单选题 One of the areas in which people tend to have ideas that don't make sense is that of rights. For example, many Americans believe that our rights, described in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, derive from God or from the very nature of being human, including the individual right to bear arms. Yet people in most law-governed democracies other than the United States do not have an individual right to bear arms. How, then, can the right to bear arms derive from God? Is this a special right that can be created by the people via government?
It is claimed that we can trace the right to be armed to legal and political events in 17th century English history, this time relating to hunting and gaming laws. How does a fundamental natural right lie sleeping throughout the first 6,000 years of recorded history, only to wake to full flower due to conflicts over gaming laws in Restoration England? In the mid-1980s, the idea that people have a right to have consensual sex with partners of any gender was pronounced "joking inappropriately" by the Supreme Court; 25 years later it feels like an obvious, natural outgrowth of the Bill of Rights. If rights evolve this way through the dialectics of culture and history, just how "natural" can they be?
Such are the idle thoughts that occur {{U}}in the wake of{{/U}} America's latest episode of horrifying, meaningless mass slaughter. A large segment of the American public these days apparently finds it offensive to talk about gun control after these sorts of cruelty occur. As economist Mr. Wolfers said: "Let's not talk about gun control. It's too early, right? It's always too early. Except when it's too late."
Mr. Wolfers is right: the "too early" construction is ridiculous. The only thing that is certain now is that gun control is uncertain in America. It's never going to happen. There are too many guns out there, and an individual right to bear arms is now established in constitutional law. So this is just what one of America's many faces is going to be: a bitterly divided, hatefully cynical country where insane people have easy access to semi-automatic weapons and occasionally use them to commit crime. We will continue to see more and more of this sort of thing, and there's nothing we can realistically do about it.
单选题 The author begins by arguing that Americans' right to bear arms ______.
  • A. is stipulated in the Constitution
  • B. has been created by individuals
  • C. has nothing to do with God
  • D. is not to be doubted
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】第一段第三句说：在不包括美国在内的多数法制民主国家中，不存在个人持枪权。如果说持枪权是上帝赋予的，那么这种权利就不应受国界的限制，而是共享的。既然很多国家的人不享受持枪权，这就说明与上帝无关。
单选题 The Supreme Court is mentioned in Paragraph 2 to ______.
  • A. confirm the validity of gun ownership by individuals
  • B. argue that the right to bear arms is by no means natural
  • C. prove that gun ownership has been approved by the Court
  • D. describe the process of legislation on gun ownership
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】文章第二段首先谈到一种说法：持枪权可追溯到英国在17世纪实施的狩猎权。作者反驳说为什么在此之前的漫漫历史长河中没人关心这种权利呢?因此否定了持枪权是“自然的”。在上世纪80年代中期，美国最高法院谴责同性恋是“荒唐的”，但在25年之后却认为同性恋是人们正常享有的权利。这种“朝令夕改”的做法就表明此类权利并非是natural。
单选题 The expression "in the wake of" used in the third paragraph probably means ______.
  • A. but for
  • B. totally without
  • C. soon after
  • D. just before
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】in the wake of的意义与“醒”无关，它表示“紧随”或“在……之后”。通常的情况是先发生事件，然后人们有各种评论。
单选题 It seems to Mr. Wolfers that gun control is ______.
  • A. really too early to start
  • B. actually offensive
  • C. not necessary now
  • D. already too late
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】文章第三段最后体现了Mr. Wolfers的观点：有人总是说谈论控枪为时过早，但一旦时机错过，控枪已无可能，再说控枪就没意义了。第四段第一句也体现了作者对Mr. Wolfers观点的支持：说控枪过早是荒唐可笑的。因此，我们可以得出结论：Mr. Wolfers认为控枪已经来不及了。
单选题 It seems to the author that gun control in America is ______.
  • A. impossible
  • B. unconstitutional
  • C. time-consuming
  • D. stupid
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】文章最后一段反映了作者对于美国能否有效控枪的态度。作者用了不少文字表达自己的看法，包括It's never going to happen，...to many guns out there，...established in constitutional law，...more and more of this sort of thing, ...there's nothing we can do...about it。总结起来就是“控枪是不可能的事”。
单选题 Which of the following might be an appropriate title for this passage?
  • A. Gun Control Is Easy
  • B. Gun Ownership Is Legal
  • C. Gun Control, Too Late
  • D. No Need to Control Guns
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】既然法律规定个人可持有枪支，作者承认gun ownership is legal。文章最后一段中，作者也列举了很多理由说明控枪是不可能的，这就说明选项A不符合原文内容。由于枪支泛滥，国家就无法实现社会和谐，犯罪在所难免，就有必要控制枪支，不可能是no need。