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  3. Opinion polls are now beginning to show a reluctant consensus that, whoever is to blame and whatever happens from now on, high u

Opinion polls are now beginning to show a reluctant consensus that, whoever is to blame and whatever happens from now on, high u

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问题     Opinion polls are now beginning to show a reluctant consensus that, whoever is to blame and whatever happens from now on, high unemployment is probably here to stay. This means we shall have to find ways of sharing the available employment more widely.
    But we need to go further. We must ask some fundamental questions about the future of work. Should we continue to treat employment as the norm? Should we not rather encourage many other ways for self-respecting people to work? Should we not create conditions in which many of us can work for ourselves, rather than for an employer? Should we not aim to revive the household and the neighborhood, as well as the factory and the office, as centres of production and work?
    The industrial age has been the only period of human history in which most people’s work has taken the form of jobs. The industrial age may now be coming to an end, and some of the changes in work patterns which it brought may have to be reversed. This seems a daunting(令人气馁，令人望而生畏)thought. But, in fact, it could offer the prospect of a better future for work. Universal employment, as its history shows, has not meant economic freedom.
    Employment became widespread when the enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries made many people dependent on paid work by depriving them of the use of the land, and thus of the means to provide a living for themselves. Then the factory system destroyed the cottage industries and removed work from people’s homes. Later, as transport improved, first by rail and then by road, people commuted longer distances to their places of employment until, eventually, many people’s work lost all connection with their home lives and the places in which they lived. Meanwhile, employment put women at a disadvantage. In pre-industrial times, men and women had shared the productive work of the household and village community. Now it became customary for the husband to go out to paid employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and families to his wife. Tax and benefit regulations still assumes this norm today, and restricts more flexible sharing of work roles between the sexes.
    It was not only women whose work status suffered. As employment became the dominant form of work, young people and old people were excluded—a problem now, as more teenagers become frustrated at school and more retired people want to live active lives.
    All this may now have to change. The time has certainly come to switch some effort and resources away from the utopian goal of creating jobs for all, to the urgent practical task of helping many people to manage without full time jobs.
Questions:
In the fourth sentence of the third paragraph, the word "it" refers to______.
选项 A、the industrial age
B、changes in work patterns
C、the idea that the industrial age has created its own work patterns
D、the thought of reversing some of the changes in work patterns coming at the end of the industrial age
答案D
解析 第3题问第三段第四句话中的“it”指代什么。利用查阅式阅读法找到目标词所在的位置，再用意群式阅读和研究式阅读仔细分析一下上下文即可找出正确答案。文章第三段指出，工业化时代是人类历史上唯一使得绝大多数人的劳动以工作的方式体现出来的时期，现在工业时代正在结束，由此带来的某些工作方式可能必须变化、恢复成以前的方式。这似乎是一个令人气馁的想法。但事实上，这种想法却能为未来的工作带来更好的前景。正如历史所证实的，全民就业并不意味着经济独立。因此，我们可以推断出这里“it”指代的是那种令人气馁的想法，即由于工业时代结束而带来一些工作方式恢复、变化成以前的形式这一想法。所以，本题的正确答案应是D。
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