Text 1 In anessay, entitled “Making It in America,” in the latest issue of The Atlantic,the author Adam Davidson relates a joke from cotton country about just how mucha modern textile mill has been automated: The average mill has only twoemployees today, “a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog, and thedog is there to keep the man away from the machines.” Davidson’sarticle is one of a number of pieces that have recently appeared making thepoint that the reason we have such stubbornly high unemployment and saggingmiddle-class incomes today is largely because of the big drop in demand becauseof the Great Recession, but it is also because of the quantum advances in bothglobalization and the information technology revolution, which are more rapidlythan ever replacing labor with machines or foreign workers. In thepast, workers with average skills, doing an average job, could earn an averagelifestyle. But, today, average is officially over. Being average just won’tearn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so muchmore access to so much more above average cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics,cheap software, cheap automation and cheap genius. Therefore, everyone needs tofind their extra — their unique value contribution that makes them stand out inwhatever is their field of employment. Average is over. Yes,new technology has been eating jobs forever, and always will. As they say, ifhorses could have voted, there never would have been cars. But there’s been anacceleration. As Davidson notes, “In the 10 years ending in 2009, [U.S.]factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of theprevious 70 years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs — about 6million in total — disappeared.” Andyou ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Last April, Annie Lowrey of Slate wrote about astart-up called “E la Carte” that is out to shrink the need for waiters andwaitresses: The company “has produced a kind of souped-up iPad that lets youorder and pay right at your table. The brainchild of a bunch of M.I.T.engineers, the nifty invention, known as the Presto, might be found at arestaurant near you soon. ... You select what you want to eat and add items toa cart. Depending on the restaurant’s preferences, the console could show younutritional information, ingredients lists and photographs. You can make specialrequests, like ‘dressing on the side’ or ‘quintuple bacon.’ When you’re done,the order zings over to the kitchen, and the Presto tells you how long it willtake for your items to come out. ... Bored with your companions? Play games onthe machine. When you’re through with your meal, you pay on the console,splitting the bill item by item if you wish and paying however you want. Andyou can have your receipt e-mailed to you. ... Each console goes for $100 permonth. If a restaurant serves meals eight hours a day, seven days a week, itworks out to 42 cents per hour per table — making the Presto cheaper than eventhe very cheapest waiter.” Whatthe iPad won’t do in an above average way a Chinese worker will. Consider thisparagraph from Sunday’s terrific article in The Times by Charles Duhigg andKeith Bradsher about why Apple does so much of its manufacturing in China:“Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing anassembly-line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the [Chinese] plant nearmidnight. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’sdormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit anda cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hourshift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant wasproducing over 10,000 iPhones a day. ‘The speed and flexibility isbreathtaking,’ the executive said. ‘There’s no American plant that can matchthat.’ ” Andautomation is not just coming to manufacturing, explains Curtis Carlson, thechief executive of SRI International, a Silicon Valley idea lab that inventedthe Apple iPhone program known as Siri, the digital personal assistant. “Siriis the beginning of a huge transformation in how we interact with banks,insurance companies, retail stores, health care providers, informationretrieval services and product services.” Therewill always be change — new jobs, new products, new services. But the one thingwe know for sure is that with each advance in globalization and the I.T.revolution, the best jobs will require workers to have more and bettereducation to make themselves above average. Here are the latest unemploymentrates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for Americans over 25 years old:those with less than a high school degree, 13.8 percent; those with a highschool degree and no college, 8.7 percent; those with some college or associatedegree, 7.7 percent; and those with bachelor’s degree or higher, 4.1 percent. In aworld where average is officially over, there are many things we need to do tobuttress employment, but nothing would be more important than passing some kindof G.I. Bill for the 21st century that ensures that every American has accessto post-high school education. 21.The joke in Paragraph 1 is used to illustrate_______ [A]the impact of technological advances [B]the alleviation of job pressure [C]the shrinkage of textile mills [D]the decline of middle-class incomes 22.According to Paragraph 3, to be a successful employee, one has to______ [A]work on cheap software [B]ask for a moderate salary [C]adopt an average lifestyle [D]contribute something unique 23.The quotation in Paragraph 4 explains that ______ [A]gains of technology have been erased [B]job opportunities are disappearing at a high speed [C]factories are making much less money than before [D]new jobs and services have been offered 24.According to the author, to reduce unemployment, the most important is_____ [A] toaccelerate the I.T. revolution [B] toensure more education for people [C] roadvance economic globalization [D] topass more bills in the 21st century 25.Which of the following would be the most appropriate title for the text? [A]New Law Takes Effect [B]Technology Goes Cheap [C]Average Is Over [D]Recession Is Bad