[单项选择]Nearly two thousand years have passed since a
census decreed by Caesar Augustus became part
of the greatest story every told. Many things have
Line changed in the intervening years. The hotel indus-
(5) try worries more about overbuilding than over-
crowding, and if they had to meet an unexpected
influx, few inns would have a manger to accom-
modate the weary guests. Now it is the census
taker that does the traveling in the fond hope that
(10) a highly mobile population will stay put long
enough to get a good sampling. Methods of gath-
ering, recording, and evaluating information have
presumably been improved a great deal. And
where then it was the modest purpose of Rome to
(15) obtain a simple head count as an adequate basis
for levying taxes, now batteries of complicated
statistical series furnished by governmental agen-

A. show that sports do not depend on statistics
B. provide an example of an unreliable statistic
C. contrast verifiable and unverifiable methods of record keeping
D. indicate the changes in attitudes from Roman days to the present
E. (E) illustrate the failure of statistical predictions