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Science-fiction movies can serve as myths about the future and thus give some assurance　about it. Whether the film is 2001 or Star Wars, such movies tell about progress that will expand man’’s powers and his experiences beyond anything now believed possible, while they assure us that all these advances will not wipe out man or life as we now know it. Thus one great anxiety about the future--that it will have no place for us as we now are--is alleviated by such myths. They also promise that even in the most distant future, and despite the progress that will have occurred in the material world, man’’s basic concerns will be the same, and the struggle of good against evil--the central moral problem of our time--will not have lost its importance. 　　Past and future are the lasting dimensions of our lives: the present is but a brief moment. So these visions about the future also contain our past; in Star Wars, battles are fought around issues that also motivated man in the past. Thus, any vision about the future is really based on visions of the past, because that is all we can know for certain. 　　As our religious myths about the future never went beyond Judgment Day, so our modern myths about the future cannot go beyond the search for life’’s deeper meaning. The reason is that only as long as the choice between good and evil remains man’’s supreme moral problem does life retain that special dignity that derives from our ability to choose between the two. A world in which this conflict has been permanently resolved eliminates man as we know him. It might be a universe peopled by angels, but it has no place for man. 　　The moving picture is a visual art, based on sight. Speaking to our vision, it ought to provide us with the visions enabling us to live the good life; it ought to give us insight into ourselves. About a hundred years ago, Tolstoy wrote," Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen." Later, Robert Frost defined poetry as "beginning in delight and ending in wisdom." Thus it might be said that the state of the art of the moving image can be assessed by the degree to which it meets the mythopoetic task of giving us myths suitable to live by in our time--visions that transmit to us the highest and best feelings to which men have risen--and by how well the moving images give us that delight which leads to wisdom. Let us hope that the art of the moving image, this most genuine American art, will soon meet the challenge of becoming truly the great art of our age. In the author’’s view, science-fiction movies

A．assure us of the scientific miracles created.
B． predict likely advances in human experiences.
C．offer invented stories concerning man’’s fate.
D．signify human powers to a fantastic extent.

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单项选择题

What do the elders mean when they say, It’’s not what you want in this world, but what you get.

A．You’’ll certainly get what you want.
B．It’’s no use dreaming.
C．You should be dissatisfied with what you have.
D．It’’s essential to set a goal for yourself.

填空题

At the start of the 20th century, immigrant labor and innovation helped turn the U. S. into a powerful manufacturing nation. Today, foreign-born engineers jam the corridors of Silicon Valley,helping America’’s information-technology boom. And as the 21st century dawns, yet another wave of immigrants will once again help transform the economy.46)During the next decade, excepting a change in government policy, nearly a million immigrants are expected to arrive in the U. S. every year,most of whom,both legal and illegal,will continue to come from Latin America and Southeast Asia, but every foreign land will be represented.As domestic birthrates stagnate, only foreign-born worker will keep the labor pool growing. By 2006, in fact, immigrants will account for half of all new U. S. workers; over the next 30 years, their share will rise to 60%.47) Even at current levels of immigration, according to the Labor Dept. the number of people available to work will increase by a mere 0.8% per year between 1996 and 2006-half the rate of the previous decade. Without immigrants, according to a new study, the U. S. workforce would actually begin to shrink by 2015.48) It’’s not all about sheer numbers, of course:To lift productivity and spur growth, immigrants must provide creativity, entrepreneurial energy, or simple initiative that America couldn’’t find otherwise. If all you did was bring in people who are exactly the same as those we have here, there would be no economic benefit, says Rand Corp. economist James P. Smith, You’’d just have more people. Just as crucial, the array of education and skills immigrants bring could fit neatly with the supply of jobs over the next decade. According to Linda Levine at the Congressional Research Service,60% of the jobs created through 2005 will require some post-secondary education. But, she adds, low-skill jobs will still represent about half of total employment. 49) Yet immigrants also are 50% more likely than Americans to have a graduate degree, and an unbelievable 23% of U. S. residents holding PhDs in science and engineering are foreign-born, according to the National Science Foundation.Indeed, foreign-born workers have shown an extraordinary ability to assimilate and flourish. Certainly, some less skilled workers will remain at the bottom economic rung all their lives. 50) Yet others will catch up quickly, and within a decade of their arrival, the well-educated will go from making barely half that of native-born Americans in comparable work to nearly 90%, according to a recent study.That, of course, will raise immigrants’’ living standards. More important, it will help drive innovation and entrepreneurship,key engines of the 21st Century Economy.