单选题 Today business cards are distributed by working people of all social classes, illustrating not only the uniquity of commercial interests but also the fluidity of the world of trade. Whether one is buttonholing potential clients for a carpentry service, announcing one's latest academic appointment, or "networking" with fellow executives, it is permissible to advertise one's talents and availability by an outstretched hand and the statement "Here's my card. " As Robert Louis Stevenson once observed, everybody makes his living by selling something. Business cards facilitate this endeavor. It has not always been this way. The cards that we use today for commercial purposes are a vulgarization of the nineteenth-century social calling cards, an artifact with a quite different purpose. In the Gilded Age, possessing a calling card indicated not that you were interested in forming business relationships, but that your money was so old that you had no need to make a living. For the calling-card class, life was a continual round of social visits, and the protocol(礼遇)governing these visits was inextricably linked to the proper use of cards. Pick up any etiquette manual predating World War I, and you will find whole chapters devoted to such questions as whether a single gentleman may leave a card for a lady; when a lady must, and must not, turn down the edges of a card; and whether an unmarried girl of between fourteen and seventeen may carry more than six or less than thirteen cards in her purse in months beginning with a "J". The calling card system was especially cherished by those who made no distinction between manners and mere form, and its preciousness was well defined by Mrs. John Sherwood. Her 1887 manual called the card "the field mark and device" of civilization. The business version of the calling card came in around the middle of the century, when the formerly, well defined borders between the commercial and the personal realms were used widely, society mavens(专家)considered it unforgivable to fuse the two realms. Emily Post's contemporary Lilian Eichler called it very poor taste to use business cards for social purposes, and as late as 1967 Amy Vanderbilt counseled that the merchant's marker "may never double for social purposes".

单选题 According to the author, people distribute their business cards in order to______.

单选题 The sentence "your money was so old" in the second paragraph means______.

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】解析：通过第二段“In the Gilded Age，possessing a calling card indicated not that youwere interested in forming business relationships，but that your money was so old that you had noneed to make a living”，即19世纪的名片不是为了商业用途，当时人们的钱如此old以至于根本没有谋生的必要，因此可推理得知old隐含的意思为“太多，充裕”。本题答案为A。

单选题 What is NOT true about the calling-card class in the 19 th century?

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】解析：由第二段中的etiquette manual(礼节手册)可知，19世纪的确有calling card的使用指导，故B答案符合原文；从“that your money was so old that you had no need to make aliving”可知，人们不用担心谋生的问题，故C选项符合原文；第二段中末尾的叙述则是如何使用calling card的繁文缛节，故D选项符合文意。第二段中说的单身男士可以给女士留下名片，并没有说这是为了男性使用card来赢得女人的青睐，因此本题A选项不正确。