Almost a decade ago, the federal government dropped $10 million for an Earth-monitoring satellite that never made it into space. Today it sits in a closet in Maryland. Cost to taxpayers for storing it 题目和参考答案——青夏教育精英家教网—

题目内容

Almost a decade ago, the federal government dropped $10 million for an Earth-monitoring satellite that never made it into space. Today it sits in a closet in Maryland. Cost to taxpayers for storing it: $1 million a year. And that's just what's hiding in one closet. Who knows what's in the rest of them?

Because we think the government should be held to at least the same standards as a publicly traded company, and because as taxpayers, we're America's shareholders, we performed an audit （财务检查）of sorts of the federal books. We're not economists, but we do have common sense. We tried to get help from Congressional staffers from both parties, as well as various watchdog groups and agencies. In the end, we found that the federal government wastes nearly $1 trillion every year.

That's roughly equal to the amount collected annually by the Internal Revenue Service in personal income taxes. Put another way, it's also equal to about one-third of the country's $2.9 trillion total annual budget. And reclaiming that lost trillion could help wipe out the country's annual budget deficit（赤字）, improve education, and provide health insurance for those who don't have it.

So how do you define "waste"? David Walker of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a federal watchdog agency, calls it "the government's failure to give taxpayers the most for their money." For our part, we used the kind of household test you would use on a piece of meat sitting in your refrigerator: If it smells rotten, it's waste. Our government regularly pays for products and services it never gets, wildly overpays companies to do things it could do more cheaply itself, loses money outright due to lax（不严格的）accounting and oversight, and spends money randomly on unnecessary programs.

How exactly does the federal government waste your hard-earned tax dollars? We've identified what we consider ten of the worst ways.

1.The underlined sentence in Paragraph1 really means .

A．there are many other closets B．there are some other satellites

C．there is something else in the closets D．the waste may be quite amazing

2.Which of the following can best describe the feeling of the author?

A．Annoyed. B．Calm. C．Surprised. D．Not concerned.

3.Which of the following statements may be right?

A．The country’s annual budget is usually decided by the public.

B．The government failed in launching the satellite.

C．The government is only wasting money in space experiments.

D．The amount collected annually in personal income taxes is equal to the country’s budget.

4.The best title for the passage would be .

A．Protecting Our Rights!

B．Our Country Is In Danger!

C．The Government Is Wasting Our Tax Dollars!

D．How to Prevent Government from Wasting Money!

5.What might be talked about if the passage is continued?

A．The government’s taking some steps to stop wasting taxes.

B．Presenting people’s feelings against the government’s wasting taxes.

C．Giving suggestion to help the government solve the financial problem.

D．Listing how the government is wasting taxes.

【答案】

1.D

2.A

3.B

4.C

5.D

【解析】

试题分析：

1.推断题。文章第一段讲到，十年前联邦政府为了一个最终没有进入太空的卫星花费了一千万美金，而如今却躺在了马里兰州的一个小房间里，为了保存好它，每年需花费一百万美金，所以作者觉得这种浪费是惊人的。故选D

2.推断题。从第一段最后一句Who knows what's in the rest of them?

及第二段最后一句及最后一段可看出作者对于政府的做法是愤怒的，故选A。B.答案是镇定的，不对。C.惊讶的。D.漠不关心的，不对。

3.判断题。文中没有讲到每年预算由谁决定，排除A.文中倒数第二段，最后一句讲到政府在一些不必要的项目上随意花钱，可知，并非只浪费在太空实验中。排除C

4.文中主要讲到了waste浪费，故应选与waste有关的答案，故选C.文中并未提到如何来阻止这种浪费，文中并未提到有关的措施，排除D.

5.最后一段We've identified what we consider ten of the worst ways.可知，接下来应列举十种政府浪费行为。故选D.

考点：说明文

点评：文章作者批评了政府浪费纳税人钱的做法，文中题目不难解答此类文章需要把握主旨，理解作者的写作态度，结合细节，在文中找答案。一般问题都不大。

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