[单项选择]

Text 2
Standard & Poor’s maintains a cautious stance on cable-TV operators in the wake of Verizon’s (VZ) announcement in early May of aggressive price cuts for its digital subscriber line (DSL) Internet-access service. Our overall outlook for the S & P Cable & Broadcasting index, which also includes shares of over-the-air TV and radio broadcasters, is neutral to modestly positive. Cable operators have so far ruled out an overt price war on broadband services. However, expect to see near-term responses like increased bundling of services, extended free months, more aggressive marketing and promotions, even modest price cuts from cable outfits that offer multiple services such as broadband as they defend their high growth Internet-access business.
Continued rapid growth in digital cable and high-speed data services helped support the industry’s ongoing revenue growth. We at S & P are wary of price pressures on the long-term a
A. people at S & P are watching out for pressures of price cuts
B. the revenue of cable industry has been growing steadily
C. SBC's undercutting affects cable broadband providers differently
D. price pressures overshadow the growth of cable broadband business

Text 2
Standard & Poor’s maintains a cautious stance on cable-TV operators in the wake of Verizon’s (VZ) announcement in early May of aggressive price cuts for its digital subscriber line (DSL) Internet-access service. Our overall outlook for the S & P Cable & Broadcasting index, which also includes shares of over-the-air TV and radio broadcasters, is neutral to modestly positive. Cable operators have so far ruled out an overt price war on broadband services. However, expect to see near-term responses like increased bundling of services, extended free months, more aggressive marketing and promotions, even modest price cuts from cable outfits that offer multiple services such as broadband as they defend their high growth Internet-access business.
Continued rapid growth in digital cable and high-speed data services helped support the industry’s ongoing revenue growth. We at S & P are wary of price pressures on the long-term a
A. has produced a positive effect on S & P Cable and Broadcasting index
B. will intensify the competition among Cable-TV operators in the near future
C. render aggressive price cuts from other cable outfits absolutely impossible
D. will make other cable operators offer multiple services like broadband

Text 2 Standard & Poor’s maintains a cautious stance on cable-TV operators in the wake of Verizon’s (VZ) announcement in early May of aggressive price cuts for its digital subscriber line (DSL) Internet-access service. Our overall outlook for the S & P Cable & Broadcasting index, which also includes shares of over-the-air TV and radio broadcasters, is neutral to modestly positive. Cable operators have so far ruled out an overt price war on broadband services. However, expect to see near-term responses like increased bundling of services, extended free months, more aggressive marketing and promotions, even modest price cuts from cable outfits that offer multiple services such as broadband as they defend their high growth Internet-access business. Continued rapid growth in digital cable and high-speed data services helped support the industry’s ongoing revenue growth. We at S & P are wary of price pressures on the long-term and short-term ec
A. higher levels of geopolitical anxieties
B. prospects of intensive competition
C. war's impact on advertising demand
D. vigorous rates of high-speed data sign-ups

TEXT C
Ricci’s "Operation Columbus"
Ricci, 45, is now striking out on perhaps ills boldest venture yet. He plans to market an English-language edition of his elegant monthly art magazine, FMR, in the United States. Once again the skeptics are murmuring that the successful Ricci has headed for a big fall. And once again Ricci intends to prove them wrong.
Ricci is so confident that he has christened. his quest "Operation Columbus" and has set his sights on discovering an American readership of 300,000.’That goal may not be too far-fetched. The Italian edition of FMR--the initials, of course, stand for Franco Maria Ricci--is only 18 months old. But it is already the second largest alt magazine in the world, with a circulation of 65,000 and a profit margin of US’500, 000. The American edition will be patterned after the Italian version, with each 160-page issue carrying only 40 pages of ads and no more tha
A. boost Americans’ confidence in their art.
B. follow the pattern set by his Italian edition.
C. help Italians understand American art better.
D. expand the readership of his magazin

TEXT C
Why the inductive and mathematical sciences, ,after their first rapid development at the culmination of Greek civilization, advanced so slowly for two thousand years and why in the following two hundred years a knowledge of natural and mathematical science has accumulated, which so vastly exceeds all that was previously known that these sciences may be justly regarded as the products of our own times are questions which have interested the modern philosopher not less than the objects with which these sciences are more immediately conversant. Was it the employment of a new method of research, or in the exercise of greater virtue in the use of the old methods, that this singular modern phenomenon had its origin Was the long period one of arrested development, and is the modern era one of normal growth Or should we ascribe the characteristics of both periods to sc-called historical accidents to the influence of conjunctions in circumstances of whi
A. is that the latter needs confirmation
B. rests on the simplicity of the former
C. is the difference between the modern scientists and the ancient Greeks
D. helps us to understand the deductive method