Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question.

（1）At last, unemployment is easing. But the latest low rate — hovering below 6 percent — obscures a deeper，longer-term problem: “skills mismatches” in the labor force, which will only worsen in years to come. According to the most recent figures, 9.3 million Americans are unemployed, but 4.8 million jobs stand empty because employers can't find people to fill them. With new technology transforming work across a range of sectors, more and more businesses are struggling to find workers with the skills to man new machines and manage new processes.
（2）One solution has enchanted employers, educators, and policymakers on both sides of die aisle: European-style apprenticeship.
（3）I’ve just come back from Germany, where I visited some half dozen apprenticeship programs at brand-name companies like Daimler, Siemens, and Bosch, and the metaphor I came away with is a native tree — flourishing, productive, highly adapted to its local climate zone, but unlikely to lake root or grow in a climate as different as the America’s. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t adapt the German model. But it’s not going to be quick or easy.
（4）The U.S. has its own tradition of apprenticeship going back many years. But like most kinds of vocational education, it fell out of fashion in recent decades — a victim of our obsession with college and concern to avoid anything that resembles tracking. Today in America, fewer than 5 percent of young people train as apprentices, the overwhelming majority in the construction trades. In Germany, the number is closer to 60 percent一in fields as diverse as advanced manufacturing, IT, banking, and hospitality. And in Europe, what's often called “dual training” is a highly respected career path.
（5）“Dual training” captures the idea at the heart of every apprenticeship: Trainees split their days between classroom instruction at a vocational school and on-the-job time at a company. The theory they learn in class is reinforced by the practice at work. They also learn work habits and responsibility and, if all goes well, absorb the culture of the company. Trainees are paid for their time, including in class. The arrangement lasts for two to four years, depending on the sector. And both employer and employee generally hope it will lead to a permanent job — for employers, apprentices are a crucial talent pool.
（6）The first thing you notice about German apprenticeships: The employer and the employee still respect practical work. German firms don't view dual training as something for struggling students or at-risk youth. This has nothing to do with corporate social responsibility,” an HR manager at Deutsche Bank told the group I was with, organized by an offshoot of the Goethe Institute. “l do this because l need talent.” So too at Bosch.