Text 3

When prehistoric man arrived in new parts of the world, something strange happened to the large animals. They suddenly became extinct. Smaller species survived. The large, slow-growing animals were easy game, and were quickly hunted to extinction. Now something similar could be happening in the oceans.

That the seas are being overfished has been known for years. What researchers such as Ransom Myers and Boris Worm have shown is just how fast things are changing. They have looked at half a century of data from fisheries around the world. Their methods do not attempt to estimate the actual biomass (the amount of living biological matter) of fish species in particular parts of the ocean, but rather changes in that biomass over time. According to their latest paper published in Nature, the biomass of large predators (animals that kill and eat other animals) in a new fishery is reduced on average by 80% within 15 years of the start of exploitation. In some long-fished areas, it has halved again since then.

Dr. Worm acknowledges that these figures are conservative. One reason for this is that fishing technology has improved. Today’s vessels can find their prey using satellites and sonar, which were not available 50 years ago. That means a higher proportion of what is in the sea is being caught, so the real difference between present and past is likely to be worse than the one recorded by changes in catch sizes. In the early days, too, longlines would have been more saturated with fish. Some individuals would therefore not have been caught, since no baited hooks would have been available to trap them, leading to an underestimate of fish stocks in the past. Furthermore, in the early days of longline fishing, a lot of fish were lost to sharks after they had been hooked. That is no longer a problem, because there are fewer sharks around now.

Dr. Myers and Dr. Worm argue that their work gives a correct baseline, which future management efforts must take into account. They believe the data support an idea current among marine biologists, that of the “shifting baseline.” The notion is that people have failed to detect the massive changes which have happened in the ocean because they have been looking back only a relatively short time into the past. That matters because theory suggests that the maximum sustainable yield that can be cropped from a fishery comes when the biomass of a target species is about 50% of its original levels. Most fisheries are well below that, which is a bad way to do business.

31. The extinction of large prehistoric animals is noted to suggest that ________.

[A] large animal were vulnerable to the changing environment

[B] small species survived as large animals disappeared

[C] large sea animals may face the same threat today

[D] slow-growing fish outlive fast-growing ones

32. We can infer from Dr. Myers and Dr. Worm’s paper that ________.

[A] the stock of large predators in some old fisheries has reduced by 90%

[B] there are only half as many fisheries as there were 15 years ago

[C] the catch sizes in new fisheries are only 20% of the original amount

[D] the number of larger predators dropped faster in new fisheries than in the old

33. By saying "these figures are conservative" (Line 1, paragraph 3), Dr. Worm means that ________.

[A] fishing technology has improved rapidly

[B] the catch-sizes are actually smaller than recorded

[C] the marine biomass has suffered a greater loss

[D] the data collected so far are out of date

34. Dr. Myers and other researchers hold that ________.

[A] people should look for a baseline that can work for a longer time

[B] fisheries should keep their yields below 50% of the biomass

[C] the ocean biomass should be restored to its original level

[D] people should adjust the fishing baseline to the changing situation

35. The author seems to be mainly concerned with most fisheries’ ________.

[A] management efficiency

[B] biomass level

[C] catch-size limits

[D] technological application

Text 4

Many things make people think artists are weird. But the weirdest may be this: artists’ only job is to explore emotions, and yet they choose to focus on the ones that feel bad.

This wasn’t always so. The earliest forms of art, like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy. But somewhere from the 19th century onward, more artists began seeing happiness as meaningless, phony or, worst of all, boring, as we went from Wordsworth’s daffodils to Baudelaire’s flowers of evil.

You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness because modern times have seen so much misery. But it’s not as if earlier times didn’t know perpetual war, disaster and the massacre of innocents. The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today.

After all, what is the one modern form of expression almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? Advertising. The rise of anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media, and with it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just an ideal but an ideology.

People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery. They worked until exhausted, lived with few protections and died young. In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were in danger and that they would someday be meat for worms. Given all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a bummer too.

Today the messages the average Westerner is surrounded with are not religious but commercial, and forever happy. Fast-food eaters, news anchors, text messengers, all smiling, smiling, smiling. Our magazines feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes. And since these messages have an agenda -- to lure us to open our wallets -- they make the very idea of happiness seem unreliable. “Celebrate!” commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attacks.

But what we forget -- what our economy depends on us forgetting -- is that happiness is more than pleasure without pain. The things that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and disappointment. Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need art to tell us, as religion once did, Memento mori: remember that you will die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it. It’s a message even more bitter than a clove cigarette, yet, somehow, a breath of fresh air.

36. By citing the examples of poets Wordsworth and Baudelaire, the author intends to show that ________.

[A] poetry is not as expressive of joy as painting or music

[B] art grows out of both positive and negative feelings

[C] poets today are less skeptical of happiness

[D] artists have changed their focus of interest

37. The word “bummer” (Line 5, paragraph 5) most probably means something ________.

[A] religious

[B] unpleasant

[C] entertaining

[D] commercial

38. In the author’s opinion, advertising ________.

[A] emerges in the wake of the anti-happy art

[B] is a cause of disappointment for the general public

[C] replaces the church as a major source of information

[D] creates an illusion of happiness rather than happiness itself

39. We can learn from the last paragraph that the author believes ________.

[A] happiness more often than not ends in sadness

[B] the anti-happy art is distasteful but refreshing

[C] misery should be enjoyed rather than denied

[D] the anti-happy art flourishes when economy booms

40. Which of the following is true of the text?

[A] Religion once functioned as a reminder of misery.

[B] Art provides a balance between expectation and reality.

[C] People feel disappointed at the realities of modern society.

[D] Mass media are inclined to cover disasters and deaths.

Part B

Directions:

In the following article, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list A-G to fit into each of the numbered gaps. There are two extra choices, which you do not need to use in any of the blanks. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)

On the north bank of the Ohio river sits Evansville, Ind., home of David Williams, 52, and of a riverboat casino (a place where gambling games are played). During several years of gambling in that casino, Williams, a state auditor earning $35,000 a year, lost approximately $175,000. He had never gambled before the casino sent him a coupon for $20 worth of gambling.

He visited the casino, lost the $20 and left. On his second visit he lost $800. The casino issued to him, as a good customer, a "Fun Card", which when used in the casino earns points for meals and drinks, and enables the casino to track the user’s gambling activities. For Williams, those activities become what he calls "electronic heroin".

(41) ________. In 1997 he lost $21,000 to one slot machine in two days. In March 1997 he lost $72,186. He sometimes played two slot machines at a time, all night, until the boat docked at 5 a.m., then went back aboard when the casino opened at 9 a.m. Now he is suing the casino, charging that it should have refused his patronage because it knew he was addicted. It did know he had a problem.

In March 1998 a friend of Williams’s got him involuntarily confined to a treatment center for addictions, and wrote to inform the casino of Williams’s gambling problem. The casino included a photo of Williams among those of banned gamblers, and wrote to him a “cease admissions” letter. Noting the medical/psychological nature of problem gambling behavior, the letter said that before being readmitted to the casino he would have to present medical/psychological information demonstrating that patronizing the casino would pose no threat to his safety or well-being.

(42) ________.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the casino has 24 signs warning: “Enjoy the fun... and always bet with your head, not over it.” Every entrance ticket lists a toll-free number for counseling from the Indiana Department of Mental Health. Nevertheless, Williams’s suit charges that the casino, knowing he was “helplessly addicted to gambling,” intentionally worked to “lure” him to “engage in conduct against his will.” Well.

(43) ________.

The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders says “pathological gambling” involves persistent, recurring and uncontrollable pursuit less of money than of thrill of taking risks in quest of a windfall.

(44) ________. Pushed by science, or what claims to be science, society is reclassifying what once were considered character flaws or moral failings as personality disorders akin to physical disabilities.

(45) ________.

Forty-four states have lotteries, 29 have casinos, and most of these states are to varying degrees dependent on -- you might say addicted to -- revenues from wagering. And since the first Internet gambling site was created in 1995, competition for gamblers’ dollars has become intense. The Oct. 28 issue of Newsweek reported that 2 million gamblers patronize 1,800 virtual casinos every week. With $3.5 billion being lost on Internet wagers this year, gambling has passed pornography as the Web’s most profitable business.

[A] Although no such evidence was presented, the casino’s marketing department continued to pepper him with mailings. And he entered the casino and used his Fun Card without being detected.

[B] It is unclear what luring was required, given his compulsive behavior. And in what sense was his will operative?

[C] By the time he had lost $5,000 he said to himself that if he could get back to even, he would quit. One night he won $5,500, but he did not quit.

[D] Gambling has been a common feature of American life forever, but for a long time it was broadly considered a sin, or a social disease. Now it is a social policy: the most important and aggressive promoter of gambling in America is the government.

[E] David Williams’s suit should trouble this gambling nation. But don’t bet on it.

[F] It is worrisome that society is medicalizing more and more behavioral problems, often defining as addictions what earlier, sterner generations explained as weakness of will.

[G] The anonymous, lonely, undistracted nature of online gambling is especially conducive to compulsive behavior. But even if the government knew how to move against Internet gambling, what would be its grounds for doing so?

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