Part Two: Reading Comprehension
 
    Ⅰ. Each of the passages below is followed by some questions. For each question four answers are given. Read the passages carefully and choose the best answer to each question. Put your choice in the ANSWER SHEET. (10%)

 
    Passage One
 

    (1) John Kerry has definitively lost the popular vote by some three and a half million votes. That makes an all-out lawyers’ war in Ohio devoid of moral force (and I doubt that in the end there’ll be one).

    (2) Kerry ran a tactical campaign, devoid of vision or explicable alternatives, utterly lacking in message discipline, and riddled with misjudgments -- it was one of the most incompetently run presidential campaigns by a Democrat in my lifetime.

    (3) Kerry’s biggest blunder was his failure to focus like a laser on the economy in the final weeks of the campaign, despite polls showing it was the number one issue on voters’ minds. The lethal character of Kerry’s scatter-shot, flailing, themeless campaign close can be clearly seen in the Ohio exit polls. In the Buckeye State, 62% of the voters said the economy was "not good" -- BUT asked who they’d trust with the economy, they were evenly split between Bush and Kerry, 48-48%. The national number on that question actually favored Bush, who got 48% on the economy to Kerry’s 46%.

    (4) By not focusing on the economy, even in a state that had lost 250,000 jobs on Bush’s watch Kerry couldn’t make the case that he’d do better. Whatever economic message his campaign had was blown out of the water by Kerry’s final-week harangues on the Iraqi explosives issue (about which there was too much reportorial dispute in the media to provide him a clean shot at Bush).

 
    26. The last word “one” in the first paragraph refers to      .

    A. a moral force    B. a lawyer     C. a war     D. Ohio
 

    27. Which of the following statements is NOT TRUE according to the passage?

    A. Kerry ran the campaign very incompetently.

    B. Bush has won the popular vote by about 3.5 million votes.

    C. Kerry’s most serious failure was his focus on the Iraqi explosives issue.

    D. In Ohio State, Kerry tied Bush in winning people’s trust in economic issue.

 
    28. According to the passage, Kerry fell short in the campaign because       

    A. he didn’t win the campaign in Ohio State.

    B. he had a lethal character.

    C. his final speech was very lengthy.

    D. his campaign lacked focus.
 

    29. In the third paragraph, the phrase “In the Buckeye State” means      .

    A. in the United States   B. in the state of being blind   

    C. in Ohio             D. in the state where the people are greedy

 
    30. In the fourth paragraph, “blown out of the water” means “     ”.

    A. shattered      B. exaggerated       C. surprised           D. was reversed

 
    Passage Two
 

    (1) Perhaps all criminals should be required to carry cards which read: Fragile: Handle with Care. It will never do, theses days, to go around referring to criminals as violent thugs. You must refer to them politely as “social misfits”. The professional killer who wouldn’t think twice about using his club or knife to batter some harmless old lady to death in order to rob her of her meager life-savings must never be given a dose of his own medicine. He is in need of “hospital treatment”. According to his misguided defenders, society is to blame. A wicked society breeds evil – or so the argument goes. When you listen to this kind of talk, it makes you wonder why aren’t all criminals. We have done away with the absurdly harsh laws of the nineteenth century and this is only right. But surely enough is enough. The most senseless piece of criminal legislation in Britain and a number of other countries has been the suspension of capital punishment.