四川大學考博英語真題2001年

I．ReadingComprehension (30%; one mark each)
Directions: Readthe following six passages. Answer the questions below each passage by choosing[A], [B], [C], or [D]. Write your answers on the Answer Sheet.

PassageOne
In general, our society is becoming one of giant enterprisesdirected by a bureaucratic management in which man becomes a small,well-oiledcog in the machinery. Theoiling is done with higher wages, Nell-ventilated factories and piped music,and by psychologists and “human-relations” experts; yet all this oiling doesnot alter the fact that man has become powerless, that he is bored with it. Infact, the blue and the white-collar workers have become economic puppets whodance to the tune of automated machines and bureaucratic management.
The worker and employee are anxious, not only because they mightfind themselves out of a job; they are anxious also because they are unable toacquire any real satisfaction of interesting life. They live and die withoutever having confronted the fundamental realities of human existence asemotionally and intellectually independent and productive human beings.
Those higher up on the social ladder are no less anxious. Theirlives are no less empty than those of their subordinates. They are even moreinsecure in some respects. They are in a highly competitive race. To bepromoted or to fall behind is not a matter of salary but even more a matter ofself-respect. When they apply for their first job, they are tested forintelligence as well as for the right mixture of submissiveness andindependence. From the moment on they are tested again and again-by thepsychologists, for whom testing is a big business, and by their superiors, whojudge their behavior, sociability, capacity to get along, etc. This constantneed to prove that one is as good as or better than one’s fellow-competitorcreates constant anxiety and stress, the very causes of unhappiness andillness.
Am I suggesting that we should return to the preindustrial mode ofproduction or to nineteenth-century “free enterprise” capitalism? Certainlynot. Problems the never solved by returning to a stage which one has alreadyoutgrown. I suggest transforming our social system form, a bureaucraticallymanaged industrialism in which maxima, production and consumption are ends inthemselves, into a humanist industrialism in which man and full development ofhis potentialities-those of all love and of reason-are the aims of socialarrangements. Production and consumption should serve only as means to this endand should be prevented from ruling man.

1.By “a well-oiled cog in the machinery” the author intends to deliver the ideathat man is ____.
[A] a necessary part of the society though each individual’s function isnegligible
[B] working in complete harmony with the rest of the society