请教GWD-09-33

maerlucky

Q33 to Q36:

(This passage is excerpted from material

published in 1997.)

      Whereas United States eco-

       nomic productivity grew at  an annual

       rate of 3 percent from 1945 to 1965,

Line       it has grown at an annual rate of

  (5)      only about 1 percent since the early

1970’s.  What might be preventing

higher productivity growth?  Clearly,

the manufacturing sector of the

economy cannot be blamed.  Since

 (10)      1980, productivity improvements

in manufacturing have moved the

United States from a position of

acute decline in manufacturing

to one of world prominence.

 (15)      Manufacturing, however, consti-

tutes a relatively small proportion

of the economy.  In 1992, goods-

producing businesses employed

only 19.1 percent of American

 (20)      workers, whereas service-producing

       businesses employed 70 percent.

       Although the service sector has

grown since the late 1970’s, its

productivity growth has declined.

 (25)            Several explanations have been

offered for this decline and for the

discrepancy in productivity growth

between the manufacturing and

service sectors.  One is that tra-

 (30)      ditional measures fail to reflect

service-sector productivity growth

because it has been concentrated

       in improved quality of services.

Yet traditional measures of manu-

 (35)
                       facturing productivity have shown

significant increases despite the

undermeasurement of quality,

whereas service productivity has

      continued to stagnate.  Others argue

 (40)     that since the 1970’s, manufacturing

workers, faced with strong foreign

competition, have learned to work

more efficiently in order to keep their

jobs in the United States, but service

 (45)      workers, who are typically under

less global competitive pressure,

have not.  However, the pressure on

manufacturing workers in the United

States to work more efficiently has

 (50)      generally been overstated, often

for political reasons.  In fact, while

some manufacturing jobs have been

lost due to foreign competition, many

more have been lost simply because

 (55)      of slow growth in demand for manu-

factured goods.

      Yet another explanation blames

the federal budget deficit:  if it were

lower, interest rates would be lower

 (60)      too, thereby increasing investment

in the development of new technol-

ogies, which would spur productivity

growth in the service sector.  There

is, however, no dearth of techno-

 (65)      logical resources; rather, managers

in the service sector fail to take

advantage of widely available skills

and machines.  High productivity

growth levels attained by leading-

 (70)      edge service companies indicate

that service-sector managers

who wisely implement available

technology and choose skillful

workers can significantly improve

 (75)      their companies’ productivity.

The culprits for service-sector

productivity stagnation are the

forces—such as corporate

takeovers and unnecessary

(80)         governmental regulation—that

distract managers from the task

of making optimal use of available

resources.

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Q33:   答案选E，并没有感觉文章提到了interest增加的情况啊。 我选的A

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the budget-deficit explanation for the discrepancy mentioned in line 27?

             

1. Research shows that the federal budget deficit has traditionally caused service companies to invest less money in research and development of new technologies.
2. New technologies have been shown to play a significant role in companies that have been able to increase their service productivity.
3. In both the service sector and manufacturing, productivity improvements are concentrated in gains in quality.
4. The service sector typically requires larger investments in new technology in order to maintain productivity growth than dose manufacturing.
5. High interest rates tend to slow the growth of manufacturing productivity as much as they slow the growth of service-sector productivity in the United States.

Answer: A

karen427

同问啊，怎么没人回答？