A few common misconceptions. Beauty is only skin-deep. One's physical assets and liabilities don't count all that much in a managerial career. A woman should always try to look her best.

　　Over the last 30 years, social scientists have conducted more than 1,000 studies of how we react to beautiful and not-so-beautiful people. The virtually unanimous conclusion: Looks do matter, more than most of us realize. The data suggest, for example, that physically attractive individuals are more likely to be treated well by their parents, sought out as friends, and pursued romantically. With the possible exception of women seeking managerial jobs, they are also more likely to be hired, paid well, and promoted.

　　Un-American, you say, unfair and extremely unbelievable? Once again, the scientists have caught us mouthing pieties (虔诚) while acting just the contrary. Their typical experiment works something like this. They give each member of a group-college students, perhaps, or teachers or corporate personnel managers- a piece of paper relating an individual's accomplishments. Attached to the paper is a photograph. While the papers all say exactly the same thing the pictures are different. Some show a strikingly attractive person, some an average-looking character, and some an unusually unattractive human being. Group members are asked to rate the individual on certain attributes, anything from personal warmth to the likelihood that he or she will be promoted.

　　Almost invariably, the better looking the person in the picture, the higher the person is rated. In the phrase, borrowed from Salppho, that the social scientists use to sum up the common perception, what is beautiful is good.

　　In business, however, good looks cut both ways for women, and deeper than for men. A Utah State University professor, who is an authority on the subject, explains: In terms of their careers, the impact of physical attractiveness on males is only modest. But its potential impact on females can be tremendous, making its easier, for example, for the more attractive to get jobs where they are in the public eye. On another note, though, there is enough literature now for us to conclude that attractive women who aspire to managerial positions do not get on as well as women who may be less attractive.

　　1. According to the passage, people often wrongly believe that in pursuing a career as manager_____.

　　A. a person's property or debts do not matter much

　　B. a person's outward appearance is not a critical qualification

　　C. women should always dress fashionably

　　D. women should not only be attractive but also high-minded

　　2. The result of research carried out by social scientists show that .

　　A. people do not realize the importance of looking one's best

　　B. women in pursuit of managerial jobs are not likely to be paid well

　　C. good-looking women aspire to managerial positions

　　D. attractive people generally have an advantage over those who are not

　　3. Experments by scientists have shown that when people evaluate individuals on certain attributes .

　　A. they observe the principle that beauty is only skin-deep

　　B. they do not usually act according to the views they support

　　C. they give ordinary-looking persons the lowest ratings

　　D. they tend to base their judgment on the individual's accomplishments

　　4. "Good looks cut both ways for women" (Line 1, Para. 5) means that .

　　A. attractive women have tremendous potential impact on public jobs

　　B. good-looking women always get the best of everything

　　C. being attractive is not always an advantage for women

　　D. attractive women do not do as well as unattractive women in managerial positions

　　5. It can inferred from the passage that in the business world .

　　A. handsome men are not affected as much by their looks as attractive women are

　　B. physically attractive women who are in the public eye usually do quite well

　　C. physically attractive men and women who are in the public eye usually get ahmg quite well

　　D. good looks are important for women as they are for men

　　参考答案：B D B C C

　　It is said that in England death is pressing, in Canada inevitable and in California optional Small wonder. Americans' life expectancy has nearly doubled over the past century. Failing hips can be replaced, clinical depression controlled, cataracts removed in a 30-minuts surgical procedure. Such advances offer the aging population a quality of life that was unimaginable when I entered medicine 50 years ago. But not even a great health-care system can cure death—and our failure to confront that reality now threatens this greatness of ours.

　　Death is normal; we are genetically programmed to disintegrate and perish, even under ideal conditions. We all understand that at some level, yet as medical consumers we treat death as a problem to be solved. Shielded by third-party payers from the cost of our care, we demand everything that can possibly be done for us, even if it's useless. The most obvious example is late-stage cancer care. Physicians—frustrated by their inability to cure the disease and fearing loss of hope in the patient—too often offer aggressive treatment far beyond what is scientifically justified.

　　In 1950, the U.S. spent 7 billion on health care. In 2002, the cost will be one hundred billion. Anyone can see this trend is unsustainable. Yet few seem willing to try to reverse it. Some scholars conclude that a government with finite resources should simply stop paying for medical care that sustains life beyond a certain age—say 83 or so. Former Colorado governor Richard Lamm has been quoted as saying that the old and infirm "have a duty to die and get out of the way", so that younger, healthier people can realize their potential.

　　I would not go that far. Energetic people now routinely work through their 60s and beyond, and remain dazzlingly productive. At 78, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone jokingly claims to be 53. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is in her 70s, and former surgeon general C.Everett Koop chairs an Internet start-up in his 80s. These leaders are living proof that prevention works and that we can manage the health problems that come naturally with age. As a mere 68-year-old, I wish to age as productively as they have.

　　Yet there are limits to what a society can spend in this pursuit. Ask a physician, I know the most costly and dramatic measures may be ineffective and painful. I also know that people in Japan and Sweden, countries that spend far less on medical care, have achieved longer, healthier lives than we have. As a nation, we may be overfunding the quest for unlikely cures while underfunding research on humbler therapies that could improve people's lives.

　　1. What is implied in the first sentence?

　　A. Americans are better prepared for death than other people.

　　B. Americans enjoy a higher life quality than ever before.

　　C. Americans are over-confident of their medical technology.

　　D. Americans take a vain pride in their long life expectancy.

　　2. The author uses the example of caner patients to show that .

　　A. medical resources are often wasted

　　B. doctors are helpless against fatal diseases

　　C. some treatments are too aggressive

　　D. medical costs are becoming unaffordable

　　3. The author's attitude toward Richard Lamm's remark is one of .

　　A. strong disapproval

　　B. reserved consent

　　C. slight contempt

　　D. enthusiastic support

　　4. In contrast to the U.S., Japan and Sweden are funding their medical care .

　　A. more flexibly

　　B. more extravagantly

　　C. more cautiously

　　D. more reasonably

　　5. The text intends to express the idea that .

　　A. medicine will further prolong people's lives

　　B. life beyond a certain limit is not worth living

　　C. death should be accepted as a fact of life

　　D. excessive demands increase the cost of health care

　　参考答案：CABDC

　　Early in the age of affluence (富裕) that followed World War II, an American retailing analyst named Victor Lebow proclaimed, "Our enormously productive economy...demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption... .We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing rate."

　　Americans have responded to Lebow's call, and much of the world has followed.

　　Consumption has become a central pillar of life in industrial lands and is even embedded in social values. Opinion surveys in the world's two largest economies—Japan and the United States—show consumerist definitions of success becoming ever more prevalent.

　　Overconsumption by the world's fortunate is an environmental problem unmatched in severity by anything but perhaps population growth. Their surging exploitation of resources threatens to exhaust or unalterably spoil forests, soils, water, air and climate.

　　Ironically, high consumption may be a mixed blessing in human terms, too. The time-honored values of integrity of character, good work, friendship, family and community have often been sacrificed in the rush to riches.

　　Thus many in the industrial lands have a sense that their world of plenty is somehow hollow—that, misled by a consumerist culture, they have been fruitlessly attempting to satisfy what are essentially social, psychological and spiritual needs with material things.

　　Of course, the opposite of overconsumption—poverty—is no solution to either environmental or human problems. It is infinitely worse for people and bad for the natural world too. Dispossessed (被剥夺得一无所有的) peasants slash-and-burn their way into the rain forests of Latin America, and hungry nomads (游牧民族) turn their herds out onto fragile African grassland, reducing it to desert.

　　If environmental destruction results when people have either too little or too much, we are left to wonder how much is enough. What level of consumption can the earth support? When does having more cease to add noticeably to human satisfaction?

　　1. The emergence of the affluent society after World War II .

　　A. led to the reform of the retailing system

　　B. resulted in the worship of consumerism

　　C. gave rise to the dominance of the new egoism

　　D. gave birth to a new generation of upper class consumers

　　2. Apart from enormous productivity, another important impetus to high consumption is______.

　　A. the people's desire for a rise in their living standards

　　B. the concept that one's success is measured by how much they consume

　　C. the imbalance that has existed between production and consumption

　　D. the conversion of the sale of goods into rituals

　　3. Why does the author say high consumption is a mixed blessing?

　　A. Because poverty still exists in an affluent society.

　　B. Because overconsumption won't last long due to unrestricted population growth.

　　C. Because traditional rituals are often neglected in the process of modernization.

　　D. Because moral values are sacrificed in pursuit of material satisfaction.

　　4. According to the passage, consumerist culture .

　　A. will not alleviate poverty in wealthy countries

　　B. will not aggravate environmental problems

　　C. cannot thrive on a fragile economy

　　D. cannot satisfy human spiritual needs

　　5. It can be inferred from the passage that .

　　A. human spiritual needs should match material affluence

　　B. whether high consumption should be encouraged is still an issue

　　C. how to keep consumption at a reasonable level remains a problem

　　D. there is never an end to satisfying people's material needs

　　参考答案：BBDDC