[简答题]

The On-going Debate over Healthcare Reform
The public debate over healthcare reform which the Nassau Guardian alone stirred up several weeks ago is at a curious point.
It seems that the government’s so-called Blue Ribbon Commission has already decided what plan it will propose without undertaking any public consultation and is now merely engaged in a PR campaign to convince us they have the answer.
This seems a little head over heels to us. Since it is our money and our health that is in question, shouldn’t we have been consulted at the break about which way we want to go
There are several models to achieve healthcare reform, and not all of them require us to hand more money over to keep government bureaucrats in big offices. Purely private healthcare may have big problems—but so does the socialised medicine the commission is recommending.
For example, Canada’s universal system of socialised medicine is now busily engaged in t

[填空题]

Anyone paying attention to the debate over Social Security has heard a litany of dates. There’s 2018, when the program is expected to start taking in less in taxes than it pays out in benefits. And there’s 2042 (or 2052 by some estimates), when its trust fund is supposed to run out of money.
(41)______.
For years, the government has collected more in Social Security taxes than it needed to pay current benefits. Those excess collections are credited to the Social Security Trust Fund, ostensibly to pay future retirees. But there is no actual money in the fund. Instead, the government spends the money for other purposes and issues the fund IOUs.
In 2009, the shell game begins to end. The amount by which Social Security taxes exceed benefits starts to shrink. (42)______.
The problem could have been avoided, and it still could be reduced.
If the rest of the budget was in good shape—and particularly if the government had stayed

[单项选择] The Debate over Genetically Modified Foods --Rice with built-in Vitamin A that can help prevent blindness in 100 million children suffering from Vitamin A deficiency --A tomato (hat softens more slowly, allowing it to develop longer on the vine and keep longer on the shelf --Potatoes that absorb less fat when fried, changing the ever-popular French fries from junk food into a more nutritional food --Strawberry crops that can survive frost These are some of the benefits promised by biotechnology. The debate over its benefits and safety, however, continues. Do we really need to fear mutant (突变体) weeds, killer tomatoes, and giant corn and will the benefits be delivered Conventional Breeding Versus Genetically Modified (GM) Crops For thousands of years farmers have used a process of selection and cross breeding to continually improve the quality of crops. Even in nature, plants and animals selectively breed, thus ensuring the optimum
A. Y
B. N
C. NG

[单项选择]The current political debate over family values personal responsibility, and welfare takes for granted the entrenched American belief that dependence on government assistance is a recent and destructive phenomenon. Conservatives tend to blame this dependence on personal irresponsibility aggravated by a swollen welfare apparatus that saps individual initiative. Liberals are more likely to blame it on personal misfortune magnified by the harsh lot that falls to losers in our competitive market economy. But both sides believe that "winners" in America make it on their own that dependence reflects some kind of individual or family failure, and that the ideal family is the self-reliant unit of traditional lore--a family that takes care of its own, carves out a future for its children, and never asks for handouts. Politicians at both ends of the ideological spectrum have wrapped themselves in the mantle of these "family values" arguing over why the poor have not been able to make do without
A. minble
B. absurd
C. insular
D. liberal