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Read the passage and mark A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the blanks.In a small village in North Yorkshire, there is a big old farmhouse ______(31) three families live together. Alice and George and their three children, Joe and Pam and their two children, and Sue and her baby daughter. The adults divide up the work between them. George does the cooking, Joe and Sue do almost the housework. Pam looks after the shopping and ______(32) the repairs, and Alice takes care of the garden.Alice, George and Sue go out to work. Joe works at home ______(33) computer systems, and Pam, who is a painter, looks after the baby during the day. Two of the children go to school in the village, but the three oldest ones go by bus to the secondary school in the nearest town, ten miles away.The three families get ______(34) well, and enjoy their way of life. There are a few difficulties, of course. Their biggest worry at the moment is money- one of the cars needs replacing, and the roof needs some expensive repairs. But this isn't too serious- the bank has agreed to a loan, which they expect to be able to pay back in three years. And they all say they would much rather go on living in their old farmhouse ______(35) move to a luxury flat in a big city.Question 33:
Read the passage and mark A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the blanks.In a small village in North Yorkshire, there is a big old farmhouse ______(31) three families live together. Alice and George and their three children, Joe and Pam and their two children, and Sue and her baby daughter. The adults divide up the work between them. George does the cooking, Joe and Sue do almost the housework. Pam looks after the shopping and ______(32) the repairs, and Alice takes care of the garden.Alice, George and Sue go out to work. Joe works at home ______(33) computer systems, and Pam, who is a painter, looks after the baby during the day. Two of the children go to school in the village, but the three oldest ones go by bus to the secondary school in the nearest town, ten miles away.The three families get ______(34) well, and enjoy their way of life. There are a few difficulties, of course. Their biggest worry at the moment is money- one of the cars needs replacing, and the roof needs some expensive repairs. But this isn't too serious- the bank has agreed to a loan, which they expect to be able to pay back in three years. And they all say they would much rather go on living in their old farmhouse ______(35) move to a luxury flat in a big city.Question 32:
Read the passage and mark A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the blanks.In a small village in North Yorkshire, there is a big old farmhouse ______(31) three families live together. Alice and George and their three children, Joe and Pam and their two children, and Sue and her baby daughter. The adults divide up the work between them. George does the cooking, Joe and Sue do almost the housework. Pam looks after the shopping and ______(32) the repairs, and Alice takes care of the garden.Alice, George and Sue go out to work. Joe works at home ______(33) computer systems, and Pam, who is a painter, looks after the baby during the day. Two of the children go to school in the village, but the three oldest ones go by bus to the secondary school in the nearest town, ten miles away.The three families get ______(34) well, and enjoy their way of life. There are a few difficulties, of course. Their biggest worry at the moment is money- one of the cars needs replacing, and the roof needs some expensive repairs. But this isn't too serious- the bank has agreed to a loan, which they expect to be able to pay back in three years. And they all say they would much rather go on living in their old farmhouse ______(35) move to a luxury flat in a big city.Question 31:
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 35 to 42.THE PRAISE OF FAST FOODThe media and a multitude of cookbook writers would have us believe that modern, fast, processed food is a disaster, and that it is a mark of sophistication to bemoan the steel roller mill and sliced white bread while yearning for stone-ground flour and a brick oven. Perhaps, we should call those scorn industrialised food, culinary Luddites, after the 19th-century English workers who rebelled against the machines that destroyed their way of life. Instead of technology, what these Luddites abhor is commercial sauces and any synthetic aid to flavouring our food.Eating fresh, natural food was regarded with suspicion verging on horror; only the uncivilised, the poor, and the starving resorted to it. The ancient Greeks regarded the consumption of greens and root vegetables as a sign of bad times, and many succeeding civilizations believed the same. Happiness was not a verdant garden abounding in fresh fruits, but a securely locked storehouse jammed with preserved, processed foods.What about the idea that the best food is handmade in the country? That food comes from the country goes without saying. However, the idea that country people eat better than city dwellers is preposterous. Very few of our ancestors working the land were independent peasants baking their own bread and salting down their own pig. Most were burdened with heavy taxes and rent, often paid directly by the food they produced. Many were ultimately serfs or slaves, who subsisted on what was left over; on watery soup and gritty flatbread.The dishes we call ethnic and assume to be of peasant origin were invented for the urban, or at least urbane, aristocrats who collected the surplus. This is as true of the lasagna of northern Italy as it is of the chicken korma of Mughal Delhi, the moo shu pork of imperial China, and the pilafs and baklava of the great Ottoman palace in Istanbul. Cities have always enjoyed the best food and have invariably been the focal points of culinary innovation.Preparing home-cooked breakfast, dinner, and tea for eight to ten people 365 days a year was servitude. Churning butter or skinning and cleaning rabbits, without the option of picking up the phone for a pizza if something went wrong, was unremitting, unforgiving toil. Not long ago, in Mexico, most women could expect to spend five hours a day kneeling at the grindstone preparing the dough for the family's tortillas.In the first half of the 20th century, Italians embraced factory-made pasta and canned tomatoes. In the second half, Japanese women welcomed factory-made bread because they could sleep a little longer instead of getting up to make rice. As supermarkets appeared in Eastern Europe, people rejoiced at the convenience of readymade goods. Culinary modernism had proved what was wanted: food that was processed, preservable, industrial, novel, and fast, the food of the elite at a price everyone could afford. Where modern food became available, people grew taller and stronger and lived longer.So the sunlit past of the culinary Luddites never existed and their ethos is based not on history but on a fairy tale. So what? Certainly no one would deny that an industrialised food supply has its own problems. Perhaps we should eat more fresh, natural, locally sourced, slow food. Does it matter if the history is not quite right? It matters quite a bit, I believe. If we do not understand that most people had no choice but to devote their lives to growing and cooking food, we are incapable of comprehending that modern food allows us unparalleled choices. If we urge the farmer to stay at his olive press and the housewife to remain at her stove, all so that we may eat traditionally pressed olive oil and home-cooked meals, we are assuming the mantle of the aristocrats of old. If we fail to understand how scant and monotonous most traditional diets were, we fail to appreciate the 'ethnic foods' we encounter.Culinary Luddites are right, though, about two important things: We need to know how to prepare good food, and we need a culinary ethos. As far as good food goes, they've done us all a service by teaching us how to use the bounty delivered to us by the global economy. Their ethos, though, is another matter. Were we able to turn back the clock, as they urge, most of us would be toiling all day in the fields or the kitchen, and many of us would be starving.The word “servitude” in paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to ______.
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 35 to 42.THE PRAISE OF FAST FOODThe media and a multitude of cookbook writers would have us believe that modern, fast, processed food is a disaster, and that it is a mark of sophistication to bemoan the steel roller mill and sliced white bread while yearning for stone-ground flour and a brick oven. Perhaps, we should call those scorn industrialised food, culinary Luddites, after the 19th-century English workers who rebelled against the machines that destroyed their way of life. Instead of technology, what these Luddites abhor is commercial sauces and any synthetic aid to flavouring our food.Eating fresh, natural food was regarded with suspicion verging on horror; only the uncivilised, the poor, and the starving resorted to it. The ancient Greeks regarded the consumption of greens and root vegetables as a sign of bad times, and many succeeding civilizations believed the same. Happiness was not a verdant garden abounding in fresh fruits, but a securely locked storehouse jammed with preserved, processed foods.What about the idea that the best food is handmade in the country? That food comes from the country goes without saying. However, the idea that country people eat better than city dwellers is preposterous. Very few of our ancestors working the land were independent peasants baking their own bread and salting down their own pig. Most were burdened with heavy taxes and rent, often paid directly by the food they produced. Many were ultimately serfs or slaves, who subsisted on what was left over; on watery soup and gritty flatbread.The dishes we call ethnic and assume to be of peasant origin were invented for the urban, or at least urbane, aristocrats who collected the surplus. This is as true of the lasagna of northern Italy as it is of the chicken korma of Mughal Delhi, the moo shu pork of imperial China, and the pilafs and baklava of the great Ottoman palace in Istanbul. Cities have always enjoyed the best food and have invariably been the focal points of culinary innovation.Preparing home-cooked breakfast, dinner, and tea for eight to ten people 365 days a year was servitude. Churning butter or skinning and cleaning rabbits, without the option of picking up the phone for a pizza if something went wrong, was unremitting, unforgiving toil. Not long ago, in Mexico, most women could expect to spend five hours a day kneeling at the grindstone preparing the dough for the family's tortillas.In the first half of the 20th century, Italians embraced factory-made pasta and canned tomatoes. In the second half, Japanese women welcomed factory-made bread because they could sleep a little longer instead of getting up to make rice. As supermarkets appeared in Eastern Europe, people rejoiced at the convenience of readymade goods. Culinary modernism had proved what was wanted: food that was processed, preservable, industrial, novel, and fast, the food of the elite at a price everyone could afford. Where modern food became available, people grew taller and stronger and lived longer.So the sunlit past of the culinary Luddites never existed and their ethos is based not on history but on a fairy tale. So what? Certainly no one would deny that an industrialised food supply has its own problems. Perhaps we should eat more fresh, natural, locally sourced, slow food. Does it matter if the history is not quite right? It matters quite a bit, I believe. If we do not understand that most people had no choice but to devote their lives to growing and cooking food, we are incapable of comprehending that modern food allows us unparalleled choices. If we urge the farmer to stay at his olive press and the housewife to remain at her stove, all so that we may eat traditionally pressed olive oil and home-cooked meals, we are assuming the mantle of the aristocrats of old. If we fail to understand how scant and monotonous most traditional diets were, we fail to appreciate the 'ethnic foods' we encounter.Culinary Luddites are right, though, about two important things: We need to know how to prepare good food, and we need a culinary ethos. As far as good food goes, they've done us all a service by teaching us how to use the bounty delivered to us by the global economy. Their ethos, though, is another matter. Were we able to turn back the clock, as they urge, most of us would be toiling all day in the fields or the kitchen, and many of us would be starving.Lasagna is an example of a dish ______.
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 35 to 42.THE PRAISE OF FAST FOODThe media and a multitude of cookbook writers would have us believe that modern, fast, processed food is a disaster, and that it is a mark of sophistication to bemoan the steel roller mill and sliced white bread while yearning for stone-ground flour and a brick oven. Perhaps, we should call those scorn industrialised food, culinary Luddites, after the 19th-century English workers who rebelled against the machines that destroyed their way of life. Instead of technology, what these Luddites abhor is commercial sauces and any synthetic aid to flavouring our food.Eating fresh, natural food was regarded with suspicion verging on horror; only the uncivilised, the poor, and the starving resorted to it. The ancient Greeks regarded the consumption of greens and root vegetables as a sign of bad times, and many succeeding civilizations believed the same. Happiness was not a verdant garden abounding in fresh fruits, but a securely locked storehouse jammed with preserved, processed foods.What about the idea that the best food is handmade in the country? That food comes from the country goes without saying. However, the idea that country people eat better than city dwellers is preposterous. Very few of our ancestors working the land were independent peasants baking their own bread and salting down their own pig. Most were burdened with heavy taxes and rent, often paid directly by the food they produced. Many were ultimately serfs or slaves, who subsisted on what was left over; on watery soup and gritty flatbread.The dishes we call ethnic and assume to be of peasant origin were invented for the urban, or at least urbane, aristocrats who collected the surplus. This is as true of the lasagna of northern Italy as it is of the chicken korma of Mughal Delhi, the moo shu pork of imperial China, and the pilafs and baklava of the great Ottoman palace in Istanbul. Cities have always enjoyed the best food and have invariably been the focal points of culinary innovation.Preparing home-cooked breakfast, dinner, and tea for eight to ten people 365 days a year was servitude. Churning butter or skinning and cleaning rabbits, without the option of picking up the phone for a pizza if something went wrong, was unremitting, unforgiving toil. Not long ago, in Mexico, most women could expect to spend five hours a day kneeling at the grindstone preparing the dough for the family's tortillas.In the first half of the 20th century, Italians embraced factory-made pasta and canned tomatoes. In the second half, Japanese women welcomed factory-made bread because they could sleep a little longer instead of getting up to make rice. As supermarkets appeared in Eastern Europe, people rejoiced at the convenience of readymade goods. Culinary modernism had proved what was wanted: food that was processed, preservable, industrial, novel, and fast, the food of the elite at a price everyone could afford. Where modern food became available, people grew taller and stronger and lived longer.So the sunlit past of the culinary Luddites never existed and their ethos is based not on history but on a fairy tale. So what? Certainly no one would deny that an industrialised food supply has its own problems. Perhaps we should eat more fresh, natural, locally sourced, slow food. Does it matter if the history is not quite right? It matters quite a bit, I believe. If we do not understand that most people had no choice but to devote their lives to growing and cooking food, we are incapable of comprehending that modern food allows us unparalleled choices. If we urge the farmer to stay at his olive press and the housewife to remain at her stove, all so that we may eat traditionally pressed olive oil and home-cooked meals, we are assuming the mantle of the aristocrats of old. If we fail to understand how scant and monotonous most traditional diets were, we fail to appreciate the 'ethnic foods' we encounter.Culinary Luddites are right, though, about two important things: We need to know how to prepare good food, and we need a culinary ethos. As far as good food goes, they've done us all a service by teaching us how to use the bounty delivered to us by the global economy. Their ethos, though, is another matter. Were we able to turn back the clock, as they urge, most of us would be toiling all day in the fields or the kitchen, and many of us would be starving.What is an important point the writer wishes to make in paragraph 7?
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 35 to 42.THE PRAISE OF FAST FOODThe media and a multitude of cookbook writers would have us believe that modern, fast, processed food is a disaster, and that it is a mark of sophistication to bemoan the steel roller mill and sliced white bread while yearning for stone-ground flour and a brick oven. Perhaps, we should call those scorn industrialised food, culinary Luddites, after the 19th-century English workers who rebelled against the machines that destroyed their way of life. Instead of technology, what these Luddites abhor is commercial sauces and any synthetic aid to flavouring our food.Eating fresh, natural food was regarded with suspicion verging on horror; only the uncivilised, the poor, and the starving resorted to it. The ancient Greeks regarded the consumption of greens and root vegetables as a sign of bad times, and many succeeding civilizations believed the same. Happiness was not a verdant garden abounding in fresh fruits, but a securely locked storehouse jammed with preserved, processed foods.What about the idea that the best food is handmade in the country? That food comes from the country goes without saying. However, the idea that country people eat better than city dwellers is preposterous. Very few of our ancestors working the land were independent peasants baking their own bread and salting down their own pig. Most were burdened with heavy taxes and rent, often paid directly by the food they produced. Many were ultimately serfs or slaves, who subsisted on what was left over; on watery soup and gritty flatbread.The dishes we call ethnic and assume to be of peasant origin were invented for the urban, or at least urbane, aristocrats who collected the surplus. This is as true of the lasagna of northern Italy as it is of the chicken korma of Mughal Delhi, the moo shu pork of imperial China, and the pilafs and baklava of the great Ottoman palace in Istanbul. Cities have always enjoyed the best food and have invariably been the focal points of culinary innovation.Preparing home-cooked breakfast, dinner, and tea for eight to ten people 365 days a year was servitude. Churning butter or skinning and cleaning rabbits, without the option of picking up the phone for a pizza if something went wrong, was unremitting, unforgiving toil. Not long ago, in Mexico, most women could expect to spend five hours a day kneeling at the grindstone preparing the dough for the family's tortillas.In the first half of the 20th century, Italians embraced factory-made pasta and canned tomatoes. In the second half, Japanese women welcomed factory-made bread because they could sleep a little longer instead of getting up to make rice. As supermarkets appeared in Eastern Europe, people rejoiced at the convenience of readymade goods. Culinary modernism had proved what was wanted: food that was processed, preservable, industrial, novel, and fast, the food of the elite at a price everyone could afford. Where modern food became available, people grew taller and stronger and lived longer.So the sunlit past of the culinary Luddites never existed and their ethos is based not on history but on a fairy tale. So what? Certainly no one would deny that an industrialised food supply has its own problems. Perhaps we should eat more fresh, natural, locally sourced, slow food. Does it matter if the history is not quite right? It matters quite a bit, I believe. If we do not understand that most people had no choice but to devote their lives to growing and cooking food, we are incapable of comprehending that modern food allows us unparalleled choices. If we urge the farmer to stay at his olive press and the housewife to remain at her stove, all so that we may eat traditionally pressed olive oil and home-cooked meals, we are assuming the mantle of the aristocrats of old. If we fail to understand how scant and monotonous most traditional diets were, we fail to appreciate the 'ethnic foods' we encounter.Culinary Luddites are right, though, about two important things: We need to know how to prepare good food, and we need a culinary ethos. As far as good food goes, they've done us all a service by teaching us how to use the bounty delivered to us by the global economy. Their ethos, though, is another matter. Were we able to turn back the clock, as they urge, most of us would be toiling all day in the fields or the kitchen, and many of us would be starving.What does the writer say about peasants?
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 35 to 42.THE PRAISE OF FAST FOODThe media and a multitude of cookbook writers would have us believe that modern, fast, processed food is a disaster, and that it is a mark of sophistication to bemoan the steel roller mill and sliced white bread while yearning for stone-ground flour and a brick oven. Perhaps, we should call those scorn industrialised food, culinary Luddites, after the 19th-century English workers who rebelled against the machines that destroyed their way of life. Instead of technology, what these Luddites abhor is commercial sauces and any synthetic aid to flavouring our food.Eating fresh, natural food was regarded with suspicion verging on horror; only the uncivilised, the poor, and the starving resorted to it. The ancient Greeks regarded the consumption of greens and root vegetables as a sign of bad times, and many succeeding civilizations believed the same. Happiness was not a verdant garden abounding in fresh fruits, but a securely locked storehouse jammed with preserved, processed foods.What about the idea that the best food is handmade in the country? That food comes from the country goes without saying. However, the idea that country people eat better than city dwellers is preposterous. Very few of our ancestors working the land were independent peasants baking their own bread and salting down their own pig. Most were burdened with heavy taxes and rent, often paid directly by the food they produced. Many were ultimately serfs or slaves, who subsisted on what was left over; on watery soup and gritty flatbread.The dishes we call ethnic and assume to be of peasant origin were invented for the urban, or at least urbane, aristocrats who collected the surplus. This is as true of the lasagna of northern Italy as it is of the chicken korma of Mughal Delhi, the moo shu pork of imperial China, and the pilafs and baklava of the great Ottoman palace in Istanbul. Cities have always enjoyed the best food and have invariably been the focal points of culinary innovation.Preparing home-cooked breakfast, dinner, and tea for eight to ten people 365 days a year was servitude. Churning butter or skinning and cleaning rabbits, without the option of picking up the phone for a pizza if something went wrong, was unremitting, unforgiving toil. Not long ago, in Mexico, most women could expect to spend five hours a day kneeling at the grindstone preparing the dough for the family's tortillas.In the first half of the 20th century, Italians embraced factory-made pasta and canned tomatoes. In the second half, Japanese women welcomed factory-made bread because they could sleep a little longer instead of getting up to make rice. As supermarkets appeared in Eastern Europe, people rejoiced at the convenience of readymade goods. Culinary modernism had proved what was wanted: food that was processed, preservable, industrial, novel, and fast, the food of the elite at a price everyone could afford. Where modern food became available, people grew taller and stronger and lived longer.So the sunlit past of the culinary Luddites never existed and their ethos is based not on history but on a fairy tale. So what? Certainly no one would deny that an industrialised food supply has its own problems. Perhaps we should eat more fresh, natural, locally sourced, slow food. Does it matter if the history is not quite right? It matters quite a bit, I believe. If we do not understand that most people had no choice but to devote their lives to growing and cooking food, we are incapable of comprehending that modern food allows us unparalleled choices. If we urge the farmer to stay at his olive press and the housewife to remain at her stove, all so that we may eat traditionally pressed olive oil and home-cooked meals, we are assuming the mantle of the aristocrats of old. If we fail to understand how scant and monotonous most traditional diets were, we fail to appreciate the 'ethnic foods' we encounter.Culinary Luddites are right, though, about two important things: We need to know how to prepare good food, and we need a culinary ethos. As far as good food goes, they've done us all a service by teaching us how to use the bounty delivered to us by the global economy. Their ethos, though, is another matter. Were we able to turn back the clock, as they urge, most of us would be toiling all day in the fields or the kitchen, and many of us would be starving.The word “its” in paragraph 7 refers to ______.
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 35 to 42.THE PRAISE OF FAST FOODThe media and a multitude of cookbook writers would have us believe that modern, fast, processed food is a disaster, and that it is a mark of sophistication to bemoan the steel roller mill and sliced white bread while yearning for stone-ground flour and a brick oven. Perhaps, we should call those scorn industrialised food, culinary Luddites, after the 19th-century English workers who rebelled against the machines that destroyed their way of life. Instead of technology, what these Luddites abhor is commercial sauces and any synthetic aid to flavouring our food.Eating fresh, natural food was regarded with suspicion verging on horror; only the uncivilised, the poor, and the starving resorted to it. The ancient Greeks regarded the consumption of greens and root vegetables as a sign of bad times, and many succeeding civilizations believed the same. Happiness was not a verdant garden abounding in fresh fruits, but a securely locked storehouse jammed with preserved, processed foods.What about the idea that the best food is handmade in the country? That food comes from the country goes without saying. However, the idea that country people eat better than city dwellers is preposterous. Very few of our ancestors working the land were independent peasants baking their own bread and salting down their own pig. Most were burdened with heavy taxes and rent, often paid directly by the food they produced. Many were ultimately serfs or slaves, who subsisted on what was left over; on watery soup and gritty flatbread.The dishes we call ethnic and assume to be of peasant origin were invented for the urban, or at least urbane, aristocrats who collected the surplus. This is as true of the lasagna of northern Italy as it is of the chicken korma of Mughal Delhi, the moo shu pork of imperial China, and the pilafs and baklava of the great Ottoman palace in Istanbul. Cities have always enjoyed the best food and have invariably been the focal points of culinary innovation.Preparing home-cooked breakfast, dinner, and tea for eight to ten people 365 days a year was servitude. Churning butter or skinning and cleaning rabbits, without the option of picking up the phone for a pizza if something went wrong, was unremitting, unforgiving toil. Not long ago, in Mexico, most women could expect to spend five hours a day kneeling at the grindstone preparing the dough for the family's tortillas.In the first half of the 20th century, Italians embraced factory-made pasta and canned tomatoes. In the second half, Japanese women welcomed factory-made bread because they could sleep a little longer instead of getting up to make rice. As supermarkets appeared in Eastern Europe, people rejoiced at the convenience of readymade goods. Culinary modernism had proved what was wanted: food that was processed, preservable, industrial, novel, and fast, the food of the elite at a price everyone could afford. Where modern food became available, people grew taller and stronger and lived longer.So the sunlit past of the culinary Luddites never existed and their ethos is based not on history but on a fairy tale. So what? Certainly no one would deny that an industrialised food supply has its own problems. Perhaps we should eat more fresh, natural, locally sourced, slow food. Does it matter if the history is not quite right? It matters quite a bit, I believe. If we do not understand that most people had no choice but to devote their lives to growing and cooking food, we are incapable of comprehending that modern food allows us unparalleled choices. If we urge the farmer to stay at his olive press and the housewife to remain at her stove, all so that we may eat traditionally pressed olive oil and home-cooked meals, we are assuming the mantle of the aristocrats of old. If we fail to understand how scant and monotonous most traditional diets were, we fail to appreciate the 'ethnic foods' we encounter.Culinary Luddites are right, though, about two important things: We need to know how to prepare good food, and we need a culinary ethos. As far as good food goes, they've done us all a service by teaching us how to use the bounty delivered to us by the global economy. Their ethos, though, is another matter. Were we able to turn back the clock, as they urge, most of us would be toiling all day in the fields or the kitchen, and many of us would be starving.What is the overall point that the writer makes in the reading passage?
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 35 to 42.THE PRAISE OF FAST FOODThe media and a multitude of cookbook writers would have us believe that modern, fast, processed food is a disaster, and that it is a mark of sophistication to bemoan the steel roller mill and sliced white bread while yearning for stone-ground flour and a brick oven. Perhaps, we should call those scorn industrialised food, culinary Luddites, after the 19th-century English workers who rebelled against the machines that destroyed their way of life. Instead of technology, what these Luddites abhor is commercial sauces and any synthetic aid to flavouring our food.Eating fresh, natural food was regarded with suspicion verging on horror; only the uncivilised, the poor, and the starving resorted to it. The ancient Greeks regarded the consumption of greens and root vegetables as a sign of bad times, and many succeeding civilizations believed the same. Happiness was not a verdant garden abounding in fresh fruits, but a securely locked storehouse jammed with preserved, processed foods.What about the idea that the best food is handmade in the country? That food comes from the country goes without saying. However, the idea that country people eat better than city dwellers is preposterous. Very few of our ancestors working the land were independent peasants baking their own bread and salting down their own pig. Most were burdened with heavy taxes and rent, often paid directly by the food they produced. Many were ultimately serfs or slaves, who subsisted on what was left over; on watery soup and gritty flatbread.The dishes we call ethnic and assume to be of peasant origin were invented for the urban, or at least urbane, aristocrats who collected the surplus. This is as true of the lasagna of northern Italy as it is of the chicken korma of Mughal Delhi, the moo shu pork of imperial China, and the pilafs and baklava of the great Ottoman palace in Istanbul. Cities have always enjoyed the best food and have invariably been the focal points of culinary innovation.Preparing home-cooked breakfast, dinner, and tea for eight to ten people 365 days a year was servitude. Churning butter or skinning and cleaning rabbits, without the option of picking up the phone for a pizza if something went wrong, was unremitting, unforgiving toil. Not long ago, in Mexico, most women could expect to spend five hours a day kneeling at the grindstone preparing the dough for the family's tortillas.In the first half of the 20th century, Italians embraced factory-made pasta and canned tomatoes. In the second half, Japanese women welcomed factory-made bread because they could sleep a little longer instead of getting up to make rice. As supermarkets appeared in Eastern Europe, people rejoiced at the convenience of readymade goods. Culinary modernism had proved what was wanted: food that was processed, preservable, industrial, novel, and fast, the food of the elite at a price everyone could afford. Where modern food became available, people grew taller and stronger and lived longer.So the sunlit past of the culinary Luddites never existed and their ethos is based not on history but on a fairy tale. So what? Certainly no one would deny that an industrialised food supply has its own problems. Perhaps we should eat more fresh, natural, locally sourced, slow food. Does it matter if the history is not quite right? It matters quite a bit, I believe. If we do not understand that most people had no choice but to devote their lives to growing and cooking food, we are incapable of comprehending that modern food allows us unparalleled choices. If we urge the farmer to stay at his olive press and the housewife to remain at her stove, all so that we may eat traditionally pressed olive oil and home-cooked meals, we are assuming the mantle of the aristocrats of old. If we fail to understand how scant and monotonous most traditional diets were, we fail to appreciate the 'ethnic foods' we encounter.Culinary Luddites are right, though, about two important things: We need to know how to prepare good food, and we need a culinary ethos. As far as good food goes, they've done us all a service by teaching us how to use the bounty delivered to us by the global economy. Their ethos, though, is another matter. Were we able to turn back the clock, as they urge, most of us would be toiling all day in the fields or the kitchen, and many of us would be starving.Which of the following is NOT an important factor mentioned in paragraphs 5 and 6?
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 35 to 42.THE PRAISE OF FAST FOODThe media and a multitude of cookbook writers would have us believe that modern, fast, processed food is a disaster, and that it is a mark of sophistication to bemoan the steel roller mill and sliced white bread while yearning for stone-ground flour and a brick oven. Perhaps, we should call those scorn industrialised food, culinary Luddites, after the 19th-century English workers who rebelled against the machines that destroyed their way of life. Instead of technology, what these Luddites abhor is commercial sauces and any synthetic aid to flavouring our food.Eating fresh, natural food was regarded with suspicion verging on horror; only the uncivilised, the poor, and the starving resorted to it. The ancient Greeks regarded the consumption of greens and root vegetables as a sign of bad times, and many succeeding civilizations believed the same. Happiness was not a verdant garden abounding in fresh fruits, but a securely locked storehouse jammed with preserved, processed foods.What about the idea that the best food is handmade in the country? That food comes from the country goes without saying. However, the idea that country people eat better than city dwellers is preposterous. Very few of our ancestors working the land were independent peasants baking their own bread and salting down their own pig. Most were burdened with heavy taxes and rent, often paid directly by the food they produced. Many were ultimately serfs or slaves, who subsisted on what was left over; on watery soup and gritty flatbread.The dishes we call ethnic and assume to be of peasant origin were invented for the urban, or at least urbane, aristocrats who collected the surplus. This is as true of the lasagna of northern Italy as it is of the chicken korma of Mughal Delhi, the moo shu pork of imperial China, and the pilafs and baklava of the great Ottoman palace in Istanbul. Cities have always enjoyed the best food and have invariably been the focal points of culinary innovation.Preparing home-cooked breakfast, dinner, and tea for eight to ten people 365 days a year was servitude. Churning butter or skinning and cleaning rabbits, without the option of picking up the phone for a pizza if something went wrong, was unremitting, unforgiving toil. Not long ago, in Mexico, most women could expect to spend five hours a day kneeling at the grindstone preparing the dough for the family's tortillas.In the first half of the 20th century, Italians embraced factory-made pasta and canned tomatoes. In the second half, Japanese women welcomed factory-made bread because they could sleep a little longer instead of getting up to make rice. As supermarkets appeared in Eastern Europe, people rejoiced at the convenience of readymade goods. Culinary modernism had proved what was wanted: food that was processed, preservable, industrial, novel, and fast, the food of the elite at a price everyone could afford. Where modern food became available, people grew taller and stronger and lived longer.So the sunlit past of the culinary Luddites never existed and their ethos is based not on history but on a fairy tale. So what? Certainly no one would deny that an industrialised food supply has its own problems. Perhaps we should eat more fresh, natural, locally sourced, slow food. Does it matter if the history is not quite right? It matters quite a bit, I believe. If we do not understand that most people had no choice but to devote their lives to growing and cooking food, we are incapable of comprehending that modern food allows us unparalleled choices. If we urge the farmer to stay at his olive press and the housewife to remain at her stove, all so that we may eat traditionally pressed olive oil and home-cooked meals, we are assuming the mantle of the aristocrats of old. If we fail to understand how scant and monotonous most traditional diets were, we fail to appreciate the 'ethnic foods' we encounter.Culinary Luddites are right, though, about two important things: We need to know how to prepare good food, and we need a culinary ethos. As far as good food goes, they've done us all a service by teaching us how to use the bounty delivered to us by the global economy. Their ethos, though, is another matter. Were we able to turn back the clock, as they urge, most of us would be toiling all day in the fields or the kitchen, and many of us would be starving.The word “preposterous” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ______.