American farmers have been complaining of labor shortages for several years. The complaints are unlikely to stop without an overhaul of immigration rules for farm workers.

　　Congress has obstructed efforts to create a more straightforward visa for agricultural workers that would let foreign workers stay longer in the U.S. and change jobs within the industry. If this doesn’t change, American businesses, communities, and consumers will be the losers.

　　Perhaps half of U.S. farm laborers are undocumented immigrants. As fewer such workers enter the country, the characteristics of the agricultural workforce are changing. Today’s farm laborers, while still predominantly born in Mexico, are more likely to be settled rather than migrating and more likely to be married than single. They’re also aging. At the start of this century, about one-third of crop workers were over the age of 35. Now more than half are. And picking crops is hard on older bodies. One oft-debated cure for this labor shortage remains as implausible as it’s been all along: Native U.S. workers won’t be returning to the farm.

　　Mechanization isn’t the answer, either—not yer, at least. Production of corn, cotton, rice, soybeans, and wheat has been largely mechanized, but many high-value, labor-intensive corps, such as strawberries, need labor. Even dairy farms, where robots do a small share of milking, have a long way to go before they’re automated.

　　As a result, farms have grown increasingly reliant on temporary guest workers using the H-2A visa to fill the gaps in the workforce. Starting around 2012, requests for the visas rose sharply; from 2011 to 2016 the number of visas issued more than doubled.

　　The H-2A visa has no numerical cap, unlike the H-2B visa for nonagricultural work, which is limited to 66,000 a year. Even so, employers complain they aren’t given all the workers they need. The process is cumbersome, expensive, and unreliable. One survey found that bureaucratic delays led the average H-2A worker to arrive on the job 22 days late. The shortage is compounded by federal immigration raids, which remove some workers and drive others underground.

　　In a 2012 survey, 71 percent of tree-fruit growers and almost 80 percent of raisin and berry growers said they were short of labor. Some western farmers have responded by moving operations to Mexico. From 1998 to 2000, 14.5 percent of the fruit Americans consumed was imported. Little more than a decade later, the share of imports was 25.8 percent.

　　In effect, the U.S. can import food or it can import the workers who pick it.

　　31. What problem should be addressed according to the first two paragraphs?

　　A. Discrimination against foreign workers in the U.S.

　　B. Biased laws in favor of some American businesses.

　　C. Flaws in U.S. immigration rules for farm workers.

　　D. Decline of job opportunities U.S. agriculture.

　　32. One trouble with U.S. agricultural workforce is .

　　A. the rising number of illegal immigrants

　　B. the high mobility of crop workers

　　C. the lack of experienced laborers

　　D. the aging of immigrant farm workers

　　33.What is the much-argued solution to the labor shortage in U.S. farming?

　　A. To attract younger laborers to farm work.

　　B. To get native U.S. workers back to farming.

　　C. To use more robots to grow high-value crops.

　　D. To strengthen financial support for farmers.

　　34. Agricultural employers complain about the H-2A visa for its .

　　A. slow granting procedures

　　B. limit on duration of stay

　　C. tightened requirements

　　D. control of annual admissions

　　35. Which of the following could be the best title for this text?

　　A. U.S. Agriculture in Decline?

　　B. Import Food or Labor?

　　C. America Saved by Mexico?

　　D. Manpower vs. Automation?

　　Text 4

　　Amold Schwarzenegger. Dia Mirza and Adrian Grenier have a message for you. It’s easy to beat plastic. They’re part of a bunch of celebrities starring in a new video for World Environment Day—encouraging you, the consumer, to swap out your single-use plastic staples like straws and cutlery to combat the plastics crisis.

　　The key messages that have been put together for World Environment Day do include a call for governments to enact legislation to curb single-use plastics. But the overarching message is directed at individuals.

　　My concern with leaving it up to the individual, however, is our limited sense of what needs to be achieved. One their own, taking our own bags to the grocery store or quitting plastic straws, for example, will accomplish little and require very little of us. They could even be detrimental, satisfying a need to have “done our bit” without ever progressing onto bigger, bolder, more effective actions—a kind of “moral licensing” that allays our concerns and stops us doing more and asking more of those in charge.

　　While the conversation around our environment and our responsibility toward it remains centered on shopping hags and straws, we’re ignoring the balance of power that implies that as “consumers” we must shop sustainably, rather than as “ citizens” hole our governments and industries to account to push for real systemic change.

　　It’s important to acknowledge that the environment isn’t everyone’s priority-or even most people’s. We shouldn’t expect it to be. In her latest book, Why Good People Do Bad Environmental Things. Wellesley College professor Elizabeth R. DeSombre argues that the best way to collectively change the behavior of large numbers of people is for the change to be structural.

　　This might mean implementing policy such as a plastic tax that adds a cost to environmentally problematic action, or banning single-use plastics altogether. India has just announced it will “eliminate all single-use plastic in the country by 2022.” There are also incentive-based ways of making better environmental choices easier, such as ensuring recycling is at least as easy as trash disposal.

　　DeSombre isn’t saying people should stop caring about the environment. It’s just that individual actions are too slow, she says, for that to be the only, or even primary, approach to changing widespread behavior.

　　None of this is about writing off the individual. It’s just about putting things into perspective. We don’t have time to wait. We need progressive policies that shape collective action (and rein in polluting businesses), alongside engaged citizens pushing for change.

　　36. Some celebrities star in a new video to

　　A. demand new laws on the use of plastics

　　B. urge consumers to cut the use of plastics

　　C. invite public opinion on the plastics crisis

　　D. disclose the causes of the plastics crisis

　　37.The author is concerned that “moral licensing” may

　　A. mislead us into doing worthless things

　　B. prevent us from making further efforts

　　C. weaken our sense of accomplishment

　　D. suppress our desire for success

　　38. By pointing out out identity “citizens”, the author indicates that

　　A. our focus should be shifted to community welfare

　　B. our relationship with local industries is improving

　　C. We have been actively exercising our civil rights

　　D. We should press our government to lead the combat

　　39. DeSombre argues that the best way for a collective change should be

　　A. a win-win arrangement

　　B. a self-driven mechanism

　　C. a cost-effective approach

　　D. a top down process

　　40. The author concludes that individual efforts

　　A.can be too aggressive

　　B. can be too inconsistent

　　C. are far from sufficient

　　D. are far from rational