单项选择题

SECTION A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS
PASSAGE ONE
There are many theories about the beginning of drama in ancient Greece. The one most widely accepted today is based on the assumption that drama evolved from ritual. The argument for this view goes as follows. In the beginning, human beings viewed the natural forces of the world, even the seasonal changes, as unpredictable, and they sought through various means to control these unknown and feared powers. Those measures which appeared to bring the desired results were then retained and repeated until they hardened into fixed rituals. Eventually stories arose which explained or veiled the mysteries of the rites. As time passed some rituals were abandoned, but the stories, later called myths, persisted and provided material for art and drama.
Those who believe that drama evolved out of ritual also argue that those rites contained the seed of theater because music, dance, masks, and costumes were almost always used. Furthermore, a suitable site had to be provided for performances and when the entire community did not participate, a clear division was usually made between the "acting area" and the "auditorium." In addition, there were performers, and, since considerable importance was attached to avoiding mistakes in the enactment of rites, religious leaders usually assumed that task. Wearing masks and costumes, they often impersonated other people, animals, or supernatural beings, and mimed the desired effect—success in hunt or battle, the coming rain, the revival of the Sun—as an actor might. Eventually such dramatic representations were separated from religious activities.
Another theory traces the theater"s origin from the human interest in storytelling. According to this view, tales (about the hunt, war, or other feats) are gradually elaborated, at first through the use of impersonation, action, and dialogue by a narrator and then through the assumption of each of the roles by a different person. A closely related theory traces theater to those dances that are primarily rhythmical and gymnastic or that are imitations of animal movements and sounds.
PASSAGE TWO
Every year at this time, the Census Bureau announces the official U.S. poverty rate. And every year, the same fruitless debate takes place.
Some will point to the successes and urge we stay the course. Some will point to the failures and call for more spending on antipoverty programs. Unfortunately, the analyses on both sides are based on faulty data—because our measures are critically flawed and overstate the number of Americans in poverty.
The official poverty measure counts only monetary income. It considers antipoverty programs such as food stamps, housing assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid and school lunches, among others, "in-kind benefits"—and hence not income. So, despite everything these programs do to relieve poverty, they aren"t counted as income when Washington measures the poverty rate.
It"s time to scrap this outdated definition of income. After all, government has changed how it combats poverty: direct-cash subsidies are out; benefits that can be used only for essentials, such as food, shelter and health care, are in. But because of how we measure poverty, progress is unreported, even if families do better.
Since 1995, the National Research Council has recommended the Census Bureau include programs that distribute in-kind benefits, such as food stamps, which are the equivalent of cash, and include the effect of taxes and tax refunds such as the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit). And why not Noncash assets such as houses and cars are routinely used to assess economic worth. Taxpayers consider an IRS (Internal Revenue Service) tax refund as monetary income and income taxes as lost income. Yet the Census Bureau ignores the effect of taxes and doesn"t count the EITC refund as income.
Studies that take into account all income and transfer payments to low-income people have found a decline in the number of those in poverty. A 2006 study in the Journal of Economic Perspectives reported that if in-kind benefits are included in income, poverty rates in 2003 would have declined from 12.7 percent to 9.9 percent. By counting all income and taxes, the poverty rate falls by more than 20 percent. The current system"s bad accounting can lead to bad public policy. The misleading figures make it difficult to accurately judge antipoverty programs.
It"s important to have an accurate measure of progress in our war on poverty. Americans want to help those in need, but they want to do so intelligently. That"s difficult when the data are inaccurate. The current measure assumes direct-cash transfers are the only effective way to reduce the poverty rate. Lawmakers rightly avoid direct-cash transfers because of the lack of accountability. In-kind benefits, such as food stamps, ensure the money is spent on needs, such as milk and food, and not vices, such as alcohol and tobacco.
The Census Bureau needs to update its measurement of income and poverty. At a minimum, it should emphasize the poverty rate after counting all government transfer programs and taxes. This will allow Americans to see how effective low-income aid is in reducing the poverty rate and what types of relief work best.
PASSAGE THREE
The House of Lords has a charm few people seem able to resist. The more cut-off it becomes from everyday life, the greater its attraction for weary businessmen and politicians. On the road outside the word "Peers" is painted across the car-park in large white letters. Inside a tall ex-Guardsman directs you through the vaulted entrance hall, past a long row of elaborate gothic coat-hooks, each one labeled, beginning with the royal dukes—one of the many features of the building reminiscent of a school.
Upstairs you come to a series of high, dark rooms, with gothic woodwork and carved ceilings. A life-size white marble statue of the young Queen Victoria watches elderly peers sitting at tables writing letters on gothic writing paper. Doors lead off to long dining-rooms, one for guests, another for peers only and to a large bar looking over the river, which serves drinks all day and sells special "House of Lords" cigarettes. Other closed doors are simply marked "Peers"—an embarrassing ambiguity for lady peers, for "peers" can mean the Lords equivalent of "gentlemen".
There is an atmosphere of contented old age. The rooms are full of half-remembered faces of famous men or politicians one had—how shall one put it—forgotten still around. There is banter between left-wing peers and right-wing peers and a great deal of talk about operations and ailments and nursing homes.
Leading off the man ante-room is the chamber itself—the fine flower of the Victorian romantic style. It is small, only eighty feet long. Stained glass windows shed a dark red light, and rows of statues look down from the walls. On either side are long red-leather sofas with dark wooden choir stalls at the back. Between the two sides is "the Woolsack", the traditional seat of the Lord Chancellor, stuffed with bits of wool from all over the Commonwealth. At the far end is an immense gold canopy, with twenty-foot high candlesticks in the middle, and the throne from which the monarch opens Parliament.
Leaning back, on the sofa, whispering, putting their feet up, listening, fumbling with papers, making notes or simply sleeping, are the peers. On a full day, which is rare, you can see them in their groups: bishops, judges, industrial peers. But usually there are only a handful of peers sitting in the room. Though since peers have been paid three guineas for attending, there are often an average of 110 peers in an afternoon.
In the imposing surroundings it is sometimes difficult to remember how unimportant the Lords are. The most that the Lords can do now is delay a bill a year, and any "money bill" they can delay for only a month. Their main impact comes from the few inches of space in next morning"s papers. The Prime Minister can create as many peers as he likes and, though to carry out the threat would be embarrassing, the nightmare is real enough to bring the peers to heel.
PASSAGE FOUR
In the villages of the English countryside there are still people who remember the good old days when no one bothered to lock their doors. There simply wasn"t any crime to worry about.
Amazingly, these happy times appear still to be with us in the world"s biggest community. A new study by Dan Farmer, a gifted programmer, using an automated investigative program of his own called SATAN, shows that the owners of well over half of all World Wide Web sites have set up home without fitting locks to their doors.
SATAN can try out a variety of well-known hacking tricks on an Internet site without actually breaking in. Farmer has made the program publicly available, amid much criticism. A person with evil intent could use it to hunt down sites that are easy to burgle.
But Farmer is very concerned about the need to alert the public to poor security and, so far, events have proved him right. SATAN has done more to alert people to the risks than cause new disorder.
So is the Net becoming more secure Far from it. In the early days, when you visited a Web site your browser simply looked at the content. Now the Web is full of tiny programs that automatically download when you look at a Web page, and run on your own machine. These programs could, if their authors wished, do all kinds of nasty things to your computer.
At the same time, the Net is increasingly populated with spiders, worms, agents and other types of automated beasts designed to penetrate the sites and seek out and classify information. All these make wonderful tools for antisocial people who want to invade weak sites and cause damage.
But let"s look on the bright side. Given the lack of locks, the Internet is surely the world"s biggest (almost) crime-free society. Maybe that is because hackers are fundamentally honest. Or that there currently isn"t much to steal. Or because vandalism isn"t much fun unless you have a peculiar dislike for someone.
Whatever the reason, let"s enjoy it while we can. But expect it all to change, and security to become the number one issue, when the most influential inhabitants of the Net are selling services they want to be paid for. The author suggests in the last paragraph that ______ (PASSAGE FOUR)