为了提高广大学生的英语水平，提高英语专业学生的专四通过率，特提供以下英语阅读理解及答案详解：
Recently, Congressional Democrats introduced legislation to make it easier for older workers to win age discrimination lawsuits. Age discrimination remains a significant workplace issue.
In recent ten years, 15.79 percent of cases brought to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, were described as successful claims. While this number is small given the number of workers covered by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, many, if not most, instances of age discrimination are never sued, and cases hiring discrimination often go undetected.
Most of those who do sue are white, male middle-managers who are likely to have lost a sizeable salary and pension. For the most part, other groups do not sue because the costs of a lawsuit outweigh the potential benefits. Age discrimination remains a significant workplace issue.
There is strong experimental evidence for age discrimination in hiring, at least for entry-level jobs. Recently, I performed a labor market experiment in Boston in which I sent out thousands of resumes for fictitious (虚构的) entry-level female candidates and measured response rate based on date of high school graduation. Among this group, younger applicants, whose date of high school graduation indicated that they were less than 50 years old, were 40 percent more likely to be called back for an interview than were older applicants.
It is difficult to tell whether employment problems are worse for older workers than for other workers when times are bad. The number of discrimination lawsuits increases during times of high unemployment, but this finding by itself does not indicate an increased level of age discrimination. In times of higher unemployment, the opportunity cost to a lawsuit is lower than it is when times are good.
From the employer’s perspective, mass layoffs may seem like a good chance to remove a higher proportion of generally more expensive older workers without the worry of being sued. On the other hand, employers may be less likely to remove protected older workers because’ they still fear lawsuits. One thing we do know is that once an older worker loses a job, he or she is much less likely to find a new job than a younger worker is.
Unfortunately, the effect of legislation prohibiting age discrimination is not easy to see and may actually be part of the reason it is so difficult for older workers to find employment. If it is more difficult to fire an older worker than a younger worker, a firm will be less likely to want to hire older workers. Indeed, my research finds that in states where workers have longer time to bring a lawsuit claim, older men work fewer weeks per year, are less likely to be hired, and less likely to be fired than men in states where they do not have as much.
Not many people would suggest that we go back to a world prior to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, in which advertisements specify the specific ages of people they are willing to hire. However, legislation prohibiting discrimination is no panacea (万灵药). The recent proposed congressional legislation could have both positive and negative effects on potential older workers.
1. A lot of cases of age discrimination are not found because
A. age discrimination law was just introduced recently.
B. other discriminated groups don’t sue except the whites.
C. age discrimination cases are in large quantity and it is difficult to detect all of them.
D. many discriminated people don’t sue and costs of a lawsuit outweigh potential benefits.
2. The labor market experiment in Boston shows that
A. younger male applicants are more likely to be hired than their female counterparts.
B. age discrimination is quite common in hiring process.
C. the author collected information by interviewing female applicants.
D. female applicants who are 50 years old will never have a chance to get a job.
3. What may lead to the increase of discrimination lawsuits during times of high unemployment?
A. The increase of age discrimination.
B. The decrease of age discrimination.
C. The decrease of opportunity cost to lawsuits.
D. The increase of opportunity cost to lawsuits, .
4. From the last paragraph, we learn that
A. employers could specify the ages of people they want to hire in the past.
B, all employers recruited workers through advertisement in the past.
C. legislation prohibiting discrimination can’t free old workers from age discrimination.
D. the recent proposed congressional legislation is ineffective.
5. The author is __ when he analyzes the age discrimination issue.
A. pessimistic
B. partial
C. objective
D. doubtful
【文章概要】
本文讲述了工作中的年龄歧视问题，及就此状况提出了禁止职场中的年龄歧视的法案。第l段引出话题指出国会民主党人提出立法，旨在使岁数较大的职员在年龄歧视诉讼案中更容易获胜;第2—3段用数据说明，相当多年龄歧视案件没有人提起诉讼，雇佣方的歧视案件也往往不被发现，并分析其中的原因第4—6段以一个实验为例证指出年龄歧视的现象也存在于低级别的职位上，同时分析了高失业率期间年龄歧视案件增加的原因及雇主雇用工 人时考虑的因素;第7段指出禁止年龄歧视的立法产生的效果并不明显，分析年龄较大的工人难以找到工作的可能原因：最后一段讲到用立法来解决年龄歧视的问题并不是万能的，最近的提案也可能有其利弊。
【答案解析】
1.[D]因果推断题。第2段最后一句讲到许多年龄歧视案件没有被发现，第3段分析了其原因。第3段末句指出“因为诉讼费远远超过潜在的利益”，故选D。A在文章首段便提及，但不与题干构成因果关系;第3段指出中层管理者也有可能提起诉讼，故B也错;C项文中没有提到。
2.[B]细节判断题。根据Boston定位到第4段。该段首句指出年龄歧视起码在低级别的职位存在，通过接下来的实验调查可知，年龄歧视在招聘过程中很普遍，故选8。该实验没有对男应聘者和女应聘者进行对比，故A没有原文依据;文中指出 “我”只是发出上千份虚假的应聘简历，故C错误;最后一句指出低于50岁的申请人，收到面试电话的几率比年龄较大的申请人高40%，故D与原文表述不符。
3.[C]细节推断题。根据high unemployment定位到第5段最后两句。根据最后两旬可知，高失业时期，诉讼机会成本低于好景时的机会成本，因此可推断高失业期诉讼机会成本较低可导致诉讼案件增加，C正确。A、B都没有提到关键词cost，D与原文的意思相反，故都排除。
4.[A]细节判断题。由最后一段第l句可知A正确。第l句指出过去的招聘广告会详述年龄要求，但并不能说明所有的雇主都会通过广告招聘工人，故8错误;文中并没有提到年龄歧视法案是否将年老的工人解救出来，故C没有原文根据;D与该段最后两句表述有出入。
5.[C]观点态度题。第l段讲到年龄歧视情况很多不被发现，接下来分析原因，讲到立法效果不明显等这些都是事实及现状，作者没有带自己的主观色彩，故对年龄歧视问题的分析是客观的，C正确。