Question

I’m seventeen. I had worked as a box boy at a supermarket in Los Angeles. People came to the counter and you put things in their bags for them. And carried things to their cars. It was hard work.

While working, you wear a plate with your name on it. I once met someone I knew years ago. I remembered his name and said,“Mr Castle, how are you?"We talked about this and that. As he left, he said,“It was nice talking to you, Brett."I felt great, he remembered me. Then I looked down at my name plate. Oh no. He didn?t remember me at all, he just read the name plate. I wish I had put“Irving"down on my name plate. If he?d have said,“Oh yes, Irving, how could I forget you?"I d have been ready for him. There?s nothing personal here.

The manager and everyone else who were a step above the box boys often shouted orders. One of these was: you couldn?t accept tips(小費). Okay, I?m outside and

 I put the bags in the car. For a lot of people, the natural reaction(反應)is to take a quarter and give it to me. I?d say,“I?m ?sorry,? I can’t."They’d get angry. When you give someone a tip, you?re sort of being polite. You take a quarter and you put it in their hand and you expect them to say,“Oh,thanks a lot."When you say,“I'm sorry, I can't."They feel a little put down.They say,“No one will know."And they put it in your pocket. You say,“I really can’t."It gets to a point where you almost have to hurt a person physically(身體上)to prevent him from tipping you. It was not in agreement with the store?s belief in being friendly. Accepting tips was a friendly thing and made the customer feel good. I just could?t understand the strangeness of some people?s ideas. One lady actually put it in my pocket, got in the car, and drove away. I would have had to throw the quarter at her or eaten it or something.

I had decided that one year was enough. Some people needed the job to stay alive and fed. I guess I had the means and could afford to hate it and give it up.

1.What can be the best title for this text?

A.How Hard Life for Box Boys 

B.Getting along with Customers

C.Why I Gave up My Job

D.The Art of Taking Tips 

2.From the second paragraph, we can infer that _______ .

A.the writer didn’t like the impersonal part of his job

B.with a name plate, people can easily start talking

C.Mr Castle mistook Irving for Brett

D.Irving was the writer?s real name 

3.The box boy refused to accept tips because _______.

A.customers only gave small tips

B.some customers had strange ideas about tipping

C.the store forbade the box boys to take tips

D.he didn’t want to fight with the customers 

4.The underlined phrase“put down"in the third paragraph probably means _______.

A.misunderstood         B.defeated         C.hateful         D.hurt 

Answer 1

1----4    CACD      

解析:

1.這是一道主旨理解題。通讀全文可知，作者主要講述了他打工時所遇到的一些事情。從遇到朋友時的想法到拒絕收小費時的尷尬，使他感到打工的艱辛，所以他決定辭職。答案為C。 

2.這是一道推斷題。第二段中先是說作者上班時，見到了以前見過的一個人，并和他攀談，那個人和他再見并說出自己的名字時，作者非常高興，他原以為是那個人記住了自己的名字，后來才發(fā)現(xiàn)別人是看了掛在自己胸前的卡才知道的，因此感到非常的失落和沮喪。他認為胸前掛著姓名牌子使一個人失去了人格，因此他不喜歡這種失去人格的工作。答案為A。 

3.這是一道細節(jié)題。第三段第二句話說明商店不允許店員收小費。答案為C。

4.這是一道詞義理解題。在一些西方國家里，顧客買東西或接受完服務后，一般要付小費，這已成了慣例。所以當作者拒收小費時，對方認為作者看不起他們，因而受到了傷害。答案為D。