2013 年考研英语（二）真题

Given the advantages of electronic money, you might think that we would move quickly to the cashless society in which all payments are made electronically. ___1___ , a true cashless society is probably not around the corner. Indeed, predictions have been ___2___ for two decades but have not yet come to fruition. For example, Business Week predicted in 1975 that electronic means of payment would soon "revolutionize the very ___3___ of money itself," only to ___4___ itself several years later. Why has the movement to a cashless society been so ___5___ in coming?

Although electronic means of payment may be more efficient than a payments system based on paper, several factors work ___6___ the disappearance of the paper system. First, it is very ___7___ to set up the computer, card reader, and telecommunications networks necessary to make electronic money the ___8___ form of payment. Second, paper checks have the advantage that they ___9___ receipts, something that many consumers are unwilling to ___10___ . Third, the use of paper checks gives consumers several days of "float" — it takes several days ___11___ a check is cashed and funds are ___12___ from the issuer's account, which means that the writer of the check can earn interest on the funds in the meantime. ___13___ electronic payments arc immediate, they eliminate the float for the consumer.

Fourth, electronic means of payment may ___14___ security and privacy concerns. We often hear media reports that an unauthorized hacker has been able to access a computer database and to alter information ___15___ there. The fact that this is not an ___16___ occurrence means that dishonest persons might be able to access bank accounts in electronic payments systems and ___17___ from someone else's accounts. The ___18___ of this type of fraud is no easy task, and a new field of computer science is developing to ___19___ security issues. A further concern is that the use of electronic means of payment leaves an electronic ___20___ that contains a large amount of personal data. There are concerns that government, employers, and marketers might be able to access these data, thereby violating our privacy.

In an essay entitled "Making It in America," 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 declining 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 advances in both globalization and the information technology revolution, which are more rapidly than ever replacing labor with machines or foreign workers.

In the past, workers with average skills, doing an average job, could earn an average lifestyle. But, today, average is officially over. Being average just won't earn you what it used to. It can't when so many more employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap automation and cheap genius. Therefore, everyone needs to find their extra — their unique value contribution that makes them stand out in whatever is their field of employment.

Yes, new technology has been eating jobs forever, and always will. But there's been an acceleration. As Davidson notes, "In the 10 years ending in 2009, [U.S.] factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70 years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs about 6 million in

—

total — disappeared."

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.

In a world where average is officially over, there are many things we need to do to support employment, but nothing would be more important than passing some kind of G. I. Bill for the 2 l 8t century that ensures that every American has access to post high school education.

-3-

A century ago, the immigrants from across the Atlantic included settlers and sojourners. Along with the many folks looking to make a permanent home in the United States came those who had no intention to stay, and who would make some money and then go home. Between 1908 and 1915, about 7 million people arrived while about 2 million departed. About a quarter of all Italian immigrants, for example, eventually returned to Italy for good. They even had an affectionate nickname, "uccelli di passaggio," birds of passage.

Today, we are much more rigid about immigrants. We divide newcomers into two categories: legal or illegal, good or bad. We hail them as Americans in the making, or brand them as aliens to be kicked out. That framework has contributed mightily to our broken immigration system and the long political paralysis over how to fix it. We don't need more categories, but we need to change the way we think about categories. We need to look beyond strict definitions of legal and illegal. To start, we can recognize the new birds of passage, those living and thriving in the gray areas. We might then begin to solve our immigration challenges.

Crop pickers, violinists, construction workers, entrepreneurs, engineers, home health-care aides and physicists are among today's birds of passage. They are energetic participants in a global economy driven by the flow of work, money and ideas. They prefer to come and go as opportunity calls them. They can manage to have a job in one place and a family in another.

With or without permission, they straddle laws, jurisdictions and identities with ease. We need them to imagine the United States as a place where they can be productive for a while without committing themselves to staying forever. We need them to feel that home can be both here and there and that they can belong to two nations honorably.

Accommodating this new world of people in motion will require new attitudes on both sides of the immigration battle. Looking beyond the culture war logic of right or wrong means opening up the middle ground and understanding that managing immigration today requires multiple paths and multiple outcomes, including some that are not easy to accomplish legally in the existing system.

-5-

Scientists have found that although we are prone to snap overreactions, if we take a moment and think about how we are likely to react, we can reduce or even eliminate the negative effects of our quick, hard-wired responses.

Snap decisions can be important defense mechanisms; if we are judging whether someone is dangerous, our brains and bodies are hard-wired to react very quickly, within milliseconds. But we need more time to assess other factors. To accurately tell whether someone is sociable, studies show, we need at least a minute, preferably five. It takes a while to judg e complex aspects of personality, like neuroticism or open -mindedness.

But snap decisions in reaction to rapid stimuli aren't exclusive to the interpersonal realm. Psychologists at the University of Toronto found that viewing a fast-food logo for just a few milliseconds primes us to read 20 percent faster, even though reading has little to do with eating. We unconsciously associate fast food with speed and impatience and carry those impulses into whatever else we're doing, Subjects exposed to fast-food flashes also tend to think a musical piece lasts too long.

Yet we can reverse such influences. If we know we will overreact to consumer products or housing options when we see a happy face (one reason good sales representatives and real estate agents are always smiling), we can take a moment before buying. If we know female job screeners are more likely to reject attractive female applicants, we can help screeners understand their biases — or hire outside screeners.

John Gottman, the marriage expert, explains that we quickly "thin slice" information reliably only after we ground such snap reactions in "thick sliced" long term study. When Dr. Gottman really wants to assess whether a couple will stay together, he invites them to his island retreat for a much longer evaluation: two days, not two seconds.

Our ability to mute our hard-wired reactions by pausing is what differentiates us from animals: dogs can think about the future only intermittently or for a few minutes. But historically we have spent about 12 percent of our days contemplating the longer term. Although technology might change the way we react, it hasn't changed our nature. We still have the imaginative capacity to rise above temptation and reverse the high-speed trend.

-7-

Europe is not a gender-equality heaven. In particular, the corporate workplace will never be completely family-friendly until women are part of senior management decisions, and Europe's top corporate-governance positions remain overwhelmingly male. Indeed, women hold only 14 per cent of positions on European corporate boards.

The European Union is now considering legislation to compel corporate boards to maintain a certain proportion of women — up to 60 per cent. This proposed mandate was born of frustration. Last year, European Commission Vice President Viviane Reding issued a call to voluntary action. Reding invited corporations to sign up for gender balance goals of 40 per cent female board membership. But her appeal was considered a failure: only 24 companies took it up.

Do we need quotas to ensure that women can continue to climb the corporate ladder fairly as they balance work and family?

"Personally, I don't like quotas," Reding said recently. "But I like what the quotas do." Quotas get action: they "open the way to equality and they break through the glass ceiling," according to Reding, a result seen in France and other countries with legally binding provisions on placing women in top business positions.

I understand Reding's reluctance — and her frustration. I don't like quotas either; they run counter to my belief in meritocracy, governance by the capable. But, when one considers the obstacles to achieving the meritocratic ideal, it does look as if a fairer world must be temporarily ordered.

After all, four decades of evidence has now shown that corporations in Europe as well as the US are evading the meritocratic hiring and promotion of women to top positions — no matter how much "soft pressure" is put upon them. When women do break through to the summit of corporate power — as, for example, Sheryl Sandberg recently did at Facebook — they attract massive attention precisely because they remain the exception to the rule.

If appropriate public policies were in place to help all women — whether CEOs or their children's caregivers — and all families, Sandberg would be no more newsworthy than any other highly capable person hvmg m a more Just society.

-9-

The hugely popular blog the Skint Foodie chronicles how Tony balances his love of good food with living on benefits. After bills, Tony has £ 60 a week to spend, £ 40 of which goes on food, but 10 years ago he was earning £ 130,000 a year working in corporate communications and eating at London's best restaurants at least twice a week. Then his marriage failed, his career burned out and his drinking became serious. "The community mental health team saved my life. And I felt like that again, to a certain degree, when people responded to the blog so well. It gave me the validation and confidence that I'd lost. But it's still a day-by-day thing." Now he's living in a council flat and fielding offers from literary agents. He's feeling positive, but he'll carry on blogging - not about eating as cheaply as you can - "there are so many people in a much worse state, with barely any money to spend on food" - but eating well on a budget. Here's his advice for economical foodies.