社会生活类（Passage 62～70）
Passage 62 题材：社会生活类字数：440 建议用时：6分钟
Every year thousands of people are arrested and taken to court for shop-lifting. In Britain alone, about HK$3,000,000’s worth of goods are stolen from shops eve week. This amounts to something like HK$150 million a year, and represents about 4 per cent of the shop’s total stock. As a result of this “shrinkage” as the shops call it,the honest public has to pay higher prices.
Shop-lifters can be divided into three main categories: the professionals, the deliberate amateurs, and the people who just can’t help themselves. The professionals do not pose much of a problem for the store detectives, who, assisted by closed circuit television, two-way mirrors and various other technological devices, can usually cope with them. The professionals tend to go for high value goods in parts of the shops where security measures are tightest. And, in any case, they account for only a small percentage of the total losses due to shop-lifting.
The same applies to the deliberate amateur who is, so to speak, a professional in training. Most of themget caught sooner or later, and they are dealt with severely by the courts.
The real problem is the person who gives way to a sudden temptation and is in all other respects an honest and law-abiding citizen. Contrary to what one would expect, this kind of shop-lifter is rarely poor. He does not steal because he needs the goods and cannot afford to pay for them. He steals because he simply cannot
stop himself. And there are countless others who, because of age, sickness or plain absent-mindedness, simply forget to pay for what they take from the shops. When caught, all are liable to prosecution, and the decision whether to send for the police or not is in the hands of the store manager.
In order to prevent the quite incredible growth in shop-lifting offences, some stores, in fact, are doing their best to separate the thieves from the confused by prohibiting customers from taking bags into the store. However, what is most worrying about the whole problem is, perhaps, that it is yet another instance of the innocent majority being penalized and inconvenienced because of the actions of a small minority. It is the aircraft hijack situation in another form. Because of the possibility of one passenger in a million boarding an aircraft with a weapon, the other 999,999 passengers must subject themselves to searches and delays. Unless the situation in the shops improves, in ten years’ time we may all have to subject ourselves to a body-search every time we go into a store to buy a tin of beans!
1. The third group of people steal things because they _______
A. are mentally ill.
B. are quite absent-minded.
C. can not resist the temptation.
D. can not afford to pay for goods.
2. According to the passage, law-abiding citizens _______
A. can possibly steal things because of their poverty.
B. can possibly take away goods without paying.
C. have never stolen goods from the supermarkets.
D. are difficult to be caught when they steal things.
3. Which of the following statements is NOT true about the main types of shop-lifting?
A. A big percentage of the total losses are caused by the professionals.
B. The deliberate amateurs will be punished severely if they get caught.
C. People would expect that those who can’t help themselves are poor.
D. The profes sionals don’t cause a lot of trouble to the store detectives.
4. The aircraft hijack situation is used in order to show that _______
A. “the professionals do not pose much of a problem for the stores.”
B. some people “simply forget to pay for what they take from the shops”.
C. “the honest public has to pay higher prices.”
D. the third type of shop-lifters are dangerous people.
5. Why does the honest public have to pay higher prices when they go to the shops?
「文章大意」
本文主要围绕商店的扒手这一主题展开。第一段提到商店扒手每年窃取大量的商品，商店的商品减少。由于这，诚实的公民不得不付出高额昂的代价。接下来三段主要介绍了三类商店扒手：职业扒手、故意的“业余”扒手、还有一些情不自禁的人。商店店主们在采取一些措施以防止东西被盗走，这虽然有一点效果，但是却给那些诚实的大多人带来不便。
答案详解
1.C 根据第四段第一句“The real problem is the person who gives way to a sudden
temptation and is in all other respects an honest and law-abiding citizen.”可知这类人偷东西是因为他们gives way to a sudden temptation（诱惑），而在其他方面他们是honest and law-abiding citizen（诚实遵纪的公民）。由此可知本题的正确答案为C。
2.B 第四段提到这一类shop-lifter is rarely poor.，也就是说他们并不穷，他们或许是因
为年老、体弱健忘而拿了东西忘记付钱，所以本题应选B。
3.A 由文章第二段的最后一句“...they account for only a small percentage of the
total losses due to shop-lifting….”可知职业扒手给商店造成的损失很少即只是small percentage，A与原文意思正好相反，因此本题应该选A。
4.C 文章最后一段提到在登机的100万人中，仅仅因为一个乘客携带了weapon，其他的
99.9999万名乘客必须subject themselves to searches and delays，意在说明诚实
的公民不得不付出更高的代价。因此本题应选C。
5. There are many cases of shop-lifting.
文章第一段提到商店扒手每年窃取大量的商品，商店的商品减少，最后一句As a result 揭示这一现象的结果就是the honest public has to pay higher prices 也就是说the honest public 是因为shop-lifting频发才不得不pay higher prices的。
「词汇装备」
shrinkage n. 收缩
law-abiding adj. 守法的
hijack v. 抢劫；劫持；劫机；揩油
cope with处理，应付
amateur n. 业余爱好者；业余艺术家prosecution n. 进行；经营；检举；起诉
Passage 63 题材：社会生活类字数：442 建议用时：6分钟
When most labor was agricultural, people generally toiled in the fields until they dropped. The idea of formal retirement did not become feasible until work moved from farms to factories. In 1889 Ottoyon Bismarck famously introduced the world's first pension, scheme in Germany. In the 20th century, when universal suffrage became widespread, a period of retirement after work was seen as a mark of a civilized social democracy.
After the Second World War pension provision increased markedly, but the number of elderly people was still quite small. In the 1970s and 1980s caring for them seemed easily affordable. Many countries even reduced their retirement ages.
The demographic picture looks different now that the baby-boomers are starting to retire. Europe and Japan are facing the biggest problems. The average dependency ratio in the European Union is already down to 3.5, and is heading for 1.8 by 2050. Japan is on track for a startling 1.2. Since the average pensioner currently draws a total of about 60% of median earnings, from government and private sources, the system is likely to become unaffordable.
There are ways of reducing the burden. The current generation of workers could save more now. If they put more money into funded pension schemes, the
extra saving might encourage more investment and thus boost economic growth.
A wealthier society would find it easier to afford paying pensions. Countries with PAYG schemes could raise taxes now, reducing the deficit and thus the debt burden on the younger generations.
But more savings or higher taxation now would require those currently at work to defer consumption. They may not be willing to do so. And given the weakness of developed economies in the wake of the financial crisis, governments may not want to see consumption go down in the immediate future.
In the OECD public spending on pensions benefits has been growing faster than national output, rising from 6.1% of GDP in 1990 to 7% in 2007. It is forecast to reach 11.4% of GDP by 2050. Those forecasts already take into account the planned rise in retirement ages and a likely drop in replacement ratios and thus assume that voters will approve of pension reform even as the baby-boomers become a potentially powerful voting block of retired people.
But that assumption may not be safe. Turnout in elections tends to be higher among the elderly than among the young. As Neil Howe and Richard Jackson of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, have written: “In the 2020s young people in developed countries will have the future on their side. Elders will have the votes on theirs.”
1. It can be inferred from the first paragraph that ______.
A. civilized social democracy calls for good pension schemes.
B. farmers were deprived of pension due to discrimination.