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A good marriage means growing as a couple but also growing as individuals. This isn"t easy, marriage has always been difficult. Why then are we seeing so many divorces at this time Yes, our modern social fabric is thin, and yes the permissiveness of society has created unrealistic expectations and thrown the family into disorder. But divorce is so common be-cause people today are unwilling to exercise the self-discipline that marriage requires. They expect easy joy, like the entertainment on TV, the thrill of a good party. Marriage takes some kind of sacrifice, net dreadful self-sacrifice of the soul, but some level of compromise. Some of one"s fantasies, some of one"s legitimate desires have to be given up for the value of the marriage itself. "While all marital partners feel shackled at times, it is they who really choose to make the marital ties into confining chains or supporting bends", says Dr. Whitaker. Marriage requires sexual, financial and emotional discipline. A man and a woman cannot follow every impulse, cannot allow themselves to stop growing or changing. A divorce is not an evil act. Sometimes it provides salvation(拯救) for people who have grown hopelessly apart or were frozen in patterns of pain or mutual unhappiness. Divorce can be like the first cut of the surgeon"s knife, a step toward new health and a good life. On the other hand, if the partners can stay past the breaking up of the romantic myths into the development of real love and intimacy, they have achieved a work as amazing as the greatest cathedrals(教堂) of the world. Marriages that do not fail but improve, that persist despite imperfections, are not only rare these days but offer a wondrous shelter in which the face of our mutual humanity can safely show itself. In Paragraph 2, the word "shackled" means ______.

A. connected
B. pleased
C. restricted
D. disappointed

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Could the bad old days of economic decline be about to return Since OPEC agreed to supply-cuts in March, the price of crude oil has jumped to almost $26 a barrel, up from less than $10 last December. This near-tripling of oil prices calls up scary memories of the 1973 oil shock, when prices quadrupled, and 1979-80, when they also almost tripled. Both previous shocks resulted in double-digit inflation and global economic decline. So there are the headlines warning of gloom and doom this time The oil price was given another push up this week when Iraq suspended oil experts. Strengthening economic growth, at the same time as winter grips the northern hemisphere, could push the price higher still in the short item. Yet there are good reasons to expect the economic consequences now to be less severe than in the 1970s. In most countries the cost of crude oil now accounts for a smaller share of the price of petrol than it did in the 1970s. In Europe, tuxes account for up to four-fifths of the retail price, so even quite big changes in the price of crude have a more muted effect on pump prices than in the past. Rich economies are also less dependent on oil than they were, and so less sensitive to swings in the oil price. Energy conservation, a shift to other fuels and a decline in the importance of heavy, energy-intensive industries have reduced oil consumption. Software, consultancy and mobile telephones use far less oil than steel or car production. For each dollar of GDP (in constant prices) rich economies now use nearly 50% less oil than in 1973. The OECD estimates in its latest Economic Outlook that, oil prices averaged $22 a barrel for a full year, compared with $13 in 1998, this would increase the oil import bill in rich economies by only 0.25-0.5% of GDP. That is less than one-quarter of the income loss in 1974 or 1980. On the other hand, oil-importing emerging economies—to which heavy industry has shifted—have become more energy-intensive, and se could he more seriously squeezed. One more reason net to lose sleep over the rise in oil prices is that, unlike the rises in the 1970s, it has not occurred against the background of general commodity-price inflation and global excess demand. A sizable portion of the world is only just emerging from economic decline. The Economist"s commodity price index is broadly unchanging from a year ago. In 1973 commodity prices jumped by 70%, and in 1979 by almost 30%. We can draw a conclusion from the text that______.

A. oil-price shocks are less shocking now
B. inflation seems irrelevant to oil-price shocks
C. energy conservation can keep down the oil prices
D. the price rise of crude leads to the shrinking of heavy industry

Could the bad old days of economic decline be about to return Since OPEC agreed to supply-cuts in March, the price of crude oil has jumped to almost $26 a barrel, up from less than $10 last December. This near-tripling of oil prices calls up scary memories of the 1973 oil shock, when prices quadrupled, and 1979-80, when they also almost tripled. Both previous shocks resulted in double-digit inflation and global economic decline. So there are the headlines warning of gloom and doom this time The oil price was given another push up this week when Iraq suspended oil experts. Strengthening economic growth, at the same time as winter grips the northern hemisphere, could push the price higher still in the short item. Yet there are good reasons to expect the economic consequences now to be less severe than in the 1970s. In most countries the cost of crude oil now accounts for a smaller share of the price of petrol than it did in the 1970s. In Europe, tuxes account for up to four-fifths of the retail price, so even quite big changes in the price of crude have a more muted effect on pump prices than in the past. Rich economies are also less dependent on oil than they were, and so less sensitive to swings in the oil price. Energy conservation, a shift to other fuels and a decline in the importance of heavy, energy-intensive industries have reduced oil consumption. Software, consultancy and mobile telephones use far less oil than steel or car production. For each dollar of GDP (in constant prices) rich economies now use nearly 50% less oil than in 1973. The OECD estimates in its latest Economic Outlook that, oil prices averaged $22 a barrel for a full year, compared with $13 in 1998, this would increase the oil import bill in rich economies by only 0.25-0.5% of GDP. That is less than one-quarter of the income loss in 1974 or 1980. On the other hand, oil-importing emerging economies—to which heavy industry has shifted—have become more energy-intensive, and se could he more seriously squeezed. One more reason net to lose sleep over the rise in oil prices is that, unlike the rises in the 1970s, it has not occurred against the background of general commodity-price inflation and global excess demand. A sizable portion of the world is only just emerging from economic decline. The Economist"s commodity price index is broadly unchanging from a year ago. In 1973 commodity prices jumped by 70%, and in 1979 by almost 30%. It can be inferred from the text that the retail price of petrol will go up dramatically if______.

A. price of crude rises
B. commodity prices rise
C. consumption rises
D. oil taxes rise

Digital photography is still new enough that most of us have yet to form an opinion about it, (1)_____ develop a point of view. But this hasn"t stopped many film and computer fans from agreeing (2)_____ the early conventional wisdom about digital cameras—they"re new (3)_____ for you. But they"re not suitable for everyday picture taking. The fans are wrong: More than anything else, digital cameras are radically (4)_____ what photography means and what it can be. The venerable medium of photography (5)_____ we know it is beginning to seem out of (6)_____ with the way we live. In our computer and camcorder (7)_____ saving pictures as digital (8)_____ and watching them on TV is no less practical—and in many ways more (9)_____ than fumbling with rolls of film that must be sent off to be (10)_____. Paper is also terribly (11)_____. Pictures that are incorrectly framed, (12)_____,or lighted are nonetheless committed to film and ultimately processed into prints. The digital medium changes the (13)_____. Still images that are (14)_____ digitally can immediately be shown on a computer (15)_____, a TV screen, or a small liquid-crystal display (LCD) built fight into the camera. And since the points of light that (16)_____ an image are saved as a series of digital bits in electronic memory, (17)_____ being permanently etched onto film, they can be erased, retouched, and transmitted (18)_____. What"s it like to (19)_____ with one of these digital cameras It"s a little like a first date—exciting, confusing and fraught with (20)_____.

A. on
B. with
C. to
D. by

The full influence of mechanization began shortly after 1850, when a variety of machines came rapidly into use. The introduction of these machines frequently created rebellions by workers who were fearful that the machines would rob them of their work. Patrick Bell, in Scotland, and Cyrus McCormick, in United States, produced threshing machines. Improve-meats were made in plows to compensate for different soil types. Stream power came into use in 1860s on large farms. Hay rakes, hay-loaders, and various special harvesting machines were produced, Milking machines appeared. The internal-combustion engine run by gasoline became the chief power source for the farm. In time, the number of certain farm machines that came into use skyrocketed and changed the nature of fanning. Between 1940 and 1960, for example, 12 million horses and mules gave way to 5 million tractors. Tractors offer many features that are attractive to farmers. There are, for example, numerous attachments: cultivators that can penetrate the soil to varying depths, rotary hoes that chop weeds; spray devices that can spray pesticides in bands 100 feet across, and many others. A piece of equipment has now been invented or adapted for virtually every laborious hand or animal operation. On the farm lathe United States, for example, cotton, tobacco, hay, and grain are planted, treated for pests and diseases, fertilized, cultivated and harvested by machine. Large devices shake fruit and nut from trees, gain and blend feed, and dry gain and hay. Equipment is now available to put just the right amount of fertilizer in just the right place, to spray an exact row width, and to count out, Space, and plant just the right number of seeds for a row. Mechanization is not used in agriculture in many parts of Latin America, Africa, Agriculture innovation is accepted fastest where agriculture is already profitable and progressive. Some mechanization has reached the level of plantation agriculture in parts of the tropics, but even today much of that land is laboriously worked by people leading draft animals pal-ling primitive plows. The problems of mechanization in some areas are not only cultural in nature. For examples, tropical soils and crops differ markedly from those in temperate areas that the machines are designed for, so adaptations have to be made. But the greatest obstacle to mechanization is the fear in underdeveloped countries that the workers who are displaced by machines would not find work elsewhere, Introducing mechanization into such areas requires careful planning. In the tropical areas,______.

A. mechanization is not yet used in agriculture
B. agriculture is accepted fastest
C. a lot of farm work is still done in the old way
D. mechanization is avoided to save primitive forest

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