[单项选择]

Passage Three
In recent years, railroads have been combining with each other, merging into super systems, causing heightened concerns about monopoly. As recently as 1995, the top four railroads accounted for under 70 per cent of the total ton-miles moved by rails. Next year, after a series of mergers is completed, just four rail roads will control well over 90 percent of all the freight moved by major rail carriers.
Supporters of the new super systems argue that these mergers will allow for substantial cost reductions and better coordinated service. Any threat of monopoly, they argue, is removed by fierce competition from trucks. But many shippers complain that for heavy bulk commodities traveling long distances, such as coal, chemicals, and grain, trucking is too costly and the railroads therefore have them by the throat.
The vast consolidation within the rail industry means that most shippers are served by only one rail company. Railroads typicall
A. the continuing acquisition.
B. the growing traffic.
C. the cheering Wall Street.
D. the shrinking market.

[单项选择]

Passage Three
In recent years, railroads have been combining with each other, merging into super systems, causing heightened concerns about monopoly. As recently as 1995, the top four railroads accounted for under 70 per cent of the total ton-miles moved by rails. Next year, after a series of mergers is completed, just four rail roads will control well over 90 percent of all the freight moved by major rail carriers.
Supporters of the new super systems argue that these mergers will allow for substantial cost reductions and better coordinated service. Any threat of monopoly, they argue, is removed by fierce competition from trucks. But many shippers complain that for heavy bulk commodities traveling long distances, such as coal, chemicals, and grain, trucking is too costly and the railroads therefore have them by the throat.
The vast consolidation within the rail industry means that most shippers are served by only one rail company. Railroads typicall
A. cost reduction is based on competition.
B. services call for cross-trade coordination.
C. outside competitors will continue to exist.
D. shippers will have the railway by the throat.

[单项选择]Although recent years have seen substantial reductions in noxious pollutants from individual motor vehicles, the number of such vehicles has been steadily increasing. Consequently more than 100 cities in the United States still have levels of carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and ozone (generated by photochemical reactions with hydrocarbons from vehicle exhaust) that exceed legally established limits. There is a growing realization that the only effective way to achieve further reductions in vehicle emissions--short of a massive shift away from the private automobile—is to replace conventional diesel fuel and gasoline with cleaner-burning fuels such as compressed natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, ethanol, or methanol.
All of these alternatives are carbon-based fuels whose molecules are smaller and simpler than those of gasoline. These molecules burn mom cleanly than gasoline, in part because they have fewer, if any, carbon-carbon bonds, and the hydrocarbons they do emit are
A. countering a flawed argument that dismisses a possible solution to problem
B. reconciling contradictory points of view about the nature of a problem
C. identifying the strengths of possible solutions to a problem
D. discussing a problem and arguing in favor of one solution to it