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Early in the age of affluence that followed World War Ⅱ, an American retailing analyst named Victor Lebow proclaimed, "Our enormously productive economy... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption.... We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing rate."Americans have responded to Lebow"s call, and much of the world has followed.Consumption has become a central pillar of life in industrial lands and is even embedded in social values. Opinion surveys in the world"s two largest economies—Japan and the United Sates—show consumerist definitions of success becoming ever more prevalent.Overconsumption by the world"s fortunate is an environmental problem unmatched in severity by anything but perhaps population growth. Their surging exploitation of resources threatens to exhaust or unalterably spoil forests, soils, water, air and climate.Ironically, high consumption may be a mixed blessing in human terms, too. The time-honored values of integrity of character, good work, friendship, family and community have often been sacrificed in the rush to riches.Thus many in the industrial lands have a sense that their world of plenty is somehow hollow—that, misled by a consumerist culture, they have been fruitlessly attempting to satisfy what are essentially social, psychological and spiritual needs with material things.Of course, the opposite of overconsumption—poverty—is no solution to either environmental or human problems. It is infinitely worse for people and bad for the natural world too. Dispossessed peasants slash-and-burn their way into the rain forests of Latin America, and hungry nomads turn their herds out onto fragile African grassland, reducing it to desert.If environmental destruction results when people have either too little or too much, we are left to wonder how much is enough. What level of consumption can the earth support When does having more cease to add noticeably to human satisfaction Apart from enormous productivity, another important impetus to high consumption is ______.

A. the conversion of the sale of goods into rituals
B. the people"s desire for a rise in their living standards
C. the imbalance that has existed between production and consumption
D. the concept that one"s success is measured by how much they consume

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The river is ( )that one.

A. as three times long as
B. the third time as
C. three times the length of
D. three times longer as

Passage Three What exactly is a lie Is it anything we say which we know is untrue Or is it something more than that For example, suppose a friend wants to borrow some money from you, you say "I wish I could help you but I’m short of money myself." In fact, you are not short of money but your friend is in the habit of not paying his debts and you don’t want to hurt his feeling by reminding him of this.Is this really a lie Professor Jerald Jellison of the University of Southern California has made a scientific study of lying. According to him, women are better liars than men, particularly when telling a "white lie".For instance, when a woman at a party tells another woman that she likes her dress, she really thinks it looks awful. However, this is only one side of the story. Other researchers say that men are more likely to tell more serious lies, such as making a promise which they have no intention of fulfilling.This is the kind of lie politicians and businessmen are supposed to be particularly skilled at: the lie from which the liar hopes to profit or gain in some way. Research has also been done into the way people’s behavior changes in a number of small,apparently unimportant ways when they lie. It has been found that if they are sitting down at the time, they tend to move about in their chairs more than usual.To the trained observer they are saying "I wish I were somewhere else now" .They also tend to touch certain parts of the face more often, in particular the nose. One explanation of this may be that lying causes a slight increase in blood pressure.The tip of the nose is very sensitive to such changes and the increased pressure makes it itch. Another gesture which gives liars away is what the writer Desmond Morris in his book Man-watching calls "the mouth cover". He says there are several typical forms of this, such as covering part of the mouth with the fingers, touching the upper-lip or putting the hand at one side of the mouth.Such a gesture can be understood as an unconscious attempt on the part of the liar to stop himself or herself from lying. Of course, such gestures as rubbing the nose or covering the mouth or moving about in a chair cannot be taken as proof that the speaker is lying. They simply tend to occur more frequently in this situation.It is not one gesture alone that gives the liar away but a whole number of things, and in particular the context in which the lie is told. Research suggests that women ( ).

A. are better at telling less serious lies than men
B. generally lie far more than men do
C. often make promises they intend to break
D. lie at parties more often that men do

( )distinguishes the linguistic competence of the speaker and the actual phenomena or data of linguistics as langue and parole.

A. Chomsky
B. Saussure
C. Gilman
D. Brown

( )you said is true, there are still other factors to be considered.

A. Supposed that what
B. Supposing what that
C. Granted that what
D. Considered what that

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