Text 1
Get ready for the second act of the grand drama we call globalization. The 1980’s opened with a massive manufacturing migration from industrialized countries to the Third World that accelerates to this day. This decade is witnessing a second huge shift, this time in services, with white-collar professional jobs following the same blue-collar migratory routes to Asia and elsewhere.
We believe that the latest iteration(=repetition) in the evolution of the global economy will generate more growth for everyone over time as countries focus their abilities on doing what they do best. But the adjustment may well be painful for those middle-class Americans and Europeans who see their jobs in software writing, chip design, architecture, and accounting move to India, China, Israel, Russia, and the Philippines. If the migration of services is not intervened in by good growth-promoting government policy, there is a serious risk that the anti-globalization forces will gain an army of jobless white-collar recruits.
The dimensions of service shift are only just beginning to come into focus. We can discern the trend but not the strength or size of the move. The collapse of the tech bubble and the weak recovery are leading a growing number of U.S. bank, insurance, credit card, accounting, investment banking, high-tech, engineering, and design companies to outsource white-collar work.
This is likely to prove to be more than just a cyclical phenomenon. The Internet, digitization, the spread of white-collar skills abroad, and the big cost savings of outsourcing will probably make the shift of services a permanent feature of economic life. The good news is that flinging off of commodity-like service work will increase the profits and efficiency of American corporations and set the stage for the next big growth-generating breakthrough. Innovation is the driving force of the U.S. economy, not mass production of low-value goods or services. The painful loss of manufacturing in the 1970s and 1980s paved the way to the high-tech gains of the 1990s. The same forces are at work today.
For their part, India, China, and other countries are gaining large numbers of well-paying jobs, expanding the middle class, and reducing poverty. As a result, China is emerging as a locomotive to world growth. American exports to China in November 2003 were up 30% year-over-year at an annual rate of $24 billion, matching what the U.S. exports to France.
The U.S. must act without hesitation. It should do what it has done in the past – move up the value-added ladder to create new products and services. That means promoting better education, completing the job of reforming the capital market, and reducing business and investor risk at home and abroad. If it can restart the growth engine, the U.S. has nothing to fear from the great white-collar migration. If it doesn’t, there may be serious trouble ahead. (468 words)
Notes: migration n. 遷移。may well 很可能。intervene in 干預(yù)。come into focus (=become clearly seen) 變得清晰、明確或?qū)式裹c。outsource使…源源不斷流出;把…外包。 fling off脫掉,甩掉,逃脫。set the stage for為…準備條件。
1. Globalization of the current decade proves to be __________.
A. a dramatic event resulting in serious economic problems B. a massive transfer of manual workers from West to East
B. identical to the previous movement in scale and value D. sending upscale jobs off the highly-developed countries
2. The white-collar migration may lead to __________.
A. rapid progress in manufacturing industry B. sufferings for U.S. technical professionals
C. great advances in information technology D. forceful intervention by the government
3. In consequence of the burst of the tech bubble, many companies are __________.
A. shifting well-paying jobs to the developing countries B. exporting well-trained and experienced workers
C. exhausting the sources of service-job supply D. undermining the healthy basis of employment
4. The move of services may be beneficial to developed countries, for it __________.
A. throws off the heavy burden of service duties B. prevents the production of low-value goods
C. makes conditions ready for new breakthroughs D. drives corporations to pursue the biggest profits
5. In order to get over the difficulties caused by service shift, __________.
A. developed countries have to check their exports B. the U.S. should act as it did during the last shift
C. the middle class must receive further education D. financial firms are to escape investment risks
Text 2
Human relations have commanded people’s attention from early times. The ways of people have been recorded in innumerable myths, folktales, novels, poems, plays, and popular or philosophical essays. Although the full significance of a human relationship may not be directly evident, the complexity of feelings and actions that can be understood at a glance is surprisingly great. For this reason psychology holds a unique position among the sciences.
“Intuitive” knowledge may be remarkably penetrating and can significantly help us understand human behavior whereas in the physical sciences such commonsense knowledge is relatively primitive. If we erased all knowledge of scientific physics from our world, not only would we not have cars and television sets, we might even find that the ordinary person was unable to cope with the fundamental mechanical problems of pulleys and levers. On the other hand, if we removed all knowledge of scientific psychology from our world, problems in interpersonal relations might easily be coped with and solved much as before. We would still “know” how to avoid doing something asked of us and how to get someone to agree with us; we would still “know” when someone was angry and when someone was pleased. One could even offer sensible explanations for the “whys” of much of the self’s behavior and feelings. In other words, the ordinary person has a great and profound understanding of the self and of other people which, though unformulated or only vaguely conceived, enables one to interact with others in more or less adaptive ways. Kohler in referring to the lack of great discoveries in psychology as compared with physics, accounts for this by saying that “people were acquainted with practically all territories of mental life a long time before the founding of scientific psychology.”
Paradoxically, with all this natural, intuitive, commonsense capacity to grasp human relations, the science of human relations had been one of the last to develop. Different explanations of this paradox have been suggested. One is that science would destroy the vain and pleasing illusions people have about themselves; but we might ask why people have always loved to read pessimistic, debunking writings, from Ecclesiastes to Freud. It has also been proposed that just because we know so much about people intuitively, there has been less incentive for studying them scientifically: why should one develop a theory, carry out systematic observations, or make predictions about the obvious? In any case, the field of human relations, with its vast literary documentation but meager scientific treatment, is in great contrast to the field of physics in which there are relatively few nonscientific books. (435 words)
注:command vt. 博得;命令。account for 解釋,說明。paradoxically反常的是。illusion 幻想。debunking暴露真相的。 Ecclesiastes 圣經(jīng)傳道書。Freud 弗洛伊德(譖意識論)。incentive刺激,激勵。meager 貧乏的。scientific treatment科學闡述。
1. The author’s statement that “psychology holds a unique position among the sciences” (line 4) is supported by the claim
that ______________.
A. the full meaning of a human relationship may not be obvious
B. commonsense understanding of human relations can be clear and precise
C. intuitive knowledge in the physical sciences is relatively advanced
D. subjective bias is difficult to control in psychological research
2. It can be inferred that when it comes to people who lived before the coming of scientific psychology, the author would
most likely agree that _______________.
A. their understanding of human relations was quite limited
B. they were uninterested in acquiring knowledge of the physical world
C. they misunderstood others more frequently than do people today
D. their intuitions about human relations were reasonably sophisticated
3. The author refers to people who are attracted to “pessimistic, debunking writing “ (line 4, the last paragraph) in order to
support the idea that ______________.
A. interesting books about human relations are typically pessimistic
B. people tend to ignore scientific explanations of human relations
C. people rarely hold pleasing illusions about themselves
D. it is doubtful that the science of human relations developed slowly because of a desire to maintain pleasing illusions
4. It can be inferred that the author assumes that commonsense knowledge of human relations is _______________.
A. usually sufficiently accurate to facilitate interactions with others
B. equally well developed among all adults within a given society
C. biased insofar as it is based on myths and folktales
D. typically unrelated to an individual’s interactions with other people
5. According to the text, it has also been suggested that the science of human relations was slow to develop because .
A. intuitive knowledge of human relations is derived from philosophy
B. early scientists were more interested in the physical world
C. scientific studies of human relations appear to investigate the obvious
D. the scientific method is difficult to apply to the study of human relations
Word Study
1. 詞匯辨異:sensible,sensitive, sensational, sentimental
sensible 明智的,通情達理的;可覺察的,明顯的:1) She felt this was the sensible way out of this embarrassing situation. (她覺得這是擺脫這種尷尬局面的明智出路。) 2) Why don’t you do something sensible in your spare time? (你為什么在空余時間不做一點有實際意義的事呢?) 3) I am sensible of his danger. (我能覺察到他的危險。) 4) Her grief was sensible from her manner. (從她的舉止可以明顯看到她的悲痛。)
同根詞:sensibly 明智地,有頭腦地。sensibility 感應(yīng)能力:She has an unusual sensibility for colors.
sensitive 敏感的;靈敏的:1) Mr. Povey was exceedingly sensitive to personal criticisms. (Povey先生對個人評論十分敏感。) 2) A sensitive person is one who is easily hurt or offended by things that people do or say. (一個敏感的人往往很容易被別人的所作所為所傷害或冒犯。) 3) A sensitive instrument is one that will measure very small quantities. (一種靈敏的儀器是能測出微小數(shù)量的儀器。)
sensational 造成轟動的,帶刺激性的,令人吃驚的:1) A sensational story is one likely to excite people.(一個聳人聽聞的故事是一個可以激動人心的故事。) 2) There were sensational developments in this murder case.
同根詞:sensation 知覺,感覺;轟動:1) After the accident he had no sensation in his left thumb. (這次事故以后他的左手拇指失去知覺。) 2) The news created a great sensation. (這個消息產(chǎn)生了巨大轟動。)
sentimental 傷感的,易動感情的:1) She gets sentimental whenever she thinks of her childhood. (每當她想起她的童年,她變得非常傷感。) 2) Sentimental movies always make me cry.(動情的電影常使我哭泣。)
2. conceive vt./vi. 想出,想到:1) Who first conceived the idea of filling bags with gas to make balloons? (誰首先想到向口袋
充氣來制造氣球?) 2) We could not conceive that they would do such a silly thing.(我們無法想象他們會做出這樣一件蠢事。)
用于成語:conceive of 想象,考慮:1) They could not conceive of the possibility of failure. 2) I refuse to conceive of such a solution to our problem.
同根詞:conceivable adj. 可以想象出的:There is no conceivable way to raise ten thousand dollars. (想不出辦法來籌集一萬美元。)
3. interact (inter + act) 相互作用(with sth. ),互動;相互交往(with sb.)。
同根詞:interaction相互作用,相互交往;interactive(計算機用語)人機對話的,交互式的。[2004年試題RC I]
Text 3
The media can impact current events. As a graduate student at Berkeley in the 1960s, I remember experiencing the events related to the People’s Park that were occurring on campus. Some of these events were given national media coverage in the press and on TV. I found it interesting to compare my impressions of what was going on with perceptions obtained from the news media. I could begin to see events of that time feed on news coverage. This also provided me with some healthy insights into the distinctions between these realities.
Electronic media are having a greater impact on the people’s lives every day. People gather more and more of their impressions from representations. Television and telephone communications are linking people to a global village, or what one writer calls the electronic city. Consider the information that television brings into your home every day. Consider also the contact you have with others simply by using telephone. These media extend your consciousness and your contact. For example, the video coverage of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake focused on “l(fā)ive action” such as the fires or the rescue efforts. This gave the viewer the impression of total disaster. Television coverage of the Iraqi War also developed an immediacy. CNN reported events as they happened. This coverage was distributed worldwide. Although most people were far away from these events, they developed some perception of these realities.
In 1992, many people watched in horror as riots broke out on a sad Wednesday evening in Los Angeles, seemingly fed by video coverage from helicopters. This event was triggered by the verdict in the Rodney King beating. We are now in an age where the public can have access to information that enables it to make its own judgments, and most people, who had seen the video of this beating, could not understand how the jury was able to acquit the policemen involved. Media coverage of events as they occur also provides powerful feedback that influences events. This can have harmful results, as it seemed on that Wednesday night in Los Angeles. By Friday night the public got to see Rodney King on television pleading, ‘Can we all get along?” By Saturday, television seemed to provide positive feedback as the Los Angeles riot turned out into a rally for peace. The television showed thousands of people marching with banners and cleaning tools. Because of that, many more people turned out to join the peaceful event they saw unfolding on television. The real healing, of course, will take much longer, but electronic media will continue to be a part of that process. (436 words)
Notes:media coverage 媒體報導(dǎo)。feed on 以…為食物,以…為能源,以…為來源。
1. The best title for the text would be ____________.
A. Positive Aspects of Media Reports B. How Media Cover Events at Present
C. The 1992 Los Angeles Riots and Their Causes D. The Strong Effect of Media on Current Events
2. All the following statements are true except _____________.
A. electronic media can extend one’s contact with the world
B. all the events occurring on the university campus at Berkeley were given national media coverage
C. video coverage of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake gave the viewers the impression of total disaster
D. those living far away from a certain event can also have some perception of realities by watching television
3. The term “electronic city” in Paragraph 2 refers to _____________.
A. Berkeley B. Earth C. Los Angeles D. San Francisco
4. The 1992 Los Angeles riots broke out because _____________.
A. video coverage from helicopters had made people angry
B. video coverage had provided powerful feedback
C. the jury proclaimed the policemen involved innocent
D. people there were not satisfied with policemen involved
5. It can be inferred from the text that _____________.
A. the 1992 Los Angeles riots lasted a whole week
B. most people hesitated to side with the verdict of the jury
C. media coverage of events as they occur can have good or bad results
D. Rodney King seemed very angry when he appeared on television on Friday
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