1999年基础英语试卷
Part One
Read the following and be prepared to answer questions:
Hewlett-Packard Co. is a primary engine of the Information Age economy. In 1997, it sold $43 billion worth of desktop computers, printers and other products on the global market, and the company reached a value of almost $70 billion on Wall Street. That year, Hewlett-Packard paid $25 million in compensation to its chairman, president and chief executive officer, Lewis H. Platt, and his three deputies. Hewlett-Packard also compensates the men and the women who clean the offices of Platt, his deputies and every-one else. The company does not actually hire janitors; rather, it hires companies that hire janitors. Every year, Hewlett-Packard contracts with a variety of temporary-employment agencies for the services of hundreds of broom-pushers and mop-wielders. These temporary employees are paid between $6.20 and 9.93 per hour, or roughly $15,000 a year.
The disparity illustrates the slightly dirty little secret of the world’s most dazzling industry. As the Information Age economy booms, the gap between the nation’s poorest and richest workers is widening-and this gap is occurring not in spite of the Information Age, but in part because of it.
A survey of economists by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York attributed a stunning 45 per cent of the widening wage gap nationwide to technology, with the remainder split between the erosion of the minimum wage (10 per cent), international trade (12 per cent), the decline in unionization (10 per cent), immigration (8 per cent) and other (15 per cent).
Adjusted for inflation, the incomes of the poorest fifth of working families dropped by 21 per cent between 1979 and 1995, while the incomes of the richest fifth jumped by 30 per cent during the same time period. This gap has been growing in good times as well as bad , although indications are that it’s been leveling off in recent months. According to the 1997 Economic Report of the President, the wage gap “continued to widen through the 1980s and into the early 1990s, regardless of economic conditions.”
That the new economy may depend upon, and even promote, the worst aspects of the old economy is a growing worry. Technology’s impact on wages has become a top concern of the White House’s National Economic Council, said a White House official. “There is a potentially polarizing impact of technology, and without some special national efforts, people are right to be concerned about this issue.”
Even President Clinton has raised it. “History teaches us that even as new technologies create growth and new opportunities, they can heighten economic inequalities and sharpen social divisions.” Clinton declared in a June 5 speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “We know from hard experience that unequal education hardens into unequal prospects, [and] the Information Age will accelerate this trend.”
In Silicon Valley-the fountainhead of the Information Age economy-each of the top 100 executives receives as much pay as 220 production workers combined. That’s a sharp jump from 1991, when each of the top 100 executives was paid as much as 42 average workers. These figures come from a study titled “Growing Together or Drifting Apart?” that was put together by two left-leaning groups, Working Partnerships USA, in San Jose, and the Economic Policy Institute, in Washington. The study also reported that the poorest one-quarter of the Valley’s workers earned less than $9.11 per hour in 1996, a drop from $9.96 (adjusted for inflation) earned in 1991.
Granted, statistics are slippery things. Overestimates of inflation in recent decades have obscured wage growth for everyone, and workers earn enough now, in fewer working hours than in 1975, to buy better goods —— cars with air-conditioning, computers with worldwide communications capabilities, disease-fighting drugs, larger houses and overseas vacations.
Depending on what is being measured and when, wage estimates can vary by 40 per cent, cautions Robert I. Lerman, an economist at the Urban Institute in Washington. Lerman’s studies show that the overall wage gap has remained static since the mid-1980s largely because growth in wages paid to women and racial minorities has balanced out significant technology-driven declines in wages paid to less-skilled men. But, he adds, the high-tech products “are a force for widening gaps…Because they are part of the rising demand for skill.”
WHY TECHNOLOGY’S CULPRIT
Edward R. Wolff, an economics professor at New York University, points to office computers as the largest driver of inequality. Drawing on census data, he concludes that the wage gap grows by 10 per cent for every doubling of per-worker investment in office computers. For example, in an economy where the top 5 per cent of workers won 20 per cent of all income, a doubling of computer investment would boost their share by a tenth —— to 22 per cent of all income —— while shrinking all other workers’ income to 78 per cent. This occurs, he says, because office computers transfer work from some employees —— such as insurance adjusters, telephone support workers and nurses —— to a smaller corps of high-tech experts who can design software capable of mimicking those skills.
Although the recent rise in the stock market —— due in large part to phenomenal growth of high-tech stocks —— will provide additional wealth for the 43 per cent of families who own stocks, it won’t do much to reduce income inequality, Wolff says. The market doesn’t work that way: 83 per cent of all stock is owned b the richest 10 per cent of families.
Other economists say the wage gap exists because the new technology creates greater rewards for the skilled workers who can use it. Thus, technological advances widen inequalities not only between different groups of workers, but within the ranks of those groups, says Philip Cook, professor of public policy at Duke University (Durham, N.C.) and co-author of The Winner-Take-all Society. For example, Cook says, laptop computers and cellular phones allow the best salespeople in a company to spend more time selling, thus snatching sales away from the almost-as-good salespeople.
Gary T. Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, argues that technology is only one element of a reinvigorated marketplace, in which Wall Street, shareholders and customers pressure top managers to cut costs and increase efficiency by whatever means possible, including greater use of technology or cheap overseas labor. This pressure “helped remove underperforming managers, [and] the managers who remain are not masters of their domain, but are slaves of the marketplace,” Burtless says.
Burtless’ analysis matches evidence collected by Chris C. Benner, a research associate at Working Partnerships and an author of the “Growing Apart” report. “What technology has done is break down the boundaries between firms,” Benner argues, and “there is really nothing on the workers’ side to help collective bargaining across multiple firms.”
The janitors at Hewlett-Packard are one example of companies’ ability to use technology —— to cut costs. Generally, companies can use computer technology to carefully track their spending and operations and to identify less-important ancillary work, such as janitorial services and parts production, or inefficient elements, such as slow production workers.
Firms used to hire workers who would clean their factories and offices under direct supervision of in-house managers. But this is not cost-effective. Now, more and more companies hire out much of their custodial work to leaning contractors. The companies save money because the contractors usually pay their workers much less than in-house janitors would be paid. And the contractors also assume the burden of supervising the janitors’ work —— supervision that the employing company can oversee through computer-aided reports.
From the company’s point of view, this all makes obvious sense. “a lot of technology companies really have been turning more and more to their core competencies, the things we do really well,” said Anne McGrath, a spokeswoman for Hewlett-Packard.
As Hewlett-Packard sees it, there is nothing to be gained by investing in the long-term prospects of such obviously unskilled workers as janitors. Instead, says McGrath, the company will “hire whatever we think is the best company to clean our buildings, based on their quality and the price and their track record.” The benefits of this approach go beyond cost saving. Right now, 150 janitors are striking the company that cleans Hewlett-Packard’s plant in Roseville, Calif. It’s a potentially nasty little labor dispute, but it’s not Hewlett-Packard’s dispute. Says McGrath, “Our attitude is that this really isn’t our issue.”
A DARWINIAN APPROACH
Silicon Valley companies are particularly reliant on “out-sourcing” because consumer demand for their products changes very quickly. Any companies —— especially the new or small ones —— can’t risk building their own expensive manufacturing plants or retaining skilled workers, for fear that they will stand idle for long periods. As Benner explains, that has created a class of on-demand manufacturers and workers who migrate within the Valley from one product to another from one factory to another, as each technology season comes and goes, thus pushing down prices and wages.
It is difficult to measure precisely how much work the high-tech industry has contracted out, says Benner. But the amount is clearly large. Benner notes that the biggest high-tech companies in the Valley have one-seventh as many employees as the Big Three automakers, even though their stock market values are comparable. The result, says Paul Saffo, a director at the California-based Institute for the Future, is “a [technology] revolution being pushed by and ever-smaller number of people.”
The same trends have spun off low-paid jobs nationwide, argues Michael E. McGrath (no relation), president of Local 7026 of the Communications Workers of America. McGrath is trying, with limited success, to organize the roughly 18,000 telemarketing workers in Tucson, salespeople who call customers nationwide over cheap long-distance phone lines. Many large companies have cut their overhead by replacing their own telemarketing staff with workers hired by telemarketing companies, including the 35 companies based in Tucson. However, union organizer McGrath can’t get much traction, partly because the market conditions bounce the workers from one job to the next, keeping their wages at under $7 an hour.
That raises a somewhat delicate political point. The high-tech industry likes to think of itself as progressive and, as a whole, leans toward liberal and Democratic politics. So, how does it deal with the fact that it contributes to labor inequalities? It doesn’t, except to pass the buck to the market.
I. Explain the underlined parts in your own words, trying to bring out the implied meaning, if there is any: (40%)
1. The disparity illustrates ……dazzling industry
2. this gap is occurring …… because of it
3. This gap has been growing …… in recent months
4. That the new economy …… is a growing worry (What are the worst aspects? What is meant by old economy?)
5. there is a potentially …… about this issue
6. We know from hard experience ……
7. Granted, statistics are slippery things
8. companies can use computers …… less important ancillary work
9. the benefits …… beyond cost saving
10. Silicon Valley companies are particularly reliant on “out-sourcing”. What is meant by “out-sourcing”? Please explain.
II. Please answer the following questions: (20%)
1. According to the author, how does high technology widen the wage gap?
2. A. From the company’s point of view, this all makes obvious sense: “A lot f technology companies really have been turning more and more to their core competencies, the thing, we do really well”……(Para.6 from bottom)(6%)
a. Why does the company think it makes sense? In what way it makes sense?
b. What is meant by “turning more and more to their core competencies”?
B. It doesn’t, except to pass the buck to the market place. (last sentence of the piece.)(4%)
Why doesn’t it deal with this fact?
How can it avoid dealing with it?
Part Two
Translate the following passage into English: (40%)
老爸的声音
起风的周末，外出采访完独自回校，满身疲惫。在街头电话亭，我拨通那个熟悉的号码，响了很久，才传来一低哑的声音，是老爸。他很快惊喜起来：“北京冷布冷，这段日子过得怎么样．．．．．．” 我握着听筒， 不知该说些什么，只是想听听他的声音。
两年前的这个时候，年过半百的老爸主动申请去南方工作，和约三年。虽然那里没有鱼钓，没有充足的午休，找不到家的感觉，但是为了念大学的我和妹妹，为了我们那些日益昂贵的学费和生活费，他很坚决地去了。于是，电话成了维系我们和老爸的桥梁。记忆中他从未问过我毕业后的志向，只是认真地看着我带回家的一篇篇发表的文章、一张张获奖的证书。只有一次，他喝很多酒，家里停电。在烛光下，他突然对埋头写稿的我说：“理想固然好，但如果你没有谋生的一技之长，怎么在社会上立足？”这句话让我整整思索了一个晚上。
大学快毕业时，我告诉南方的老爸，我想离开家继续读书。他说：“只要你考上，我就供。”当我给他念录取通知书时，电话那头的声音很坚定，“明天，我就把学费给你寄去。” 于是，我带着理想坐进了北京的另一所课堂。父亲在经济最发达的南方，却没有告诉我赚钱和理想哪个更重要，更没有说记者的种种艰辛。只在22年来第一次写给我的信种说：“你要好好写文章，勿急于发表，多问多想，写出有分量的东西来，需要什么书，只管买，这点钱我还能供得起。一个人在外多注意身体，饭要吃好。”信里还附了他从报刊上剪下的人生哲言。我哭了，久久地。我第一次如此近地听到他心灵深处的声音，一直以来被我忽略了的声音。
我站在北京，父亲的声音来自遥远的南方，他在我耳边久久回荡。
