Everywhere I look outside my home I see people busy on their high-tech devices, while driving, walking, shopping, even sitting in toilets. When connected electronically, they are away from physical reality.

People have been influenced to become technology addicted. One survey reported that “addicted” was the word most commonly used by people to describe their relationship to iPad and similar devices. One study found that people had a harder time resisting the allure of social media than they did for sleep, cigarettes and alcohol.

The main goal of technology companies is to get people to spend more money and time on their products, not to actually improve our quality of life. They have successfully created a cultural disease. Consumers willingly give up their freedom, money and time to catch up on the latest information, to keep pace with their peers or to appear modern.

I see people trapped in a pathological (病態(tài)的) relationship with time-sucking technology, where they serve technology more than technology serves them. I call this technology servitude. I am referring to a loss of personal freedom and independence because of uncontrolled consumption of many kinds of devices that eat up time and money.

What is a healthy use of technology devices? That is the vital question. Who is really in charge of my life? That is what people need to ask themselves if we are to have any chance of breaking up false beliefs about their use of technology. When we can live happily without using so much technology for a day or a week, then we can regain control and personal freedom, become the master of technology and discover what there is to enjoy in life free of technology. Mae West is famous for the wisdom that “too much of a good thing is wonderful.” But it’s time to discover that it does not work for technology.

Richard Fernandez, an executive coach at Google acknowledged that “we can be swept away by our technologies.” To break the grand digital connection people must consider how life long ago could be fantastic without today’s overused technology.

1.The underlined word “allure” in Paragraph 2 probably means ______.

A. advantage B. attraction

C. adaption D. attempt

2.From the passage, technology companies aim to ______.

A. attract people to buy their products

B. provide the latest information

C. improve people’s quality of life

D. deal with cultural diseases

3.It can be inferred from this passage that people ______.

A. consider too much technology wonderful

B. have realized the harm of high-tech devices

C. can regain freedom without high-tech devices

D. may enjoy life better without overused technology

4.What’s the author’s attitude towards the overusing of high-tech devices?

A. Neutral. B. Skeptical.

C. Disapproving. D. Sympathetic.

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3.

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完形填空

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6.A. held B. broke C. set D. tried

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8.A. and B. then C. but D. thus

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閱讀理解。

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C. He liked Psychology better.

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A. Because he heard some negative remarks about it.

B. Because he was worried that he didn’t have enough time to study.

C. Because he feared he would fail the entrance exam.

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B. Interesting and easy.

C. Interesting and challenging.

D. Dull and easy

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Dearest Clare,

As I write this, I am sitting at my desk in the back bedroom looking out at your studio across the backyard full of blue evening snow, everything is smooth and crusty with ice, and it is very still. It's one of those winter evenings when the coldness of every single thing seems to slow down time, like the narrow center of an hourglass which time itself flows through, but slowly, slowly. I had a sudden urge, tonight, here in the house by myself to write you a letter. I suddenly wanted to leave something, for after. I think that time is short, now. I feel as though all my reserves, of energy, of pleasure, of duration, are thin, small. I don't feel capable of continuing very much longer. I know you know.

If you are reading this, I am probably dead. But you know: you know that if I could have stayed, if I could have gone on, that I would have seized every second: whatever it was, this death, you know that it came and took me, like a child carried away by goblins (妖精).

Clare, I want to tell you, again, I love you. But I hate to think of you waiting. I know that you have been waiting for me all your life, always uncertain of how long this patch of waiting would be. Ten minutes, ten days.A month. What an uncertain husband I have been, Clare, like a sailor. Please, Clare. When I am dead, stop waiting and be free. Of me—put me deep inside you and then go out in the world and live. Love the world and yourself in it, move through it as though the world is your natural element.

After my mom died she ate my father up completely. She would have hated it. Every minute of his life since then has been marked by her absence, every action has lacked dimension because she is not there to measure against. And when I was young I didn't understand, but now, I know, how absence can be present.

If I had to live on without you I know I could not do it. But I hope, I have this vision of you walking, with your shining hair in the sun. I have not seen this with my eyes, but only with my imagination, that makes pictures, that always wanted to paint you, shining; but I hope that this vision will be true, anyway.

Clare, there is one last thing, and I have hesitated to tell you, because I'm afraid that telling might cause it to not happen and also because I have just been going on about not waiting and this might cause you to wait longer than you have ever waited before. But I will tell you in case you need something, after.

Last summer, I was sitting in Kendrick’s waiting room when I suddenly found myself in a dark hallway in a house I don’t know. At the end of the hall I could see a rim of light around a door, and so I went very slowly and very quietly to the door and looked in. The room was white, and lit with morning sun. At the window, with her back to me, sat a woman, wearing a coral-colored cardigan sweater, with long white hair all down her back. She had a cup of tea beside her, on a table. I must have made some little noise, or she sensed me behind her...she turned and saw me, and I saw her, and it was you, Clare, this was you as an old woman, in the future. It was sweet, Clare, it was sweet beyond telling. I won’t tell you any more, so you can imagine it. We will see each other again, Clare. Until then, live, fully, present in the world, which is so beautiful.

It’s dark, now, and I am very tired. I love you, always. Time is nothing.

Henry

1.Why did Henry mention the snow and ice in the first Paragraph?

A. To indicate the death is approaching.

B. To illustrate that he has an easy mind.

C. To express how urgent he was to write the letter.

D. To show the weather conditions when he wrote the letter.

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A. his mother died soon after Henry was born

B. the living shouldn’t miss the dead too much

C. his mother had a narrow affection for his father

D. his father lived in the shadow of his mother’s absence

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A. he hoped she would wait for him forever

B. his health was worsening step by step

C. she should stop waiting and be free to live

D. she would be more beautiful when she was old

4.Which of the following can best describe Henry?

A. Considerate. B. Generous. D. Explicit. D. Rigid.

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