U17   Industry and Agriculture

工业与农业

Needed: High-tech Skills

       Reading Comprehension

       (包括“答案与题解”)

       Notes

       课文参考译文

       练习

         ●Cloze

●Reading Passages(包括“疑难长句翻译与注解”)

         ●Translation

●Writing(包括“审题指导”)

Needed: High-tech Skills

The skills to maintain high-technology systems are becoming as important as the creative skills that design the systems.

All across the country, buses, planes, utilities, even sewage treatment plants, miracles of modern science, are breaking down and proving unusable because we are unable to provide the companion miracle of modern maintenance.

The lack of skilled workers is most alarming in the area of nuclear power. Everyone is familiar with Three Mile Island, but numerous other dangerous incidents have been caused by carelessness or ignorance. In Virginia, the North Anna One nuclear plant was shut down when a worker’s shirt snagged a circuit breaker. Previously, employees at the same plant had jammed an emergency switch with a pencil and paper clip. At Florida Power’s Crystal River plant, a potentially serious leakage of radioactive water may have been unknowingly caused by an electrician. At the Rancho Seco plant in California a similar incident occurred several years ago when a technician dropped a console light bulb into the wiring.

New safety requirements in the nuclear industry have created a need for more engineers and other technicians, while the fear of another Three Mile Island has led to greater emphasis on hiring qualified workers. But as the need has grown, the number of workers has not. The unpopularity of nuclear power on college campuses and its uncertain future have discouraged many students from entering the field. There was a 19-percent drop in the number of students receiving a bachelor of science in nuclear engineering in 1980, and a 10-percent drop in those taking a master’s. Regulators fear that plants, unable to find qualified workers, will lower their safety standards; in fact, one of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s regional offices recently ordered Toledo Edison Company to retract a series of promotions at its Davis-Bess nuclear plant. The promotions had gone to unqualified workers, they said, making the plant unsafe.

The panel studying the crash of the DC-10 in Chicago in 1979, which killed 273 people, listed improper maintenance as the starting point for the failures that led to the crash. That and similar findings have led the airline industry to worry that too many functions are being taken over by unqualified workers.

Both Houston, Texas, and Baltimore, Maryland, have plans to renovate old buses, at considerable expenses, because the new “advance design buses” manufactured by both General Motors and Grumman’s Flexible Industries (the only type currently available in the United States) have proved too difficult and expensive to maintain. Miami’s new air-conditioned buses broke down when the air conditioning was turned on. Houston has 150 of the General Motors buses, which have lifts for the handicapped, wide seating, air conditioning, and windows that don’t open. The city found itself in a crisis situation last summer when the air conditioning on dozens of the new buses broke down, making them unusable. Authorities solved the problem by removing the windows on forty of the buses, a short-term solution at best.Even the family automobile is becoming too complicated for most of us to fix. “There is already a competency crunch among the nation’s 525,000 auto mechanics,” says the president of the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence, which certifies mechanics. “We may already have passed the day when an individual could work on his own car,” asserts John Betti, a Ford vice-president.

What’s going to happen when we get artificial hearts? Unless we begin to fill the need for skilled technicians, we will be forced to abandon much of our technological infrastructure and return to older, simpler methods.

The high-tech repair problems we already face are testimony to the need for mechanically skilled engineers, technicians, and repair people. All of these are good occupational bets for the next twenty years. But better incentives will have to be created to attract and develop the skills needed to keep our technology practicable.

1. Modern technological innovations are breaking down because              .

 ［A］ they are not matched by a maintenance workforce

 ［B］ they are proved to be no miracles at all

 ［C］ they are usually innovations dangerous to the environment

 ［D］ it takes some time for them to become usable to their users

2. From the passage we learn that              .

 ［A］ high-technology systems are beneficial only when they are backed up by proper maintenance skills   

 ［B］ safety programs are badly needed to ensure absolute safety of some nuclear utilities

 ［C］ many workers are good at maintaining some utilities but unable to bring about creative innovations of the systems

 ［D］ most workers do not believe they can do miraculous work in the field of modern maintenance

3. The Three Mile Island incident makes it clear that              .

 ［A］ high-technology can lead to disastrous result

 ［B］ there is a serious lack of skilled workers

 ［C］ new safety requirements are in urgent need

 ［D］ even a minor mistake in operation could blow up the whole facility

4. The unpopularity of nuclear power on college campuses can result in              .

 ［A］ the shortage of scientists in the field in the near future

 ［B］ an increasing likelihood of nuclear incidents 

 ［C］ worsening designs of nuclear facilities

 ［D］ an end to the further development of nuclear programs

5. As a solution to the shortage of skilled engineers and other technicians, the writer proposes that              .

 ［A］ many more students be given the opportunity to enter related fields

 ［B］ programs be developed to give engineers and technicians retraining in the next twenty years

 ［C］ higher motivations be provided to attract more people into related fields  

 ［D］ the present technological infrastructure be reexamined to ensure greater safety

答案与题解

1.［A］   意为：它们缺乏一支保养力量与之相配。

参阅第二段。

2.［A］   意为：只有被相应的保养技能支持时，高技术才是有益的。

  参阅第二段(本段实际上阐明了本文旨在说明的观点)和最后一段(本段实际上是文章的结论)。

3.［B］  

  Three Mile Island的例子实际上用于说明第三段第一句说明的现象。另请参阅第四段。

4.［B］  

  根据第四段，由于学生不再进入原子能专业学习，这会造成新一轮技术人才的缺乏，进而更可能导致核事故的发生。

5.［C］  

  参阅文章最后一句。

Notes

1.  第二段第一句是一个简单主从复合句。句架是...， buses, planes， utilities, even..., ..., ..., are breaking down and proving...because we are unable to provide...。句中miracles of modern science起概括总结的作用。

2.  第五段第一句是一个简单主从复合句。 句架是The panel studying the crash..., which    ..., listed...maintenance as the starting point for the failures that...。句中which引导非限制性定语从句，修饰crash；后面that引导的定语从句修饰failures。failure在这里作“故障”讲。

课文参考译文

需要：高技术技能

保养高技术系统的技巧已变得像设计这些系统的创造性技巧一样重要。

在全国范围内，公共汽车、飞机、公用设施、甚至污水处理工厂等这些现代科学奇迹都出了毛病，都证明不能用了，因为我们不能提供与这些奇迹相伴的现代保养奇迹。

在核电领域缺乏技术熟练的工人的情况是最惊人的。人人都熟悉三里岛事件，但是许多其他危险的事故是由于疏忽和无知引起的。在弗吉尼亚州，北安娜一号核电厂关闭是因为一个工人的衬衫钩住了一个断路器。以前，同一个工厂的职工用一枝铅笔和一个回形针堵住了一个紧急开关。在佛罗里达州电力厂的克里斯特尔河工厂，放射性水泄漏的潜在严重事件可能是一个电工在不知不觉的情况下引起的。在加利福尼亚州的Rancho Seco工厂，几年前由于一位电工把仪表板上的一个灯泡掉进线路而引发了类似的事故。

核工业新的安全要求造成了对更多工程师和其他技师的需要，而害怕发生另一次三里岛事故已导致更加强调雇用合格的工人。但是在这种需要增加的同时，工人的人数并未增加。核电力在校园不受欢迎以及核电力前途未卜的情况使许多学生灰心而未进入这个领域。1980年攻读核工程理学学士学位的学生减少了19％，攻读硕士学位的学生减少了10％。管理人员担心这些核工厂在未能找到合格工人的情况下会降低安全标准；实际上，核管理委员会的地区办公室之一最近下令托莱多·爱迪生公司收回在戴维斯—贝斯核工厂的一连串提升。他们说，这些提升是提升了不合格的工人，使得这个工厂不再安全。

调查1979年DC-10飞机在芝加哥坠毁致使273人死亡事件的委员会把不适当的保养列为导致飞机坠毁的故障的起因。这次调查结果和类似的调查结果导致航空工业担心：太多的职位已被不合格的工人接任。

得克萨斯州的休斯敦和马里兰州的巴尔的摩都计划投入大量费用更新旧公共汽车，因为事实证明通用汽车公司和格鲁曼公司的灵活工业公司(美国目前仅有的类型)制造的新型“先进设计的公共汽车”太难保养，而且保养也太费钱。迈阿密的新型空调公共汽车在打开空调机后抛了锚。休斯敦有150辆通用汽车公司生产的公共汽车，上面装有为残疾人设计的升降机、宽大的座位、空调设备和打不开的窗户。去年夏天，几十辆新公共汽车上的空调机出了故障，无法使用，因而使这座城市陷入危机。政府通过拆除40辆公共汽车上的窗户的办法解决了问题，这充其量是一个短期解决问题的办法。即使家庭汽车也变得过于复杂而使得我们当中的大部分人无法修理。颁发机械师资格证书的全国汽车维修最佳学会会长说：“在全国52.5万汽车机械师中已出现了胜任资格危机。”福特汽车公司的一位副总裁约翰·贝蒂说：“我们可能已经过了个人能修理自己汽车的日子。”

在我们装上人工心脏的时候会出现什么情况？除非我们开始满足技术熟练技师的需要，否则我们就会被迫抛弃我们的大部分技术基础设施，并回到比较旧的和简单的方法。

我们已面临的高技术维修问题证明需要技术熟练的工程师、技师和维修人员。所有这些都是今后20年职业方面的好赌注。但是必须创造较好的鼓励措施以吸引和开发用以保持我们的技术具有实用价值的技巧。