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An industrial society, especially one as centralized and concentrated as that of Britain, is heavily dependant on certain essential services: for instance, electricity supply, water, rail androad transport, the harbors. The area of dependency has widened to include removing rubbish, hospital and ambulance services, and, as the economy develops, central computer and informationservices as well. If any of these services ceases to operate, the whole economic system is in danger.
It is this interdependency of the economic system that makes the power of trade unions such an important issue. Single trade unions have the ability to cut off many economic blood supplies.This can happen more easily in Britain than in some other countries, in part because the labor force is highly organized. About 55 per cent of British workers belong to unions, compared tounder a quarter in the United States. For historical reasons, Britain's unions have tended to develop along trade and occupational lines, rather than on an industry-by-industry basis, whichmakes wage policy, democracy in industry and the improvement of procedures for fixing wage levels difficult to achieve.
There are considerable strains and tensions in the trade union movement, some of them arising from their outdated and inefficient structure. Some unions have lost many members because ofindustrial changes. Others are involved in arguments about who should represent workers in new trades. Unions for skilled trades are separate from general unions, which means that differentlevels of wages for certain jobs are often a source of bad feeling between unions. In traditional trades which are being pushed out of existence by advancing technologies, unions can fight fortheir members' disappearing jobs to the point where the jobs of other union's members are threatened or destroyed. The printing of newspapers both in the United States and in Britain hasfrequently been halted by the efforts of printers to hold on to their traditional highly-paid jobs.
21. Why is the question of trade union power important in Britain?
A. The economy is very much interdependent.
B. Unions have been established a long time.
C. There are more unions in Britain than elsewhere.
D. There are many essential services.
22. Because of their out-of-date organization some unions find it difficult to______.
A. change as industries change B. get new members to join them
C. learn new technologies D. bargain for high enough wages
23. Disagreements arise between unions because some of them
A. try to win over members of other unions
B. ignore agreements
C. protect their own members at the expense of others
D. take over other union's jobs
24. It is difficult to improve the procedures for fixing wage levels because______.
A. some industries have no unions
B. unions are not organized according to industries
C. only 55 per cent of workers belong to unions
D. some unions are too powerful
25. Which of the following is NOT TRUE?
A. There are strains and tensions in the trade union movement.
B. Some unions have lost many members.
C. Some unions exist in the outdated structure.
D. A higher percentage of American workers belong to unions than that of British workers.
21. A 22. A 23. C 24. B 25. D
Pronouncing a language is a skill. Every normal person is expert in the skill of pronouncing his own language; but few people are even moderately proficient at pronouncing foreign languages.Now there are many reasons for this, some obvious, some perhaps not so obvious. But I suggest that the fundamental reason why people in general do not speak foreign languages very much betterthan they do is that they fail to grasp the true nature of the problem of learning to pronounce, and consequently never set about tackling it in the right way. Far too many people fail torealize that pronouncing a foreign language is a skill—one that needs careful training of a special kind, and one that cannot be acquired by just leaving it to take care of itself. I think eventeachers of language, while recognizing the importance of a good accent, tend to neglect, in their practical teaching, the branch of study concerned with speaking the language. So the firstpoint I want to make is that English pronunciation must be taught; the teacher should be prepared to devote some of the lesson time to this, and should get the student to feel that here is amatter worthy of receiving his close attention. So, there should be occasions when other aspects of English, such as grammar or spelling, are allowed for the moment to take second place.
Apart from this question of the time given to pronunciation, there are two other requirements for the teacher: the first, knowledge; the second, technique.
It is important that the teacher should be in possession of the necessary information. This can generally be obtained from books. It is possible to get from books some idea of the mechanicsof speech, and of what we call general phonetic theory. It is also possible in this way to get a clear mental picture of the relationship between the sounds of different languages, between thespeech habits of English people and those, say, of your students. Unless the teacher has such a picture, any comments he may make on his students' pronunciation are unlikely to be of much use,and lesson time spent on pronunciation may well be time wasted.
26. What does the writer actually say about pronouncing foreign languages?
A. Only a few people are really proficient.
B. No one is really an expert in the skill.
C. There aren't many people who are even fairly good.
D. There are even some people who are moderately proficient.
27. The writer argues that going about the problem of pronunciation in the wrong way is
A. an obvious cause of not grasping the problem correctly
B. a fundamental consequence of not speaking well
C. a consequence of not grasping the problem correctly
D. not an obvious cause of speaking poorly
28. The best way of learning to speak a foreign language, he suggests, is by_______.
A. picking it up naturally as a child
B. learning from a native speaker
C. not concentrating on pronunciation as such
D. undertaking systematic work
29. The value the student puts on correct speech habits depends upon_______.
A. how closely he attends to the matter
B. whether it is English that is being taught
C. his teacher's approach to pronunciation
D. the importance normally given to grammar and spelling
30. How might the teacher find himself wasting lesson time?
A. By spending lesson time on pronunciation.
B. By making ill-informed comments upon pronunciation.
C. By not using books on phonetics in the classroom.
D. By not giving students a clear mental picture of the difference between sounds.
26. C 27. C 28. D 29. C
