【正文】 . He spends a whole chapter interviewing early adopters of electric cars in California. He notes their utter dedication to their electric cars and implies that the rest of the buying public should simply be as enthusiastic, without addressing issues of price or the various ways families use their cars. He strongly favors California’s mandate that 10 percent of all vehicles sold in the state be 點點英語 —— 專業(yè)致力于四六級、考研和口譯口語 5 zeroemissionvehicles— battery or fuelcell electrics, not hybrids— even though he writes, “ Ultimately, vehicles halfheartedly designed to meet a mandate would fail in the marketplace.”And he gives short shrift to the point that clean cars do nothing to ease congestion and sprawl. In a telephone interview, Motavalli concedes that technology is progressing faster than book deadlines allowed him to keep up with. If anything, automakers are working harder to develop hybridelectrics. And massmarket hybriddrive systems will likely first show up in the big sport utility vehicles that Motavalli rails against. Nevertheless, he now believes that the automakers with the deepest pockets have best chance of building better cars for tomorrow. “ The new, clean cars will emerge not from a tinkerer’s garage, but from the wellfunded research labs of the same big auto panies that initially fought their introduction,” he says. 1. The expression “ put the earth at the top of their agenda” in the beginning sentence of the passage can best be paraphrased as_______. (A) discuss the issue of global warming with top government leaders (B) lay stress on the research of the climate of the earth (C) treat the protection of the earth’s environment as of paramount importance (D) consider seriously the relation between automaking and environment pollution 2. In his new book “ Forward Drive” , Motavalli concludes that _______. (A) capitalist petition leads to pollution (B) automakers are working hard to develop cleaner cars (C) the movement for cleaner cars develops slowly (D) the auto industry always blocks the development of clean cars 3. It can be concluded from the passage that Motavalli _______. (A) is not a proper figure to write about clean cars (B) treats automaking and environment with biased views (C) takes consumer demand into serious consideration (D) shows his change of attitude towards automobiles 4. The expression “ he gives short shrift to the point” (Para. 7) can be replaced by _______. (A) he gives detailed illustration of the point (B) he pays little attention to the point (C) he writes a short paragraph about the point (D) he ends with a brief but warm discussion about the point 5. Which of the following can serve as the best title of the passage? (A) Big automakers: pioneers of environmentalism (B) Consumer demand and development of green cars (C) Green cars and environmental protection (D) Transformation from car devotee to environmentalist Questions 6～ 10 Hundreds of thousands of American mothers descended on Washington and about 60 other 點點英語 —— 專業(yè)致力于四六級、考研和口譯口語 6 US cities yesterday to voice their support for stricter gun laws, making one of the country’s biggest demonstrations for many years. The Million Mom March was focused on the capital, where a huge crowd of women, along with large numbers of men and children, gathered to mark Mothers’Day on the Mall, the green strip which leads to the Capitol building housing Congress. At the other end, below the Washington Monument, about 2,000 people calling themselves the Armed Informed mothers staged a counterprotest against gun control. President Clinton threw his weight behind the Million Mom March, holding a morning reception on the lawn of the White house for the rally’s leaders and the mothers of children killed by guns. “ One of the things y our mother teaches you when you grow up is that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” he told the crowd. But he pointed out that a string of guncontrol measures had been stalled in congress for more than a year by the opposition of the gun lobby. Violent crime has been falling in the US for eight years, but the impact of firearms remains far high than in other modern industrialized countries. Every year 32,000 Americans— including 12 children and teenagers each day— die from gunfire through murders, accidents and suicides. Among the speakers at the guncontrol rally in Washington were three women whose daughters died in the Dunblane massacre. Those murders triggered the Snowdrop Campaign, which eventually led to a ban on handguns in Britain. Before the rally one of the Dunblane mothers, Allison Crozier, said she believed that the Million Mom campaign campaign could ultimately outweigh the entrenched power of the gun lobby. “ There are more mums who want something done. We did it in Scotland, they can do it here if they just stand up and do something about it, ” she told the BBC. The counterrally may have been tiny by parison, but the progun demonstrat ors represent a powerful constituency. According to a survey published yesterday, 45% of us households own a gun, and one in four Americans has been threatened with a gun. The guncontrol lobbyists want childproof trigger locks to be made pulsory, and a 72 hour “ cooling off periods” for would be buyers at weekend gun shows. Their opponents say those restrictions are only the first step to wards a total ban. One of the Armed Informed Mothers coordinators, Debra Collins, said her life was saved 16 years ago when she used a gun to defend herself against her violent exhusband. “ Thank God, my firearm was unencumbered by a trigger lock,” she said. Organisers of the Million Mom March hoped that the turnout nationally would top a million. The final figure was unclear yesterday afternoon, but May Leigh Bleak, one of t