考研英語閱讀理解精讀100篇：Unit 2

Unit 2

The American economy has been shedding jobs for nearly two years, but now comes a sign that the gloom could eventually lift. The Bureau of Labour Statistics released new data on payroll employment on Friday December 4th, and across the board the numbers came in better than had been expected.

Some 11,000 jobs were lost in November, the smallest total since the recession began late in 2007. And despite the continued job losses, the overall unemployment rate fell from 10.2% to 10.0%. So, too, did broader measures of unemployment which include marginally attached workers and those who work only part time (for economic reasons).

The payroll report will leave markets and policymakers happy, for a day at least. Most forecasters had expected that 100,000 jobs, or more, would have been lost, and most thought that the unemployment rate would hold steady or rise. A private employment report for November, which is published just before the official payroll report, showed that nearly 170,000 workers lost their jobs.

None of this means that the troubles are all over, however. The unemployment rate had once before declined in 2009, from June to July, before proceeding to rise for the next three months. A steady decline now will be hard to achieve: one estimate suggests that the American economy needs to add around 150,000 jobs each month just to keep up with population growth.

Employment growth in the economy remains concentrated in just a few sectors. There are encouraging signs in professional and business services; a 52,000 job increase in temporary help services in this category indicates that employers may soon begin creating more permanent positions.（Although by one measure non-manufacturing businesses are losing confidence, according to an index produced by the Institute for Supply Management this week.）Education, health services, and government are the only other sources of employment growth; the manufacturing, construction, and retail sectors continued to cut jobs in November.

That is particularly disappointing given that manufacturing activity has expanded for four consecutive months. More troubling still, the rate of manufacturing expansion declined in November. Increasing activity to data had largely been because of the replenishment of depleted inventories. If this brief spurt of expansion has exhausted itself without creating new jobs, then that bodes ill for recovery in other sources of demand, including consumer spending.

And then there are the ugliest statistics of all. Just over 15m Americans are unemployed, an increase of 8m from the start of the recession. Nearly 6m of those are considered long-term unemployed. Almost 40% of jobless workers have been out of work for 27 weeks or more. Bringing most of these workers back into the labour force will require strong economic growth, of the sort that is unlikely to prevail for at least the next year or so. This unexpectedly sharp decline in lost jobs is a silver lining on an extremely dark cloud.

注（1）：本文選自Economist；

注（2）：本文習題命題模仿對象：第1、3題分別模仿2004年真題Text 1第1、3題，第2題模仿2008年真題Text 4第2題，第4題模仿2014年真題Text 4第4題，第5題模仿2006年真題Text 2第5題。

1. What is America’s current unemployment situation?

A) The unemployment rate remains in a mild decline.

B) The number of job offers has exceeded that of job losses.

C) There still will be many people who are going to lose their jobs.

D) It has met the expectations of the majority of people.

2. We can infer from the second and third paragraphs that ______.

A) the private employment report lacks credibility

B) unemployment rate does not involve all citizens

C) unemployment rate forecast is inaccurate

D) policy-making depends on unemployment rate

3. The word “bodes” (Line 4, Paragraph 6) most probably means ______.

A) brings

B) falls

C) develops

D) foretells

4. Speaking of employment growth, the author implies that ______.

A) economic sectors of employment growth are still limited yet expanding

B) inventory replenishment is a good chance of providing more jobs

C) the prospect of an overall employment growth remains gloomy

D) the difficulty of demand recovery impedes the creation of new jobs

5. We can draw a conclusion from the text that ______.

A) the unexpectedly sharp decline in lost jobs paves the way for general optimism

B) the unemployment rate fluctuates dramatically in economic recession

C) it is still uncertain whether the November unemployment rate is a good sign

D) unemployment rate is expected to continually drop in the following months

篇章剖析

本文介紹了美國的失業(yè)情況。前三段根據(jù)就業(yè)報告說明了美國當前的失業(yè)率狀況并非如人們擔心的那樣糟糕；第四至六段筆鋒一轉(zhuǎn)，進行了深度的分析，說明報告并不預(yù)示著美國經(jīng)濟已經(jīng)完全回升向好，依然有很多部門的情況不容樂觀；最后一段更進一步說明了美國經(jīng)濟存在的潛在困難，并由此得出了較為悲觀的結(jié)論：失業(yè)情況仍然非常嚴峻、不容樂觀。

詞匯注釋

gloom /glu?m/ n. 蕭條（或消沉）的狀況，無望

payroll /?pe??r??l/ n. 薪水冊，工資表

recession /r??se?n/ n. （經(jīng)濟的）衰退；衰退期

marginally /?mɑ?rd??n?li/ adv. 少量地；最低限度地

consecutive /k?n?sekjut?v/ adj. 連續(xù)不斷的；接連而來的

replenishment /r??plen??m?nt/ n. 再裝滿，補充，充滿

inventory /??nv?ntri/ n. 清單上開列的貨品，存貨

spurt /sp??t/ n. 短時激增；迸發(fā)

exhaust /?g?z?st/ v. 用完，耗盡

prevail /pr??ve?l/ v. 流行，盛行；普遍發(fā)生

silver lining （不幸或失望中的）一線希望

難句突破

So, too, did broader measures of unemployment which include marginally attached workers and those who work only part time（for economic reasons）.

主體句式：So did broader measures of unemployment.

結(jié)構(gòu)分析：本句使用了“So did+主語”的倒裝結(jié)構(gòu)，用來說明前面所說的情況也同樣適用于后面的事物，too為插入語。主語broader measures of unemployment由which引導的定語從句修飾，定語從句中的賓語之一those又由who引導的定語從句修飾。

句子譯文：從廣義上衡量也是如此，廣義失業(yè)率涉及了近期未就業(yè)的人數(shù)和由于經(jīng)濟原因而只能做兼職的人員的數(shù)量等。

題目分析

1. C 細節(jié)題。根據(jù)文章前兩段，失業(yè)率的增長速度有所減緩，這好于先前的預(yù)期，因此A和D不正確。根據(jù)文章第四段以及最后一段的內(nèi)容可知，盡管情況有所好轉(zhuǎn)，但這并不能說明麻煩已經(jīng)全然消失，目前依然很難實現(xiàn)失業(yè)率的持續(xù)下降，而且明年經(jīng)濟不可能迅速復(fù)蘇，這意味著失業(yè)率仍然會維持在較高水平，仍然將有很多人會失去工作，因此排除B，故C正確。

2. B 推理題。根據(jù)文章第二段，從廣義上衡量，失業(yè)率涉及了近期未就業(yè)的人和兼職員工，因此可以推出失業(yè)率的統(tǒng)計并不涉及全體公民，因此B正確。文章第三段提到此前預(yù)期和民間報告與官方數(shù)據(jù)的不同，但并不能據(jù)此說明民間報告可信度低，也無法得出預(yù)期不準確的結(jié)論，因此A與C皆不正確。第三段提到政策制定者看到這個失業(yè)率增長速度的數(shù)據(jù)會很高興，但并沒有提到政策制定和失業(yè)率之間的關(guān)系，因此D不正確。

3. D 語義題。整個第六段都在講目前各領(lǐng)域存在的糟糕情況，因此可以推出這些都預(yù)示著經(jīng)濟很可能不會迅速復(fù)蘇。“bode”作為動詞是“預(yù)示”的含義，通常都是指預(yù)示不好的結(jié)果。

4. C 推理題。盡管文章第五段指出一些部門的就業(yè)率在增加，但是從文章總體看來，失業(yè)率仍然居高不下，就業(yè)率的總體增長態(tài)勢并不樂觀，因此C正確。第五段中表明就業(yè)率增長僅限于幾個領(lǐng)域，并沒有提到擴張的趨勢，所以A錯誤。第六段中manufacturing activity指的并不是就業(yè)，因此B不正確。第六段還提到如果無法創(chuàng)造新的工作機會，那么其他需求很難得以恢復(fù)，D顛倒了因果關(guān)系，因此錯誤。

5. C 推理題。文章中雖然提到11月份的失業(yè)率數(shù)據(jù)讓市場和政府都感到十分振奮，但是通過全文的分析，整體就業(yè)情況依然不容樂觀，因此很難說這個數(shù)據(jù)意味著失業(yè)率增長的速度會持續(xù)下降，因此C正確，A和D不正確。文章中并沒有提到失業(yè)率數(shù)據(jù)是否有很大的起伏變化，故B也不正確。

參考譯文

近兩年里，美國經(jīng)濟使工作機會一直在不斷流失，但現(xiàn)在卻有跡象顯示這種低迷的狀態(tài)有可能最終扭轉(zhuǎn)。據(jù)勞工統(tǒng)計局于12月4日，也就是周五公布的最新就業(yè)人數(shù)數(shù)據(jù)顯示，總體數(shù)字好于預(yù)期。

11月份約減少了1.1萬個工作崗位，這是自2007年年末的經(jīng)濟危機開始以來的最小數(shù)字。盡管現(xiàn)在仍然不斷有人失去工作，但總體失業(yè)率已經(jīng)從10.2%降至10.0%。從廣義上衡量也是如此，廣義失業(yè)率涉及了近期未就業(yè)的人數(shù)和由于經(jīng)濟原因只能做兼職的人員的數(shù)量等。

這份就業(yè)報告將會使市場和政策制定者們滿意，至少就目前來看如此。之前大部分市場預(yù)測者預(yù)計至少還會減少10萬個工作機會，大多數(shù)人認為失業(yè)率會保持在原有水平，或者會進一步增長。在官方的就業(yè)報告發(fā)布之前，一份民間就業(yè)報告指出，11月份的失業(yè)人數(shù)有近17萬。

但這一結(jié)果并不意味著我們的麻煩已經(jīng)全然消失。2009年6月至7月失業(yè)率曾有所下降，但是隨后的三個月又連續(xù)增長。目前我們很難實現(xiàn)失業(yè)率的持續(xù)下降：一份預(yù)測報告指出，美國經(jīng)濟每個月需要增加約15萬個工作崗位才能趕上人口增長的速度。

美國就業(yè)率的增長也僅限于幾個領(lǐng)域。其中，職業(yè)和商業(yè)服務(wù)領(lǐng)域就顯示出了鼓舞人心的跡象，該領(lǐng)域已經(jīng)增加了5.2萬份臨時性援助服務(wù)的工作，這表明雇主們可能很快就會提供更多的永久性職位。（盡管根據(jù)本周美國供應(yīng)管理協(xié)會公布的指數(shù)，其中一項指標顯示，非制造業(yè)界正在失去信心。）教育、健康服務(wù)和政府是僅有的其他幾個就業(yè)率增長部門，而制造業(yè)、建筑業(yè)和零售業(yè)11月份都在繼續(xù)裁員。

鑒于制造業(yè)已實現(xiàn)了連續(xù)四個月的擴張，這一結(jié)果尤其令人失望，更糟糕的是，制造業(yè)擴張的速度在11月份有所下降。其增加的數(shù)據(jù)大部分來自對于庫存的補充。如果我們耗盡了這種短暫的擴張所迸發(fā)的動能卻沒有創(chuàng)造出新工作，那么這預(yù)示著其他方面的需求很難得以恢復(fù)，包括消費支出。

這還不是最壞的數(shù)據(jù)。目前，已有超過1500萬美國人處于失業(yè)狀態(tài)，比經(jīng)濟危機剛開始時增加了800萬人。其中，近600萬人被認為是長期失業(yè)。大約40%的失業(yè)工人已經(jīng)至少27周沒有工作了。要想讓這些人中的大部分回到勞動力大軍中，那么經(jīng)濟的強勁增長是必不可少的，然而，至少在明年經(jīng)濟不可能迅速回升向好。在這種極其嚴峻的情形下，失業(yè)率出人意料地陡然下降無異于一線生機。