When families gather for Christmas dinner， some will stick to formal traditions dating back to Grandma‘s generation. Their tables will be set with the good dishes and silver， and the dress code will be Sunday－best. But in many other homes， this china－and－silver elegance has given way to a stoneware－and－stainless informality， with dresses assuming an equally casual－Friday look. For hosts and guests， the change means greater simplicity and comfort. For makers of fine china in Britain， it spells economic hard times. Last week Royal Doulton， the largest employer in Stoke－on－Trent， announced that it is eliminating 1，000jobs －－ one－fifth of its total workforce. That brings to more than 4，000 the number of positions lost in 18 months in the pottery region. Wedgwood and other pottery factories made cuts earlier. Although a strong pound and weak markets in Asia play a role in the downsizing， the layoffs in Stoke have their roots in earthshaking social shifts. A spokesman for Royal Doulton admitted that the company "has been somewhat slow in catching up with the trend" toward casual dining. Families eat together less often， he explained， and more people eat alone， either because they are single or they eat in front of television; Even dinner parties， if they happen at all， have gone casual. In a time of long work hours and demanding family schedules， busy hosts insist， rightly， that it‘s better to share a takeout pizza on paper plates in the family room than to wait for the perfect moment or a "real" dinner party. Too often， the perfect moment never comes. Iron a fine－patterned tablecloth？ Forget it. Polish the silver？ Who has time？ Yet the loss of formality has its down side. The fine points of etiquette that children might once have learned at the table by observation or instruction from parents and grandparents （"Chew with your mouth closed." "Keep your elbows off the table."） must be picked up elsewhere. Some companies now offer etiquette seminars for employees who may be competent professionally but clueless socially.
Which of the following may be the best reason for casual dining？ A. Family members need more time to relax. B. Busy schedules leave people no time for formality. C. People want to practice economy in times of scarcity. D. Young people won‘t follow the etiquette of the older generation.
ID：9121-12284 ________ quantities of water are being used nowadays with the rapid development of industry and agriculture. A. Excessive B. Extensive C. Extreme D. Exclusive
ID：9121-12973 Passage 1 Cyberspace，data superhighways, mullet media-for those who have seen the future, the linking of computers, television and telephones will change our lives for ever, Yet for all the talk of a forthcoming technological utopia little attention has been given to the implications of these developments for the poor. As with all new high technology, while the West concerns itself with the “how,” the question of “for whom” is put aside once again. Economists are only now realizing the full extent to which the communications revolution has affected the world economy. Information technology allows the extension of trade across geographical and industrial boundaries, and transitional corporations take full advantage of it. Terms of trade, exchange and interest rates and money movements are more important than the production of goods. The electronic economy made possible by information technology allows the haves to increase their control on global markets-with destructive impact on the have-nots. For them the result is instability. Developing countries which rely on the production of a small range of goods for export are made to feel like small parts in the international economic machine. As “futures” are traded on computer screens, developing countries simply have less and less control of their destinies. So what are the options for regaining control? One alternative is for developing countries to buy in the latest computers and telecommunications themselves-so-called “development communications” modernization. Yet this leads to long-term dependency and perhaps permanent constraints on developing countries’ economies. Communications technology is generally exported from the U.S., Europe or Japan; the patents, skills and ability to manufacture remain in the hands of a few industrialized countries, It is also expensive, and imported products and services must therefore be bought on credit-credit usually provided by the very countries whose companies stand to gain. Furthermore, when new technology is introduced there is often too low a level of expertise to exploit it for native development. This means that while local elites, foreign communities and subsidiaries of transitional corporations may benefit, those lives depend on access to the information are denied it.
