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  3. It’s all Apple all the time these days: "astounding" earnings reports in the news on Jan. 25, lingering shots of Steve Jobs’ wid

It’s all Apple all the time these days: "astounding" earnings reports in the news on Jan. 25, lingering shots of Steve Jobs’ wid

admin2013-12-04  60
问题     It’s all Apple all the time these days: "astounding" earnings reports in the news on Jan. 25, lingering shots of Steve Jobs’ widow Laurene sitting near the First Lady and, of course, ever since his death in October, universal references to Jobs himself in any writing or speech aimed at promoting creativity or ingenuity or an all-American, against-all-odds model of success.
    However, New York Times articles this week spoke of a darker reality behind the glowing Apple story: the "millions of human machines," as the Times’ Charles Duhigg and David Barboza put it, in China who are now laboring 12 hours a day, six days a week to maintain the company’s amazing rate of growth.
    They live in dormitories where they can be called to their jobs anytime and often work double shifts in highly unsafe conditions. They’re willing to do all it takes. "It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad," Duhigg wrote. "Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and expertise of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that ’Made in the U.S.A.’ is no longer a viable option for most Apple products."
    The Times stories raised very serious questions about not only Apple or the many other companies that similarly rely on overseas labor to support their growth and flood the world with cheap products, but the human cost of the growth model itself that has allowed Apple to thrive. It’s a model of growth, all too unquestioned in the U.S., that demands endless quality-of-life sacrifices in the service of productivity and profit. By quality of life, I mean good relationships with friends and family and having the time and the physical and emotional availability to invest in friends and family.
    Yet American workers have been headed in the opposite direction for decades. Working hours have expanded to the point where successful professionals now consider the traditional 40-hour workweek a "part-time" job. Vacation time has been shrinking. In the current downturn, the employed are too scared of losing work to take time off. The pressure to be superproductive, ever willing, and always available has never been greater. But we should call into question the direction we’re headed and ask whether chasing the dream of growth has already turned into a nightmare. It’s up to the rest of us now to decide what to make of Steve Jobs’ legacy.
The expression "against all odds" in the first paragraph probably means______.
选项 A、foreign-born
B、least talented
C、permanently obscure
D、seemingly unlikely
答案D
解析 第一段中的against all odds是个固定词组，意义为“尽管看似根本不可能”或“在极其不利的情况下”。在此短文中，该词组前面有all-American(美国土生土长的)，因而否定foreign-born。前面已经谈到乔布斯是创新力的象征，也就否定了选项B和C。
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