ESL Short Reading Article 44

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Technological Progress

Over the past thirty years or so the quality of many people's lives has deteriorated in some respects because of technological progress. Those people living near airports are constantly assailed by the noise of increasingly larger and more powerful jet aircraft taking off and landing. We have ugly buildings which have sprung up in towns and cities. Some of these are blocks of flats-high-rise buildings built because of the high price of land, which seem more like breeding boxes than houses where people have space to live. Worse still, much of our building effort has been channeled into the construction of more and more large office blocks at the expense of much needed housing for the growing urban population.

1. It's obvious in the passage that ----.

A) the quality of people's lives has declined by technology
B) those people living around airports are happy with their condition
C) technology progressed the life standards
D) airports are usually constructed in urban areas
E) people want to live near airports

2. We have ugly buildings ----.

A) so we need to improve technology
B) because the land is expensive
C) but we don't have much complaint about it
D) where people find enough space to live
E) which have appeared only in rural areas

3. Technological progress ----.

A) has negative effects on people's lives
B) requires more large office blocks
C) became much faster than expected
D) enabled people to live in large blocks
E) force us to find ways to own land

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