TPO托福阅读真题讲解（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.

真题解析：

要据红色字体部分，可知：A与B选项为错误说法，D选项没有提，也不选。C选项没有说得很直接，但是，“women often worked in their homes part-time, making finished articles from raw material supplied by merchant capitalists”说明了这些由物品是由原材料（raw materials）生产出来的，因此，应该是对原材料的一种进一步加工，即提高了产品的质量，而速度问题这里没有强调。因此，正确选项为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对于学徒的责任不仅局限于做生意的传授上）
　　○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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真题解析：

从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这句话可知，maters的责任为两方面（teaching their apprentices a trade和providing them some education and for supervising their moral behavior），这正好与B选项的意思吻合。

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 （破坏=destroy, upset）in the passage is closest in meaning to
　　○Prolonged （延长的）
　　○Established （被成立的）
　　○Followed （被跟随/遵循的）
　　○Upset

真题解析：

disrupt的意思为：破坏（=destroy, upset）。如果不认识该词，可以看上一行中出现了一个hurt，联系上下文，这里也应该选一个与 hurt意思相近的近义词。因此，正确答案为：D。

以上就是TPO托福阅读真题答案及解析，希望对大家有所帮助。

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