SECTION 1 READING TESTDirections: In this section you will read several passages. Each one is followed by several questions about it. You are to choose ONE best answer, A. B. C. or D. to each question.
"They treat us like mules," the guy installing my washer tells me, his eyes narrowing as he wipes his hands, I had just complimented him and his partner on the speed and assurance of their work. He explains that it's rare that customers speak to him this way. I know what he's talking about. My mother was a waitress all her life, in coffee shops and fast-paced chain restaurants. It was hard work, but she liked it, liked "being among the public", as she would say. But that work had its sting, too—the customer who would treat her like a servant or, her biggest complaint, like she was not that bright.
There's a lesson here for this political season: the subtle and not-so-subtle insults that blue-collar and service workers endure as part of their working lives. And those insults often have to do with intelligence.
We like to think of the United States as a classless society. The belief in economic mobility is central to the American Dream, and we pride ourselves on our spirit of egalitarianism. But we also have a troubling streak of aristocratic bias in our national temperament, and one way it manifests itself is in the assumptions we make about people who work with their hands. Working people sense this bias and react to it when they vote. The common political wisdom is that hot-button social issues have driven blue-collar voters rightward. But there are other cultural dynamics at play as well. And Democrats can be as oblivious to these dynamics as Republicans—though the Grand Old Party did appeal to them in St. Paul.
Let's go back to those two men installing my washer and dryer. They do a lot of heavy lifting quickly—mine was the first of 15 deliveries—and efficiently, to avoid injury. Between them there is ongoing communication, verbal and nonverbal, to coordinate the lift, negotiate the tight fit, move in rhythm with each other. And all the while, they are weighing options, making decisions and solving problems—as when my new dryer didn't match up with the gas outlet.
Think about what a good waitress has to do in the busy restaurant: remember orders and monitor them, attend to a dynamic, quickly changing environment, prioritize tasks and manage the flow of work, make decisions on the fly. There's the carpenter using a number of mathematical concepts—symmetry, proportion, congruence, the properties of angles—and visualizing these concepts while building a cabinet, a flight of stairs, or a pitched roof.
The hairstylist's practice is a mix of technique, knowledge about the biology of hair, aesthetic judgment, and communication skill. The mechanic, electrician, and plumber are troubleshooters and problem solvers. Even the routinized factory floor calls for working smarts. When has any of this made its way into our political speeches? From either party. Even on Labor Day.
Last week, the GOP masterfully invoked some old cultural suspicions: country folk versus city and east-coast versus heartland education. But these are symbolic populist gestures, not the stuff of true engagement. Judgments about intelligence carry great weight in our society, and we have a tendency to make sweeping assessments of people's intelligence based on the kind of work they do.
Political tributes to labor over the next two months will render the muscled arm, sleeve rolled tight against biceps. But few will also celebrate the thought bright behind the eye, or offer an image that links hand and brain. It would be fitting in a country with an egalitarian vision of itself to have a truer, richer sense of all that is involved in the wide range of work that surrounds and sustains us.
Those politicians who can communicate that sense will tap a deep reserve of neglected feeling. And those who can honor and use work in explaining and personalizing their policies will find a welcome reception. To most people the human face is a compelling object fraught with meaning. But for autistic children, who can't get a read on other people's emotions, eye contact is terrifying. When they do look at faces, they tend to stare at the mouth. Fortunately, researchers now think that technology can help overcome the barrier that isolates these kinds. Software that enables robots to respond to a child's feelings a little bit—but not too much—can help train him or her to interact more freely with people. "The beauty of a robot or software is that it's not human," and therefore not as intimidating, says Stephen Porges, an autism expert at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
Computer-generated faces are already having an impact in the classroom. Psychologist Dominic Massaro at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has created Baldi, a lively computer character, as a stand-in for human teachers. For three years, Baldi and his female counterpart, Baldette, have been giving autistic kids in the Bay School in Santa Cruz lessons in vocabulary and in understanding facial expressions. The character has been so successful that he's spawned imitators—Baldini in Italian, Baldir in Arabic and Bao in Chinese.
Porges thinks that the real role of cartoon personas is not so much to teach patients as to calm them. Autistic kids live in a state of hyperalertness, as if they were constantly suffering stage fright. If technology can put them at ease, Porges argues, social skills will develop naturally. In a recent study, Porges exposed 20 autistic people, ranging from 10 to 21 years old, to engineered speech and music. He removed low frequency sounds, which the body tends to interpret as indicating danger, and exaggerated vocal intonations, much as people dramatize emotions when speaking to infants. After 45 minutes, all but one of the subjects began looking at the eyes of a person on a video screen just as a normal viewer would. The improvement persisted at least a week, but had faded after six months. Porges is now developing headphones that reduce low frequencies. He also hopes to test whether ongoing exposure to the engineered sounds can lead to long-term improvement.
Other technology may be effective for less severely autistic children. Whereas normal babies learn from caretakers to mirror emotions—smile at a smile, frown at a frown—autistic children often lack this basic skill. Cognitive scientists Javier Movellan and Marian Stewart Bartlett at the University of California, San Diego, have built a robot that can "read" faces. They hope that playing with the robot and watching it interact with others will inspire autistic children to return the smiles of humans.
Commercial emotion-reading software about to hit the market could be a boon for some high functioning autistic and Asperger's patients in dealing with social situations. Affective Media, a firm near Edinburgh, Scotland, has created a prototype phone that "hears" the emotion in voice messages and conveys it explicitly to the owner. A person checking messages would hear something like this: "You have two bored calls, one surprised call, and one angry call." "Three years ago this was science fiction," says Christian Jones, co-founder of Affective Media. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have built a similar voicemail system, called Emotive Alert, that evaluates a caller's intonation, speed and volume. It identifies whether a call sounds urgent, informal or formal, and whether the speaker was happy or sad.
Emotion-reading software might improve the way we all interact with machines. Computers at call centers may soon be able to alert employees to an irate caller who might need special handling. Scientists at Affective Media, Stanford and Toyota are developing a system for cars that responds to cues in the driver's voice and face, perhaps turning on appropriate music if a driver seems sad. It's another barrier emotionally adept software might help overcome. Quick quiz: Who has a more vitriolic relationship with the U.S.? The French or the British. If you guessed the French, consider this: Paris newspaper polls show that 72 percent of the French hold a favorable impression of the United States. Yet U.K. polls over the past decade show a lower percentage of the British have a favorable impression of the United States.
Britain's highbrow newspaper, The Guardian, sets the U.K.'s intellectual tone. On any given day you can easily read a handful of stories sniping at the U.S. and things American. The BBC's Radio 4, which is a domestic news and talk radio station, regularly laments Britain's social warts and follows them up with something that has become the national mantra, "Well, at least we're not as bad as the Americans."
This isn't a new trend: British abhorrence of America antedates George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq. On 9/11 as the second plane was slamming into the World Trade Center towers my wife was on the phone with an English friend of many years. In the background she heard her friend's teenage son shout in front of the TV, "Yeah! The Americans are finally getting theirs." The animosity may be unfathomable to those raised to think of Britain as "the mother country" for whom we fought two world wars and with whom we won the cold war.
So what's it all about?
I often asked that during the years I lived in London. One of the best answers came from an Englishwoman with whom I shared a table for coffee. She said, "It's because we used to be big and important and we aren't any more. Now it's America that's big and important and we can never forgive you for that." A detestation of things American has become as dependable as the tides on the Thames rising and falling four times a day. It feeds a flagging British sense of national self-importance.
A new book documenting the virulence of more than 30 years of corrosive British animosity reveals how deeply rooted it has become in the U.K.'s national psyche. "[T] here is no reasoning with people who have come to believe America is now a 'police state' and the USA is a 'disgrace across most of the world'," writes Carol Gould, an American expatriate novelist and journalist, in her book Don't Tread on Me.
A brief experience shortly after George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq illustrates that. An American I know was speaking on the street in London one morning. Upon hearing his accent, a British man yelled, "Take your tanks and bombers and go back to America." Then the British thug punched him repeatedly. No wonder other American friends of mine took to telling locals they were from Canada. The local police recommended prosecution. But upon learning the victim was an American, crown prosecutors dropped the case even though the perpetrator had a history of assaulting foreigners.
The examples of this bitterness continue:
I recall my wife and I having coffee with a member of our church. The woman, who worked at Buckingham Palace, launched a conversation with, "Have you heard the latest dumb American joke?" which incidentally turned out to be a racial slur against blacks. It's common to hear Brits routinely dismiss Americans as racists (even with an African-American president), religious nuts, global polluters, warmongers, cultural philistines, and as intellectual Untermenschen.
The United Kingdom's counterintelligence and security agency has identified some 5,000 Muslim extremists in the U.K. but not even they are denounced with the venom directed at Americans. A British office manager at CNN once informed me that any English high school diploma was equal to an American university degree. This predilection for seeing evil in all things American defies intellect and reason. By themselves, these instances might be able to be brushed off, but combined they amount to British bigotry.
Oscar Wilde once wrote, "The English mind is always in a rage." But the energy required to maintain that British rage might be better channeled into paring back what The Economist (a British news magazine) calls "an overreaching, and inefficient state with unaffordable aspirations around the world." The biggest problem is that, as with all hatred, it tends to be self-destructive. The danger is that as such, it perverts future generations.
The U.K. public's animosity doesn't hurt the United States if Americans don't react in kind. This bigotry does hurt the United Kingdom, however, because there is something sad about a society that must denigrate and malign others to feed its own self-esteem. What Britain needs to understand is that this ill will has poisoned the enormous reservoir of good will Britain used to enjoy in America. And unless the British tweak their attitude, they stand to become increasingly irrelevant to the American people. Congress can pass laws, regulators can beef up enforcement, and shareholders can demand more accountability. But when it comes right down to it, making sure a company is operating well is really an inside job. That's where internal auditing comes in. It doesn't sound glamorous, but it's an expanding field beckoning to people with a lot of pent up we-can-do-better energy. Internal auditors keep an eye on a company's "controls"—not just financial systems, but all sorts of functions designed to make the business run smoothly and protect the interests of shareholders.
The recent string of corporate scandals provided a rude awakening to the importance of these internal checks. In the case of WorldCom, it was internal auditor Cynthia Cooper who blew the whistle on the company for inflating profits by $3.8 billion. She didn't intend to be a hero, she said to Time magazine when it named her one of its Persons of the Year. She was just doing her job.
A lot more of those jobs are opening up as companies turn to internal auditors for help in complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Top executives of publicly held companies now have to sign off on their financial statements and vouch for the effectiveness of internal controls. "Up until now, CEOs and CFOs have been going to bed and sleeping well at night, knowing that they've got good controls or financial reporting because they've got good people ... But what's missing is the documentation that really supports that gut feel," says Trent Gazzaway, the national director of corporate governance advisory services for Grant Thornton, an accounting and business consultancy firm. "I cannot think of a time in history when there's been a greater opportunity to enter the internal-audit field," he adds.
Job postings on the website of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) in Altamonte Springs, Fla., have more than doubled in the past year, says IIA president William Bishop III. And in the organization's survey for 2002, half the internal-audit directors said they planned to make one or more new hires that year. People who can assess computerized systems are especially in demand.
Privately held companies are voluntarily adding more scrutiny, as well. In a recent survey that drew responses from 1,400 CFOs in such businesses, 58 percent said they are responding to new corporate-governance standards. Of those, 36 percent are creating or expanding internal auditing, according to Robert Half Management Resources. An American company with $3 billion to $4 billion in revenue typically has about 16 internal auditors. The job is often a training ground for future management positions, but those who stay in the field and become directors earn an average of just under $100,000. The IIA offers certification for internal auditors, but many firms do not require it.
Assessing "the tone at the top"—the culture and the ethical environment of a company—is one of the key charges for internal auditors, Mr. Bishop says. But their effectiveness depends on the resources and independence senior managers give them. As auditors have a perspective that encompasses every aspect of the company, executives sometimes want to hear their recommendations for improving systems. But their main goal is to make sure the systems already in place are working properly.
The balancing act can be tricky. "If I make a recommendation ... and then I come and evaluate it, I'm not going to be criticizing it," says Parveen Gupta, who teaches corporate governance and accounting at Lehigh University. Ideally, the internal auditor should be an extra set of eyes, a consultant who knows the company well but has enough independence to give honest feedback. Regulations "are pushing internal auditors to become a bit more policeman-oriented," he says, "but if employees perceive it as someone second-guessing them, that is very dangerous."
One tool designed to avoid that adversarial feeling is "control self-assessment". The auditor sets up discussions among employees to find out, for instance, if a written ethics policy is being implemented, or if workers are feeling such intense pressures that they might be prompted to push ethical boundaries. The power of the new laws can go only so far. "This entire issue of corporate governance—trying to run the company as if you were managing your own money—is a matter of heart and soul," Dr. Gupta says. And guts. Anyone considering a career in internal auditing, he says, "should have the guts to speak out, to tell the truth." SECTION 2 READING TESTDirections: Read the following passages and then answer IN COMPLETE SENTENCES the questions which follow each passage.
America's population hit the 300 million mark yesterday—at 7:46 a.m. Eastern time, according to Census Bureau estimates. Nobody knows exactly who became America's 300 millionth citizen. But demographers are summing up the milestone as a turning point that signals several trends to watch as the U.S.—in contrast with Europe and Japan—deals with a steadily growing population.
Politically and demographically, experts say, the shifts will begin to have an impact on regions of the country not yet used to the new diversity provided by the influx of Hispanics and Asians, which has already transformed California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, and New York.
In coming years, Midwesterners, those in the Great Plains, rural areas, and small towns everywhere will begin to deal with the challenges of new ethnic and racial residents, says William Frey, a population expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. And the country as a whole will begin to be more dominated by a young/ old divide than the current liberal/conservative model that dominates political discourse.
"This means we are going to transform the current, red/blue political dichotomy to one where the nation is separated by age ... young vs. old," says Mr. Frey. "The issues of younger generations dealing with children and opportunities for minorities will clash with those of the aging baby boomers whose voters are concerned with issues of aging and Social Security and Medicare," he adds. "Both parties will have to adjust to this new dichotomy."
The new milestone hasn't generated much hoopla. That's in sharp contrast to 1967, when President Johnson hailed the 200 millionth American, and Life magazine dispatched a cadre of photographers to find a baby born at the exact moment. One reason is that population growth has become controversial, especially in an election year when immigration is a hot-button issue and politicians are wary.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez says the Bush administration is not playing down the milestone, though he had no plans for Tuesday. "I would hate to think that we are going to be low-key about this," he says, since growth helps the economy.
While it's hard to prove that population growth spurs economic growth, the two often go hand in hand, according to experts quoted in the Monitor's recently published series: "U.S. population: 300 million. " For example: a nation with a rising population can support its retirees far more easily than one with a declining population. That's an advantage for the U.S., which is virtually the only developed nation expected to grow this century.
But population growth has less rosy implications, the Monitor series points out. Some experts worry that the land can't sustain the extra 100 million people expected by 2043. Another challenge is sprawl, the dominant model of development, which gobbles up forest and prairie.1. Why does the author say that the nation's reaction to the new milestone of 300 million is "in sharp contrast to 1967" (para. 5)?
The author is showing the great change in Americans' attitude towards the population growth over the past decades. In 1967, the whole nation was welcoming the birth of "the 200 millionth American". but today population growth has not attracted much attention from the public, as no one cared much about "who became America's 300 millionth citizen".
[解析] 对文章基本内容的理解和概括能力，主要内容见文章第五段。文章开头几段也分别给予提示和说明，显示美国人在人口数分别增长至2亿和3亿时态度的巨大变化，考生应根据相关说明进行对比，给出自己的陈述。
2. Introduce briefly population expert William Frey's comment on the challenges from the growth of America's population.
The growth of American population is partly due to the immigration of Hispanics and Asians. William Frey holds that the challenges will come from the "new ethnic and racial residents", and in political areas, the traditional "liberal/conservative" opposition will be replaced by "young/ old" opposition, such a controversial issue will have mixed impacts.
[解析] 对文章基本内容的理解和归纳能力。关于人口问题专家William Frey的看法，主要可见第三和第四两段。他的主要观点是人口增长引起的不同的两极分化现象尤其值得关注。
3. Why does the Monitor say that "population growth has less rosy implications" (para. 8)?
On the one hand, population growth is often linked to economic growth as it can be considered as an "advantage" to a nation. but on the other hand, the impact of population growth in America will be much more complicated. More land might be used for residential purposes, more forest and prairie would be destroyed, which will bring greater environmental problems. Therefore，possible negative results can be expected from the population growth.
[解析] 对文章相关内容的理解和推测能力。美国《基督教科学言报》的结论表明对美国人口的增长应进行全面的分析，应该既看到其积极的一面，也看到其消极的一面。主要内容见最后两段。
"Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen," Lee said last month at the Cannes Film Festival. "In his version of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist."
Eastwood bristled at the charge. "Has he ever studied history? [African-American soldiers] didn't raise the flag," he countered in an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian. "If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go, 'This guy's lost his mind.'" Eastwood also suggested Lee should "shut his face". That didn't go down so well. Eastwood "is not my father, and we're not on a plantation either," Lee fumed. "I'm not making this up. I know history."
History, as it turns out, is on both their sides. Lee is correct that African Americans played a key role in World War II, in which more than 1 million black servicemen helped topple the Axis powers. He is correct too in pointing out that African-American forces made significant contributions to the fight for Iwo Jima. An estimated 700 to 900 African Americans, trained in segregated boot camps, participated in the landmark battle, which claimed the lives of about 6,800 servicemen, nearly all Marines.
Racial prejudice shunted blacks into supply roles in Iwo Jima, but that didn't mean they were safe. Under enemy fire, they braved perilous beach landings, unloaded and shuttled ammunition to the front lines and weathered Japanese onslaughts on their positions. "Shells, mortar and hand grenades don't know the difference of color," says Thomas McPhatter, an African-American Marine who hauled ammo during the battle. "Everybody out there was trying to cover their butts to survive."
But Eastwood's portrayal of the battle is also essentially accurate. Flags of Our Fathers zeroes in on the soldiers who hoisted the U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi. None of the six servicemen seen in Joe Rosenthal's famous photograph—the iconic image depicts the second flag-raising attempt; the first wasn't visible to other U.S. troops on Iwo Jima—were black. (Eastwood's other film, Letters from Iwo Jima, is told largely from the perspective of Japanese soldiers.) Eastwood is also correct that black soldiers represented only a small fraction of the total force deployed on the island.
That may be true, but it is not enough to placate Yvonne Latty, the author of a book about African-American veterans. Given the hazards of their mission and the virulent racism they endured—McPhatter says he has to execute his mission without giving orders to white troops, even if they were needed—Latty argues that black soldiers warrant more than fleeting inclusion in the film. Christopher Paul Moore, author of a book about black soldiers in World War II, praises Eastwood's rendering of the battle but laments the limited role it accords African Americans. "Without black labor," he says, "we would've seen a much different ending to the war." Adds Latty: "The way America learns history, unfortunately, is through movies." Eastwood poignantly memorialized a heroic chapter in American warfare. But using a wider-angle lens might have brought into sharper focus a group often elbowed to history's fringes.4. What is the debate between film directors Clint Eastwood and Spike Lee?
The debate is about the accuracy of Eastwood's two films about the clash on Iwo Jima. Clint Eastwood is correct in not using black actors because "[African-American soldiers] didn't raise the flag" on Mount Suribachi. He correctly reflects the battle on Iwo Jima and he would be considered by the audience "has lost his mind" if he put an African American soldier there. But Spike Lee holds the view that Eastwood's two films (Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima) show the racial prejudice against the black American, reducing the role of African Americans in the battle because there was "not one Negro actor on the screen". In his opinion, Eastwood has whitewashed history.
文章围绕关于这两部电影的争论展开，争论的主题即电影中没有展现黑人士兵的角色是否掩盖了历史真相，是否准确反映了当时的战争情形。考生可根据文章中关于争论的内容的叙述归纳概括出两人的主要观点。
5. What does the author mean by saying that "history, as it turns out, is on both their sides" (para. 4)?
The author means that both are correct from their own perspectives and they each show one side of the history. Lee is correct as African Americans played an important role in World War Ⅱ. Even in the fight on Iwo Jima, about 700-900 African Americans participate in the battle and they made significant contributions to the fight for Iwo Jima. Eastwood is correct in the portrayal of the battle on the island. None of the six soldiers who raised the flag on the battlefield are black according to Rosenthal's photograph, and black soldiers only represented only a small group of the total force in the battle on the island.
在文章的第四、五、六段中可以找到相关内容的明确描述。从各自的角度出发，克林特·伊斯特伍德和斯派克·李都有一定的道理，他们分别正确地展示了历史的一面。
6. What do we know about the opinions of the two authors Yvonne Latty and Christopher Paul Moore?
In Yvonne Latty's book about African-American veterans in World War Ⅱ, black soldiers had difficulties in carrying out their mission and they had to endure the "virulent racism". So more portrayal of black soldiers is necessary in the film. Christopher Paul Moore also wrote about black soldiers in World War Ⅱ. He gave positive comment over Eastwood's depicting of the battle, but he disagreed with the "limited role" of African Americans shown in the film, suggesting using a "wider-angle lens" to give a sharper focus on black soldiers who have often been neglected.
相关内容在文章第七段，这两部电影也引起了两位作家(Yvonne Latty和Christopher Paul Moore)的关注，他们都写过关于第二次世界大战的图书，认为电影中应该展现更多的黑人士兵参战的场面。考生可根据文中的叙述提炼出他们的观点。
Scientists are lousy communicators. They appeal to people's heads, not their hearts or guts, argues Randy Olson, who left a professorship in marine biology to make science films. "Scientists think of themselves as guardians of truth," he says. "Once they have spewed it out, they feel the burden is on the audience to understand it" and agree.
That may work if the topic is something with no emotional content, such as how black holes form, but since climate change and how to address it make people feel threatened, that arrogance is a disaster. Yet just as smarter-than-thou condescension happens time after time in debates between evolutionary biologists and proponents of intelligent design (the latter almost always win), now it's happening with climate change. In his 2009 book, Don't Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style, Olson recounts a 2007 debate where a scientist contending that global warming is a crisis said his opponents failed to argue in a way "that the people here will understand". His sophisticated, educated Manhattan audience groaned and, thoroughly insulted, voted that the "not a crisis" side won.
Like evolutionary biologists before them, climate scientists also have failed to master "truthiness" (thank you, Stephen Colbert), which their opponents—climate deniers and creationists—wield like a shiv. They say the Intergovernmental Panel on climate Change is a political, not a scientific, organization; a climate mafia (like evolutionary biologists) keeps contrarian papers out of the top journals; Washington got two feet of snow, and you say the world is warming?
There is less backlash against climate science in Europe and Japan, and the U.S. is 33rd out of 34 developed countries in the percentage of adults who agree that species, including humans, evolved. That suggests there is something peculiarly American about the rejection of science. Charles Harper, a devout Christian who for years ran the program bridging science and faith at the Templeton Foundation and who has had more than his share of arguments with people who view science as the Devil's spawn, has some hypotheses about why that is. "In America, people do not bow to authority the way they do in England," he says. "When the lumpenproletariat are told they have to think in a certain way, there is a backlash," as with climate science now and, never-endingly, with evolution. (Harper, who studied planetary atmospheres before leaving science, calls climate scientists "a smug community of true believers". )
Another factor is that the ideas of the Reformation—no intermediaries between people and God; anyone can read the Bible and know the truth as well as a theologian—inform the American character more strongly than they do that of many other nations. "It's the idea that everyone has equal access to the divine," says Harper. That has been extended to the belief that anyone with an Internet connection can know as much about climate or evolution as an expert. Finally, Americans carry in their bones the country's history of being populated by emigrants fed up with hierarchy. It is the American way to distrust those who set themselves up—even justifiably—as authorities. Presto: climate backlash.
One new factor is also at work: the growing belief in the wisdom of crowds (Wikis, polling the audience on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire). If tweeting for advice on the best route somewhere yields the right answer. Americans seem to have decided, it doesn't take any special expertise to pick apart evolutionary biology or climate science. My final hypothesis: the Great Recession was caused by the smartest guys in the room saying, trust us, we understand how credit default swaps work, and they're great. No wonder so many Americans have decided that experts are idiots.7. What is the "Climategate"? What is the recent debate about global warming?
The term "Climategate" refers to the heated debate (argument) over the issue of global warming. The issues include: whether global warming is happening, whether it is caused by human activities, whether it is a serious threat to humankind, or whether "the risk of climate change is exaggerated". According to the author, millions of Americans have changed their minds about the climate issue and are starting to question the views and theories proposed by scientists.
[解析] 对文章基本内容的理解，主要见第一段。气候门事件主要指部分科学家用不科学的态度作出全球气候变暖的武断结论，而且不许普通民众提出异议，只许其盲目相信，由此引起一片抗议和批评的浪潮。第一段和后面的文字均围绕该事件展开。
8. Explain the sentence "Scientists are lousy communicators" (para. 2). Introduce briefly Randy Olson's opinion about scientists.
It is a critical comment of scientists. Randy Olson doesn't agree with the scientists' approach to climate prediction and their attitudes toward the public. When they think of themselves as "guardians of truth" and force the public to understand and accept their prediction on climate change (which in fact may not really tell the truth), their condescending (patronizing) attitude makes the audience unhappy or "feel threatened". They do not treat the audience equally, the result is that more people turn to the "not a crisis" side and become their opponents.
[解析] 对文章基本内容的理解和根据上下文正确理解句子的能力。主要内容见第二、三两段。作者通过引用Randy Olson的话来传递人们对气象学家的不满和批评。少数科学家盛气凌人，自以为是真理的“捍卫者”，强迫民众接受他们提出的并非客观的气候预测，其傲慢的态度引起巨大民愤。
9. Why does the passage say that "arrogance is a disaster" (para. 3)?
It is a heavy criticism of the arrogant attitude of scientists over the issue of global warming. Their communication often leads to negative response from the public, causing people to doubt their prediction of global warming and their approach towards climatic change. Their "smarter-than-thou" attitude often observed in debates over climate change makes people feel threatened, insulted or humiliated, arousing resentment and opposition from the audience.
[解析] 根据上下文正确理解句子的能力，主要内容见第三段。作者在引用Randy Olson的批评时，指出部分气象科学家自以为是、藐视普通大众的态度会激起民愤，驱使他们走到自己的对立面去。
10. Why have so many Americans decided that experts are idiots?
The author shows that the "rejection of science" is a peculiar American attitude, they "do not bow to authority" in the way people do in some other countries. The ideas of the (religious) Reformation have stronger influence over the American character. It is a country with a large population of emigrants, so they have a tradition of being "fed up with hierarchy". Today, with Internet, people think "they can know as much about climate or evolution as an expert". It is an "American way" "to distrust those who set themselves as authorities". And today's "growing belief in the wisdom of crowds" also contributes to the formation of such an attitude.
[解析] 对文章基本内容的理解，主要内容见最后三段。作者通过对气候门事件的介绍，揭示了部分气象科学家的傲慢态度引起的民众的抗议和不满，而且在网络时代的今天，美国人对这样的科学家的蔑视自然在所难免，加之作为移民民族的传统特点，因而流露出experts are idiots的愤激言辞来。
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