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Passage One
Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.
Terry Wolfisch Cole may seem like an ordinary 40-year-old mom, but her neighbors know the truth: She's one of the "Pod People." At the supermarket she wanders the aisles in a self-contained bubble, thanks to her iPod digital music player. Through those little white ear buds, Wolfisch Cole listens to a playlist mixed by her favorite disc presenter-herself.
At home, when the kids are tucked away, Wolfisch Cole often escapes to another solo media pod- but in this one, she's transmitting instead of just receiving. On her computer web log, or "blog", she types an online journal chronicling daily news of her life, then shares it all with the Web.
Wolfisch Cole-who also gets her daily news customized off the Internet and whose digital video recorder (DVR)scans through the television wasteland to find and record shows that suit her tastes-is part of a new breed of people who are filtering, shaping and even creating media for themselves. They are increasingly turning their backs on the established system of mass media that has provided news and entertainment for the past half-century. They've joined the exploding "iMedia" revolution, putting the power of media in the hands of ordinary people.
The tools of the movement consist of a bubbling stew of new technologies that include iPods, blogs, podcasts, DVRs, customized online newspapers, and satellite radio.
Devotees of iMedia run the gamut (范圍)from the 89-year-old New York grandmother, known as Bubby, who has taken up blogging to share her worldly advice, to 11-year-old Dylan Verdi of Texas, who has started broadcasting her own homemade TV show or "vlog', for video web log. In between are countless iMedia enthusiasts like Rogier van Bakel, 44, of Maine, who blogs at night, reads a Web- customized news page in the morning, travels with his fully loaded iPod and comes home to watch whatever the DVR has chosen for him.
If the old media model was broadcasting, this new phenomenon might" be called ego-casting, says Christine Rosen, a fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center. The term fits, she says, because the trend is all about me-me-media -" the idea is to get exactly what you want, when and where you want it."
Rosen and others trace the beginnings of the iMedia revolution to the invention of the TV remote, which marked the first subtle shift of media control away from broadcasters and into the hands of the average couch potato. It enabled viewers to vote with their thumbs-making it easier to abandon dull programs and avoid commercials. With the proliferation (激增)of cable TV channels in the late 1980s followed by the mid-1990s arrival of the Internet, controlling media input wasn't just a luxury. "Control has become a necessity," says Bill Rose, "Without it, there's no way to sort through all the options that are becoming available."
56. Who is Terry Wolfisch Cole probably according to the passage?
A．A middle-aged housewife.
B．A saleswoman in the supermarket.
C．A disc presenter.
D．An online news writer.
57. Which of the following is the characteristic of the new breed of people according to the passage ?
A．They provide news and entertainment for the public.
B．They have started the iMedia revolution.
C．They have helped ordinary people control media.
D．They choose what to listen to or watch by themselves.
58. What can be learned about the devotees of iMedia from the passage?
A．They are either very old or very young.
B．They consist of people of all ages.
C．They are located in New York, Texas and Maine.
D．They share the same interests.
59. According to the passage, Christine Rosen calls the iMedia revolution ego-casting because _________
A．people show themselves in the media
B．people get their needs for media met
C．people can watch whatever they like
D．it is the invention of an individual
60. Why was the invention of the TV remote important according to the passage?
A．Because it enabled ordinary people to control media to some extent.
B．Because it made more cable TV channels available to people.
C．Because it led to the invention of Internet in the 1990s.
D．Because it made life easier for couch potatoes.
Passage Two
Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.
Many bankers may be worried about whether some fancy product dreamed up might yet lead to a visit from the police. Daniel Dantas, a financier, who has profited by operating at the middle place where business and government meet in Brazil, has been opening the door to find the police outside for much of the
past decade. On December 2nd he was convicted of a less sophisticated crime: trying to bribe police officers. Mr. Dantas, who has acquired great notoriety in Brazil, was fined $ 5 million and sentenced to ten years in prison. He has appealed against his conviction.
The charge stems from a police investigation into money-laundering (洗錢)known as Operation Satiagraha. It grew out of a previous investigation into Mr. Dantas' use of Kroll, a security consultancy, to watch over his business partners. During this investigation the police seized a computer from Opportunity, Mr. Dantas's investment bank, which contained data from the mid-1990s to 2004 and apparently showed suspicious movements of money.
The judge found that Mr. Dantas tried to pay bribes, via two go-betweens, to keep his name out of the Satiagraha investigation. A man fitted with a bugging device was offered $1 million in cash, with another $ 4 million to follow, the police say. They claim that Mr. Dantas's trick involved money travelling to the Cayman Islands, then via the British Virgin Islands to an account in Ireland, on to Delaware, and then re-entering Brazil as foreign investment.
For Mr. Dantas his crime is a steep fall from grace. A man who sleeps little and socializes less, he is a vegetarian and self-made billionaire, a gifted financier who has serially fallen out with his business partners. He once controlled a large telecoms firm, acting for investors who included Citigroup. He says he is the victim of a conspiracy mounted by the government.
It is Mr. Dantas' supposed influence in government circles that has added to his notoriety. During the1990s, when many state-owned businesses were privatized, Mr. Dantas positioned himself as the man with the needed expertise and contacts. He enjoyed easy access to the government of President Femando Henrique Cardoso, including meetings with the president himself. That influence carried through into the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Mr. Dantas is alleged to have been one of the funders of a cash-for-votes scheme in Brazil's Congress mounted by leaders of Lula's Workers' Party in 2003-2004. Many of those who have had dealings with Mr. Dantas insist that these have been legitimate and conducted in good faith. They include Luiz Eduardo Greenhalgh, a lawyer and PT politician, whom he hired as a consultant.
61. What kind of crime was Daniel Dantas convicted of according to the passage?
A．A crime quite experienced and tactful.
B．A crime by operating at the middle place.
C．A crime attempting to temper police to work for him.
D．A crime in money-laundering.
62. How did the police convict the charge against Mr. Dantas according to the passage?
A．They seized a computer by chance and got some evidence.
B．They directly conducted a probe into him.
C．They found he tempered police officers to delete his name.
D．They questioned him and made sure the process of money-laundering.
63. Mr. Dantas' relationship with his business partners is that __
A．he usually gets along well with them
B．he does not have a good relationship with them
C．he totally trusts all of his business partners
D．he believes that they make him a victim
64. What can we learn about Mr. Dantas according to the passage?
A．He is a gifted financier and less socialized person.
B．He always enjoys notorious fame in economic and political field.
C．He is a vegetarian who likes making food by himself.
D．His tragedy was mounted by the government conspiracy.
65. What kind of relationship is reflected between Mr. Dantas and government in the passage?
A．His influence on government may reduce his notoriety and crime.
B．In business privatization, he participated with demanding expertise.
C．He never meets the President himself.
D．People knowing him deem that he was sheer evil.
