新视野大学英语视听说教程 4 Unit 5-12

VI. Further Listening and Speaking
Task1: Problems of Joblessness
Script
Joblessness can lead to a series of problem, and it is not easy to solve them.
First of all, being without a job often means lacking social contract wit h fellow employees, and lacking a purpose for many hours of the day,. Also, it obviously affects your ability to pay bills and t o purchase the necessities of life, Lack of this ability is especially serious for those wit family obligations, debts, or medical costs, and it is especially true id in a country like the United States, where the availability of medical insurance is often linked to holding a job.
Some maintain that jobless people can rely on unemployment insurance, but this is no true. Unemployment insurance in the U.S. typically does not even replace50 percent of the income one received on the job, and one cannot receive it forever. Therefore, the unemployed¹ often end up aping welfare programs such as Food Stamps—or accumulating debt: both formal debt to banks and informal debt to friends and relatives.
Some hold that low-income jobs provide solution to joblessness, but this is not true. Since it is difficult or impossible to get unemployment insurance benefits without having worked in the past, job-seekers have to accept low-income jobs. Thus, unemployment insurance keeps a ready supply of low-paid workers. To make things worse, many employers take advantage of this. When they resort to such management techniques as low wages and benefits, as well ad few chances for advancement², they bear the unemployment insurance option in mind.
Under increasing unemployment pressure, jobless people suffer from a variety of financial, psychological and social problems. Increase unemployment encourages bad health and raises both crime and suicide rates.

 

1. What is the first problem mentioned concerning joblessness?
2. Which of the following is true of American unemployment insurance?
3. Why do people accept low-income jobs?
4. According to the passage, what problems might unemployment cause?
5. Which of the following would be the most suitable title for the passage?

 

Keys: 1.A 2.B 3.C 4.D5.A

1 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。

2 advancement   

n.前进，促进，提升

参考例句：

• His new contribution to the advancement of physiology was well appreciated.他对生理学发展的新贡献获得高度赞赏。
• The aim of a university should be the advancement of learning.大学的目标应是促进学术。