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(小费). Okay, I?m outside and

 I put the bags in the car. For a lot of people, the natural reaction(反应)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(身体上)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.这是一道主旨理解题。通读全文可知，作者主要讲述了他打工时所遇到的一些事情。从遇到朋友时的想法到拒绝收小费时的尴尬，使他感到打工的艰辛，所以他决定辞职。答案为C。 

2.这是一道推断题。第二段中先是说作者上班时，见到了以前见过的一个人，并和他攀谈，那个人和他再见并说出自己的名字时，作者非常高兴，他原以为是那个人记住了自己的名字，后来才发现别人是看了挂在自己胸前的卡才知道的，因此感到非常的失落和沮丧。他认为胸前挂着姓名牌子使一个人失去了人格，因此他不喜欢这种失去人格的工作。答案为A。 

3.这是一道细节题。第三段第二句话说明商店不允许店员收小费。答案为C。

4.这是一道词义理解题。在一些西方国家里，顾客买东西或接受完服务后，一般要付小费，这已成了惯例。所以当作者拒收小费时，对方认为作者看不起他们，因而受到了伤害。答案为D。