阅读理解
Passage Two
Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.
America's recent history has been a persistent tilt to the West—of people, ideas, commerce and even political power. California and Texas are the twin poles of the West, but very different ones. For most of the 20th century the home of Silicon Valley and Hollywood has been the brainier and trendier of the two. Texas has trailed behind: its stereotype has been a conservative Christian in cowboy boots. But twins can change places. Is that happening now?
It is easy to find evidence that California is in a panic. At the start of this month the once golden state started paying creditors in IOUs（欠条）.The gap between projected outgoings and income for the current fiscal（财政的）year has leapt to a horrible $ 26 billion. With no sign of a new budget to close this gulf, one credit agency has already downgraded California’s debt. As budgets are cut, universities will let in fewer students, prisoners will be released early and schemes to protect the vulnerable will be rolled back.
By contrast, Texas has coped well with the recession, with an unemployment rate two points below the national average and one of the lowest rates of housing repossession. In part this is because Texan banks, hard hit in the last property bust, did not overexpand this time. Texas also clearly offers a different model, based on small government. It has no state capital-gains or income tax, and a business friendly and immigrant-tolerant attitude. It is home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other state.
Despite all this, it still seems too early to hand over America's future to Texas. To begin with, that lean Texan model has its own problems. It has not invested enough in education, and many experts rightly worry about a “lost generation” of mostly Hispanic Texans with insufficient skills for the demands of the knowledge economy.
Second, it has never paid to bet against a state with as many inventive people as California. Even if Hollywood has gone into depression, it still boasts an unequalled array of sunrise industries and the most brisk venture-capital industry on the planet. The state also has an awesome ability to reinvent itself—as it did when its defence industry collapsed at the end of the cold war.
The truth is that both states could learn from each other. Texas still lacks California's great universities and lags in terms of culture. California could adopt not just Texas’s leaner state, but also its more bipartisan（两党的）approach to politics. There is no perfect model of government: it is America’s genius to have 50 public-policy laboratories competing to find out what works best.
单选题
What does the author say about California and Texas in Paragraph 1?
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】首段指出，加利福尼亚州和得克萨斯州是西部的两大支柱，但二者又非常不同，第3句则指出了这种不同之处：在20世纪的大部分时间里，坐拥硅谷和好莱坞的加州一直是二者当中的出谋划策者和潮流指向标 得州则落在后面，故答案为B)。其中的superior to Texas是对Texas...trailed behind的同义转述。
单选题
What does the author say about today's California?
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】第2段首句概括指出加利福尼亚州现在正处于痛苦之中，下文进行了具体解释：预算支出和收入之间的差距达到260亿美元，但仍然没有新的预算来缩小这一差距再结合第3段首句中的Texas has coped well with the recession可知，加州出现这些问题是由经济衰退引起的，故答案为C)。其中的financial crisis是对recession的同义转述。
单选题
In what way is Texas different from California?