问答题.SECTION A MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS In this section there are three passages followed by ten multiple choice questions. For each multiple choice question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO. Passage One (1) Mr. Foster was left in the Decanting Room. The D. H. C. and his students stepped into the nearest lift and were carried up to the fifth floor. (2) INFANT NURSERIES. NEO-PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING ROOMS, announced the noticeboard. (3) The Director opened a door. They were in a large bare room, very bright and sunny; for the whole of the southern wall was a single window. Half a dozen nurses, trousered and jacketed in the regulation white viscose-linen uniform, their hair aseptically (无菌地;清洁地) hidden under white caps, were engaged in setting out bowls of roses in a long row across the floor. Big bowls, packed tight with blossom. Thousands of petals, ripe-blown and silkily smooth, like the cheeks of innumerable little cherubs, but of cherubs, in that bright light, not exclusively pink and Aryan, but also luminously Chinese, also Mexican, also apoplectic with too much blowing of celestial trumpets, also pale as death, pale with the posthumous (死后的;遗腹的) whiteness of marble. (4) The nurses stiffened to attention as the D. H.C. came in. (5) "Set out the books," he said curtly. (6) In silence the nurses obeyed his command. Between the rose bowls the books were duly set out—a row of nursery quartos opened invitingly each at some gaily colored image of beast or fish or bird. (7) "Now bring in the children." (8) They hurried out of the room and returned in a minute or two, each pushing a kind of tall dumb-waiter laden, on all its four wire-netted shelves, with eight-month-old babies, all exactly alike (a Bokanovsky Group, it was evident) and all (since their caste was Delta) dressed in khaki. (9) "Put them down on the floor." (10) The infants were unloaded. (11) "Now turn them so that they can see the flowers and books." (12) Turned, the babies at once fell silent, then began to crawl towards those clusters of sleek colors, those shapes so gay and brilliant on the white pages. As they approached, the sun came out of a momentary eclipse behind a cloud. The roses flamed up as though with a sudden passion from within; a new and profound significance seemed to suffuse the shining pages of the books. From the ranks of the crawling babies came little squeals of excitement, gurgles and twitterings of pleasure. (13) The Director rubbed his hands. "Excellent!" he said. "It might almost have been done on purpose." (14) The swiftest crawlers were already at their goal. Small hands reached out uncertainly, touched, grasped, unpetaling the transfigured roses, crumpling the illuminated pages of the books. The Director waited until all were happily busy. (15) Then, "Watch carefully," he said. And, lifting his hand, he gave the signal. (16) The Head Nurse, who was standing by a switchboard at the other end of the room, pressed down a little lever. (17) There was a violent explosion. Shriller and ever shriller, a siren shrieked. Alarm bells maddeningly sounded. (18) The children startled, screamed; their faces were distorted with terror. (19) "And now," the Director shouted (for the noise was deafening), "now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock." (20) He waved his hand again, and the Head Nurse pressed a second lever. The screaming of the babies suddenly changed its tone. There was something desperate, almost insane, about the sharp spasmodic (痉挛的;间歇性的) yelps to which they now gave utterance. Their little bodies twitched and stiffened; their limbs moved jerkily as if to the tug of unseen wires. (21) "We can electrify that whole strip of floor," bawled the Director in explanation. "But that's enough," he signaled to the nurse. (22) The explosions ceased, the bells stopped ringing, the shriek of the siren died down from tone to tone into silence. The stiffly twitching bodies relaxed, and what had become the sob and yelp of infant maniacs broadened out once more into a normal howl of ordinary terror. (23) "Offer them the flowers and the books again." (24) The nurses obeyed; but at the approach of the roses, at the mere sight of those gaily-colored images of pussy and cock-a-doodle-doo and baa-baa black sheep, the infants shrank away in horror, the volume of their howling suddenly increased. (25) "Observe," said the Director triumphantly, "observe." (26) Books and loud noises, flowers and electric shocks—already in the infant mind these couples were compromisingly linked; and after two hundred repetitions of the same or a similar lesson would be wedded indissolubly. What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder. (27) "They'll grow up with what the psychologists used to call an 'instinctive' hatred of books and flowers. Reflexes unalterably conditioned. They'll be safe from books and botany all their lives." The Director turned to his nurses. "Take them away again." (28) Still yelling, the khaki babies were loaded on to their dumb-waiters and wheeled out, leaving behind them the smell of sour milk and a most welcome silence. Passage Two (1) When Kelly Dilworth applied for a Discover card in July, she was happy to learn that her spending limit was $13,000—a level most card companies don't offer unless a customer is in the highest credit tier. Then she found out the card's annual percentage rate (APR) was 21.24 percent, a level that used to be reserved for people with shabby credit. (2) Like most credit card companies, Discover didn't reveal to Dilworth what her APR would be until after it had issued her card. Dilworth notes she could just cancel the card, but that would likely temporarily hurt her credit score, which is well above 700. Instead, she says, she's keeping the card for its travel rewards. "It's becoming a lot harder to find a regular credit card with a good interest rate," she says, "even if you have good credit." She doesn't understand, however, why financial institutions are increasingly offering loads of credit but tying it to high APRs—while refusing to offer less extreme options. (3) Dilworth isn't the only one who's puzzled. While US interest rates remain below 1 percent, some of the same financial institutions allowed to borrow money from the government at historic lows are quietly jacking up rates on even people with commendable credit. This summer, the lowest available APRs offered on new credit cards topped 15 percent on average, marking a five-year high, according to CreditCards.com. With the Federal Reserve signaling plans to raise interest rates going into next year, experts believe credit card companies will follow, as they did last December. (4) While credit card APRs are expected to rise with future rate hikes, they did not plunge with US mortgages and other types of loans when the Fed slashed its rates to nearly zero during the financial crisis. This is partly because, in 2009, Congress introduced a law to restrict the card industry's payment and fee practices, says James Chessen, chief economist for the American Bankers Association. To compensate, card issuers found other ways to profit, by either boosting existing rates or refusing to lower rates on new cards. (5) For the average American credit card user, these higher rates are already having an effect: The debt of those carrying balances has risen every quarter since early 2015 and, as of this spring, the average household carrying credit card debt owed more than $16,000—the highest level on record since Congress enacted (制定;颁布) the credit card reform act. (6) But rising APRs will hurt millennials (千禧一代) the most. They tend to have shorter credit histories and mountains of student loan debt—factors that can weigh heavily on their credit rating, leading to higher interest rates and potentially hurting their ability to pay off monthly balances. (7) Dilworth says wider spreads have been proliferating over the past few years, with the lowest available rates hardly budging and the upper limits creeping inexorably higher. As she points out, there are legal limits on certain card fees, but there is no limit on APRs. No one knows who, if anyone, is being offered the lowest interest rates, Dilworth says, because the credit card industry doesn't need to report that information. "It's really a transparency (透明度) issue," she says. "What people are really paying and their APR levels, no one knows that. Not even the Federal Reserve." (8) The upshot? Millennials, who make up the largest population segment in US history, are abandoning credit cards, according to Princeton Survey Research Associates International, a New Jersey consultancy. In a study this year of more than 1,000 people aged 18 to 29—many of whom came of age during the 2008-2009 financial crisis—only 33 percent reported using credit cards. By contrast, 55 percent of those surveyed aged 30 to 49 carded cards, while more than 60 percent of those aged 50 and up carded them. If credit card companies can't win over millennials, experts say it could very well erode their long-term earnings potential. (9) To make up for lost growth, credit card companies could further raise rates on everyone else. But that approach has pitfalls. In its latest monthly complaints report, the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau noted that one of the biggest gripes from credit card users is that the industry isn't fair or transparent enough in calculating and assigning APRs. If climbing interest rates are any measure of customer ire—and card companies don't offer more visibility in their decision-making—the number of complaints is likely to rise. Passage Three (1) The robots in movies and science fiction books that rise up to take over the world generally are able to do so because we have placed them in charge of missiles, defense systems and other military technology. (2) We never see a disgruntled (不满的;不高兴的), order-taking bot working at McDonald's or Domino's cast off its virtual hairnet to gain sentience and overthrow its fast-food overlord. But fast food, along with shipping warehouses, has become a hotbed for robots and other automated technology. McDonald's has been testing ordering kiosks, Domino's has numerous ways to place an order that do not involve talking with a human being, and Starbucks has used technology to shift employees away from order taking to put them into production. It may not be a fantastic utopia where Rosie from The Jetsons does our laundry, but robot/automated technology has clearly infiltrated (潜入;渗入) fast food. (3) It's not a question of whether automation will come; it's one of whether it will make stores more efficient or allow them to get rid of human workers. Starbucks, for example, has used automation to allow it to move workers into making drinks rather than taking orders, but it has not yet cut its workforce in any meaningful way. (4) CollegeRecruiter.com's Steven Rothberg, whose company works to find jobs for students and college graduates, believes that fast-food robots are coming, but he does not think they will supplant traditional workers. "Many of the students and some of the recent grads who use our site are employed by fast food restaurants," he said. "There's no doubt that automation will continue to impact the number and types of jobs in fast food restaurants but I don't buy the argument that automated methods will replace human workers in fast food restaurants. Just look at banks. Have ATMs reduced the need for human tellers? Absolutely. But have ATMs come close to eliminating the need for human tellers? Absolutely not." (5) Timothy Carone, an IT professor, believes that automation will happen in restaurants, but not quickly or necessarily to the detriment (伤害;危害) of flesh-and-blood workers. The professor does believe that the path toward robot workers will be a slow one. He said that the idea that restaurants are automating due to labor costs is only partially true. (6) "Automation would occur at much lower labor costs than exist today or in the future but automation costs money," he said, noting that the expense will lower over time. "Whether a restaurant becomes partially or fully automated should depend on its customers and locations. Fast-food franchises located anywhere are finding their customers value automation. Restaurants at airports or similar locations that provide a captive audience but no loyalty except for brand loyalty will find automation necessary and valued by customers—faster is better." (7) Donald Mazzela, a board member of the nonprofit National Robotics Education Foundation, said his group has been looking at the issue of robots in restaurants for three years, noting that robotic interaction is being taught in culinary (厨房的;烹调用的) and hospitality courses throughout the world. "In our latest study, we estimate the average fast food establishment will switch 1.2 workers from counter service to other tasks as remote order taking, delivery by robotic applications grow," he wrote. (8) He expects the tipping point will be by 2020. The industry, he explained, needs time to educate customers, but that will happen, he said, because the benefits are simply too strong. He cited machines counting change, sensors, and other tools making inventory (库存;清单) more precise and the ability to relay orders directly to the prep area as a way to decrease waste. It's going to be a gradual change, but it's going to happen, Mazzela wrote. (9) A change is coming and Fred Goff, CEO of Jobcase, a social media platform helping workers without college degrees find meaningful jobs, believes workers should embrace it. He said that robots will perform some jobs typically done by humans, but that will also create opportunity for flesh-and-blood workers. "Concerns about technology displacing jobs has been a constant Luddite theme throughout the Information Revolution, and in fact since the Industrial Revolution," he wrote. Goff explained in his email that in a broad sense technology tends to create more opportunity than it displaces. (10) "It is not to be feared, but it must be managed," he wrote. "The challenge—and opportunity—for workers is for people to take control of their own work-life and navigate the positive impacts so that they aren't overwhelmed by the negative impacts of technological progress. Keep open to change and keep moving forward."1. The nurses prepared flowers and books in order to ______. (Passage One)