美國勞動力缺乏，要么進口食品，要么進口勞動力。小編為大家提供2019考研英語二閱讀理解真題及答案解析text3，一起來看看吧！
2019考研英語二閱讀理解真題text3
Text 3
American farmers have been complaining of labor shortages for several years now. Given a multi-year decline in illegal immigration, and a similarly sustained pickup in the U.S. job market, the complaints are unlikely to stop without an overhaul of immigration rules for farm workers.
Efforts to create a more straightforward agricultural-workers visa that would enable foreign workers to stay longer in the U.S. and change jobs within the industry have so far failed in Congress. If this doesn’t change, American businesses, communities and consumers will be the losers.
Perhaps half of U.S. farm laborers are undocumented immigrants. As fewer such workers enter the U.S., the characteristics of the agricultural workforce are changing. Today’s farm laborers, while still predominantly born in Mexico, are more likely to be settled, rather than migrating, and more likely to be married than single. They are also aging. At the start of this century, about one-third of crop workers were over the age of 35. Now, more than half are. And crop picking is hard on older bodies.
One oft-debated cure for this labor shortage remains as implausible as it has been all along: Native U.S. workers won’t be returning to the farm.
In a study published in 2013, economist Michael Clemens analyzed 15 years of data on North Carolina’s farm-labor market and concluded, “There is virtually no supply of native manual farm laborers” in the state. This was true even in the depths of a severe recession.
Mechanization is not the answer either—not yet at least. Production of corn, cotton, rice, soybeans and wheat have been largely mechanized, but many high-value, labor-intensive crops, such as strawberries, need labor. Even dairy farms, where robots currently do only a small share of milking, have a long way to go before they are automated.
As a result, farms have grown increasingly reliant on temporary guest workers using the H-2A visa to fill the gaps in the agricultural workforce. Starting around 2012, requests for the visas rose sharply; from 2011 to 2016 the number of visas issued more than doubled.
The H-2A visa has no numerical cap, unlike the H-2B visa for nonagricultural work, which is limited to 66,000 annually. Even so, employers frequently complain that they aren’t allotted all the workers they need. The process is cumbersome, expensive and unreliable. One survey found that bureaucratic delays led H-2A workers to arrive on the job an average of 22 days late. And the shortage is compounded by federal immigration raids, which remove some workers and drive others underground.
Petitioning each year for laborers—and hoping the government provides enough, and that they arrive on time—is no way to run a business. In a 2012 survey by the California Farm Bureau, 71 percent of tree-fruit growers and nearly 80 percent of raisin and berry growers said they were short of labor. Some western growers have responded by movingoperations to Mexico. Without reliable access to a reliable workforce, more growers will be tempted to move south.
According to a report by the Partnership for a New American Economy, Americans are consuming more fresh produce, which is good. But a rising share of it is grown elsewhere. In 1998-2000, 14.5 percent of the fruit Americans consumed was imported. Little more than a decade later, the share of imported fruit had increased to 25.8 percent. Rural U.S. communities that might have benefited didn’t.
In effect, the U.S. can import food or it can import the workers who pick it. The U.S. needs a simpler, streamlined, multi-year visa for agricultural workers, accompanied by measures to guard against exploitation and a viable path to U.S. residency for workers who meet the requirements. Otherwise growers will continue to struggle with shortages and uncertainty, and the country as a whole will lose out.
31.What problem should be addressed according to the first two paragraphs?
A. discrimination against foreign workers in the U.S.
B. biased laws in favor of some American businesses.
C. flaws in US immigration rules for farm workers.
D. decline of job opportunities in US agriculture.
32. One trouble with US. Agriculture workforce is___
A. the rising number of illegal immigrants.
B. the high mobility of crop workers.
C. the lack of experienced labors.
D. the aging of immigrant farm workers.
33. What is the much-argued solution to the labor shortage in US farming?
A. To attract younger laborers to farm work.
B. To get native US workers back to farming.
C. To use more robots to grow high-value crops.
D. To strengthen financial support for famers.
34. Agriculture employers complain about the H-2A visa for its____?
A. slow granting procedures.
B. limit on duration of stay.
C. tightened requirements.
D. control of annual admissions.
35. Which of the following could be the best title for this text?
A. US Agriculture in Decline.
B. Import Food or Labor?
C. America Saved by Mexico?
D. Manpower vs. Automation?
2019考研英語二閱讀理解答案解析text3
31. 答案 C. flaws in US immigration rules for farm workers.
解析：本題目為細節(jié)題，考察具體細節(jié)。題目問的是應(yīng)該被解決的問題是什么，所以先定位到第一段，在第二句話中有提到，在沒有對于農(nóng)場工人相關(guān)的移民規(guī)則進行徹底修訂之前，抱怨是不會停止的。由此可見，之所以抱怨是因為有問題。所以，問題就和移民規(guī)則有關(guān)。選項C就有提到，其中flaw就是問題，瑕疵的意思。
32. 答案 D. the aging of immigrant farm workers.
解析：本題目為細節(jié)題，考察具體細節(jié)。題目問的是美國農(nóng)業(yè)勞動力的問題之一是什么。根據(jù)段落定位到第三段，在倒數(shù)第三句有提到，他們也正在變老。后面舉例說世紀初的時候，三分之一的工人是35歲以上，現(xiàn)在是超過一半。這和選項C的內(nèi)容不謀而合。
33. 答案 B. To get native US workers back to farming.
解析：本題目為細節(jié)題，考察具體細節(jié)。題目問的是美國農(nóng)業(yè)勞動力缺乏的解決方案是什么。根據(jù)段落定位到第四段，這種勞動力缺乏的解決方案之一仍舊是一如既往的不合理，冒號后面提到本土的工人是不會回到農(nóng)場的。由此可見，解決方法就是讓美國人自己去干活。這和選項B是一樣的。
34. 答案 A. slow granting procedures.
解析：本題目為細節(jié)題，考察具體細節(jié)。題目問的是農(nóng)場主們抱怨H-2A的原因是什么。根據(jù)專有名詞定位在第7和8段，又根據(jù)題干另一關(guān)鍵詞employer可以直接定位在第8段的第二句話：雇主們經(jīng)常抱怨說他們分配不到所有需要的工人。緊接著就提到了過程很繁瑣，昂貴和不可靠。所以，他們不滿的就是這個過程，對應(yīng)到了procedure.
35. 答案 B. Import Food or Labor?
解析：本題目為主旨題。文章在第一段就提到美國勞動力缺乏，緊接著提到了現(xiàn)狀以及解決方案的不足，然后在最后一段進行總結(jié)，美國要么進口食品，要么進口勞動力。所以選項B最概括，最全面。
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