阅读理解
Opinion polls are now beginning to show that whoever is to blame and whatever happens from now on, high unemployment is probably here to stay. This means we shall have to make ways of sharing the available employment more widely. But we need to go further. We must ask some primary questions about the future of work. Would we continue to treat employment as the norm? Would we not rather encourage many other ways for self-respecting people to work? Should we not create conditions in which many of us can work for ourselves, rather than for an employer? 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 daunting thought, but, in fact, it could provide 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 homes. Later, as transportation improved, first by rail and then by road, people commuted longer distances to their places of employment until, eventually, many people's work lost all connection with their home lives and the place in which they lived. Meanwhile employment put women at a disadvantage. In pre-industrial time, men and women had shared the productive work of the household and village community. Now it became customary for the husband to go out to paid employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and family to his wife. Tax and benefit regulations still assume this norm today and restrict more flexible sharing of work roles between the sexes. 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 live active lives. All this may now have to change. The time has certainly come to switch some effort and resources away from the idealist goal of creating jobs for all, to the urgent practical task of helping many people to manage without full time jobs.
单选题21.Research carried out in the recent opinion polls shows that______.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】根据文中第一段的“Opinion polls are now beginning to show that…high unemployment is probably here to stay．”可知，民意调查显示，高失业率很可能会直持续下去。据此可知，现今的高失业率是真实存在的。D项正确。
单选题22.The arrival of the industrial age in our historical evolution meant that______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】根据文中第三段的“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．”可知，工业时代现在可能就要结束了，而它所带来的些工作模式上的改变也要被扭转过来了。据此可知，工业时代的到来意味着从根本上改变了人们的工作模式。C项正确。
单选题23.The effects of almost universal employment were overwhelming in that______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】根据文中第五段的“Meanwhile employment put women at a disadvange…Tax and benefit regulations still assume this norm today”可知：就业使妇女处于不利的地位。在工业时代之前，男人女人共同分担家庭和村社的生产工作。现在丈夫外出干有报酬的工作，把家及家庭的无酬劳的工作留给妻子，这已成为种习惯。今天的税收和利润规定也采用这种标准。再根据第六段的“It was not only women whose work status suffered．As employment became the dominant form of work，young people and old people were excluded”可知，不仅仅是妇女的工作地位受损，老人、青少年也不例外。据此可知，不在雇佣劳动岗位上的人的工作地位受损，C项正确。