Text 1
In 1939 two brothers, Mac and Dick McDonald, started a drive-in restaurant in San Bernadino, California. They care fully chose a busy comer for their location. They had run their own business for years, first a theater, then a barbecue(烤肉 )restaurant, then another drive -in. But in their new operation, they offered a new, shortened menu: French fries, hamburgers, and sodas. To this small selection they added one new concept: quick service, no waiters or waitresses, and no tips.
Their hamburgers sold for fifteen cents. Cheese was another four cents. Their French fries and hamburgers had a remarkable uniformity, for the brothers had developed a strict routine for the preparation of their food, and they insisted on their cooks' sticking to their routine. Their new drive -in became incredibly popular, particularly for lunch. People drove up by the hundreds during the busy noontime. The serf - service restaurant was so popular that the brothers had allowed ten copies of their restaurant to be opened. They were content with this modest success until they met Ray Kroc.
Kroc was a salesman who met the McDonald brothers in 1954, when he was selling milkshake -mixing machines. He quickly saw the unique appeal of the brothers fast food restaurants and bought the right to franchise (特许经营other copies of their restaurants. The agreement struck included the right to duplicate the menu. The equipment, even their red and white buildings with the golden arches.
Today McDonald' s is really a household name. Its names for its sandwiches have come to mean hamburger in the decades since the day Ray Kroc watched people rush up to order fifteen - cent hamburgers. In 1976, McDonald' s had over $1 billion in total sales. Its first twenty - two years is one of the most incredible success stories in modem American business history.
21. This passage mainly talks about ______.
A. the development of fast food services
B. how McDonald's became a billion- dollar business
C. the business careers of Mac and Dick McDonald
D. Ray Kroc’s business talent
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As used in the second sentence of the third paragraph, the word "unique" means ______.
A. special
B. attractive
C. financial
D. peculiar
A) in case B) rather than C) as well as D) as though
A. in case
B. rather than
C. as well as
D. as though
Text 4
Those who welcomed the railway saw it as more than a rapid and comfortable means of passing. They actually saw it as a factor in world peace. They did not foresee that the railway would be just one more means for the rapid movement of aggressive armies. None of them foresaw that the more we are together—the more chances there are of war. Any boy or girl who is one of a large family knows that.
Whenever any new invention is put forward, those for it and those against it can always find medical men to approve or condemn. The anti-railway group produced doctors who said that tunnels would be most dangerous to public health: they would produce colds, catarrhs(黏膜炎) and consumptions. The deafening noise and the glare of the engine fire, would have a bad effect on the nerves. Further, being moved through the air at a high speed would do grave injury to delicate lungs. In those with high blood pressure, the movement of the train might produce apoplexy. The sudden plunging of a train into the darkness of a tannel, and the equally sudden rush into full daylight, would cause great damage to eyesight. But the pro-railway group was of course able to produce equally famous medical men to say just the opposite. They said that the speed and swing of the train would equalize the circulation, promote digestion, tranquilize the nerves, and ensure good sleep.
The actual rolling-stock was anything but comfortable. If it was a test of endurance to sit for four hours outside a coach in rain, or inside in dirty air, the railway offered little more in the way of comfort. Certainly the first-class carriages had cushioned seats; but the second - class had only narrow bare boards, while the third - class had nothing at all; no seats and no roof; they were just open trucks. So that third - class passengers gained nothing from the few mode except speed. In the matter of comfort, indeed they lost; they did, on the coaches, have a seat, but now they had to stand all the way, which gave opportunities to the comic press. This kind of thing: "A man was seen yesterday buying a third - class ticket for the new London and Birmingham Railway. The state of his mind is being enquired into".
A writer in the early days of railways wrote feelingly of both second - and third - class carriages. He made the suggestion that the directors of the railways must have sent all over the world to find the hardest possible wood. Of the open third -class trucks he said that they had the peculiar property of meeting the rain from whatever quarter it came. He described them as horizontal shower - baths, from whose searching power there was no escape.
36. All boys and girls in large families know that ______.
A. a boy and a girl usually fight when they are together
B. people tend to be together more than they used to be
C. a lot of people being together makes fights likely
D. railway leads the world to peace
Part B
Directions: In the following article, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41—45, choose the most suitable one from the list A—G to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET I. (10 points)
41)____________Many of the options have already been rehearsed in the press: excluding some treatments from the NHS, charging for certain drugs and services, and developing voluntary or compulsory health insurance schemes.
42)____________We spend about 7 per cent of GDP on health, compared with 9 per cent in the Netherlands and 10 per cent in France and Germany. In terms of health outcomes versus spend, we compare pretty favourably.
I don' t see private health care providing much of the solution to current problems. 43)____________Neither is close to being implemented, but the future could see a deliberate shift of attention to voluntary health insurance and an emphasis on social insurance.
44)____________Even so, higher taxes will plainly be needed to fund health care. I think we'll eventually see larger NHS charges, more rationing of medical services and restrictions on certain procedures without proven outcomes. Stricter eligibility criteria for certain treatments are another possibility.
45)____________.None of them is going to win votes for the political party desperate enough to introduce them—but then nobody is going to vote for ill—health or an early death either.
[A] English National Health Service is a universal health keeping system. But Now, the shortage of money becomes a serious problem.
[B] All such options would mean a sharp break with tradition and political fall out that could be extremely damaging.
[C] The options provides solution to the shortage of money problem.
[D] I expect individuals to take greater responsibility for their personal health using technology that allows self diag-nosis followed by serf- treatment or home care.
[E] Looking at how far we' 11 be able to fund the Health Service in the 21st century raises any number of thorny is- sues.
[F] More likely is a shift from universal health coverage to top up schemes which give people basic health entitlements but require them to finance other treatment through private financing, or opt out schemes which use tax relief to encourage individuals to make private provision.
[G] Compared to its European Union counterparts Britain. operates a low cost health system.
41.____________