Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.
Only a year ago, the suit and tie seemed headed for extinction—along with other old-economy anomalies(异常) like profits, proven products and payment in cash. In the new economy, workers would wear whatever clothing best got their creative juices flowing, without unduly restricting freedom of movement while playing table football and engaging in other activities de rigueur(合宜的) in the modem cutting-edge working environment. This sartorial(服装的) revolution started, inevitably, in Silicon Valley, but by last spring it had stormed even the most sober and traditional banks, consultancies and law firms of Manhattan and the City of London. One by one, they all went "business casual".
Now, it turns out, the vision of an open-neck future was but a mirage(海市蜃楼). Suits are back. According to the Doneger Group, a "style. consultancy", sales of suits and dress shirts bottomed in the third quarter of last year, and have since rebounded sharply. The evidence is clearest in New York, where many a suit has been rescued from the wardrobe, with chinos(丝光斜纹布裤) and polo-shirts relegated to the weekends. Only workers who never come face to face with customers or senior managers can still fearlessly wear jeans and T-shirts.
Even America's congenitally(天生地) casual west coast is going conservative. The new vogue(时尚) is "dressy casual". At a minimum, The Economist has found, shirts are once more being tucked(塞进) into trousers. New-economy trendsetters such as Bill Gates, Michael Dell and Larry Ellison have all been seen looking dapper(衣冠楚楚的). When Steve Case, boss of AOL, wore a tie at the announcement of his firm's purchase of Time Warner a year ago, it was interpreted as a gesture to reassure Time workers. With hindsight(事后的认识), it seems Mr. Case simply had a feel for fashion. George Bush, sure-footed in his first weeks in the White House, has banned jeans from the Oval Office and wears a suit almost everywhere except on the ranch.
The time has surely come to replace the old "hemline(衣裙的底边) theory" of economic cycles with a new theory of suits. Back in the 1920s, George Taylor, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, argued that hemlines on women's skirts were a useful indicator of economic activity. They moved higher in good times, because women could afford to wear, and show off, expensive silk stockings. In hard times, they moved lower, as modesty required that less expensively clad(穿着的) legs be covered.
Now that women have more to think about than their stockings, the wearing of suits may be a more reliable guide to economic trends. In any case, many female executives have abandoned hemlines altogether in favor of trousers.
The suit is the. perfect attire(服装) for hard economic times. It speaks of seriousness of purpose and self-discipline. It speaks of dullness, too, which is a welcome contrast with the anarchic(无政府主义的) creativity of the dotcoms. A suit saves time, because it requires no thought and still looks all right—a crucial competitive advantage in the labor market that men long enjoyed over women. How foolish it was to throw that away.
Above all, the backlash(强烈反应) against suits revealed a labor market so tight that workers had all the cards. Bosses hated seeing their staff slouch(懒散) contemptuously in torn jeans and jumpers, but had to put up with it. Now, jobs are harder to come by, and involve more work and less play. The suit is back. Everywhere except The Economist, of course. Here, freedom of movement is religion.
It is implied that, a year ago, ______.

A. people preferred to pay by check or credit cards
B. creative people gave up suit and tie at work
C. business casual was no longer the vogue
D. suit and tie were only essential for social activities