SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST
Directions: In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. At the end of each news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions.
听力原文: Indian Prime Minister elect Sonia Ghandi will hold talks Tuesday with the country's president on forming a new government. Her meeting with President Abdul Klan comes a day after the worst ever sell-off in tile history of India's stock market. Investors feared that Mrs. Ghandi's strong communist backing could stall economic reform, especially the privatization of state-owned companies. Mrs. Ghandi, the Italian-born heir to India's most famous political family is due to be sworn in as Prime minister Wednesday. India's outgoing Hindu Nationalist Party says it will boycott the sworn-in ceremony over Mrs. Ghandi's foreign origins. Only outgoing Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajepajee is reportedly planning to attend the ceremony.
After Sonia Ghandi was elected as Prime Minister, ______.
A. the stock market suffered a dramatic fall
B. economic reform. would get a strong support
C. a new government was formed on Tuesday
D. state-owned companies would be privatized
在按成本加酬金确定合同价时,最不利于降低成本的是成本加固定金额酬金。 ()
A. 正确
B. 错误
STRUGGLING TO END CRIME
"YOUTHS Claim Boredom Is Main Cause of Juvenile Crime," declared a headline in a leading British newspaper. "Home Strife Blamed for Rising Crime," said another. And a third stated: "Addictions" Prompt Thousands of Crimes'." The magazine Philippine Panorama estimated that 75 percent of all violent crimes in Manila were committed by drug abusers.
Other factors may also contribute to sparking criminal behavior. "Poverty in juxtaposition to great wealth" is one that was referred to by the Nigerian inspector-general of police. Peer pressure and poor job prospects, the absence of strong legal deterrents, the general breakdown in family values, the lack of respect for authority and law, and the excessive violence in films and videos are also cited.
Another factor is that many people no longer believe that crime does not pay. A sociologist at Bologna University in Italy observed that over a period of many years, "the number of thefts reported and the number of persons convicted for 'them have followed opposite trends." He noted that "the number of convictions in proportion to the total number of reported thefts has plummeted from 50 to 0.7 percent."
Sad but true are the words of The New Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Increasing crime appears to be a feature of all modern industrialized societies, and no developments in law or penology can be shown to have had a significant impact on the problem. For modern urbanized society, in which economic growth and personal success are dominant values, there is no reason to suppose that crime rates will not continue to increase."
IS THIS VIEW TOO NEGATIVE?
Is the situation really all that bad? Do not some localities report crime decreases? True, some do, but statistics can be misleading. For example, it was reported that crime in the Philippines decreased by 20 percent after a gun ban was introduced. But Asiaweek explained that one official believes that car thieves and bank robbers had stopped stealing cars and robbing banks and had "switched to kidnapping. Fewer bank robberies and car thefts caused a drop in total cases of crime, but this decrease lost much of its significance in view of the fourfold increase in kidnappings!
Reporting on Hungary, the magazine BVG wrote: "Compared with the first half of 1993, crime figures are down by 6.2 percent. What the police forgot to mention is that the decrease is mainly due to administrative changes." The monetary level at which cases of theft, fraud, or vandalism were previously registered was raised by 250 percent. So property crimes involving values below this level are no longer registered. Since crimes involving property account for three fourths of all crime in the country, the decrease was hardly genuine.
Arriving at accurate crime figures is admittedly difficult. One reason is that many crimes—perhaps up to 90 percent in certain categories—go unreported. But arguing whether crime has decreased or increased is actually beside the point. People yearn for crime to be eliminated, not just reduced.
The number about reported thefts and convictions is used to illustrate that ______.
A. thefts have decreased considerably
B. crime does not pay
C. crime rate has risen
D. legal deterrents are not strong
These marshes are the breeding ground for snow geese. Once destroyed, some fear the species will take over the habitat of the Canada goose—a popular game bird in Minnesota. If this happens, Minnesota hunting and land conditions could be greatly affected.
The snow goose population has been on the rise in the last 25 years, but numbers are hitting an all-time high. This year there is an estimated 4.5 or 6 million birds, triple what the population was 25 years ago.
Although effects of the snow goose invasion aren't apparent in Minneapolis, northern Minnesota and Canada can clearly see the signs. The population growth is due to the birds' wintering habits. They fly south to Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi to nest. The conditions and food availability there have made it possible for more birds to survive the winter and make the trip back north. The period over which they've increased in number correlates to a change in agriculture practices in the region.
After World War II, there was an increase in man-made fertilizers, yielding an increase of corn, rice, wheat and other crops. There have also been other changes in agricultural practices causing an increase of production in cereal crops.
The geese find the agricultural areas better than the natural areas. The geese have escaped from any natural limits. They are not doing this on their own; it is in response to human practices.
Usually, about 70 to 75 percent of the birds make it back to Canada in late winter and early spring. But the surviving number of snow geese has steadily climbed each year to reach 95 percent in the last couple of years. Because so many survive, they strip the capacity of the breeding ground.
The snow geese are destroying salt marshes where they nest in the summer, about 30 percent of the salt marshes are completely destroyed, leaving them as inhabitable mud flats. Another 35 percent of salt marshes are significantly damaged.
There are three possible solutions: Let the problem take care of itself and wait for the population to crash, deal directly with the population by changing hunting limits and regulations or address the cause of the problem in the south.
According to the author, if the northern marshes are destroyed, ______.
A. the snow geese will be in danger
B. the agriculture of the area will suffer
C. the Canada geese will replace the snow geese
D. the snow geese may move to breed in Minnesota