TPO托福閱讀真題講解（一）

Paragraph 1:

Before 1815 manufacturing in the United States had been done in homes or shops by skilled artisans. As master craft workers, they imparted the knowledge of their trades to apprentices and journeymen. In addition, women often worked in their homes part-time, making finished articles from raw material supplied by merchant capitalists. After 1815 this older form of manufacturing began to give way to factories with machinery tended by unskilled or semiskilled laborers. Cheap transportation networks, the rise of cities, and the availability of capital and credit all stimulated the shift to factory production.

1. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about articles manufactured before 1815?
　　○They were primarily produced by women.
　　○They were generally produced in shops rather than in homes.
　　○They were produced with more concern for quality than for speed of production.
　　○They were produced mostly in large cities with extensive transportation networks.

真題解析：

要據(jù)紅色字體部分，可知：A與B選項為錯誤說法，D選項沒有提，也不選。C選項沒有說得很直接，但是，“women often worked in their homes part-time, making finished articles from raw material supplied by merchant capitalists”說明了這些由物品是由原材料（raw materials）生產(chǎn)出來的，因此，應該是對原材料的一種進一步加工，即提高了產(chǎn)品的質(zhì)量，而速度問題這里沒有強調(diào)。因此，正確選項為C。

Paragraph 2:

The creation of a labor force that was accustomed to working in factories did not occur easily. Before the rise of the factory, artisans had worked within the home. Apprentices were considered part of the family, and masters were responsible not only for teaching their apprentices a trade but also for providing them some education and for supervising their moral behavior. Journeymen knew that if they perfected their skill, they could become respected master artisans with their own shops. Also, skilled artisans did not work by the clock, at a steady pace, but rather in bursts of intense labor alternating with more leisurely time.

2. Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage?

○Masters demanded moral behavior from apprentices but often treated them irresponsibly.
　　○The responsibilities of the master to the apprentice went beyond the teaching of a trade. （master對于學徒的責任不僅局限于做生意的傳授上）
　　○Masters preferred to maintain the trade within the family by supervising and educating the younger family members.
　　○Masters who trained members of their own family as apprentices demanded excellence from them.

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真題解析：

從and masters were responsible not only for teaching their apprentices a trade but also for providing them some education and for supervising their moral behavior這句話可知，maters的責任為兩方面（teaching their apprentices a trade和providing them some education and for supervising their moral behavior），這正好與B選項的意思吻合。

Paragraph 3:

The factory changed that. Goods produced by factories were not as finished or elegant as those done by hand, and pride in craftsmanship gave way to the pressure to increase rates of productivity. The new methods of doing business involved a new and stricter sense of time. Factory life necessitated a more regimented schedule, where work began at the sound of a bell and workers kept machines going at a constant pace.

At the same time, workers were required to discard old habits, for industrialism demanded a worker who was alert, dependable, and self-disciplined. Absenteeism and lateness hurt productivity and, since work was specialized, disrupted the regular factory routine. Industrialization not only produced a fundamental change in the way work was organized; it transformed the very nature of work.

3. The word disrupted （破壞=destroy, upset）in the passage is closest in meaning to
　　○Prolonged （延長的）
　　○Established （被成立的）
　　○Followed （被跟隨/遵循的）
　　○Upset

真題解析：

disrupt的意思為：破壞（=destroy, upset）。如果不認識該詞，可以看上一行中出現(xiàn)了一個hurt，聯(lián)系上下文，這里也應該選一個與 hurt意思相近的近義詞。因此，正確答案為：D。

以上就是TPO托福閱讀真題答案及解析，希望對大家有所幫助。

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