阅读理解

Directions: In this section, there are 3 passages followed by multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and then write ONE best answer for each question on your ANSWER SHEET.


Passage 3

It is frequently assumed that the mechanization of work has a revolutionary effect on the lives of the people who operate the new machines and on the society into which the machines have been introduced. For example, it has been suggested that the employment of women in industry took them out of the household, their traditional sphere, and fundamentally altered their position in society. In the nineteenth century, when women began to enter factories, Jules Simon, a French politician, warned that by doing so, women would give up their femininity. Friedrich Engels, however, predicted that women would be liberated from the “social, legal, and economic subordination” of the family by technological developments that made possible the recruitment of “the whole female sex…into public industry.” Observers thus differed concerning the social desirability of mechanization’s effects, but they agreed that it would transform women’s lives.

Historians, particularly those investigating the history of women, now seriously question this assumption of transforming power. They conclude that such dramatic technological innovations as the spinning jenny, the sewing machine, the typewriter, and the vacuum cleaner have not resulted in equally dramatic social changes in women’s economic position or in the prevailing evaluation of women’s work. The employment of young women in textile mills during the Industrial Revolution was largely an extension of an older pattern of employment of young, single women as domestics. It was not the change in office technology, but rather the separation of secretarial work, previously seen as an apprenticeship for beginning managers, from administrative work that in the 1880’s created a new class of “dead end” jobs, thenceforth considered “women’s work.” The increase in the numbers of married women employed outside the home in the twentieth century had less to do with the mechanization of housework and an increase in leisure time for these women than it did with their own economic necessity and with high marriage rates that shrank the available pool of single women workers, previously, in many cases, the only women employers would hire.

Women’s work has changed considerably in the past 200 years, moving from the household to the office or the factory, and later becoming mostly white-collar instead of blue-collar work. Fundamentally, however, the conditions under which women work have changed little since before the Industrial Revolution: the segregation of occupations by gender, lower pay for women as a group, jobs that require relatively low levels of skill and offer women little opportunity for advancement all persist, while women’s household labor remains demanding. Recent historical investigation has led to a major revision of the notion that technology is always inherently revolutionary in its effects on society. Mechanization may even have slowed any change in the traditional position of women both in the labor market and in the home. 

单选题 Which of the following statements best summarizes the main idea of the passage?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】文章主要讲的是工业革命前后女性生活的变化。文章开篇提到人们普遍认为技术的进步会对社会产生革命性的影响，而下文关于女性地位以及生活现状的描写似乎推翻了这一观点。文章最后一段倒数第二句话也提到“Recent historical investigation has led to a major revision of the notion that technology is always inherently revolutionary in its effects on society.”，最近的历史调查修正了一个观点，即技术在其对社会的影响中总是具有革命性的。因此选项A最能概括文章大意。
单选题 The author mentions all of the following inventions as examples of dramatic technological innovations EXCEPTthe _____.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】文章第二段第二句提到“…such dramatic technological innovations as the spinning jenny, the sewing machine, the typewriter, and the vacuum cleaner”，诸如珍妮纺纱机、 缝纫机、 打字机和吸尘器等引人注目的技术革新，其中并没有电话，所以答案选D。
单选题 It can be inferred from the passage that, before the Industrial Revolution, the majority of women’s work wasdone in which of the following setting?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】文章第一段第二句提到“…it has been suggested that the employment of women in industry took them out of the household, their traditional sphere”，有人认为，女性在工业上的就业使她们走出了家庭这个传统工作领域，由此可推测出工业革命前，女性的工作主要是在家里进行的。
单选题 It can be inferred from the passage that the author would consider which of the following to be an indication of afundamental alteration in the conditions of women’s work?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】文章最后一段第二句话的意思是： 从根本上说，然而从工业革命以来女性的工作条件几乎没有变化：依然存在性别区分的职业，女性整体工资较低，对女性的工作技能水平要求相对低，女性很少得到工作上的晋升，而对女性的家务劳动要求依然存在。因此要想表明女性工作条件发生了彻底的变化就得改善以上几种情况。选项D中“人口普查结果显示，女性的工资和薪金与男性的工资水平一样高”符合题意要求。
单选题 The passage states that, before the twentieth century, which of the following was true of many employers?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】文章第二段最后一句提到“…the available pool of single women workers, previously, in many cases, the only women employers would hire”，定语从句修饰先行词single women，由此可知工业革命时期，雇主雇佣的女性工人都是年轻的单身女性。
单选题 It can be inferred from the passage that the author most probably believes which of the following to be trueconcerning those historians who study the history of women?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】历史学者对于女性历史的研究，讨论了女性在工业革命时期社会地位的变化，这为进一步理解那些影响两性生活的社会现象及社会角色转变提供了重要的见解。
单选题 Which of the following best describes the function of the concluding sentence of the passage?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】文章最后一句话为总结句，“Mechanization may even have slowed any change in the traditional position of women both in the labor market and in the home.”，机械化甚至可能减缓了女性在劳动力市场和家庭中的传统地位的变化。这句话总体概括了文章中所提到的关于机械化对女性地位的影响的观点。