题目内容
1 Insomnia is underappreciated.
2 Many people would rather admit to their fetishes and contagious rashes than confess to insomnia. Insomnia is not merely a condition, at least not in our culture. It is a disorder. Insomnia is proof that you are not calm of mind, clear of conscience, at peace in your body. "Insomniac" sounds suspiciously like "maniac."
3 Anywhere you turn these days there's someone counseling us on how to avoid the insomnia plague, which, we're warned, can be caused by pizza, Scotch, depression, work, love, arthritis, coffee, red walls, Excedrin, Letterman and "Nightline". In short, insomniais caused by life.
4 In a recent New York Times article on two new sleeping pills, one expert called insomniacs "one of the largest potential pharmaceutical markets in the world.' Who needs tax cuts when you have sleep disorders to holster the economy？
5 But hang on. Insomnia deserves a defense, not just a pill.
6 Especially in winter, I hear a lot of Chicagoans complain of insomnia, and it's certainly the season when my eyes are likely to pop open between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. All of us who've ever suffered from insufficient sleep know its terrors -the crankiness, the disorientation, the hollow eyes, the bedraggled skin and spirit. We also know that one good night's sleep seems to cure almost everything, from premature aging to an Orwellian world view.
7 But the problem a lot of us mean when we talk about insomnia isn't insomnia. The problem is sleep deprivation, often caused by the lack of time to go back to sleep after a round of insomnia. Insomnia itself is something else, something that can come close to bliss.
8 Insomnia has given me exquisite moments in my life. In fact, it's when I finally gave in to my occasional insomniac bouts a few years ago that I came to relish those moments of stillness, freed from obligation, distraction and the hum of the busy, waking city.
9 In the tiny bedside light of 3 a. m. , with a concentration it's hard to muster in more chaotic hours, I've had the kind of ecstatic, fiercely engaged reading experiences it's hard to find past the age of 10. "A Fine Balance." "A Civil Action." Edward P. Jones' wonderful new novel, "Tile Known World.' One reason I remember these books so vividly is that I read them in the quiet of the middle of the night, when words, feelings and ideas seep deeper than they do in ordinary waking hours. And does anybody who's not insomniac have time for magazines？
By saying "insomnia is caused by life" (Para. 3), the author means that________.
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1 "It is always consoling to think of suicide," the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, "in that way one gets through many a bad night."
2 Restless nights have returned to Oregon, thanks to U. S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft.
3 Despite more urgent matters on his platter these days, he has found time to make a backdoor assault on the Oregon law that permits doctor-assisted suicide.
4 In a Nov. 6 letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration, Ashcroft declared that any doctor who prescribes lethal drugs for the terminally ill can face revocation of his or her license to prescribe any drugs.
5 Oregon filed suit Nov. 7 and U. S. District Judge Robert E. Jones in Portland temporarily blocked the federal government from enforcing Ashcroft's order at least until Nov. 20.
6 I wish Oregon luck. After all, if executed criminals have the right to a pain-free death, why shouldn't the rest of us？
7 As in all dilemmas, this one offers a choice between two equally unpleasant alternatives: allow the terminally ill to choose suicide, if they wish, or force them to hang on in an agony, too sick to live, not sick enough to die.
8 Some of us have been through the agony of watching a loved one endure an agonizing exit. For others, it is Simply a terrible thought. The thought of prolonged suffering at the end of our lives is probably more painful for many of us than our fear of death itself.
9 When there is some hope of recovery, people tend to hang on fiercely and heroically. But when hope is gone, when the doctor says it's just a matter of time, some of us would rather not prolong the inevitable.
10 Oregon voters debated and anguished and narrowly chose the right to choose physician-assisted suicide in 1994. When legal challenges came, voters returned to the polls three years later and reaffirmed their decision by a bigger margin, 60 percent to 40 percent.
11 Unlike the abortion issue, we are talking here about one's right to choose one's own death.
12 Under the state's "Death with Dignity Act", a terminally ill patient may take lethal drugs if two doctors agree the person has less than six months to live and is mentally competent to make the decision to end his or her life.
13 That should ease the worry that those who want to live might be terminated against their will by, say, greedy or simply impatient heirs.
14 And contrary to the dire predictions of critics, there has not been a stampede to the euthanasia parlors.
15 Since Oregon's law went into effect in late 1997, only about 70 terminally ill people have chosen to kill themselves this way, according to the Oregon Health Division. That averages out to fewer than 20 people a year.
16 Many more have picked up the lethal drugs from their doctors, yet died without taking them. Many are said to have found it spiritually therapeutic in their final days simply to know that the option of an early exit is there, were their remaining lives to become too painful to bear.
17 Assisted suicide, Ashcroft said, is not a "legitimate medical purpose" for prescribingor handing out drugs. If not, what is？ Perhaps Ashcroft thinks medical treatment is legitimate only if it is intended to cure, not to comfort. Maybe he thinks medicine is not legitimate when it eases pain and discomfort, even among those whose conditions are terminal.
18 Oregon's doctor-assisted suicide law is about as reasonable as such a law can be, but not reasonable enough for Ashcroft. Unable to overturn the law outright, Asheroft took a backdoor route to block the expressed will of the state's voters. In the words of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Aschcroft "tossed the ballots of Oregon voters in the trash can."
19 How ironic! As a candidate, G
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： News Item One
Tornadoes swept through northern Bangladesh, killing at least 55 people, injuring hundreds and blowing away thousands of flimsy huts, officials said on Thursday.
The twisters hit nearly two dozen farming villages in the neighboring districts of Netrokona and Mymensingh on Wednesday night.
Most people were home after celebrating Pahela Baishakh, the Bengali New Year's Day, which features colorful parades and fairs.
At least 35 people, including children, were killed and nearly 700 injured in Netrokona, 80 miles north of the capital, Dhaka, officials said. At least 20 others were confirmed dead in Mymensingh, said rural council member Delwar Hossain. Thousands were left homeless and spent the night in open fields, witnesses said.
Rescue workers said the death toll could rise Because dozens of people were missing and close to 1,000 hurt, many of them seriously.
Eight bodies were found in the rubble of twisted tin roofs and trees in Mymensingh after a tornado swept through five farming villages in the region, said Delwar Hossain, a rural council member. Four others died in the hospital and at least 100 were injured.
Reporters at the scene said almost nothing was left standing along the path of the funnel cloud.
Bangladesh, a delta nation of 140 million people, is often buffeted by tropical storms.
Where and when did the tornadoes strike Bangladesh？
SECTION B INTERVIEW
Directions: In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following five questions.
Now listen to the interview.
听力原文：H: Welcome to our show. Today we're going to discuss some important questions about women and inheritance. For example, what happens to a woman when her husband dies, and who becomes the rightful owner of her property？ Is there anything a woman can do to ensure that she receives the property？ To help us answer these and other questions, we've invited a lawyer, Mrs. Elizabeth Mutwa, to join us. Welcome to the show Mrs. Mutwa.
M: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
H: Mrs. Mutwa, let me start by asking you this. What are some of the concerns you have about women and the inheritance laws that affect them？
M: Every day ! meet women whose husbands are dying. These women are afraid that they are going to lose everything--their home, their land, their livestock.., and they believe there is nothing they can do about it. That is a terrible, desperate feeling.
H: Yes, to feel that you are going to lose everything is terrifying.
M: Of course it is. And I'm sorry to say that often a woman does lose everything--because the property is taken by her husband's relatives. We call this property grabbing.
H: Is there any way to prevent property grabbing and return property to the woman？
M: Yes. Women have legal rights to land and other properties. But unfortunately, most women don't know this. So they don't take any action.
H: You mean women think that the law is against them--so they don't challenge it？
M: That's right. But again, I want to make this very clear. The law is not against women. Women have rights to keep property---they just don't know it!
H: So, it's important for women to understand what rights they have, and how the law works.
M: Exactly. Once they know the laws, they can take steps to make sure that they keep their home and their land.
H: Okay, so I guess that when women come to you for help, this is one of the things you recommend--learn a- bout the local taws. What else can a woman do？
M: I always recommend that a woman do three things. First: Discuss the importance of making a will with your husband. Encourage him to make a will in the presence of witnesses. Number two: Find out if it is possible to register the home where you live with your husband. If you can, you will remain the owner of the land and house after your husband's death. Number three: Get legal advice from a lawyer, a paralegal or a local organization that offers this type of assistance. They can help you understand your rights and the law.
H: Mrs. Mutwa, I think the advice that you've offered here on the program will help many women. Do you think that this kind of property grabbing will definitely affect women's lives after their husbands' death？
M: Definitely. Some of the women hope that the inheritance given by their husbands would help them out. Well, as a matter of fact, however, the fact proves that they always lose their things left by their husbands as their husbands' relatives always ask her to divide the things with them. The relatives put forward that property and asset in her family are mostly produced by the husband. And so the wife should not take all of them away. The women have no idea about what she deserves, some of them even take it for granted that the property should be returned to the husband's family. This is the essence of the problem I hope that women should have this kind of awareness that they should go to seek for help from some professional lawyers.
H: Thank you for joining us today.
M: You're most welcome.
The interview is mainly a discussion concerning ______.
1 Divorce is one of those creations, like fast food and lite rock. that have more peoplewilling to indulge in it than people willing to defend it. Back in the 1960s, easier divorce was hailed as a needed remedy for toxic relationships. But familiarity has bred contempt. In recent years, the divorce revolution has been blamed for worsening all sorts of problems without bringing happiness to people in unhappy marriages.
2 There's a lot of evidence that marital breakup does more social harm than good. In their 2000 book, "The Case for Marriage", Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher document that adults who are married do better than singles in wealth, health and personal satisfaction. Children living with a divorced or unwed single parent are more likely to fall into poverty, sickness and crime than other kids.
3 Marriage is a good thing, most people agree, while divorce is, at best, a necessary evil. So the laws that accompanied the divorce revolution have come under fire for destroying families and weakening safeguards for spouses who keep their vows.
4 Waite and Gallagher argue that loose divorce laws harm even intact households by fostering chronic uncertainty. Louisiana, in line with this criticism, has gone so far as to provide a "covenant marriage" option for couples who want the protection of stricter divorce rules.
5 It may seem obvious that easier divorce laws make for more divorce and more insecurity. But what is obvious is not necessarily true. What two scholars have found is that when you make divorce easier to get, you may actually produce better marriages.
6 In the old days, anyone who wanted to escape from the trials of wedlock had to get his or her spouse to agree to a split, or else go to court to prove the partner had done something terribly wrong (such as committing adultery). The '60s and '70s brought "no-fault" divorce, which is also known as "unilateral divorce", since either party can bring it about without the consent of the other.
7 The first surprise is that looser divorce laws have actually had little effect on the number of marriages that fall apart. Economist Justin Wolfers of Stanford University, in a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that when California passed a no-fault divorce law in 1970, the divorce rate jumped, then fell back to its old level and then fell some more. That was also the pattern in other states that loosened their laws. Over time, he estimates, the chance that a first marriage would break up rose by just one-fourth of 1 percentage point, which is next to nothing.
8 In short, nothing bad happened. But in another NBER paper, Wolfers and fellow economist Betsey Stevenson, who will soon be associated with the University of Pennsylvania, report that in states that relaxed their divorce laws, some very good things happened: Fewer women committed suicide, and fewer were murdered by husbands or other "intimate" partners. In addition, both men and women suffered less domestic violence, compared to states that didn't change their laws.
9 We're not talking about tiny improvements here. Wolfers and Stevenson say that in no-fault states, there was a 10 percent drop in a woman's chance of being killed by her spouse or boyfriend. The rate of female suicide in new no-fault states fell by about 20percent. The effect was more dramatic still for domestic violence-which "declined by somewhere between a quarter and a half between 1976 and 1985 in those states that reformed their divorce laws", according to Stevenson and Wolfers.
10 What could account for these surprising benefits？ Something simple: A change in divorce laws alters the balance of power in a marriage, giving more leverage to the weaker or more vulnerable spouse. If either partner can demand a divorce, each has a greater incentive to keep the other content. If an abused spouse has an open exit, some abusers and potent
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