Last year I left a professional position as a small-town reporter and took a job waiting tables. As someone paid to serve food to people. I had customers say and do things to me I suspect they’d never say or do to their most casual acquaintances. One night a man talking on his cell phone waved me away, then beckoned (示意) me back with his finger minute later, complaining he was ready to order and asking where I’d been.
I had waited tables during summers in college and was treated like a peon (勤杂工) plenty of people. But at 19 years old, I believed I deserved inferior treatment from professional adults. Besides, people responded to me differently after I told them I was in college. Customers would joke that one day I’d be sitting at their table, waiting to be served.
Once I graduated I took a job at a community newspaper. From my first day, I heard a respectful tone from everyone who called me. I assumed this was the way the professional world worked — cordially.
I soon found out differently. I sat several feet away from an advertising sales representative with a similar name. Our calls would often get mixed up and someone asking for Kristen would be transferred to Christie. The mistake was immediately evident. Perhaps it was because money was involved, but people used a tone with Kristen that they never used with me.
My job title made people treat me with courtesy. So it was a shock to return to the restaurant industry.
It’s no secret that there’s a lot to put up with when waiting tables, and fortunately, much of it can be easily forgotten when you pocket the tips. The service industry, by definition, exists to cater to others’ needs. Still, it seemed that many of my customers didn’t get the difference between server and servant.
I’m now applying to graduated school, which means someday I’ll return to a profession where people need to be nice to me in order to get what they want, I think I’ll take them to dinner first, and see how they treat someone whose only job is to serve them.
52. The author was disappointed to find that _______.
[A] one’s position is used as a gauge to measure one’s intelligence
[B] talented people like her should fail to get a respectable job
[C] one’s occupation affects the way one is treated as a person
[D] professionals tend to look down upon manual workers
53. What does the author intend to say by the example in the second paragraph?
[A] Some customers simply show no respect to those who serve them.
[B] People absorbed in a phone conversation tend to be absent-minded.
[C] Waitresses are often treated by customers as casual acquaintances.
[D] Some customers like to make loud complaints for no reason at all.
54. How did the author feel when waiting tables at the age of 19?
[A] She felt it unfair to be treated as a mere servant by professional.
[B] She felt badly hurt when her customers regarded her as a peon.
[C] She was embarrassed each time her customers joked with her.
[D] She found it natural for professionals to treat her as inferior.
55. What does the author imply by saying “…many of my customers didn’t get the difference between server and servant”(Lines 3-4, Para.7)?
[A] Those who cater to others’ needs are destined to be looked down upon.
[B] Those working in the service industry shouldn’t be treated as servants.
[C] Those serving others have to put up with rough treatment to earn a living.
[D] The majority of customers tend to look on a servant as server nowadays.
56. The author says she’ll one day take her clients to dinner in order to ________.
[A] see what kind of person they are
[B] experience the feeling of being served
[C] show her generosity towards people inferior to her
[D] arouse their sympathy for people living a humble life
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Passage Two
Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.
What’s hot for 2007 among the very rich? A $7.3million diamond ring. A trip to Tanzania to hunt wild animals. Oh, and income inequality.
Sure, some leftish billionaires like George Soros have been railing against income inequality for years. But increasingly, centrist and right-wing billionaires are staring to worry about income inequality and the fate of the middle class.
In December, Mortimer Zuckerman wrote a column in U.S. News & World Report, which he owns. “our nation’s core bargain with the middle class is disintegrating,” lamented (哀叹) the 117th-richest man in America. “Most of our economic gains have gone to people at the very top of the income ladder. Average income for a household of people of working age, by contrast, has fallen five years in a raw.” He noted that “Tens of millions of Americans live in fear that a major health problem can reduce them to bankruptcy.”
Wilbur Ross Jr. has echoed Zuckerman’s anger over the bitter struggles faced by middle-class Americans. “It’s an outrage that any American’s life expectancy should be shortened simply because the company they worked for went bankrupt and ended health-care coverage,” said the former chairman of the International Steel Group.
What’s happening? The very rich are just as trendy as you and I, and can be so when it comes to politics and policy. Given the recent change of control in Congress, the popularity of measures like increasing the minimum wage, and efforts by California’s governor to offer universal health care, these guys don’t need their own personal weathermen to know which way the wind blows.
It’s possible that plutocrats (有钱有势的人) are expressing solidarity with the struggling middle class as part of an effort to insulate themselves from confiscatory (没收性的) tax policies. But the prospect that income inequality will lead to higher taxes on the wealthy doesn’t keep plutocrats up at night. They can live with that.
No, what they fear was that the political challenges of sustaining support for global economic integration will be more difficult in the United States because of what has happened to the distribution of income and economic insecurity.
In other words, if middle-class Americans continue to struggle financially as the ultrawealthy grow ever wealthier, it will be increasingly difficult to maintain political support for the free flow of goods, services, and capital across borders. And when the United States places obstacles in the way of foreign investors and foreign goods, it’s likely to encourage reciprocal action abroad. For people who buy and sell companies, or who allocate capital to markets all around the world, that’s the real nightmare.
57. What is the current topic of common interest among the very rich in America?
[A] The fate of the ultrawealthy people.
[B] The disintegration of the middle class.
[C] The inequality in the distribution of wealth.