1、雅思（阅读）模拟试卷 46 及答案与解析 一、 Reading Module (60 minutes) 0 9 READING PASSAGE 2 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below. A Giode tp Womenomics A In rich countries, girls now do better at school than boys, more women are getting university degrees th
2、an men are and females are filling most new jobs. Arguably, women are now the most powerful engine of global growth. In 1950 only one-third of American women of working age had a paid job. Today two-thirds do, and women make up almost half of Americas workforce. Since 1950 mens employment rate has s
3、lid by 12 percentage points, to 77%. In fact, almost everywhere more women are employed and the percentage of men with jobs has fallen-although in some countries the feminisation of the workplace still has far to go: in Italy and Japan, womens share of jobs is still 40% or less. B The increase in fe
4、male employment in developed countries has been aided by a big shift in the type of jobs on offer. Manufacturing work, traditionally a male preserve, has declined, while jobs in services have expanded. This has reduced the demand for manual labour and put the sexes on a more equal footing. In the de
5、veloping world, too, more women now have paid jobs. In the emerging East Asian economies, for every 100 men in the labour force there are now 83 women, higher even than the average in OECD countries. Women have been particularly important to the success of Asias export industries, typically accounti
6、ng for 60-80% of jobs in many export sectors, such as textiles and clothing. C Of course, it is misleading to talk of womens “entry“ into the workforce. Besides formal employment, women have always worked in the home, looking after children, cleaning or cooking, but because this is unpaid, it is not
7、 counted in the official statistics. To some extent, the increase in female paid employment has meant fewer hours of unpaid housework. However, the value of housework has fallen by much less than the time spent on it, because of the increased productivity afforded by dishwashers, washing machines an
8、d so forth. Paid nannies and cleaners employed by working women now also do some work that used to belong in the non-market economy. D The increase in female employment has also accounted for a big chunk of global growth in recent decades. GDP growth can come from three sources: employing more peopl
9、e; using more capital per worker; or an increase in the productivity of labour and capital due to new technology. Since 1970 women have filled two new jobs for every one taken by a man. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the employment of extra women has not only added more to GDP than n
10、ew jobs for men but has also chipped in more than either capital investment or increased productivity. Carve up the worlds economic growth a different way and another surprising conclusion emerges: over the past decade or so, the increased employment of women in developed economies has contributed m
11、uch more to global growth. Women are becoming more important in the global marketplace not just as workers, but also as consumers, entrepreneurs, managers and investors. Women have traditionally done most of the household shopping, but now they have more money of their own to spend. Surveys suggest
12、that women make perhaps 80% of consumers buying decisions-from health care and homes to furniture and food. E Womens share of the workforce has a limit. In America it has already stalled. However, there will still be a lot of scope for women to become more productive as they make better use of their
13、 qualifications. At school, girls consistently get better grades, and in most developed countries well over half of all university degrees are now being awarded to women. In America 140 women enrol in higher education each year for every 100 men; in Sweden the number is as high as 150. (There are, h
14、owever, only 90 female Japanese students for every 100 males.) In years to come better educated women will take more of the top jobs. At present, for example, in Britain more women than men train as doctors and lawyers, but relatively few are leading surgeons or partners in law firms. The main reaso
15、n why women still get paid less on average than men is not that they are paid less for the same jobs but that they tend not to climb so far up the career ladder, or they choose lower-paid occupations, such as nursing and teaching. This pattern is likely to change. F Making better use of womens skill
16、s is not just a matter of fairness. Plenty of studies suggest that it is good for business, too. Women account for only 7% of directors on the worlds corporate boards-15% in America, but less than 1% in Japan. Yet a study by Catalyst, a consultancy, found that American companies with more women in s
17、enior management jobs earned a higher return on equity than those with fewer women at the top. This might be because mixed teams of men and women are better than single-sex groups at solving problems and spotting external threats. Studies have also suggested that women are often better than men at b
18、uilding teams and communicating. G In poor countries too, the under-utilisation of women stunts economic growth. A study last year by the World Economic Forum found a clear correlation between sex equality (measured by economic participation, education, health and political empowerment) and GDP per
19、head. Correlation does not prove the direction of causation. However, other studies also suggest that inequality between the sexes harms long-term growth. In particular, there is strong evidence that educating girls boosts prosperity. It is probably the single best investment that can be made in the
20、 developing world. Not only are better educated women more productive, but they raise healthier, better educated children. There is huge potential to raise income per head in developing countries, where fewer girls go to school than boys. More than two-thirds of the worlds illiterate adults are wome
21、n. H It is sometimes argued that it is short-sighted to get more women into paid employment. The more women go out to work, it is said, the fewer children there will be and the lower growth will be in the long run. Yet the facts suggest otherwise. Data shows that countries with high female labour pa
22、rticipation rates, such as Sweden, tend to have higher fertility rates than Germany, Italy and Japan, where fewer women work. Indeed, the decline in fertility has been greatest in several countries where female employment is low. 9 Questions 14-17 The text has 8 paragraphs (A-H). Which paragraph doe
23、s each of the following headings best fit? 9 New producers, new consumers 10 More work, fewer children? 11 A better educated workforce 12 Women in new, expanding industries 13 Questions 18-22 According to the text, FIVE of the following statements are true. Write the corresponding letters in answer
24、boxes 18 to 22 in any order. A A higher percentage of Italian women have jobs than Japanese women. B More women than men work in Asias textile industries. C The value of housework is not included in official statistics. D Research shows that men make more purchasing decisions than women. E Most surg
25、eons in Britain are women. F Firms with more women in senior management offer higher investment returns. G Most illiterate people in the world are women. H Some people think that lower birth rates lead to lower economic growth. 13 【 18】 _ 14 【 19】 _ 15 【 20】 _ 16 【 21】 _ 17 【 22】 _ 18 Questions 23-2
26、6 According to the information given in the text, choose the correct answer or answers firm the choices given. 18 Since 1950, the percentage of _. （ A） American women with jobs has increased. （ B） American men with jobs has decreased. （ C） Japanese and Italian women with jobs has remained stable. 19
27、 Economies can get bigger by _. （ A） increasing the size of the workforce. （ B） giving shares to workers. （ C） using more advanced technology. 20 Mixed teams of male and female managers are thought to be better at _. （ A） building teams. （ B） solving problems. （ C） communicating. 21 Research by the
28、World Economic Forum shows that _. （ A） sex equality leads to higher GDP. （ B） there is a connection between sex equality and GDP. （ C） higher education leads to a higher GDP. 21 The Fertility Bust A Fatting populations the despair of state pension systems are often regarded with calmness, even a se
29、cret satisfaction, by ordinary people. Europeans no Longer need Large families to gather the harvest or to took after parents. They have used their good fortune to have fewer children, thinking this wilt make their tires better. Much of Europe is too crowded as it is. !s this at that is going on? Ge
30、rmans have been agonising about recent European Union estimates suggesting that 30% of German women are, and will remain, childless. The number is a guess: Germany does not collect figures Like this. Even if the share is 25%, as other surveys suggest, it is by far the highest in Europe. B Germany is
31、 something of an oddity in this. In most countries with tow fertility, young women have their first child late, and stop at one. In Germany, women with children often have two or three, but many have none at all. Germany is also odd in experiencing low fertility for such a tong time. Europe is demog
32、raphically potarised. Countries in the north and west saw fertility fart early, in the 196Os. Recently, they have seen it stabilise or rise back towards replacement ever (i.e. 2.1 births per woman). Countries in the south and east, on the other hand, saw fertility rates fart much faster, more recent
33、ly (often to below 1.3, a rate at which the population falls by half every 45 years). Germany combines both. Its fertility rate felt below 2 in 1971. However, it has stayed tow and is stilt only just above 1.3. This challenges the notion that European fertility is likely to stabilise at tolerable Le
34、vels. It raises questions about whether the Low birth rates of Italy and Poland, say, realty are, as some have argued, merely temporary. C The List of explanations for why German fertility has not rebounded is tong. Michael Teitelbaum, a demographer at the Stoan Foundation in New York ticks them off
35、: poor child care; unusually extended higher education; inflexible labour taws; high youth unemployment; and non-economic or cultural factors. One German writer, Gunter Grass, wrote a novel, “Headbirths“, in 1982, about Harm and Drte Peters, “a model couple“ who disport themselves on the beaches of
36、Asia rather than invest time and trouble in bringing up a baby. “They keep a cat“, writes Mr Grass, “and stilt have no child.“ The novel is subtitled “The Germans are dying out“. With the exception of this cultural factor, none of these features is peculiar to Germany. If social and economic explana
37、tions account for persistent low fertility there, then they may well produce the same persistence elsewhere. D The reason for hoping otherwise is that the initiat dectine in southern and eastern Europe was drastic, and may be reversibte. In the Mediterranean, demographic decline was associated with
38、freeing young women from the constraints of traditional Catholicism, which encouraged large families. In eastern Europe, it was associated with the collapse in living standards and the ending of pro-birth policies after the fait of communism. In both regions, as such temporary factors fade, fertilit
39、y rates might, in principle, be expected to rise. Indeed, they may already be stabilising in Italy and Spain. Germany tells you that reversing these trends can be hard. There, and elsewhere, fertility rates did not merely fall; they went below what people said they wanted. In 1979, Eurobarometer ask
40、ed Europeans how many children they would tike. Almost everywhere, the answer was two: the traditional two-child idea persisted even when people were not delivering it. This may have reflected old habits of mind. Or people may reaty be having fewer children than they claim to want. E A recent paper
41、suggests how this might come about. If women postpone their first child past their mid-30s, it may be too ate to have a second even if they want one (the average age of first births in most of Europe is now 30). If everyone does the same, one child becomes the norm: a one-child policy by example rat
42、her than coercion, as it were. If women wait to start a family unlit they are established at work, they may end up postponing children longer than they might otherwise have chosen. When birth rates began to fait in Europe, this was said to be a simple matter of choice. That was true, but it is possi
43、ble that fertility may overshoot below what people might naturally have chosen. For many years, politicians have argued that southern Europe will catch up from its fertility decline because women, having postponed their first child, will quickly have a second and third. The overshoot theory suggests
44、 there may be only partial recuperation. Postponement could permanently tower fertility, not just redistribute it across time. F There is a twist. If people have fewer children than they claim to want, how they see the family may change too. Research by Tomas Sobotka of the Vienna Institute of Demog
45、raphy suggests that, after decades of tow fertility, a quarter of young German men and a fifth of young women say they have no intention of having children and think that this is fine. When Eurobarometer repeated its poll about ideal family size in 2001, support for the two-chlid model had fallen ev
46、erywhere. Parts of Europe, then, may be entering a new demographic trap. People restrict family size from choice. Social, economic and cultural factors then cause this natural fertility decline to overshoot. This changes expectations, to which people respond by having even fewer children. That does
47、not necessarily mean that birth rates will fait even more: there may yet be some natural floor, but it could mean that recovery from very low fertility rates proves to be stow or even non-existent. 22 Questions 14-17 The text has 6 paragraphs (A-F). Which paragraph does each of the following heading
48、s best fit? 22 Even further falls? 23 One child policy 24 Germany differs 25 Possible reasons 26 Questions 18-22 According to the text, FIVE of the following statements are true. Write the corresponding letters in answer boxes 18 to 22 in any order. A Germany has the highest percentage of childless
49、women. B Italy and Poland have high birth rates. C Most of the reasons given by Michael Teitelbaum are not unique to Germany. D Communist governments in Europe encouraged people to have children. E In 1979, most families had one or two children. F European women who have a child later usually have more soon after. G In 2001, people wanted fewer children than in 1979, according to Eurobarometer research. H Here may be a natural level at which birth rates stop declining. 31 Questions 23-26 According
