The result of Foresee’s recent survey ...

Text 2

Every second, 1 hectare of the world’s rainforest is destroyed. That’s equivalent to two football fields. An area the size of New York City is lost every day. In a year, that adds up to 31 million hectares—more than the land area of Poland. This alarming rate of destruction has serious consequences for the environment; scientists estimate, for example, that 137 species of plant, insect or animal become extinct every day due to logging. In British Columbia, where, since 1990, thirteen rainforest valleys have been clearcut, 142 species of salmon have already become extinct, and the habitats of grizzly bears, wolves and many other creatures are threatened. Logging, however, provides jobs, profits, taxes for the government and cheap products of all kinds for consumers, so the government is reluctant to restrict or control it.
Much of Canada’s forestry production goes towards making pulp and paper. According to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, Canada supplies 34% of the world’s wood pulp and 49% of its newsprint paper. If these paper products could be produced in some other way, Canadian forests could be preserved. Recently, a possible alternative way of producing paper has been suggested by agriculturalists and environmentalists: a plant called hemp.
Hemp has been cultivated by many cultures for thousands of years. It produces fiber which can be made into paper, fuel, oils, textiles, food, and rope. For many centuries, it was essential to the economies of many countries because it was used to make the ropes and cables used on sailing ships; colonial expansion and the establishment of a world wide trading network would not have been possible without hemp. Nowadays, ships’ cables are usually made from wire or synthetic fibres, but scientists are now suggesting that the cultivation of hemp should be revived for the production of paper and pulp. According to its proponents, four times as much paper can be produced from land using hemp rather than trees, and many environmentalists believe that the large-scale cultivation of hemp could reduce the pressure on Canada’s forests.
However, there is a problem: hemp is illegal in many countries of the world, This plant, so useful for fiber, rope, oil, fuel and textiles, is a species of cannabis, related to the plant from which marijuana is produced. In the late 1930s, a movement to ban the drug marijuana began to gather force, resulting in the eventual banning of the cultivation not only of the plant used to produce the drug, but also of the commercial fiber-producing hemp plant. Although both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp in large quantities on their own land, any American growing the plant today would soon find himself in prison—despite the fact that marijuana cannot be produced from the hemp plant, since it contains almost no THC (the active ingredient in the drug).
In recent years, two major movements for legalization have been gathering strength. One group of activists believes that ALL cannabis should be legal—both the hemp plant and the marijuana plant—and that the use of the drug marijuana should not be an offense. They argue that marijuana is not dangerous or addictive, and that it is used by large numbers of people who are not criminals but productive members of society. They also point out that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol or tobacco. The other legalization movement is concerned only with the hemp plant used to produce fiber; this group wants to make it legal to cultivate the plant and sell the fiber for paper and pulp production. This second group has had a major triumph recently: in 1997, Canada legalized the farming of hemp for fiber. For the first time since 1938, hundreds of farmers are planting this crop, and soon we can expect to see pulp and paper produced from this new source.
Logging is not banned chiefly because

A．scientists are overestimating the damage.
B．people benefit economically from it.
C．some creatures are only threatened but not endangered.
D．it provides jobs to the consumers.

单项选择题

Part A
Directions:
Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.
Text 1

For years Internet merchants have poured millions of dollars into new technologies to make their sites easier to use. So why aren’t online customers happier
Customer satisfaction levels have remained almost flat through the last several years. The problem, according to Larry Freed, chief executive of a consulting and research firm called ForeSee Results, is not so much that consumers have ignored the many improvements made in recent years. Rather, he said, they still expect more from Internet shopping than it has delivered.
"If we walk into a local store, we don’t expect that experience to be better than it was a couple years ago," Mr. Freed said. "But we expect sites to be better. The bar goes up every year." In ForeSee’s latest survey, released last month, just five e-commerce sites registered scores higher than 80 out of 100, and no site scored higher than 85. It was much the same story a year ago, when just five scored higher than 80, with no site surpassing 85. "Scores have inched up over time for the best e-commerce companies, but the overall numbers haven’t moved drastically," Mr. Freed said. "At the same time though, if you don’t do anything you see your scores drop steadily."
That dynamic has been a challenge for online merchants and investors, who a decade ago envisioned Internet stores as relatively inexpensive (and therefore extremely profitable ) operations. Now some observers predict a future where online retailers will essentially adopt something like the QVC model, with sales staff pitching the site’s merchandise with polished video presentations, produced in a high-tech television studio.
QVC. com is evolving in that direction. The Web site, which sold more than $1 billion in merchandise’ in 2006, has for the last five years let visitors watch a live feed of the network’s broadcast. But in recent months, QVC. com has also given visitors the chance to watch archives of entire shows, and in the coming months visitors will be able to find more video segments from recent shows, featuring individual products that remain in stock. Bob Myers, senior vice president of QVC. com, said the Web site’s video salesmanship is especially effective when combined with detailed product information, customer reviews and multiple photographs.
About eight months ago, for instance, a customer said that she could not determine the size of a handbag from the photographs on the site because she could not tell the height of the model who was holding it. Within two weeks the site tested and introduced a new system, showing the bags with women of three different heights. The results were immediate: women who saw the new photographs bought the bags at least 10 percent more frequently than those who had not.
Still, Mr. Myers said, video is a critically important element to sales. "E-commerce started with television commerce," he said. "The sites who engage and entertain customers will be winning here in the near future." Such a prospect is not necessarily daunting to other e-commerce executives. Gordon Magee, head of Internet marketing for Drs. Foster & Smith, based in a Rhinelander, Wis. said a transition to video "will be seamless for us." The company, Mr. Magee said, has in recent weeks discussed putting some of its product on video "so customers could see a 360-degree view they don’t have to manipulate themselves.
Larry Freed attributed low customer satisfaction to the fact that

A．consumers often failed to see the efforts made by Internet shops.
B．customers’ expectations exceed what the Internet shops are offering.
C．consumer cognitive levels do not rise as easily as sellers believe.
D．customers expect Internet merchants to invest even more heavily.

单项选择题

Text 3

Some drug makers pay key leaders in a field of medicine, such as chairs of departments in medical schools, tens of thousands of dollars if they are saying the right things about their product. They manipulate medical education sessions, lectures, articles in medical journals, research studies, even personal conversations between physicians to get their product message across.
Now a huge collection of drug company internal documents--revealed as part of a lawsuit—offers a wealth of detail. In 1996, Dr. David Franklin, an employee of the drug company Parke-Davis, filed the lawsuit under federal whistleblower statutes alleging that the company was illegally promoting a drug called Neurontin for so called "off-label’ uses. Under federal law, once the FDA approves a drug, a doctor can prescribe it for anything. But the law specifically prohibits the drug company from promoting the drug for any unapproved uses. In 2004, the company, by then a division of Pfizer admitted guilt and agreed to pay $ 430 million in criminal and civil liability related to promoting the drug for off-label use.
Spokespeople for Pfizer say that any wrong doing occurred before Pfizer acquired the company. But Pfizer fought hard to keep all the papers related to the suit under seal. A judge denied the request and they are now part of the Drug Industry Document Archive at the University of California, San Francisco.
What is most interesting is not the illegal actions they reveal, but the details of activities that are perfectly legal. And according to people familiar with the industry, the methods detailed in these company memos are routine.
One tactic identifies certain doctors as "thought leaders, "—those whose opinions influence the prescribing pattern of other doctors. Those whose views converge with the company goals are then showered with rewards, research and educational grants. In the Parke-Davis case 14 such big shots got between $10,250 and $158,250 between 1993 and 1997.
"Medical education drives this market," wrote the author of one Parke-Davis business plan in the files. Many state licensing boards require physicians to attend sessions in what is called continuing medical education (CME) to keep current in their field.
At one time, medical schools ran most CME courses. Now, an industry of medical education and communications committees (MECCs) run most of the courses. These companies with innocent sounding names like Medical Education Systems set up courses, sometimes in conjunction with medical meetings, at other times often in fancy restaurants and resorts. The drug companies foot the bill, with the program usually noting it was financed by an." unrestricted educational grant" from the company.
Using MECCs, Parke-Davis set up conference calls so that doctors could talk to one another about the drugs. The moderators of the calls, often thought leaders or their younger assistants, received $250 to $500 a call. Drug company reps were on the line, instructed to stay in a "listen only" mode, but monitoring to be sure the pitch met their expectations.
Clearly, ’many of the physicians in these schemes are not innocent bystanders. Whether it is ghost writing, making telephone calls to colleagues or leading a CME session, many of the doctors got paid well. Others received a free meal or transportation to a resort to listen to an "educational session."
Physicians often claim they are not influenced by payments from the pharmaceutical industry. But with the methods so thoroughly detailed in these papers, drug companies clearly believe they are getting their money’s worth.
The drug companies are willing to pay leading doctors to

A．manipulate medical education sessions.
B．improve the individual health-care service.
C．have personal contact with physicians.
D．help promote the drugs they produce.

单项选择题

Text 4

Britain’s undeclared general election campaign has already seen the politicians trading numbers as boxers trade punches. There is nothing new in such statistical slanging matches (相互谩骂). What is new is an underestimation of worry about what has been happening to official statistics under the Labour government.
One of the most important figures for Gordon Brown when presenting his pre-election budget on March 16th was the current-budget balance. This is the gap between current revenues and current spending. It matters to the chancellor of the exchequer(财政部长) because he is committed to meeting his own "golden rule" of borrowing only to invest, so he has to ensure that the current budget is in balance or surplus over the economic cycle.
Mr. Brown told MPs that he would meet the golden rule for the current cycle with & 6 billion ( $11.4 billion) to spare--a respectable-sounding margin, though much less than in the past. However, the margin would have been halved but for an obscure technical change announced in February by the Office for National Statistics to the figures for road maintenance of major highways. The ONS said that the revision was necessary because it had been double-counting this spending within the current budget.
If this were an isolated incident, then it might be disregarded. But it is not the first time that the ONS has made decisions that appear rather convenient for the government. Mr. Brown aims to meet another fiscal rule, namely to keep pubic net debt below 40% of GDP, again over the economic cycle. At present he is meeting it but his comfort room would be reduced if the & 21 billion borrowings of Network Rail were included as part of public debt. They are not thanks to a controversial decision by the ONS to classify the rail-infrastructure corporation within the private sector, even though the National Audit Office, Parliament’s watchdog, said its borrowings were in fact government liabilities.
This makes it particularly worrying that the official figures can show one thing, whereas the public experiences another. One of the highest-profile targets for the NHS is that no patient should spend more than four hours in a hospital accident and emergency department. Government figures show that by mid-2004, the target was being met for 96% of patients. But according to a survey of 55,000 patients by the Healthcare Commission, an independent body, only 77% of patients said they stayed no more than four hours in A&E.
One way to help restore public confidence in official statistics would be to make the ONS independent, as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have suggested. Another would be for the National Audit Office to assess how the government has been performing against targets, as the Public Administration Committee has recommended.
It can be inferred from the first paragraph that

A．the British politicians are often compared to boxers by the people.
B．it is a common practice that the government plays with figures.
C．people often overestimate the credibility of official statistics.
D．the Labor government usually underestimate its official figures.

单项选择题

Text 3

Some drug makers pay key leaders in a field of medicine, such as chairs of departments in medical schools, tens of thousands of dollars if they are saying the right things about their product. They manipulate medical education sessions, lectures, articles in medical journals, research studies, even personal conversations between physicians to get their product message across.
Now a huge collection of drug company internal documents--revealed as part of a lawsuit—offers a wealth of detail. In 1996, Dr. David Franklin, an employee of the drug company Parke-Davis, filed the lawsuit under federal whistleblower statutes alleging that the company was illegally promoting a drug called Neurontin for so called "off-label’ uses. Under federal law, once the FDA approves a drug, a doctor can prescribe it for anything. But the law specifically prohibits the drug company from promoting the drug for any unapproved uses. In 2004, the company, by then a division of Pfizer admitted guilt and agreed to pay $ 430 million in criminal and civil liability related to promoting the drug for off-label use.
Spokespeople for Pfizer say that any wrong doing occurred before Pfizer acquired the company. But Pfizer fought hard to keep all the papers related to the suit under seal. A judge denied the request and they are now part of the Drug Industry Document Archive at the University of California, San Francisco.
What is most interesting is not the illegal actions they reveal, but the details of activities that are perfectly legal. And according to people familiar with the industry, the methods detailed in these company memos are routine.
One tactic identifies certain doctors as "thought leaders, "—those whose opinions influence the prescribing pattern of other doctors. Those whose views converge with the company goals are then showered with rewards, research and educational grants. In the Parke-Davis case 14 such big shots got between $10,250 and $158,250 between 1993 and 1997.
"Medical education drives this market," wrote the author of one Parke-Davis business plan in the files. Many state licensing boards require physicians to attend sessions in what is called continuing medical education (CME) to keep current in their field.
At one time, medical schools ran most CME courses. Now, an industry of medical education and communications committees (MECCs) run most of the courses. These companies with innocent sounding names like Medical Education Systems set up courses, sometimes in conjunction with medical meetings, at other times often in fancy restaurants and resorts. The drug companies foot the bill, with the program usually noting it was financed by an." unrestricted educational grant" from the company.
Using MECCs, Parke-Davis set up conference calls so that doctors could talk to one another about the drugs. The moderators of the calls, often thought leaders or their younger assistants, received $250 to $500 a call. Drug company reps were on the line, instructed to stay in a "listen only" mode, but monitoring to be sure the pitch met their expectations.
Clearly, ’many of the physicians in these schemes are not innocent bystanders. Whether it is ghost writing, making telephone calls to colleagues or leading a CME session, many of the doctors got paid well. Others received a free meal or transportation to a resort to listen to an "educational session."
Physicians often claim they are not influenced by payments from the pharmaceutical industry. But with the methods so thoroughly detailed in these papers, drug companies clearly believe they are getting their money’s worth.
The phrase "off-label" ( line 4, paragraph 2) most probably means

A．without approval.
B．far from a label.
C．off-line.
D．without a label.

单项选择题

Part A
Directions:
Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.
Text 1

For years Internet merchants have poured millions of dollars into new technologies to make their sites easier to use. So why aren’t online customers happier
Customer satisfaction levels have remained almost flat through the last several years. The problem, according to Larry Freed, chief executive of a consulting and research firm called ForeSee Results, is not so much that consumers have ignored the many improvements made in recent years. Rather, he said, they still expect more from Internet shopping than it has delivered.
"If we walk into a local store, we don’t expect that experience to be better than it was a couple years ago," Mr. Freed said. "But we expect sites to be better. The bar goes up every year." In ForeSee’s latest survey, released last month, just five e-commerce sites registered scores higher than 80 out of 100, and no site scored higher than 85. It was much the same story a year ago, when just five scored higher than 80, with no site surpassing 85. "Scores have inched up over time for the best e-commerce companies, but the overall numbers haven’t moved drastically," Mr. Freed said. "At the same time though, if you don’t do anything you see your scores drop steadily."
That dynamic has been a challenge for online merchants and investors, who a decade ago envisioned Internet stores as relatively inexpensive (and therefore extremely profitable ) operations. Now some observers predict a future where online retailers will essentially adopt something like the QVC model, with sales staff pitching the site’s merchandise with polished video presentations, produced in a high-tech television studio.
QVC. com is evolving in that direction. The Web site, which sold more than $1 billion in merchandise’ in 2006, has for the last five years let visitors watch a live feed of the network’s broadcast. But in recent months, QVC. com has also given visitors the chance to watch archives of entire shows, and in the coming months visitors will be able to find more video segments from recent shows, featuring individual products that remain in stock. Bob Myers, senior vice president of QVC. com, said the Web site’s video salesmanship is especially effective when combined with detailed product information, customer reviews and multiple photographs.
About eight months ago, for instance, a customer said that she could not determine the size of a handbag from the photographs on the site because she could not tell the height of the model who was holding it. Within two weeks the site tested and introduced a new system, showing the bags with women of three different heights. The results were immediate: women who saw the new photographs bought the bags at least 10 percent more frequently than those who had not.
Still, Mr. Myers said, video is a critically important element to sales. "E-commerce started with television commerce," he said. "The sites who engage and entertain customers will be winning here in the near future." Such a prospect is not necessarily daunting to other e-commerce executives. Gordon Magee, head of Internet marketing for Drs. Foster & Smith, based in a Rhinelander, Wis. said a transition to video "will be seamless for us." The company, Mr. Magee said, has in recent weeks discussed putting some of its product on video "so customers could see a 360-degree view they don’t have to manipulate themselves.
The result of Foresee’s recent survey shows that

A．there isn’t a huge increase in customer satisfaction.
B．some companies have to watch theft scores drop steadily.
C．E-commerce companies will soon fall out of business.
D．shopping experience in local stores can’t be better.

单项选择题

Text 2

Every second, 1 hectare of the world’s rainforest is destroyed. That’s equivalent to two football fields. An area the size of New York City is lost every day. In a year, that adds up to 31 million hectares—more than the land area of Poland. This alarming rate of destruction has serious consequences for the environment; scientists estimate, for example, that 137 species of plant, insect or animal become extinct every day due to logging. In British Columbia, where, since 1990, thirteen rainforest valleys have been clearcut, 142 species of salmon have already become extinct, and the habitats of grizzly bears, wolves and many other creatures are threatened. Logging, however, provides jobs, profits, taxes for the government and cheap products of all kinds for consumers, so the government is reluctant to restrict or control it.
Much of Canada’s forestry production goes towards making pulp and paper. According to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, Canada supplies 34% of the world’s wood pulp and 49% of its newsprint paper. If these paper products could be produced in some other way, Canadian forests could be preserved. Recently, a possible alternative way of producing paper has been suggested by agriculturalists and environmentalists: a plant called hemp.
Hemp has been cultivated by many cultures for thousands of years. It produces fiber which can be made into paper, fuel, oils, textiles, food, and rope. For many centuries, it was essential to the economies of many countries because it was used to make the ropes and cables used on sailing ships; colonial expansion and the establishment of a world wide trading network would not have been possible without hemp. Nowadays, ships’ cables are usually made from wire or synthetic fibres, but scientists are now suggesting that the cultivation of hemp should be revived for the production of paper and pulp. According to its proponents, four times as much paper can be produced from land using hemp rather than trees, and many environmentalists believe that the large-scale cultivation of hemp could reduce the pressure on Canada’s forests.
However, there is a problem: hemp is illegal in many countries of the world, This plant, so useful for fiber, rope, oil, fuel and textiles, is a species of cannabis, related to the plant from which marijuana is produced. In the late 1930s, a movement to ban the drug marijuana began to gather force, resulting in the eventual banning of the cultivation not only of the plant used to produce the drug, but also of the commercial fiber-producing hemp plant. Although both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp in large quantities on their own land, any American growing the plant today would soon find himself in prison—despite the fact that marijuana cannot be produced from the hemp plant, since it contains almost no THC (the active ingredient in the drug).
In recent years, two major movements for legalization have been gathering strength. One group of activists believes that ALL cannabis should be legal—both the hemp plant and the marijuana plant—and that the use of the drug marijuana should not be an offense. They argue that marijuana is not dangerous or addictive, and that it is used by large numbers of people who are not criminals but productive members of society. They also point out that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol or tobacco. The other legalization movement is concerned only with the hemp plant used to produce fiber; this group wants to make it legal to cultivate the plant and sell the fiber for paper and pulp production. This second group has had a major triumph recently: in 1997, Canada legalized the farming of hemp for fiber. For the first time since 1938, hundreds of farmers are planting this crop, and soon we can expect to see pulp and paper produced from this new source.
Canadian forests will not face destruction if

A．alternative sources for paper products are found.
B．logging is banned by the local government.
C．consumers increase their environmental sensitivity.
D．Canadian Pulp and Paper Association reduce its production.

单项选择题

Text 4

Britain’s undeclared general election campaign has already seen the politicians trading numbers as boxers trade punches. There is nothing new in such statistical slanging matches (相互谩骂). What is new is an underestimation of worry about what has been happening to official statistics under the Labour government.
One of the most important figures for Gordon Brown when presenting his pre-election budget on March 16th was the current-budget balance. This is the gap between current revenues and current spending. It matters to the chancellor of the exchequer(财政部长) because he is committed to meeting his own "golden rule" of borrowing only to invest, so he has to ensure that the current budget is in balance or surplus over the economic cycle.
Mr. Brown told MPs that he would meet the golden rule for the current cycle with & 6 billion ( $11.4 billion) to spare--a respectable-sounding margin, though much less than in the past. However, the margin would have been halved but for an obscure technical change announced in February by the Office for National Statistics to the figures for road maintenance of major highways. The ONS said that the revision was necessary because it had been double-counting this spending within the current budget.
If this were an isolated incident, then it might be disregarded. But it is not the first time that the ONS has made decisions that appear rather convenient for the government. Mr. Brown aims to meet another fiscal rule, namely to keep pubic net debt below 40% of GDP, again over the economic cycle. At present he is meeting it but his comfort room would be reduced if the & 21 billion borrowings of Network Rail were included as part of public debt. They are not thanks to a controversial decision by the ONS to classify the rail-infrastructure corporation within the private sector, even though the National Audit Office, Parliament’s watchdog, said its borrowings were in fact government liabilities.
This makes it particularly worrying that the official figures can show one thing, whereas the public experiences another. One of the highest-profile targets for the NHS is that no patient should spend more than four hours in a hospital accident and emergency department. Government figures show that by mid-2004, the target was being met for 96% of patients. But according to a survey of 55,000 patients by the Healthcare Commission, an independent body, only 77% of patients said they stayed no more than four hours in A&E.
One way to help restore public confidence in official statistics would be to make the ONS independent, as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have suggested. Another would be for the National Audit Office to assess how the government has been performing against targets, as the Public Administration Committee has recommended.
Gordon Brown’s major concern is

A．whether he can deliver what he has promised.
B．whether the budget is realistic over the economic cycle.
C．whether his government wins the next election.
D．whether the golden rule is a sound theory.

单项选择题

Text 3

Some drug makers pay key leaders in a field of medicine, such as chairs of departments in medical schools, tens of thousands of dollars if they are saying the right things about their product. They manipulate medical education sessions, lectures, articles in medical journals, research studies, even personal conversations between physicians to get their product message across.
Now a huge collection of drug company internal documents--revealed as part of a lawsuit—offers a wealth of detail. In 1996, Dr. David Franklin, an employee of the drug company Parke-Davis, filed the lawsuit under federal whistleblower statutes alleging that the company was illegally promoting a drug called Neurontin for so called "off-label’ uses. Under federal law, once the FDA approves a drug, a doctor can prescribe it for anything. But the law specifically prohibits the drug company from promoting the drug for any unapproved uses. In 2004, the company, by then a division of Pfizer admitted guilt and agreed to pay $ 430 million in criminal and civil liability related to promoting the drug for off-label use.
Spokespeople for Pfizer say that any wrong doing occurred before Pfizer acquired the company. But Pfizer fought hard to keep all the papers related to the suit under seal. A judge denied the request and they are now part of the Drug Industry Document Archive at the University of California, San Francisco.
What is most interesting is not the illegal actions they reveal, but the details of activities that are perfectly legal. And according to people familiar with the industry, the methods detailed in these company memos are routine.
One tactic identifies certain doctors as "thought leaders, "—those whose opinions influence the prescribing pattern of other doctors. Those whose views converge with the company goals are then showered with rewards, research and educational grants. In the Parke-Davis case 14 such big shots got between $10,250 and $158,250 between 1993 and 1997.
"Medical education drives this market," wrote the author of one Parke-Davis business plan in the files. Many state licensing boards require physicians to attend sessions in what is called continuing medical education (CME) to keep current in their field.
At one time, medical schools ran most CME courses. Now, an industry of medical education and communications committees (MECCs) run most of the courses. These companies with innocent sounding names like Medical Education Systems set up courses, sometimes in conjunction with medical meetings, at other times often in fancy restaurants and resorts. The drug companies foot the bill, with the program usually noting it was financed by an." unrestricted educational grant" from the company.
Using MECCs, Parke-Davis set up conference calls so that doctors could talk to one another about the drugs. The moderators of the calls, often thought leaders or their younger assistants, received $250 to $500 a call. Drug company reps were on the line, instructed to stay in a "listen only" mode, but monitoring to be sure the pitch met their expectations.
Clearly, ’many of the physicians in these schemes are not innocent bystanders. Whether it is ghost writing, making telephone calls to colleagues or leading a CME session, many of the doctors got paid well. Others received a free meal or transportation to a resort to listen to an "educational session."
Physicians often claim they are not influenced by payments from the pharmaceutical industry. But with the methods so thoroughly detailed in these papers, drug companies clearly believe they are getting their money’s worth.
Which of the following is true about Pfizer

A．Pfizer is a branch of the drug company Parke-Davis.
B．Pfizer has failed in its attempt to conceal certain information,
C．Pfizer is a part of the Drug Industry Document Archive.
D．Pfizer has done nothing illegal since it acquired Parke-Davis.

单项选择题

Part A
Directions:
Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.
Text 1

For years Internet merchants have poured millions of dollars into new technologies to make their sites easier to use. So why aren’t online customers happier
Customer satisfaction levels have remained almost flat through the last several years. The problem, according to Larry Freed, chief executive of a consulting and research firm called ForeSee Results, is not so much that consumers have ignored the many improvements made in recent years. Rather, he said, they still expect more from Internet shopping than it has delivered.
"If we walk into a local store, we don’t expect that experience to be better than it was a couple years ago," Mr. Freed said. "But we expect sites to be better. The bar goes up every year." In ForeSee’s latest survey, released last month, just five e-commerce sites registered scores higher than 80 out of 100, and no site scored higher than 85. It was much the same story a year ago, when just five scored higher than 80, with no site surpassing 85. "Scores have inched up over time for the best e-commerce companies, but the overall numbers haven’t moved drastically," Mr. Freed said. "At the same time though, if you don’t do anything you see your scores drop steadily."
That dynamic has been a challenge for online merchants and investors, who a decade ago envisioned Internet stores as relatively inexpensive (and therefore extremely profitable ) operations. Now some observers predict a future where online retailers will essentially adopt something like the QVC model, with sales staff pitching the site’s merchandise with polished video presentations, produced in a high-tech television studio.
QVC. com is evolving in that direction. The Web site, which sold more than $1 billion in merchandise’ in 2006, has for the last five years let visitors watch a live feed of the network’s broadcast. But in recent months, QVC. com has also given visitors the chance to watch archives of entire shows, and in the coming months visitors will be able to find more video segments from recent shows, featuring individual products that remain in stock. Bob Myers, senior vice president of QVC. com, said the Web site’s video salesmanship is especially effective when combined with detailed product information, customer reviews and multiple photographs.
About eight months ago, for instance, a customer said that she could not determine the size of a handbag from the photographs on the site because she could not tell the height of the model who was holding it. Within two weeks the site tested and introduced a new system, showing the bags with women of three different heights. The results were immediate: women who saw the new photographs bought the bags at least 10 percent more frequently than those who had not.
Still, Mr. Myers said, video is a critically important element to sales. "E-commerce started with television commerce," he said. "The sites who engage and entertain customers will be winning here in the near future." Such a prospect is not necessarily daunting to other e-commerce executives. Gordon Magee, head of Internet marketing for Drs. Foster & Smith, based in a Rhinelander, Wis. said a transition to video "will be seamless for us." The company, Mr. Magee said, has in recent weeks discussed putting some of its product on video "so customers could see a 360-degree view they don’t have to manipulate themselves.
It can be inferred from the passage that

A．some people used to regard E-commerce as profit-loaded.
B．E-commerce is no longer exploitable in terms of profit.
C．QVC envisioned the adoption of videos in sales a decade ago.
D．polished video presentations must be made in a high-tech studio.

单项选择题

Text 2

Every second, 1 hectare of the world’s rainforest is destroyed. That’s equivalent to two football fields. An area the size of New York City is lost every day. In a year, that adds up to 31 million hectares—more than the land area of Poland. This alarming rate of destruction has serious consequences for the environment; scientists estimate, for example, that 137 species of plant, insect or animal become extinct every day due to logging. In British Columbia, where, since 1990, thirteen rainforest valleys have been clearcut, 142 species of salmon have already become extinct, and the habitats of grizzly bears, wolves and many other creatures are threatened. Logging, however, provides jobs, profits, taxes for the government and cheap products of all kinds for consumers, so the government is reluctant to restrict or control it.
Much of Canada’s forestry production goes towards making pulp and paper. According to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, Canada supplies 34% of the world’s wood pulp and 49% of its newsprint paper. If these paper products could be produced in some other way, Canadian forests could be preserved. Recently, a possible alternative way of producing paper has been suggested by agriculturalists and environmentalists: a plant called hemp.
Hemp has been cultivated by many cultures for thousands of years. It produces fiber which can be made into paper, fuel, oils, textiles, food, and rope. For many centuries, it was essential to the economies of many countries because it was used to make the ropes and cables used on sailing ships; colonial expansion and the establishment of a world wide trading network would not have been possible without hemp. Nowadays, ships’ cables are usually made from wire or synthetic fibres, but scientists are now suggesting that the cultivation of hemp should be revived for the production of paper and pulp. According to its proponents, four times as much paper can be produced from land using hemp rather than trees, and many environmentalists believe that the large-scale cultivation of hemp could reduce the pressure on Canada’s forests.
However, there is a problem: hemp is illegal in many countries of the world, This plant, so useful for fiber, rope, oil, fuel and textiles, is a species of cannabis, related to the plant from which marijuana is produced. In the late 1930s, a movement to ban the drug marijuana began to gather force, resulting in the eventual banning of the cultivation not only of the plant used to produce the drug, but also of the commercial fiber-producing hemp plant. Although both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp in large quantities on their own land, any American growing the plant today would soon find himself in prison—despite the fact that marijuana cannot be produced from the hemp plant, since it contains almost no THC (the active ingredient in the drug).
In recent years, two major movements for legalization have been gathering strength. One group of activists believes that ALL cannabis should be legal—both the hemp plant and the marijuana plant—and that the use of the drug marijuana should not be an offense. They argue that marijuana is not dangerous or addictive, and that it is used by large numbers of people who are not criminals but productive members of society. They also point out that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol or tobacco. The other legalization movement is concerned only with the hemp plant used to produce fiber; this group wants to make it legal to cultivate the plant and sell the fiber for paper and pulp production. This second group has had a major triumph recently: in 1997, Canada legalized the farming of hemp for fiber. For the first time since 1938, hundreds of farmers are planting this crop, and soon we can expect to see pulp and paper produced from this new source.
According to some scientists, Hemps are preferable to trees chiefly because

A．they are more easily cultivated.
B．they have been cultivated by many cultures for a long time.
C．they can produce more paper than trees.
D．they can provide more endurable fibers than trees.

单项选择题

Text 4

Britain’s undeclared general election campaign has already seen the politicians trading numbers as boxers trade punches. There is nothing new in such statistical slanging matches (相互谩骂). What is new is an underestimation of worry about what has been happening to official statistics under the Labour government.
One of the most important figures for Gordon Brown when presenting his pre-election budget on March 16th was the current-budget balance. This is the gap between current revenues and current spending. It matters to the chancellor of the exchequer(财政部长) because he is committed to meeting his own "golden rule" of borrowing only to invest, so he has to ensure that the current budget is in balance or surplus over the economic cycle.
Mr. Brown told MPs that he would meet the golden rule for the current cycle with & 6 billion ( $11.4 billion) to spare--a respectable-sounding margin, though much less than in the past. However, the margin would have been halved but for an obscure technical change announced in February by the Office for National Statistics to the figures for road maintenance of major highways. The ONS said that the revision was necessary because it had been double-counting this spending within the current budget.
If this were an isolated incident, then it might be disregarded. But it is not the first time that the ONS has made decisions that appear rather convenient for the government. Mr. Brown aims to meet another fiscal rule, namely to keep pubic net debt below 40% of GDP, again over the economic cycle. At present he is meeting it but his comfort room would be reduced if the & 21 billion borrowings of Network Rail were included as part of public debt. They are not thanks to a controversial decision by the ONS to classify the rail-infrastructure corporation within the private sector, even though the National Audit Office, Parliament’s watchdog, said its borrowings were in fact government liabilities.
This makes it particularly worrying that the official figures can show one thing, whereas the public experiences another. One of the highest-profile targets for the NHS is that no patient should spend more than four hours in a hospital accident and emergency department. Government figures show that by mid-2004, the target was being met for 96% of patients. But according to a survey of 55,000 patients by the Healthcare Commission, an independent body, only 77% of patients said they stayed no more than four hours in A&E.
One way to help restore public confidence in official statistics would be to make the ONS independent, as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have suggested. Another would be for the National Audit Office to assess how the government has been performing against targets, as the Public Administration Committee has recommended.
Mr. Brown’s budget surplus now looked respectable-sounding because

A．the exchange rate between pounds and dollars is fairly stable.
B．less money was actually spent on the maintenance of major highways.
C．the Office for National Statistics made a revision of its figures.
D．Mr. Brown himself is greatly devoted to meeting the golden rule.

单项选择题

Part A
Directions:
Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.
Text 1

For years Internet merchants have poured millions of dollars into new technologies to make their sites easier to use. So why aren’t online customers happier
Customer satisfaction levels have remained almost flat through the last several years. The problem, according to Larry Freed, chief executive of a consulting and research firm called ForeSee Results, is not so much that consumers have ignored the many improvements made in recent years. Rather, he said, they still expect more from Internet shopping than it has delivered.
"If we walk into a local store, we don’t expect that experience to be better than it was a couple years ago," Mr. Freed said. "But we expect sites to be better. The bar goes up every year." In ForeSee’s latest survey, released last month, just five e-commerce sites registered scores higher than 80 out of 100, and no site scored higher than 85. It was much the same story a year ago, when just five scored higher than 80, with no site surpassing 85. "Scores have inched up over time for the best e-commerce companies, but the overall numbers haven’t moved drastically," Mr. Freed said. "At the same time though, if you don’t do anything you see your scores drop steadily."
That dynamic has been a challenge for online merchants and investors, who a decade ago envisioned Internet stores as relatively inexpensive (and therefore extremely profitable ) operations. Now some observers predict a future where online retailers will essentially adopt something like the QVC model, with sales staff pitching the site’s merchandise with polished video presentations, produced in a high-tech television studio.
QVC. com is evolving in that direction. The Web site, which sold more than $1 billion in merchandise’ in 2006, has for the last five years let visitors watch a live feed of the network’s broadcast. But in recent months, QVC. com has also given visitors the chance to watch archives of entire shows, and in the coming months visitors will be able to find more video segments from recent shows, featuring individual products that remain in stock. Bob Myers, senior vice president of QVC. com, said the Web site’s video salesmanship is especially effective when combined with detailed product information, customer reviews and multiple photographs.
About eight months ago, for instance, a customer said that she could not determine the size of a handbag from the photographs on the site because she could not tell the height of the model who was holding it. Within two weeks the site tested and introduced a new system, showing the bags with women of three different heights. The results were immediate: women who saw the new photographs bought the bags at least 10 percent more frequently than those who had not.
Still, Mr. Myers said, video is a critically important element to sales. "E-commerce started with television commerce," he said. "The sites who engage and entertain customers will be winning here in the near future." Such a prospect is not necessarily daunting to other e-commerce executives. Gordon Magee, head of Internet marketing for Drs. Foster & Smith, based in a Rhinelander, Wis. said a transition to video "will be seamless for us." The company, Mr. Magee said, has in recent weeks discussed putting some of its product on video "so customers could see a 360-degree view they don’t have to manipulate themselves.
The example of a customer buying a handbag is used to show that

A．visual confirmation and product specifications help improve online sales.
B．online shopping has its own advantages as well as disadvantages.
C．women are more attracted to photographs of products than men buyers.
D．photographs often help to increase immediate sales by at least 10 percent.

单项选择题

Text 2

Every second, 1 hectare of the world’s rainforest is destroyed. That’s equivalent to two football fields. An area the size of New York City is lost every day. In a year, that adds up to 31 million hectares—more than the land area of Poland. This alarming rate of destruction has serious consequences for the environment; scientists estimate, for example, that 137 species of plant, insect or animal become extinct every day due to logging. In British Columbia, where, since 1990, thirteen rainforest valleys have been clearcut, 142 species of salmon have already become extinct, and the habitats of grizzly bears, wolves and many other creatures are threatened. Logging, however, provides jobs, profits, taxes for the government and cheap products of all kinds for consumers, so the government is reluctant to restrict or control it.
Much of Canada’s forestry production goes towards making pulp and paper. According to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, Canada supplies 34% of the world’s wood pulp and 49% of its newsprint paper. If these paper products could be produced in some other way, Canadian forests could be preserved. Recently, a possible alternative way of producing paper has been suggested by agriculturalists and environmentalists: a plant called hemp.
Hemp has been cultivated by many cultures for thousands of years. It produces fiber which can be made into paper, fuel, oils, textiles, food, and rope. For many centuries, it was essential to the economies of many countries because it was used to make the ropes and cables used on sailing ships; colonial expansion and the establishment of a world wide trading network would not have been possible without hemp. Nowadays, ships’ cables are usually made from wire or synthetic fibres, but scientists are now suggesting that the cultivation of hemp should be revived for the production of paper and pulp. According to its proponents, four times as much paper can be produced from land using hemp rather than trees, and many environmentalists believe that the large-scale cultivation of hemp could reduce the pressure on Canada’s forests.
However, there is a problem: hemp is illegal in many countries of the world, This plant, so useful for fiber, rope, oil, fuel and textiles, is a species of cannabis, related to the plant from which marijuana is produced. In the late 1930s, a movement to ban the drug marijuana began to gather force, resulting in the eventual banning of the cultivation not only of the plant used to produce the drug, but also of the commercial fiber-producing hemp plant. Although both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp in large quantities on their own land, any American growing the plant today would soon find himself in prison—despite the fact that marijuana cannot be produced from the hemp plant, since it contains almost no THC (the active ingredient in the drug).
In recent years, two major movements for legalization have been gathering strength. One group of activists believes that ALL cannabis should be legal—both the hemp plant and the marijuana plant—and that the use of the drug marijuana should not be an offense. They argue that marijuana is not dangerous or addictive, and that it is used by large numbers of people who are not criminals but productive members of society. They also point out that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol or tobacco. The other legalization movement is concerned only with the hemp plant used to produce fiber; this group wants to make it legal to cultivate the plant and sell the fiber for paper and pulp production. This second group has had a major triumph recently: in 1997, Canada legalized the farming of hemp for fiber. For the first time since 1938, hundreds of farmers are planting this crop, and soon we can expect to see pulp and paper produced from this new source.
The author seems to imply in the passage that

A．the grounds on which hemp is banned cannot be justified.
B．drug addiction is an even more serious problem of the world.
C．American Presidents can be exempt from the punishment of law.
D．marijuana is an addictive drug that should be banned worldwide.

单项选择题

Text 3

Some drug makers pay key leaders in a field of medicine, such as chairs of departments in medical schools, tens of thousands of dollars if they are saying the right things about their product. They manipulate medical education sessions, lectures, articles in medical journals, research studies, even personal conversations between physicians to get their product message across.
Now a huge collection of drug company internal documents--revealed as part of a lawsuit—offers a wealth of detail. In 1996, Dr. David Franklin, an employee of the drug company Parke-Davis, filed the lawsuit under federal whistleblower statutes alleging that the company was illegally promoting a drug called Neurontin for so called "off-label’ uses. Under federal law, once the FDA approves a drug, a doctor can prescribe it for anything. But the law specifically prohibits the drug company from promoting the drug for any unapproved uses. In 2004, the company, by then a division of Pfizer admitted guilt and agreed to pay $ 430 million in criminal and civil liability related to promoting the drug for off-label use.
Spokespeople for Pfizer say that any wrong doing occurred before Pfizer acquired the company. But Pfizer fought hard to keep all the papers related to the suit under seal. A judge denied the request and they are now part of the Drug Industry Document Archive at the University of California, San Francisco.
What is most interesting is not the illegal actions they reveal, but the details of activities that are perfectly legal. And according to people familiar with the industry, the methods detailed in these company memos are routine.
One tactic identifies certain doctors as "thought leaders, "—those whose opinions influence the prescribing pattern of other doctors. Those whose views converge with the company goals are then showered with rewards, research and educational grants. In the Parke-Davis case 14 such big shots got between $10,250 and $158,250 between 1993 and 1997.
"Medical education drives this market," wrote the author of one Parke-Davis business plan in the files. Many state licensing boards require physicians to attend sessions in what is called continuing medical education (CME) to keep current in their field.
At one time, medical schools ran most CME courses. Now, an industry of medical education and communications committees (MECCs) run most of the courses. These companies with innocent sounding names like Medical Education Systems set up courses, sometimes in conjunction with medical meetings, at other times often in fancy restaurants and resorts. The drug companies foot the bill, with the program usually noting it was financed by an." unrestricted educational grant" from the company.
Using MECCs, Parke-Davis set up conference calls so that doctors could talk to one another about the drugs. The moderators of the calls, often thought leaders or their younger assistants, received $250 to $500 a call. Drug company reps were on the line, instructed to stay in a "listen only" mode, but monitoring to be sure the pitch met their expectations.
Clearly, ’many of the physicians in these schemes are not innocent bystanders. Whether it is ghost writing, making telephone calls to colleagues or leading a CME session, many of the doctors got paid well. Others received a free meal or transportation to a resort to listen to an "educational session."
Physicians often claim they are not influenced by payments from the pharmaceutical industry. But with the methods so thoroughly detailed in these papers, drug companies clearly believe they are getting their money’s worth.
According to the passage, drug company representatives

A．have received $250 to $500 a call.
B．have done nothing but listen.
C．are supervising the tone of the conferences.
D．are trying to meet their expectations.

单项选择题

Text 4

Britain’s undeclared general election campaign has already seen the politicians trading numbers as boxers trade punches. There is nothing new in such statistical slanging matches (相互谩骂). What is new is an underestimation of worry about what has been happening to official statistics under the Labour government.
One of the most important figures for Gordon Brown when presenting his pre-election budget on March 16th was the current-budget balance. This is the gap between current revenues and current spending. It matters to the chancellor of the exchequer(财政部长) because he is committed to meeting his own "golden rule" of borrowing only to invest, so he has to ensure that the current budget is in balance or surplus over the economic cycle.
Mr. Brown told MPs that he would meet the golden rule for the current cycle with & 6 billion ( $11.4 billion) to spare--a respectable-sounding margin, though much less than in the past. However, the margin would have been halved but for an obscure technical change announced in February by the Office for National Statistics to the figures for road maintenance of major highways. The ONS said that the revision was necessary because it had been double-counting this spending within the current budget.
If this were an isolated incident, then it might be disregarded. But it is not the first time that the ONS has made decisions that appear rather convenient for the government. Mr. Brown aims to meet another fiscal rule, namely to keep pubic net debt below 40% of GDP, again over the economic cycle. At present he is meeting it but his comfort room would be reduced if the & 21 billion borrowings of Network Rail were included as part of public debt. They are not thanks to a controversial decision by the ONS to classify the rail-infrastructure corporation within the private sector, even though the National Audit Office, Parliament’s watchdog, said its borrowings were in fact government liabilities.
This makes it particularly worrying that the official figures can show one thing, whereas the public experiences another. One of the highest-profile targets for the NHS is that no patient should spend more than four hours in a hospital accident and emergency department. Government figures show that by mid-2004, the target was being met for 96% of patients. But according to a survey of 55,000 patients by the Healthcare Commission, an independent body, only 77% of patients said they stayed no more than four hours in A&E.
One way to help restore public confidence in official statistics would be to make the ONS independent, as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have suggested. Another would be for the National Audit Office to assess how the government has been performing against targets, as the Public Administration Committee has recommended.
What can be inferred about the ONS

A．It often makes adjustments that favor the administrators.
B．It often makes necessary technical changes to its figures.
C．It regards the Network Rail as a part of public sector.
D．It regards the National Audit Office as its major rival.

单项选择题

Part A
Directions:
Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.
Text 1

For years Internet merchants have poured millions of dollars into new technologies to make their sites easier to use. So why aren’t online customers happier
Customer satisfaction levels have remained almost flat through the last several years. The problem, according to Larry Freed, chief executive of a consulting and research firm called ForeSee Results, is not so much that consumers have ignored the many improvements made in recent years. Rather, he said, they still expect more from Internet shopping than it has delivered.
"If we walk into a local store, we don’t expect that experience to be better than it was a couple years ago," Mr. Freed said. "But we expect sites to be better. The bar goes up every year." In ForeSee’s latest survey, released last month, just five e-commerce sites registered scores higher than 80 out of 100, and no site scored higher than 85. It was much the same story a year ago, when just five scored higher than 80, with no site surpassing 85. "Scores have inched up over time for the best e-commerce companies, but the overall numbers haven’t moved drastically," Mr. Freed said. "At the same time though, if you don’t do anything you see your scores drop steadily."
That dynamic has been a challenge for online merchants and investors, who a decade ago envisioned Internet stores as relatively inexpensive (and therefore extremely profitable ) operations. Now some observers predict a future where online retailers will essentially adopt something like the QVC model, with sales staff pitching the site’s merchandise with polished video presentations, produced in a high-tech television studio.
QVC. com is evolving in that direction. The Web site, which sold more than $1 billion in merchandise’ in 2006, has for the last five years let visitors watch a live feed of the network’s broadcast. But in recent months, QVC. com has also given visitors the chance to watch archives of entire shows, and in the coming months visitors will be able to find more video segments from recent shows, featuring individual products that remain in stock. Bob Myers, senior vice president of QVC. com, said the Web site’s video salesmanship is especially effective when combined with detailed product information, customer reviews and multiple photographs.
About eight months ago, for instance, a customer said that she could not determine the size of a handbag from the photographs on the site because she could not tell the height of the model who was holding it. Within two weeks the site tested and introduced a new system, showing the bags with women of three different heights. The results were immediate: women who saw the new photographs bought the bags at least 10 percent more frequently than those who had not.
Still, Mr. Myers said, video is a critically important element to sales. "E-commerce started with television commerce," he said. "The sites who engage and entertain customers will be winning here in the near future." Such a prospect is not necessarily daunting to other e-commerce executives. Gordon Magee, head of Internet marketing for Drs. Foster & Smith, based in a Rhinelander, Wis. said a transition to video "will be seamless for us." The company, Mr. Magee said, has in recent weeks discussed putting some of its product on video "so customers could see a 360-degree view they don’t have to manipulate themselves.
Mr. Magee’s attitude towards using videos in E-commerce seems to be

A．skeptical.
B．critical.
C．supportive.
D．confused.

单项选择题

Text 3

Some drug makers pay key leaders in a field of medicine, such as chairs of departments in medical schools, tens of thousands of dollars if they are saying the right things about their product. They manipulate medical education sessions, lectures, articles in medical journals, research studies, even personal conversations between physicians to get their product message across.
Now a huge collection of drug company internal documents--revealed as part of a lawsuit—offers a wealth of detail. In 1996, Dr. David Franklin, an employee of the drug company Parke-Davis, filed the lawsuit under federal whistleblower statutes alleging that the company was illegally promoting a drug called Neurontin for so called "off-label’ uses. Under federal law, once the FDA approves a drug, a doctor can prescribe it for anything. But the law specifically prohibits the drug company from promoting the drug for any unapproved uses. In 2004, the company, by then a division of Pfizer admitted guilt and agreed to pay $ 430 million in criminal and civil liability related to promoting the drug for off-label use.
Spokespeople for Pfizer say that any wrong doing occurred before Pfizer acquired the company. But Pfizer fought hard to keep all the papers related to the suit under seal. A judge denied the request and they are now part of the Drug Industry Document Archive at the University of California, San Francisco.
What is most interesting is not the illegal actions they reveal, but the details of activities that are perfectly legal. And according to people familiar with the industry, the methods detailed in these company memos are routine.
One tactic identifies certain doctors as "thought leaders, "—those whose opinions influence the prescribing pattern of other doctors. Those whose views converge with the company goals are then showered with rewards, research and educational grants. In the Parke-Davis case 14 such big shots got between $10,250 and $158,250 between 1993 and 1997.
"Medical education drives this market," wrote the author of one Parke-Davis business plan in the files. Many state licensing boards require physicians to attend sessions in what is called continuing medical education (CME) to keep current in their field.
At one time, medical schools ran most CME courses. Now, an industry of medical education and communications committees (MECCs) run most of the courses. These companies with innocent sounding names like Medical Education Systems set up courses, sometimes in conjunction with medical meetings, at other times often in fancy restaurants and resorts. The drug companies foot the bill, with the program usually noting it was financed by an." unrestricted educational grant" from the company.
Using MECCs, Parke-Davis set up conference calls so that doctors could talk to one another about the drugs. The moderators of the calls, often thought leaders or their younger assistants, received $250 to $500 a call. Drug company reps were on the line, instructed to stay in a "listen only" mode, but monitoring to be sure the pitch met their expectations.
Clearly, ’many of the physicians in these schemes are not innocent bystanders. Whether it is ghost writing, making telephone calls to colleagues or leading a CME session, many of the doctors got paid well. Others received a free meal or transportation to a resort to listen to an "educational session."
Physicians often claim they are not influenced by payments from the pharmaceutical industry. But with the methods so thoroughly detailed in these papers, drug companies clearly believe they are getting their money’s worth.
It can be inferred from the passage that the author

A．sympathizes the "thought leaders" who are being used.
B．believes medical opinions should not be influenced by drug companies.
C．criticizes the practices of some drug companies indignantly.
D．proposes vigorous legal actions against "thought leaders".

单项选择题

Text 2

Every second, 1 hectare of the world’s rainforest is destroyed. That’s equivalent to two football fields. An area the size of New York City is lost every day. In a year, that adds up to 31 million hectares—more than the land area of Poland. This alarming rate of destruction has serious consequences for the environment; scientists estimate, for example, that 137 species of plant, insect or animal become extinct every day due to logging. In British Columbia, where, since 1990, thirteen rainforest valleys have been clearcut, 142 species of salmon have already become extinct, and the habitats of grizzly bears, wolves and many other creatures are threatened. Logging, however, provides jobs, profits, taxes for the government and cheap products of all kinds for consumers, so the government is reluctant to restrict or control it.
Much of Canada’s forestry production goes towards making pulp and paper. According to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, Canada supplies 34% of the world’s wood pulp and 49% of its newsprint paper. If these paper products could be produced in some other way, Canadian forests could be preserved. Recently, a possible alternative way of producing paper has been suggested by agriculturalists and environmentalists: a plant called hemp.
Hemp has been cultivated by many cultures for thousands of years. It produces fiber which can be made into paper, fuel, oils, textiles, food, and rope. For many centuries, it was essential to the economies of many countries because it was used to make the ropes and cables used on sailing ships; colonial expansion and the establishment of a world wide trading network would not have been possible without hemp. Nowadays, ships’ cables are usually made from wire or synthetic fibres, but scientists are now suggesting that the cultivation of hemp should be revived for the production of paper and pulp. According to its proponents, four times as much paper can be produced from land using hemp rather than trees, and many environmentalists believe that the large-scale cultivation of hemp could reduce the pressure on Canada’s forests.
However, there is a problem: hemp is illegal in many countries of the world, This plant, so useful for fiber, rope, oil, fuel and textiles, is a species of cannabis, related to the plant from which marijuana is produced. In the late 1930s, a movement to ban the drug marijuana began to gather force, resulting in the eventual banning of the cultivation not only of the plant used to produce the drug, but also of the commercial fiber-producing hemp plant. Although both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp in large quantities on their own land, any American growing the plant today would soon find himself in prison—despite the fact that marijuana cannot be produced from the hemp plant, since it contains almost no THC (the active ingredient in the drug).
In recent years, two major movements for legalization have been gathering strength. One group of activists believes that ALL cannabis should be legal—both the hemp plant and the marijuana plant—and that the use of the drug marijuana should not be an offense. They argue that marijuana is not dangerous or addictive, and that it is used by large numbers of people who are not criminals but productive members of society. They also point out that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol or tobacco. The other legalization movement is concerned only with the hemp plant used to produce fiber; this group wants to make it legal to cultivate the plant and sell the fiber for paper and pulp production. This second group has had a major triumph recently: in 1997, Canada legalized the farming of hemp for fiber. For the first time since 1938, hundreds of farmers are planting this crop, and soon we can expect to see pulp and paper produced from this new source.
Which of the following is a reason for the legalization of the hemp plant

A．Both the hemp and the marijuana plant are healthy for people.
B．Productive members of society depend on marijuana for production.
C．Only uncontrolled,, long time usage of marijuana will result in addiction.
D．The hemp plant is a useful source for the production of paper and pulp.

单项选择题

Text 4

Britain’s undeclared general election campaign has already seen the politicians trading numbers as boxers trade punches. There is nothing new in such statistical slanging matches (相互谩骂). What is new is an underestimation of worry about what has been happening to official statistics under the Labour government.
One of the most important figures for Gordon Brown when presenting his pre-election budget on March 16th was the current-budget balance. This is the gap between current revenues and current spending. It matters to the chancellor of the exchequer(财政部长) because he is committed to meeting his own "golden rule" of borrowing only to invest, so he has to ensure that the current budget is in balance or surplus over the economic cycle.
Mr. Brown told MPs that he would meet the golden rule for the current cycle with & 6 billion ( $11.4 billion) to spare--a respectable-sounding margin, though much less than in the past. However, the margin would have been halved but for an obscure technical change announced in February by the Office for National Statistics to the figures for road maintenance of major highways. The ONS said that the revision was necessary because it had been double-counting this spending within the current budget.
If this were an isolated incident, then it might be disregarded. But it is not the first time that the ONS has made decisions that appear rather convenient for the government. Mr. Brown aims to meet another fiscal rule, namely to keep pubic net debt below 40% of GDP, again over the economic cycle. At present he is meeting it but his comfort room would be reduced if the & 21 billion borrowings of Network Rail were included as part of public debt. They are not thanks to a controversial decision by the ONS to classify the rail-infrastructure corporation within the private sector, even though the National Audit Office, Parliament’s watchdog, said its borrowings were in fact government liabilities.
This makes it particularly worrying that the official figures can show one thing, whereas the public experiences another. One of the highest-profile targets for the NHS is that no patient should spend more than four hours in a hospital accident and emergency department. Government figures show that by mid-2004, the target was being met for 96% of patients. But according to a survey of 55,000 patients by the Healthcare Commission, an independent body, only 77% of patients said they stayed no more than four hours in A&E.
One way to help restore public confidence in official statistics would be to make the ONS independent, as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have suggested. Another would be for the National Audit Office to assess how the government has been performing against targets, as the Public Administration Committee has recommended.
The public attitude towards official figures seems to be rather

A．confident.
B．incredulous.
C．optimistic.
D．critical

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