Text 1 The usual distinctions between "basic research," "applied research," and "development," used for many years in the formal government statistics kept by the National Science Foundation are, unfortunately, insufficient for discussions of policy for government investment in technical activities. Indeed, definitions are the source of much of the confusion over the appropriate role for government in the national scientific and technical enterprise. One cannot distinguish in any meaningful way "basic" from "applied research" by observing what a scientist is doing. "Applied research" should not be used to mean "purposeful and demonstrably useful basic research," and one should be wary of the use of the term in government statistics. In corporate research laboratories, such as the T.J. Watson Research Laboratories of IBM, all of the work is referred to simply as "research." There is no need to attempt a distinction between "basic" and "applied" research. All of the company's research investments are motivated by corporate interests. All of the research has a purpose. All of it is conducted under highly creative conditions. None of it is so "pure" that there are no expectations of value from the research investment. We should reserve the words "applied research" for those narrowly defined tasks in which limited time and resources are devoted to a specific problem for an identified user who gets all the benefit and should pay all the costs. To make this view of applied research clear in this discussion, I use the words "problem-solving research" instead. Narrow problem-solving and development are activities initiated by someone who wishes to apply research methods purposefully to exploit an identified opportunity or solve a problem. They involve the application of technical resources to achieve an identified goal for a specified beneficiary, usually the investor in the work. It is a reasonable assumption that those who engage in such activities expect to benefit from them, and to benefit by a sufficient margin over the cost to accommodate the technical risk that is ever-present in research. The investor in problem-solving may be a government agency, but is more likely to be a private firm. In most cases that firm would be expected to be able to appropriate sufficient benefits to need no government subsidy to take those risks. Public investment in the creation of new technology (technological development, whether by research or as a product of problem-solving) is a critical link between societal goals and the scientific research that is pursued by virtue of society's commitment to those goals. Thus the desire for technology is an important—perhaps the most important—source of demand for science.
1. The distinction between basic and applied researches is thought by the author to be ______
Text 2 The employment situation in the United States is much worse than even the dismal numbers from last week's jobless report would indicate. The nation is facing a full blown employment crisis and policy makers are not responding with anything like the sense of urgency that is needed. Government workers were walking the plank from coast to coast. About 143,000 temporary Census workers were let go, and another 48,000 government employees at the budget-strapped state and local levels lost their jobs. But the worst news, with the most worrying long-term implications, was that the reason the unemployment rate was not higher was because 181,000 workers left the labor force. With many of them beaten down by the worst jobs situation since the Great Depression, they just stopped looking for work. And given the Alice-in-Wonderland way in which we compile our official jobless statistics, they are no longer counted as unemployed. Charles McMillion, the president and chief economist of MBG Information Services in Washington, is an expert on employment and has been looking closely for years at the issue of labor force participation. "Over the past three months," he said, "1,155,000 unemployed people dropped out of the active labor force and were not counted as unemployed. Even ignoring population growth, if these unemployed had not dropped out of the labor force, simple arithmetic shows that the official unemployment rate would have risen from 9.9 percent in April to 10.2 percent in July, rather than—as it has—fallen to 9.5 percent." Because of normal growth in the working-age population, the labor force increases by roughly 150,000 to 200,000 people per month. If those folks were factored in, said Mr. McMillion, "unemployment now would be even higher than 10.2 percent." We are not even beginning to cope with this crisis, which began long before the onset of the so-called Great Recession. The economy is showing absolutely no sign of countering the nation's shocking jobs deficit. They may be thinking about this in Washington, but they sure aren't doing much about it. The politicians' approach to the jobs crisis has been like passing out umbrellas in a hurricane. Millions are suffering and the entire economy is being undermined, and what are they doing? They're appropriating more and more money for warfare while frantically talking about balancing the budget. We're not heading toward the danger zone. We're there. The U.S. will not remain a stable society if this great employment crisis is not addressed directly—and soon. You cannot allow joblessness on this scale to aggravate. It's wrong, and the adverse effect will be as destructive and intolerable as it is inevitable.
1. The government's response to the employment situation is ______
Text 3 When it comes to keeping your brain healthy—and working at its best—doctors have long advised patients to "use it or lose it." The idea is to keep the intellectual highways humming; if circuits aren't used, they tend to deteriorate and eventually wither away, leading to dementia, and in some cases, Alzheimer's. But new research provides a twist on this familiar advice—it turns out that some people benefit more from using it than others. Psychiatrists led by Guy Potter at Duke University conducted a study of more than 1,000 male twins, most of whom were World War Ⅱ veterans. Potter collected 50-year-old data on the vets' IQ scores when they joined the Army, and then compared them to cognitive test scores the men generated after they retired from various jobs. He found that those who scored in the bottom quartile of the IQ scale when they were in their 20s, and then took on mentally challenging jobs, had the greatest gains on the cognitive tests in their 70s. "Being in a more complex job later in life helped them to develop skills they might not have had, or pushed them in ways so they were able to overcome their intellectual limitations," says Potter. That means that those with the lowest cognitive abilities are most likely to lose it if they don't use it, and also most likely to protect themselves from dementia and other cognitive problems by keeping their brain circuits active. Not surprisingly, the jobs that proved most beneficial to these folks include the higher degree professions such as law, medicine and journalism, but any career that required multi-tasking, organizing and managerial skill also boosted cognitive abilities later in life. Even being self-employed can qualify, since it requires considerable managerial and organizational skills. While on the face of it, Potter's study reinforces previous studies' findings about the importance of keeping brain circuits active, it is the first to tie it to the subjects' baseline intellectual ability. In other studies, researchers could never be sure, for instance, that people who remained intellectually active and therefore suffered fewer cases of dementia, didn't have some sort of brain reserve, or start out with a higher level of cognitive ability that served as a buffer during their declining years. Since Potter could use the IQ scores from early in life as a baseline, he showed that regardless of how much intellectual ability a person starts out with, a mentally demanding job can keep his brain healthy well into retirement. In fact, the gains for people who have high IQs are relatively small, leading Potter to speculate that having a complex job, "may make up for a lack of advantage early in life, whether they be socioeconomic or otherwise." he says. So depending on what you do for a living, that daily grind may actually be the ultimate brain booster.
1. The new research made by Guy Potter ______
A.has thrown the traditional wisdom into serious doubt
B.does nothing more than confirming previous studies
C.shows that some gain more by keeping their brains active
D.discovers that most people with high IQ live longer
Text 4 If past is prologue, then it ought to be possible to draw some modest conclusions about the future from the wealth of data about America's present. Wilt the rate continue to fall? Will single-person households actually submerge the traditional family? All projections, of course, must be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. Nonetheless, the urge to make sense of what lies ahead is inescapable. After the 1980 census, the Census Bureau decided for the first time to venture some forecasts of its own for the decades to come. Working from what America already knows about itself, the bureau's experts and other demographers offer an irresistible, if clouded, crystal ball among their visions. According to the census projections, female life expectancy will increase from 78.3 years in 1981 to 81.3 in the year 2005. The life expectancy of American men will grow from 70.7 for babies born in 1981 to 73.3 years in 2005. And by the year 2050, women will have a life expectancy of 83.6 years and men of at least 75.1. Annual population growth will slow to almost nothing by 2050. In fact, the Census Bureau predicts that the rate of natural increase will be negative after 2035; only continuing immigration will keep it growing after that. The total population will be 268 million in 2000 and 309 million—an all-time high—in 2050. After that, it will start to decline. The American population will grow steadily older. From 11.4 percent in 1981, the proportion of the population that is 65 and over will grow to 13.1 percent in 2000 and 21.7 percent in 2050. The percentage of the population that lives beyond the age of 85 will more than quintuple over the same period. Meanwhile the median age—30.3 in 1981—will rise to 36.3 by 2000 and 41.6 50 years later. When it comes to the quality of life, more predictors are fairly cautious. John Hopkins sociologist Andrew Cherlin observes that "as we enter the 1980s, the pace of change appears to have slowed." For the next few decades, he predicts, there may be only modest swings in the marriage, birth and divorce rates—giving society time to adjust to the new patterns that have formed in recent years. "We are in a plateau in our family patterns that will likely last for a while," Cherlin maintains. Crime expert Alfred Blumstein, who foresees a drop in crime over the coming decade, predicts that the Northeast and Midwest, with stable but aging populations, will see the falloff first; for the South and Southwest, with their large proportions of younger people, the improvement will come less quickly.
1. The author regards predictions about the future as ______
5. Which of the following is least likely to experience significant changes in the next decades?
A.Crime patterns.
B.Family patterns.
C.Population structure.
D.Life expectancy.
A B C D
B
[解析] 参阅第4小题题解。
Text 5 With the debt crisis and the weakening economy fresh on their minds, most Americans have probably concluded that government, as a rule, cannot manage money responsibly. But it can. Just look at Montana. For six years it has been one of the only states in America with a budget surplus: this year it is a record of $433 million, proportionally equivalent to a federal surplus of $858 billion. Thus we've been able to cut taxes, invest in education and infrastructure and keep essential services intact. We recently got our first bond rating upgrade in 26 years. How do we accomplish what most states and the federal government cannot? I like to say we run government like a ranch. In ranching, you either pinch pennies or go bankrupt. We do the same in government. For one thing, we challenge every expense. If it isn't absolutely necessary, we eliminate it. Little things added up: we renegotiated state contracts, cut our energy consumption by 20 percent, auctioned off state vehicles and canceled building projects and computer upgrades. The federal budget contains thousands of similar line items. A government serious about tightening its belt would eliminate them all. But we don't just cut costs. Like good ranchers, we also leave some grain in the barn in case of drought. When times were good, we stored away cash in a special savings account. The account proved to be a big help in getting us through the recession in solid financial shape. I cannot recall the federal government's ever banking surplus funds in a protected account, even during the surplus-laden 1990s. If Washington ever digs out of the current hole and runs a cash balance, Congress should likewise put some grain in the barn. And even as we've cut costs and stored away money, we've followed another ranching principle: treat your ranch hands with respect. Like other states, we've had to freeze employee pay and reduce the work force. But as in any good organization, many of the best solutions for cutting costs come from state employees. Some look at payroll as a burden; we look at it as human capital, and we work hard to keep up morale in tough times. So when we cut the state payroll, I cut my own salary. Sadly, many politicians, especially in Washington, seem to take advantage of the opportunity to trash government workers. This is just cheap and ugly scapegoating. More to the point, it does nothing to produce bottom-line results. Finally, we don't spend money until we've found the lowest price. When the real estate market softened, we told commercial landlords who rented space to the state that if we didn't see rent reductions, we'd move to cheaper premises when our leases were up. There are savings to be found everywhere in government. Now that federal spending is the country's top issue, Washington should try doing what any rancher or family household does.
1. The state government of Montana ______
A.has not plunged itself into a debt crisis as the rest of the country
B.has never denied its tax responsibility for the federal government
C.has invested considerably in the public sector in the last 6 years
D.has its bond rating upgraded owing to its balanced spending in the last 26 years
4. It can be inferred from the text that the author ______
A.has not fired any of his employees
B.emphasizes the moral conduct of a government
C.is the governor of the state of Montana
D.is one of the federal government officials
A B C D
C
[解析] 在本文中,作者时而用we时而用I来指称自己,纵览全文,他一直在代表蒙大拿州讲话,在第四段,他明确地提到不能一味地通过解雇州雇员(state employee)来渡过经济衰退期,而应该减少政府开支,其中包括政府雇员的工资额,并且,他以身作则,先降低了自己的工资收入。由此推断,作者可能是蒙大拿州州长。 A:第四段提到,像其他州一样,蒙大拿州也不得不冻结雇员的工资(指不再给他们加薪),并减少劳动力规模(reduce the work force)。作者只是认为不能一味地把雇员当做替罪羊来对待。 B:在第四段中,作者提到了keep up morale in tough tines,这里的意思指在困难时期保持士气,而不是指保持道德标准。
5. What does the author advise the federal government to do for the present?