Section II  Reading Comprehension

Part A

Directions：Read the following four passages. Answer the questions below each passage by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (40 points)

Text 1
It was 3:45 in the morning when the vote was finally taken. After six months of arguing and final 16 hours of hot parliamentary debates, Australia’s Northern Territory became the first legal authority in the world to authorize doctors to cease the lives of incurably ill and terminal patients who wish to end his life. The measure passed by the convincing vote of 15 to 10. Almost instantaneously word flashed on the Internet and was picked up, half an earth away, by John Hofsess, executive director of the Right to Die Society of Canada. He sent it on via the group’s online service, Death NET. Says Hofsess: “We posted bulletins all day long, because, of course, this isn’t just something that happened in Australia. It’s world history.”        The full import may take a while to sink in. The NT Rights of the Terminally Ill law has left physicians and citizens alike trying to deal with its moral and practical implications. Some have breathed sighs of relief, while others, including churches, right to life groups and the Australian Medical Association, bitterly attacked the bill and the haste of its passage. But the tide is unlikely to turn back. In Australia — where an aging population, life extending technology and changing community attitudes have all played their part — other states are going to consider making a similar law to deal with euthanasia. In the US and Canada, where the right to die movement is gathering strength, observers are waiting for the dominoes to start falling.        Under the new Northern Territory law, an adult patient can request death — probably by a deadly injection or pill — to put an end to suffering. The patient must be diagnosed as terminally ill by two doctors. After a “cooling off” period of seven days, the patient can sign a certificate of request, 48 hours after which the wish for death can be satisfied. For Lloyd Nickson, a 54 year old Darwin resident suffering from lung cancer, the NT Rights of Terminally Ill law apparently means he can get on with living without the haunting dread of his torture and agony: a terrifying expiration from his decompensation. “I’m not appalled of dying from a spiritual point of view, but what I dread was how I’d go, because I’ve witnessed people die in the hospital struggling for oxygen and clawing at their masks,” he says.
21. According to the passage, John Hofsess ______.
  A. insists that the law be approved throughout the world
  B. posts the news of the law’s approval to internet first
  C. believes the approval of the law is very significant
  D. wishes to ask doctors in Australia to end his life there
22. From the second paragraph we learn that ______ .
A. the objection to euthanasia is slow to come in other countries
B. physicians and citizens share the same view on euthanasia  
C. changing technology leads the hasty passage of the law
D. euthanasia is very likely to become a trend in the world
23. By “observers are waiting for the dominoes to start falling”, the author means ______.  A. observers are taking a wait and see attitude towards the future of euthanasia  B. laws on euthanasia are likely to be passed in the US, Canada and other nations  C. many groups will join Australian Medical Association in objection to the bill   D. the effect-taking process of the passed bill might eventually come to a stop
24. When Lloyd Nickson dies, he will ______.  A. face his death with calm characteristic of euthanasia  B. go through the suffering of a lung cancer patient  C. have an intense fear of terrible breathing condition  D. remove the supply of oxygen and the cover of mask
25. The author’s attitude towards euthanasia seems to be that of _____.  A. reserved  B. skeptical  C. approval  D. indifference
Text 2
They may be one of Britain’s most successful and prestigeous exports and among the world’s most prevalent TV shows, parallel alongside the World Cup Final and the Olympic Games opening ceremony in terms of attendance. However, in Britain, beauty competitions are insipid. Nicolas Baker, a lawyer in London said that “As much as I think it’s fine for women to partake them but they deserves the indifference from the mass and, in fact, I deem they’re pertinent to today.” He remarks to the point. Last year, Miss World was broadcast to 142 countries, but it wasn’t even shown in the country where its naissance occurred in 1951.
It wasn’t always the case in Britain. Once, beauty queens dated footballers, traveled the world around and were guaranteed fame, fortune and fun. Now, they open new supermarkets, are sponsored by dry-cleaning companies and if they’re lucky, they get free-of-charge clothes from supermarkets.
When Francesca Marchant was crowned Miss Sussex in 1969 it was a matter of extreme pride of “I came from a small town, and all my acquaintances were green with envy when it comes out that I am crowned. My boyfriend at the time boasted to the world that he would show up in a rendezvous with a beauty queen.”
But table has turned. The feminist campaigns gathered momentum and some extremist feminists pledge to conclude these “cattle shows”. Nowadays, proclaiming that you were a beauty queen just doesn’t make any sense but even provoke a fling.
Miss World organizers stake out a claim that the appraisal of contestants is qualities other than just their physical appearance. They defied their pledge and reflections cast on them is due. Jacqueline Gold, England’s representative at this year’s contest, was not chosen because of her academic record. The Miss World Website states that she “left school having gained many computer qualifications and certificates in First Aid and Life Saving”, meaning not much of an education at educational level.
What confers fascination to the contests, ironically, is the protesters. At the 2006 Miss World in Britain around 600 demonstrators hurled flour bombs and battled with the police. They denounced the beauty contest as a “sexist cattle market”. They waved banners saying “fat girls are cool” and “women’s bodies are not for sale.”
26. Beauty contests in Britain are now _______.
A. bringing huge exporting profits
B. no longer appealing to most people
C. shown after the show of bowing
D. welcome and attended by a lot of women
27. The opinion of Nicolas Backer towards beauty contests is that _______.
A. some women shouldn’t attend the contests
B. the contest are fine but he doesn’t like them
C. the contests are insults to women
D. the contests are behind the times
28. In the past, if a girl won in a beauty contest, she would probably _______.
A. get support from dry-clearing companies
B. be admired by most people
C. not have a good reputation
D. get free clothes form supermarkets
29. The author uses Jacqueline Gold as an example to show that _______.
A. academic record played a critical role in judgement
B. she had gained many qualifications and certificates
C. contestants are judged on their physical appearance
D. contestants are judged on their education
30. The best title for the passage might be _______.
A. Beauty Contests: A Sunk Fashion
B. Beauty Contests : Sexist Cattle Market
C. Beauty Contests: A Headache of Britain
D. Beauty Contests : Insults to Women
Text 3
Financial engineers are not dressed with white lab frocks and nor do they conduct the delicate experiment on mice or perform gas chromatography. Their raw material – money – isn’t as showy as what biologists and physicists work on. But the innovations they come up with will contribute just as much, if not more, to economic and societal welfare growth.
Most likely more, in fact, because without the science of finance, all other sciences are just a bunch of neat concepts. Put another way, ideas begin to tell in human betterment when financially backed – by venture capital, stock offerings, loans, or buyouts and only a smoothly operating financial system showers money on good ideas. Equally important, it cuts off funding to tired ideas and tired companies, so their assets can be employed more efficiently elsewhere.
In the later this century’s economy, innovation in finance will explode in concert with the fierceness in competition. Partly because of deregulation and globalization, competition should toughen, and margins thinner. As products such as home mortgage loans become commoditized, financial service companies will be motivated or compelled to get more innovative.
Financial technology will keep feeding off information technology. The secret to success will be a strong software platform, which will lower the cost of general services while making it possible to create high-margin variations as well. A few companies that get it right can find a foothold somewhere, spin away from the rest and excel.
In the new world of finance, size counts. The giants enjoy economies of scale and name recognition, and they hardly lose sleep because their bets scatter across more regions and market segments. The value of banks mergers in late 20th century was greater than that of the previous decades combined. The mergers are occurring across industries as well.
At the other extreme will be specialists that survive by doing one thing either very cheaply or exceptionally well. By offering lower prices or better service, specialists will discipline the financial supermarkets; the big guys know their customers can walk away if they get a raw deal. “There is no way we are going to maximize a short-term transactional benefit at the risk of destroying a long-term relationship,” says Chase Manhattan Corp. Vice Chairman Joseph G . Sponholz.
Predictably, the biggest winners from financial innovation will not be banks but companies and families. They have complex finances, while banks show signs of losing interest in people who want just plain checking accounts. But as incomes and wealth rise, more people will find themselves thrust into the role of asset managers. Businesses, too, will have to become more sophisticated – if only to keep pace with financially innovative rivals.
31. Financial engineers obviously are different from natural scientists in that the former ______.
A. may give even greater impetus to social advancement
B. are more indifferent to dressing and the raw materials
C. are more likely to be absorbed in their experiments
D. are lessly to obtain financial support from companies
32. In the absence of financial support, scientific concepts ______.
A. would remain groups of merely infeasible theories
B. can barely promote the improvement of people’s life
C. will not obtain enough venture capital and bank loans
D. might become tired ideas that cannot be implemented
33. The following statements about financial technology are true except ______.
A. it can cut down the expenditure of financial companies
B. it helps companies making sensible decision to prosper
C. it employs information technology to make more profits
D. it provides money for IT industry to create advanced software
34. The unprecedent bank mergers is mentioned in the text to indicate that ______.
A. demand for investment of capital is becoming greater and greater
B. financial-service companies need to turn out more creative products
C. scale is of vital importance to the survival of financial enterprises
D. financial companies will keep a blacklist of clients worrying them
35. Companies of families will probably defeat the rivalry in financing because ______.
A. they defy unfair deals with their customers
B. they make their bargains cheap and profitable
C. more people will pursue to become managers
D. they do not put all their eggs in one basket
Text 4
The question of ethics in the legal profession is one that has plagued the industry since its dawn. The common image of an attorney is one who will resort to any unethical trick to twist the laws to fit his purposes. In the more specific industry of criminal law, defense attorneys are often criticized for advocating on behalf of defendants who are “obviously guilty,” thus becoming roadblocks on the path to justice. Much to the contrary, however, defense attorneys provide a valuable serve that should earn them praise, not be found fault with.
While it is true that every lawyer will do everything within his power to interpret the laws in the manner that is most favorable to his client, such a characterization is by no means limited to defense attorneys and shouldn’t be solely condemned. The prosecutor (公诉人) will do nothing better, employing all his legal knowledge and know-how to establish the guilt of the defendant. In this respect, the vague nature of the law is highlighted, and it becomes a virtual necessity for each side to use every tool at their disposal, on the assumption that the other side will also use every tool at his. The net result emerges as a positive, in which the tricks of the opposing attorneys cancel one another out, leaving only the truth, clearer and devoid of manipulation, presented for the jury’s consideration.
Further, the defense attorney is a vital element of the American judicial system. Without him the defendant would stand no chance whatsoever. Under the constitution, even the most “evident guilty” defendants are guaranteed the right to a fair trial, involving someone able and willing to advocate on his behalf. Of course, there are bad apples in the industry who are unethical and care nothing for actual justice, and whose only concerns are their wallets. Generally speaking, however, without defense attorneys, the system would be reduced into a mere machine in which defendants are assumed guilty without a chance to argue or prove otherwise and many innocent people falsely charged with crimes would be severely punished for offenses that they didn’t commit.
It is a basic fact that the antitheses system of justice in the United States is necessary in order to see to it that the fairest and most unbiased presentation and evaluation of the facts possible with two parites round after round cross swords. Without defense attorneys, that system cannot be carried out, and would result in a loss of the civil liberties that the nation enjoys and treasures. To that end, all of those who make that process a reality, including defense attorneys, deserve our support and admiration, not our suspicion and frown.
36. The prevailing attitude toward defense attorneys is ______.
A. appreciative
B. scornful
C. objective
D. reserved
37. The author thinks the fact that lawyers twist laws to surpport their clients normal because ______.
A. it is a trick used by both parties in court trial
B. it saves clients who are innocent of a crime
C. it reflects the lawyers being conscientious
D. it can help to largely eliminate the flaws in laws
38. According to the passage, defense attorneys are indispensable because ______.
A. their work acts as a protection of the basic civil right
B. they can create chances for the constitution to be modified
C. they can charge the lawyers not caring for real justice
D. their work ensures that the innocent will not be punished
39. The word “antitheses” is closest to the meaning of _______.
  A. contemporary
  B. permanent
  C. conscientious
  D. opposite
40. The best title for this passage would be ______.
A. Worsening and Declining Ethics
B. A Profession Under Attack
C. A Misunderstood Profession
D. Elements of the Judicial System