What is the real relationship between education and economic development? We have to suspect that continuing economic growth promotes the development of education even when governments don’t force it. After all, that’s how education got started. When our ancestors were hunters and gatherers 10,000 years ago, they didn’t have time to wonder much about anything besides finding food. Only when humanity began to get its food in a more productive way was there time for other things。
As education improved, humanity’s productivity potential increased as well. When the competitive environment pushed our ancestors to achieve that potential, they could in turn afford more education. This increasingly high level of education is probably a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for the complex political systems required by advanced economic performance. Thus poor countries might not be able to escape their poverty traps without political changes that may be possible only with broader formal education. A lack of formal education, however, doesn’t constrain the ability of the developing world’s workforce to substantially improve productivity for the foreseeable future. On the contrary, constraints on improving productivity explain why education isn’t developing more quickly there than it is。
贫穷国家中正规教育与经济发展之间的关系为经济学家及政治家们普遍误解。毫无疑问，在这两个方面都有所进步，对于这些国家及其他国家的社会、政治及学术发展而言是必要的，但是那种认为教育是促进贫穷国家经济快速发展的重中之重的传统观点是错误的。我们庆幸这个观念不对，因为创立新的教育体制，让足够多的人接受教育以推动经济发展需要两代或三代人来完成。一家研究机构的研究成果一再表明：所有国家的工人都可以进行在职培训以大幅度提高生产率，从而提高生活水平。
具有讽刺意味的是，这一观点的首个证据出现在美国。不久前，随着美国经济陷入衰退，日本正处于泡沫破灭前的高峰期，美国工人被嘲讽没有受过良好教育，并且被认为这是美国经济不景气的主要原因之一。在全球，不管过去还是现在，日本一直是汽车组装生产力的领袖。然而，研究表明丰田、尼桑和本田位于美国工厂的生产率大约是日本同行的95%，这是美国工人接受在职培训的结果。
最近，在进行住户建设检查时，研究人员发现在德克萨斯州的休斯顿，尽管房地产行业的工作非常复杂，但是未受过教育的，英语不是母语的墨西哥工人总是能够达到最佳的劳动生产率标准。
教育与经济发展之间的关系到底如何？我们不得不怀疑，即使政府不强迫发展教育，经济持续增长也会促进教育事业的发展。毕竟，教育就是那样开始的。一万年前当我们的祖先还在狩猎和采集野果时，除了寻找食物他们没有时间想其它很多的东西。只有当人类能够更高效地获取食物时，才有时间做其它的事情。
随着教育的进步，人类的生产潜力也增加了。当竞争的环境推动我们的祖先实现这一潜力，他们又可以获得更多的教育机会。先进的经济水平要求复杂的政治制度，越来越高的教育水平可能是这种复杂政治制度的必要的，但不是充分的条件。因此，如果没有政治改革，贫穷国家可能无法摆脱其贫困陷阱，而政治改革则只能靠更广泛的正规教育实现。但是，发展中国家的劳动力在可预见的未来持续提高生产力的能力没有因缺乏正规教育而受到限制。相反，生产力的提高受到限制解释了为什么教育的发展速度不是更快了。
第一段中心句：The relationship between formal education and economic growth in poor countries is widely misunderstood by economists and politicians alike. 贫穷国家中正规教育与经济发展之间的关系为经济学家及政治家们所误解。
第二段中心句：Ironically, the first evidence for this idea appeared in the United States. 具有讽刺意味的是，这一观点的首个证据出现在美国。
第三段中心句：More recently, while examining housing construction, the researchers discovered that illiterate, nonEnglishspeaking Mexican workers in Houston, Texas, consistently met bestpractice labor productivity standards despite the complexity of the building industry’s work. 最近，在进行住户建设检查时，研究人员发现在德克萨斯州的休斯顿，尽管房地产行业的工作非常复杂，未受过教育的，英语不是母语的墨西哥工人总是能够达到工作生产率的最高标准。
第四段中心句：What is the real relationship between education and economic development? 教育与经济发展之间的关系到底如何？
第五段中心句：This increasingly high level of education is probably a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for the complex political systems required by advanced economic performance. 先进的经济水平要求复杂的政治制度，越来越高的教育水平可能是这种复杂政治制度的必要的，但不是充分的条件。
答案D B B C C(解析略)
Text 4
The most thoroughly studied intellectuals in the history of the new world are the ministers and political leaders of seventeenthcentury New England. According to the standard history of American philosophy, nowhere else in colonial America was “So much important attached to intellectual pursuits。” According to many books and articles, New England’s leaders established the basic themes and preoccupations of an unfolding, dominant Puritan tradition in American intellectual life。
To take this approach to the New Englanders normally mean to start with the Puritans’ theological innovations and their distinctive ideas about the church—important subjects that we may not neglect. But in keeping with our examination of southern intellectual life, we may consider the original Puritans as carriers of European culture, adjusting to New world circumstances. The New England colonies were the scenes of important episodes in the pursuit of widely understood ideals of civility and virtuosity。
The early settlers of Massachusetts Bay included men of impressive education and influence in England. Besides the ninety or so learned ministers who came to Massachusetts church in the decade after 1629, there were political leaders like John Winthrop, an educated gentleman, lawyer, and official of the Crown before he journeyed to Boston. These men wrote and published extensively, reaching both New World and Old World audiences, and giving New England an atmosphere of intellectual earnestness。
We should not forget, however, that most New Englanders were less well educated. While few crafts men or farmers, let alone dependents and servants, left literary compositions to be analyzed, it is obvious that their views were less fully intellectualized. Their thinking often had a traditional superstitions quality. A tailor named John Dane, who emigrated in the late 1630s, left an account of his reasons for leaving England that is filled with signs. Sexual confusion, economic frustrations , and religious hope—all name together in a decisive moment when he opened the Bible, told his father the first line he saw would settle his fate, and read the magical words: “come out from among them, touch no unclean thing , and I will be your God and you shall be my people。” One wonders what Dane thought of the careful sermons explaining the Bible that he heard in puritan churches。
Meanwhile, many settlers had slighter religious commitments than Dane’s, as one c
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