单选题
To get a chocolate out of a box requires a considerable amount of unpacking: the box has to be taken out of the paper bag in which it arrived, the cellophane wrapper has to be torn off, the lid opened and the paper removed, the chocolate itself then has to be unwrapped from its own piece of paper. But this overuse of wrapping is not confined to luxuries. It is now becoming increasingly difficult to buy anything that is not done up in beautiful wrapping. The package itself is of no interest to the shopper, who usually throws it away immediately. Useless wrapping accounts for much of the refuse put out by the average London household each week. So why is it done? Some of it, like the cellophane on meat, is necessary, but most of the rest is simply competitive selling. This is absurd. Packaging is using up scarce energy and resources and messing up the environment. Recycling is already happening with milk bottles which are returned to the dairies, washed out, and refilled. But both glass and paper are being threatened by the growing use of plastic. More dairies are experimenting with plastic bottles. The trouble with plastic is that it does not rot. Some environmentalists argue that the only solution to the problem of ever increasing plastic containers is to do away with plastic altogether in the shops, a suggestion unacceptable to many manufactures who say there is no alternative to their handy plastic packs. It is evident that more research is needed into the recovery and re-use of various materials and into the cost of collecting and recycling containers as opposed to producing new ones. Unnecessary packaging, intended to be used just once, and make things look better so more people will buy them, is clearly becoming increasingly absurd. But it is not so much a question of doing away with packaging as using it sensibly. What is needed now is a more advanced approach to using scarce resources for what is, after all, a relatively unimportant function.
单选题
"This overuse of wrapping is not confined to luxuries" (line 4, paragraph 1) means ______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】句意题。句子含义的理解常常需依赖上下文。下文提到“It is now becoming increasingly difficult to buy anything that is not done up in beautiful wrapping.”，可见，我们现在买到的东西，无论是奢侈品还是普通商品，一般都有精美的包装，因此应选择[C]选项。
单选题
Packaging is important to manufacturers because ______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】推理题。文章第三段在解释“为什么要有包装”时，提到“most of the rest is simply competitive selling.”，由此可见，商家注重包装的目的是为了增加商品的销售竞争力，吸引更多的购物者，故选项[C]正确。
【答案解析】细节题。本题提问环境保护者的观点，事实上是考查读者是否能理解文章中的句子“Some environmentalists argue that the only solution to the problem of ever increasing plastic containers is to do away with plastic altogether in the shops...”，该句表示的意义为“一些环境保护者争辩说，解决日益增多的塑料容器的问题的惟一办法是商店里不使用塑料制品”，由此可知，环境保护者认为商店应停止使用塑料包装，因此[D]选项正确。