A funny thing happened on the way to the communication revolution: we stopped talking to one another. I was walking in the park with a friend recently, and his cell phone rang, interrupting our conversation. There we were, walking and talking on a beautiful sunny day and suddenly, I became invisible, absent from the conversation. The telephone used to connect you to the absent. Now it makes people sitting next to you feel absent. Why is it that the more connected we get, the more disconnected I feel? Every advance in communication technology is a tragedy to the closeness of human interaction. With email and instant messaging over the Internet, we can now communicate without seeing or talking to one another. With voice-mail, you can conduct entire conversations without ever reaching anyone. If my mom has a question, I just leave the answer on her machine. As almost every contact we can imagine between human beings gets automated, the emotional distance index goes up. You can't even call a person to get the phone number of another person any more. Directory assistance is almost always fully automated. I am not against modern technology. I own a cell phone, an ATM card, a voice-mail system, and an email account. Giving them up isn't wise. They're a great help to us. It's some of their possible consequences that make me feel uneasy. More and more, I find myself hiding behind email to do a job meant for conversations or being relieved with voice-mail picking up because I don't really have time to talk. The industry devoted to helping me keep in touch is making me lonelier. The writer feels that the use of modern communication is _ . A) satisfying B) encouraging C) disappointing D) embarrassing
D
(Question)
The other day when I was passing a clothing store, I fell in love with a skirt. I knew it would suit me best at first sight. But when I looked at the price tag , I knew I had to give it up. The love for beautiful clothes has been planted in my heart the day when I was born to be a woman. Several years ago I read an article in a magazine. The article stated that when a woman is at her best time, she is usually poor or tasteless, so she can't get the right clothes; when she can afford to buy the clothes she likes, she often finds that they do not suit her anymore. On the way home, I was quite disturbed by such thoughts. It was just a pity, like many other pities. I thought to myself this way. But when I was about to enter the building where I was living, I saw the big mirror placed in the entrance. I saw a girl in it who was in cheap but cleanly washed sweater and jeans. _ was rather young, healthy and energetic. For quite a while I was touched by what I had seen in the mirror. Then I almost forgot the tale: A person without shoes cried until he saw a man without feet. Being young without good clothes is like the person without shoes. I should have felt grateful that I haven't lost my feet. Why was the author touched by what she saw in the mirror? A) She came to realize what she really possessed. B) She was reminded of her devotion to beauty. C) She didn't feel at ease when looking into a mirror. D) She never thought over the other side of a person.
(Answer)
A
Ques: In 1837, the historian Carlyle made the first recorded use of the word " queue" .He spoke of the French and their "habit of standing in a queue".Forty years later prefix = st1 /Pariswas the best place to wait in line. However, queuing became popular in Britain too.The Second World War was the golden age of queuing, and people joined any line in the hope that it was a queue for something to buy.This was the source of many Second World War jokes: Shopkeeper to customer: Excuse me, miss, are you pregnant ? Customer: Well, I wasn't when I joined the queue. Today, according to research inAmerica, we (inBritain) can spend up to 5 years of our lives queuing - as compared to twelve months looking for things we have lost.But things may be changing. Many people no longer have the patience to stand in a queue.The law of the jungle has begun to operate at bus stops, with people using their arms to push others out of the way. One way to make life easier is to introduce "queue management".Customers at supermarket cheese counters can now take a ticket with a number which appears on a screen when it is their turn.And while they wait for their number, they can do a bit of shopping. In some booking offices there is also a system telling customers how long they may have to wait before they are served. One of the latest technical progress is the use of an electronic scanner which can read all the contents of your shopping basket or trolley in just a few seconds.If these become popular, queuing in supermarkets may become a thing of the past. But some people just like queuing.One man queued all night for Harrods famous January sale, and then returned home for breakfast at nine o' clock the next morning without going into the shop. We can infer from the passage that _ . A) queue management doesn't work well B) there is still queuing in England C) we don't see much queuing in Paris D) the French like queuing more than the British
Ans: B
The failed Skylab will come screaming home to the earth in disappointment sometime next month, but we don't know where it will fall. That precise information is beyond even the calculations of scientist and their computers. The best they can tell us is that the space station, weighting 77 tons and as high as a 12-story building, will break into hundreds of pieces that will be scattered across a track 100 miles wide and 4,000miles long. We are again exposed to one of those unexpected adventures, or misadventures, of science that attract our attention from the boring routines of daily existence and encourages us to think a lot about man's future. What worries Richard Smith, the Skylab's director, is the "big pieces" that will come through the atmosphere. Two lumps, weighing 2 tons each, and ten, weighing at least 1,000 pounds each, will come in at a speed of hundred of miles an hour, and if they crash on land they will dig holes up to 100 feet deep. What worries us, with our lack of scientific knowledge and our quick imagination, is both the big and little pieces, although project officials say there is a very small chance that anyone will be injured by them. That's good to know, but it doesn't remove the doubt of the millions who still remember the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. That accident took place in 1979 in spite of what scientists had assured(...) us as to the safety of the nuclear reactor . The writer mentions Three Mile Island _ . A) because he fears that a piece of the Skylab may strike a nuclear power plant B) to express his doubt about the officials' words C) because he is afraid of nuclear power D) because the nuclear reactor there and the Skylab were built by the same company
B