题目内容
—George and Lucy got married last week.Did you go to their wedding?
—No, I ____________.Did they have a big wedding?
A.was not invited B.have not been invited
C.hadn't been invited D.wouldn't been invited
C
Even at school there had been an unhealthy competition between George and Richard.
“I’ll be the first millionaire in Coleford!” Richard used to boast.
“And you’ll be sorry you knew me,” George would reply “because I’ll be the best lawyer in the town!”
George never did become a lawyer and Richard never made any money. Instead both men opened bookshops on opposite sides of Coleford High Street. It was hard to make money from books, which made the competition between them worse.
Then Richard married a mysterious girl. The couple spent their honeymoon on the coast―but Richard never came back. The police found his wallet on a deserted beach but the body was never found. He must have drowned.
Now with only one bookshop in town, business was better for George. But sometimes he sat in his narrow, old kitchen and gazed out of the dirty window, thinking about his formal rival(竞争对手). Perhaps he missed him?
George was very interested in old dictionaries. He’d recently found a collector in
“Bookends have bought ten bookstores from their rivals Dylans. The company, owned by multi-millionaire Richard Pike, is now the largest bookseller in
65. George and Richard were ______ at school.
A. roommates | B. good friends | C. competitors | D. booksellers |
66. How did George feel about Richard after his disappearance?
A. He envied Richard’s marriage.
B. He thought of Richard from time to time.
C. He felt lucky with no rival in town.
D. He was guilty of Richard’s death.
67. George got information about Richard from ______.
A. a dictionary collector in | B. the latter’s rivals Dylans |
C. a rare first edition of a dictionary | D. the wrapping paper of a book |
68. What happened to George and Richard in the end?
A. Both George and Richard became millionaires.
B. Both of them realized their original ambitions.
C. George established a successful business while Richard was missing.
D. Richard became a millionaire while George had no great success.
At the heart of the debate over illegal immigration lies one key question: are immigrants good or bad for the economy? The American public overwhelmingly thinks they’re bad. Yet the agreement among most economists is that immigration, both legal and illegal, provides a small net boost to the economy. Immigrants provide cheap labor, lower the prices of everything from farm produce to new homes, and leave consumers with a little more money in their pockets. So why is there such a discrepancy between the perception of immigrants’ impact on the economy and the reality?
There are a number of familiar theories. Some argue that people are anxious and feel threatened by an inflow of new workers. Others highlight the stress that undocumented immigrants place on public services, like schools, hospitals, and jails. Still others emphasize the role of race, arguing that foreigners add to the nation's fears and insecurities. There’s some truth to all these explanations, but they aren’t quite sufficient.
To get a better understanding of what’s going on, consider the way immigration’s impact is felt. Though its overall effect may be positive, its costs and benefits are distributed unevenly. David Card, an economist at UC Berkeley, notes that the ones who profit most directly from immigrants’ low-cost labor are businesses and employers —meatpacking plants in Nebraska, for instance, these producers’ savings probably translate into lower prices at the grocery store, but how many consumers make that mental connection at the checkout counter? As for the drawbacks of illegal immigration, these, too, are concentrated. Native low-skilled workers suffer most from the competition of foreign labor. According to a study by George Borjas, a Harvard economist, immigration has reduced the wages of American high-school dropouts by 9%.
Among high-skilled, better-educated employees, however, opposition was strongest in states with both high numbers of immigrants and relatively generous social services. What worried them most, in other words, was the financial burden of immigration. That conclusion was reinforced by another finding: that their opposition appeared to soften when that financial burden decreased, as occurred with welfare reform in the 1990s, which curbed immigrants’ access to certain benefits.
The irony is that for all the overexcited debate, the net effect of immigration is minimal. Even for those most acutely affected — say, low-skilled workers, or California residents — the impact isn’t all that dramatic. “The unpleasant voices have tended to dominate our perceptions,” says Daniel Tichenor, a professor at the University of Oregon. “But when all those factors are put together and the economists calculate the numbers, it ends up being a net positive, but a small one.” Too bad most people don’t realize it.
【小题1】What can we learn from the first paragraph?
A.Whether immigrants are good or bad for the economy has been puzzling economists. |
B.The American economy used to thrive on immigration but now it’s a different story. |
C.The agreement among economists is that immigration should not be encouraged. |
D.The general public thinks differently from most economists on the impact of immigration. |
A.It may change the existing social structure. |
B.It may pose a threat to their economic status. |
C.It may decrease .their financial burden. |
D.It may place a great pressure on the state budget. |
A.Even economists can’t reach an agreement about its impact. |
B.Those who are opposed to it turn out to benefit most from it. |
C.People are making too big a fuss about something of small impact. |
D.There is no essential difference between seemingly opposite opinions. |
A.A debate about whether to immigrate. |
B.A debate about the impact of illegal immigrants. |
C.The great impact of immigrants on the economy. |
D.Opposition to illegal immigration. |