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In this section there are four passages followed by questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers marked [A], [B], [C] and [D]. Choose the one that you think is the best answer. Mark your answers on your ANSWER SHEET.TEXT A Somehow California is always at the cutting edge, be it in the flower-power days of the 1960s or the dotcom boom of the 1990s. As Kevin Starr points out in his History of the State, California has long been "one of the prisms through which the American people, for better and for worse, could glimpse their future". Mr. Starr is too good a historian to offer any pat explanation; instead, he concentrates on the extraordinary array of people and events that have led from the mythical land of Queen Calafia, through the rule of Spain and Mexico, and on to the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger, an iron-pumping film star with an Austrian accent. Moreover, he does so with such elegance and humor that his book is a joy to read. What emerges is not all Californian sunshine and light. Think back to the savage violence that accompanied the 1849 Gold Rush; or to the exclusion orders against the Chinese; or to the riots that regularly marked industrial and social relations in San Francisco. California was very much the Wild West, having to wait until 1850 before it could force its way to statehood. So what tamed it Mr. Starr’s answer is a combination of great men, great ideas and great projects. He emphasizes the development of California’s infrastructure, the development of agriculture; the spread of the railroads and freeways; and, perhaps the most important factor for today’s hi-tech California, the creation of a superb set of public universities. All this, he writes, "began with water, the sine qua non of any civilization." He goes on cheerfully to note the "monumental damage to the environment" caused by irrigation projects that were "plagued by claims of deception, double-dealing and conflict of interest". One virtue of this book is its structure. Mr. Start is never trapped by his chronological framework. In-stead, when the subject demands it, he manages deftly to flit back and forth among the decades. Less satisfying is his account of California’s cultural progress in the 19th and 20th centuries: does he really need to invoke so many long-forgotten writers to accompany such names as Jack London, Frank Norris, Mark Twain or Raymond Chandler But that is a minor criticism for a book that will become a California classic. The regret is that Mr. Starr, doubtless pressed for space, leaves so little room--just a brief final chapter--for the implications of the past for California’s future. He poses the question that most Americans prefer to gloss over: is California governable "For all its impressive growth, there remains a volatility in the politics and governance of California, which became perfectly clear to the rest of the nation in the fall of 2003 when the voters of California recalled one governor and elected another." Indeed so, and Mr. Start wisely avoids making any premature judgment on their choice. Ills such as soaring house prices, grid locked freeways and "embattled" public schools, combined with the budgetary problems that stem from the tax revolt of 1978 would test to the limit any governor, even the Terminator. As Mr. Starr notes, no one should cite California as an unambiguous triumph: "There has al-ways been something slightly bipolar about California. It was either utopia or dystopia, a dream or a night-mare, a hope or a broken promise--and too infrequently anything in between." What is the most adverse potential problem for the development of California
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TEXT D Visitors to St. Paul Cathedral are sometimes astonished as they walk round the space under the arch to come up a statue which would appear to be that of a retired armed man meditating upon a wasted life. They are still more astonished when they see under it an inscription indicating that it represents the English writer, Samuel Johnson. The statue is by Bacon, but it is not one of his best works. The figure is, as often in eighteenth-century sculpture, clothed only in a loose robe that leaves arms, legs and one shoulder hare. But the strangeness for us is not one of costume only. If we know anything of Johnson, we know that he was constantly ill all through his life; and whether we know anything of him or not we are apt to think of a literary man as a delicate, weakly, nervous sort of person. Nothing can be further from that than the muscular statue. And in this matter the statue is perfectly right. And the fact which it reports is far from being unimportant. The body and the mind are closely interwoven in all of us, and certainly in Johnson’s case the influence of the body was extremely oblivious. His melancholy, his constantly repeated conviction of the general un-happiness of human life, was certainly the result of his constitutional infirmities. On the other hand, his courage, and his entire indifference to pain, was partly due to his great bodily strength. Perhaps the vein of rudeness, almost of fierceness, which sometimes showed itself in his conversation, was the natural tem-per of an invalid and suffering giant. That at any rate is what he was. He was the victim from childhood of a disease that resembled St. Vitus’s dance. He never knew the natural joy of a free and vigorous use of his limbs; when he walked it was like the struggling walk of one in irons. All accounts agree that his strange gestures and contortions were painful for his friends to witness and attracted crows of starters in the streets. But Reynolds says that he could sit still for his portrait to be taken, and that when his mind was engaged by a conversation the convulsions ceased. In any case, it is certain that neither this perpetual misery, nor his constant fear of losing his reason, nor his many grave attacks of illness, ever induced him to surrender the privileges that belonged to his physical strength. He justly thought no character so disagreeable as that of a chronic invalid, and was determined not to be one himself. He had known what it was to live on four pence a day and scorned the life of sofa cushions and tea into which well-attended old gentle-men so easily slip. The author says Johnson found it very difficult to walk because ______ .
In this section, you will hear several news items. Listen to them carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 21 to 23 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now, listen to the news. What were the villagers doing when the explosion occurred
Decide which of the choices given below would best complete the passage if inserted in the corresponding blanks. Mark the best choice for each blank on your ANSWER SHEET. Threats from nomadic people in the north were (31) throughout Chinese history. They were continually attacking the Chinese northern (32) . With each new emperor, came endless debate about how to (33) the barbarians. There were four options. (34) offensive campaigns to drive them away or to destroy them; create defensive garrisons; develop diplomatic and (35) ties with them, or build a wall to keep them out. All the options were (36) at various times. Experience showed that (37) campaigns were too costly and very risky, (38) defensive garrisons could not respond quickly enough (39) lightning attacks along a long border. The third option would seem to be a very (40) one and it was in fact tried successfully (41) a couple of occasions. Wall building became the most favored option in many dynasties. The three dynasties which (42) the most walls were the Qin, the Han and the Ming. The effectiveness of the Great Wall in history is still a controversial (43) . Historical records show that the wall (44) at many times (45) repel invaders. Only on two occasions when a dynasty weakened from (46) were invaders from the north (47) advance and conquer. (48) , scholars think the Chinese wall builders were themselves responsible for the unrest on the border. The nomads were people who did not farm, so they (49) trade with China for many essentials. When the Chinese refused to trade with them, they had no option (50) raid border towns.
TEXT B Whenever two or more unusual traits or situations are found in the same place, it is tempting to look for more than a coincidental relationship between them. The high Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau certainly have extraordinary physical characteristics and the cultures that are found there are also unusual, though not unique. However there is no intention of adopting Montesquieu’s view of climate and soil as cultural determents. The ecology of a region merely poses some of the problems faced by the inhabitants of the region, and while the problems facing a culture are important to its development, they do not determine it. The appearance of the Himalayas during the late Tertiary Period and the accompanying further raising of the previously established rages had a marked effect on the climate of the region. Primarily, of course, it blocked the Indian monsoon from reaching Central Asia at all. Secondly, air and moisture from other directions were also reduced. Prior to the raising of the Himalayas, the land now forming the Tibetan uplands had a dry, continental climate with vegetation and animal’s life similar to that of much of the rest of the region on the same parallel, but somewhat different from that of the areas farther north, which were already drier. With the coming of the Himalayas and the relatively sudden drying out of the region, there was a severe thinning out of the animal and plant population. The ensuing incomplete Pleistocene glaciations had a further thinning effect, but significantly did not wipe out life in the area. Thus after the end of the glaciations there were only a few varieties of life extant from the original continental species. Isolated by the Kunlun range from the Tarim basin and Turfan depression, species that bad already adapted to the dry steppe climate, and would otherwise have been expected to flourish in Tibetan, the remaining native fauna and flora multi-plied. Armand described the Tibetan fauna as not having great variety, but being "striking" in the abundance of the particular species that are present. The plant life is similarly limited in variety, with some observers finding no more than seventy varieties of plants in even the relatively fertile Eastern Tibetan valleys, with fewer than ten food crops. Tibetan "tea" is a major staple, perhaps replacing the unavailable vegetables. The difficulties of living in an environment at once dry and cold, and populated with species more usually found in more hospitable climates, are great. These difficulties may well have influenced the unusual polyandrous societies typical of the region. Lattimore sees the maintenance of multi-husband house-holds as being preserved from earlier forms by the harsh conditions of the Tibetan uplands, which permitted no experimentation and "froze" the cultures that came there. Kawakiwa, on the other hand, sees the polyandry as a way of easily permitting the best householder to become the head husband regardless of age. His detailed studies of the Bhotea village of Tsumje do seem to support this idea of polyandry as a method of talent mobility in a situation where even the best talent is barely enough for survival. In sum, though arguments can be made that a pre-existing polyandrous system was strengthened and preserved (insofar as it has been) by the rigors of the land, it would certainly be an overstatement to lay causative factors of any stronger nature to the ecological influences in this case. What are the "unusual traits or situations" referred to in the first sentence
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