单选题 Singletons, referring to those who live alone, are being comforted by well-meaning friends and family and told that not having a partner is not the end of the world. So, it would seem that they can say, yes, it is not. But no, in fact, it is the end.
A gloomy study that has just been released says that the international trend towards living alone is putting an unprecedented strain on our ecosystem.
For a number of reasons--relationship breakdown, career choice, longer life spans, smaller families--the number of individual households is growing. And this is putting intolerable pressure on natural resources, and accelerating the extinction of endangered plant and animal species. And there is worse news. Running a refrigerator, television, cooker, plumbing system just for selfish little you is a disastrous waste of resources on our over-populated planet. "The efficiency of resource consumption" is a lot higher in households of two people or more, simply because they share everything. Well imagine that. Just when you thought living alone was OK, you would find that all the time you were the enemy of mankind. Every time you put the kettle on the stove for a cup of coffee you were destroying Mother Earth. Indeed, it is not just your mother who is a bit worried by your continuing single status--you are letting down the entire human race by not having a boyfriend or girlfriend. The trouble is that society has a group instinct and people panic and hit out when they see other people quietly rebelling and straying away from the "standard" of family and coupledom.
The suggestion is that singledom should be at best a temporary state. Unless you are assimilated into a larger unit, you can never be fully functional.
Try "communal living. " There are all these illustrations of young attractive people having a "great time" laughingly bumping into each other. It looks like an episode of the TV series Friends.
And the message is clear: Togetherness is good, solitude is bad, and being single on your own is not allowed.
Questions:
单选题 Well-meaning friends and family members often tell those who live alone that ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】第一段第一句Singletons, …is not the end of the world：好心的朋友和家人都在安慰独居的人，并跟他们说没有人做伴，天也不会塌下来的。即独身是可以接受的。故选项C正确。
单选题 Which of the following may NOT be the reason for the increasing number of households as mentioned in the passage?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】第三段讲到单人家庭的数量在增加的原因：relationship breakdown, career choice, longer life spans, smaller families(婚姻关系破裂、职业的选择、寿命的延长、家庭小型化等)。只有选项B在文中没有提到。
单选题 The author thinks living alone is disastrous mainly because singledom is ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】第二段讲到the international trend towards living alone is putting an unprecedented strain on our ecosystem(全球倾向于独居的趋势正在给我们的生态系统造成前所未有的压力)，第三段第二句也讲到独居给自然资源造成不可忍受的压力，加速了濒危动植物的灭绝。并从后文作者从浪费资源的角度的论述可知答案为选项B。
单选题 According to the passage, "accelerate" means ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】accelerate加速，促进。因此选项A，speed up与之意思一致。
单选题 The author suggests that singletons should ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】在文章的最后两段，作者劝独居者Try "communal living" (尝试一下与别人合住)。有很多这方面的例子：漂亮的青年人笑着相遇，共同度过美好时光，就像电视连续剧《六人行》中描写的那样。因此选项C与原文意思相符。