Never in my wildest dreams _________ these people are living in such poor conditions.

A．she never got tired B．she never felt sad C．she never become sick D．she was never impatient

A.did I feel B.I felt C.had I felt D.I had left

A．from which B．in that C．with whom D．by what

A.with B.without C.out D.in

A. behind B. beyond C. except D. through

A．there being a chance B．there be a chance C．there to be a chance D．being a chance

A: working B: worked C: work D: to work

A.under B.under C.Above D.Beyond

A．the limits of their imagination B．the structure and form. of the environment C．the reality of life D．the rules of the society

A．above B．beyond C．in D．off

Businessmen can travel from London to New York in three hours and lots of people exceed the seventy-mile-per-hour speed limit on motorways. A person of 75 is not old these days. A serious illness does not mean certain death because there have been so many advances in medical science. We no longer need to be afraid of contracting diseases like polio or smallpox. I can speak to my son in Australia from my own sitting room here in Manchester, watch athletes running a race on the other side of the world without moving from my own home and I can even do my shopping while I sit here in an armchair. I never need to worry about food going bad in the warm weather and, at the flick of a switch, I can have a hot meal in a couple of minutes. So, it seems, the quality of life has greatly improved since my own childhood. I'm not convinced, however, that people are happier today than they were 50 years ago. We are certainly materially better off than we were but most people still seem to be weighed down by problems. My daughter and her family are a good illustration. They have a spacious, comfortable home with every labor-saving device you can think of. There's a washing machine, a clothes dryer, a food processor, a vacuum cleaner and all sorts of other household items which are designed to save time but it seems to me that my daughter and her husband just spend all that "saved" time working! They never relax and are always complaining of being tired and "stressed". What is the passage mainly about？ A．How life has improved. B．How life has become worse. C．A comparison of life now and that in the past. D．Memory of life in the past.

Cities can be frightening places. The majority of the population lives in massive tower blocks, noisy, dirty and impersonal. The sense of belonging to a community tends to disappear when you live fifteen floors up. All you can see from your window is sky, or other blocks of flats. Children become aggressive and nervous—cooped up at home all day, with nowhere to play; their mothers feel isolated from the rest of the world. Strangely enough, whereas in the past the inhabitants of one street all knew each other, nowadays people on tire same floor in tower blocks don't even say hello to each other. Country life, on the other hand, differs from this kind of isolated existence in that a sense of community generally binds the inhabitants of small villages together. People have the advantage of knowing that there is always someone to turn to when they need help. But country life has disadvantages too. While it is true that you may be among friends in a village, it is also true that you are cut off from the exciting and important events that take place in cities. There's little possibility of going to a new show or the latest movie. Shopping becomes a major problem, and for anything slightly out of the ordinary you have to go on an expedition to the nearest large town. The city-dweller who leaves for the country is often oppressed by a sense of unbearable stillness and quietness. What, then, is the answer？ The country has the advantage of peace and quiet, but suffers from the disadvantage of being cut off; the city breeds a feeling of isolation, and constant noise batters the senses. But one of its main advantages is that you are at the centre of things; and that life doesn't come to an end at half past nine at night. Some people have found(or rather bought) a compromise between the two: they have expressed their preference for the "quiet life" by leaving the suburbs and moving to villages within commuting distance of large cities. They generally have about as much sensitivity as the plastic flowers they leave behind—they are polluted with strange ideas about change and improvement which they force on to the unwilling original inhabitants of the village. What then of my dreams of leaning on a cottage gate and murmuring "morning" to the locals as they pass by？ I'm keen on the idea, but you see there's my cat, Toby. I'm not at all sure that he would take to all that fresh air and exercise in the long grass. I mean, can you see him mixing with all those hearty males down the farm？ No, he would rather have the electric imitation-coal fire any evening. One of the disadvantages of living in high-rise buildings is that ______. A．the parents may become violent and difficult to put up with B．the residents may not have a good view from their windows C．the residents may become indifferent to their neighbors D．the children may become too frustrated to be controlled

A.finding B.having found C.to find D.to have found

A．fantasy B．false C．lovely D．fantastic

A、dream coming; come true B、dreamt of coming; come true C、dreamed to come; realized D、dreamed coming; realizing

A．but B．and C．if D．so