Questions 1 to 4 are based on the following passage:

Prolonging human life has increased the size of the human population. Many people alive today would have died of childhood diseases if they had been born a hundred years ago. Because more people live longer, there are more people around at any given time. In fact, it is a decrease in death rates, not an increase in birth rates, that has led to the population explosion.

Prolonging human life has also increased the dependency load. In all societies, people who are disabled or too young or too old to work are dependent on the rest of society to provide for them. In hunting and gathering cultures, old people who could not keep up might be left behind to die. In times of famine, infants might be allowed to die because they could not survive if their parents starved, whereas if the parents survived they could have another child. In most contemporary (當(dāng)代的) societies, people feel a moral obligation to keep people alive whether they can work or not. We have a great many people today who live past the age at which they want to work or are able to work; we also have rules which require people to retire at a certain age. Unless these people were able to save money for their retirement, somebody else must support them. In the United States many retired people live on social security checks which are so little that they must live in near poverty. Older people have more illness than young or middle-aged people; unless they have wealth or private or government insurance, they must often go on welfare if they have a serious illness.

When older people become senile or too weak to care for themselves, they create grave problems for their families. In the past and in some traditional cultures, they would be cared for at home until they died. Today, with most members of a household working or in school, there is often no one at home who can care for a sick or weak person. To meet this need, a great many nursing homes and convalescent (康復(fù)的) hospitals have been built. These are often profit-making organizations, although some are sponsored (贊助) by religious and other nonprofit groups. While a few of these institutions are good, most of them are simply dumping grounds for the dying in which care is given by poorly paid, overworked, and under-skilled personnel.

1. What was the cause to the population growth according to the passage?

A. increase of birth rate

B. advance in medical care

C. well-administered social welfare

D. the decrease of death rate

2. It can be learned from the passage that in some traditional societies _____.

A. infants may be left to die when there isn\'t enough food to go around

B. old and sick people are cared for at home until they died

C. people are required to retire at a certain age

D. people who are too weak or ill have to take care of themselves

3. What does the word “senile” in the first line of the last paragraph mean?

A. advanced in age                      B. sick

C. disabled                             D. capricious

4. What is the author\'s attitude toward the nursing homes and convalescent hospitals mentioned in the paragraph?

A. suspicious          B. optimistic        C. neutral         D. critical

單項(xiàng)選擇

5. It would be difficult for anyone to behave in a _____way when one is in a furious state.

A. rational              B. legal             C. stable         D. credible

6. The final exams approached, _____the students became more and more nervous.

A. notwithstanding                        B. for

C. although                               D. as

7. Vingo took a bus and headed for home, if his wife would have _____him back.

A. not to know                            B. not known

C. not knowing                            D. not having known

8. We can make an exception _____.

A. in any case of John                    B. in case of John

C. in case of John\'s                      D. in the case of John

9. When the Cultural Revolution was launched in China, his father _____college.

A. attended                               B. had been attending

C. was attending                          D. has been attending