1、专业英语八级（阅读）练习试卷 31及答案与解析 0 Four reasons that rosy November jobs report was even better than it seemed. Its important not to make too much out of a single economic data point. But Fridays monthly jobs report may be even better news than it seems. The unemployment rate fell to 10 percent in November, a
2、nd companies only shed 11,000 payroll jobs in the month. That was much better than economists expected, and the smallest such drop since late 2007, and perhaps early indication that, as Ive argued, well be seeing jobs growth sooner rather than later. A look inside the report - and, again, with the c
3、aveat that it would be folly to draw too strong a conclusion from a single months data - suggests four other reasons to be optimistic. The payroll jobs number in November came in much better than expected. In each monthly report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also revises the previously reported jo
4、b totals for the prior two months. And in the past few months, the trend has been that the government overstates the job markets weakness in the just-completed month. In the original release for September, the government concluded the economy shed 263,000 jobs that month. A month later, however, in
5、its October release, Septembers loss was revised down to 219,000. According to last Fridays release, the September job loss was actually only 139,000. The government originally said the economy lost 190,000 jobs in October, but Fridays report cut that number to only 111,000 jobs. The upshot: for the
6、 past three months, the governments first task at job loss figures has been understating the strength of the recovery. Should this trend continue, its quite likely that when the November numbers are revised over the next two months, that 11,000 loss could turn into a gain. Analysts frequently point
7、to the troubling losses in manufacturing, housing, and construction. Its understandable, since those sectors are politically important (manufacturing) and accounted for so much of recent economic growth (housing/ construction). But manufacturing jobs are likely to fall even as the economy recovers,
8、thanks to long-term secular trends of globalization, outsourcing, and automation. As for housing, we shouldnt expect the sector that got us into the mess to get us out of it. Rather, the recovery will come from the vast services sector. Those sectors which include government, health care, and educat
9、ion account for about 86 percent of total payroll jobs. In the October report, BLS reported that the economy lost 61,000 service jobs. But the November report revised that loss to a gain of 2,000 October service jobs and found that the sector added 58,000 service jobs in November. Thats two straight
10、 months of growth. Whats more, the professional- and business-services sectors purely private-sector service jobs were up 86,000 in November and were revised to show a gain of 38,000 in October. The economy started growing this summer. But it frequently takes a few quarters of sustained growth until
11、 businesses and consumers really trust it. During these periods, employers go through a predictable process. When business stabilizes, they stop firing lots of workers. When demands and orders pick up, rather than hire, they prod existing workers to work harder and invest in productivity-enhancing t
12、echnology and processes. Thats why the productivity numbers have been so impressive in the past six months. When things continue to improve, they still dont quite believe it. After all, a lot of economic activities in recent months have been goosed by stimulus efforts, from low mortgage rates to Cas
13、h for Clunkers. So rather than hiring full-time workers to cope with rising demand, they bring in temporary workers, who can easily be let go if demand fizzles again. In November, the economy added 52,000 temporary jobs. And since July, temporary help services employment has risen by 117,000. The mo
14、nthly jobs report presents data from two different surveys. The payroll jobs figures tell us how many people companies (i.e., establishments) say they have on their payrolls. The government uses the household survey, in which it calls up people and asks them if theyve been working, to compile the un
15、employment rate. In the Bush years, when payroll jobs failed to materialize, partisans discounted the payroll figures and pointed instead to strength in the household survey as evidence of jobs growth. After all, if more people were working for themselves, starting businesses, working as consultants
16、, etc., it wouldnt show up in the establishment figure but would show up in the household survey. (I called this tendency Anti-disestablishmentarianism.) I was, and remain, skeptical that the household survey is a superior measure of the employment picture. Most people want payroll jobs the kind tha
17、t comes with benefits, paid vacation, etc.rather than freelance arrangements. Plus, the household survey is a measure of what people say theyre doing. Still, all things being equal, its desirable for both the establishment and the household surveys to be moving in the same, positive direction. In No
18、vember, according to the household survey, the number of people working rose by 227,000. One months data does not suggest a recovery market. But you have to start somewhere. It may turn out that the November jobs report was the beginning of the end of the great employment recession of 2008-09. 1 Wha
19、t is the passage mainly about? （ A） The reasons that jobs will grow. （ B） The great employment recession. （ C） The kinds of jobs that are growing. （ D） The current situation of employment. 2 What is the authors attitude toward jobs growth? （ A） pessimistic （ B） optimistic （ C） uncertain （ D） skeptic
20、al 3 What does the paragraph 4 tell us? （ A） Housing boosts economic growth. （ B） Manufacturing and housing jobs continue to fall. （ C） Political importance is attached to manufacturing. （ D） Service jobs growth will contribute to the recovery. 4 What can be inferred from paragraph 5? （ A） Employers
21、 tend to rely on technology to enhance productivity. （ B） When the economy gets better, more people will be employed. （ C） Temporary workers are preferred in times of economic uncertainty. （ D） Businesses and consumers remain skeptical about economic growt 5 Which of the following is NOT true about
22、the household survey? （ A） It is an accurate reflection of employment. （ B） It was once used as evidence of jobs growth. （ C） It may not reflect a real picture of employment. （ D） It alone cannot be used as evidence of jobs growt 5 Scientists said Thursday that a new AIDS vaccine, the first ever dec
23、lared to protect a significant minority of humans against the disease, would be studied to answer two fundamental questions: why it worked in some people but not in others, and why those infected despite vaccination got no benefit at all. The vaccine known as RV 144, a combination of two genetically
24、 engineered vaccines, neither of which had worked before in humanslwas declared a qualified success after a six-year clinical trial on more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand. Those who were vaccinated became infected at a rate nearly one-third lower than the others, the sponsors said Thursday morni
25、ng. “I dont want to use a word like breakthrough, but I dont think theres any doubt that this is a very important result,“ said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is one of the trials backers. “For more than 20 years now, vaccine tr
26、ials have essentially been failures,“ Dr. Fauci said. “Now its like we were groping down an unlit path, and a door has been opened. We can start asking some very important questions.“ It will still, however, take years of work before a vaccine that could end the epidemic, which has killed about 25 m
27、illion people, can even be contemplated. “We often talk about whether a vaccine is even possible,“ said Mitchell Warren, the executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, or AVAC. “This is not the vaccine that ends the epidemic and says, O.K., lets move on to something else. But its a f
28、abulous new step that takes us in a new direction.“ In which direction is still unknown. No one including the researchers from the United States Army, the National Institutes of Health, the Thai Ministry of Public Health and two vaccine companies that tested the vaccine knows why the vaccine gave ev
29、en its weak indicator of success. Experts generally disdain vaccines that do not protect at least 70 to 80 percent of those getting them. And this vaccine did not lower the viral loads of people who were vaccinated but caught the virus anyway, which was baffling because even mismatched vaccines usua
30、lly do that. Simply repeating the trial to confirm the results would be pointless, experts agreed. The trial, the largest AIDS vaccine trial in history, cost $105 million and followed 16,402 Thai volunteers. The men and women ages 18 to 30 were recruited from two provinces southeast of the capital,
31、Bangkok, from the general population rather than from high-risk groups like drug injectors or sex workers. Half got six doses of two different vaccines; half were given placebos. For ethical reasons, all were offered condoms, taught how to avoid infection and promised lifelong antiretroviral treatme
32、nt if they got AIDS. They were then regularly tested for three years; 74 of those who got placebos became infected, but only 51 of those who got the vaccines did. Although the difference was a mere 23 people, Col. Jerome H. Kim, a physician and the manager of the Annys H.I.V. vaccine program, said i
33、t was statistically significant and meant that the vaccine was 31.2 percent effective. The results were surprising because both vaccines, one from the French company Sanofi-Aventis and one developed by Genentech but now licensed to Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases, a nonprofit health group,
34、had failed when used individually. “This came out of the blue,“ said Chris Viehbacher, Sanofis chief executive. Even 31 percent protection “was at least twice as good as our own internal experts were predicting,“ he added. In 2004, there was so much skepticism about the trial just after it began tha
35、t 22 top AIDS researchers published an editorial in Science magazine suggesting that it was a waste of money. One conclusion from the surprising result, said Alan Bernstein, head of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, an alliance of organizations pursuing a vaccine, “is that were not doing enough wor
36、k in humans.“ Instead of going back to mice or monkeys, he said, different new variants on the two vaccines could be tried on a few hundred people in several countries. This vaccine was designed to combat the most common strain of the virus in Southeast Asia, so it would have to be modified for the
37、strains circulating in Africa and the United States. Sanofis vaccine, Alvac-HIV, is a canarypox virus with three AIDS virus genes grafted onto it. Variations of it were tested in several countries; it was safe but not protective. The other vaccine, Aidsvax, was originally made by Genentech and conta
38、ins a protein found on the surface of the AIDS virus; it is grown in a broth of hamster ovary cells. It was tested in Thai drug users in 2003 and in gay men in North America and Europe but failed. In 2007, two trials of a Merck vaccine in about 4,000 people were stopped early; it not only failed to
39、work but for some men also seemed to increase the risk of infection. Combining Alvac and Aidsvax was simply a hunch: if one was designed to create antibodies and the other to alert white blood cells, might they work together? One puzzling result those who became infected had as much virus in their b
40、lood whether they got the vaccine or a placebo-suggests that RV 144 does not produce neutralizing antibodies, as most vaccines do, Dr. Fauci said. Antibodies are Y-shaped proteins formed by the body that clump onto invading viruses, blocking the surface spikes with which they attach to cells and fla
41、gging them for destruction. Instead, he theorized, it might produce “binding antibodies,“ which latch onto and empower effector cells, a type of white blood cell attacking the virus. Therefore, he said, it might make sense to screen all the stored Thai blood samples for binding antibodies. “The humb
42、ling prospect of this,“ he said, “is that we may not even be measuring the critical parameter. It may be something you dont normally associate with protection.“ Dr. Lawrence Corey, the principal investigator for the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, who was not part of the RV 144 trial, said new work on w
43、eakened versions of the smallpox vaccine had produced better pox “spines“ that could be substituted for the canarypox. New trials, he added, could be faster and smaller if they were done in African countries where AIDS is more common than in Thailand. 6 Which of the following is NOT true about RV 14
44、4? （ A） It has been on trial for six years. （ B） People who get it are protected against AIDS. （ C） People who get it are not as easily infected as others. （ D） It is regarded as a very important finding in the history. 7 What can be inferred from the finding of RV 144? （ A） Experts know how to find
45、 out AIDS vaccine. （ B） Experts start to produce RV 144 in large amounts. （ C） Experts will soon find out a vaccine that will end AIDS. （ D） Experts are convinced of the possibility of finding AIDS vaccin 8 What can be inferred from the passage about AIDS vaccine? （ A） In the near future AIDS vaccin
46、es will be found. （ B） The time is ripe for experts to find AIDS vaccines. （ C） AIDS vaccines are difficult, if not impossible, to find. （ D） AIDS vaccines failures were due to the trials on animals. 9 Which of the following can be used to describe the finding of RV 144? （ A） unexpected （ B） expecte
47、d （ C） controversial （ D） insignificant 10 Which of the following is the best title for the passage? （ A） How AIDS Vaccines Will Be Found （ B） AIDS Vaccines Are Not Far From Us （ C） RV 144, An Out-of-the-blue Discovery （ D） For the First Time, AIDS Vaccine Shows Some Success 专业英语八级（阅读）练习试卷 31答案与解析 【
48、知识模块】 阅读 1 【正确答案】 A 【试题解析】 此题是主旨大意题。文章第一句话是主题句。 “十一月份就业报告比其显示的还要好的四个原因。 ” 【知识模块】 阅读 2 【正确答案】 B 【试题解析】 此题是推理判断题。全文都在说明就业形势好转的四个原因，因此作者的态度是积极的。 【知识模块】 阅读 3 【正确答案】 D 【试题解析】 此题是主旨大意题。第四段讲的是服务行业就业职位不断增加。 【知识模块】 阅读 4 【正确答案】 C 【试题解析】 此题是推断题。第五段讲的是临时工作职位不断增加，由此可推断在经济不稳定时期，临时工人更受公司的青睐。 【知识模块】 阅读 5 【正确答案】 A 【
49、试题解析】 此题是事实题。文章第六段说明了两类调查 ，一类是对公司的调查，一类是对家庭的调查。来自家庭的调查显示，就业人数呈增长趋势，但作者对家庭调查是否优于公司调查仍持怀疑态度。由第五段可知，家庭调查并不能很真实地反映就业情况。 【知识模块】 阅读 【知识模块】 阅读 6 【正确答案】 B 【试题解析】 此题是事实题。由第一段可知，该疫苗只能保护一少部分人免受艾滋病的侵害。 【知识模块】 阅读 7 【正确答案】 D 【试题解析】 此题是推断题。通读全文可知，选项 A、 B、 C不正确。 【知识模块】 阅读 8 【正 确答案】 C 【试题解析】 此题是推断题。通读全文可知，寻找艾滋病疫苗非常困难，故选项C为正确答案。 【知识模块】 阅读 9 【正确答案】 A 【试题解析】 此题是事实题。由第十段可知， RV144是凭着直觉被发现的，因此是意料之外的。 【知识模块】 阅读 10 【正确答案】 D 【试题解析】 此题是推理概括题。选项 A不正确，因为人们还不知道如何发现艾滋病疫苗。选项 B不正确，因为找到能够根除艾滋病的疫苗还很遥远。选项 C不能完整地概括全文的意思。故选项 D正确。 【知识 模块】 阅读
