7.9阅读周测

Q1:姓名

:Text 1 Come on-Everybodys doing it. That whispered message, half invitation and half forcing,is what most of us think of when we hear the words peer pressure.It usually leads to no good-drinking, drugs and casual sex. But in her new book oin the Club, Tina Rosenberg contends that peer pressure can also be a positive force through what she calls the social cure, in which organizations and officials use the power of group dynamics to help individuals improve their lives and possibly the world. Rosenberg, the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, offers a host of examples of thesocial cure in action: In South Carolina, a state-sponsored antismoking programcalled Rage Against the Haze sets out to make cigarettes uncool. In South Africa, anHIV-prevention initiative known as loveLife recruits young people to promote safesex among their peers. The idea seems promising, and Rosenberg is a perceptive observer. Her critique of the lameness of many public-health campaigns is spot-on: they fail to mobilize peer pressure for healthy habits, and they demonstrate a seriously flawed understanding of psychology. Dare to be different, please dont smoke!pleads one billboard campaign aimed at reducing smoking among teenagers -teenagers, who desire nothing more than ftting in. Rosenberg argues convincingly that public-health advocates ought to take a page from advertisers, so skilled at applying peer pressure. But on the general effectiveness of the social cure, Rosenberg is less persuasive. .Join the Club is filled with too much irrelevant detail and not enough exploration of the social and biological factors that make peer pressure so powerful. The most glaring flaw of the social cure as its presented here is that it doesnt work very wel for very long. Rage Against the Haze failed once state funding was cut. Evidence that the loveLife program produces lasting changes is limited and mixed. Theres no doubt that our peer groups exert enormous influence on our behavior. An emerging body of research shows that positive health habits-as well as negative ones-spread through networks of friends via social communication. This is a subtle form of peer pressure: we unconsciously imitate the behavior we see every day. Far less certain, however, is how successfully experts and bureaucrats can select our peer groups and steer their activities in virtuous directions. Its like the teacher who breaks up the troublemakers in the back row by pairing them with better-behaved classmates. The tactic never really works. And thats the problem with a social cure engineered from the outside: in the real world, as in school, we insist on chosing our own friends.

Q2:21. According to the first paragraph, peer pressure often emerges as

Q3:22. Rosenberg holds that public-health advocates should

Q4:23. In the author’s view, Rosenberg’s book fails to

Q5:24. Paragraph 5 shows that our imitation of behaviors

Q6:25. The author suggests in the last paragraph that the effect of peer pressure is

:Text2 A deal is a deal-except, apparently, when Entergy is involved. The company, a major energy supplier in New England, provoked justified outrage in Vermont last week when it announced it was reneging on a longstanding commitment to abide by the states strict nuclear regulations. Instead, the company has done precisely what it had long promised it would not:challenge the constitutionality of Vermonts rules in the federal court, as part of a desperate effort to keep its Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant running. Its a stunning move. The conflict has been surfacing since 2002, when the corporation bought Vermonts only nuclear power plant, an aging reactor in Vernon. As a condition of receiving state approval for the sale, the company agreed to seek permission from state regulators to operate past 2012. In 2006, the state went a step further, requiring that any extension of the plants license be subject to the Vermont legislatures approval. Then, too, the company went along. Either Entergy never really intended to live by those commitments, or it simply didnt foresee what would happen next. A string of accidents, including the partial collapse of a cooling tower in 2007 and the discovery of an underground pipe system leakage, raised serious questions about both Vermont Yankees safety and Entergys management -especially after the company made misleading statements about the pipe. Enraged by Entergys behavior, the Vermont Senate voted 26 to 4 last year against allowing an extension. Now the company is suddenly claiming that the 2002 agreement is invalid because of the 2006 legislation,and that only the federal government has regulatory power over nuclear issues. The legal issues in the case are obscure: whereas the Supreme Court has ruled that states do have some regulatory authority over nuclear power, legal scholars say that Vermont case will offer a precedent-setting test of how far those powers extend. Certainly, there are valid concerns about the patchwork regulations that could result if every state sets its own rules. But had Entergy kept its word, that debate would be beside the point. The company seems to have concluded that its reputation in Vermont is already so damaged that it has nothing left to lose by going to war with the state. But there should be consequences. Permission to run a nuclear plant is a public trust. Entergy runs 11 other reactors in the United States, including Pilgrim Nuclear station in Plymouth. Pledging to run Pilgrim safely, the company has applied for federal permission to keep it open for another 20 years. But as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reviews the companys application, it should keep in mind what promises from Entergy are worth.

Q7:26. The phrase “reneging on” (Line 3, Para. 1) is closest in meaning to

Q8:27. By entering into the 2002 agreement, Entergy intended to

Q9:28. According to Paragraph 4, Entergy seems to have problems with its

Q10:29. In the author’s view, the Vermont case will test

Q11:30. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that