单选题
There are countless parents who will not allow their
children to play violent video games, in which players are able to kill, maim,
dismember or sexually assault human images in depraved ways. The video game
industry rates them, and some stores use that rating to decide whether to sell a
particular game to a minor. But California went too far in 2005
when it made it illegal to sell violent video games to minors. Retailers
challenged the law, and a federal appeals court rightly ruled that it violates
the First Amendment. Last week, the Supreme Court said that it would review that
decision. We hope it agrees that the law is unconstitutional. California's law
imposes fines of up to $1,000 on retailers that sell violent video games to
anyone under 18. To qualify, a game must, as a whole, lack serious literary,
artistic, political or scientific value for minors. But video
games are a form of free expression. Many have elaborate plots and characters,
often drawn from fiction or history. The California law is a content-based
restriction, something that is presumed invalid under the First Amendment. The
Supreme Court has made it clear that minors have First Amendment rights.
California has tried to lower the constitutional standard for upholding the law
by comparing it to "variable obscenity," a First Amendment principle that allows
banning the sale of some sexually explicit materials to minors that cannot be
banned for adults. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in
San Francisco, like other federal courts, rightly refused to extend that
doctrine to violent games. Under traditional First Amendment
analysis, content-based speech restrictions can survive only if they are
narrowly tailored to promote a compelling government interest. California says
its interest is in preventing psychological or neurological damage to young
people. The appeals court concluded that the evidence connecting violent video
games to this sort of damage is too weak to make restricting the games a
compelling government interest. Even if the interest were
legitimate, the state could have used less restrictive methods. The video game
industry, like the movie business, has a voluntary rating system that provides
buyers and sellers with information on the content of specific games, including
age-specific ratings, ranging from "early childhood" to "adults only. " The
government could do more to promote the use of voluntary ratings by retailers
and parents. California lawmakers may have been right when they
decided that video games in which players kill and maim are not the most
socially beneficial form of expression. The Constitution, however, does not
require speech to be ideal for it to be protected.
单选题
The "decision" in the second paragraph refers to
A. the decision reached by retailers.
B. the decision about the rating of a game.
C. the ruling reached by the federal appeals court.
D. the ban imposed on violent games by California's law.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】第二段第三句中的that decision显然只能指第二句中提到的裁决。在第二句中，rule的意思是“裁决，裁定”。在第三句中，review也是一个法律词语，意为submit(a sentence，case，etc.)for reconsideration by a higher court or authority(把某个判决、案件等提交上一级法庭或权力机构复审)。
单选题
What is essentially wrong with California's law?
A. It treated video games as literature and art.
B. It opposes the political and scientific value of video games.
C. It places too little trust in voluntary rating.
D. It attempts to restrict the content of the games.