2013年6月第一套

A Nation That's Losing Its Toolbox

The scene inside the Home Depot on Weyman Avenue here would give the old-time American craftsman pause.

In Aisle 34 is precut plastic flooring, the glue already in place. In Aisle 26 are prefabricated windows. Stacked near the checkout counters, and as colorful as a Fisher-Price toy, is a not-so-serious-looking power tool: a battery-operated saw-and-drill combination. And if you don't want to do it yourself, head to Aisle 23 or Aisle 35, where a help desk will arrange for an installer.

It's all very handy stuff, I guess, a convenient way to be a do-it-yourselfer without being all that good with tools. But at a time when the American factory seems to be a shrinking presence, and when good manufacturing jobs have vanished, perhaps never to return, there is something deeply troubling about this dilution of American craftsmanship.

This isn't a lament (伤感) - or not merely a lament - for bygone times. It's a social and cultural issue, as well as an economic one. The Home Depot approach to craftsmanship -simplify it, dumb it down, hire a contractor - is one signal that mastering tools and working with one's hands is receding in America as a hobby, as a valued skill, as a cultural influence that shaped thinking and behavior in vast sections of the country.

That should be a matter of concern in a presidential election year. Yet neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney promotes himself as tool-savvy (使用工具很在行的) presidential timber, in the mold of a Jimmy Carter, a skilled carpenter and cabinet maker.

The Obama administration does worry publicly about manufacturing, a first cousin of craftsmanship. When the Ford Motor Company, for example, recently announced that it was bringing some production home, the White House cheered. "When you see things like Ford moving new production from Mexico to Detroit, instead of the other way around, you know things are changing," says Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council.

Ask the administration or the Republicans or most academics why America needs more manufacturing, and they respond that manufacturing gives birth to innovation, brings down the trade deficit, strengthens the dollar, generates jobs, arms the military and brings about a recovery from recession. But rarely, if ever, do they publicly take the argument a step further, asserting that a growing manufacturing sector encourages craftsmanship and that craftsmanship is, if not a birthright, then a vital ingredient of the American self-image as a can-do, inventive, we-can-make-anything people.

Traditional vocational training in public high schools is gradually declining, stranding thousands of young people who seek training for a craft without going to college. Colleges, for their part, have since 1985 graduated fewer chemical, mechanical, industrial and metallurgical (冶金的) engineers, partly in response to the reduced role of manufacturing, a big employer of them.

The decline started in the 1950s, when manufacturing generated a sturdy 28% of the national income, or gross domestic product, and employed one-third of the workforce. Today, factory output generates just 12% of G.D.P. and employs barely 9% of the nation's workers.

Mass layoffs and plant closings have drawn plenty of headlines and public debate over the years, and they still occasionally do. But the damage to skill and craftsmanship- that's needed to build a complex airliner or a tractor, or for a worker to move up from assembler to machinist to supervisor - went largely unnoticed.

"In an earlier generation, we lost our connection to the land, and now we are losing our connection to the machinery we depend on," says Michael Hout, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley. "People who work with their hands," he went on, "are doing things today that we call service jobs, in restaurants and laundries, or in medical technology and the like."

That's one explanation for the decline in traditional craftsmanship. Lack of interest is another. The big money is in fields like finance. Starting in the 1980s, skill in finance grew in importance, and, as depicted in the news media and the movies, became a more appealing source of income.

By last year, Wall Street traders, bankers and those who deal in real estate generated 21% of the national income, double their share in the 1950s. And Warren Buffett, the good-natured financier, became a homespun folk hero, without the tools and overalls (工作服).

"Young people grow up without developing the skills to fix things around the house," says Richard Curtin, director of the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. "They know about computers, of course, but they don't know how to build them."

Manufacturing's shrinking presence undoubtedly helps explain the decline in craftsmanship, if only because many of the nation's assembly line workers were skilled in craft work, if not on the job then in their spare time. In a late 1990s study of blue-collar employees at a General Motors plant (now closed) in Linden, N. J., the sociologist Ruth Milkman of City University of New York found that many line workers, in their off-hours, did home renovation and other skilled work.

"I have often thought," Ms. Milkman says, "that these extracurricular jobs were an effort on the part of the workers to regain their dignity after suffering the degradation of repetitive assembly line work in the factory."

Craft work has higher status in nations like Germany, which invests in apprenticeship (学徒) programs for high school students. "Corporations in Germany realized that there was an interest to be served economically and patriotically in building up a skilled labor force at home; we never had that ethos (风气)," says Richard Sennett, a New York University sociologist who has written about the connection of craft and culture.

The damage to American craftsmanship seems to parallel the steep slide in manufacturing employment. Though the decline started in the 1970s, it became much steeper beginning in 2000. Since then, some 5.3 million jobs, or one-third of the workforce in manufacturing, have been lost. A stated goal of the Obama administration is to restore a big chunk of this employment, along with the multitude of skills that many of the jobs required.

As for craftsmanship itself, the issue is how to preserve it as a valued skill in the general population. Ms. Milkman, the sociologist, argues that American craftsmanship isn't disappearing as quickly as some would argue - that it has instead shifted to immigrants. "Pride in craft, it is alive in the immigrant world," she says.

Sol Axelrod, 37, the manager of the Home Depot here, fittingly learned to fix his own car as a teenager, even changing the brakes. Now he finds immigrant craftsmen gathered in abundance outside his store in the early morning, waiting for it to open so they can buy supplies for the day's work as contractors. Skilled day laborers, also mostly immigrants, wait quietly in hopes of being hired by the contractors.

Mr. Axelrod also says the recession and persistently high unemployment have forced many people to try to save money by doing more themselves, and Home Depot in response offers classes in fixing water taps and other simple repairs. The teachers are store employees, many of them older and semi-retired from a skilled trade, or laid off.

"Our customers may not be building cabinets or outdoor decks; we try to do that for them," Mr. Axelrod says, "but some are trying to build up skill so they can do more for themselves in these hard times."

注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。

1. How did the author feel looking at the scene inside the Home Depot?

A) He felt proud that he was a do-it-youselfer himself.

B) He was inspired by the way the wares were displayed.

C) He felt troubled about the weakening of American craftsmanship.

D) He was happy to see the return of the do-it-yourself spirit in America.

2. What does the author think of mastering tools and working with one's hands?

A) It shapes people's thinking and behavior.

B) It is no longer important in modern times.

C) It helps politicians connect with workmen.

D) It is essential to advanced manufacturing.

3. How did the White House respond to Ford's announcement to bring some production back to America?

A) It worried publicly. B) It felt much relieved.

C) It made no comment. D) It welcomed the decision.

4. How does the author view manufacturing?

A) It encourages craftsmanship. B) It is vital to national defense.

C) It can change the self-image of workers. D) It represents the nation's glorious past.

5. What do we learn about America's manufacturing in the 1950s?

A) It generated just 12% of the gross national income.

B) It constituted 28% of the gross domestic product.

C) It was the biggest employer of American workers.

D) It was the most active sector of American economy.

6. What does the author say is a factor contributing to the decline in traditional craftsmanship?

A) Automation makes it unnecessary to employ too many skilled workers.

B) People can earn more money in fields other than manufacturing.

C) Many people now tend to look down upon working with hands.

D) Young people no longer look upon skill as an important asset.

7. In Ruth Milkman's opinion, many assembly line workers did home renovation and other skilled work in their off-hours in order to _______.

A) save money B) relieve boredom C) regain their dignity D) improve their living conditions

8. Compared with that in America, the status of craft work in Germany is ______________.

9. According to Ruth Milkman, American craftsmanship, instead of disappearing, is being taken up by ______.

10. According to Mr. Axelrod of Home Depot, people are trying to ride out the recession by _____________.

Questions 47 to 51 are based on the following passage.

The central notion of social learning theories is that people learn attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors through social interaction. The learning is a result of reinforcement, imitation, and modeling.

Reinforcement occurs when we receive direct or indirect rewards or punishments for particular gender role behaviors. For example, a little girl who puts on her mother's makeup may be told that she is cute, but her brother who does the same thing will be scolded. Children also learn gender roles through indirect reinforcement. For example, if a little boy's male friends are punished for crying, he will learn that "boys don't cry."

Children also learn to behave as boys or girls through observation and imitation. Even when children are not directly rewarded or punished for "behaving like boys" or "behaving like girls," they learn about gender by watching who does what in their families. A father who is rarely at home because he's always working sends the message that men are supposed to earn money. A mother who is always complaining about being overweight or old sends the message that women are supposed to be thin and young.

Because parents are emotionally important to their children, they are typically a child's most powerful role models. Other role models include caregivers, teachers, friends, and celebrities. According to a multiethnic study of Los Angeles adolescents, teenagers who said that their role model was someone they knew, e. g. a parent, relative, friend, or doctor outside the family, had higher self-esteem, higher grades, and lower substance use than peers whose role models were sports figures, singers, or other media characters. The researchers concluded that role model selection can have a positive ornegative outcome on a teenager's psychosocial development.

Social learning theories contribute to our understanding of why we behave as we do, but much of the emphasis is on early socialization rather than on what occurs throughout life. Thus, these theories don't explain why gender roles can change in adulthood or later life. Social learning theories also don't explain why reinforcement and modeling work for some children but not others, especially those in the same family and even identical twins.

注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2 上作答。

47. According to social learning theories, social interaction is a means by which people acquire _________.

48. We learn from Paragraph 2 that reinforcement, whether direct or indirect, can help increase children's awareness of _________.

49. At home, children usually learn about gender differences by _________ their parents' behavior.

50. Regarding gender role building, social learning theories attach greater importance to socialization in one's childhood than in their __________.

51. There are a few aspects about gender role formation which social learning theories fail to _________.

Section B

Questions 52 to 56 are based on the following passage.

The report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was just as gloomy as anticipated. Unemployment in January jumped to a 16-year high of 7.6 percent, as 598000 jobs were slashed from US payrolls in the worst single-month decline since December, 1974. With 1.8 million jobs lost in the last three months, there is urgent desire to boost the economy as quickly as possible. But Washington would do well to take a deep breath before reacting to the grim numbers.

Collectively, we rely on the unemployment figures and other statistics to frame our sense of reality. They are a vital part of an array of data that we use to assess if we'redoing well or doing badly, and that in turn shapes government policies and corporate budgets and personal spending decisions. The problem is that the statistics aren't an objective measure of reality; they are simply a best approximation. Directionally, they capture the trends, but the idea that we know precisely how many are unemployed is a myth. That makes finding a solution all the more difficult.

First, there is the way the data is assembled. The official unemployment rate is the product of a telephone survey of about 60000 homes. There is another survey, sometimes referred to as the "payroll survey," that assesses 400000 businesses based on their reported payrolls. Both surveys have problems. The payroll survey can easily double-count someone: if you are one person with two jobs, you show up as two workers. The payroll survey also doesn't capture the number of self-employed, and so says little about how many people are generating an independent income.

The household survey has a larger problem. When asked straightforwardly, people tend to lie or shade the truth when the subject is sex, money or employment. If you get a call and are asked if you're employed, and you say yes, you're employed. If you say no, however, it may surprise you to learn that you are only unemployed if you've been actively looking for work in the past four weeks; otherwise, you are "marginally attached to the labor force" and not actually unemployed.

The urge to quantify is embedded in our society. But the idea that statisticians can then capture an objective reality isn't just impossible. It also leads to serious misjudgments. Democrats and Republicans can and will take sides on a number of issues, but a more crucial concern is that both are basing major policy decisions on guesstimates rather than looking at the vast wealth of raw data with a critical eye and an open mind.

52. What do we learn from the first paragraph?

A) The US economic situation is going from bad to worse.

B) Washington is taking drastic measures to provide more jobs.

C) The US government is slashing more jobs from its payrolls.

D) The recent economic crisis has taken the US by surprise.

53. What does the author think of the unemployment figures and other statistics?

A) They form a solid basis for policy making. B) They represent the current situation.

C) They signal future economic trends. D) They do not fully reflect the reality.

54. One problem with the payroll survey is that ________.

A) it does not include all the businesses B) it fails to count in the self-employed

C) it magnifies the number of the jobless D) it does not treat all companies equally

55. The household survey can be faulty in that ________.

A) people tend to lie when talking on the phone

B) not everybody is willing or ready to respond

C) some people won't provide truthful information

D) the definition of unemployment is too broad

56. At the end of the passage, the author suggests that ________.

A) statisticians improve their data assembling methods

B) decision makers view the statistics with a critical eye

C) politicians listen more before making policy decisions

D) Democrats and Republicans cooperate on crucial issues

Passage Two

At some point in 2008, someone, probably in either Asia or Africa, made the decision to move from the countryside to the city. This nameless person pushed the human race over a historic threshold, for it was in that year that mankind became, for the first time in its history, a predominantly urban species.

It is a trend that shows no sign of slowing. Demographers (人口统计学者) reckon that three-quarters of humanity could be city-dwelling by 2050, with most of the increase coming in the fast-growing towns of Asia and Africa. Migrants to cities are attracted by plentiful jobs, access to hospitals and education, and the ability to escape the boredom of a farmer's agricultural life. Those factors are more than enough to make up for the squalor (肮脏), disease and spectacular poverty that those same migrants must often at first endure when they become urban dwellers.

It is the city that inspires the latest book from Peter Smith. His main thesis is that the buzz of urban life, and the opportunities it offers for co-operation and collaboration, is what attracts people to the city, which in turn makes cities into the engines of art, commerce, science and progress. This is hardly revolutionary, but it is presented in a charming format. Mr. Smith has written a breezy guidebook, with a series of short chapters dedicated to specific aspects of urbanity - parks, say, or the various schemes that have been put forward over the years for building the perfect city. The result is a sort of high-quality, unusually rigorous coffee-table book, designed to be dipped into ratherthan read from beginning to end.

In the chapter on skyscrapers, for example, Mr. Smith touches on construction methods, the revolutionary invention of the automatic lift, the practicalities of living in the sky and the likelihood that, as cities become more crowded, apartment living will become the norm. But there is also time for brief diversions onto bizarre ground, such as a discussion of the skyscraper index (which holds that a boom in skyscraper construction is a foolproof sign of an imminent recession).

One obvious criticism is that the price of breadth is depth; many of Mr. Smith's essays raise as many questions as they answer. Although that can indeed be frustrating, this is probably the only way to treat so grand a topic. The city is the building block of civilisation and of almost everything people do; a guidebook to the city is really, therefore, a guidebook to how a large and ever-growing chunk of humanity chooses to live. Mr. Smith's book serves as an excellent introduction to a vast subject, and will suggest plenty of further lines of inquiry.

57. In what way is the year 2008 historic?

A) For the first time in history, urban people outnumbered rural people.

B) An influential figure decided to move from the countryside to the city.

C) It is in this year that urbanisation made a start in Asia and Africa.

D) The population increase in cities reached a new peak in Asia and Africa.

58. What does the author say about urbanisation?

A) Its impact is not easy to predict. B) Its process will not slow down.

C) It is a milestone in human progress. D) It aggravates the squalor of cities.

59. How does the author comment on Peter Smith's new book?

A) It is but an ordinary coffee-table book.

B) It is flavoured with humourous stories.

C) It serves as a guide to arts and commerce.

D) It is written in a lively and interesting style.

60. What does the author say in the chapter on skyscrapers?

A) The automatic lift is indispensable in skyscrapers.

B) People enjoy living in skyscrapers with a view.

C) Skyscrapers are a sure sign of a city's prosperity.

D) Recession closely follows a skyscraper boom.

61. What may be one criticism of Mr. Smith's book?

A) It does not really touch on anything serious.

B) It is too long for people to read from cover to cover.

C) It does not deal with any aspect of city life in depth.

D) It fails to provide sound advice to city dwellers.