Passage 11

　　First of course, it is plain that in the year 2000 everyone will have at his elbow several times more mechanical energy than he has today.
　　Second, there will be advances in biological knowledge as far-reaching as those that have been made in physics. We are only beginning to learn that we can control our biological environment as well as our physical one. Starvation has been prophesied twice to a growing world population: by Malthus about 1800, by Crookes about 1900. It was headed off the first time by taking agriculture to America and the second time by using the new fertilizers. In the year 2000, starvation will be headed off by the control of the diseases and the heredity of plants and animals-by shaping our own biological environment.
　　And third, I come back to the haunting theme of automation. The most common species in the factory today is the man who works or minds a simple machine - the operator. By the year 2000, he will be as extinct as the hand-loom weaver and the dodo. The repetitive tasks of industry will be taken over by the machines, as the heavy tasks were taken over long ago; and the mental tedium will go the way of physical exhaustion. Today we still distinguish, even among repetitive jobs, between the skilled and the unskilled, but in the year 2000 all repetition will be unskilled. We simply waste our time if we oppose this change, it is as inevitable as the year 2000 itself.

　　51. This article was written to .
　　 A) warn us of impending starvation
　　 B) present facts about life in the near future
　　 C) oppose biological advances
　　 D) warn of the spectre of automation
　　52. People in the year 2000 will .
　　 A) have more machines at their disposal
　　 B) starve
　　 C) never work
　　 D) warn of the spectre of automation
　　53. In the year 2000, starvation will be prevented by .
　　 A) Chinese agriculture
　　 B) use of new fertilizers
　　 C) control of the diseases and the heredity of plants and animals
　　 D) vitamin pills
　　54. If the predictions of this writer are realized, the demand for unskilled workers in the
　　twenty-first century will be .
　　 A) very high
　　 B) very low
　　 C) the same as today
　　 D) constantly rising
　　55. Increased automation, according to the writer .
　　 A) can be successfully opposed
　　 B) cannot be avoided
　　 C) has not yet begun
　　 D) will put everyone out of work