河北省昌黎县2014高考英语学生自选训练（5）及答案
社会生活类阅读理解
For those who make journeys across the world, the speed of travel today has turned the countries into a series of villages. Distances between them appear no greater to a modern traveler than those which once faced men as they walked from village to village. Jet planes fly people from one end of the earth to the other, allowing them a freedom of movement undreamt of a hundred years ago.
Yet some people wonder if the revolution in travel has gone too far. A price has been paid, they say, for the conquest (征服) of time and distance.Travel is something to be enjoyed, not endured(忍受) . The boat offers leisure and time enough to appreciate the ever- changing sights and sounds of a journey. A journey by train also has a special charm about it. Lakes and forests and wild, open plains sweeping past your carriage window create a grand view in which time and distance mean nothing. On board a plane, however, there is just the blank blue of the sky filling the narrow windows of the airplane. The soft lighting, in- flight films and gentle music make up the only world you know, and the hours progress slowly.
Then there is the time spent being‘processed’at a modern airport. People are conveyed like robots along walkways; baggage is weighed, tickets produced, examined and produced yet again before the passengers move to another waiting area. Journeys by rail and sea take longer, yes, but the hours devoted to being‘processed’at departure and arrival in airports are luckily absent. No wonder, then, that the modern high- speed trains are winning back passengers from the airlines.
