As you move around your home, take a good look at the things you have. It is likely that your living room will have a television set and a video, and your kitchen a washing machine and a microwave oven. Your bedroom drawers will be filled with almost three times as many clothes as you need. You almost certainly own a car and possibly a home computer, holiday abroad at least once a year and eat out at least once a week.

    Now, perhaps, more than ever before, people are wondering what life is all about, and what it is for. Seeking material success is beginning to trouble large numbers of people around the world. They feel that the long hours work culture to make more money to buy more things is eating up their lives, leaving them very little time or energy for family or pastimes. Many are turning to other ways of living and downshifting is one of them.

    Six percent of workers in Britain took the decision to downshift last year. One couple who downshifted is Daniel and Liz. They used to work in central London. He was a newspaper reporter and she used to work for an international bank. They would go to work by train every day from their large house in the suburbs (郊区), leaving their two children with a nanny (保姆). Most evenings Daniel wouldn’t get home until eight or nine o’clock, and nearly twice a month he would have to fly to New York for meetings. They both earned a large amount of money but began to feel that life was passing them by.

    Nowadays, they run a farm in the mountains of Wales. “I always wanted to have a farm here,” says Daniel, “and we took almost a year to make the decision to downshift. It’s taken some getting used to, but it has been worthy of. We have to think twice now about spending money on car repairs and we no longer have any holidays. However, I think it’s made us stronger as a family, and the children are a lot happier.”

    Liz, however, is not quite sure. “I used to enjoy my job, even though it was hard work and long hours. I’m not really a country girl, but I suppose I’m gradually getting used to looking after the animals. One thing I do like, though, is being able to see more of my children. My advice for other people wanting to do the same is not to think about it too much or you might not do it at all.”

1.What do the first two paragraphs tell us?

    A. People seldom work long hours to make money.

    B. People hardly buy more things than necessary.

    C. People are sure everything they own is in the right place.

D. People realize there is more to life than just making money.

2. When Daniel was a reporter he _____.

    A. lived in central London          B. disliked his job

    C. missed his children               D. was well paid

3. Daniel and Liz both agree that the move to the farm _____.

    A. was easy to organize              B. has improved family life

    C. was extremely expensive           D. has been a total success

4. What does the underlined “it” in the last paragraph refer to?

    A. Child-caring.        B. Liz’s advice.   C. Downshifting.   D. Liz’s job.

After graduation I returned home to my small town in Indiana. I didn’t have a job yet. Mr. Hobbs, a friend of my father’s, owned a small shirt factory in town. Within the past five years it had grown from twenty to eighty workers. Mr. Hobbs was worried that his plant was getting too big and inefficient, so he asked me to come in on a short-term basis as a consultant.

I went to the plant and spent about a week looking around and making notes. I was really a mazed at what I saw.

Most curious of all, there was no quality control at all. No one inspected the final product of the factory. As a result some of the shirts that were put in boxes for shipment were missing one or two buttons, the collar, and even a sleeve sometimes!

The working conditions were poor. The tables where the workers sat were very high and uncomfortable. Except for a half hour at lunchtime, there were no breaks in the day to relieve the boring work. There was no music. The walls of the workrooms were a dull gray color. I was amazed that the workers hadn’t gone on strike.

Furthermore, the work flow was irregular. There was one especially absent-minded young man in the assembly（组装）line who sewed on buttons. After a while I recognized him as "Big Jim", who used to sit behind me in math class in high school. He was very slow and all the shifts were held up at his position. Workers beyond him in line on his shift had to wait with nothing to do; therefore, a great deal of time and efficiency were lost as Big Jim daydreamed while he worked. All week I wondered why he wasn’t fired.

After I made observations for a week, Mr. Hobbs asked me for an oral report of my findings.

1.The shirts from Mr. Hobbs’ factory can be described as ____.

2.Why did Mr. Hobbs ask the writer to the factory?

3.Which is not likely to happen in the factory?

4.Big Jim may get fired mainly because ____.

As you move around your home, take a good look at the things you have. It is likely that your living room will have a television set and a video, and your kitchen a washing machine and a microwave oven. Your bedroom drawers will be filled with almost three times as many clothes as you need. You almost certainly own a car and possibly a home computer, holiday abroad at least once a year and eat out at least once a week.

    Now, perhaps, more than ever before, people are wondering what life is all about, and what it is for. Seeking material success is beginning to trouble large numbers of people around the world. They feel that the long hours work culture to make more money to buy more things is eating up their lives, leaving them very little time or energy for family or pastimes. Many are turning to other ways of living and downshifting is one of them.

    Six percent of workers in Britain took the decision to downshift last year. One couple who downshifted is Daniel and Liz. They used to work in central London. He was a newspaper reporter and she used to work for an international bank. They would go to work by train every day from their large house in the suburbs (郊区), leaving their two children with a nanny (保姆). Most evenings Daniel wouldn’t get home until eight or nine o’clock, and nearly twice a month he would have to fly to New York for meetings. They both earned a large amount of money but began to feel that life was passing them by.

    Nowadays, they run a farm in the mountains of Wales. “I always wanted to have a farm here,” says Daniel, “and we took almost a year to make the decision to downshift. It’s taken some getting used to, but it has been worthy of. We have to think twice now about spending money on car repairs and we no longer have any holidays. However, I think it’s made us stronger as a family, and the children are a lot happier.”

    Liz, however, is not quite sure. “I used to enjoy my job, even though it was hard work and long hours. I’m not really a country girl, but I suppose I’m gradually getting used to looking after the animals. One thing I do like, though, is being able to see more of my children. My advice for other people wanting to do the same is not to think about it too much or you might not do it at all.”

What do the first two paragraphs tell us?

    A. People seldom work long hours to make money.

    B. People hardly buy more things than necessary.

    C. People are sure everything they own is in the right place.

D. People realize there is more to life than just making money.

When Daniel was a reporter he _____.

    A. lived in central London          B. disliked his job

    C. missed his children               D. was well paid

Daniel and Liz both agree that the move to the farm _____.

    A. was easy to organize              B. has improved family life

    C. was extremely expensive           D. has been a total success

What does the underlined “it” in the last paragraph refer to?

    A. Child-caring.        B. Liz’s advice.   C. Downshifting.   D. Liz’s job.

If women are mercilessly exploited(剥削) year after year,they have only themselves to blame.Because they tremble at the thought of being seen in public in clothes that are out of fashion,they are always taken advantage of by the designers and the big stores.Clothes which have been worn only a few times have to be put aside because of the change of fashion.When you come to think of it,only a woman is capable of standing in front of a wardrobe(衣柜) packed full of clothes and announcing sadly that she has nothing to wear.

Changing fashions are nothing more than the intentional creation of waste.Many women spend vast sums of money each year to replace clothes that have hardly been worn.Women who cannot afford to throw away clothing in this way,waste hours of their time altering the dresses they have.Skirts are lengthened or shortened;neck-lines are lowered or raised,and so on.No one can claim that the fashion industry contributes anything really important to society.Fashion designers are rarely concerned with vital things like warmth,comfort and durability(耐用).They are only interested in outward appearance and they take advantage of the fact that women will put up with any amount of discomfort,as long as they look right.There can hardly be a man who hasn’t at some time in his life smiled at the sight of a woman shaking in a thin dress on a winter day,or delicately picking her way through deep snow in high-heeled shoes.

When comparing men and women in the matter of fashion,the conclusions to be drawn are obvious.Do the constantly changing fashions of women’s clothes,one wonders,reflect basic qualities of inconstancy and instability?Men are too clever to let themselves be cheated by fashion designers.Do their unchanging styles of dress reflect basic qualities of stability and reliability?That is for you to decide.

1.Designers and big stores always make money        .

2.To the writer,the fact that women change their old-fashioned dresses is seen as        .

3.The writer would be less critical if fashion designers placed more stress on the     of clothing.

4.According to the passage,which of the following statements is TRUE?

In some urban centers, workholism is so common that people do not consider it unusual: they accept the lifestyle as normal. Government workers in Washington D. C., for example, frequently work sixty to seventy hours a week. They don’t do this because they have to; they do it because they want to.

Workholism can be a serious problem. Because true workaholics (工作狂) would rather work than do anything else, they probably don’t know how to relax.

Is workholism always dangerous? Perhaps not. There are, certainly, people who work well under stress. Some studies show that many workaholics have great energy and interest in life. Their work is so pleasurable that they are actually very happy. For most workaholics, work and entertainment keep them busy and creative.

Why do workaholics enjoy their jobs so much? There are several advantages to work. Of course, it provides people with paychecks, and this is important. But it offers more than financial security. It provides people with self-confidence; they have a feeling of satisfaction when they’ve produced a challenging piece of work and are able to say, “I made that.” Psychologists claim that work gives people an identity through participation in work, they get a sense of self and individualism. In addition, most jobs provide people with a socially acceptable way to meet others. Perhaps some people are compulsive about their work, but their addiction seems to be a safe-even an advantageous-one.

1.The passage indicates that workaholics ______.

2.One of the reasons that some people are not willing to quit their jobs even in their eighties and nineties is that ______.

A. they are in the need of financial security

B. they would rather work than be disturbed by domestic affairs

C. they long for a sense of identity and being accomplished

C. they may have health problems from sheer boresom

3.This passage is mainly about ______.

4.It can be inferred from the passage that ______.