阅读理解：
In 1837, the historian Carlyle made the first recorded
use of the word “queue” (排队). He spoke of the French and
their “habit of standing in a queue”. Forty years later
Paris was 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 (怀孕)?
Customer: Well, I wasn’t when I joined the queue.
Today, according to research in America, we (in Britain)
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 (丛林) 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 (电子识别器) 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.
1．The joke in Paragraph 2 implies that the young woman
_______.
A．has been waiting in the queue for a long time
B．doesn’t need to stand in the queue
C．enjoys standing in the queue
D．has stood in the wrong line
2．According to the passage, which of the following is
true?
A．The British spend more time queuing than looking for
lost things.
B．The Americans criticized the British for their way of
queuing.
C．The British are always patient when they wait in line.
D．People queue only when they want to buy something.
3．The British try to solve the problem of queuing by all
the following EXCEPT _______.
A．making a law to prevent queuing
B．telling the customers the waiting time
C．using numbered tickets to put the customers in order
D．checking the price of the goods customers buy with a
scanner
4．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
答案与提示：
1．A 文中的笑话：
店主：小姐，你怀孕了吗？
顾客：哦，当我排队的时候还没有。
以上的对话暗示排队的时间很长。
2．A 从“we (in Britain) can spend up to 5 years …we have
lost.”可以看出。
3．A “制定一项法律禁止排队”文章中并没有出现这个观点。
4．B 从文中可以看出，在英国还有排队的现象，而且最后一段还举出一个例子说明有的人很爱排队。
