XX考研英语二阅读题源
xx年考研已结束！考研网在考后第一时间为大家提供xx考研英语二阅读题源，更多考研资讯请关注的更新!
源于The Christian Science Monitor July 1, xx
As wildfires challenge California, the causes go beyond climate
A shift in thought
Wildfire season has bee longer and more intense lately. But beyond addressing climate change, some researchers call for a paradigm shift to address the various human factors relating to prevention and safety.
By Jessica Mendoza, Staff writer July 1, xx
Azusa, Calif. — On a chain-link fence along Route 39 hangs a homemade poster, peppered with hearts, thanking firefighters and police.
The sign, one of a handful scattered across town, salutes efforts to battle the San Gabriel Complex fire, twin blazes that had erupted on June 20 in the mountains of Angeles National Forest just to the north of the city. Within a day of igniting, the fire had burned through nearly 5,000 acres and forced hundreds to evacuate.
Nearly a week passed before the US Forest Service and local and state authorities managed to contain even half of the inferno.
Remended: Could you be a Hotshot? Take our quiz!
“Three days in, you could still see the flames,” says Jasmine Perez, a teacher’s assistant and resident of Azusa, which sits northeast of Los Angeles. And because of the smoke, she adds, “In the mornings, it kind of looked like nighttime still.”
The San Gabriel Complex was one of 12 large fires that about 4,000 firefighters were battling across California as of Thursday. Such numbers so early in the fire season are a testament to the growing frequency and intensity of wildfires in the western US, fire officials say – a shift that many experts say is likely intertwined with climate change and its associated consequences, such as drought.
But climate, however critical, is only part of the problem, scientists say. A growing body of evidence suggests that other human activity and policy have at least as much impact on wildfires as climate change. To effectively address a longer and more intense wildfire season – and ensure the safety of residents in fire-prone areas – both environmental and human
factors have to be taken into aount in more holistic ways, they say.
That means more than just sweeping dry brush off the front porch. Though such steps are an important part of the process, officials and researchers alike are calling for a prehensive approach to wildfires: one that incorporates fire safety and behavior in key policy decisions and legislation. Such an effort would also recognize that fire can be helpful as well as harmful and embrace fire’s place in human society.
“We need not just a policy shift but also a cultural shift in the dialogue around fires in our landscape and how to manage them,” says Jennifer Balch, director of Earth Lab and a professor of geography at the University of Colorado in Boulder. “Fire is not something we can remove. A large majority of the country is living in fire-prone areas. How do we live with wildfire? How do we manage?”
“More and more researchers are arguing that anthropogenic influences are really important [to understanding wildfires],” adds Max Moritz, a specialist in fire ecology and management and a professor at the College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley.
“By leaving them out we’re missing a critical piece of the solution.”
Changing attitudes on fire
选取部分：
Though often viewed as a problem for western states, the growing frequency of wildfires is a national concern because of its impact on federal tax dollars, Professor Moritz and others say.
In xx, the US Forest Service for the first time spent more than half of its $5.5 billion annual budget fighting fires –nearly double the percentage it spent on such efforts 20 years ago. In effect, fewer federal funds today are going towards the agency’s other work – such as forest conservation, watershed and cultural resources management, and infrastructure upkeep – that affect the lives of all Americans.
Another nationwide concern is whether public funds from other agencies, such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, are going into construction in fire-prone districts. As Moritz puts it, how often are federal dollars building homes that are likely to be lost to a wildfire?
“It’s already a huge problem from a public expenditure perspective for the whole country,” he says. “We need to take
a magnifying glass to that. Like, ‘Wait a minute, is this OK?’Do we want instead to redirect those funds to concentrate on lower-hazard parts of the landscape?”
Such a pivot would require a corresponding shift in the way US society today views fire, researchers say.
For one thing, conversations about wildfires need to be more inclusive. Over the past decade, the focus has been on climate change – how the warming of the Earth from greenhouse gases (including human carbon emissions) is leading to conditions that exacerbate fires.
While climate is a key element, Moritz says, it shouldn’t e at the expense of the rest of the equation.
“The human systems and the landscapes we live on are linked, and the interactions go both ways,” he says. Failing to recognize that, he notes, leads to “an overly simplified view of what the solutions might be. Our perception of the problem and perception of what the solution is [bees] very limited.”
At the same time, people continue to treat fire as an event that needs to be wholly controlled and unleashed only out of necessity, says Professor Balch at the University of Colorado. But acknowledging fire’s inevitable presence in human life is
an attitude crucial to developing the laws, policies, and practices that make it as safe as possible, she says.
“We’ve disconnected ourselves from living with fire,”Balch says. “It is really important to understand and try and tease out what is the human connection [with fire] today.” Role for citizens ... and for policy
After nearly 30 years in the state fire service, Ja Upton understands the value of that connection.
During her early days with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), veterans would tell war stories of huge fires that happened once in a career, she recalls.
“But in my generation, those of us who’ve e up through the '80s, '90s, 2000s … we feel like we don’t have the license to use the word ‘unprecedented’ any more. We’ve seen it all in the last few years,” she says. “I’ve probably had 15 once-in-a-career fires.”
And people caused most of them, Ms. Upton says. About 90 percent of all fires in California can be traced to human activity, whether it’s a stove left on or a campfire left burning. Which is why public education has been Upton’s main
goal since xx, when then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed her Cal Fire’s deputy munications director.
The department has since made strides, playing a major role in launching state and nationalcampaigns that underscore the public’s role in fire safety. But people’s tendency to put danger out of their minds until it’s too late continues to pose serious challenges, Upton says.
“This is going to sound cold. But if someone chooses to live in a rural area and continues to not be responsive to [fire-safety] education, sadly, the worst punishment they’re going to get is they’re going to lose their home in a fire,”she says.
A paradigm shift, some researchers hope, can address that gap between education and action. Environmental policy specialist Ray Rasker, for instance, envisions whole munities designed around the concept of fire safety, and a slate of fire-prevention policies at the local, state, and national level.
“What we’re telling the public now is, ‘Reduce the risk of fires – if you so choose.’ Imagine if we tried driving our cars like that,” says Dr. Rasker, who is also executive director of Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit research firm
based in Bozeman, Mont. “Why not use regulations, building codes, and subdivision design standards, development codes and ordinances that say, ‘Look if you’re going to build there, there are certain conditions you have to meet first’?”
Some places are already taking steps. San Diego’s municipal code, for instance, requires property owners to maintain landscape and vegetation standards – or face a penalty equivalent to the cost of hiring a private contractor to do so. Austin, Texas, has set aside close to 30 percent of city land as conservation areas, curbing the number of new structures that can be built within the fire-prone
“wildland-urban interface” (WUI) – the space between unoupied natural land and human developments. Flagstaff, Ariz., Boulder, Colo., and Santa Fe, N.M., have all enacted similar policies.
But the need for action continues to grow. As bad as wildfires have been in recent years, research shows they’re likely to get worse as the US population increases and people build more homes in the WUI, more than 80 percent of which remain undeveloped.
“We keep building more and more homes in harm’s way,”Rasker notes. “Unless we get a handle on development, we’re really not addressing the problem.”
Mind-set matters, too – for everyone, says Upton at Cal Fire.
“It’s a mitigation issue. You can take the lens we’re looking at [in California] and take it to Tornado Alley or the Eastern Seaboard,” she says. In the end, “it’s about informing yourself as a member of the public or a policymaker. How can you do something prehensive?”
内容仅供参考
2016考研英语二答案详解：阅读理解 Text 1 21 答案B remodel the way of thinking. 解析：此题是文中人物观点题。根据Cortina定位到第二段前三句。Cortina认为尽早接触计算机科学是有益的。第三句It’s not as hard for them to transform their thought processes as it is for older students. 译为在转变思维程序方面小孩不像年龄较大的学生一样困难，即B remodel the way of thinking 转变思维方式即为同义替换。 22 答案D interest 解析：此题是细节题。根据关键词Friedman定位到第四段第二句but之后引号里面内容“我们试图让课程符合学生兴趣”，故而D interest为正确答案。 23 答案A help students learn other computer languages 解析：文中人物观点题。题干问的是Deborah Seehorn认为在Flatiron这里所学到的技能将能怎么样，据此定位到第五段But处，和题干基本一致，该句指出“But the skills they learn…appl to any coding language”，意思是他们学到的技能可以应用于任何编码语言。对比答案选项，A选项的意思是“帮助学生学习其他的计算机语言”属于原文定位处的同义替换。 24 答案C become better prepared for the digitalized world 解析：细节题。题干指出：根据最后一段，Flatiron的学生被期望去干什么。据此定位到最后一段的These kids are going to be处，是题干的同义复现。定位句“These kids are…be surrounded by computers for the rest of their lives. The younger they learn how computers think…….the better.”，意思是学生们越早学越好。C选项“为数字化的未来做更好的准备”是同义概述。 25 答案B persuade 解析：词义句意题，结合上下文来解题。根据coax此单词，定位到最后一段最后一句“how to coax the machine into producing what they want”，考察固定搭配“persuade…into…”。A选项挑战，B选项劝服，C选项使恐慌，D选项误导。考生做题时一定要注意结合上下文来推测生词的词义，这是命题人的出题规律。 Text 2 26 答案A its drastically decreased population 解析：此题是原因细节题。根据关键词定位到第一段But前后关于lesser prairie chickens 数量2million和22,000的强烈对比。此外第二段第二句“the lesser prairie chicken is in a desperate situation”都可以得知A its drastically decreased population 数量的急剧下降为正确答案。 27 答案C granted less federal regulatory powers 解析：此题是原因细节题。根据关键词定位到第二段第四句，They had …, a state that gives federal officials greater regulatory power. 而But 之后是截然相反的事实，即政府授予了更少的管理权。故而C granted less federal regulatory powers为正确答案。 28 答案A agree to pay a sum for compensation 解析：推断题。题干问的是从第三段推出来：无意伤害的那些人是不会被检举的如果怎么样。根据题干定位到第三段首句“it would not prosecute….as long as ….”，题干中问的if 即原文的as long as的同意替换，原文as long as的意思是：只要他们签署了计划。下一句说道，该计划要求个体和企业去支付基金。对应选项A选项“赞同支付赔偿”属于同义替换。 29 答案D the states
2020考研英语二阅读理解真题及解析 出国网考研英语真题频道为大家提供2014考研英语二阅读理解真题及解析，欢迎大家参考借鉴! 2014考研英语二阅读理解真题及解析 PartA Directions: Readthefollowingfourtexts.Answerthequestionsbeloweachtex tbychoosingA,B,CorD.MarkyouranswersonANSWERSHEET.(40points) Text1 Whatwouldyoudowith590m?ThisisnowaquestionforGloriaMacken zie,an84-year-oldwidowwhorecentlyemergedfromhersmall,tin-roofedhouseinFloridatocollectthebiggestundividedlotteryjack potinhistory.Ifshehopeshernew-foundfortunewillyieldlastingfeelingsoffulfillment,shecouldd oworsethanreadHappyMoneybyElizabethDumnandMichaelNorton. Thesetwoacademicsuseanarrayofbehavioralresearchtoshowtha tthemostrewardingwaystospendmoneycanbecounterintuitive.Fant asiesofgreatwealthofteninvolvevisionsoffancycarsandextravag anthomes.Yetsatisfactionwiththesematerialpurchaseswearsofff airlyquicklywhatwasonceexcitingandnewbecomesold- hat;regretcreepsin.Itisfarbettertospendmoneyonexperiences,s ayMsDumnandMrNorton,likeinterestingtrips,uniquemealsoreveng oingtothecinema.Thesepurchasesoftenbecomemorevaluablewithti me-asstoriesormemories-particularlyiftheyinvolvefeelingmoreconnectedtoothers. Thisslimvolumeispackedwithtipstohelpwageslavesaswellaslo tterywinnersgetthemost"happinessbangforyourbuck."Itseemsmos
英语二T e x t 1 1---Homework has never been terribly popular with students and even many parents, but in recent years it has been particularly scorned. School districts across the country, most recently Los Angeles Unified, are revising(修改) their thinking on his educational ritual(例行公事). Unfortunately, L.A. Unified has produced an inflexible (不可变更的) policy which mandates(批准) that with the exception of some advanced courses, homework may no longer count for more than 10% of a student’s academic grade。 家庭作业从来就没有受到学生甚至家长的真正欢迎，但最近几年来，家庭作业却受到人们的鄙视。全国的学校都在修改家庭作业的相关惯例做法。不幸的是，洛杉矶学区通过了一项不可变更的政策：除了高等课程，家庭作业在学分中所占比例不可以超过10%。 21.It is implied in paragraph 1 that nowadays homework_____。 [A] is receiving more criticism [B] is no longer an educational ritual（绝对） [C] is not required for advanced courses（正反） [D] is gaining more preferences（正反） 2---This rule is meant to address the difficulty that students from impoverished or chaotic homes might have in completing their homework. But the policy is unclear and contradictory. Certainly, no homework should be assigned that students cannot do without expensive equipment. But if the district is essentially giving a pass to students who do not do their homework because of complicated family lives, it is going riskily close to the implication that standards need to be lowered for poor children。 这个规定旨在提出：来自贫穷家庭或混乱家庭的学生有困难，不能完成家庭作业。但该政策是不清晰的，是矛盾的。显然，没有哪个家庭作业是在没有昂贵设备就无法完成的。但如果该学区因为学生家庭复杂而不做家庭作业就给他通过的话，那么这就意味着对于贫穷孩子，标准要降低。
2015年考研英语二阅读理解真题及答案（阅读理解） Section Ⅱ Reading Comprehension Part A Directions： Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A， B， C or D. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. （40 points） Text 1 A new study suggests that contrary to most surveys. People art actually more stressed at home than at work. Researchers measured people's cortisol ， which is it at stress marker， while they were at work and while they were at home and found it higher at what is supposed to be a place of refuge. “Further contradicting conventional wisdom， we found that women as well as men have lower levels of stress at work than at home，” writes one of the researchers. Sarah Damaske， In fact women say they feel better at work. She notes. “it is men not women. Who report being happier at home than at work，” Another surprise is that the findings hold true for both those with children without， but more so for nonparents. This is why people who work outside the home have better health. What the study doesn't measure is whether people are still doing work when they' re at home， whether it is household work or work brought home from the office. For many men， the end of the workday is a time to kick back. For women who stay home，they never get to leave the office. And for women who work outside the home， they often are playing catch-up-with-household tasks. With the blurring of roles， and the fact that the home front lags well behind the workplace in making adjustments for working women， it' s not surprising that women are more stressed at home. But it's not just a gender thing. At work， people pretty much know what they're supposed to be doing： working， making money， doing the tasks they have to do in order to draw an income. The bargain is very pure： Employee puts in hours of physical or mental labor and employee draws out life-sustaining moola. On the home front， however， people have no such clarity. Rare is the household in which the division of labor is so clinically and methodically laid out. There are a lot of tasks to be done， there are inadequate rewards for most of them. Your home colleagues-your family-have no clear rewards for their labor； they need to be talked into it， or if they' re teenagers， threatened with complete removal of 新祥旭官网https://www.doczj.com/doc/783547160.html,/
Text 1 Ruth Simmons joined Goldman Sachs’s board as an outside director in January 2000: a year later she became president of Brown University. For the rest of the decade she apparently managed both roles without attracting much eroticism. But by the end of 2009 Ms. Simmons was under fire for having sat on Goldman’s compensation committee; how could she have let those enormous bonus payouts pass unremarked? By February the next year Ms. Simmons had left the board. The position was just taking up too much time, she said. Outside directors are supposed to serve as helpful, yet less biased,advisers on a firm’s board. Having made their wealth and their reputations elsewhere, they presumably have enough independence to disagree with the chief executive’s proposals. If the sky, and the share price is falling, outside directors should be able to give advice based on having weathered their own crises. The researchers from Ohio University used a database hat covered more than 10,000 firms and more than 64,000 different directors between 1989 and 2004. Then they simply checked which directors stayed from one proxy statement to the next. The most likely reason for departing a board was age, so the res earchers concentrated on those “surprise” disappearances by directors under the age of 70. They found that after a surprise departure, the probability that the company will subsequently have to restate earnings increased by nearly 20%. The likelihood of being named in a federal class-action lawsuit also increases, and the stock is likely to perform worse. The effect tended to be larger for larger firms. Although a correlation between them leaving and subsequent bad performance at the firm is suggestive, it does not mean that such directors are always jumping off a sinkin g ship. Often they “trade up.” leaving riskier, smaller firms for larger and more stable firms. But the researchers believe that outside directors have an easier time of avoiding a blow to their reputations if they leave a firm before bad news breaks, even if a review of history shows they were on the board at the time any wrongdoing occurred. Firms who want to keep their outside directors through tough times may have to create incentives. Otherwise outside directors will follow the example of Ms. Simmons, once again very popular on campus.
2013考研英语阅读真题：考研英语（二）第3篇 Scientists have found that although we are prone to snap overreactions, if we take a moment and think about how we are likely to react, we can reduce or even eliminate the negative effects of our quick, hard-wired responses. Snap decisions can be important defense mechanisms; if we are judging whether someone is dangerous, our brains and bodies are hard-wired to react very quickly, within milliseconds. But we need more time to assess other factors. To accurately tell whether someone is sociable, studies show, we need at least a minute, preferably five. It takes a while to judge complex aspects of personality, like neuroticism or open-mindedness. But snap decisions in reaction to rapid stimuli aren’t exclusive to the interper sonal realm. Psychologists at the University of Toronto found that viewing a fast-food logo for just a few milliseconds primes us to read 20 percent faster, even though reading has little to do with eating. We unconsciously associate fast food with speed and impatience and carry those impulses into whatever else we’re doing. Subjects exposed to fast-food flashes also tend to think a musical piece lasts too long. Yet we can reverse such influences. If we know we will overreact to consumer products or housing options when we see a happy face (one reason good sales representatives and real estate agents are always smiling), we can take a moment before buying. If we know female job screeners are more likely to reject attractive female applicants, we can help screeners understand their biases-or hire outside screeners. John Gottman, the marriage expert, explains that we quickly “thin slice” information reliably only after we ground such snap reactions in “thick sliced” long-term study. When Dr. Gottman really wants to assess whether a couple will stay together, he invites them to his island retreat for a much longer evaluation; two days, not two seconds. Our ability to mute our hard-wired reactions by pausing is what differentiates us from animals: dogs can think about the future only intermittently or for a few minutes. But historically we have spent about 12 percent of our days contemplating the longer term. Although technology might change the way we react, it hasn’t changed our nature. We still ha ve the imaginative capacity to rise above temptation and reverse the high-speed trend. 科学家已经发现：虽然我们易于快速地做出过度反应，但是如果我们花点时间考虑一下我们可能做出的反应，就可以减少，甚至是消除我们快速、本能的反应所带来的消极影响。
考研英语二阅读理解全 文翻译 Document number【980KGB-6898YT-769T8CB-246UT-18GG08】
英语二T e x t1 1---Homework has never been terribly popular with students and even many parents, but in recent years it has been particularly scorned. School districts across the country, most recently Los Angeles Unified, are revising(修改) their thinking on his educational ritual(例行公事). Unfortunately, L.A. Unified has produced an inflexible (不可变更的) policy which mandates(批准) that with the exception of some advanced courses, homework may no longer count for more than 10% of a student’s academic grade。 家庭作业从来就没有受到学生甚至家长的真正欢迎，但最近几年来，家庭作业却受到人们的鄙视。全国的学校都在修改家庭作业的相关惯例做法。不幸的是，洛杉矶学区通过了一项不可变更的政策：除了高等课程，家庭作业在学分中所占比例不可以超过10%。 21.It is implied in paragraph 1 that nowadays homework_____。 [A] is receiving more criticism [B] is no longer an educational ritual（绝对） [C] is not required for advanced courses（正反） [D] is gaining more preferences（正反） 2---This rule is meant to address the difficulty that students from impoverished or chaotic homes might have in completing their homework. But the policy is unclear and contradictory. Certainly, no homework should be assigned that students cannot do without expensive equipment. But if the district is essentially giving a pass to students who do not do their homework because of complicated family lives, it is going riskily close to the implication that standards need to be lowered for poor children。 这个规定旨在提出：来自贫穷家庭或混乱家庭的学生有困难，不能完成家庭作业。但该政策是不清晰的，是矛盾的。显然，没有哪个家庭作业是在没有
英语二Text 1 1---Homework has never been terribly popular with students and even many parents, but in recent years it has been particularly scorned. School districts across the country, most recently Los Angeles Unified, are revising(修改) their thinking on his educational ritual(例行公事). Unfortunately, L.A. Unified has produced an inflexible (不可变更的) policy which mandates(批准) that with the exception of some advanced courses, homework may no longer count for more than 10% of a student’s academic grade。 家庭作业从来就没有受到学生甚至家长的真正欢迎，但最近几年来，家庭作业却受到人们的鄙视。全国的学校都在修改家庭作业的相关惯例做法。不幸的是，洛杉矶学区通过了一项不可变更的政策：除了高等课程，家庭作业在学分中所占比例不可以超过10%。 21.It is implied in paragraph 1 that nowadays homework_____。 [A] is receiving more criticism [B] is no longer an educational ritual（绝对） [C] is not required for advanced courses（正反） [D] is gaining more preferences（正反） 2---This rule is meant to address the difficulty that students from impoverished or chaotic homes might have in completing their homework. But the policy is unclear and contradictory. Certainly, no homework should be assigned that students cannot do without expensive equipment. But if the district is essentially giving a pass to students who do not do their homework because of complicated family lives, it is going riskily close to the implication that standards need to be lowered for poor children。 这个规定旨在提出：来自贫穷家庭或混乱家庭的学生有困难，不能完成家庭作业。但该政策是不清晰的，是矛盾的。显然，没有哪个家庭作业是在没有昂贵设备就无法完成的。但如果该学区因为学生家庭复杂而不做家庭作业就给他通过的话，那么这就意味着对于贫穷孩子，标准要降低。 22.L.A.Unified has made the rule about homework mainly because poor students_____。
考研英语：阅读理解之八大考点 语言技能：阅读考生应能读懂选自各类书籍和报刊的不同类型的文字材料（生词量不超过所读材料总词汇量的3%），还应能读懂与本人学习或工作有关的文献资料、技术说明和产品介绍等。对所读材料，考生应能： 1）理解主旨要义（主题题） 2）理解文中的具体信息（细节题） 3）理解文中的概念性含义（细节推理题） 4）进行有关的判断、推理和引申（推理题） 5）根据上下文推测生词的词义（词汇题） 6）理解文章的总体结构以及上下文之间（篇章结构题）的关系 7）理解作者的意图、观点或态度（态度题） 8）区分论点和论据（例证题） 该部分主要考查考生理解主旨要义、具体信息、概念性含义，进行有关的判断、推理和引申，根据上下文推测生词的词义等能力。要求考生根据所提供的4篇（总长度约为1600词）文章的内容，从每题所给出的4个选项中选出最佳答案，共20小题，每小题2分，共40分 一、攻克主旨要义题——提问文章的主题思想(中心大意)或标题
1.提问方式： 1)直接提问(Main idea型) ?The text intends to express the idea that. . . ?We can draw a conclusion from the text that. . . ?What is the passage mainly about? ?The passage is mainly. ?From the passage we learn that. . . ?The passage is mainly about. . . ?he key point of the passage is that. . . ?This passage mainly deals with. . . ?The main point the author makes in the passage is. ?What does this passage mainly discuss? ?The general/ main/ central idea of the passage is. ?The passage is primarily concerned with. . . 2)给文章定标题 ?The best title for the text may be. . . ?Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?' ? A best title for the passage could be. ? A best title for the passage might be. ?This passage can be entitled. . . 3)提问写作目的( Purpose型) ?The article is written to explain. ?The purpose of the passage is. ?This passage is intended to… 2.解题技巧： 1)从文章本身出发，归纳文章中心思想(主题思想) ①.重点读文章的首段开头部分，看开头部分是否有主旨句，如果文章中有这样的主旨 句，那么再看四个选择项，如其中一项所含的信息同主旨句中的信息相似，该项即为正确答案 ②.重点读各段的开头和结尾，找各段的主题句，四个选项中能涵盖文章各段内容的一
考研英语二阅读理解试题及答案 英语二阅读原文及出处： Text 1 In an essay, 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 much a modern textile mill has been automated: The average mill has only two employees today, “a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to keep the man away from the machines。” Davidson’s article is one of a number of pieces that have recently appeared making the point that the reason we have such stubbornly high unemployment and sagging middle-class incomes today is largely because of the big drop in demand because of the Great Recession, but it is also because of the quantum advances in both globalization and the information technology revolution, which are more rapidly than ever replacing labor with machines or foreign workers。 In the past, workers with average skills, doing an average job, could earn an average lifestyle. But, today, average is officially over. Being average just won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap automation and cheap genius. Therefore, everyone needs to find their extra —their unique value contribution that makes them stand out in whatever is their field of employment. Average is over。 Yes, new technology has been eating jobs forever, and always will. As they say, if horses could have voted, there never would have been cars. But there’s been an accele ration. As Davidson notes, “In the 10 years ending in 2009, factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70 years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs —about 6 million in total —disappeared。” And you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Last April, Annie Lowrey of Slate wrote about a start-up called “E la Carte” that is out to shrink the need for waiters and waitresses: The company “has produced a kind of souped-up iPad that lets you order 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 a restaurant near you soon. ... You select what you want to eat and add items to a cart. Depending on the restaurant’s preferences, the console c ould show you nutritional information, ingredients lists and photographs. You can make special requests, like ‘dressing on the side’ or ‘quintuple bacon.’ When you’re done, the order zings over to the