Television sells us instant （).

Parallelism is used in ________.

A、It sells us instant gratification. It diverts us only to divert, to make the time pass without pain.

B、Consider the casual assumptions that television tends to cultivate: that complexity must be avoided, that visual stimulation is a substitute for thought, that verbal precisio is an anachronism.

C、Television’s variety becomes a narcotic, not a stimulus.

D、Everything about this nation – the structure of the society, its forms of family organization, its economy, its place in the world – has become more complex, not less.

For questions 1-7, markY(for YES) if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage; N(for NO) if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage; NG(for NOT GIVEN) if the information is not given in the passage.

The Trouble With Television

It is difficult to escape the influence of television. If you fit the statistical averages, by the age of 20 you will have been exposed to at least 20,000 hours of television. You can add 10,000 hours for each decade you have lived after the age of 20. The only things Americans do more than watch television are work and sleep.

Calculate for a moment what could be done with even a part of those hours. Five thousand hours, I am told, are what a typical college undergraduate spends working on a bachelor's degree. In 10,000 hours you could have learned enough to become an astronomer or engineer. You could have learned several languages fluently. If it appealed to you, you could be reading Homer in the original Greek or Dostoyevsky in Russian. If it didn't, you could have walked around the world and written a book about it.

The trouble with television is that it discourages concentration. Almost anything interesting and rewarding in life requires some constructive, consistently applied effort. The dullest, the least gifted of us can achieve things that seem miraculous to those who never concentrate on anything. But Television encourages us to apply no effort. It sells us instant gratification(满意). It diverts us only to divert, to make the time pass without pain.

Television's variety becomes a narcotic(麻醉的), nor a stimulus. Its serial, kaleidoscopic (万花筒般的)exposures force us to follow its lead. The viewer is on a perpetual guided tour: 30 minutes at the museum, 30 at the cathedral, 30 for a drink, then back on the bus to the next attraction—except on television., typically, the spans allotted arc on the order of minutes or seconds, and the chosen delights are more often car crashes and people killing one another. In short, a lot of television usurps(篡夺;侵占) one of the most precious of all human gifts, the ability to focus your attention yourself, rather than just passively surrender it.

Capturing your attention—and holding it—is the prime motive of most television programming and enhances its role as a profitable advertising vehicle. Programmers live in constant fear of losing anyone's attention—anyone's. The surest way to avoid doing so is to keep everything brief, not to strain the attention of anyone but instead to provide constant stimulation through variety, novelty, action and movement. Quite simply, television operates on the appeal to the short attention span.

It is simply the easiest way out. But it has come to be regarded as a given, as inherent in the medium itself; as an imperative, as though General Sarnoff, or one of the other august pioneers of video, had bequeathed(遗留;传于) to us tablets of stone commanding that nothing in television shall ever require more than a few moments' Concentration.

In its place that is fine. Who can quarrel with a medium that so brilliantly packages escapist entertainment as a mass-marketing tool？ But I see its values now pervading this nation and its life. It has become fashionable to think that, like fast food, fast ideas are the way to get to a fast-moving, impatient public.

In the case of news, this practice, in my view, results in inefficient communication. I question how much of television's nightly news effort is really absorbable and understandable. Much of it is what has been aptly described as "machine-gunning with scraps." I think the technique fights coherence. I think it tends to make things ultimately boring (unless they are accompanied by horrifying pictures) because almost anything is boring if you know almost nothing about it.

I believe that TV's appeal to the short attention span is not only inefficient communication but decivilizing as well. Consider the casual assumptions that television tends to cultivate: that complexity must be avoided, that visual stimulation is a substitute for thought, that verbal precision is an anachronism. It may be old-fashioned, but I was taught that thought is words, arranged in grammatically precise.

There is a crisis of literacy in this country. One study estimates that some 30 million adult Americans are "functionally illiterate" and cannot read or write well enough to answer the want ad or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle.

Literacy may not be an inalienable human right, but it is one that the highly literate Founding Fathers might not have found unreasonable or even unattainable. We are not only not attaining it as a nation, statistically speaking, but we are falling further and further short of attaining it. And, while I would not be so simplistic as to suggest that television is the cause, I believe it contributes and is an influence.

Everything about this nation—the structure of the society, its forms of family organization, its economy, its place in the world— has become more complex, not less. Yet its dominating communications instrument, its principal form. of national linkage, is one that sells neat resolutions to human problems that usually have no neat resolutions. It is all symbolized in my mind by the hugely successful art form. that television has made central to the culture, the 30-second commercial: the tiny drama of the earnest housewife who finds happiness in choosing the right toothpaste.

When before in human history has so much humanity collectively surrendered so much of its leisure to one toy, one mass diversion？ When before has virtually an entire nation surrendered itself wholesale to a medium for selling？

Some years ago Yale University law professor Charles L. Black. Jr., wrote: "... forced feeding on trivial fare is not itself a trivial matter-" I think this society is being forced-fed with trivial fare, and I fear that the effects on our habits of mind, our language, our tolerance for effort, and our appetite for complexity are only dimly perceived. If I am wrong, we will have done no harm to look at the issue skeptically and critically, to consider how we should be residing it. I hope you will join with me in doing so.

1. In America people do sleeping and watching televisions more than anything else.

2. From the passage we know the time an average American spends on watching TV could have made the person learn to become an astronomer or engineer.

3. The trouble with TV is that it distracts people’s attention and encourages them to make no efforts toward their life.

4. TV programmers base this operation on the attraction of long-span attention of audiences.

5. According to the author the improper television operation in American society will be likely to make things eventually boring.

6. Americans will face a serious problem of illiteracy due to the negative impact of TV.

7. In American society literacy is a certain right that cannot be deprived.

Commercial paper may either be dealer placed or directly placed. If it is dealer placed, the (61) sells its promissory notes to one of the ten-regular commercial paper dealers, which, in turn, sells it to others. If commercial paper is directly placed, the issuing corporation sells its notes directly in the market, without the intermediation of the (62) . This is the method used primarily by sales-finance companies because they (63) in the market on a virtually continuous basis. Sales-finance companies are companies that supply the credit for the installment purchase of major (64) items, for example, automobiles, refrigerators, and television sets. These companies find the commercial paper (65) particularly well suited to their needs since it enables them to adjust to swings in demand for installment purchases.

(46)

A．issuing corporation

B．seller

C．dealer

D．issuing bank

Which of the following is NOT true？

A. Colour probably has an effect on us which we are not conscious of.

B. Our feelings about certain colours are purely psychology.

C. Food should never be packaged in brown.

D. Sugar sells badly in green wrappings.

A. literature

B. literacy

C. literary

D. literal

It is()for us to try to decide whether television is a blessing or a curse.

A general

B essential

C illegal

D successful

A.intensively

B.inclusively

C.extensively

D.exclusively

By the millions they are coming no longer the tired, the poor, the wretched masses longing for a better living.These are the wealthy.“We don’t have a budget,” says a biologist from Brazil, as she walks with two companions through New York City’s South Street.“We just use our credit cards.”

The US has long been one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations, but this year has been exceptional.First, there was the World Cup, which drew thousands from every corner of the globe; then came the weakening of the US dollar against major currencies.Now the US, still the world’s superpower, can also claim to be the world’s bargain basement (廉价商品部).Nobody undersells America these days on just about everything, from consumer electronics to fashion clothes to tennis rackets.Bottom retail prices anywhere from 30% to 70% lower than those in Europe and Asia have attracted some 47 million visitors, who are expected to leave behind $ 79 billion in 1994.That’s up from $ 74 billion the year before.

True, not everyone comes just for bargains.There remains an undeniable fascination in the rest of the world with all things American, nourished by Hollywood films and US television series.But shopping the USA is proving irresistible.Every week thousands arrive with empty suitcases ready to be filled; some even rent an additional hotel room to hold their purchases.The buying binge (无节制) has become as important as watching Old Faithful Fountains erupt in Yellowstone Park or sunbathing on a beach in Florida.

The US has come at last to appreciate what other countries learned long ago: the puring in of foreign tourists may not always be convenient, but it does put money in the bank.And with a trade deficit at about $ 130 billion and growing for the past 12 months, the US needs all the deposits it can get.Compared with American tourists abroad, visitors to the US stay longer and spend more money at each stop; an average of 12.2 night and $ 1624 a traveler versus the Americans’ four nights and $ 298.

31.From what the Brazilian biologist says, we know that tourists like her.

A.are reluctant to carry cash with them.

B.simply don’t care how much they spend.

C.are not good at planning their expenditure.

D.often spend more money than they can afford.

32.The reason why 1994 was exceptional is that.

A.it saw an unusually large number of tourists to the US

B.it witnessed a drop in the number of tourists to the US.

C.tourism was hardly affected by the weakening of the US dollar that year.

D.tourists came to the US for sightseeing rather than for bargains that year.

33.By saying “Nobody undersells America” (Underlined), the author means that .

A.no other country underestimates the competitiveness of American products.

B.Nobody expects the Americans to cut the prices of their commodities.

C.nobdy restrains the selling of American goods.

D.no other country sells at a lower price than America.

34.Why does the author assert that all things American are fascinating to foreigners？

A.Because they have gained much publicity through the American media.

B.Because they represent the world’s latest fashions.

C.Because they embody the most sophisticated technology.

D.Because they are available at all tourist destinations.

35.From the passage we can conclude that the US has come to realize.

A.the weakening of the US dollar can result in trade deficits.

B.the lower the retail prices, the greater in profits.

C.tourism can make great contributions to its economy.

D.visitors to the US are wealthier than US tourists abroad.