单选题 Adam Smith, a writer in the 1700s, was the first person to see the importance of the division of labor and to explain part of its advantages. He gives as an example the process by which pins were made in England. "One man draws out the wire, another strengthens it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top to prepare it to receive the head. To make the head requires two or three distinct operations. To put it on is a separate operation, to polish the pins is another. And the important business of making pins is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which in some factories are all performed by different people, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them,"
Ten men, Smith said, in this way, turned out twelve pounds of pins a day or about 4 800 pins a person. But if all of them had worked separately and independently without division of labor, they certainly could not turn out any pin, each of them would have made twenty pins in a day and perhaps not even one
There can be no doubt that division of labor is an efficient way of organizing work. Fewer people can make more pins. Adam Smith saw this but he also took it for granted that division of labor is in itself responsible for economic growth and development and that it accounts for the difference between expanding economies and those that stand still. But division of labor adds nothing new: it only enables people to produce more of what they already have.

单选题 According to the passage, Adam Smith was the first person to ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】细节题。答案信息对应于文章第一句话的后半部分:....the first person to see the importance…of its advantages(是第一个理解劳动分工重要性和解释了劳动分工所带来的部分好处的人),选项[B] 只是与此表达稍有不同。
单选题 Adam Smith saw that the division of labor ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】分析推理题。文章第一段举出了亚当·斯密用的一个例子,然后在第二段说明了他对这个例子的解读。该段只有两句话,第一句说明了采用劳动分工后工人的产量,而第二句说明的是如果不采用分工的办法,工人的产量会很低甚至没有产量。综合起来,这两句说明的当然是[C] 。
单选题 Adam Smith mentioned the number 4 800 in order to ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】分析推理题。参见上面两题的分析。第二段第一句中说明10名工人采用劳动分工的形式后的日生产量,由于亚当·斯密认为劳动分工有advantages(好处),这里又是对比采用劳动分工与否的产量,所以当然是为了说明劳动分工的好处,选[A] 。
单选题 According to the writer, Adam Smith's mistake was in believing that division of labor ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】细节题。答案信息对应于最后一段第三句:he also took it for granted...that stand still,即他想当然地认为劳动分工本身可以促进经济的增长和发展,与[A] 一致。
单选题 Which of the following could serve as an appropriate title for the passage?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】主旨题。文章第一、二段首先用例子指出亚当·斯密对劳动分工的重要性的注意和阐述,第三段则指出他的观点的错误之处,全文都是围绕劳动分工这一概念进行的,强调的是它在生产中的重要性,因此最能概括文意的标题应为[D] 。注意[A] 太泛,且文章中对于theory这一词没有体现。