Text 1

The longest bull run in a century of art-market history ended on a dramatic note with a sale of 56 works by Damien Hirst, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, at Sotheby‘s in London on September 15th 2008. All but two pieces sold, fetching more than ￡70m, a record for a sale by a single artist. It was a last victory. As the auctioneer called out bids, in New York one of the oldest banks on Wall Street, Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy.

The world art market had already been losing momentum for a while after rising bewilderingly since 2003. At its peak in 2007 it was worth some $65 billion, reckons Clare McAndrew, founder of Arts Economics, a research firm – double the figure five years earlier. Since then it may have come down to $50 billion. But the market generates interest far beyond its size because it brings together great wealth, enormous egos, greed, passion and controversy in a way matched by few other industries.

In the weeks and months that followed Mr. Hirst‘s sale, spending of any sort became deeply unfashionable. In the art world that meant collectors stayed away from galleries and salerooms. Sales of contemporary art fell by two-thirds, and in the most overheated sector, they were down by nearly 90% in the year to November 2008. within weeks the world‘s two biggest auction houses, Sotheby‘s and Christie‘s, had to pay out nearly $200m in guarantees to clients who had placed works for sale with them.

The current downturn in the art market is the worst since the Japanese stopped buying Impressionists at the end of 1989. This time experts reckon that prices are about 40% down on their peak on average, though some have been far more fluctuant. But Edward Dolman, Christie‘s chief executive, says:“I‘m pretty confident we‘re at the bottom.‖

What makes this slump different from the last, he says, is that there are still buyers in the market. Almost everyone who was interviewed for this special report said that the biggest problem at the moment is not a lack of demand but a lack of good work to sell. The three Ds – death, debt and divorce – still deliver works of art to the market. But anyone who does not have to sell is keeping away, waiting for confidence to return.

21. In the first paragraph, Damien Hirst‘s sale was referred to as ―a last victory‖ because ______. [ A ] the art market had witnessed a succession of victories

[ B ] the auctioneer finally got the two pieces at the highest bids [ C ] Beautiful Inside My Head Forever won over all masterpieces [ D ] it was successfully made just before the world financial crisis

22. By saying ―spending of any sort became deeply unfashionable‖ (Line 1-2, Para.3), the author

suggests that ____.

[ A ] collectors were no longer actively involved in art-market auctions [ B ] people stopped every kind of spending and stayed away from galleries [ C ] art collection as a fashion had lost its appeal to a great extent

[ D ] works of art in general had gone out of fashion so they were not worth buying 23. Which of the following statement is NOT true?

[ A ] Sales of contemporary art fell dramatically from 2007 to 2008.

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[ B ] The art market surpassed many other industries in momentum. [ C ] The art market generally went downward in various ways. [ D ] Some art dealers were awaiting better chances to come. 24. The three Ds mentioned in the last paragraph are ____.

[ A ] auction house‘ favorites [ B ] contemporary trends

[ C ] factors promoting artwork circulation [ D ] styles representing Impressionists 25. The most appropriate title for this text could be ____.

[ A ] Fluctuation of Art Prices [ B ] Up-to-date Art Auctions [ C ] Art Market in Decline [ D ] Shifted Interest in Arts

Text 2

I was addressing a small gathering in a suburban Virginia living room – a women‘s group that had invited men to join them. Throughout the evening, one man had been particularly talkative, frequently offering ideas and anecdotes, while his wife sat silently beside him on the couch. Toward the end of the evening, I commented that women frequently complain that their husband don‘t talk to them. This man quickly nodded in agreement. He gestured toward his wife and said, ―She‘s the talker in our family.‖ The room burst into laughter; the man looked puzzled and hurt. ―It‘s true,‖ he explained. ―When I come home from work I have nothing to say. If she didn‘t keep the conversation going, we‘d spend the whole evening in silence.‖

This episode crystallizes the irony that although American men tend to talk more than women in public situations, they often talk less at home. And this pattern is wreaking havoc with marriage. The pattern was observed by political scientist Andrew Hacker in the late 1970s. Sociologist Catherine Kohler Riessman reports in her new book Divorce Talk that most of the women she interviewed – but only a few of the men – gave lack of communication as the reason for their divorces. Given the current divorce rate of nearly 50 percent, that amounts to millions of cases in the United States every year – a virtual epidemic of failed conversation.

In my own research, complaints from women about their husbands most often focused not on tangible inequities such as having given up the chance for a career to accompany a husband to his, or doing far more than their share of daily life – support work like cleaning, cooking and social arrangements. Instead, they focused on communication: ―He doesn‘t listen to me.‖ ―He doesn‘t talk to me.‖ I found, as Hacker observed years before, that most wives want their husband to be, first and foremost, conversational partners, but few husbands share their this expectation of their wives.

In short, the image that best represents the current crisis is the stereotypical cartoon scene of a man sitting at the breakfast table with a newspaper held up in from of his face, while a woman glares at the back of it, wanting to talk.

26. What is most wives‘ main expectation of their husbands? [ A ] Talking to them [ B ] Trusting them

[ C ] Supporting their careers [ D ] Sharing housework

27. Judging from the context, the phrase ―wreaking havoc‖ (Line 3, Para.2) most probably means __.

[ A ] generating motivation [ B ] exerting influence [ C ] causing damage [ D ] creating pressure

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28. All of the following are true EXCEPT ____

[ A ] men tend to talk more in public than women

[ B ] nearly 50 percent of recent divorces are caused by failed conversation [ C ] women attach much importance to communication between couples [ D ] a female tends to be more talkative at home than her spouse

29. Which of the following can best summarize the main idea of this text? [ A ] The moral decaying deserves more research by sociologists [ B ] Marriage break-up stems from sex inequalities

[ C ] Husband and wife have different expectations from their marriage [ D ] Conversational patterns between man and wife are different

30. In the following part immediately after this text, the author will most probably focus on ____ [ A ] a vivid account of the new book Divorce Talk [ B ] a detailed description of the stereotypical cartoon

[ C ] other possible reasons for a high divorce rate in the U.S [ D ] a brief introduction to the political scientist Andrew Hacker

Text 3

Over the past decade, many companies had perfected the art of creating automatic behaviors – habits – consumers. There habits have helped companies earn billions of dollars when customers eat snacks or wipe counters almost without thinking, often in response to a carefully designed set of daily cues.

―There are fundamental public health problems, like dirty hands instead of a soap habit, that remain killers only because we can‘t figure out how to change people‘s habits,‖ said Dr. Curtis, the director of the Hygiene Center at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. ―We wanted to learn from private industry how to create new behaviors that happen automatically.‖

The companies that Dr. Curtis turned to – Procter & Gamble, Colgate – Palmolive and Unilever – had invested hundreds of millions of dollars finding the subtle cues in consumers‘ lives that corporations could use to introduce new routines.

If you look hard enough, you‘ll find that many of the products we use every day – chewing gums, skin moisturizers, disinfecting wipes, sir fresheners, water purifiers, health snacks, teeth whiteners, fabric softeners, vitamins – are results of manufactured habits. A century ago, few people regularly brushed their teeth multiple times a day. Today, because of shrewd advertising and public health campaigns, many Americans habitually give their pearly whites a cavity – preventing scrub twice a day, often with Colgate, Crest or one of the other brands.

A few decades ago, many people didn‘t drink water outside of a meal. Then beverage companies started bottling the production of far–off springs, and now office workers unthinkingly sip bottled water all day long. Chewing gum, once bought primarily by adolescent boys, is now featured in commercials as a breath freshener and teeth cleanser for use after a meal. Skin moisturizers are advertised as part of morning beauty rituals, slipped in between hair brushing and putting on makeup.

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―Our products succeed when they become part of daily or weekly patterns,‖ said Carol Berning, a consumer psychologist who recently retired from Procter & Gamble, the company that sold $76 billion of Tide, Crest and other products last year. ―Creating positive habits is a huge part of improving our consumers‖ live, and it‘s essential to making new products commercially viable.‖

Through experiments and observation, social scientists like Dr. Berning have learned that there is power in trying certain behaviors to habitual cues through ruthless advertising. As this new science of habit has emerged, controversies have erupted when the tactics have been used to sell questionable beauty creams or unhealthy foods.

31. According to Dr. Curtis, habits like hand washing with soap . [ A ] should be further cultivated [ B ] should be changed gradually [ C ] are deeply rooted in history [ D ] are basically private concerns

32. Bottled water, chewing gum and skin moisturizers are mentioned in Paragraph 5 so as to . [ A ] reveal their impact on people‘s habits[ B ] show the urgent need of daily necessities

[ C ] indicate their effect on people‘s buying power[ D ] manifest the significant role of good habits

33. Which of the following does NOT belong to products that help create people‘s habits? [ A ] Tide. [ B ] Crest. [ C ] Colgate. [ D ] Unilever.

34. From the text we know that some of consumers‘ habits are developed due to . [ A ]perfected art of products. [ B ]automatic behavior creation [ C ]commercial promotions. [ D ]scientific experiments.

35. The author‘s attitude toward the influence of advertisement on people‘s habits is . [ A ] indifferent [ B ] negative [ C ] positive [ D ] biased

Text 4

Many Americans regard the jury system as a concrete expression of crucial democratic values, including the principles that all citizens who meet minimal qualifications of age and literacy are equally competent to serve on juries; that jurors should be selected randomly from a representative cross section of the community; that no citizen should be denied the right to serve on a jury on account of race, religion, sex, or national origin; that defendants are entitled to trial by their by their peers; and that verdicts should represent the conscience of the community and not just the letter of the law. The jury is also said to be the best surviving example of direct rather than representative democracy. In a direct democracy, citizens take turns governing themselves, rather than electing representatives to govern for them.

But as recently as in 1968, jury selection procedures conflicted with these democratic ideals. In some states, for example, jury duty was limited to persons of supposedly superior intelligence, education, and moral character. Although the Supreme Court of the United States had prohibited intentional racial discrimination in jury selection as early as the 1880 case of Strauder v. West Virginia, the practice of selecting so-called elite or blue-ribbon juries provided a convenient way around this and other antidiscrimination laws.

The system also failed to regularly include women on juries until the mid-20th century. Although women first served on state juries in Utah in 1898, it was not until the 1940s that a majority of states

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