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  3. In an essay, entitled "Making It in America," in the latest issue of The Atlantic, the author Adam Davidson relates a joke from

In an essay, entitled "Making It in America," in the latest issue of The Atlantic, the author Adam Davidson relates a joke from

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问题     In an essay, entitled "Making It in America," in the latest issue of The Atlantic, the author Adam Davidson relates a joke from cotton country about just how much a modern textile mill has been automated: The average mill has only two employees today, " a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to keep the man away from the machines. "
    Davidson’s article is one of a number of pieces that have recently appeared making the point that the reason we have such stubbornly high unemployment and sagging middle-class incomes today is largely because of the big drop in demand because of the Great Recession, but it is also because of the quantum advances in both globalization and the information technology revolution, which are more rapidly than ever replacing labor with machines or foreign workers.
    Yes, new technology has been eating jobs forever, and always will. As they say, if horses could have voted, there never would have been cars. But there’s been an acceleration. As Davidson notes, " In the 10 years ending in 2009, factories shed workers so fast that roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs—about 6 million in total—disappeared. "
    Besides, what the new technology won’t do in an above average way a Chinese worker will. Consider this paragraph from an article in The Times about why Apple does so much of its manufacturing in China: "Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly-line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the Chinese plant near midnight. A foreman immediately roused 8.000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. ’ The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,’ the executive said. ’ There’s no American plant that can match that.’"
    There will always be change—new jobs, new products, new services. But the one thing we know for sure is that with each advance in globalization and the I. T. revolution, the best jobs will require workers to have more and better education to make themselves above average. Here are the latest unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for Americans over 25 years old: those with less than a high school degree, 13. 8 percent; those with a high school degree and no college, 8. 7 percent; those with some college or associate degree, 7. 7 percent; and those with bachelor’s degree or higher, 4.1 percent.
    In a world where average is officially over, there are many things we need to do to buttress employment, but nothing would be more important than passing some kind of G. I. Bill for the 21st century that ensures that every American has access to post-high school education.
The joke quoted in Paragraph 1 is used to highlight______.
选项 A、the interdependence between human being and animal
B、the labor redundancy caused by machinery production
C、the degree of automation in manufacturing industry
D、the subordinate role human being played nowadays in manufacturing
答案C
解析 文章第一段以一则笑话引入，这个笑话的内容是，如今，一家普通纺织厂只有两名员工，“一人，一狗。人负责喂狗，狗负责让人远离机器”。这则笑话揭示了现代纺织业自动化程度之高。[A]选项明显错误。[B]选项具有一定的迷惑性，这则笑话本身只是说明自动化程度高这个问题，当然自动化程度高有可能会引起劳动力剩余，但是这属于引申含义，并不是这个笑话可以直接反映的内容。[C]选项正确。[D]选项错误，工厂的自动化程度高，但人类并不一定在其中就扮演次要角色，人类还是工厂的控制者。
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