of their members in the era of automation, unions have adopted a number of new policies. One of these is the promotion of supplementary unemployment benefit plans. It is emphasized that since the employer involved in such a plan has a direct financial interest in preventing unemployment, he will have a strong drive for planning new installations so as to cause the least possible problems in jobs and job assignments. Some unions are working for dismissal pay agreements, requiring that permanently dismissed workers be paid a sum of money based on length of service. Another approach is the idea of the “improvement factor”, which calls for wage increases based on increases in productivity. It is possible, however, that labour will rely mainly on reduction in working hours in order to gain a full share in the fruits of automation.
21. Though labour worries about the effects of automation, it never doubts that .
A) automation will eventually prevent unemployment
B) automation will help workers acquire new skills
C) automation will eventually benefit the workers no less than the employers.
D) automation is a trend which cannot be stopped
22. The idea of the “improvement factor”(Para. 3, Line 8) implies roughly .
A) wages should be paid on the basis of length of service
B) the benefit of the increased production and lower costs should be shared by workers
C) supplementary unemployment benefit plans should be promoted
D) the transition to automation should be brought about with the minimum of inconvenience and distress to workers
23. In order to get the full benefits of automation, labour will depend mostly on .
A) additional payment to the permanently dismissed workers
B) the increase of wages in proportion to the increase in productivity
C) shorter working hours and more leisure time
D) strong drive for planning new installations
24. Which of the following can best sum up the passage?
A) Advantages and disadvantages of automation.
B) Labour and the effects of automation.
C) Unemployment benefit plans and automation.
D) Social benefits of automation.
Questions 25 to 30 are based on the following passage:
The case for college has been accepted without question for more than a generation. All high school graduates ought to go, says conventional wisdom and statistical evidence, because college will help them earn more money, become “better” people, and learn to be more responsible citizens than those who don't go.
But college has never been able to work its magic for everyone. And now that close to half our high school graduates are attending, those who don't fit the pattern are becoming more numerous, and more obvious. College graduates are selling shoes and driving taxis; college students interfere with each other's experiments and writes false letters of recommendation in the intense competition for admission to graduate school. Others find no stimulation in their studies, and drop out — often encouraged by college administrators.
Some observers say the fault is with the young people themselves — they are spoiled and they are expecting too much. But that's a condemnation of the students as a whole, and doesn't explain all campus unhappiness. Others blame the state of the world, and they are partly right. We've been told that young people have to go to college because our economy can't absorb an army of untrained eighteen-year-olds. But disappointed graduates are learning that it can no longer absorb an army of trained twenty-two-year-olds, either.
Some adventuresome educators and campus watchers have openly begun to suggest that college may not be the best, the proper, the only place for every young person after the completion of high school. We may have been looking at all those surveys and statistics upside down, it seems, and through the rosy glow of our own remembered college experiences. Perhaps college doesn't make people intelligent, ambitious, happy, liberal, or quick to learn things — maybe it's just the other way around, and intelligent, ambitious, happy, liberal, quick-learning people are merely the ones who have been attracted to college in the first place. And perhaps all those successful college graduates would have been successful whether they had gone to college or not. This is heresy (異端邪說(shuō)) to those of us who have been brought up to believe that if a little schooling is good, more has to be much better. But contrary evidence is beginning to mount up.
25. According to the author, .
A) people used to question the value of college education
B) people used to have full confidence in higher education
C) all high school graduates went to college
D) very few high school graduates chose to go to college
26. In the 2nd paragraph, “those who don't fit the pattern” refers to . A) high school graduates who aren't suitable for college education
B) college graduates who are selling shoes and driving taxis
C) college students who aren't any better for their higher education
D) high school graduates who failed to be admitted to college
27. The drop-out rate of college students seems to go up because .
A) young people are disappointed with the conventional way of teaching at college
B) many young people are required to join the army
C) young people have little motivation in pursuing a higher education
D) young people don't like the intense competition for admission to graduate school
28. According to the passage the problems of college education partly arise from the fact that .
A) society cannot provide enough jobs for properly trained college graduates
B) high school graduates do not fit the pattern of college education
C) too many students have to earn their own living
D) college administrators encourage students to drop out
29. In this passage the author argues that .
A) more and more evidence shows college education may not be the best thing for high school graduates
B) college education is not enough if one wants to be successful
C) college education benefits only the intelligent, ambitious, and quick-learning people
D) intelligent people may learn quicker if they don't go to college
30. The “surveys and statistics” mentioned in the last paragraph might have shown that .
A) college-educated people are more successful than non-college-educated people
B) college education was not the first choice for intelligent people
C) the less schooling one has the better it is for him
D) most people have sweet memories of college life
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage:
Ours has become a society of employees. A hundred years or so ago only one out of every five Americans at work was employed, i.e., worked for somebody else. Today only one out of five is not employed but working for himself. And when fifty years ago “being employed” meant working as a factory labourer or as a farmhand, the employee of today is increasingly a middle-class person with a substantial formal education, holding a professional or management job requiring intellectual and technical skills. Indeed, two things have characterized American society during these last fifty years: middle-class and upper-class employees have been the fastest-growing groups in our working population — growing so fast that the industrial worker, that oldest child of the Industrial Revolution, has been losing in numerical importance despite the expansion of industrial production.
Yet you will find little if anything written on what it is to be an employee. You can find a great deal of very dubious advice on how to get a job or how to get a promotion. You can also find a good deal of work in a chosen field, whether it be the mechanist's trade or bookkeeping (簿記). Every one of these trades requires different skills, sets different standards, and requires a different preparation. Yet they all have employeeship in common. And increasingly, especially in the large business or in government, employeeship is more important to success than the special professional knowledge or skill. Certainly more people fail because they do not know the requirements of being an employee than because they do not adequately possess the skills of their trade; the higher you climb the ladder, the more you get into administrative or executive work, the greater the emphasis on ability to work within the organization rather than on technical abilities or professional knowledge.
31. It is implied that fifty years ago .
A) eighty per cent of American working people were employed in factories
B) twenty per cent of American intellectuals were employees
C) the percentage of intellectuals in the total work force was almost the same as that of industrial workers
D) the percentage of intellectuals working as employees was not so large as that of industrial workers
32. According to the passage, with the development of modern industry, .
A) factory labourers will overtake intellectual employees in number
B) there are as many middle-class employees as factory labourers
C) employers have attached great importance to factory labourers
D) the proportion of factory labourers in the total employee population has decreased
33. The word “dubious” (Para. 2, Line 2) most probably means .
A) valuable C) doubtful
B) useful D) helpful
34. According to the writer, professional knowledge or skill is .
A) less important than awareness of being a good employee
B) as important as the ability to deal with public relations
C) more important than employer-employee relations
D) as important as the ability to co-operate with others in the organization
35. From the passage it can be seen that employeeship helps one .
A) to be more successful in his career C) to solve technical problems
B) to be more specialized in his field D) to develop his professional skill
Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage:
We all know that the normal human daily cycle of activity is of some 7-8 hours' sleep alternating with some 16-17 hours' wakefulness and that, broadly speaking, the sleep normally coincides with the hours of darkness. Our present concern is with how easily and to what extent this cycle can be modified.
The question is no mere academic one. The ease, for example, with which people can change from working in the day to working at night is a question of growing importance in industry where automation calls for round-the-clock working of machines. It normally takes from five days to one week for a person to adapt to a reversed routine of sleep and wakefulness, sleeping during the day and working at night. Unfortunately, it is often the case in industry that shifts are changed every week; a person may work from 12 midnight to 8 a.m. one week, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m the next, and 4 p.m. to 12 midnight the third and so on. This means that no sooner has he got used to one routine than he has to change to another, so that much of his time is spent neither working nor sleeping very efficiently.
The only real solution appears to be to hand over the night shift to a number of permanent night workers. An interesting study of the domestic life and health of night-shift workers was carried out by Brown in 1957. She found a high incidence (發(fā)生率) of disturbed sleep and other disorders among those on alternating day and night shifts, but no abnormal occurrence of these phenomena among those on permanent night work.
This latter system then appears to be the best long-term policy, but meanwhile something may be done to relieve the strains of alternate day and night work by selecting those people who can adapt most quickly to the changes of routine. One way of knowing when a person has adapted is by measuring his body temperature. People engaged in normal daytime work will have a high temperature during the hours of wakefulness and a low one at night; when they change to night work the pattern will only gradually go back to match the new routine and the speed with which it does so parallels, broadly speaking, the adaptation of the body as a whole, particularly in terms of performance. Therefore, by taking body temperature at intervals of two hours throughout the period of wakefulness it can be seen how quickly a person can adapt to a reversed routine, and this could be used as a basis for selection. So far, however, such a form of selection does not seem to have been applied in practice.
36. Why is the question of “how easily people can get used to working at night” no mere academic one?
A) Because few people like to reverse the cycle of sleep and wakefulness.
B) Because sleep normally coincides with the hours of darkness.
C) Because people are required to work at night in some fields of industry.
D) Because shift work in industry requires people to change their sleeping habits.
37. The main problem of the round-the-clock working system lies in .
A) the inconveniences brought about to the workers by the introduction of automation
B) the disturbance of the daily cycle of workers who have to change shifts too frequently
C) the fact that people working at night are often less effective
D) the fact that it is difficult to find a number of good night workers
38. The best solution for implementing the 24-hour working system seems to be .
A) to change shifts at longer intervals
B) to have longer shifts
C) to employ people who work on night shifts only
D) to create better living conditions for night workers
39. It is possible to find out if a person has adapted to the changes of routine by measuring his body temperature because .
A) body temperature changes when the cycle of sleep and wakefulness alternates
B) body temperature changes when he changes to night shift or back
C) the temperature reverses when the routines is changed
D) people have higher temperatures when they are working efficiently
40. Which of the following statements is NOT TRUE?
A) Body temperature may serve as an indication of a worker's performance.
B) The selection of a number of permanent night shift workers has proved to be t he best solution to problems of the round-the-clock working system.
C) Taking body temperature at regular intervals can show how a person adapts to the changes of routine.
D) Disturbed sleep occurs less frequently among those on permanent night or day shifts.
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