2016年BEC中级阅读理解练习-2

　　The relationship between the home and market economies had gone through two distinct stages. Early industrialization began the process of transferring some production processes (e. g. cloth-making, sewing and canning foods) from the home to the marketplace. Although the home economy could still produce these goods, the processes were laborious and the market economy was usually more efficient. Soon the more important second stage was evident --the marketplace began producing goods and services that had never been produced by the home economy, and the home economy was unable to produce them (e. g. electricity and electrical appliances, the automobile, advanced education, sophisticated medical care). In the second stage, the question of whether the home economy was less efficient in producing these new goods and services was irrelevant; if the family were to enjoy these fruits of industrialization, they would have to be obtained in the marketplace. The traditional ways of taking care of these needs in the home such as in nursing the sick, became unacceptable (and, in most serious cases, probably less successful). Just as the appearance of the automobile made the use of the horse drawn carriage illegal and then impractical, and the appearance of television changed the radio from a source of entertainment to a source of background music, so most of the fruits of economic growth did not increase the options available to the home economy to either produce the goods or services or purchase them in the market. Growth brought with it increased variety in consumer goods, but not increased flexibility for the home economy in obtaining these goods and services. Instead, economic growth brought with it increased consumer reliance on the marketplace. In order to consume these new goods and services, the family had to enter the marketplace as wage earners and consumers. The neoclassical (新古典主义的) model that views the family as deciding whether to produce goods and services directly or to purchase them in the marketplace is basically a model of the first stage. It cannot accurately be applied to the second (and current) stage.

　　1. The reason why many production processes were taken over by the marketplace was that ______.

　　A. it was a necessary step in the process of industrialization

　　B. they depended on electricity available only to the market economy

　　C. it was troublesome to produce such goods in the home

　　D. the marketplace was more efficient with respect to these processes

　　2. It can be seen from the passage that in the second stage ______.

　　A. some traditional goods and services were not successful when provided by the home economy

　　B. the market economy provided new goods and services never produced by the home economy

　　C. producing traditional foods at home became socially never produced by the home economy

　　D. whether new goods and services were produced by the home economy became irrelevant

　　3. During the second stage, if the family wanted to consume new goods and services, they had to enter the marketplace ______.

　　A. as wage earners

　　B. both as manufacturers and consumers

　　C. both as workers and purchasers

　　D. as customers

　　4. Economic growth did not make it more flexible for the home economy to obtain the new goods and services because ______.

　　A. the family was not efficient in production

　　B. it was illegal for the home economy to produce them

　　C. it could not supply them by itself

　　D. the market for these goods and services was limited

　　5. The neoclassical model is basically a model of the first stage, because at this stage ______.

　　A. The family could rely either on the home economy or the marketplace for the needed goods and services.

　　B. many production processes were being transferred to the marketplace

　　C. consumers relied more and more on the market economy

　　D. the family could decide how to transfer production processes to the marketplace

　　参考答案：D、B、C、C、A