More, recently, while examining housing construction, the researchers discovered that illiterate, non-English-speaking Mexican workers in Houston, Texas, consistently met best-practice labor productivity standards despite the complexity of the building industry's work.
【分析】复合句。句子主干为 the researchers discovered that...,其中 that 引导的从句作宾语。宾语从句中 despite 引出的介词短语作让步状语。句首的“while + 分词短语”结构是省略主语和系动词的状语从句while the researchers were examining...。
【译文】最近,研究者在调查房屋建筑业时发现,尽管建筑行业的工作非常复杂,但是德克萨斯州休斯顿市的那些不识字、不会说英语的墨西哥工人却总能达到劳动生产率的标准。
【点拨】1) illiterate 意为“文盲的”,是 literate“有读写能力的,识字的”的反义词。2)despite 用作介词,意思是“不管,尽管”,其后跟名词(短语)。