单选题
Opinion polls are now beginning to show an unwilling
general agreement that, whoever is to blame and whatever happens from now on,
high unemployment is probably here to stay. This means we shall have to find
ways of sharing the available employment more widely. But we
need to go further. We must ask some fundamental questions about the future of
work. Should we continue to treat employment as the norm? Should we not rather
encourage many other ways of self-respecting people to work? Should we not
create conditions in which many of us can work for ourselves, rather than for an
employment? Should we not aim to revive the household and the neighborhood, as
well as the factory and the office, as centers of production and work?
The industrial age has been the only period of human history in which
most people's work has taken the form of jobs. The industrial age may now be
coming to an end, and some of the changes in work patterns which it brought may
have to be reversed. This seems a discouraging thought. But, in fact, it could
offer the prospect of a better future for work. Universal employment, as its
history shows, has not meant economic freedom. Employment
became widespread when the enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries made many
people dependent on paid work by depriving them of the use of the land, and thus
of the means to provide a living for themselves. Then the factory system
destroyed the cottage industries and removed work from people's home. Later, as
transport improved, first by rail and then by road, people traveled longer
distances to their places of employment until, eventually, many people's work
lost all connection with their home lives and the places in which they
lived. Meanwhile, employment put women at a disadvantage. It
became customary fro the husband to go out to paid employment, leaving the
unpaid work of the home and family to his wife. It was not only women whose work
status suffered. As employment became the dominant form of work, young people
and old people were excluded—a problem now, as more teenagers become frustrated
at school and more retired people want to lead active lives.
All this may now have to change. The time has certainly come to switch some
effort and resources away from the impractical goal of creating jobs for all, to
the urgent practical task of helping many people to manage without full-time
job.
单选题
We can see from recent opinion polls that
A. available employment should be restricted to a small percentage of the
population.
B. new jobs must be created in order to rectify high unemployment
figures.
C. jobs available must be distributed among more people.
D. the present high unemployment figures are a fact oflife.
单选题
What happened during the enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries?
A. People were forced to live in the factories rather than on the
farm.
B. People were forced to look elsewhere for means of supporting
themselves.
C. People were not adequately compensated for the loss of their land.
D. People's work lost all connection with their home lives because of
factory systems.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】事实细节题。由题干关键词enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries，答案定位于文章第四段首句。首句讲到17世纪和18世纪的圈地运动剥夺了很多人的土地使用权，使得他们不得不依赖有偿工作维持生计，所以答案为B。至于圈地运动后人们在哪居住，是否得到足够补偿文章没有提及，A、C可排除；D本身说法不正确。
单选题
Which statement is NOT true about the conditions ofindustrial age
according to the author?
A. Most people's work has taken the form of jobs in the industrial
age.
B. Young and old people are unwanted components of society.
C. The arrival of industrial age changed patterns of work
fundamentally.
D. The work status of those who are not in paid employment is
disadvantageous.