If you have seen or heard of the British TV series Downton Abbey, you have probably noticed an “upstairs-downstairs” class system in which the noble people are upstairs, worrying what clothes they should wear for dinner and the poor people are downstairs, working hard to make food and tea. So it’s not hard to tell that people are divided into different classes. British society has changed a lot since the days of Downton Abbey, but the division still exists and the funny accents do, too.
Nowadays, what divides Britons is the so-called “North-South divide”. As you make your way north from the south coast of England, the accent begins to change. The posh “How are you” in parts of the South becomes “Ahhdu” (how do you do) in the Midlands, “reeit” (are you all right) in the North West, “eyyup” (what’s up) in Yorkshire, and “hou’s it gaun” (how’s it going) in Scotland. Besides accents, the economy also changes. The rich southern city of London slowly becomes the North where people general have less money.
So where does the “South” stop being the “South” and the “North” start being the “North”? Well, depending on where someone comes from in Britain, you’ll get a different answer.
“Anywhere above London is ‘the North’,” you might hear a Londoner say. Or if you’re in Scotland, you might hear, “Southern softer!”, talking about a person from Lancashire or Yorkshire, who think of themselves as “hard (tough) Northerners”. “Anywhere south of Manchester is not northern,” you might hear a person from Manchester say.
Many stereotypes (成见) have come from the “North-South Divide”, too. Often, southerners are seen as being rude and snobbish (势利眼的) by northerners. And northerners are often seen as uneducated by southerners.
Today, the career you have and the person you marry don’t depend on where you were born or what class you are from. But as London is getting richer and people are moving to the South for work, the North-South divide is getting bigger. Yet for all that divides us, the truth is, we couldn’t live without each other!
The first paragraph serves to _________.

A．compare the lives of upstairs with those of downstairs

B．explain how the class system worked in the past

C．attack the unfair class division

D．introduce the topic of the passage

People from North West greet each other by saying _________.

A．“hou’s it gaun”	B．“reeit”
C．“eyyup”	D．“ahhdu”

From Paragraph 4 we get to know _________.

A．Scotlanders think Londoners are not strong enough

B．Manchester people think Scotland belongs to the South

C．Manchester people regard themselves as Northerners

D．there is no such thing as “North-South Divide”

What is the passage mainly talking about?

A．British accents are different from North to South.

B．Class division is getting smaller at present.

C．It is about the “North-South Division” and its influence.

D．Northerners and Southerners dislike each other in Britain.

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