阅读理解The author's attitude toward the court's ruling is_____

阅读理解 CORNELL'S SUICIDE PROBLEM. That's the description that broadcasted across the bottom of CNN during this morning's segment about the university installing fences to prevent people from jumping into the gap. Actually, CNN, it's not a suicide problem so much as a media problem—a problem stemming from outlets like yours that are quick to spread the myth that Cornell is the 'suicide school'. The New York Times is guilty, too. After the third Cornell suicide in less than a month, the Times ran a front-page story that said the university was on 'high alert about the mental health of its students' and that the recent deaths 'have cast a golly atmosphere over the university and renewed talk of Cornell's reputation—unsup-ported, say officials—as a high-stress 'suicide school''. But it's not until deep into the jump, on April 25th, that the article addresses the actual statistics, which indicate that Cornell's rate of suicides is no higher than the national average for a university of that size (about two a year). Other high-pressure colleges have more troubling numbers to contend with. MIT's suicide rate since 1964, when the university started keeping track, is about 14.6 per 100,000 students, according to an article in MIT's student newspaper, The Tech, compared to about 4.3 per 100,000 over the same time period at Cornell. And although the recent concentration of Cornell suicides is tragic and remarkable, it comes on the heels of four years without a single one. But the suicide-free years don't make headlines; jumpers do. Granted, I'm a proud Cornell alumna, so I'm particularly sensitive about these misconceptions. But I like to think I'm relatively objective about my alma mater. Cornell suicides, when they occur, tend to be dramatic. They get national media attention with frightening images like the ones CNN was flashing today of guys in uniforms watching the campus bridges. The idea of a stressed-out undergraduate throwing himself into a deep gap—it's frightening, and it stays with you. So much so that you probably remember it as more exaggerated a problem than it actually is. Individuals can't be faulted for that—our brains do funny things with unreliable evidence. But media outlets are different, and should be found at fault when they fan these misconceptions.

阅读理解Text 4 From the early days of broadband, advocates for consumers and web-based companies worried that the cable and phone companies selling broadband internet connections had the power and incentive to favor their own or their partners websites and services over those of their rivals

阅读理解Scattered around the globe are more than 100 small regions of isolated volcanic activity known to geologists as hot spots. Unlike most of the world''s volcanoes, they are not always found at the boundaries of the great drifting plates that make up the earth''s surface; on the contrary, many of them lie deep in the interior of a plate. Most of the hot spots move only slowly, and in some cases the movement of the plates past them has left trails of dead volcanoes. The hot spots and their volcanic trails are milestones that mark the passage of the plates. 　　That the plates are moving is now beyond dispute. Africa and South America, for example, are moving away from each other as new material is injected into the seafloor between them. The complementary coastlines and certain geological features that seem to span the ocean are reminders of where the two continents were once joined. The relative motion of the plates carrying these continents has been constructed in detail, but the motion of one plate with respect to another cannot readily be translated into motion with respect to the earth''s interior. It is not possible to determine whether both continents are moving in opposite directions or whether one continent is stationary and the other is drifting away from it. Hot spots, anchored in the deeper layers of the earth, provide the measuring instruments needed to resolve the question. From an analysis of the hot-spot population it appears that the African plate is stationary and that it has not moved during the past 30 million years. 　　The significance of hot spots is not confined to their role as a frame of reference. It now appears that they also have an important influence on the geophysical processes that propel the plates across the globe. When a continental plate comes to rest over a hot spot, the material rising from deeper layers creates a broad dome. As the dome grows, it develops deep fissures (cracks) : in at least a few cases the continent may break entirely along some of these fissures, so that the hot spot initiates the formation of new ocean. Thus just as earlier theories have explained the mobility of the continents, so hot spots may explain their mutability( inconstancy ).

阅读理解 Of all the changes that have taken place in English-language newspapers during the past quarter-century, perhaps the most far-reaching has been the inexorable decline in the scope and seriousness of their arts coverage. It is difficult to the point of impossibility for the average reader under the age of forty to imagine a time when high-quality arts criticism could be found in most big-city newspapers. Yet a considerable number of the most significant collections of criticism published in the 20th century consisted in large part of newspaper reviews. To read such books today is to marvel at the fact that their learned contents were once deemed suitable for publication in general-circulation dailies. We are even farther removed from the unfocused newspaper reviews published in England between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of World War 2, at a time when newsprint was dirt-cheap and stylish arts criticism was considered an ornament to the Publications in which it appeared. In those far-off days, it was taken for granted that the critics of major papers would write in detail and at length about the events they covered. Theirs was a serious business, and even those reviews who wore their learning lightly, like George Bernard Shaw and Ernest Newman, could be trusted to know what they were about. These men believed in journalism as a calling, and were proud to be published in the daily press. 'So few authors have brains enough or literary gift enough to keep their own end up in journalism,' Newman wrote, 'that I am tempted to define 'journalism' as 'a term of contempt applied by writers who are not read to writers who are'.' Unfortunately, these critics are virtually forgotten. Neville Cardus, who wrote for the Manchester Guardian from 1917 until shortly before his death in 1975, is now known solely as a writer of essays on the game of cricket. During his lifetime, though, he was also one of England's foremost classical-music critics, and a stylist so widely admired that his Autobiography (1947) became a best-seller. He was knighted in 1967, the first music critic to be so honored. Yet only one of his books is now in print, and his vast body of writings on music is unknown save to specialists. Is there any chance that Cardus's criticism will enjoy a revival? The prospect seems remote. Journalistic tastes had changed long before his death, and postmodern readers have little use for the richly upholstered Vicwardian prose in which he specialized. Moreover, the amateur tradition in music criticism has been in headlong retreat.

阅读理解Science is an enterprise concerned with gaining information about causality, or the relationship between cause and effect. A simple example of a cause is the movement of a paddle as it strikes a ping-pong ball; the effect is the movement of the ball through the air. In psychology and other sciences, the word "cause" is often replaced by the term "independent variable". This term implies that the experimenter is often "free" to vary the independent variable as he or she desires (for example, the experimenter can control the speed of the paddle as it strikes the ball). The term "dependent variable" replaces the word "effect", and this term is used because the effect depends on some characteristic of the independent variable (the flight of the ball depends on the speed of the paddle). The conventions of science demand that both the independent and dependent variables be observable events, as is the case in the ping-pong example. In the case of biorhythm theory, the independent variable is the number of days that have elapsed between a person''s date of birth and some test day. The dependent variable is the person''s level of performance on some specified task on the test day. Notice that although the experimenter is not free to choose a birthday for a given individual, persons with different dates of birth can be tested on the same day, or a single subject can be tested on several different days. 　　In order to predict the relationship between independent and dependent variables, many scientific theories make use of what are called intervening variables. Intervening variables are purely theoretical concepts that cannot be observed directly. To predict the flight of a ping-pong ball, Newtonian physics relies on a number of intervening variables, including force, mass, air resistance, and gravity. You can probably anticipate that the intervening variables of biorhythm theory are the three bodily cycles with their specified time periods. It should be emphasized that not all psychological theories include intervening variables, and some psychologists object to their use precisely because they are not directly observable. 　　The final major component of a scientific theory is its syntax, or the rules and definitions that state how the independent and dependent variables are to be measured, and that specify the relationships among independent variables, intervening variables, and dependent variables. It is the syntax of biorhythm theory that describes how to use a person''s birthday to calculate the current status of the three cycles. The syntax also relates the cycles to the dependent variable, performance, by stating that positive cycles should cause high levels of performance whereas low or critical cycles should cause low performance levels. To summarize, the components of a scientific theory can be divided into four major categories: independent variables, dependent variables, intervening variables, and syntax.

阅读理解Why do so many Americans distrust what they read in their newspapers? The American Society of Newspaper Editors is trying to answer this painful question. The organization is deep into a long self-analysis known as the journalism credibility project. Sad to say, this project has turned out to be mostly low-level findings about factual errors and spelling and grammar mistakes, combined with lots of head-scratching puzzlement about what in the world those readers really want. But the sources of distrust go way deeper. Most journalists learn to see the world through a set of standard templates (patterns) into which they plug each day'' s events. In other words, there is a conventional story line in the newsroom culture that provides a backbone and a ready-made narrative structure for otherwise confusing news. There exists a social and cultural disconnect between journalists and their readers, which helps explain why the "standard templates" of the newsroom seem alien to many readers. In a recent survey, questionnaires were sent to reporters in five middle-size cities around the country, plus one large metropolitan area. Then residents in these communities were phoned at random and asked the same questions. Replies show that compared with other Americans, journalists are more likely to live in upscale neighborhoods,have maids, own Mercedeses, and trade stocks, and they'' re less likely to go to church, do volunteer work, or put down roots in a community. Reporters tend to be part of a broadly defined social and cultural elite, so their work tends to reflect the conventional values of this elite. The astonishing distrust of the news media isn'' t rooted in inaccuracy or poor reportorial skills but in the daily clash of world views between reporters and their readers. This is an explosive situation for any industry, particularly a declining one. Here is a troubled business that keeps hiring employees whose attitudes vastly annoy the customers. Then it sponsors lots of symposiums and a credibility project dedicated to wondering why customers are annoyed and fleeing in large numbers. But it never seems to get around to noticing the cultural and class biases that so many former buyers are complaining about. If it did, it would open up its diversity program, now focused narrowly on race and gender, and look for reporters who differ broadly by outlook, values, education, and class.

阅读理解The classic difficulty felt with democracy arises from the fact that democracy can never express the will of the whole people because there never exists any such unchanging will (at least in any society that call itself democratic). The concept of government of the whole people by the whole people must be looked on as being in the poetry rather than in the prose of democracy; the fact of prose is that real democracy means government by some kind of dominant majority. 　　And the ever-present danger, repeatedly realized in fact, is that this dominant majority may behave toward those who are not of the majority in such a manner as to undermine the moral basis of the right of people, because they are people, to have some important say in the setting of their own course and in the use of their own faculties. Other forms of government may similarly fail to respect human independence. But there is at least no contradiction in that; the underlying assumption of every kind of government by wisers and betters is that people on the whole are not fit to manage their own affairs, but must have someone else do it for them, and there is no paradox when such a government treats its subjects without respect, or deals with them on the basis of their having no rights that the government must take into account. 　　But democracy affirms that people are fit to control themselves, and it cannot live in the same air with the theory that there is no limit to the extent to which public power--even the power of a majority--can interfere with the lives of people. 　　Rational limitation on power is therefore not a contradiction to democracy, but is of the very essence of democracy as such. Other sorts of government may impose such limitations on themselves as an act of grace. Democracy is under the moral duty of limiting itself because such limitation is essential to the survival of that respect for humankind which is in the foundations of democracy. Respect for the freedom of all people cannot, of course, be the only guide, for there would then be no government. Delicate ongoing compromise is what must be looked for. But democracy, unless it is to deny its own moral basis, must accept the necessity for making this compromise and for giving real weight to the claims of those without the presently effective political power to make their claims prevail in elections

阅读理解To paraphrase 18th-century statesman Edmund Burke, "all that is needed for the triumph of a misguided cause is that good people do nothing." One such cause now seeks to end biomedical research because of the theory that animals have rights ruling out their use in research. Scientists need to respond forcefully to animal rights advocates, whose arguments are confusing the public and thereby threatening advances in health knowledge and care. Leaders of the animal rights movement target biomedical research because it depends on public funding, and few people understand the process of health care research. Hearing allegations of cruelty to animals in research settings, many are perplexed that anyone would deliberately harm an animal. For example, a grandmotherly woman staffing an animal rights booth at a recent street fair was distributing a brochure that encouraged readers not to use anything that comes from or is tested in animals―no meat, no fur, no medicines. Asked if she opposed immunizations, she wanted to know if vaccines come from animal research. When assured that they do, she replied," Then I would have to say yes. "Asked what will happen when epidemics return, she said, "Don'' t worry, scientists will find some way of using computers. "Such well-meaning people just don'' t understand. Scientists must communicate their message to the public in a compassionate, understandable way--in human terms, not in the language of molecular biology. We need to make clear the connection between animal research and a grandmother'' s hip replacement, a father'' s bypass operation, a baby'' s vaccinations, and even a pet'' s shots. To those who are unaware that animal research was needed to produce these treatments, as well as new treatments and vaccines, animal research seems wasteful at best and cruel at worst. Much can be done. Scientists could" adopt" middle school classes and present their own research. They should be quick to respond to letters to the editor, lest animal rights misinformation go unchallenged and acquire a deceptive appearance of truth. Research institutions could be opened to tours, to show that laboratory animals receive humane care. Finally, because the ultimate stakeholders are patients, the health research community should actively recruit to its cause not only well-known personalities such as Stephen Cooper, who has made courageous statements about the value of animal research, but all who receive medical treatment. If good people do nothing, there is a real possibility that an uninformed citizenry, will extinguish the precious embers of medical progress.

阅读理解 Americans don't like to lose wars. Of course, a lot depends on how you define just what a war is. There are shooting wars—the kind that test patriotism and courage—and those are the kind at which the U.S. excels. But other struggles test those qualities too. What else was the Great Depression or the space race or the construction of the railroads? If American indulge in a bit of flag—when the job is done, they earned it. Now there is a similar challenge—global warming. The steady deterioration of the very climate of this very planet is becoming a war of the first order, and by any measure, the U.S. is losing. Indeed, if America is figting at all, it's fighting on the wrong side. The U.S. produces nearly a quarter of the world's green-house gases each year and has stubbornly made it clear that it doesn't intend to do a whole lot about it. Although 174 nations approved the admittedly flawed Kyoto accords to reduce carbon levels, the U.S. walked away from them. There are vague promises of manufacturing fuel from herbs or powering cars with hydrogen. But for a country that tightly cites patriotism as one of its core values, the U.S. is taking a pass on what might be the most patriotic struggle of all. It's hard to imagine a bigger fight than one for the survival of a country's coasts and farms, the health of its people and stability of its economy. The rub is, if the vast majority of people increasingly agree that climate change is a global emergency, there's far less agreement on how to fix it. Industry offers its plans, which too often would fix little. Environmentalists offer theirs, which too often amount to native wish lists that could weaken America's growth. But let's assume that those interested parties and others will always bent the table and will always demand that their voices be heard and that their needs be addressed. What would an aggressive, ambitious, effective plan look like—one that would leave the U.S. both environmentally safe and economically sound? Halting climate change will be far harder. One of the more conservative plans for addressing the problem calls for a reduction of 25 billion tons of carbon emissions over the next 52 years. And yet by devising a consistent strategy that mixes short-time profit with long-range objective and blends pragmatism with ambition, the U.S. can, without major damage to the economy, help halt the worst effects of climate change and ensure the survival of its way of life for future generations. Money will do some of the work, but what's needed most is will. 'I'm not saying the challenge isn't almnost overwhelming,' says Fred Krupp. 'But this is America, and America has risen to these challenges before.'

阅读理解 If you want to know why Denmark is the world' s leader in wind power, start with a three-hour car trip from the capital Copenhagen to the small town of Lem on the far west coast of Jutland. You'll feel it as you cross the 6.8 km-long Great Belt Bridge: Denmark's bountiful wind, so fierce. But wind itself is only part of the reason. In Lem, workers in factories the size of aircraft hangars build the wind turbines. Most impressive are the turbine's blades, which scoop the wind with each sweeping revolution. But technology, like the wind itself, is just one more part of the reason for Denmark's dominance. In the end, it happened because Denmark had the political and public will to decide that it wanted to be a leader—and to follow through. Beginning in 1979, the government began a determined programme of subsidies and loan guarantees to build up its wind industry. It also mandated that utilities purchase wind energy at a preferential price—thus guaranteeing investors a customer base. As a result, wind turbines now dot Denmark. The country gets more than 19% of its electricity from the breeze and Danish companies control one-third of the global wind market, earning billions in exports and creating a national champion from scratch. The challenge now for Denmark is to help the rest of the world catch up. With Copenhagen set to host all-important U.N. climate change talks in December—where the world hopes for a successor to the expiring Kyoto Protocol, Denmark's example couldn't be more timely. 'We'll try to make Denmark a showroom,' says Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. 'You can reduce energy use and carbon emissions, and achieve economic growth.' It' s tempting to assume that Denmark is innately green, but the country's policies were actually born from a different emotion, one now in common currency: fear. When the 1973 oil crisis hit, 90% of Denmark's energy came from petroleum, almost all of it imported. Denmark launched a rapid drive for energy conservation. Eventually the Danes themselves began enjoying the benefits of the petroleum and natural gas in their slice of the North Sea. It was enough to make them more than self-sufficient. But Denmark never forgot the lessons of 1973, and kept driving for greater energy efficiency and a more diversified energy supply. To the rest of the world, Denmark has the power of its example, showing that you can stay rich and grow green at the same time. 'Denmark has proven that acting on climate can be a positive experience, not just painful.' says NRDC's Schmidt.

阅读理解 Since the Nov.4 election, investors have been abandoning stocks in a kind of slow-motion crash that experts say underlines just how anxious they are about what is likely to be a long and deep recession. Even after a late-day rally on Friday, the benchmark Standard Poor's 500 index has plunged 20 percent since the election. That more than wiped out the index's 18 percent gain in the six trading days ahead of the balloting as optimism grew that Barack Obama would be elected president. Analysts aren't blaming Obama specifically for the post-election hangover. Rather, they peg it to growing fears that the Bush Administration and Congress are fumbling the $ 700 billion bailout plan and the weakened economy's impact on financial stocks—highlighted by the plunge in shares of Citigroup Inc. to below $ 4 a share. 'You can almost hear people yelling, 'Get me out at any price, ' ' said Al Goodman, chief market strategist at Wachovia Securities. 'It's the highest level of fear and depression in my 45 years as a student of the market.' Market experts define a crash as a decline of 20 percent over a single day or several days. Over seven trading days that ended Oct.9, the Dow lost 22 percent. This month, the SP 500 skidded more than 25 percent in the 12 trading days after the election before a bounceback on Friday narrowed the loss to 20 percent. All told, stocks have lost a stunning $ 2.6 trillion since Nov.4, as measured by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index, which reflects the value of nearly all U.S. stocks. The Friday afternoon news that Obama is likely to choose Timothy Geithner, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, to be the next Treasury secretary helped spark a rally that sent the Dow Jones industrial average surging almost 500 points. Geithner has worked closely with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke this year as the government seized control of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and insurer American International Group Inc. But analysts say it would be a mistake to say Friday's market reversal marks an end to the carnage that has wiped out 45.8 percent of the value of the SP 500 index since the start of the year. 'I don't think anyone can say we've reached the bottom yet, ' said Chuck Gabriel, managing director of Capital Alpha Partners in Washington. 'It's going to be a very gloomy Christmas.' Kim Caughey, equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh, said that 'for investors to get more confidence, we need to know details' of the new administration's plans to handle the crisis.' There's been a vacuum of leadership' she added, ' and when that happens, you get fear and rumors, and then people sell.'

阅读理解 By 2012, transcontinental freight traffic will have risen 50 percent as a result of European expansion and much of that will have to cross the enormous obstacle of the Alps. Right now the only practical way for most heavy traffic to get through is by truck and tunnel. And while that could change if safer and cleaner rail lines were opened, the chances are that they won't happen anytime soon. Several private trucking companies have adapted quickly and creatively to the demands of European unification. Some of the bigger truckers trace cargoes with the GPS and sophisticated computers. And if trucks also bring more road hazards and pollution, at present there is no alternative. Right now only 10 percent of European merchandise moves by rail, compared with more than 45 percent in the United States. Delays are so common that the average speed for freight is about 18 km an hour. The railways have had trouble passing a heritage of national resistance and open warfare between Europe's countries. The result is what another European Commission report calls 'a mosaic of badly interconnected national systems'. Language barriers remain a problem, requiring crew changes at some borders. Switching systems and signals differ. And efficiency is more of a dream than a goal. Europe's railroads still have to deal with 'phantom trains' that run so late that they combine with others and disappear from the railroad's records. In an era when many companies depend on a 'just-in time' inventories to make a profit, railroads are rarely on time at all. Yet there is little official enthusiasm for changing the system, the reality is that governments have helped create the imbalance between road and rail in Europe—and government action will likely be needed to fix it. The French emphasis on using rail to move people instead of goods, for instance, has helped cripple freight service. 'All the investments went to passenger traffic,' says Denis Doute, director of freight services for the French rail company SNCF. Freight trains have had to find 'windows' to run in between passenger trains, unlike those in the United States, which often travel on separate tracks. The further development of the freight network requires massive investments to modernize existing infrastructure and open new ones. However, the political will to fund that kind of investment is lacking, which means the citizens will have to hold their noses for a while longer.

阅读理解 'There is one and only one social responsibility of business,' wrote Milton Friedman, a Nobel prize-winning economist, 'That is, to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.' But even if you accept Friedman's premise and regard corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies as a waste of shareholders' money, things may not be absolutely clear-cut. New research suggests that CSR may create monetary value for companies—at least when they are prosecuted for corruption. The largest firms in America and Britain together spend more than $15 billion a year on CSR, according to an estimate by EPG, a consulting firm. This could add value to their businesses in three ways. First, consumers may take CSR spending as a 'signal' that a company's products are of high quality. Second, customers may be willing to buy a company's products as an indirect way to donate to the good causes it helps. And third, through a more diffuse 'halo effect,' whereby its good deeds earn it greater consideration from consumers and others. Previous studies on CSR have had trouble differentiating these effects because consumers can be affected by all three. A recent study attempts to separate them by looking at bribery prosecutions under America's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). It argues that since prosecutors do not consume a company's products as part of their investigations, they could be influenced only by the halo effect. The study found that, among prosecuted firms, those with the most comprehensive CSR programmes tended to get more lenient penalties. Their analysis ruled out the possibility that it was firms' political influence, rather than their CSR stand, that accounted for the leniency: Companies that contributed more to political campaigns did not receive lower fines. In all, the study concludes that whereas prosecutors should only evaluate a case based on its merits, they do seem to be influenced by a company's record in CSR. 'We estimate that either eliminating a substantial labour-rights concern, such as child labour, or increasing corporate giving by about 20% results in fines that generally are 40% lower than the typical punishment for bribing foreign officials,' says one researcher. Researchers admit that their study does not answer the question of how much businesses ought to spend on CSR. Nor does it reveal how much companies are banking on the halo effect, rather than the other possible benefits, when they decide their do-gooding policies. But at least they have demonstrated that when companies get into trouble with the law, evidence of good character can win them a less costly punishment.

阅读理解To which of the following would the author most probably agree?

阅读理解 In the last ten years, the Internet has opened up incredible amounts of information to ordinary citizens. But using the Internet can be like walking into a library where the books are all lying on the floor in piles. While tools like Google allow some structured search, much of the data from such searches is outdated or of questionable value. Some Web enthusiasts, have taken up the task of organizing information through a democratic means that only the Interne t allows: an encyclopedia of the people, by the people, and completely free to copy and distribute. This 'people's encyclopedia' of the Web—a free site called Wikipedia—has provided a unique solution by inviting individuals to participate in the process of rationalizing and updating Web content. At the heart of this movement are wikis, Web sites that allow users to directly edit any Web page with one click of the mouse. Wikipedia—the largest example of these collaborative efforts—is a functioning, user-contributed online encyclopedia that has become a popular and highly regarded reference in just three years of existence. The goal of Wikipedia was to create an encyclopedia that could be shared and copied freely while encouraging people to change and improve the content. Each and every article has an 'Edit this page' button, allowing anyone, even anonymous passers-by, to add or delete any content on the page. It seems like a recipe for disaster and chaos, but it has produced surprisingly credible content that has been evaluated and revised by the thousands of international visitors to the site. For many, it finally realizes the original concept of World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee—an online environment where people not only browse content, but freely and actively exchange information. The Wikipedia project was started by Jimmy Wales, head of Internet startup Bomis. corn, after his original project for a volunteer, but strictly controlled, free encyclopedia ran out of money and resources after two years. Editors with PhD degrees were at the helm of the project then, but it produced only a few hundred articles. Not wanting the content to languish, Wales placed the pages on a wiki website in January 2001 and invited any Internet visitor to edit or add to the collection. The site became a runaway success in the first year and gained a loyal following, generating over 20,000 articles and spawning over a dozen language translations. After two years, it had 100,000 articles, and in April 2004, it exceeded 250,000 articles in English and 600,000 articles in 50 other languages. Over 2,000 new articles are added each day across all the various languages. And according to website rankings at Alexa. com, it has become more popular than traditional online encyclopedias such as Britannica. com and is one of the top 600 most heavily visited websites on the Internet.

阅读理解Text 2 Last year marked the third year in a row of when Indonesias bleak rate of deforestation has slowed in pace

阅读理解 In a world where bad news has become everyday news, people are turning to an ancient technique to deal with stress: meditation. At meditation centers, prayer groups and yoga studios around the United States, more and more are finding peace of mind by being quiet. Some use meditation to help deal with life changes; others, to process the painful reality of political and social unrest around the world of the type that has been experienced more recently. Stress from the September 11 terrorist attacks is probably 'about 70 percent' of the reason one Chicago man started meditating and practicing yoga with his new wife. He became so emotionally affected that he realized he needed help in managing his stress. The yoga classes he takes begin and end with meditation. This 'quiet time' helps him feel a lot more relaxed and gives him more breath control. The fact is, though, that he is not alone. Across the country, many are turning to more meditative exercise as they seek both psychological and physiological relief. In addition to helping people work out their stress, these classes bring people together, in the same way that religious services or other community activities have done in the past. Different schools of meditation teach particular techniques, but they share a common basis—focusing attention on something your mind can return to if you are distracted. This may be the rhythm of breathing, an object such as a candle flame, or a repetitive movement, as in walking or taiji. Regardless of the specific technique or mode that is followed, meditation has well-documented benefits. Medical research indicates that it causes a sharp decrease in metabolic activity, reduced muscle tension, slower breathing, and a shift from faster brainwaves to slower waves, it also reduces high blood pressure. Practitioners are convinced that meditation is good for health because it relaxes the body. For ages, meditation has been a core practice of many groups meeting in their communal or religious centers. However, let's not forget that this is the twenty-first century. So, for those people who are too shy or busy to go to the nearest meditation center, there are Internet sites that offer online guided meditation. One has a variety of meditations from various religious traditions. At another, Jesuit priests post meditations and readings from the Scriptures everyday, and at still another, Buddhist and Hindu practitioners include music and visuals to accompany their offerings. These websites allow anyone with a computer access to meditation at any time. The fact is that whether online, at yoga classes, or at local spiritual centers, more people are turning to the practice of meditation.

阅读理解Americans no longer expect public figures, whether in speech or in writing, to command the English language with skill and gift. Nor do they aspire to such command themselves. In his latest book, Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care, John McWhorter, a linguist and controversialist of mixed liberal and conservative views, sees the triumph of 1960s counter - culture as responsible for the decline of formal English. Blaming the permissive 1960s is nothing new, but this is not yet another criticism against the decline in education. Mr. McWhorter'' s academic speciality is language history and change, and he sees the gradual disappearance of "whom", for example, to be natural and no more regrettable than the loss of the case - endings of Old English. But the cult of the authentic and the personal, "doing our own thing", has spelt the death of formal speech, writing, poetry and music. While even the modestly educated sought an elevated tone when they put pen to paper before the 1960s, even the most well regarded writing since then has sought to capture spoken English on the page. Equally, in poetry, the highly personal, performative genre is the only form that could claim real liveliness. In both oral and written English,talkings triumphing over speaking, spontaneity over craft. Illustrated with an entertaining array of examples from both high and low culture, the trend that Mr. McWhorter documents is unmistakable. But it is less clear, to take the question of his subtitle, why we should, like, care. As a linguist, he acknowledges that all varieties of human language, including non -standard ones like Black English, can be powerfully expressive--there exists no language or dialect in the world that cannot convey complex ideas. He is not arguing, as many do, that we can no longer think straight because we do not talk proper. Russians have a deep love for their own language and carry large chunks of memorized poetry in their heads, while Italian politicians tend to elaborate speech that would seem old -fashioned to most English- speakers. Mr. McWhorter acknowledges that formal language is not strictly necessary, and proposes no radical education reforms--he is really grieving over the loss of something beautiful more than useful. We now take our English "on paper plates instead of china". A shame, perhaps, but probably an inevitable one.

阅读理解In this text, the author mainly discusses