阅读理解 In recent weeks media outlets in the U.S. have been fretting over what would ordinarily be considered good news—the roaring American economy, which has brought low unemployment and, in some places, a labour shortage. Owners and managers have complained about their problems in finding people to fill low-wage positions. "Nobody wants to do manual labour any more," as one trade association grandee told The Baltimore Sun, and so the manual labour simply goes undone.
Company bosses talk about the things they have done to fix the situation: the ads they've published; the guest-worker visas for which they've applied; how they are going into schools to encourage kids to learn construction skills or to drive trucks. But nothing seems to work. Blame for the labour shortage is sprayed all over the US map: opioids are said to be the problem. And welfare, and inadequate parking spaces, and a falling birthrate, and mass incarceration, and—above all—the Trump administration's immigration policies. But no one really knows for sure.
The textbook solution to the labour shortage problem—paying workers more—rarely merits more than a line or two, if it's mentioned at all. So unwilling are business leaders to talk about or consider this obvious answer that Neel Kashkari, the president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, scolded them last year: "If you're not raising wages, then it just sounds like whining."
If you study the Bureau of Labor Statistics' numbers on wages for nonsupervisory workers over the past few decades, you will notice that wage growth has been strangely slow to pick up. Hot economies usually drive wages up pretty promptly; this recovery has been running since 2009 and it has barely moved the needle.
How could such a thing happen in this modem and enlightened age? Well, for starters, think of all that whining we're hearing from the US's management, who will apparently blame anyone and do anything to avoid paying workers more. Every labour-management innovation seems to have been designed with this amazing goal in mind. Every great bipartisan political initiative, from free trade to welfare reform, points the same way.
单选题 36.The labour shortage is mainly concentrated in___
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】事实细节题。根据定位词定位到文章第一段。该段指出,雇主和管理人员已经在抱怨找不到人来填补低薪职位的空缺,故劳动力短缺主要集中在低薪职位,故B项为正确选项。
单选题 37.What can we learn from Paragraph 2?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】事实细节题。根据定位词定位到文章第二段。第一句介绍雇主为增加劳动力所做的努力,第二句中But nothing表明努力并未取得成效,第三、四句说明雇主所认为的劳动力短缺原因,第五句中But暗示原因并没有根据,故D项为正确选项。
单选题 38.The textbook solution______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】事实细节题。根据定位词定位到文章第三段。textbook solution用于形容paying workersmore这一对策,说明该对策是解决劳动力短缺问题的最佳方式,故B项为正确选项。
单选题 39.The phenomenon of slow wage growth is______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】推理判断题。根据定位词定位到文章第四段。本段说明工资增长的现状——增速缓慢(strangely slow),strangely表明这一现象不符合常理;第二句先介绍常规现象,usually与strangely形成对比,随后指出存在异常的现状,故C项为正确选项。
单选题 40.The author's attitude toward the U.S.'s management is______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】态度方向题。根据定位词定位到文章最后一段。该段指出,首先,想想我们从美国管理层那里听到的所有抱怨吧,他们显然会把问题归告于别人,并竭尽所能地避免给工人更多的报酬。每一次的劳资管理革新似乎都是带着这样一个惊人的目的而设计的。由此可知,作者是表示不满的,故A项为正确选项。