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C) Many people are fond of gunplay and bloodshed. D) Showing violence is thought to be entertaining.
22. What is the skeptics (Line 3. Para. 3) view of media violence?
A) Violence on television is a fairly accurate reflection of real-world life. B) Most studies exaggerate the effect of media violence on the viewers. C) A causal relationship exists between media and real-world violence. D) The influence of media violence on children has been underestimated.
23. The author uses the term “alarmists” (Line 1. Para. 5) to refer to those who ________.
A) use standardized measurements in the studies of media violence B) initiated the debate over the influence of violent media on reality C) assert a direct link between violent media and aggressive behavior D) use appropriate methodology in examining aggressive behavior 24. In refuting the alarmists, the author advances his argument by first challenging
________.
A) the source and amount of their data B) the targets of their observation C) their system of measurement D) their definition of violence 25. What does the author think of the debate concerning the relationship between the
media and violence? A) More studies should be conducted before conclusions are drawn. B) It should come to an end since the matter has now been settled. C) The past studies in this field have proved to be misleading. D) He more than agrees with the views held by the alarmists. Passage Two
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.
You?re in trouble if you have to buy your own brand-name prescription drugs. Over the past decade, prices leaped by more than double the inflation rate. Treatments for chronic conditions can easily top $2,000 a month-no wonder that one in four Americans can?s afford to fill their prescriptions. The solution? A hearty chorus of “O Canada.” North of the border, where price controls reign, those same brand-name drugs cost 50% to 80% less.
The Canadian option is fast becoming a political wake-up call, “If our neighbors can
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buy drugs at reasonable prices, why can?t we? Even to whisper that thought provokes anger. “Un-American!” And-the propagandists? trump card (王牌)—“Wreck our brilliant health-care system.” Supersize drug prices, they claim, fund the research that sparks the next generation of wonder drugs. No sky-high drug price today, no cure for cancer tomorrow. So shut up and pay up.
Common sense tells you that?s a false alternative. The reward for finding, say, a cancer cure is so huge that no one?s going to hang it up. Nevertheless, if Canada-level pricing came to the United States, the industry?s profit margins would drop and the pace of new-drug development would slow. Here lies the American dilemma. Who is all this splendid medicine for? Should our health-care system continue its drive toward the best of the best, even though rising numbers of patients can?t afford it? Or should we direct our wealth toward letting everyone in on today?s level of care? Measured by saved lives, the latter is almost certainly the better course.
To defend their profits, the drug companies have warned Canadian wholesalers and pharmacies (药房) not to sell to Americans by mail, and are cutting back supplies to those who dare.
Meanwhile, the administration is playing the fear card. Officials from the Food and Drug Administration will argue that Canadian drugs might be fake, mishandled, or even a potential threat to life.
Do bad drugs fly around the Internet? Sure-and the more we look, the more we?ll find, But I haven?t heard of any raging epidemics among the hundreds of thousands of people buying crossborder.
Most users of prescription drugs don?t worry about costs a lot. They?re sheltered by employee insurance, owing just a $20 co-pay. The financial blows rain, instead, on the uninsured, especially the chronically ill who need expensive drugs to live, This group will still include middle-income seniors on Medicare, who?ll have to dig deeply into their pockets before getting much from the new drug benefit that starts in 2006. 26. What is said about the consequence of the rocketing drug prices in the U.S.? A) A quarter of Americans can?t afford their prescription drugs. B) Many Americans can?t afford to see a doctor when they fall ill. C) Many Americans have to go to Canada to get medical treatment. D) The inflation rate has been more than doubled over the years. 27. It can be inferred that America can follow the Canadian model and curb its soaring
drug prices by ________.
A) encouraging people to buy prescription drugs online B) extending medical insurance to all its citizens C) importing low-price prescription drugs from Canada D) exercising price control on brand-name drugs
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28. How do propagandists argue for the U.S. drug pricing policy?
A) Low prices will affect the quality of medicines in America. B) High prices are essential to funding research on new drugs. C) Low prices will bring about the anger of drug manufacturers. D) High-price drugs are indispensable in curing chronic diseases.
29. What should be the priority of America?s health-care system according to the
author?
A) To resolve the dilemma in the health-care system. B) To maintain America?s lead in the drug industry. C) To allow the vast majority to enjoy its benefits. D) To quicken the pace of new drug development.
30. What are American drug companies doing to protect their high profits? A) Labeling drugs bought from Canada as being fakes. B) Threatening to cut back funding for new drug research. C) Reducing supplies to uncooperative Canadian pharmacies. D) Attributing the raging epidemics to the ineffectiveness of Canadian drugs. Passage Three
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage. Age has its privileges in America. And one of the more prominent of them is the senior citizen discount. Anyone who has reached a certain age—in some cases as low as 55—is automatically entitled to a dazzling array of price reductions at nearly every level of commercial life. Eligibility is determined not by one?s need but by the date on one?s birth certificate. Practically unheard of a generation ago, the discounts have become a routine part of many businesses—as common as color televisions in motel rooms and free coffee on airliners. People with gray hair often are given the discounts without even asking for them；yet, millions of Americans above age 60 are healthy and solvent (有支付能力的). Businesses that would never dare offer discounts to college students or anyone under 30 freely offer them to older Americans. The practice is acceptable because of the widespread belief that “elderly” and “needy” are synonymous (同义的). Perhaps that once was true, but today elderly Americans as a group have a lower poverty rate than the rest of the population. To be sure, there is economic diversity within the elderly, and many older Americans are poor, But most of them aren?t.
It is impossible to determine the impact of the discounts on individual companies. For many firms, they are a stimulus to revenue. But in other cases the discounts are given at the expense, directly or indirectly, of younger Americans. Moreover, they are a direct irritant in what some politicians and scholars see as a coming conflict between the
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generations.
Generational tensions are being fueled by continuing debate over Social Security benefits, which mostly involves a transfer of resources from the young to the old. Employment is another sore point, Buoyed (支持) by laws and court decisions, more and more older Americans are declining the retirement dinner in favor of staying on the job-thereby lessening employment and promotion opportunities for younger workers. Far from a kind of charity they once were, senior citizen discounts have become a formidable economic privilege to a group with millions of members who don?t need them.
It no longer makes sense to treat the elderly as a single group whose economic needs deserve priority over those of others. Senior citizen discounts only enhance the myth that older people can?t take care of themselves and need special treatment； and they threaten the creation of a new myth, that the elderly are ungrateful and taking for themselves at the expense of children and other age groups. Senior citizen discounts are the essence of the very thing older Americans are fighting against-discrimination by age. 31. We learn from the first paragraph that ________.
A) offering senior citizens discounts has become routine commercial practice B) senior citizen discounts have enabled many old people to live a decent life C) giving senior citizens discounts has boosted the market for the elderly D) senior citizens have to show their birth certificates to get a discount 32. What assumption lies behind the practice of senior citizen discounts? A) Businesses, having made a lot of profits, should do something for society in
return. B) Old people are entitled to special treatment for the contribution they made to
society. C) The elderly, being financially underprivileged, need humane help from society. D) Senior citizen discounts can make up for the inadequacy of the Social Security system. 33. According to some politicians and scholars, senior citizen discounts will ________. A) make old people even more dependent on society B) intensify conflicts between the young and the old C) have adverse financial impact on business companies D) bring a marked increase in the companies revenues 34. How does the author view the Social Security system?
A) It encourages elderly people to retire in time. B) It opens up broad career prospects for young people.
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C) It benefits the old at the expense of the young. D) It should be reinforced by laws and court decisions.
35. Which of the following best summarizes the author?s main argument?
A) Senior citizens should fight hard against age discrimination. B) The elderly are selfish and taking senior discounts for granted. C) Priority should be given to the economic needs of senior citizens. D) Senior citizen discounts may well be a type of age discrimination.
Passage Four
Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage.
In 1854 my great-grandfather, Morris Marable, was sold on an auction block in Georgia for $500. For his white slave master, the sale was just “business as usual.” But to Morris Marable and his heirs, slavery was a crime against our humanity. This pattern of human rights violations against enslaved African-Americans continued under racial segregation for nearly another century.
The fundamental problem of American democracy in the 21st century is the problem of “structural racism” the deep patterns of socio-economic inequality and accumulated disadvantage that are coded by race, and constantly justified in public speeches by both racist stereotypes and white indifference. Do Americans have the capacity and vision to remove these structural barriers that deny democratic rights and opportunities to millions of their fellow citizens?
This country has previously witnessed two great struggles to achieve a truly multicultural democracy.
The First Reconstruction (1865-1877) ended slavery and briefly gave black men voting rights, but gave no meaningful compensation for two centuries of unpaid labor. The promise of “40 acres and a mule (骡子)”was for most blacks a dream deferred (尚未实现的).
The Second Reconstruction (1954-1968), or the modern civil rights movement, ended legal segregation in public accommodations and gave blacks voting rights. But these successes paradoxically obscure the tremendous human costs of historically accumulated disadvantage that remain central to black Americans? lives.
The disproportionate wealth that most whites enjoy today was first constructed from centuries of unpaid black labor. Many white institutions, including some leading universities, insurance companies and banks, profited from slavery. This pattern of white privilege and black inequality continues today.
Demanding reparations (赔偿) is not just about compensation for slavery and segregation. It is, more important, an educational campaign to highlight the contemporary reality of “racial deficits” of all kinds, the unequal conditions that impact blacks regardless of class. Structural racism?s barriers include “equity inequity.” the absence of black capital formation that is a direct consequence of America?s history. One
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