It was their______decision to leave their country, and as a result, they lost their citizenship.

Racket, din, clamor, noise

The House is expected to pass a piece of legislation Thursday that seeks to significantly rebalance the playing field for unions and employers and could possibly reverse decades of declining membership among private industries. The Employee Free Choice Act would allow a union to be recognized after collecting a majority of vote cards, instead of waiting for the National Labor Relations Board to oversee a secret ballot election, which can occur more than 50 days after the card vote is completed. Representatives of business on Capitol Hill oppose the bill. The National Association of Manufacturers, the National Federation of Independent Business, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups oppose the shift away from secret ballots saying the change could threaten the privacy of the workers. "This isn't about preventing increased unionization, it's about protecting rights," said the National Association of Manufacturer's Jason Straczewski, of his organization's opposition to bill. Straczewski says eliminating the secret-ballot step would open up employees to coercion (强迫，胁迫) from unions. Samuel of the AFL-CIO contends the real coercion comes from employers. "Workers talking to workers are equals while managers talking to workers aren't," Samuel said. He cites the 31,358 cases of illegal employer discrimination acted on by the National Labor Relations Board in 2005. Samuel also points out that counter to claims from the business lobby, the secret ballot would not be eliminated. The change would only take the control of the timing of the election out of the hands of the employers. "On the ground, the difference between having this legislation and not would be the difference between night and day," said Richard Shaw of the Harris County Central Labor Council, who says it would have a tremendous impact on the local level. The bill has other provisions (规定，条款) as well. The Employee Free Choice Act would also impose binding arbitration (仲裁) when a company and a newly formed union cannot agree on a contract after 3 months. An agreement worked out under binding compulsory arbitration would be in effect for 2 years, a fact that Straczewski calls, "borderline unconstitutional." "I don't see how it will benefit employees if they're locked into a contract," said Straczewski. The bill's proponents point to the trend of recognized unions unable to get contracts from unwilling employers. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the organization that oversees arbitration, reported that in 2004, 45 percent of newly formed unions were denied first contracts by employers. The bill would also strengthen the penalties for companies that illegally coerce or intimidate employees. As it stands, the law on the books hasn't changed substantially since the National Labor Relations Act was made into law in 1935. The NLBR can enforce no other penalty than reinstating wrongfully fired employees or recovering lost wages. Which of the following statements best summarizes the main idea of the passage?

They began to sail around the world single-handed at ______ the same age, but their results were quite different.

Not only was the paper money ______ which Napoleon so graciously distributed to the unfortunate, but even silver lost its value in relation to gold.

Although cats cannot see in complete darkness

For me

Forget football. At many high schools

Often enough our ______ before hand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.

The crafty child tricked his innocent brother

Mini-skirts first ______ in the 1960s.

Dun took a deep breath

The boys in the dorm ______ a coin to decide who would clean the floor.

The glaciers that reached the Pacific Coast were valley glaciers, and between those tongues of ice ______ that allowed the original forests to survive.

I don't think Johnson will succeed in his new job, for he is not ______ to do that type of work.

In a materialistic and ______ society people's interest seems to be focused solely on monetary pursuit.

We can rely on William to carry out this mission

The ______ at the highest point in the United States is 20,000 feet at Mt. McKinley in Alaska.

The current emergency in Mexico City that has taken over our lives is nothing. I could ever have imagined for me or my children. We are living in an environmental crisis, an air-pollution emergency of unprecedented severity. What it really means is that just to breathe here is to play a dangerous game with your health. As parents, what terrorizes us most is reports that children are at higher risk because they breathe more times per minute. What more can we do to protect them and ourselves? Our pediatrician's (儿科医师的) medical recommendation was simple: abandon the city permanently. We are foreigners and we are among the small minority that can afford to leave. We are here because of my husband's work. We are fascinated by Mexico—its history and rich culture. We know that for us, this is a temporary danger. However, we cannot stand for much longer the fear we feel for our boys. We cannot stop them from breathing. But for millions, there is no choice. Their lives, their jobs, their futures depend on being here. Thousands of Mexicans arrive each day in this city, desperate for economic opportunities. Thousands more are born here each day. Entire families work in the streets and practically live there. It is a familiar sight: as parents hawk goods at stoplights, their children play in the grassy highway dividers, breathing exhaust fumes. I feel guilty complaining about my personal situation. We won't be here long enough for our children to form the impression that skies are colored only gray. And yet the government cannot do what it must to end this problem. For any country, especially a developing Third World economy like Mexico, the idea of barring from the capital city enough cars, closing enough factories and spending the necessary billions on public transportation is simply not an option. So when things get bad, as in the current emergency, Mexico takes half measures—prohibiting some more cars from circulating, stopping some factories from producing—that even its own officials concede aren't adequate. The word "emergency" implies the unusual. But when daily life itself is an emergency, the concept loses its meaning. It is human nature to try to adapt to that which we cannot change. Or to mislead ourselves into believing we can adapt. According to the passage, the current emergency in Mexico City refers to ______.

In the zany comedy series 1 em>Love Lucy/em>, Lucille Bali's exaggerated, clumsy antics displayed the comedian's famous talent for ______.