2018年10月自考英语二真题_2018年10月自考英语（二）阅读强化辅导【9-11】

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【篇一】

Slavery on Our Doorstep

　　There are estimated to be more than 20,000 overseas domestic servants working in Britain (the exact figure is not known because the Home Office, the government department that deals with this, does not keep statistics). Usually, they have been brought over by foreign businessmen, diplomats or Britons returning from abroad. Of these 20,000, just under 2,000 are being exploited and abused by their employers, according to a London-based campaigning group which helps overseas servants working in Britain.

　　The abuse can take several forms. Often the domestics are not allowed to go out, and they do not receive any payment. They can be physically, sexually and psychologically abused. And they can have their passports removed, making leaving or "escaping" virtually impossible.

　　The sad condition of women working as domestics around the world received much media attention earlier this year in several highly publicised cases. In one of them, a Filipino maid was executed is Singapore after being convicted of murder, despite protests from various quarters that her guilt had not been adequately established.

　　Groups like Anti-Slavery International say other, less dramatic, cases are equally deserving of attention, such as that of Lydia Garcia, a Filipino maid working in London:"I was hired by a Saudi diplomat directly form the Philippines to work in London in 1989. I was supposed to be paid ￡120 but I never received that amount. They always threatened that they would send me back to my country."

　　Then there is the case of Kumari from Sri Lanka. The main breadwinner in her family, she used to work for a very low wage at a tea factory in Sri Lanka. Because she found it difficult to feed her four children, she accepted a job working as a domestic in London. She says she felt like a prisoner at the London house where she worked:"No days off - ever, no breaks at all, no proper food. I didn't have my own room; I slept on a shelf with a space of only three feet above me. I wasn't allowed to talk to anybody. I wasn't even allowed to open the window. My employers always threatened to report me to the Home Office or the police."

　　At the end of 1994 the British Government introduced new measures to help protect domestic workers from abuse by their employers. This included increasing the minimum age of employees to 18, getting employees to read and understand an advice leaflet, getting employers to agree to provide adequate maintenance and conditions, and to put in writing the main terms and conditions of the job (of which the employees should see a copy).

　　However, many people doubt whether this will successfully reduce the incidence of abuse. For the main problem facing overseas maids and domestics who try to complain about cruel living and working conditions is that they do not have independent immigrant status and so cannot change employer. (They are allowed in the United Kingdom under a special concession in the immigration rules which allows foreigners to bring domestic staff with them.) So if they do complain, they risk being deported.

　　Allowing domestic workers the freedom to seek the same type of work but with a different employer, if the so choose, is what groups like Anti-Slavery International are campaigning the Government for. It is, they say, the right to change employers which distinguishes employment from slavery.

　　我们身边的奴役

　　据估计，在英国工作的外籍家庭佣人有两万多人。通常，他们是被外国商人、外交官和从国外归来的英国人带来的。根据某个设在伦敦的帮助在英国做工的外籍佣人的政治组织说，两万名佣人中有近两千人被他们的雇主剥削、*。*有多种形式：家仆常不许外出或得不到工钱;有的家仆还受到*、性或精神方面的*;还有的护照遭到没收，这样他们走也走不了，逃也逃不掉。

　　今年早些时候引起大众高度注意的事件中，全世界女佣的悲惨状况得到了媒体的注意。其中一件是，一个菲律宾女佣在被判杀谋杀罪后，在新加坡被处决，尽管各方面都*她的罪行尚未充分证实。一些组织如"反奴役国际"称还有一些案件虽然没有菲律宾女佣案那么具有戏剧性，也同样值得关注。如在伦敦做事的菲籍女佣迪亚加西亚一案："1989年一个沙特外交官直接把我从菲律宾雇来到伦敦工作。说是一个月120镑，但多从没有拿过那么多。她还经常吓唬我，说要把我送回国去。"

　　此外，还有来自斯里兰卡的库马里事件。她家主要靠她赚钱维持生计，她曾在斯里兰卡一家茶场挣一份微薄的工资。因为她发现很难养活她的四个孩子，就接受了在伦敦做佣人的一份工作。她说在伦敦那所她工作的房子里感觉像个囚犯。"不放假，也不让休息，连一口像样的饭也吃不上。而且我没有自己的房间，让我睡在壁橱的隔板上，躺上去，身子离上面的隔板只有三尺来高，还不容许我跟别人说话，连窗户也不让开。雇主动不动就吓唬说要向内政部或警察告我的状。"

　　1993年末英国政府采取了新措施，保护家佣不再受雇主的欺负。其中包括把雇佣的年龄提高到18岁，让雇佣新闻记者并理解一份有建议的宣传材料，使雇主同意提供适当的生活费用和条件，把工作的主要条款和条件形成文字。

　　但是，这些措施能否有效地减少*的发生，很多人感到怀疑。外籍女佣和家仆虽有意对恶劣的生活和工作条件提出控诉，但主要的问题是他们没有独立的移民身份，因此不能改换雇主，故而他们敢发泄不满的话，就有被遣送回国的可能。

　　做家仆的人有选择雇主的自由，这也就是"反奴役国际"这类组织努力促使政府去实现的事。这类组织说，正是改换雇主的权利划清了雇佣和奴役的界限。

【篇二】

Return of The Chain Gang

　　Eyewitnesses say it was a scene straight out of a black and white movie from the 1950s. As the sun rose over the fields of Huntsville, Alabama, in the American South, the convicts got down from the trucks that had brought them there. Watched over by guards with guns, they raised their legs in unison and made their way to the edge of the highway, Interstate 65. The BBC's Washington correspondent Clare Bolderson was there and she sent this report:"They wore white uniforms with the words 'Chain Gang' on their backs and, in groups of five, were shackled together in leg irons joined by an eight-foot chain. The prisoners will work for up to 90 days on the gang: they'll clear ditches of weeds and mend fences along Alabama's main roads. While they are working on the gang, they'll also live in some of the harshest prison conditions in the United States.

　　There'll be no televisions or phone calls; many other day-to-day privileges will be denied."

　　The authorities in Alabama say there is a lot of support for the re-introduction of chain gangs in the State after a gap of 30 years (the last gangs were abolished in Georgia in the early 1960s). Many people believe it is an effective way to get criminals to pay back their debt to society.

　　The prisoners stay shackled when they use toilets. They reacted sharply to the treatment they are given:Prisoner one: "This is like a circus. A zoo. All chained here to a zoo. We're all animals now."

　　Prisoner two: "It's degrading. It's embarrassing."

　　Prisoner three: "In chains. It's slavery!"

　　Six out of every ten prisoners in chains are black, which is why the chain gangs call up images of slavery in centuries gone by, when black people were brought from Africa in leg irons and made to work in plantations owned by white men. Not surprisingly, although three quarters of the white population of Alabama supports chain gangs, only a small number of black people do. Don Claxton, spokesman for the State Government of Alabama, insists that the system is not racist:"This isn't something that's done for racial reasons, for political reasons. This is something that's going to help save the people of Alabama tax money because they don't have to pay as many officers to work on the highways. And it's going to help clean up our highways and it's going to help clean up the State."

　　However, the re-introduction of these measures has caused a great deal of strong disagreement. Human rights organizations say that putting prisoners in chains is not only inhumane but also ineffective.

　　Alvin Bronstein, member of the Civil Liberties Union, says that study after study has shown that you cannot prevent people from committing crimes by punishment or the threat of punishment: "What they will do is make prisoners more angry, more hostile, so that when they get out of prison, they will increase the level of their criminal behaviour."

　　Civil liberties groups say that chaining people together doesn't solve the causes of crime, such as poverty or disaffection within society. What it does is punish prisoners for the ills of society.

　　They say the practice takes the United States back to the Middle Ages, and that it is a shame to American society. But that's not an argument likely to win favour among many people in the Deep South of the United States. Alabama's experiment is to be widened to include more prisoners, and other States, such as Arkansas and Arizona, will very probably introduce their own chain gang schemes.

　　又把犯人串在一起了

　　看到这个情景的人说，这就像50年代一部黑白*中的场景：当太阳从美国南部阿拉巴马州的亨茨威尔的田野上升起时，罪犯们从运送他们的卡车上下来。在持枪的卫兵监视下，他们步伐整齐地向65号州际的高速公路的路边走去。英国广播公司驻华盛顿记者克莱尔德森就在现场，并发回如下报道：罪犯们穿着白我号衣，背上写有"Chain Gang"字样。他们五人一组，用一条八英尺长的铁链把他们的腿拴在一起。这些囚犯要这样串在一起干90天活儿;他们要清理排水沟上的杂草，要维修沿阿拉巴马主干道的防护栏。他们要串在一起劳动不说，他们监狱的有些条件也是美国最恶劣的：没有电视，不让接电话;其他日常生活的权利也被剥削。

　　阿拉巴马州*说，事隔30年，有许多人赞成恢复使用这种刑罚认为这是让罪犯向社会赎罪的有效方法。囚犯们上厕所戴着镣铐，他们对遭受的待遇反应强烈：囚犯甲说，"这简直是一个马戏团，一个动物园。所有的人都被链子捆在一起，这是把我们当动物嘛!"

　　囚犯乙说，"这不是践踏人，羞辱人嘛!"

　　囚犯丙说，"用铁镣，奴隶制才会这样做。"

　　用铁链串在一起的犯人60%是黑人，正因如此，这些带镣铐和囚犯想到了几个世纪前的奴隶制下的种种景象，那时黑人带着脚镣从非洲带来，被近在白人的种植园里干活。阿拉巴马虽有3/4的白人支持带镣服刑，却只有很少一部分黑人赞同这样做，这就不足为怪了。阿拉巴马州政府发言人唐克莱斯顿坚持认为这个办法并没有各族歧视的意思："这样做并非是种族和政治原因。这样做管理高速公路的干部少了，阿拉巴马的百姓就可以少交些税嘛。而且，还可以清理高速公路的卫生，此外，全州的卫生也可以得到清理。"

　　但是，恢复这些措施招致了许多人的强烈反对。一些****组织认为，把犯人用铁链拴在一起既不人道也不起什么作用。"公民自由联合会"的会员阿尔文布朗斯坦认为，研究一再证明不能靠惩罚或用惩罚威吓来阻止犯罪，"他们这样做的结果是犯人更加恼怒，抵触情绪更厉害。等出了狱，他们会变本加厉地做坏事。"

　　一些公民自由组织认为，把人用铁链拴起来不能消除像社会中存在的贫困以及不满等犯罪根源;它的作用不亚于为惩罚囚犯来维护社会的弊病。他们觉得这是让美国退回到了中世纪，是美国社会的耻辱。但这种说法看来不大可能赢得美国南方腹地几个州的人民的响应。阿拉巴马很快就要在更多的囚犯身上使用这个办法，像阿肯和亚利桑那等其他几个州也很有可能实行各自的一套串绑囚犯的办法。

【篇三】

Improving Industrial efficiency through Robotics

　　Robots, becoming increasingly prevalent in factories and industrial plants throughout the developed world, are programmed and engineered to perform industrial tasks without human intervention.

　　Most of today's robots are employed in the automotive industry, where they are programmed to take over such jobs as welding and spray painting automobile and truck bodies. They also load and unload hot, heavy metal forms used in machines casting automobile and truck frames.

　　Robots, already taking over human tasks in the automotive field, are beginning to be seen, although to a lesser degree, in other industries as well.

　　There they build electric motors, small appliances, pocket calculators, and even watches. The robots used in nuclear power plants handle the radioactive materials, preventing human personnel from being exposed to radiation. These are the robots responsible for the reduction in job-related injuries in this new industry.

　　What makes a robot a robot and not just another kind of automatic machine? Robots differ from automatic machines in that after completion of one specific task, they can be reprogrammed by a computer to do another one. As an example, a robot doing spot welding one month can be reprogrammed and switched to spray painting the next.

　　Automatic machine, on the other hand, are not capable of many different uses; they are built to perform only one task.

　　The next generation of robots will be able to see objects, will have a sense of touch, and will make critical decisions. Engineers skilled in microelectronics and computer technology are developing artificial vision for robots. With the ability to "see", robots can identify and inspect one specific class of objects out of a stack of different kinds of materials. One robot vision system used electronic digital cameras containing many rows of light-sensitive materials.

　　When light from an object such as a machine part strikes the camera, the sensitive materials measure the intensity of light and convert the light rays into a range of numbers. The numbers are part of a grayscale system in which brightness is measured in a range of values.

　　One scale ranges from 0 to 15, and another from 0 to 255. The 0 is represented by black. The highest number is white. The numbers is between represent different shades of gray. The computer then makes the calculations and converts the numbers into a picture that shows an image of the object in question. It is not yet known whether robots will one day have vision as good as human vision. Technicians believe they will, but only after years of development.

　　Engineers working on other advances are designing and experimenting with new types of metal hands and fingers, giving robots a sense of touch. Other engineers are writing new programs allowing robots to make decisions such as whether to discard defective parts in finished products. To do this, the robot will also have to be capable of identifying those defective parts.

　　These future robots, assembled with a sense of touch and the ability to see and make decisions, will have plenty of work to do.

　　They can be used to explore for minerals on the ocean floor or in deep areas of mines too dangerous for humans to enter. They will work as gas station attendants, firemen, housekeepers, and security personnel.

　　Anyone wanting to understand the industry of the future will have to know about robotics.

　　利用机器人技术提高工业效率

　　机器人在所有发达国家的工厂日益普及，它们被编程、设计，在无人情况下执行工业任务。现今大多数机器人用于汽车工业，人们对其编程，从事如汽车卡车车身焊接、喷漆之类的工作。它们也装卸汽车和卡车框架的机器中所有的炽热、笨重的金属铸模。

　　机器人已经在汽车行业接任了人类工作，在其行业也开始看到它们的身影，虽然使用程度低一些。在那里它们制造电动马达、小型设备、袖珍计算器，甚至手表。用于核电站的机器人处理辐射材料，使职员不暴露于辐射。这些机器人可以减少这一新型工业中与工作有关的伤害。

　　什么使机器变成机器人，而不是其他的自动化机器呢?机器人与自动化机器的区别在于完成一项特定工作后，它们可以被电脑重新编程去执行一项任务。

　　比如说，一个机器人做了一个月的点焊，可以重新编程，下个月转向喷漆。相反，自动化机器却没有许多不同用途，它们只是为了招待一项任务而被建造。下一代机器人将能看见物体，具有触觉，能作出关键性的决定。精通于微电子和电脑技术的工程师正在为机器人开发人造视力，有了"看"的能力，机器人就能从一推不同的材料中鉴别检查出具体的一类物体。机器人礼堂系统采用包含多行感官材料的电子数码相机。当一个物体上的光，如机器零件，照射到相机上时，敏感材料就可测量出光的强度，把光线转换为一组数字。这些数字是灰度系统的一部分，其亮度由一系列数值测量。一个刻度范围是0到15，另一个是0到 225。0用黑色表示，值用白色，其间的数值用不同的灰色阴影来表示。然后计算机进行计算，并将数字转换为表明该无题形象的图像。现在还不知道有一天机器人是否具有人类一样的好视力。技术人员想信它们会的，只是需要多年的开发。

　　在其他方面取得进展的工程技术人员正在设计和试验新型金属手臂和手指，使机器人具有触觉。其他工程人员正在编写新的程序使机器人做出如是否抛弃成品中有缺陷的零件的决定。要做到这点，机器人还必须具有鉴别有缺陷零件的能力。

　　集触觉、看和做决定的能力于一体的这些未来机器人将会做大量的工作。它们可以用于海底探矿或探测对人类太危险的深层区域的矿物。它们可以做加油站服务人员、消防人员、房屋管理员和安全人员的工作。任何想了解未来工业的人必须懂机器人。

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