2011年3月中口阅读第四篇 惊现03年原题原文

2011年3月中级口译阅读第四篇

The strange fact is that the last hundred years have seen not only the dehumanizing of manual work, with the introduction of mass-production methods and scientific management, and a consequent reduction in the satisfaction which an individual can derive from the performance of a skilled craft, but also universal acceptance of the idea that everyone ought to work, even though they may have no absolute economic necessity to do so. Even those fortunate enough to inherit great wealth have been unable to resist the prevailing climate of opinion and a large proportion of those who suddenly find that they no longer have to work, after winning a lottery or the football pools, now choose to continue working, finding it too difficult to sustain a lifestyle which is not built around some form of work.

I don't think that we should be unduly impressed by surveys which claim to show that the vast majority of workers, even in what appear to be the most soul-destroying jobs, actually enjoy their work: the workers' response may just indicate that they are happy to be doing any job at all, rather that a positive feeling about their particular work. But we do seem to have reached a position where people prefer to work rather than not to work, and the reasons for this are complicated by the fact that different people look for different sorts of rewards, while different people look for different types of satisfaction in their work. A basic tenet of the scientific management pioneered by Frederick Winslow Taylor at the end of the 19th century was that man the worker was a rational, economic creature, motivated only by his pay-packet. As the original Henry Ford put it, 'The average worker wants a job into which he does not have to put much physical effort. Above all, he wants a job in which he does not have to think,' What Ford thought the average worker did want can be deduced from the fact that he paid his workers a minimum wage which was more than twice the national average.

Money is certainly an effective motivator, but it is not the only reason why we work. There is no doubt that the economic motive can be overridden by other considerations: for example, even when they are being paid according to individual productivity, people tend to work at the same pace as those around them, and a number of studies have shown that the output of a team may actually fall when it gains a new member who refuses to accept the group norm and works at a faster rate. Being accepted as a member of a stable working group brings its own social reward, which may explain why many workers have mixed feelings about technological advances that remove them from the noise and dirt of the shop floor and leave them in splendid isolation, in charge of a machine which can carry out the tedious work they formerly did. It may also account for the behaviour of people who choose to work even though there is no economic necessity for them to do so-after all, it is not easy to be a playboy when there are so few people to play with!

16. Which of the following statements is NOT true, according to the passage?
　　（A） Scientific management has made it necessary for everyone to work.
　　（B） Mass production methods offer less job satisfaction for skilled workers.
　　（C） What the average worker wants to get from his job is the pay-packet.
　　（D） Wealthy people choose to work because they feel uneasy about not working.

17. Men like Taylor and Ford believed that the vast majority of workers _________.
　　（A） enjoy their work
　　（B） work only for money
　　（C） enjoy the companionship of those around them
　　（D） work for different purposes

18. All of the following are reasons why people work EXCEPT _________.
　　（A） economic benefits （B） a sense of belonging to a group
　　（C） technological development （D） social rewards

19. In the last paragraph, the phrase "shop floor" is best interpreted as the _________.
　　（A） board for placing a machine
　　（B） management in a factory
　　（C） factory area where products are made
　　（D） store where products are sold

20. The purpose of the article is _________.
　　（A） to criticize the invention of machines which make workers jobless
　　（B） to explain why people want to work irrespective of their economic status
　　（C） to question the necessity for people who can afford not to work to do so
　　（D） to compare the motivations of the poor workers with those of the rich people