阅读一
Giving Credit Where Credit Is Not Due
The big identity-theft bust last week was just a taste of whats to come. Heres how to protect your good name
HERES THE SCARY THING about the identity-theft ring that the feds cracked last week: there was nothing any of its estimated 40,000 victims could have done to prevent it from happening. This was an inside job, according to court documents. A lowly help-desk worker at Teledata Communications, a software firm that helps banks access credit reports online, allegedly stole passwords for those reports and sold them to a group of 20 thieves at $60 a pop. That allowed the gang to cherry-pick consumers with good credit and apply for all kinds of accounts in their names. Cost to the victims: $3 million and rising.
Even scarier is that this, the largest identity-theft bust to date, is just a drop in the bit bucket. More than 700,000 Americans have their credit hijacked every year. Its one of crimes biggest growth markets. A name, address and Social Security number--which can often be found on the Web--is all anybody needs to apply for a bogus line of credit. Credit companies make $1.3 trillion annually and lose less than 2% of that revenue to fraud, so theres little financial incentive for them to make the application process more secure. As it stands now, its up to you to protect your identity.
The good news is that there are plenty of steps you can take. Most credit thieves are opportunists, not well-organized gangs. A lot of them go Dumpster diving for those millions of pre-approved credit-card mailings that go out every day. Others steal wallets and return them, taking only a Social Security number. Shredding your junk mail and leaving your Social Security card at home can save a lot of agony later.
But the most effective way to keep your identity clean is to check your credit reports once or twice a year. There are three major credit-report outfits: Equifax , Trans-Union and Experian . All allow you to order reports online, which is a lot better than wading through voice-mail hell on their 800 lines. Of the three, I found TransUnions website to be the cheapest and most comprehensive--laying out state-by-state prices, rights and tips for consumers in easy-to-read fashion.
If youre lucky enough to live in Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey or Vermont, you are entitled to one free report a year by law. Otherwise its going to cost $8 to $14 each time. Avoid services that offer to monitor your reports year-round for about $70; thats $10 more than the going rate among thieves. If you think youre a victim of identity theft, you can ask for fraud alerts to be put on file at each of the three credit-report companies. You can also download a theft-report form at www.consumer.gov/idtheft, which, along with a local police report, should help when irate creditors come knocking. Just dont expect justice. That audacious help-desk worker was one of the fewer than 2% of identity thieves who are ever caught.
1.What is the trend of credit-theft crime?
Tightly suppressed. More frightening. Rapidly increasing. loosely controlled.
2.The expression inside job most probably means _________.
a crime that is committed by a person working for the victim a crime that should be punished severely
a crime that does great harm to the victim a crime that poses a great threat to the society
3.The creditors can protect their identity in the following way except _________.
destroying your junk mail leaving your Social Security card at home
visiting the credit-report website regularly obtaining the free report from the government
4.Why is it easy to have credit-theft?
More people are using credit service. The application program is not safe enough.
Creditors usually disclose their identity. Creditors are not careful about their identity.
5.What is the best title of the text?
The danger of credit-theft The loss of the creditors
How to protect your good name Why the creditors lose their identity
答案：CADBC
阅读二
Opinion polls are now beginning to show that,whoever is to blame and whatever happens from now on,high unemployment is probably here to say.This means we shall have to find ways of sharing the available employment more widely.
But we need to go further. We must ask some fundamental questions about the future work. Should we continue to treat employment as the norm? Should we not rather encourage many ways for self-respecting people to work? Should we not create conditions in which many of us can work for ourselves, rather than for an employer? Should we not aim to revive the household and the neighborhood, as well as the factory and the office, as centers of production and work?
The industrial age has been the only period of human history in which most peoples work has taken the form of jobs. The industrial age may now becoming to an end, and some of the changes in work patterns which it brought may have to be reversed. This seems a daunting thought. But, in fact, it could offer the prospect of a better future for work. Universal employment, as its history shows, has not meant economic freedom.
Employment became widespread when the enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries made many people dependent on paid work by depriving them of the use of the land, and thus of the means to provide a living for themselves. Then the factory system destroyed the cottage industries and removed work from peoples homes. Later, as transport improved first by rail and then by road, people commuted longer distances to their places of employment until, eventually, many peoples work lost all connection with their home lives and the places in which they live.
Meanwhile, employment put women at a disadvantage. In preindustrial times, men and women had shared the productive work of the household and village community. Now it became customary for the husband to go out to paid employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and families to his wife. Tax and benefit regulations still assume this norm today, and restrict more flexible sharing of work roles between the sexes.
It was not only women whose work status suffered. As employment became the dominant form of work, young people and old people were excludeda problem now, as more teenagers become frustrated at school and more retired people want to live active lives.
All this may now have to change.
The time has certainly come to switch some effort and resources away from the idealist goal creating jobs for all, to the urgent practical task of helping many people to manage without full-time jobs.
21.What is the main idea of the passage?
A) Employment became widespread in the 17th and 18th centuries.
B) Unemployment will remain a major problem for industrialized nations.
C) The industrial age may now be coming to an end.
D) Some efforts and resources should be devoted to helping more people cope with the problem of unemployment.
22.Which of the following was NOT mentioned as a factor contributing to the spread of employment?
A) The enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries. B) The development of factories.
C) Relief from housework on the part of women. D) Development of modern means of transportation.
23.It can be inferred from the passage that____.
A)most people who have been polled believe that the problem of unemployment may not be solved within a short period of time
B) many farmers lost their land when new railways and factories were being constructed
C) in preindustrial societies housework and community service were mainly carried out by women
D) some of the changes in work pattern that the industrial age brought have been reversed
24.What does the word daunting in the third paragraph mean?
A) Shocking B) Interesting C) Confusing D) Stimulating
25.Which of the following is NOT suggested as a possible means to cope with the current situation?
A) Create situations in which people work for themselves. B) Treat employment as the norm.
C) Endeavor to revive the household and the neighborhood as centers of production.
D) Encourage people to work in circumstances other than normal working conditions.
答案：DCAAB
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阅读三
No one should be forced to wear a uniform under any circumstance. Uniforms are demanding to the human spirit and totally unnecessary in a democratic society. Uniforms tell the world that the person who wears one has no value as an individual but only lives to function as a part of a whole. The individual in a uniform loses all self-worth.
There are those who say that wearing a uniform gives a person a sense of identification with a larger, more important concept. What could be more important than the individual himself? If an organization is so weak that it must rely on cloth and buttons to inspire its members, that organization has no right to continue its existence. Others say that the practice of making persons wear uniforms, say in a school, eliminates all envy and competition in the matter of dress, such that a poor person who cannot afford good-quality clothing is not to be belittled by a wealthy person who wears expensive quality clothing. Those persons conveniently ignore such critical concepts as freedom of choice, motivation, and individuality. If all persons were to wear the same clothing, why would anyone strive to be better? It is only a short step from forcing everyone to drive the same car, have the same type of foods. When this happens, all incentive to improve ones life is removed. Why would parents bother to work hard so that their children could have a better life than they had when they know that their children are going to be forced to have exactly the same life that they had?
Uniforms also hurt the economy. Right now, billions of dollars are spent on the fashion industry yearly. Thousands of persons are employed in designing, creating and marketing different types of clothing. If everyone were forced to wear uniforms, artistic personnel would be unnecessary. Sales persons would be superfluous as well; why bother to sell the only items that are available? The wearing of uniforms would destroy the fashion industry, which in turn would have a ripple effect on such industries as advertising and promotion. Without advertising, newspapers, magazines, and television would not be able to remain in business. One entire information and entertainment industry would collapse.
26.The authors primary purpose in writing this passage was to ____.
A)plead for the abolishment of uniforms B)show that uniforms are not possible in a democratic society
C)advocate stronger governmental controls on the wearing of uniforms
D)convince the reader that uniforms have more disadvantages than advantages
27.Why does the author discuss forcing everyone to buy the same car or eat the same food?
A) To show that freedom of choice is absolute.
B) To show that the government has interfered too much in the lives of individual.
C) To suggest what would happen if uniforms became compulsory.
D) To predict the way the society will be in the next few generations.
28.Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the author?
A) The person who wears a uniform has no self-worth.
B) Wearing a uniform gives a person a sense of identification with a larger concept.
C) Uniforms will hurt one entire information and entertainment industry.
D) Envy and competition are incentive to improve ones life.
29.The word superfluous most probably means ____.
A) indispensable B) availableC) surplus D) supplementary
30.The next paragraph in this passage might discuss____.
A) the positive effects of wearing uniformsB) more negative effects of wearing uniforms
C) alternative to wearing uniformsD) the legal rights of those not wishing to wear uniforms
答案：DCBCB
阅读四
A strange thing about humans is their capacity for blind rage. Rage is presumably an emotion resulting from survival instinct, but the surprising thing about it is that we do not deploy it against other animals. If we encounter a dangerous wild animal - a poisonous snake or a wild cat - we do not fly into a temper. If we are unarmed, we show fear and attempt to back away; if we are suitably armed, we attack, but in a rational manner not in a rage. We reserve rage for our own species. It is hard to see any survival value in attacking ones own, but if we take account of the long competition, which must have existed between our own subspecies and others like Neanderthal man - indeed others still more remote from us than Neanderthal man - human rage becomes more comprehensible.
In our everyday language and behavior there are many reminders of those early struggles. We are always using the words us and them. Our side is perpetually trying to do down the other side. In games we artificially create other subspecies we can attack. The opposition of us and them is the touchstone of the two-party system of democratic politics. Although there are no very serious consequences to many of these modern psychological representations of the us and them emotion, it is as well to remember that the original aim was not to beat the other subspecies in a game but to exterminate it.
The readiness with which humans allow themselves to be regimented has permitted large armies to be formed, which, taken together with the us and them blind rage, has led to destructive clashes within our subspecies itself. The First World War is an example in which Europe divided itself into two imaginary subspecies. And there is a similar extermination battle now in Northern Ireland. The idea that there is a religious basis for this clash is illusory, for not even the Pope has been able to control it. The clash is much more primitive than the Christian religion, much older in its emotional origin. The conflict in Ireland is unlikely to stop until a greater primitive fear is imposed from outside the community, or until the combatants become exhausted.
31.A suitable title for this passage would be____.
A) Why Human Armies Are Formed B) Mans Anger Against Rage
C) The Human Capacity for Rage D) Early Struggles of Angry Man
32.According to the author, the surprising aspect of human anger is____.
A) its lengthy and complex development B) a conflict such as is now going on in Northern Ireland
C) that we do not fly into a temper more often D) that we reserve anger for mankind
33.The passage suggests that____.
A) historically, we have created an us versus them society
B) humans have had a natural disinclination toward formal grouping
C) the First World War is an example of how man has always avoided domination
D) the emotional origin of the war in Ireland is lost in time
34.From the passage we can infer that ____.
A) the artificial creation of a subspecies unlike us is something that never happens
B) games are psychologically unhealthy C) any artificially created subspecies would be our enemy
D) the real or imagined existence of an opposing subspecies is inherent in mans activities
35.The author believes that a religious explanation for the war in Northern Ireland is____.
A) founded in historical fact B) deceptive C) apparent D) probably accurate
答案：CDADB
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