单项选择题

Affirmative action may not be the most divisive issue on the ballot, but it remains an unending source of conflict and debate at least in Michigan, whose citizens are pondering a proposal that would ban affirmative action in the public sector. No one knows whether other states will follow Michigan’s lead, but partisans on both sides see the vote as crucial--a decision that could either help or hinder a movement aimed at ending "preferential treatment" programs once and for all.
Ward Connerly has no doubts about the outcome. "There may be some ups and downs...with regard to affirmative action, but it’s ending, "says Connerly, the main mover behind the Michigan proposal, who pushed almost identical propositions to passage in California 10 years ago and in Washington state two years later. His adversaries are equally passionate. "I just want to shout from the rooftops, ’This isn’t good for America’, "says Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan. She sees no need for Michigan to adopt the measure. "We have a living experiment in California, and it has failed, ’says Coleman.
Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, sees something deeply symbolic in the battle. Michigan, in his eyes, is where resegregation began--with a 1974 U. S. Supreme Court decision that tossed out a plan to bus Detroit children to the suburbs. Henderson sees that decision as a prelude to the hypersegregation that now defines much of Michigan. The Supreme Court is currently considering two new cases that could lead to another ruling on how far public school systems can go in their quest to maintain racial balance. All of the following can be inferred from the passage EXCEPT that
[A] Harry Blackmun used to support affirmative action.
[B] in Lyndon Johnson’s tenure, segregation haunted the US.
[C] Ed Sarpolis is generally in favor of affirmative action.
[D] African-Americans are main movers behind the Michigan proposal.

All of which raises a question: why are we still wrestling with this stuff Why, more than a quarter of a century after the high court ruled race had a legitimate place in university admissions decisions, are we still fighting over whether race should play a role
One answer is that the very idea of affirmative action--that is, systematically treating members of various groups differently in the pursuit of diversity or social justice--strikes some people as downright immoral. For to believe in affirmative action is to believe in a concept of equality turned upside down. It is to believe that "to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently, " as the idea was expressed by U. S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun.
That argument has never been an easy sell, even when made passionately by President Lyndon B. Johnson during an era in which prejudice was thicker than L. A. smog. Now the argument is infinitely more difficult to make. Even those generally supportive of affirmative action don’t like the connotations it sometimes carries. "No one wants preferential treatment, including African-Americans, "observed Ed Sarpolis, vice president of EPIC-MRA, a Michigan polling firm.
In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan’s right to use race in the pursuit of "diversity," even as it condemned the way the undergraduate school had chosen to do so. The decision left Jennifer Gratz, the named plaintiff, fuming. "I called Ward Connerly... and I said, ’We need to do something about this’, " recalled Gratz, an animated former cheerleader. They decided that if the Supreme Court wouldn’t give them what they wanted, they would take their case--and their proposition--directly to the people.
Californians disagree about the impact of Connerly’s proposition on their state. But despite some exceedingly grim predictions, the sky did not fall in. Most people went about their lives much as they always had.
In a sane world, the battle in Michigan, and indeed the battle over affirmative action writ large, would offer an opportunity to seriously engage a question the enemies and defenders of affirmative action claim to care about: how do you go about creating a society where all people--not just the lucky few--have the opportunities they deserve It is a question much broader than the debate over affirmative action. But until we begin to move toward an answer, the debate over affirmative action will continue--even if it is something of a sideshow to what should be the main event.

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单项选择题Before assembly line was introduced, the price of a Ford’s car was [A] $260. [B] $130. [C] $520. [D] $1040.

A revolutionary manufacturing process made it possible for anyone to own a car. Henry Ford is the man who put the world on wheels.
When it comes to singling out those who have made a difference in all our lives, you cannot overlook Henry Ford. A historian a century from now might well conclude that it was Henry Ford who most influenced all manufacturing everywhere, even to this day, by introducing a new way to make cars—one, strange to say, that originated in slaughter houses.
Back in the early 1900s, slaughter houses used what could have been called a "disassembly line." That is, the carcass of a slain steer or a pig was moved past various meat-cutters, each of whom cut off only a certain portion. Ford reversed this process to see if it would speed up production of a part of an automobile engine called a magneto. Rather than have each worker completely assemble a magneto, one of its elements was placed on a conveyer, and each worker, as it passed, added another component to it, the same one each time. Professor David Hounshell, of The University of Delaware, an expert on industrial development tells what happened: "The previous day, workers carrying out the entire process had averaged one magneto every 20 minutes. But on that day, on the line, the assembly team averaged one every 13 minutes and 10 seconds per person."
Within a year, the time had been reduced to five minutes. In 1913, Ford went all the way. Hooked together by ropes, partially assembled vehicles were towed past workers who completed them one piece at a time. It wasn’t long before Ford was turning out several hundred thousand cars a year, a remarkable achievement then. And so efficient and economical was this new system that he cut the price of his cars in half, to $260, putting them within reach of all those who, up until that time, could not afford them. Soon, auto makers over the world copied him. In fact, he encouraged them to do so by writing a book about all of his innovations, entitled Today and Tomorrow. The Age of the Automobile had arrived. Today, aided by robots and other forms of automation, everything from toasters to perfumes is made on assembly lines.
Edsel Ford, Henry’s great-grandson, and a Ford vice president: “I think that my great-grandfather would just be amazed at how far technology has come."
Many of today’s innovations come from Japan. Norman Bodek, who publishes books about manufacturing processes, finds this ironic. On a recent trip to Japan he talked to two of the top officials of Toyota. "When I asked them where these secrets came from, where their ideas came from to manufacture in a totally different way, they laughed, and they said. ’Well. We just read it in Henry Ford’s book from 1926: Today and Tomorrow.’\

单项选择题According to the passage, the major reason for the financial problems experienced by Japan’s feudal overload in the eighteenth century was that ______.

A. trade had fallen off

B. the coinage had been sharply debased
C. spending had outdistanced income
D. profits from mining had declined

单项选择题Canada’s largest city is

[A] Montreal.
B. Toronto.
C. Ottawa.
D. Vancouver.

单项选择题What does balk mean in the third paragraph

A. accept
B. refuse to comply
C. suspect
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