题目内容

Labor Force
The labor force is the part of a nation's population that works for pay or that is looking for a paying job. In 1800, the United States had about 2 million people in its labor force. Most of them worked on farms, most of whom were men. In 1993, about 130 million Americans were in the labor force. 96 million workers were found in large cities, 46 percent of whom were women.
New Kinds of Jobs
In the twentieth century, the U. S. labor force has undergone many changes. One of the most significant of these changes is in the decline in the number of blue collar jobs and the rise in the number of white-collar jobs.
A blue-collar job involves manual or outdoor labor. Blue-collar workers include factory assemblers and welders; carpenters, plumbers(水暖工), mechanics, and painters; construction workers, and truck drivers. Although the number of blue-collar workers increased in the twentieth century, the future will see a declining need for such workers. Some of their jobs will be taken over by advanced automated and computerized machinery that can do certain blue-collar jobs more quickly and efficiently than people can. In contrast, a white-collar job involves work that is not chiefly manual. For example, white collar workers include accountants, engineers, teachers, lawyers, and sales personnel. In 1900, white collar workers made up about 20 percent of the labor force; today, 67 percent of all American wage earners hold white collar jobs. Advances in computer technology have created many new white-collar jobs, such as those in programming and information processing. These changes will continue to dramatically change the nature of existing jobs.
The Rise of Women in the Labor Force
Until 1940, the opportunities for women to hold jobs were limited. Prejudice and discrimination(歧视)against women forced many of them to find employment as teachers, nurses, and secretaries. In 1940, women held only 25 percent of the jobs.
World War Ⅱ-1941 through 1945-brought about many changes in the labor force. Men were drafted to serve in the armed forces of the United States. At the same time, the country needed labor to keep factories running at full production to support the war effort. As a result, women were suddenly needed and hired even though they had been previously excluded from such jobs. Women not only repaired airplanes and land vehicles, but they also drove trucks, operated radios and ma chinery, and did clerical work.
During the war years, the percentage of women in the labor force rose from 25 percent to 35 percent. Married women, many of whose husbands were in the armed forces, made up the greatest number of new women workers. In 1940, fewer than half of working women were single, but by 1945 a majority of women workers were married. By the end of the war, one out of every three workers in industry and business was a woman.
The Postwar Years
After the war, the men who returned from the armed forces went back to the same jobs they had held prior to the war. As a result, many women lost their wartime jobs. However, not all the women who had held jobs for the first time returned to their former roles as homemakers. Women had proved they could do these jobs well. As a result, the traditional barriers against the employment of women in such industries as steel and shipbuilding started to disappear. As the postwar prosperity continued, new positions became available for the returning men and for the many women workers now in the labor force.
Many women found that they enjoyed not only employment outside their homes but also the benefits of paying jobs. Many women were beginning to see work as a permanent part of their lives. By earning their own income, they became less dependent and more self-sufficient. Their independence gave them new choices and made them aware of a wider range of roles a

A. Y
B. N
C. NG

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A.Lowering the prices of their newspapers.B.Shortening their news stories.C.Adding var

A. Lowering the prices of their newspapers.
B. Shortening their news stories.
C. Adding variety news stories.
D. Increasing more advertisements in their newspapers.

During World War Ⅱ, some jobs which previously excluded women were open to them.

A. Y
B. N
C. NG

Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.
To get a chocolate out of a box requires a considerable amount of unpacking: the box has to be taken out of the paper bag in which it arrived, the cellophane (玻璃纸) wrapper has to be torn off, the lid opened and the paper removed, the chocolate itself then has to be unwrapped from its own piece of paper. But this overuse of wrapping is not confined to luxuries. It is now becoming increasingly difficult to buy anything that is not done up in beautiful wrapping.
The package itself is of no interest to the shopper, who usually throws it away immediately. Useless wrapping accounts for much of the refuse put out by the average London household each week. So why is it done? Some of it, like the cellophane on meat, is necessary, but most of the rest is simply competitive selling. This is absurd. Packaging is using up scarce energy and resources and messing up the environment.
Recycling is already happening with milk bottles which are returned to the dairies, washed out, and refilled. But both glass and paper are being threatened by the growing use of plastic. More dairies are experimenting with plastic packs.
Tile trouble with plastic is that it does not rot. Some environ mentalists argue that the only solution to the problem of ever increasing plastic containers is to do away with plastic altogether in the shops, a suggestion unacceptable to many manufacturers who say there is no alternative to their handy plastic packs.
It is evident that more research is needed into the recovery and reuse of various materials and into the cost of colleting and recycling containers as opposed to producing new ones. Unnecessary packaging, intended to be used just once, and make things look better so more people will buy them, is clearly becoming increasingly absurd. But it is not so much a question of doing away with packaging as using it sensibly. What is needed now is a more advanced approach to using scarce resources for what is, after all, a relatively unimportant function.
"... this overuse of wrapping is not confined to luxuries" (Sentence 2, Paragraph 1) means ______.

A. more wrapping is needed for ordinary products
B. more wrapping is used for luxuries than for ordinary products
C. too much wrapping is used for both luxury and ordinary products
D. the wrapping used for luxury products is unnecessary

A.He will see his parentsB.He will see a doctorC.He will see Professor BrownD.He will

A. He will see his parents
B. He will see a doctor
C. He will see Professor Brown
D. He will see Dean Williams

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