When education fails to keep pace with technology, the result is inequality. Without the skills to stay useful as innovations ar

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问题    When education fails to keep pace with technology, the result is inequality. Without the skills to stay useful as innovations arrive, workers suffer—and if enough of them fall behind, society starts to fail apart. That fundamental insight seized reformers in the Industrial Revolution, promoting state-funded universal schooling. Later, automation in factories and offices called forth a surge in college graduates. The combination of education and innovation, spread over decades, led to a remarkable flowering of prosperity.
   Today robotics and artificial intelligence call for another education revolution. This time, however, working lives are so lengthy and so fast-changing that simply cramming more schooling in at the start is not enough. People must also be able to acquire new skills throughout their careers.
   Unfortunately, as our special report in this issue sets out, the lifelong learning that exists today mainly benefits high achievers and is therefore more likely to aggravate inequality than diminish it. If 21st-century economies are not to create a massive underclass, policymakers urgently need to work out how to help all their citizens learn while they earn. So far, their ambition has fallen pitifully short.
   The classic model of education—a burst at the start and top-ups through company training—is breaking down. One reason is the need for new, and constantly updated, skills. Manufacturing increasingly calls for brain work rather than physical work. The share of the American workforce employed in routine office jobs declined from 25. 5% to 21% between 1996 and 2015. The single, stable career has gone the way of the Rolodex.
   Pushing people into ever-higher levels of formal education at the start of their lives is not the way to cope. Just 16% of Americans think that a four-year college degree prepares students very well for a good job. Although a vocational education promises that vital first hire, those with specialized training tend to withdraw from the labour force earlier than those with general education—perhaps because they are less adaptable.
   At the same time on-the-job training is shrinking. In America and Britain it has fallen by roughly half in the past two decades. Self-employment is spreading, leaving more people to take responsibility for their own skills. Taking time out later in life to pursue a formal qualification is an option, but it costs money and most colleges are geared towards youngsters.
The author’s attitude towards on-the-job training is______.

选项 A、objective
B、favorable
C、pessimistic
D、contradictory

答案A

解析 态度题。根据on-the-job training“在职培训”定位到最后一段首句;第二句it指代的也是on-the-job training;最后一句taking time out later in life to pursue a formal qualification “在年纪较大的时候抽出时间获得一个正规的资质”指的也是“在职培训”,故可以综合这三句得出答案。其中,shrinking“萎缩”,fallen“下降”,costs money“耗费金钱”等为负面词汇,而is an option“是一种选择”则偏向肯定,因此作者对于在职培训的态度偏向客观。选项[A]objective客观的;[B]favorable赞成的;[C]pessimistic悲观的;[D]contradictory矛盾的。显然本题答案为[A]。
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