[C] Centralize.
[D] Evolve.
Text 3
After Los Angeles, Atlanta may be America's most car-dependent city. Atlantans sentimentally give their cars names, compare speeding tickets and jealously guard any side-street where it is possible to park. The city's roads are so well worn that the first act of the new mayor, Shirley Franklin, was to start repairing potholes. In 1998, 13 metro counties lost federal highway
funds because their air-pollution levels violated the Clean Air Act. The American Highway Users Alliance ranked three Atlanta interchanges among the 18 worst bottlenecks in the country.
Other cities in the same fix have expanded their public transport systems, imposed commuter and car taxes, or reorganized their highways. Atlanta does not like any of these things. A vast public-works project such as Boston's Big Dig would be rejected in a city that turned almost exclusively to private money for the 1996 Olympics. (Come to that, Bostonians, after years of Big-Dig-induced snarls, are not mad keen on it either.) in last year's mayoral election in Atlanta, only the least popular candidate dared mention a commuter tax. Ms. Franklin pooh-poohs the idea.
Public transport is a vexed subject, too. Atlanta's metropolitan region is divided into numerous county and smaller city governments, which find it hard to work together. When the Metropolitan Regional Transit Authority (MARTA), the local light-rail-and-bus system, was proposed in 1971, only two counties, Fulton and DeKalb, agreed to finance it. Clayton, Gwinnett and Cobb, moved by a mixture of racism and a wish for a quiet life, refused, and MARTA has been unable to expand.
Railways now serve the city center and the airport, but not much else; bus stops are often near-invisible poles, three feet high, offering no indication of which bus might stop there, or when. A one-way fare is $1.75, compared with $ 1. 50 in New York, yet in 1999 MARTA collected only 26% of its revenue from fares, whereas New York collected 64%. Over loud protests, the system recently solved an $ 8m deficit by cutting bus routes and raising fares.
Georgia's Democratic governor, Roy Barnes, who hopes for re-election in November, has other plans. Towin back the federal highway money lost under the Clean Air Act, he created the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA), a 15-member board with the power to make the county governments, the city and the ten-county Atlanta Regional Commission co-operate on transport plans, whether they like it or not. Last year, when Mr. Barnes announced his $ 8.3 billion plan, he entrusted GRTA with the money.
Now GRTA has issued its own preliminary plan, allocating $ 4.5 billion over the next three years for a variety of schemes. The plan earmarks money to widen roads; to have an electric shuttle bus shuttle tourists among the elegant villas of Buckhead; and to create a commuter raillink between Atlanta and Macon, two hours to the south. Counties will be encouraged, with generous ten-to-one matching funds, to start express bus services.
1. Atlanta is called America's most car-dependent city probably because
[A] more speeding tickets were issued.
[B] the city's roads are most worn.
[C] emission level is higher than in other cities.
[D] its interchanges cause worst congestion.
2. What does the example of Boston's Big Dig illustrate
[A] Transport systems improved in other places.
[B] Atlanta's lack of fund led to its transport problem.
[C] Big Dig was an astonishing success for Boston.
[D] Public money is the best means to solve the problem.
3. What is true according to the text
[A] Georgia is a county in the metropolitan region of Atlanta.
[B] MARTA operates transport services throughout Atlanta.
[C] Atlanta's railways are better than its bus serves.
[D] MARTA prevented further loss of money by cutting services.
4. Roy Barnes's handling of the transport problem is, according to the text.
[A] heavy-handed. [B] arbitrary.
[C] aggressive. [D] reasonable.
5. GRTA's preliminary plan includes a variety of schemes, one of which is
[A] building a railway among the villas of Buckhead.
[B] starting express bus services by GRTA.
[C] operating a shuttle bus between Atlanta and Macon.
[D] broadening roads to carry more traffic.
Text 4
In the past 20 years, whenever redundancies have been necessary, older workers have been the most vulnerable group. There is a widespread suspicion that employers do discriminate against people by age. The National Adult Learning Survey found in 1997 that almost four-fifths of people in their 50s and 60s agreed that even if an older person studies to get qualifications, employers will usually choose a younger person.
However, age discrimination is going to be banned from 2006 under an EU directive. Even before the necessary legislation takes effect in Britain, there are signs that employers' attitudes are changing. Several now recognize that they were too hasty in winnowing out the ranks of older workers who were the repository for much corporate memory and wisdom. Nationwide Building Society, which has been pursuing a strategy of age diversity, has found that this policy pays by reducing turnover rates of staff. The saving in lower recruitment and training costs is ￡7m ($10 m) a year, calculates Denise Walker, head of corporate personnel.
Quite apart from legislation, demographic pressures are forcing companies to appreciate the virtues of older workers. The labour force is ageing fast, as the postwar generation of baby-boomers matures. In the 1980s and early 1990s, employers held the~ upper hand, thanks to a surge of young workers into the labour market. But the number of people aged 25--34 is now falling sharply. In the past four years, the employment rate of older workers has risen faster than that for all workers.
One reason why older industrial workers were vulnerable to layoffs in the 1980s and 1990s is that the skills they had learnt for their trades lost value as the economy shifted away from industry to services. Because they had had less opportunity for formal education, many lacked the foundations in numeracy and literacy that would have allowed them to respond to the new requirements of the job market. By contrast, post-war generations which have benefited from more formal education should prove more adaptable.
But will older people want to carry on working even if employers now want them to After all, it is quite rational for people to retire early, if they can afford to do so. High returns in the financial markets led to a rapid build-up in private pension wealth in the 1980s and 1990s. More and more people in their 50s found that it made sense to draw down this wealth earlier rather than later, argues Mr Blundell. Others were able to draw upon incapacity benefit if they found themselves unable to find jobs at acceptable wages.
However, these incentives now point to later rather than earlier retirement. The high returns
on equities in the past two decades were exceptional and future returns are bound to be much lower, says Tim Bond of Barclays Capital. After two terrible years, the pension-fund surpluses that financed redundancies of older workers have been eroded. And the government has greatly tightened the rules allowing people to claim incapacity benefit.
1. Discrimination against people by age, according to the text,
[A] was discovered in a national survey in 1997.
[B] places older people at a disadvantage in workplace.
[C] makes it difficult for older people to obtain qualifications.
[D] was widely practiced in the past twenty years.
2. Employer's changing attitudes are shown in the fact that
[A] EU will ban age discrimination from 2006.
[B] companies are pursuing a strategy of age diversity.
[C] older workers are generally a greater asset.
[D] turnover rates among older workers are Iow.
3. Older workers have to be appreciated now because
[A] there is a shortage of young workers.
[B] the generation of baby boomers has reached middle age.
[C] a surge of young men has appeared in the labour market.
[D] the employment of older workers has become a trend.
4. What can we infer from the text
[A] The structure of the economy has changed.
[B] The population growth rate is falling rapidly.
[C] Formal education started during the postwar era.
[D] Unemployment has deteriorated since the 1980s.
5. What is the author's view concerning old people's retirement
[A] They are eager to retire because of high pension.
[B] They will compare salary and pension before they decide.
[C] They will stay in their job for as long as they can.
[D] They will retire only ifthey get incapacity benefit.
Unit 6
Directions
Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (40 points)
Text 1
I've never met a human worth cloning, says cloning expert Mark Westhusin from the cramped confines of his lab at Texas A&M University. It's a stupid endeavor. That's an interesting choice of adjective, coming from a man who has spent millions of dollars trying to clone a 13-year-old dog named Missy. So far, he and his team have not succeeded, though they have cloned two calves and expect to clone a cat soon. They just might succeed in cloning Missy later this year---or perhaps not for another five years. It seems the reproductive system of man's best friend is one of the mysteries of modern science.
Westhusin's experience with cloning animals leaves him vexed by all this talk of human cloning. In three years of work on the Missyplicity project, using hundreds upon hundreds of canine eggs, the A&M team has produced only a dozen or so embryos carrying Missy's DNA. None have survived the transfer to a surrogate mother. The wastage of eggs and the many spontaneously aborted fetuses may be acceptable when you're dealing with cats or bulls, he argues, but not with humans. Cloning is incredibly inefficient, and also dangerous, he says.
Even so, dog cloning is a commercial opportunity, with a nice research payoff. Ever since Dolly the sheep was cloned in, 1997, Westhusin's phone at A&M College of Veterinary Medicine
has been ringing busily. Cost is no obstacle for customers like Missy's mysterious owner, who wishes m remain unknown to protect his privacy. He's plopped down $3.7 million so far to fund
the research because he wants a twin to carry on Missy;s fine qualities after she dies. But he knows her clone may not have her temperament. In a statement of purpose, Missy's owners and the A&M team say they are both looking forward to studying the ways that her clone differ from Missy.
The fate of the dog samples will depend on Westhusin's work. He knows that even if he gets a dog viably pregnant, the offspring, should they survive, will face the problems shown at
birth by other cloned animals abnormalities like immature lungs and heart and weight problems. Why would you ever want to clone humans, Westhusin asks, when we're not even close to getting it worked out in animals yet
1. Which of the following best represents Mr. Westhusin's attitude toward cloning
[A] Animal Cloning is a stupid attempt.
[B] Human cloning is not yet close to getting it worked out.
[C] Cloning is too inefficient and should be stopped.
[D] Animals cloning yes, and human cloning at least not now.
2. The Missyplicity project does not seem very successful probably because
[A] there isn't enough fund to support the research.
[B] cloning dog's is more complicated than cloning cats and bulls.
[C] Mr. Westhusin is too busy taking care of the business.
[D] the owner is asking for an exact copy of his pet.
3. When Mr. Westhusin says ...cloning is dangerous, he implies that
[A] lab technicians may be affected by chemicals.
[B] cats and dogs in the lab may die of diseases.
[C] experiments may waste lots of lives
[D] cloned animals could outlive the natural ones.
4. We can infer from the third paragraph that
[A] rich people are more interested in cloning humans than animals.
[B] cloning of animal pets is becoming a prosperous industry.
[C] there is no distinction between a cloned anda natural dog.
[D] Missy's master pays a lot in a hope to revive' the dog.
5. We may conclude from the text that
[A] human cloning will not succeed unless the technique is more efficient.
[B] scientists are optimistic about cloning technique.
[C] many people are against the idea of human cloning.
[D] cloned animals are more favored by owners even ifthey are weaker.
Text 2
For more than two decades, U.S. courts have been limiting affirmative-action programs in universities and other areas. The legal rationale is that racial preferences are uriconstitutional, even those intended to compensate for racism or intolerance. For many colleges, this means students can be admitted only on merit, not on their race or ethnicity. It has been a divisive issue across the U. S., as educators blame the prolonged reaction to affirmative-action for declines in minority admissions. Meanwhile, activists continue tobattle race preferences in courts from Michigan to North Carolina.
Now chief executives of about two dozen companies have decided to plunge headfirst into this politically unsettled debate. They, together with 36 universities and 7 non-profitable organizations, formed a forum that set forth an action plan essentially designed to help colleges circumvent court-imposed restrictions on affirmative action, The CEOs' motive Our audience is growing more diverse, so the communities we serve benefit if our employees are racially and ethnically diverse as well, says one CEO of a company that owns nine television stations.
Among the steps the forum is pushing finding creative yet legal ways to boost minority enrollment through new admissions policies; promoting admissions decisions that look at more than test scores; and encouraging universities to step up their minority outreach and financial aid. And to counter accusations by critics to challenge these tactics in court, the group says it will give legal assistance to colleges sued for trying them. Diversity diminished by the court must be made up for in other legitimate, legal ways, says a forum member.
