七选五 · 练习卡（2021年全国一卷）

My husband and I just spent a week in Paris. ____36____ So the first thing we did was rent a fantastically expensive sixth-floor apartment the size of a cupboard. It was so tiny that we had to leave our suitcases in the hallway.

The place wasn’t entirely authentic, though. Unlike a normal Parisian apartment, the plumbing(水管) worked. ____37____ Our building even had a tiny lift with a female voice That said. “Ouverture des portes,” in perfect French. That is the only French phrase I mastered, and it’s a shame I don’t have much use for it.

Parisians are different from you and me. They never look lazy or untidy. As someone noted in this paper a couple of ago, they eat great food and never gain weight. ____38____ French strawberries do not taste like cardboard. Instead, they explode in your mouth like little flavor bombs.

____39____ On our first morning in Paris, I went around the comer to the food market to pick up some groceries. I bought a handful of perfectly ripe small strawberries and a little sweet melon. My husband and I agreed they were the best fruit we had ever eaten. But they cost $18!

In France, quality of life is much more important than efficiency(效率). You can tell this by café life. French cafés are always crowded. ____40____ When do these people work? The French take their 35-hour workweek seriously - so seriously that some labor unions recently struck a deal with a group of companies limiting the number of hours that independent contractors can be on call.