¡¡¡¡55.According to the author, the American economic situation is _____ .

¡¡¡¡A£©not as good as it seems

¡¡¡¡B£©at its turning point

¡¡¡¡C£©much better than it seems

¡¡¡¡D£©near to complete recovery

¡¡¡¡56.The official statistics on productivity growth _____ .

¡¡¡¡A£©exclude the usual rebound in a business cycle

¡¡¡¡B£©fall short of businessmen's anticipation

¡¡¡¡C£©meet the expectation of business people

¡¡¡¡D£©fail to reflect the true state of economy

¡¡¡¡57.The author raises the question"what about pain without gain?"because _____ .

¡¡¡¡A£©he questions the truth of"no gain without pain"

¡¡¡¡B£©he does not think the productivity revolution works

¡¡¡¡C£©he wonders if the official statistics are misleading

¡¡¡¡D£©he has conclusive evidence for the revival of businesses

¡¡¡¡58.Which of the following statements is NOT mentioned in the passage?

¡¡¡¡A£©Radical reforms are essential for the increase of productivity.

¡¡¡¡B£©New ways of organizing workplaces may help to increase productivity.

¡¡¡¡C£©The reduction of costs is not a sure way to gain long term profitability.

¡¡¡¡D£©The consultants are a bunch of good for nothigns.

¡¡¡¡Passage 3

¡¡¡¡Science has long had an uneasy relationship with other aspects of culture. Think of Gallileo's 17th century trial for his rebelling belief before the Catholic Church or poet William Blake's harsh remarks against the mechanistic worldview of Isaac Newton. The schism between sceience and the humanities has, if anything, deepened in this century.

¡¡¡¡Until recently, the seientific community was so powerful that it could affort to ignore its critics - but no longer. As funding for science has declined, scientists have attacked"antiscience"in several books, notably Higher Superstition, by Paul R.Gross, a biologist at the University of Verginia, and Norman Levitt, a mathematician at Rutgers University; and The Demonª²Haunted World, by Car Sagan of Cornell University.

¡¡¡¡Defenders of science have also voiced their concerns at meetings such as"The Flight from Science and Reason,"held in New York City in 1995, and"Science in the Age of £¨Mis£©information,"which assembled last June near Buffalo.

¡¡¡¡Antiscience clearly means different things to different people. Gross and Levitt find fault primarily with sociologists, philosophers and other academics who have questioned science's objectivity. Sagan is more concerned with those who believe in ghosts, creationism and other phenomena that contradict the scientific worldview.

¡¡¡¡A survey of news stories in 1996 reveals that the antiscience tag has been attached to many other groups as well, from authorities who advocated the elimination of the last remaining stocks of smallpox virus to Republicans who advocated decreased funding for basic research.

¡¡¡¡Few would dispute that the term applies to the Unabomber, those manifesto, published in 1995, scorns science and longs for return to a pretechnological utopia. But surely that does not mean environmentalists concerned about uncontrolled industrial growth are antiscience, as an essay in US News & World Report last May seemed to suggest.