Questions 17—20 are based on the following text about flying. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 17—20. The very first air passengers in the balloon were ().
A. the King and the Queen
B. two Frenchmen
C. two animals
D. the Montgolfiers
In recent years the basic market principles of competition and choice have expanded into new aspects of American life. Consumers now face a bewildering array of options for air travel, phone service, medical car, even postal service. Car buyers can shop on the Internet for the best price at any dealership in their area. In some parts of the country, home-owners can purchase electricity from a menu of companies. All these choices translate into unprecedented consumer power.One of the persistent myths of capitalist culture is that business people love competition. They don’t. They spend their waking hours plotting ways to avoid it, and keep prices high. These days they use information technologies that give them intricate data on individual shoppers, and then present multiple prices to get each consumer to cough up the maximum he is willing to pay. The airlines have mastered this game, offering many levels of fare. Software companies appeal to the bargain shopper with a low price "standard" version and to the status conscious with a high priced "deluxe" alternative. If you are not in-clined to shop around or have a taste for extravagance, prepare to be fleeced. How do the basic market principles of competition and choice affect American life().
A. People have more options for air travel, phone service, but not for medical care and postal service.
B. People have more options for cars but not for electricity.
C. People have more options, which translates into unprecedented consumer power.
D. People feel uneasy about a bewildering array of options.
Talk to any parent of a student who took an adventurous gap year (a year between school and university when some students earn money, travel, etc. ) and a misty look will come into their eyes. There are some disasters and even the most motivated, organised gap student does require family back-up, financial, emotional and physical. The parental mistiness is not just about the brilliant experience that has matured their offspring; it is vicarious living. We all wish pre-university gap years had been the fashion in our day. We can see how much tougher our kids become; how much more prepared to benefit from university or to decide positively that they are going to do something other than a degree.Gap years are fashionable, as is reflected in the huge growth in the number of charities and private companies offering them. Pictures of Prince William toiling in Chile have helped, but the trend has been gathering steam for a decade. The range of gap packages starts with backpacking, includes working with charities, building hospitals and schools and, very commonly, working as a language assistant, teaching English. With this trend, however, comes a danger. Once parents feel that a well-structured year is essential to their would-be undergraduate’s progress to a better university, a good degree, an impressive CV and well paid employment, as the gap companies’ blurbs suggest it might be, then parents will start organising and paying for the gaps.Where there are disasters, according to Richard Oliver, director of the gap companies’ umbrella organisation, the Year Out Group, it is usually because of poor planning. That can be the fault of the company or of the student, he says, but the best insurance is thoughtful preparation. "When people get it wrong, it is usually medical or, especially among girls; it is that they have not been away from home before or because expectation does not match reality. "The point of a gap year is that it should be the time when the school leaver gets to do the thing that he or she fancies. Kids don’t mature if Mum and Dad decide how they are going to mature. If the 18-year-old’s way of maturing is to slob out on Hampstead Heath soaking up sunshine or spending a year working with fishermen in Cornwall, then that’s what will be productive for that person. The consensus, however, is that some structure is an advantage and that the prime mover needs to be the student.The 18-year-old who was dispatched by his parents at two weeks’ notice to Canada to learn to be a snowboarding instructor at a cost of £5, 800, probably came back with little more than a hangover. The 18-year-old on the same package who worked for his fare and spent the rest of his year instructing in resorts from New Zealand to Switzerland, and came back to apply for university, is the positive counterbalance. It can be inferred from the first paragraph that parents of gap students may ().
A. help children to be prepared for disasters
B. receive all kinds of support from their children
C. have rich experience in bringing up their offspring
D. experience watching children grow up