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For the first century or so of the Industrial Revolution, increased productivity led to decreases in working hours. A generation

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问题     For the first century or so of the Industrial Revolution, increased productivity led to decreases in working hours. A generation ago social planners worried about what people would do with all this new-found free time. In the US, at least, it seems they need not have bothered.
    Although the output per hour of work has more than doubled since 1945, leisure(freetime)seems reserved largely for the unemployed. Those who work full-time spend as much time on the job as they did at the end of World War II. In fact, working hours have increased noticeably since 1970.
    There are several reasons for lost leisure. Since 1979, companies have responded to improvements in the business climate by having employees work overtime rather than by hiring extra personnel. Most increased production doesn’t relate to the employment. Some firms are even downsizing as their profits climb. It’s more profitable to ask 40 employees to labor an extra hour each than to hire one more worker to do the same 40-hour job.
    Although employees complain about long hours, they, too, have reasons not to trade money for leisure. People who work reduced hours pay a huge price in career terms. It’s taken as a negative(负面的)signal about their commitment to the firm. Many managers find it difficult to measure the contribution of their staff to a firm’s well-being, so they use the number of working hours instead of the output to evaluate the employees. Well aware of this, employees adjust their behavior accordingly.
    It may take some time before workers can successfully trade increased productivity and money for leisure time. The reality is that the U.S. market for goods has focused on fulltime, two-career households. Car makers no longer produce cheap models, and developers do not build the tiny bungalows that served the first postwar generation of house seekers.
    In a word, in U.S., goods are appropriate only for high incomes and long hours.
It can be inferred from the text that______.
选项 A、employees are facing a reduction in working hours today
B、increased leisure time would benefit two-career households
C、companies have no set standard to evaluate their staff
D、high incomes don’t guarantee Americans enough leisure time
答案B
解析 现在工人的空闲时间越来越少，工作时间相应就变长，A错误；公司通过工作时间的长短代替工人产出来评价一个员工，C不符；文章最后一段话说明商品是为高收入和有长时间的人准备的，D错误。故选B。
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