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 widely.
But we need to go further. We must ask some fundamental questions about the future work. Should we continue to treat employment as the norm? Should 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 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 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 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 for the husband to go out to paid employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and family to his wife.
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 jobs.

单选题 What idea did the author derive from the recent opinion polls?
A. Available employment should be distributed 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 of life.

单选题 The passage suggests that we should now reexamine our thinking about work and ______.
A. be prepared to admit that being employed is not the only kind of work
B. create more factories in order to increase our productivity
C. set up smaller private enterprises so that we in turn can employ others
D. be prepared to fill in time by taking up housework

单选题 The passage tells us that the arrival of the industrial age meant that ______.
A. universal employment guaranteed prosperity
C. patterns of work were fundamentally changed
B. economic freedom came within everyone's reach
D. to survive, everyone had to find a job

单选题 As a result of the enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries ______.
A. people were no longer legally entitled to own land
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 were badly paid for the work they managed to find

单选题 It can be inferred from the passage that ______.
A. the creation of jobs for all is impossible
B. we must make every effort to solve the problem of unemployment
C. people should start to support themselves by learning a practical skill
D. we should help people to get full-time jobs