Cyberspace,data superhighway,multimedia,for those who have seen the future,and the linking of computers,televisions and telephones will change our lives for ever.Yet for all the talks of a forthcoming technological utopia,little attention has been given to the implications of these developments for the poor.As for all the new high technology,the West concerns itself with the “how”,while the question of “for whom” is put aside once again.
Economists are only now realizing the full extent to which the communication revolution has affected the world economy.Information technology allows the extension of trade across geographical and industrial boundaries,and transnational corporations take full advantage of it.Terms of trade and exchange,interest rates and money movements are more important than the production of goods.The electronic economy made by information technology allows the haves to increase their control on global markets — with a destructive impact on the havenots.
For them the result is unstable.Developing countries which rely on the production of a small range of goods for export are made to feel like small parts in the international economic machine.As “futures” are traded on computer screens,developing countries simply have less and less control of their destinies.
So what are the options of regaining control？One alternative for developing countries is to buy in the latest computers and telecommunications.Yet this leads to long-term dependency and perhaps permanent constraints on developing countries’ economies.
Communication technology is generally exported from the US,Europe or Japan；the patents,skills and ability remain in the hands of a few industrialized countries.It is also expensive,therefore imported products and services must be bought on credit usually provided by the very countries whose companies stand to gain.
41. From the passage we know that the development of high technology is in the interests of________.
A．the rich countries B．scientific development
C．the local elites D．the world economy
42．It can be inferred from the passage that________.
A．international trade should be expanded
B．the interests of the poor countries have not been given enough consideration
C．the exports of the poor countries should be increased
D．communication technology in developing countries should be modernized
43．Why does the author say that the electronic economy may have a destructive impact on developing countries?
A．Because it enables the developed countries to control the international market.
B．Because it destroys the economic balance of the poor countries.
C．Because it violates the national boundaries of the poor countries.
D．Because it inhibits the industrial growth of developing countries.
44．The development of modern communication technology in developing countries may________.
A．hinder their industrial production
B．cause them to lose control of their trade
C．force them to reduce their share of exports
D．cost them their economic independence
45．The author’s attitude towards the communication revolution is________.
A．positive B．critical
C．indifferent D．tolerant
136 Crestview Circle
Dover, Connecticut
January 16, 1995
Gander’s Furniture Store
Stamford, Connecticut, 09876
Dear Sir,
I am writing about your January bill, which I am returning with this letter. I am not going to pay this bill. Last month I bought a table and four chairs for $65.50. They were sent to me on December 18. That night one leg of the table broke while my wife was putting our dinner on it. It fell on one of the chair, and that broke, too. Our $ 2.50 steak(牛排) landed on the floor, and the dog ate it.
I spoke to the salesmen who had sold me the table and the chairs. He told me to write you a letter. I wrote you on December 20, saying that I was not going to pay for the furniture. On December 21 some men came and took it back to the store.
Please do something about your records. I do not want to receive another bill for the furniture which I returned.
Yours truly
Alberts RobbinsFrom the letter we can know that Mr. Robbins had actually paid _____ for the table and the four chairs.
| A．$ 65.50 | B．$ 68.00 | C．$ 2.50 | D．no money |
Why do you think Mr. Robbins write the letter to the furniture store?
| A．He had paid for the furniture but was asked to pay again. |
| B．He didn’t want to receive a second bill for the furniture he had returned. |
| C．The furniture he bought was badly made and he wanted to return it. |
| D．He wanted the manager to scold the salesmen for the bad furniture. |
Try to guess how Mr. Robins felt when he was writing the letter.
| A．He was angry. | B．He was sad. | C．He was anxious. | D．He was friendly. |
Mr. Grey was the manager of a small office in London. He lived in the country, and came up to work by train. He liked walking from the station to his office unless it was raining, because it gave him some exercise.
One morning he was walking along the street when a stranger stopped him and said to him, “You may not remember me, sir, but seven years ago I came to London without a penny in my pockets, I stopped you in this street and asked you to lend me some money, and you lent me £ 5, because you said you were willing to take a chance so as to give a man a start on the way to success.”
Mr. Grey thought for a few minutes and then said, “Yes, I remember you. Go on with your story!” “Well,” answered the stranger, “are you still willing to take a chance?”How did Mr. Grey get to his office?
| A．He went up to work by train. |
| B．He walked to his office. |
| C．He went to his office on foot unless it rained. |
| D．He usually took a train to the station and then walked to his office if the weather was fine. |
Mr. Grey liked walking from the station to his office because ________.
| A．he couldn’t afford the buses | B．he wanted to save money |
| C．he wanted to keep in good health | D．he could do some exercises on the way |
Mr. Grey had been willing to lend money to a stranger in order to______.
| A．give him a start in life | B．help him on the way to success |
| C．make him rich | D．gain more money |
One morning the stranger recognized Mr. Grey, and_______.
| A．wanted to return Mr. Grey the money |
| B．again asked Mr. Grey for money |
| C．would like to make friends with him |
| D．told Mr. Grey that he had been successful since then |
In America, drivers’ education is part of the regular high school curriculum. Every student in his or her second year of high school is required to take a class in driver’s education. However, unlike other courses, it is not given during the regular school year. Instead it is a summer course.
The course is divided up into two parts: class time for learning laws and regulations and driving time to practice driving. Class time is not unlike any other class. The students have a text from which they study the basic laws they must know to pass the written driving test that is given to anyone wanting to get a driver’s license.
Driving time is a chance for the students to get behind the wheel (steering wheel) and practice starting steering, backing up, parking, switching lanes, turning corners, and all the other maneuvers (操作) required to drive a car. Each student is required to drive a total of six hours. The students are divided up into groups of four. The students and the instructor go out driving for two hour blocks of time. Thus, each student gets half an hour driving time per outing. The instructor and “driver” sit in the front seats and the other three students sit in the back.
Drivers Ed cars are unlike other cars in which they have two sets of brakes, one on the driver’s side and one on the other side where the instructor sits. Thus, if the student driver should run into difficulties the instructor can take over. The car also has another special feature. On the top of the car is a sign that reads: STUDENT DRIVER. That lets nearby drivers know that they should use extra caution because the student driver is a beginning driver, not very experienced and prone to driving slowly.
After the student has passed the driver’s education course and reached the appropriate age to drive (this age differs in every state but in most cases the person must be 16 years old), they can go to a designated state office to take their driver’s test, which is made up of an eye examination, a written test, and a road test. The person must pass all three tests in order to be given a driver’s license. If the person did well in his or her driver’s education class, he or she will pass the test with flying colors and get a driver’s license. Which of the following is the best title for this passage?
| A．Driving Classes. | B．Driving Learning. |
| C．Driving Course. | D．Driving Experience. |
In America, the driver’s course mentioned above _____.
| A．is considered as part of the advanced education |
| B．is given to any student wanting to get a driver’s license |
| C．is carried on at the same time as other courses |
| D．is offered to all the students of Grade 2 in high schools |
To prevent accidents, a drivers Ed car _____.
| A．has a sign inside it | B．has two sets of brakes |
| C．is big enough to hold five persons | D．can’t run very fast |
Which of the following does not agree with the requirements for the students wanting to get their driver’s license?
| A．They must be 16 years of age. |
| B．They should go to have their driver’s test. |
| C．They must have their eyes examined. |
| D．They ought to do well in their driver’s course. |
In the last sentence, “with flying colors” means _____.
| A．happily | B．successfully | C．colorfully | D．quickly |
In Stockholm, the Swedish Academy has chosen the British author Doris Lessing for the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The selection of Doris Lessing for a Nobel was popular among the hundreds of journalists gathered for the announcement in Stockholm.
Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy Horace Engdahl said with skepticism, fire and visionary power Lessing has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny.
Doris Lessing was born in 1919 in Persia - modern-day Iran - to British parents, moving as a child with her family to southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, where she stayed in school only to the age of 14.
A year after moving to London, she published her first novel in 1950. The Grass is Singing examines unbridgeable racial conflict in colonial Africa through the eyes of a white farmer’s wife and her black servant.
A member of the British Communist Party during the 1950s and a campaigner against nuclear arms and South African apartheid, Lessing was for years banned from that country and from Rhodesia.
Her literary breakthrough came in 1962 with publication of The Golden Notebook, seen by many, though not necessarily Lessing, as a pioneering work of modern feminism. A disjointed study of the mind of the main character, Anna Wulf, the novel explores her thoughts about Africa, politics and communism, relationships with men and sex, and Jungian analysis and dream interpretation.
Lessing’s themes shifted to psychology in her works from the 1960s, and by the 1970s she was fascinated with the Islamic mystic tradition of Sufism. Her turn toward science fiction with the Canopus series in the early 1980s was not warmly received by traditionalist critics, but she has continued to win new readers and numerous literary awards, including the David Cohen British Literary Prize and the Companion of Honour from the Royal Society of Literature, both in 2001.
Following the announcement, the Horace Engdahl told VOA why he was personally so pleased with Lessing’s selection.
"She is one of the truly great writers - of novels, short stories, fiction and non-fiction," Engdahl said. "She is one of the few writers who have had the courage to uphold the principle of equality between the male and female experience, and she has given the impulse to numbers of other women writers. And she is really the mother of a school that is one of the most important in our contemporary literature."
At 87, Doris lessing is the oldest Nobel Literature laureate since the first prizes were awarded in 1901. Each Nobel Prize is this year accompanied by a check for approximately $1.4 million.How old was Doris Lessing when she published her first novel?
| A．14 | B．26 | C．31 | D．50 |
Which of the following about The Grass is Singing is true?
| A．It is mainly about racial conflict between the whites and the blacks in the US. |
| B．The main characters are a white farmer’s wife and her black servant. |
| C．It was published in Africa. |
| D．It was Doris Lessing’s most famous novel. |
We can infer from the passage that __________.
| A．Journalists are very interested in the election of Doris Lessing’s for Nobel Prize. |
| B．Doris Lessing regard The Golden Notes as a pioneering work of feminism. |
| C．Doris Lessing has written about many different subjects. |
| D．Many writers have the courage to stick to the equality between the male and female experience. |
The underlined wordschool in the last but one paragraph means________.
| A．institution for educating children |
| B．college or university |
| C．department of a university |
| D．group of writers, thinkers |
Which of the following can be the best title of this passage?
| A．Doris Lessing wins Nobel Prize for literature. |
| B．The greatest British female writer. |
| C．The oldest Nobel Prize winner. |
| D．2007 Nobel Prize announced in Stockholm. |
LEEDS, England ─ A Leeds University psychology (心理学) professor is teaching a course to help dozens of Britons forgive their enemies.
"The hatred we hold within us is a cancer," Professor Ken Hart said, adding that holding in anger can lead to problems such as high blood pressure and heart disease.
More than 70 people have become members in Hart’s first 20-week workshop in London ─ a course he says is the first of its kind in the world.
These are people who are sick and tired of living with a memory. They realize their bitterness is a poison they think they can pour out, but they end up drinking it themselves, said Canadian-born Hart.
The students meet in groups of eight to ten for a two-hour workshop with an adviser every fortnight.
The course, ending in July, is expected to get rid of the cancer of hate in these people. "People have lots of negative attitudes towards forgiveness," he said. "People confuse forgiveness with forgetting. Forgiveness means changing from a negative attitude to a positive one."
Hart and his team have created instructions to provide the training needed.
"The main idea is to give you guidelines on how to look at various kinds of angers and how they affect you, and how to change your attitudes towards the person you are angry with," said Norman Claringbull, a senior expert on the forgiveness project.
Hart said he believes forgiveness is a skill that can be taught, as these people "want to get free of the past". From this passage we know that ______.
| A．high blood pressure and heart disease are caused by hatred |
| B．high blood pressure can only be cured by psychology professors |
| C．without hatred, people will have less trouble connected with blood and heart |
| D．people who suffer from blood pressure and heart disease must have many enemies |
If you are angry with somebody, you should ______.
| A．try your best to defeat him or her |
| B．never meet him or her again |
| C．persuade him or her to have a talk with you |
| D．try to build up a positive attitude towards the person |
In Hart’s first 20-week workshop, people there can ___.
| A．meet their enemies |
| B．change their minds |
| C．enjoy the professor’s speech |
| D．learn how to quarrel with others |
If you are a member in Hart’ s workshop, you’ll ______.
| A．pay much money to Hart |
| B．go to the workshop every night |
| C．attend a gathering twice a month |
| D．pour out everything stored in your mind |
The author wrote this passage in order to ________.
| A．persuade us to go to Hart’s workshop |
| B．tell us the news about Hart’s workshop |
| C．tell us how to run a workshop like Hart’s |
| D．help us to look at various kinds of angers |