TEXT B Last summer, some twenty-eight thousand homeless people were offered shelter by the city of New York. Of this number, twelve thousand were children and six thousand were parents living together in families. The average child was six years old, the average parent twenty-seven. A typical homeless family included a mother with two or three children, but in about one-fifth of these families two parents were present. Roughly ten thousand single persons, then, made up the remainder of the population of the city’s shelter. These proportions vary somewhat from one area of the nation to another. In all areas, however, families are the fastest-growing sector of the homeless population, and in the Northeast they are by far the largest sector already. In Massachusetts, three-fourths of the homeless now are families with children; in certain parts of Massachusetts--Attleboro and Northhampton, for example--the proportion reaches 90 percent. Two-thirds of the homeless children studied recently in Boston were less than five years old. Of the estimated two to three million homeless people nationwide, about 500,000 are dependent children, according to Robert Hayes, counsel to the National Coalition for the Homeless. Including their parents, at least 750, 000 homeless people in America are family members. What is to be made, then, of the supposition that the homeless are primarily the former residents of mental hospitals, persons who were carelessly released during the 1970s Many of them are, to be sure. Among the older men and women in the streets and shelters, as many as one-third (some believe as many as one-half) may be chronically disturbed, and a number of these people left mental hospitals during the 1970s. But in a city like New York, where nearly half the homeless are small children with an average of six, to operate on the basis of such a supposition makes no sense. Their parents, with an average age of twenty-seven, are not likely to have been hospitalized in the 1970s, either. What is the author’s opinion on the supposition that the homeless are primarily the former residents of mental hospitals
A. Denial.
B. Affirmative.
C. Partial affirmative.
D. No opinion.
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Fried foods have long been frowned upon. Nevertheless, the skillet(平底煎锅) is about our handiest and most useful piece of kitchen equipment. Sturdy lumberjacks(伐木工) and others engaged in active labor requiring 4,000 calories per day or more will take approximately one-third of their rations prepared in this fashion. Meat, eggs, and French toast cooked in this way are served in millions of homes daily. Apparently the consumers are not beset with more signs of indigestion than afflict those who insist upon broiling, roasting, or boiling. Some years ago one of our most eminent physiologists investigated the digestibility of fried potatoes. He found that the pan variety was more easily broken down for assimilation than when deep fat was employed. The latter, however, dissolved within the alimentary tract more readily than the boiled type. Furthermore, he learned, by watching the progress of the contents of the rate of digestion. Now all this is quite in contrast with "authority." Volumes have been written on nutrition, and everywhere the dictum has been accepted--no fried edibles of any sort for children. A few will go so far as to forbid this style of cooking wholly. Now and then an expert will be bold enough to admit that he uses them himself, the absence of discomfort being explained on the ground that he posses a powerful gastric apparatus. We can of course sizzle perfectly good articles to death so that they will be leathery and tough. But thorough heating, in the presence of shortening, is not the awful crime that it has been labeled. Such dishes stimulate rather than retard contractions of the gall bladder. Thus it is that bile mixes with the nutriment shortly after it leaves the stomach. We don’t need to allow our foodstuffs to become oil soaked, but other than that, there seems to be no basis for the widely heralded prohibition against this method. But notions become fixed. The first condemnation probably arose because an "oracle" suffered from dyspepsia(消化不良) which he ascribed to some fried item on the menu. The theory spread. Others agreed with him, and after a time the doctrine became incorporated in our textbooks. The belief is now tradition rather than proved fact. It should have been refuted long since, as experience has demonstrated its falsity. Apparently much fried food is eaten because ______.
A. it is easily prepared
B. people engaged in active labor need the calories that fat supplies
C. it is healthful
D. it is easily digested
Passage TwoQuestions 29 to 31 are based on the passage you have just heard.
A. John Augustus Roebling fell ill.
B. Misfortune fell on the chief engineer.
C. The chief engineer was in short of money.
D. Washington Roebfing met with an accident.
TEXT E Someone once marked that the British and the Americans are two peoples separated by the same language. Most epigrams exaggerate for effect, and this one is no exception. But it is, nevertheless, undeniably true that some commonly used words mean different things in these two countries. Consider the seemingly simple term--"the government". To parliamentarians trained in British terminology "the government" means the cabinet: a group of the legislature’s own members, chosen by it to devise public policies, to manage the legislature’s major activities, and to exercise executive powers. In theory, at least, the government continues in office only so long as it commands the support of the legislature. Losing that support, it may be turned out of power at almost any moment. When Americans say "the government", they mean some thing quite different: It connotes the whole governmental structure-- executive, legislative and judicial. Americans assume a situation in which the branches of government are deliberately separated and in which the powers of each check and balance those of the other. Another difference between the U. S. and parliamentary systems concerns the concept of "political party". In the British tradition, a political party connotes a group relatively cohesive in ideology and disciplined in action. Playwright William S. Gilbert’s satirical line that remembers of parliament "vote just as their leaders tell ’em to" is not as accurate as it once was, but it is still close enough to the mark. In contrast, the two major U. S. political parties are vast, sprawling, decentralized conglomerations of varied ideological positions whose members do not feel obliged to vote the way the party leaders tell them to do. In fact, most members come to Congress as independent entrepreneurs, willing to go along with party policy only to the extent that it does not conflict with what they perceive to be the wishes and interests of their constituencies. The main ideas of the passage is that ______.
A. the British and the Americans are two peoples separated by the same language
B. commonly used words mean different things in Britain and the U.S.
C. there are great differences in the political systems in Britain and the U.S.
D. there are great differences in terminology in Britain and the U.S.
TEXT E Someone once marked that the British and the Americans are two peoples separated by the same language. Most epigrams exaggerate for effect, and this one is no exception. But it is, nevertheless, undeniably true that some commonly used words mean different things in these two countries. Consider the seemingly simple term--"the government". To parliamentarians trained in British terminology "the government" means the cabinet: a group of the legislature’s own members, chosen by it to devise public policies, to manage the legislature’s major activities, and to exercise executive powers. In theory, at least, the government continues in office only so long as it commands the support of the legislature. Losing that support, it may be turned out of power at almost any moment. When Americans say "the government", they mean some thing quite different: It connotes the whole governmental structure-- executive, legislative and judicial. Americans assume a situation in which the branches of government are deliberately separated and in which the powers of each check and balance those of the other. Another difference between the U. S. and parliamentary systems concerns the concept of "political party". In the British tradition, a political party connotes a group relatively cohesive in ideology and disciplined in action. Playwright William S. Gilbert’s satirical line that remembers of parliament "vote just as their leaders tell ’em to" is not as accurate as it once was, but it is still close enough to the mark. In contrast, the two major U. S. political parties are vast, sprawling, decentralized conglomerations of varied ideological positions whose members do not feel obliged to vote the way the party leaders tell them to do. In fact, most members come to Congress as independent entrepreneurs, willing to go along with party policy only to the extent that it does not conflict with what they perceive to be the wishes and interests of their constituencies. According to British terminology, the following are the functions of the government EXCEPT ______.
A. to work out public policies
B. to arrange and conduct the activities of the law-making body
C. to exercise executive power
D. to win the support of the legislature