单选题 Many Americans regard the jury system as a concrete expression of crucial democratic values, including the principles that all citizens who meet minimal qualifications of age and literacy are equally competent to serve on juries; that jurors should be selected randomly from a representative cross section of the community; that no citizen should be denied the right to serve on a jury on account of race, religion, sex, or national origin; that defendants are entitled to trial by their peers; and that verdicts should represent the conscience of the community and not just the letter of the taw. The jury is also said to be the best surviving example of direct rather than representative democracy. In a direct democracy, citizens take turns governing themselves, rather than electing representatives to govern for them.
But as recently as in 1968, jury selection procedures conflicted with these democratic ideals. In some states, for example, jury duty was limited to persons of supposedly superior intelligence, education, and moral character. Although the Supreme Court of the United States had prohibited intentional racial discrimination in jury selection as early as the 1880 case of Strauder v. West Virginia, the practice of selecting so-called elite or blue-ribbon juries provided a convenient way around this and other antidiscrimination laws.
The system also failed to regularly include women on juries until the mid-20th century. Although women first served on state juries in Utah in 1898, it was not until the 1940s that a majority of states made women eligible for jury duty. Even then several states automatically exempted women from jury duty unless they personally asked to have their names included on the jury list. This practice was justified by the claim that women were needed at home, and it kept juries unrepresentative of women through the 1960s.
In 1968, the Congress of the United States passed the Jury Selection and Service Act, ushering in a new era of democratic reforms for the jury. This law abolished special educational requirements for federal jurors and required them to be selected at random from a cross section of the entire community. In the landmark 1975 decision Taylor v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court extended the requirement that juries be representative of all parts of the community to the state level. The Taylor decision also declared sex discrimination in jury selection to be unconstitutional and ordered states to use the same procedures for selecting male and female jurors.

单选题 From the principles of the US jury system, we learn that ______

单选题 The practice of selecting so-called elite jurors prior to 1968 showed ______

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 这个答案表达的意思实际上是第二段的主题。
第二段第一句提到，1968年的陪审团选择程序，与第一段中提到的那些民主理想是相冲突的。本段下文作者举例提到，在陪审员的选择上，有些州绕开反歧视法的禁令，只选择所谓精英和蓝带陪审员，这当然是违背第一段提到的以人人平等为基本价值观的陪审员选择原则。在这个句子中，blue-ribbon意为carefully or specially selected(精心或专门挑选的)。
A：第二段提到，美国最高法院在1880年就制定了反歧视法，本文并没有提到它有什么样的漏洞或不足。
B：文章没有特意提到在陪审员的选择上对哪些种族的歧视。

单选题 Even in the 1960s, women were seldom on the jury list in some states because ______

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 第三段提到，直到20世纪60年代，在陪审员的选择上也歧视妇女，本段最后一句提到，妇女受歧视是因为有些人认为women were needed at home，即妇女应该留在家里多干家务活儿，照料好丈夫和子女。
A：第三段中提到的automatically exempted women from jury duty unless...是说：如果妇女不主动要求进入陪审员的候选人名单，那么法庭在选择陪审员时就不考虑她们——她们被自动免除了做陪审员的义务。在美国，做陪审员本来是一种义务，任何一个符合条件和资格的人都有义务承担陪审员的责任。进入陪审团不是靠个人报名申请的。因此，某些州的这种做法显然是歧视妇女。

单选题 After the Jury Selection and Service Act was passed, ______

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 最后一段提到，1968年美国国会通过了《陪审员选择和服务法》，取缔了对联邦陪审员的特殊的教育要求。该法要求，联邦陪审员必须从整个社会有代表性的人群中随机选出。在1975年Taylor案件的裁决中，最高法院又把这一要求(指上一句提到required them to be...community)扩展到州一级陪审员的选择上。在本段中，第二句中的a cross section指a typical or representative sample of a larger group of people：(一大群人中典型的或有代表性的一部分人)。
A：最后一段最后一句告诉我们，到1975年的Taylor案时才裁定陪审员选择上的性别歧视违宪。
B：最后一段第二句中用的abolished special educational requirements for federal jurors是说取缔了对联邦陪审员的特殊的教育要求，这与说“教育的要求变得不再那么僵化”不是一个意思。说某个人或某件事“僵化”，是说缺乏“灵活性”，不能随机凋整策略或处理问题。