In 1837, the historian Carlyle made the first recorded use of the word " queue" (排队). He spoke of the French and their "habit of standing in a queue". Forty years later Paris was the best place to wait in line.
However, queuing became popular in Britain too. The Second World War was the golden age of queuing, and people joined any line in the hope that it was a queue for something to buy. This was the source of many Second World War jokes:
Shopkeeper to customer : Excuse me, miss, are you pregnant (怀孕)?
Customer : Well, I wasn't when I joined the queue.
Today, according to research in America, we (in Britain) can spend up to 5 years of our lives queuing－ as compared to twelve months looking for things we have lost. But things may be changing. Many people no longer have the patience to stand in a queue. The law of the jungle (丛林) has begun to operate at bus stops, with people using their arms to push others out of the way.
One way to make life easier is to introduce "queue management". Customers at supermarket cheese counters can now take a ticket with a number which appears on a screen when it is their turn. And while they wait for their number, they can do a bit of shopping.
In some booking offices there is also a system telling customers how long they may have to wait before they are served.
One of the latest technical progress is the use of an electronic scanner (电子识别器) which can read all the contents of your shopping basket or trolley in just a few seconds. If these become popular, queuing in supermarkets may become a thing of the past.
But some people just like queuing. One man queued all night for Harrods famous January sale, and then returned home for breakfast at nine o' clock the next morning without going into the shop.
68. The joke in Paragraph 2 implies that the young woman _______.
A. has been waiting in the queue for a long time B. doesn't need to stand in the queue
C. enjoys standing in the queue D. has stood in the wrong line
69. According to the passage, which of the following is true?
A. The British spend more time queuing than looking for lost things.
B. The Americans criticized the British for their way of queuing.
C. The British are always patient when they wait in line.
D. People queue only when they want to buy something.
70. The British try to solve the problem of queuing by all the following EXCEPT _______.
A. making a law to prevent queuing
B. telling the customers the waiting time
C. using numbered tickets to put the customers in order
D. checking the price of the goods customers buy with a scanner
71. We can infer from the passage that ________.
A. queue management doesn't work well B. there is still queuing in England
C. we don't see much queuing in Paris D. the French like queuing more than the British
