Passage 38 (38/63)

In Forces of Production, David Noble examines the transformation of the machine-tool industry as the industry moved from reliance on skilled artisans to automation. Noble writes from a Marxist perspective, and his central argument is that management, in its decisions to automate, conspired against labor: the power that the skilled machinists wielded in the industry was intolerable to management. Noble fails to substantiate this claim, although his argument is impressive when he applies the Marxist concept of “de-skilling”—the use of technology to replace skilled labor—to the automation of the machine-tool industry. In automating, the industry moved to computer-based, digitized “numerical-control” (N/C) technology, rather than to artisan-generated “record-playback” (R/P) technology.

Although both systems reduced reliance on skilled labor, Noble clearly prefers R/P, with its inherent acknowledgment of workers’ skills: unlike N/C, its programs were produced not by engineers at their computers, but by skilled machinists, who recorded their own movements to “teach” machines to duplicate those movements. However, Noble’s only evidence of conspiracy is that, although the two approaches were roughly equal in technical merit, management chose N/C. From this he concludes that automation is undertaken not because efficiency demands it or scientific advances allow it, but because it is a tool in the ceaseless war of capitalists against labor.

6.     The author of the passage commends Noble’s book for which of the following?

        (A) Concentrating on skilled as opposed to unskilled workers in its discussion of the machine-tool industry

(B) Offering a generalization about the motives behind the machine-tool industry’s decision to automate

(C) Making an essential distinction between two kinds of technology employed in the machine-tool industry

(D) Calling into question the notion that managers conspired against labor in the automation of the machine-tool industry（E）

(E) Applying the concept of de-skilling to the machine tool industry

这两道题我也做错了。

第五题：首先作者对Nobel的态度是“大负小正”，所以选项或者体现大正小负，或者体现大负：

(A) “conspired against” (line 6) 【management的态度，不是作者的态度】

(B) “intolerable to management” (line 7) 【management的态度，不是作者的态度】

(C) “impressive when he applies the Marxist concept” (line 9)【小正，片面】

(D) “clearly prefers” (line 16)【Nobel自己的态度，不是作者的态度】

(E) “only evidence of conspiracy” (line 21)【大负，only表示作者认为Nobel的观点fail to substantiate this claim】

第六题，我是没有理解commend的意思，选了D. Commend=称赞，表扬，而作者的态度是“大正小负”，所以定位于让步从句： although his argument is impressive when he applies the Marxist concept of “de-skilling”

upup

不过楼上的lz说的有点点错误

作者总的态度是大-小+

第5题是考察大-, 定位前半句

第6题是考察小-,定位后半句