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【完形填空】Cloze: The Factory and the Machines
Chen Yulan worked at a factory in Dongguan that produced instrument panels for spacecraft consoles, (1) the invoice claimed.
For twelve years, she had stood at the same bench, (2) the constant noise of machines.
In March 2019, a client from Shenzhen suggested (3) 60 of the 200 workers with robotic arms.
Each arm cost 180,000 yuan, worked 22 hours a day, and never asked for a pension, so the maths was (4).
Yulan's committee voted in favour. She did not (5); she only asked for one extra shift to train the older women to operate the new machines.
Permission was (6) denied.
By August, the floor had 74 employees (7) 200.
What followed was a particular kind of nightmare. The arms could not (8) a slippery panel from a solid one.
They would bump, scrape, stack, and occasionally pulverise a batch worth 40,000 yuan in nine seconds. Yulan (9) a trick: she glued a tiny worm of copper wire to each cylinder so the sensor could identify the edge.
It was inventive, but it was also, apparently, plagiarism of a patent filed in Osaka in 2016. A defendant in a libel case two provinces away had already been discredited for saying so.
She was not a coward. She was tired. The commute from her rented flat took 95 minutes, and the bus was always congested, with bodies jostling for a handrail (10) reptiles in captivity.
Her daughter, 9, drew pictures of a mother who was barely home. Yulan would dash in at 22:10, hug the girl, contemplate the cold rice, then simulate sleep.
Then came the second wave. In 2021 the firm announced expansion into aviation parts, an unparalleled leap, the chancellor of the group called it. Twenty-two of the remaining 74 got notices.
Yulan survived, but her wage was skewed downward by 18 percent because her bonus now depended on output per arm, not per person.
She began to keep an anecdote book — small, cosy, bound in red — recording every malfunction, every fluctuation in the yield curve, every sore shoulder. Stack the numbers long enough, she thought, and they become an argument.
She was right. In 2023 a tribunal in Guangzhou heard her evidence: 411 incidents, 9 catastrophic failures, one near-ejection of a worker from a platform. The company's own data had been buried in a folder labelled static.
The judge, a woman of 51, ruled that the firm must fund retraining and pay 260,000 yuan in compensation. It was a striking outcome. It was also, for Yulan, the end. Her contract was not renewed. The union sent a card. She wept once, then stopped.
Now she runs a small workshop above a noodle shop, six sewing machines, eight women, all over 40, sewing cotton bags for a reputable brand that appeals to students. Monthly gross: 31,000 yuan. Rent: 9,000.
Her daughter, 15, wants to study geometry and design spacecraft. Yulan laughs at that. Some evenings she still hears the old floor — the hum, the alarm, the rhythm — and she will stand at the window, watching the delivery bikes circle the block, and wonder how many of the 74 were ever truly needed, and whether the tribunal's ruling changed a single thing for anyone except her.
Choices
(1) A. or B. as C. so D. but
(2) A. to endure B. endured C. enjoying D. endures
(3) A. replacing B. replace C. to replace D. replaced
(4) A. vague B. blunt C. sharp D. complex
(5) A. obey B. disobey C. refuse D. agree
(6) A. happily B. eventually C. flatly D. reluctantly
(7) A. versus B. and C. with D. plus
(8) A. distinguish B. tell C. separate D. differentiate
(9) A. applied B. employed C. utilized D. used
(10) A. alike B. as C. like D. similar to