一、阅读理解（每小题2分，共40分）

Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by 5 questions or unfin-ished statements. For each of them there are 4 choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best one and mark your answer on the ANSWER SHEET with a single bar through the center of the letter that in-dicates your choice.（阅读以下 4 篇短文，从每个小题的4个选项A,B,C,D中选出最佳答案，并把答题卡上相应字母涂黑。)

Passage One

Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage.

Psychologist George Spilich and colleagues at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland,decided to find out whether, as many smokers say, smoking helps them to "think and concentrate".Spilich put young non-smokers, activrr1f cigarettes through a series of tests.

In the first test, each subject （试验对象） sat before a computer screen and pressed a key as soon as he or she recognized a target letter among a grouping of 96. In this simple test, smokers, deprived smokers and non-smokers performed equally well.

The next test was more complex, requiring all to scan sequences of 20 identical letters and respond the instant one of the letters transformed into a different one. Non-smokers were faster, but under the stimulation of nicotine （尼古丁）,active smokers were faster than deprived smokers.

In the third test of short-term memory, non-smokers made the fewest errors, but deprived smokers committed fewer errors than active smokers.

The fourth test required people to read a passage, then answer questions about it. Non-smokers remembered 19 percent more of the most important information than active smokers, and deprived smokers bested those who had smoked a cigarette just before testing. Active smokers tended not only to have poorer memories but also had trouble separating important information from insignificant details.

"As our tests became more complex, " sums up Spilich, "non-smokers performed better than smokers by wider and wider margins". He predicts, "smokers might perform adequately at many jobs-until they got complicated. A smoking airline pilot could fly adequately if no problems arose,but if something went wrong, smoking might damage his mental capacity. "

Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following passage.

The decline in moral standards-which has long concerned social analysts-has at last captured the attention of average Americans. And Jean Bethke Elshtain, for one, is glad.

The fact that the ordinary citizens are now starting to think seriously about the nation's moral climate, says this ethics （伦理学） professor at the University of Chicago, is reason to hope that new ideas will come forward to improve it.

But the challenge is not to be underestimated. Materialism and individualism in American society are the biggest obstacles. "The thought that ' I'm in it for me' has become deeply rooted in the national consciousness, " Ms. Elshtain says.

Some of this can be attributed to the disintegration of traditional communities, in which neigh-bors looked out for one another, she says. With today's greater mobility and with so many couples working, those bonds have been weakened, replaced by a greater emphasis on self.

In a 1996 poll of Americans, loss of morality topped the list of the biggest problems facing the U. S. and Elshtain says the public is correct to sense that: Data show that Americans are struggling with problems unheard of in the 1950s, such as classroom violence and a high rate of births to un-married mothers.

The desire for a higher moral standard is not a lament or some nonexistent golden age," Elshtain says, nor is it a wishful （一厢情愿的） longing for a time that denied opportunities to women and minorities. Most people, in fact, favor the lessening of prejudice.

Moral decline will not be reversed until people find ways to counter the materialism in society,she says. "Slowly, you recognize that the things that matter are those that can't be bought. "