阅读排序题题目(共9页).doc

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1、精选优质文档-倾情为你奉上阅读排序题Passage1:No company likes to be told it is contributing to the moral decline of nation. Is this what you intended to accomplish with your careers? You have sold your souls, but must you corrupt our nation and threaten our children as well? At Time Warner, however, such questions ar

2、e simply the latest manifestation of the soul-searching that has involved the company ever since the company was born in 1990. On the financial front, Levin is under pressure to raise the stock price and reduce the companys mountainous debt, which will increase to $17.3 billion after two new cable d

3、eals close. He has promised to sell off some of the property and restructure the company, but investors are waiting impatiently. The flap over rap is not making life any easier for him. Levin has consistently defended the companys rap music on the grounds of expression. The test of any democratic so

4、ciety, he wrote in a Wall Street Journal column, lies not in how well it can control expression but in whether it gives freedom of thought and expression the widest possible latitude, however disputable or irritating the results may sometimes be. We wont retreat in the face of any threats. But he ta

5、lked as well about the balanced struggle between creative freedom and social responsibility, and he announced that the company would launch a drive to develop standards for distribution and labeling of potentially objectionable music. .A) At the core of this debate is chairman Gerald Levin, 56, who

6、took over for the late Steve Ross in 1992.B ) Senator Robert Dole asked Time Warner executives last week.C) Levin would not comment on the debate last week, but there were signs that the chairman was backing off his hard-line stand, at least to some extent. During the discussion of rock singing vers

7、es at last months stockholders meeting, Levin asserted that music is not the cause of societys ills and even cited his son, a teacher in the Bronx, New York, who uses rap to communicate with students.E) Some of us have known for many, many years that the freedoms under the First Amendment are not to

8、tally unlimited, says Luce. I think it is perhaps the case that some people associated with the company have only recently come to realize this.D) Its a self-examination that has, at various times, involved issues of responsibility, creative freedom and the corporate bottom line.F) In 1992, when Tim

9、e Warner was under fire for releasing Ice-Ts violent rap song Cop Killer, Levin described rap as a lawful expression of street culture, which deserves an outlet.G) The 15-member Time Warner board is generally supportive of Levin and his corporate strategy. But insiders say several of them have shown

10、 their concerns in this matter.Passage2:But what about pain without gain? Everywhere you go in America, you hear tales of corporate revival. What is harder to establish is whether the productivity revolution that businessmen assume they are pre-siding over is for real. The official statistics are mi

11、ldly discouraging. And since 1991, productivity has increased by about 2% a year, which is more than twice the 1978-1987 average. The trouble is that part of the recent acceleration is due to the usual rebound that occurs at this point in a business cycle, and so is not conclusive evidence of a revi

12、val in the underlying trend. Some of this can be easily explained. New ways of organizing the workplace all that re-engineering and downsizing are only one contribution to the overall productivity of an economy, which is driven by many other factors such as joint investment in equipment and machiner

13、y, new technology, and investment in education and training. Two other explanations are more speculative. His colleague, Michael Beer, says that far too many companies have applied re-engineering in a mechanistic fashion, chopping out costs without giving sufficient thought to long-term profitabilit

14、y. A) Moreover, most of the changes that companies make are intended to keep them profitable, and this need not always mean increasing productivity: switching to new markets or improving quality can matter just as much.B) Leonard Schlesinger, a Harvard academic and former chief executive of Au Bon P

15、ain, a rapidly growing chain of bakery cafes, says that much re-engineering has been crude. In many cases, he believes, the loss of revenue has been greater than the reductions in cost.C) There is, as Robert Rubin, the treasury secretary, says, a disjunction between the mass of business anecdote tha

16、t points to a leap in productivity and the picture reflected by the statistics.D) They show that, if you lump manufacturing and services together, productivity has grown on average by 1.2% since 1987. That is somewhat faster than the average during the previous decade.E) First, some of the business

17、restructuring of recent years may have been ineptly done. Second, even if it was well done, it may have spread much less widely than people suppose.F) BBDOs Al Rosenshine is blunter. He dismisses a lot of the work of re-engineering consultants as mere rubbish the worst sort of ambulance-chasing.G) W

18、ell, no gain without pain, they say.Passage3:When it comes to the slowing economy, Ellen Spero isnt biting her nails just yet. But the 47-year-old manicurist isnt cutting, filling or polishing as many nails as shed like to, either. Most of her clients spend $12 to $50 weekly, but last month two long

19、time customers suddenly stopped showing up. Im a good economic indicator, she says. I provide a service that people can do without when theyre concerned about saving some dollars. So Spero is downscaling, shopping at middlebrow Dillards department store near her suburban Cleveland home, instead of N

20、eiman Marcus. Even before Alan Greenspans admission that Americas red-hot economy is cooling, lots of working folks had already seen signs of the slowdown themselves. For retailers, who last year took in 24 percent of their revenue between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the cautious approach is coming

21、at a crucial time. Already, experts say, holiday sales are off 7 percent from last years pace. Consumers say theyre not in despair because, despite the dreadful headlines, their own fortunes still feel pretty good. Home prices are holding steady in most regions. In San Francisco, prices are still ri

22、sing even as frenzied overbidding quiets. Instead of 20 to 30 offers, now maybe you only get two or three, says john Deadly, a Bay Area real-estate broker. And most folks still feel pretty comfortable about their ability to find and keep a job. Potential home buyers would cheer for lower interest ra

23、tes. Employers wouldnt mind a little fewer bubbles in the job market. Many consumers seem to have been influenced by stock-market swings, which investors now view as a necessary ingredient to a sustained boom. Diners might see an upside, too. A) Spero blames the softening economy.B) Getting a table

24、at Manhattans hot new Alain Ducasse restaurant need to be impossible. Not anymore. For that, Greenspan & Co. may still be worth toasting.C) Many folks see silver linings to this slowdown.D) But dont sound any alarms just yet. Consumers seem only concerned, not panicked, and many say they remain opti

25、mistic about the economys long-term prospects, even as they do some modest belttightening.E) I dont know if other clients are going to abandon me, too she says.F) In Manhattan, theres a new gold rush happening in the $4 million to $10 million range, predominantly fed by Wall Street bonuses, says bro

26、ker Barbara Corcoran.G)From car dealerships to Gap outlets, sales have been lagging for months as shoppers temper their spending.Passage4: Our heroes are athletes, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not scholars. Even our schools are where we send our children to get a practical education not to pursu

27、e knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Symptoms of pervasive anti-intellectualism in our schools arent difficult to find. Schools have always been in a society where practical is more important than intellectual, says education writer Diane Ravitch. Schools could be a counterbalance. Razitchs latest

28、 book, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms, traces the roots of anti-intellectualism in our schools, concluding they are anything but a counterbalance to the American distaste for intellectual pursuits. But they could and should be. Without the ability to think critically, to defend their

29、ideas and understand the ideas of others, they cannot fully participate in our democracy. Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege, writes historian and professor Richard Hofstadter in Anti-Intellectualism in American life, a Pulitzer Prize winning book on the roots of anti-intellectual

30、ism in US politics, religion, and education. Practicality, common sense, and native intelligence have been considered more noble qualities than anything you could learn from a book. Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatura

31、l restraints on children: we are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing. Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn exemplified American anti-intellectualism. Intellect, according to Hofstadter, is different from nat

32、ive intelligence, a quality we reluctantly admire. A) From the beginning of our history, says Hofstadter, our democratic and populist urges have driven us to reject anything that smells of elitism.B) Encouraging kids to reject the life of the mind leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and control.C

33、) Americans today dont place a very high value on intellect.D) School remains a place where intellect is mistrusted. Hofstadter says our countrys educational system is in the grips of people who joyfully and militantly proclaim their hostility to intellect and their eagerness to identify with childr

34、en who show the least intellectual promise.E) Continuing along this path, says writer Earl Shorris, We will become a second-rate country. We will have a less civil society.F) Its hero avoids being civilized going to school and learning to read so he can preserve his innate goodness.G) Intellect is t

35、he critical, creative, and contemplative side of the mind. Intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re-order, and adjust, while intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes and imagines.Passage5: Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. wrote Oscar Wilde. Its hard to say what Wilde w

36、ould have thought of this weeks cover photo or the pictures inside of dads and their children. Several clearly defy the outdated idea of fathers as detached from the parenting process. Gregory Heisler, who did the cover photograph, says he wanted the image to show genuine affection. Adds Heisler. In

37、stead of doing some slick, over-produced shot, I wanted something more authentic to the experience of being a father. This isnt the first time that Heisler, 39, has conveyed complex ideas for the cover of TIME. His photographs have graced the front of the magazine some 20 times, ranging from Olympic

38、 athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee and director Davis Lynch to former President George Bush and Ted Turner for the Man of the Year issues in 1991 and 1992, respectively. The pictures appearing inside were all done by photographer Jeffrey Lowe. While most of the credit for the pictures rightly goes to tho

39、se behind the camera, cover coordinator Lina Freeman and assistant picture editor Mary Worrell Bousquette, who work behind the scenes, also deserve accolades. Says she: My greatest reward is working with these talented artists. Bousquette edited the pictures that appear inside. At least in this issu

40、e, those fathers are seen as well as heard sorry, Oscar.A) So, rather than use professional models, he went out and found some real dads and their real kids.B) Freeman, for instance, had the challenging task of making arrangements for the group portrait of child movie stars by Heisler that appears o

41、n page 62.C) Although Lowe has not experienced fatherhood yet, he observed many intimate moments of parenting by spending a lot of private time with each dad and child. Of all the pictures. Lowe was most deeply touched by the father-to-be embracing his pregnant wife.D) But this weeks TIME cover has

42、special meaning, he says, because he and his wife Prudencehad their first child, Lucy, 16 months ago.E) I wanted our story to show the many faces of fatherhood, she says.F) This is the only proper basis for family life.G) And thats just what the photographers intended.Passage6: There are numerous re

43、asons for making an adoption plan. Birth parents may feel they cannot take on the responsibility of an unplanned child because they are too young or because they are financially or emotionally unable to provide proper care. They do not feel ready or able to be good parents. In other cases children a

44、re in need of adoption because courts have decided that their birth parents are unable to function adequately. Other adoptions may be arranged independently, as when birth parents and adoptive parents come to know each other outside of an agency and then complete the adoption according to the laws a

45、nd regulations of their states of residence. Which Children Need Adoption Although international adoptions occur, the largest number of adoptions in the United States involve American parents adopting American infants. Statistics on the ethnicity of both parties are incomplete. In the early 1970s th

46、ere was a dramatic increase in the number of families seeking to adopt, a condition which persists today. For this reason, the number of those who wish to adopt regularly exceeds the number of infants available. Reasons for this dramatic increase are varied. Many of these people, in turn, have found

47、 themselves to be less fertile at that time, and so they have decided that their desire to have children might best be fulfilled through adoption. The children in this group are usually older and often have special needs. They may require additional care from a parent because of their physical, emotional, or mental disabilities (which may have been caused by abuse, neglect, or medical or genetic factors). Because of their special needs, these