Part AText 1 People in the United States are becoming more and more aware of the influence of the automobile on their lives. The automobile has an influence on social life, on the economy, and on the environment. It is particularly its influence on the environment that people are increasingly worrying about. It has become obvious that the automobile contributes to air and noise pollution, traffic congestion, urban decay, and suburban sprawl, and that it has kept mass transit systems from developing. People are not so aware, however, of the relation between the automobile and energy problems. In the past few years the country has had energy problems such as brownouts and blackouts, fuel shortages, rising fuel prices, and bad effects on the environment caused by producing energy and converting it from one form to another. These energy problems are in fact closely related to the automobile. An enormous amount of energy, supplied mainly by petroleum, is required by the automobile. In fact, the automobile is responsible for 25 percent of the total energy consumption in the United States. Gasoline is only part of the energy required. It also take energy to manufacture the automobile in the first place. Then it must be transported to dealers who advertise and sell it, all of which takes energy. Energy is also required to make replacement parts for automobile repair. Once the car is on the road, energy still must go into producing gasoline for it. Oil fields must be discovered. Oil must be pumped to the surface and refined. And think of the energy required annually to build and maintain highways and roads. All together the energy requirements of a car are about 50 percent for gasoline and 50 percent for all these other needs that we have just mentioned. The question is, what can we do about all this What can we do to lower this figure, to conserve energy resources so as to reduce air pollution and help solve both our energy and automobile problems The most important thing we can do is to promote changes in passenger transportation. Bicycles are 22 times as energy-efficient as cars, walking 18 times, buses almost 4 times, and railroads 2.5 times. Only airplanes are less energy-efficient than cars. If we promote such changes, we won’t only conserve energy. We will also reduce the crowding and noise in the cities and we can use land for parks instead of for parking lots. It will take time for such changes to come about. Fortunately the sale of bicycles is increasing. And one thing we can do immediately is to increase the energy-efficiency of cars by using smaller cars and carrying more passengers. These changes that have just been suggested will require other changes in our society too, which some people may resist. It will not be easy to make these changes. But consider the alternatives. What is this text mainly about
A. The effects of automobiles on the environment.
B. The importance of automobiles to people’s lives.
C. The problem of energy shortage.
D. The importance of energy conservation.
"Intelligence" at best is an assumptive construct--the meaning of the word has never been clear. (61)There is more agreement on the kinds of behavior referred to by the term than there is on how to interpret or classify them. But it is generally agreed that a person of high intelligence is one who can grasp ideas readily, make distinctions, reason logically, and make use of verbal and mathematical symbols in solving problems. An intelligence test is a rough measure of a child’s capacity for learning, particularly for learning the kinds of things required in school. It does not measure character, social adjustment, physical endurance, manual skills, or artistic abilities. It is not supposed to-it was not designed for such purposes. (62)To criticize it for such failure is roughly comparable to criticizing a thermometer for not measuring wind velocity.The other thing we have to notice is that the assessment of the intelligence of any subject is essentially a comparative affair.(63) Now since the assessment of intelligence is a comparative matter we must be sure that the scale with which we are comparing our subjects provides a "valid" or "fair" comparison. It is here that some of the difficulties which interest us begin. Any test performed involves at least three factors: the intention to do one’s best, the knowledge required for understanding what you have to do, and the intellectual ability to do it. (64) The first two must be equal for all who are being compared, if any comparison in terms of intelligence is to be made. In school populations in our culture these assumptions can be made fair and reasonable, and the value of intelligence testing has been proved thoroughly. Its value lies, of course, in its providing a satisfactory basis for prediction. No one is in the least interested in the marks a little child gets on his test; what we are interested in is whether we can conclude from his mark on the test that the little child will do better or worse than other children of his age at tasks which we think require" general intelligence". (65)On the whole such a conclusion can be draw with a certain degree of confidence, but only if the child can be assumed to have had the same attitude towards the test as the other with whom he is being compared, and only if he was not punished by lack of relevant information which they possess. The first two must be equal for all who are being compared, if any comparison in terms of intelligence is to be made.