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D) the transition to automation should be brought about with the minimum of

inconvenience and distress to workers 23. In order to get the full benefits of automation, labour will depend mostly on

________.

A) additional payment to the permanently dismissed workers B) the increase of wages in proportion to the increase in productivity C) shorter working hours and more leisure time D) a strong drive for planning new installations 24. Which of the following can best sum up the passage?

A) Advantages and disadvantages of automation. B) Labour and the effects of automation. C) Unemployment benefit plans and automation. D) Social benefits of automation.

Questions 25 to 30 are based on the following passage. The case for college has been accepted without question for more than a generation. All high school graduates ought to go, says conventional wisdom and statistical evidence, because college will help them earn more money, become “better” people, and learn to be more responsible citizens than those who don’t go. But college has never been able to work its magic for everyone. And now that close to half our high school graduates are attending, those who don’t fit the pattern are becoming more numerous, and more obvious. College graduates are selling shoes and driving taxis; college students interfere with each other’s experiments and write false letters of recommendation in the intense competition for admission to graduate school. Others find no stimulation in their studies, and drop out-often encouraged by college administrators.

Some observers say the fault! Is with the young people themselves-they are spoiled and they are expecting too much. But that’s a condemnation of the students as a whole, and doesn’t explain all campus unhappiness. Others blame the state of the world, and they are partly right. We’ve been told that young people have to go to college because our economy can’t absorb an army of untrained eighteen-year-olds. But disappointed graduates are learning that it can no longer absorb an army of trained twenty-two-year-olds, either.

Some adventuresome educators and campus watchers have openly begun to suggest that college may not be the best, the proper, the only place for every young person after the completion of high school. We may have been looking at all those surveys and statistics upside down, it seems, and through the rosy glow of our own remembered college experiences. Perhaps college doesn’t make people intelligent, ambitious, happy, liberal, quick-learning people are merely the ones who have been attracted to college in the first place. And perhaps all those successful college graduates would have been

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successful whether they had gone to college or not. This is heresy (异端邪说) to those of us who have been brought up to believe that if a little schooling is good, more has to be much better. But contrary evidence is beginning to mount up. 25. According to the passage, the author believes that ________.

A) people used to question the value of college education B) people used to have full confidence in higher education C) all high school graduates went to college

D) very few high school graduates chose to go to college

26. In the 2nd paragraph, “those who don’t fit the pattern” refers to ________. A) high school graduates who aren’t suitable for college education B) college graduates who are selling shoes and driving taxis C) college students who aren’t any better for their higher education D) high school graduates who failed to be admitted to college 27. The drop-out rate of college students seems to go up because ________. A) young people are disappointed with the conventional way of teaching at college B) many young people are required to join the army C) young people have little motivation in pursuing a higher education D) young people don’t like the intense competition for admission to graduate school 28. According to the passage the problems of college education partly arise from the

fact that ________.

A) society cannot provide enough jobs for properly trained college graduates B) high school graduates do not fit the pattern of college education C) too many students have to earn their own living D) college administrators encourage students to drop out 29. In this passage the author argues that ________. A) more and more evidence shows college education may not be the best thing for high school graduates B) college education is not enough if one wants to be successful

C) college education benefits only the intelligent, ambitious, and quick-learning

people D) intelligent people may learn quicker if they don’t go to college

30. The “surveys and statistics” mentioned in the last paragraph might have shown that

________.

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A) college-educated people are more successful than non-college-educated people B) college education was not the first choice of intelligent people C) the less schooling a person has the better it is for him D) most people have sweet memories of college life Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.

Ours has become a society of employees. A hundred years or so ago only one out of every five Americans at work was employed, i.e., worked for somebody else. Today only one out of five is not employed but working for himself. And when fifty years ago “being employed” meant working as a factory labourer or as a farmhand, the employee of today is increasingly a middle-class person with a substantial formal education, holding a professional or management job requiring intellectual and technical skills. Indeed, two things have characterized American society during these fifty years: middle-class and upper-class employees have been the fastest-growing groups in our working population-growing so fast that the industrial worker, that oldest child of the Industrial Revolution, has been losing in numerical importance despite the expansion of industrial production.

Yet you will find little if anything written on what it is to be an employee. You can find a great deal of very dubious advice on how to get a job or how to get a promotion. You can also find a good deal of work in a chosen field, whether it be the mechanist’s trade or bookkeeping (簿记). Every one of these trades requires different skills, sets different standards, and requires a different preparation. Yet they all have employeeship in common. And increasingly, especially in the large business or in government, employeeship is more important to success than the special professional knowledge or skill. Certainly more people fail because they do not know the requirements of being an employee than because they do not adequately possess the skills of their trade; the higher you climb the ladder, the more you get into administrative or executive work, the greater the emphasis on ability to work within the organization rather than on technical abilities or professional knowledge. 31. It is implied that fifty years ago ________. A) eighty per cent of American working people were employed in factories B) twenty per cent of American intellectuals were employees C) the percentage of intellectuals in the total work force was almost the same as that of industrial workers D) the percentage of intellectuals working as employees was not so large as that of

industrial workers 32. According to the passage, with the development of modern industry, ________.

A) factory labourers will overtake intellectual employees in number B) there are as many middle-class employees as factory labourers C) employers have attached great importance to factory labourers

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D) the proportion of factory labourers in the total employee population has

decreased 33. The word “dubious” (L. 2, Para. 2) most probably means ________.

A) valuable B) useful C) doubtful D) helpful

34. According to the writer, professional knowledge or skill is ________.

A) less importance than awareness of being a good employee B) as important as the ability to deal with public relations C) more important than employer-employee relations

D) more important as the ability to co-operate with others in the organization 35. From the passage it can be seen that employeeship helps one ________. A) to be more successful in his career B) to be more specialized in his field C) to solve technical problems D) to develop his professional skill

Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage. We all know that the normal human daily cycle of activity is of some 7-8 hours’ sleep alternation with some 16-17 hours’ wakefulness and that, broadly speaking, the sleep normally coincides with the hours of darkness. Our present concern is with how easily and to what extent this cycle can be modified. The question is no mere academic one. The ease, for example, with which people can change from working in the day to working at night is a question of growing importance in industry where automation calls for round-the-clock working of machines. It normally takes from five days to one week for a person to adapt to reversed routine of sleep and wakefulness, sleeping during the day and working at night. Unfortunately, it is often the case in industry that shifts are changed every week; a person may work from 12 midnight to 8 a.m. one week, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. the next, and 4 p.m. to 12 midnight the third and so on. This means that no sooner has he got used to one routine than he has to change to another, so that much of his time is spent neither working nor sleeping very efficiently.

The only real solution appears to be to hand over the night shift to a number of permanent night workers. An interesting study of the domestic life and health of night-shift workers was carried out by Brown in 1957. She found a high incidence (发生率) of disturbed sleep and other disorders among those on alternating day and night shifts, but no abnormal occurrence of these phenomena among those on permanent night work.