1、英语四级阅读训练Section BDirections: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived.You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph
2、 is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.A University Degree No Longer Confers Financial SecurityAMillions of school-leavers in the rich world are about to bid a tearful goodbye to their parents and start a new life at university. Some are
3、inspired by a pure love of learning. But most also believe that spending three or four years at university-and accumulating huge debts in the process-will boost their chances of landing a well-paid and secure job.BTheir elders have always told them that education is the best way to equip themselves
4、to thrive in a globalised world. Blue-collar workers will see their jobs outsourced and automated, the familiar argument goes. School dropouts will have to cope with a life of cash-strapped (资金紧张的) insecurity. But the graduate elite will have the world at its feet. There is some evidence to support
5、this view. A recent study from Georgetown Universitys Centre on Education and the Workforce argues thatobtaining a post-secondary credential ( 证书) is almost always worth it. Educational qualifications are tightly correlated with earnings: an American with a professional degree can expect to pocket $
6、 over a lifetime; one with merely a high- school diploma can expect only $. The gap between more- and less-educated earners may be widening. A study in 2002 found that someone with a bachelors degree could expect to earn 75% more over a lifetime than someone with only a high-school diploma. Today th
7、e disparity is even greater.CBut is the past a reliable guide to the future Or are we at the beginning of a new phase in the relationship between jobs and education There are good reasons for thinking that old patterns are about to change-and that the current recession-driven downturn (衰退) in the de
8、mand for Western graduates will morph (改变) into something structural. The strong wind of creative destruction that has shaken so many blue-collar workers over the past few decades is beginning to shake the cognitive elite as well.DThe supply of university graduates is increasing rapidly. The Chronic
9、le of Higher Education calculates that between 1990 and 2007 the number of students going to university increased by 22% in North America, 74% in Europe, 144% in Latin America and 203% in Asia. In 2007 150m people attended university around the world, including 70m in Asia. Emerging economiesspecial
10、ly China-are pouring resources into building universities that can compete with the elite of America and Europe. They are also producing professional- services firms snch as Tata Consulting Services and Infosys that take fresh graduates and turn them into world-class computer programmers and consult
11、ants. The best and the brightest of the rich world must increasingly compete with the best and the brightest from poorer countries who are willing to work harder for less money.E. At the same time, the demand for educated labor is being reconfigured (重新配置) by technology, in much the same way that th
12、e demand for agricultural labor was reconfigured in the 19th century and that for factory labor in the 20th. Computers can not only perform repetitive mental tasks much faster than human beings. They can also empower amateurs to do what professionals once did: why hire a flesh-and-blood accountant t
13、o complete your tax return when Turbotax (a software package ) will do the job at a fraction of the cost And the variety of jobs that computers can do is multiplying as programmers teach them to deal with tone and linguistic ambiguity. economists, including Paul Krugman, have begun to argue that pos
14、t-industrial societies will be characterized not by a relentless rise in demand for the educated but by a great hollowing out, as mid-level jobs are destroyed by smart machines and high-level job growth slows. David Autor, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), points out that the main
15、effect of automation in the computer era is not that it destroys blue-collar jobs but that it destroys any job that can be reduced to a routine. Alan Blinder of Princeton University, argues that the jobs graduates have traditionally performed are if anything more offshorable than low-wage ones. A pl
16、umber or lorry-drivers job cannot be outsourced to India. A computer programmers can.G. A university education is still a prerequisite for entering some of the great industries, such as medicine, law and academia (学术界), that provide secure and well-paying jobs. Over the 20th century these industries
17、 did a wonderful job of raising barriers to entry-sometimes for good reasons (nobody wants to be operated on by a barber) and sometimes for self-interested ones. But these industries are beginning to bend the roles. Newspapers are fighting a losing battle with the blogosphere. Universities are repla
18、cing tenure-track professors with non-tenured staff. Law firms are contracting out routine work such asdiscovery (digging up documents relevant to a lawsuit) to computerized-search specialists such as Blackstone Discovery. Even doctors are threatened, as patients find advice online and treatment in
19、Walmarts new health centers. Malone of MIT argues that these changes-automation, globalizafion and deregulation-may be part of a bigger change: the application of the division of labor to brain-work. Adam Smiths factory managers broke the production of pins into 18 components. In the same way, compa
20、nies are increasingly breaking the production of brain-work into ever tinier slices. TopCoder chops up IT projects into bite-sized chunks and then serves them up to a worldwide workforce of freelance coders. changes will undoubtedly improve the productivity of brain-workers. They will allow consumer
21、s to sidestep (规避 ) the professional industries that have extracted high rents for their services. And they will empower many brain-workers to focus on what they are best at and contract out more tedious tasks to others. But the reconfiguration of brain-work will also make life far less cozy and pre
22、dictable for the next generation of graduates.46. The creative destruction that has happened to blue-collar workers in the past also starts to affect the cognitive elite.47. For the next generation of graduates, life will be far less comfortable and predictable with brain-work reconfigured.48. After
23、 computers are taught by programmers to deal with tone and linguistic ambiguity, the variety of jobs they can do will increase dramatically.49. Most school-leavers believe that, despite the huge debts they owe, going to university will increase their chances of getting secure jobs with high salaries
24、.50. Modern companies are more likely to break the production of intellectual work into ever tinier slices.51. A scholar of Princeton University claims that the jobs traditionally taken by graduates are more likely to be offshored than low-wage ones.52. The income gap between an American professiona
25、l degree holder and an American high-school graduate shows income is closely related to educational qualifications.53. The changes in the division of brain-work will save consumers some high service fees the professional organizations charge.54. Some students have always been told that. to achieve s
26、uccess in a globalised world, it is most advisable to equip themselves with education.55. Emerging economies are providing a lot of resources to build universities to compete with the elite of America and Europe.Section CDirections: There are 2 passages in this section. Each is followed by some ques
27、tions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A ),B, Cand D ). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.Section BDirections: In this section, you are going to read a passage with te
28、n statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived.You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on
29、 Answer Sheet 2.Addicted, Really？ A Mental-health specialists disagree over whether to classify compulsive online behaviour as addiction-and how to treat it. Craig Smallwood, a disabled American war veteran, spent more than 20,000 hours over five years playing an online role-playing game called Line
30、age II. When NCsoft, the South Korean firm behind the game, accused him of breaking the games rules and banned him, he was plunged into depression, severe paranoia (偏执) and hallucinations (幻想). He spent three weeks in hospital. After that, he sued NCsoft for fraud and negligence (过失 ), demanding ove
31、r $ 9m in damages and claiming that the company acted negligently by failing to warn him of the danger that he would become addicted to the game.B. But does it make sense to talk of addiction to online activity Mental-health specialists say three online behaviors can become problematic for many peop
32、le: video games, pornography ( 色情作品 ) and messaging via e-mail and social networks. But there is far less agreement about whether any of this should be called Internet addiction-or how to treat it.C Some mental-health specialists wanted Internet addiction to be included in the fifth version of psychiatrys bible, theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, known as DSM-V, which is currently being overhauled (全面修订). The American Medical Association endorsed (赞成) the idea in 2007, only to backtrack( 放弃) days later. The American Journal o
