单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Here in the U. S. a project of moving the government a few hundred miles to the southwest proceeds apace, under the supervision of Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Apart from the usual highways and parks, Byrd has taken a special interest in transplanting pieces of federal agencies from metropolitan Washington to his home state. Strangely, Byrd's little experiment in de-Washingtonization has become the focus of outrage among the very people who are otherwise most Critical of Washington and its ways. To these critics, it is the very symbol of congressional arrogance of power, isolation from reality, contempt for the voters, and so on, and demonstrates the need for term limits if not lynching. Consider the good-government advantages of (let's call it) the Byrd Migration. What better way to symbolize an end to the old ways and commitment to reform than physically moving the government? What better way to break up old bureaucracies than to uproot and transplant them, files and all? Second, spreading the government around a bit ought to reduce that self-feeding and self- regarding Beltway culture that Washington-phobes claim to dislike so much. Of course there is a good deal of hypocrisy in this anti Washington chatter. Much of it comes from politicians and journalists who have spent most of their adult lives in Washington and wouldn't care to live anywhere else. They are not rushing to West Virginia themselves, except for the occasional quaint rustic weekend. But they can take comfort that public servants at the Bureau of the Public Debt, at least, have escaped the perils of inside-the-Beltway insularity. Third, is Senator Byrd's raw spread-the-wealth philosophy completely illegitimate? The Federal Government and government-related private enterprises have made metropolitan Washington one of the richest areas of the country. By contrast, West Virginia is the second poorest state, after Mississippi. The entire country's taxes support the government. Why shouldn't more of the country get a piece of it? As private businesses are discovering, the electronic revolution is making it less and less necessary for work to be centralized at headquarters. There's no reason the government shouldn't take more advantage of this trend as well. It is hardly enough, though, to expel a few thousand midlevel bureaucrats from {{U}}the alleged{{/U}} Eden inside the Washington Beltway. Really purging the Washington culture enough to satisfy its noisiest critics will require {{U}}a mass exodus{{/U}} on the order of what the Khmer Rouge instituted when they took over Phnom Penh in 1975. Until the very members of the TIME Washington bureau itself are traipsing south along I-95, their word processors strapped to their backs, the nation cannot rest easy. But America's would-be Khmer Rouge should give Senator Byrd more credit for showing the way.

单选题The author mentions the example of SBC to demonstrate that ______.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} For Tony Blair, home is a messy sort of place, where the prime minister's job is not to uphold eternal values but to force through some unpopular changes that may make the country work a bit better. The area where this is most obvious, and where it matters most, is the public services. Mr Blair faces a difficulty here which is partly of his own making. By focusing his last election campaign on the need to improve hospitals, schools, transport and policing, he built up expectations. Mr Blair has said many times that reforms in the way the public services work need to go alongside increases in cash. Mr Blair has made his task harder by committing {{U}}a classic negotiating error.{{/U}} Instead of extracting concessions from the other side before promising his own, he has pledged himself to higher spending on public services without getting a commitment to change from the unions. Why, given that this pledge has been made, should the health unions give ground in return? In a speech on March 20th, Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, said that "the something-for-nothing days are over in our public services and there can be no blank cheques." But the government already seems to have given health workers a blank cheque. Nor are other ministries conveying quite the same message as the treasury. On March 19th, John Hutton, a health minister, announced that cleaners and catering staff in new privately-funded hospitals working for the National Health service will still be government employees, entitled to the same pay and conditions as other health-service workers. Since one of the main ways in which the government hopes to reform the public sector is by using private providers, and since one of the main ways in which private providers are likely to be able to save money is by cutting labor costs, this move seems to undermine the government's strategy. Now the government faces its hardest fight. The police need reforming more than any other public service. Half of them, for instance, retire early, at a cost of ￡1 billion (＄1.4% billion) a year to the taxpayer. The police have voted 10--1 against proposals from the home secretary, David Blunkett, to reform their working practices. This is a fight the government has to win. If the police get away with it, other public-service workers will reckon they can too. And, if they all get away it, Mr Blair's domestic policy--which is what voters are most likely to judge him on a the next election--will be a failure.

单选题From the last paragraph we can conclude that

单选题The first two stages in the development of civilized man were probably the invention of primitive weapons and the discovery of fire, although nobody knows exactly when people acquired the use of (1) . The (2) of language is also obscure. No doubt it began very gradually. Animals have a few cries that serve (3) signals, (4) even the highest apes have not been found able to pronounce words (5) with the most intensive professional instruction. The superior brain of man is apparently (6) for the mastering of speech. When man became sufficiently intelligent, we must suppose that he (7) the number of cries for different purposes. It was a great clay (8) he discovered that speed could be used for narrative. There are those who think that (9) picture language preceded oral language. A man (10) a picture on the wall of his cave to show (11) direction he had gone, or (12) prey he hoped to catch. Probably picture language and oral language developed side by side. I am inclined to think that language (13) the most important single factor in the development of man. Two important stages came not (14) before the dawn of written history. The first was the domestication of animals; the second was agriculture. Agriculture was (15) in human progress to which subsequently there was nothing comparable (16) our own machine age. Agriculture made possible (17) immense increase in the number of the human species in the regions where it could be successfully practised. (18) were, at first, only those in which nature fertilized the soil (19) each harvest. Agriculture met with violent resistance from the pastoral nomads, but the agricultural way of life prevailed in the end (20) the physical comforts it provided.

单选题America"s workers have seen better days. Over the past decade private-sector wages have grown at an average yearly rate of just 0.3 % after accounting for inflation. One response, embraced by Barack Obama this week, is to oblige firms to grant 5m more workers "overtime pay"—1.5 times their normal wage—for any period they work in excess of 40 hours a week. Hillary Clinton, the probable Democratic candidate for president, called it "a win for our economy and workers". The economic evidence behind the policy, though, does not justify her enthusiasm. The Fair Labour Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 fixes a threshold salary above which workers are not entitled to overtime. The intention is to strip out managers and supervisors who, the argument goes, are harder to coerce into working unreasonable hours and are well compensated for their trouble anyway. But the exemption has not kept pace with inflation. It is now $ 23, 660 a year, below the poverty line for a family of four ($ 24, 250). The proportion of full-time salaried workers eligible for overtime pay has fallen from 62% in 1975 to 8% today. Mr Obama plans to increase the threshold to $ 50, 440 a year by executive order, and to tie it to the 40th percentile of earnings, so that it gradually rises along with wages. If businesses reacted passively to the new policy and followed it to the letter, it would make middleclass workers roughly $10 billion richer. Things will not work out so simply, however. Accidentally or deliberately, employers often fail to pay overtime. The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think-tank, estimates that after accounting for other types of "wage theft" low-wage workers miss out on $ 50 billion each year. The Department of Labour has cooked up a down-on-his-luck cartoon character, Jason, to increase awareness of the rules. It wants people to tell it what "getting paid overtime (would) mean to you". Even if the new policy can be enforced, opponents say it risks altering hiring policies. If bosses know how many hours each week they intend to employ someone (including overtime), they may reduce the base wage they pay new recruits so that the total amount they end up forking out is just the same. Cutting the nominal salaries of already-employed workers is tough, so some companies may simply stop them from working overtime to avoid the extra costs. Such firms may well stock up on new employees to fill the resulting gaps. But if the only effect of Mr Obama"s plan is to create lots more low-paid jobs, he will presumably consider it a failure.

单选题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 force-fully 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.

单选题Science has long since had an uneasy relationship with other aspects of culture. Think of Galileo's 17th-century trifil' for his rebelling belief the Catholic Church or poet William Black's harsh remarks against the mechanistic worldview of Isaac Newton. The schism between science and the humanities has, if anything, deepened in this century~ Until recently, the scientific community was so powerful that it could afford to ignore its critics- but no longer. As funding for science has declined, scientists have attacked ' antiscience' in several books, notably Higher Superstition, by Paul R. Gross, a biologist at the University of Virginia, and Norman Levitt, a mathematician at Rutgers University; and The Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan of Cornell University. Defenders of science have also voiced their concerns at meetings such as "The Flight from Science and Reason", held in New York City in 1995, and "Science in the Age of (Miss) information", which assembled last June near Buffalo. Antiscience clearly means different things to different people; Gross and Levitt find fault primarily with sociologists, philosophers and other academics who have questioned sciences objectivity. Sagan is more concerned with those who believe in ghosts, creationism and other phenpmena that contradict the scientific worldview. A survey of news stories in 1996 reveals that the antiscience tag has been attached to many other groups as well, from authorities who advocated the elimination of the last remaining stocks of smallpox virus to Republicans who advocated decreased funding for basic research. Few would dispute that the term applies to the Unabomber, those manifesto, published in 1995, scorns science and longs for return to a pretechnological utopia. But surely that does not mean environmentalists concerned about uncontrolled industrial growth are antiscience, as an essay in US News & World Report last May seemed to suggest. The environmentalists, inevitably, respond to such critics. The true enemies of science, argues Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University, a pioneer of environmental studies, are those who question the evidence supporting global warnfing, the depletion of the ozone layer and other consequences of industrial growth. Indeed, some observers fear that the antiscience epithet is in danger of becoming meaningless. "The term' antiscience' can lump together too many, quite different things, notes Harvard University philosopher Gerald Holton in his 1993 work Science and Anti-Science. "They have in common only one thing that they tend to annoy or threaten those who regard themselves as more enlightened./

单选题When a disease of epidemic proportions rips into the populace, scientists immediately get to work, trying to locate the source of the affliction and find ways to combat it. Oftentimes, success is achieved, as medical science is able to isolate the parasite, germ or cell that causes the problem and finds ways to effectively kill or contain it. In the most serious of cases, in which the entire population of a region or country may be at grave risk, it is deemed necessary to protect the entire population through vaccination, so as to safeguard lives and ensure that the disease will not spread. The process of vaccination allows the patient's body to develop immunity to the virus or disease so that, if it is encountered, one can ward it off naturally. To accomplish this, a small weak or dead strain of the disease is actually injected into the patient in a controlled environment, so that his body's immune system can learn to fight the invader properly. Information on how to penetrate the disease's defenses is transmitted to all elements of the patient's immune system in a process that occurs naturally, in which genetic information is passed from cell to cell. This makes sure that, should the patient later come into contact with the real problem, his body is well equipped and trained to deal with it, having already done so before. There are dangers inherent in the process, however. On occasion, even the weakened version of the disease contained in the vaccine proves too much for the body to handle, resulting in the immune system succumbing, and, therefore, the patient's death. Such is the case of the smallpox vaccine, designed to eradicate the smallpox epidemic that nearly wiped out the entire Native American population and killed massive numbers of settlers. Approximately 1 in 10,000 people who receives the vaccine contract the smallpox disease from the vaccine itself and dies from it. Thus, if the entire population of the United States were to receive the Smallpox Vaccine today, 3000 Americans would be left dead. Fortunately, the smallpox virus was considered eradicated in the early 1970's, ending the mandatory vaccination of all babies in America. In the event of a reintroduction of the disease, however, mandatory vaccinations may resume, resulting in more unexpected deaths from vaccination. The process, which is truly a mixed blessing, may indeed hide some hidden curses.

单选题"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 COlnparies—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.

单选题The reason why it is easier to describe a person' s personality in words than his face is that ______.

单选题In the author's opinion, Americans refuse to dwell on the idea of death

单选题What may be the attitude of many public-service workers towards the strategy of Blair's government?