2008年中国人民大学考博英语真题4

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Passage 3

Adam Smith, writing in the 1770s, was the first person to see the importance of the division of labor and to explain part of its advantages. He gives as an example the process by which pins were made in England.

“One man draws out the wire； another strengthens it； a third cuts it； a fourth points it； a fifth grinds it at the top to prepare it to receive the head. To make the head requires two or three operations. To put it on is a separate operation, to polish the pins is another. And the important business of making pins is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen operations, which in some factories are all performed by different people, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. ”

Ten men, Smith said, in this way, turned out twelve pounds of pins a day or about 4, 800 pins per worker. But if all of them had worked separately and independently without division of labor, none of them could have made twenty pins in a day and perhaps not even one. There can be no doubt that division of labor is an efficient way of organizing work. Fewer people can make more pins. Adam Smith saw this but he also took it for granted that division of labor is in itself responsible for economic growth and development and that it accounts for the difference between expanding economies and those that stand still. But division of labor adds nothing new； it only enables people to produce more of what they already have.

51. According to the passage, Adam Smith was the first person to .

A. take advantage of the division of labor

B. introduce the division of labor into England

C. understand the effects of the division of labor

D. explain the causes of the division of labor

52. Adam Smith saw that the division of labor .

A. enabled each worker to make pins more quickly and more cheaply

B. increased the possible output per worker

C. increased the number of people employed in factories

D. improved the quality of pins produced

53. Adam Smith mentioned the number 4,800 in order to .

A. show the advantages of the division of labor

B. show the advantages of the old craft system

C. emphasize how powerful the individual worker was

D. emphasize the importance of increased production

54. According to the writer, Adam Smith’s mistake was in believii^ that division of labor ,

A. was an efficient way of organizing work

B. was an important development in methods of production

C. certainly led to economic development

D. increased the production of existing goods

55. Which of the following could serve as an appropriate title for the passage?

A. Adam Smith, the English Economist

B. The Theory of Division of Labor

C. Division of Labor, an Efficient Way of Organizing Work

D. Adam Smith, the Last Discoverer of Division of Labor

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