单选题 Wild Bill Donovan would have loved the Internet. The American spymaster who built the Office of Strategic Services in the World War II and later laid the roots for the CIA was fascinated with information. Donovan believed in using whatever tools came to hand in the "great game" of espionage—spying as a "profession. " These days the Net, which has already re-made such everyday pastimes as buying books and sending mail, is reshaping Donovan"s vocation as well.
The latest revolution isn"t simply a matter of gentlemen reading other gentlemen"s e-mail. That kind of electronic spying has been going on for decades. In the past three or four years, the World Wide Web has given birth to a whole industry of point-and-click spying. The spooks call it "open-source intelligence," and as the Net grows, it is becoming increasingly influential. In 1995 the CIA held a contest to see who could compile the most data about Burundi. The winner, by a large margin, was a tiny Virginia company called Open Source Solutions, whose clear advantage was its mastery of the electronic world.
Among the firms making the biggest splash in this new world is Straitford, Inc., a private intelligence-analysis firm based in Austin, Texas. Straitford makes money by selling the results of spying (covering nations from Chile to Russia) to corporations like energy-services firm McDermott International. Many of its predictions are available online at www. straitford. com.
Straitford president George Friedman says he sees the online world as a kind of mutually reinforcing tool for both information collection and distribution, a spymaster"s dream. Last week his firm was busy vacuuming up data bits from the far corners of the world and predicting a crisis in Ukraine. "As soon as that report runs, we"ll suddenly get 500 new Internet sign-ups from Ukraine," says Friedman, a former political science professor. "And we"ll hear back from some of them. " Open-source spying does have its risks, of course, since it can be difficult to tell good information from bad. That"s where Straitford earns its keep.
Friedman relies on a lean staff of 20 in Austin. Several of his staff members have military- intelligence backgrounds. He sees the farm"s outsider status as the key to its success. Straitford"s briefs don"t sound like the usual Washington back-and-forthing, whereby agencies avoid dramatic declarations on the chance they might be wrong. Straitford, says Friedman, takes pride in its independent voice.

单选题 The emergence of the Net has ______.

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。利用定位关键词可以定位到第一段，特别是最后一句话“These days the Net, which has re-made such everyday pastimes as buying books and sending mail, is reshaping Donovan"s vocation as well”，即“如今，互联网已经改变了买书和寄信这样的日常活动，也正在改变Donovan曾经从事的这个职业”，所以选项B(改变了情报行业)为正确答案，其中“Donovan"s vocation”指的就是“spying”，也就是“intelligence services”(情报行业)，而原文中的reshaping(改造)与选项中的remold(改造)为同义改写。

单选题 Donovan"s story is mentioned in the text to ______.

单选题 The phrase "making the biggest splash" (Line 1, Paragraph 3 ) most probably means ______.

单选题 It can be learned from Paragraph 4 that ______.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。第四段主要讲的是Friedman将互联网作为一个双向的工具，既用来收集信息，又用来发布信息，然后以乌克兰的例子说明网络互动的实际作用，因此答案为选项D(Straitford 可以提供非常可靠的信息)。选项B(Straitford公司保证信息的真实性)迷惑性较大，根据第四段最后一句可知利用互联网收集情报是有风险的，因为情报的真伪难辨，而Straitford公司就是靠辨别真伪情报吃饭的，因此从这两句话中可以知道，Straitford公司能提供相当可靠的情报，但没有保证情报百分之百准确，所以B的说法太绝对。

单选题 Straitford is most proud of its ______.

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。利用定位关键词可以定位到最后一句话“Straitford, says Friedman, takes pride in its independent voice.”，即“Straitford公司引以为豪的是其独立的立场”，由此可知与其他公司不同，Straitford公司避免被外界左右，因而选项B(不顺从的形象)与原文信息一致，其中原文的“take pride in”与题干的“be proud of”为同义改写，而原文的“independent voice"’与选项的“nonconformist image”为同义改写；其他三个选项A(官方的地位)、C(高效的员工)和D(军队的背景)或没有说到点子上或缺乏依据，都是错误的。