Most of the 20th century has been a development on the Industrial Revolution taken to an extreme：people now own more products than ever before; there are enough unclear weapons to destroy the earth several times over; there is hardly any forest left and pollution has got to the point where we buy water．Within a few years I predict you will be able to buy air．(There once was a time when you didn't need to buy food or shelter either．)
Important developments in the last century are the breading down of the class structures left over from the Industrial Revolution stage, bringing with it the empowerment of the “common man ”：the working day is set by law to only 8 hours a day, everyone has the vote, the media has less obvious government control, people have landed on the moon, sent spacecrafts to Mars and so on．Families have also shrunk drastically(强烈地); the nuclear family came about, and especially in the last half of the 20th century, one-parent families are becoming more common．This shrinking in the size of the family shows the increased independence of people－once upon a time people had to live in large groups to survive．
As humans have “become the gods”, they have realized their individuality and independence and taken their control of the world to an extreme．In many countries the land is almost completely used in the land is almost completely used in the production of food and as living space and they live in small cities which are entirely human constructed, made from materials which are also entirely human constructed(concrete, bricks)with hardly any remains of nature．Weeds are poisoned because they are messy; even parks have trees grown in tidy lines; grass is mowed to keep it short and so on．I think the massive drug “problem” troubling people is a result of too much of this influence, humans needing to escape the stark world they have created by entering fantasy worlds．
Over the last 100 years, the 20th century consciousness has spread throughout the world; most of Asia has been thoroughly “Westernized”, and most of the Third World is being overrun by western ways of doing things and living．
(1)
What's the author most concerned about?
[ ]
A．
The influence of pollution．
B．
Strong effects of development．
C．
Changed positions of humans as gods．
D．
The process of the Industrial Revolution．
(2)
What is the author's attitude towards the changes of the 20th century?
[ ]
A．
Objective．
B．
Tolerant．
C．
Positive．
D．
Negative．
(3)
What does the underlined word “stark” in Paragraph 3 mean?
Odland remembers like it was yesterday working in an expensive French restaurant in Denver．The ice cream he was serving fell onto the white dress of a rich and important woman．
Thirty years have passed, but Odland can't get the memory out of his mind, nor the woman's kind reaction．She was shocked, regained calmness and, in a kind voice, told the young Odland,“It's OK．It wasn't your fault．”When she left the restaurant, she also left the future Fortune 500 CEO with a life lesson：You can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she treats the waiter．
Odland isn't the only CEO to have made this discovery．Rather, it seems to be one of those few laws of the land that every CEO learns on the way up．It's hard to get a dozen CEO's to agree about anything, but most agree with the Waiter Rule．They say how others treat the CEO says nothing．But how others treat the waiter is like a window into the soul．
Watch out for anyone who pulls out the power card to say something like,“I could but this place and fire you,”or“I know the owner and I could have you fired．”Those who say such things have shown more about their character than about their wealth and power．
The CEO who came up with it, or at least first wrote it down, is Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson．He wrote a best-selling book called Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management．
“A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or to others, is not a nice person,”Swanson says．“I will never offer a job to the person who is sweet to the boss but turns rude to someone cleaning the tables．”
(1)
What happened after Odland dropped the ice cream onto the woman's dress?
[ ]
A．
He was fired．
B．
He was blamed．
C．
The woman comforted him．
D．
The woman left the restaurant at once．
(2)
Odland learned one of his life lessons from ________．
[ ]
A．
his experience as a waiter
B．
the advice given by the CEOs
C．
an article in Fortune
D．
an interesting best-selling book
(3)
According to the text, most CEOs have the same opinion about ________．
Our boat floated on, between walls of forest too thick to allow us a view of the land we were passing through, though we knew from the map that our river must from time to time be passing through chains of hills which crossed the jungle plains．Nowhere did we find a place where we could have landed：where the jungle did not actually spread right down into the river, banks of soft mud prevented us going ashore．In any case, what would we have sailed by landing?The country was full of snakes and other dangerous creatures, and the jungle was so thick that one would be able to advance only slowly, cutting one’s way with knives the whole way．So we stayed in the boat, hoping we reached the sea, a friendly fisherman would pick us up and take us to civilization．
We lived on fish, caught with home-made net of string(we had no hooks), and fruits and nuts we could pick up out of the water．As we had no fire, we had to eat everything, including the fish, raw I had never tasted raw fish before, and I must say I did not much enjoy the experience; perhaps sea fish which do not live in the mud are less tasteless．After eating my raw fish, I lay back and dreamed of such things as fried chicken and rice, and ice-cream．In the never-ending damp heat of the jungle, ice-cream was a particularly frequent dream．
As for water, there was a choice：we could drink the muddy river water, or die of thirst．We drank the water．Men who had just escaped what had appeared to be certain death lose all worries about such small things as diseases caused by dirty water．In fact, none of us suffered from any illness as a result．
One day we passed another village, but fortunately nobody saw us．We did not wish to risk being taken prisoners a second time：we might not be so lucky to escape in a stolen boat again．
(1)
What they could see in the boat was only ________．
[ ]
A．
high wall
B．
villagers from time to time
C．
vast land
D．
heavy woods
(2)
They couldn’t land because ________．
[ ]
A．
the mud on the shore was too soft
B．
the forest was too thick to let them go through
C．
they could not find the mark on the map
D．
they could not find anyone to lead them out of the forest
(3)
The passage infers that the forest was ________．
[ ]
A．
rich of fruits and animals to be served as food
B．
not very thick as they could advance slowly by cutting the branches
C．
full of various dangerous beings
D．
full of ancient trees
(4)
The most proper title for this passage might be ________．
[ ]
A．
Escape
B．
Scenes of a River
C．
How to Survive on a boat
D．
A New Experience
阅读理解：
Our boat floated on, between walls of forest too thick to allow us a view of the land we were passing through, though we knew from the map that our river must from time to time be passing through chains of hills which crossed the jungle plains．Nowhere did we find a place where we could have landed：where the jungle did not actually spread right down into the river, banks of soft mud prevented us going ashore．In any case, what would we have sailed by landing?The country was full of snakes and other dangerous creatures, and the jungle was so thick that one would be able to advance only slowly, cutting one’s way with knives the whole way．So we stayed in the boat, hoping we reached the sea, a friendly fisherman would pick us up and take us to civilization．
We lived on fish, caught with home-made net of string(we had no hooks), and fruits and nuts we could pick up out of the water．As we had no fire, we had to eat everything, including the fish, raw I had never tasted raw fish before, and I must say I did not much enjoy the experience; perhaps sea fish which do not live in the mud are less tasteless．After eating my raw fish, I lay back and dreamed of such things as fried chicken and rice, and ice-cream．In the never-ending damp heat of the jungle, ice-cream was a particularly frequent dream．
As for water, there was a choice：we could drink the muddy river water, or die of thirst．We drank the water．Men who had just escaped what had appeared to be certain death lose all worries about such small things as diseases caused by dirty water．In fact, none of us suffered from any illness as a result．
One day we passed another village, but fortunately nobody saw us．We did not wish to risk being taken prisoners a second time：we might not be so lucky to escape in a stolen boat again．
(1)
What they could see in the boat was only ________．
[ ]
A．
high wall
B．
villagers from time to time
C．
vast land
D．
heavy woods
(2)
They couldn’t land because ________．
[ ]
A．
the mud on the shore was too soft
B．
the forest was too thick to let them go through
C．
they could not find the mark on the map
D．
they could not find anyone to lead them out of the forest．
(3)
The passage infers that the forest was ________．
[ ]
A．
rich of fruits and animals to be served as food
B．
not very thick as they could advance slowly by cutting the branches
C．
full of various dangerous beings
D．
full of ancient trees
(4)
The most proper title for this passage might be ________．
