While warnings are often appropriate and necessary — the dangers of drug interactions, for example — and many are required by state or federal regulations, it isn’t clear that they actually protect the manufacturers and sellers from liability if a customer is injured. About 50 percent of the companies lose when injured customers take them to court。
Now the tide appears to be turning. As personal injury claims continue as before, some courts are beginning to side with defendants, especially in cases where a warning label probably wouldn’t have changed anything. In May, Julie Nimmons, president of Schutt Sports in Illinois, successfully fought a lawsuit involving a football player who was paralyzed in a game while wearing a Schutt helmet. “We’re really sorry he has become paralyzed, but helmets aren’t designed to prevent those kinds of injuries,” says Nimmons. The jury agreed that the nature of the game, not the helmet, was the reason for the athlete’s injury. At the same time, the American Law Institute — a group of judges, lawyers, and academics whose recommendations carry substantial weight — issued new guidelines for tort law stating that companies need not warn customers of obvious dangers or bombard them with a lengthy list of possible ones. “Important information can get buried in a sea of trivialities,” says a law professor at Cornell Law School who helped draft the new guidelines. If the moderate end of the legal community has its way, the information on products might actually be provided for the benefit of customers and not as protection against legal liability。
5.What were things like in 1980s when accidents happened?
[A] Customers might be relieved of their disasters through lawsuits。
[B] Injured customers could expect protection from the legal system。
[C] Companies would avoid being sued by providing new warnings。
[D] Juries tended to find fault with the compensations companies promised。
6.Manufacturers as mentioned in the passage tend to ________。
[A] satisfy customers by writing long warnings on products
[B] become honest in describing the inadequacies of their products
[C] make the best use of labels to avoid legal liability
[D] feel obliged to view customers’ safety as their first concern
7.The case of Schutt helmet demonstrated that ________。
[A] some injury claims were no longer supported by law
[B] helmets were not designed to prevent injuries
[C] product labels would eventually be discarded
[D] some sports games might lose popularity with athletes
8.The author’s attitude towards the issue seems to be ________
[A] biased [B] indifferent
[C] puzzling [D] objective
写出下列词汇(词组)在文章中的意思。
Para. 1
compensate (L3)
(be) liable for (L4)
Para. 2
anticipate (L2)
caution (L4)
Para. 3
regulation (L2)
Para. 4
side with (L2)
involve (L4)
triviality (L11)
Text 3
Good news for people who always fail to see the silver lining on clouds. A report in this month’s New Scientist, suggests that a tendency to get down when life beats you up can be good for you. A growing number of cautionary voices from the world of mental-health research are claiming that it isn’t a good idea to use antidepressants to help get rid of unhappiness in the consequence of a marriage breakdown, death or redundancy because, “they fear that the increasing tendency to treat normal sadness as if it were a disease is playing fast and loose with a crucial part of our biology. Sadness, serves an evolutionary purpose。”
Jerome Wakefield, a clinical social worker at New York University explains that depressive feelings are part of our biological makeup. “When you find something this deeply in us biologically, you presume that it was selected because it had some advantage, otherwise we wouldn’t have been burdened with it. I think that one of functions of intense negative emotions is to stop our normal functioning, to make us focus on something else for a while。” While Paul Keedwell, psychiatrist at Cardiff University claims that even full-blown depression may have its purpose, saving the sufferer from the effects of long-term stress. Without a mental pause, he argues, “you might stay in a state of chronic stress until you’re exhausted or dead”。
Although, it is important to be careful when talking about depression, having the upside traced in your downside will have an irresistible appeal to all those who take the phrase “Cheer up. Love, it might never happen” as a personal insult. It will be manna especially for creative types, who will have long suspected that crying a lot was a sign of their inward genius. During test(微博)s at Harvard, the News Scientist reports, people with signs of depression performed better at a creative task, especially after receiving feedback that was designed to reinforce their low mood. Although it is old-fashioned to claim that creativity is connected to gloomy moods and a grey outlook on life, all the best stuff is written by some grim-faced pencil chewer with a heart pumped by angst。
Richard Yates, whose novel Revolutionary Road is about to win an Oscar, has written seven novels and two collections of short stories, each more hopelessly miserable than the last. After years of accounting the impossibility of his toothless, drunken mother, his experiences in the second world war and divorces, Yates finally rounds things off in Disturbing the Peace by fictionalizing how a cocktail of alcoholism and psychotropic drugs had him take off his clothes and wander the streets of LA, giving all his money to beggars, convinced that he was Jesus. It is cruel-but so readable。
So, although the grand majority will never write anything as good as Yates, there is something to be gained from looking on the dark side. In a work environment, for example, disconnected people tend to achieve greater success than those of a sunny nature. It’s enough to make a pessimist dissolve into a Cheshire Cat grin。
9.Researchers in mental-health field regard sadness as____。
[A] a glimmer of hope to people in difficulties
[B] a normal disease among the distressed
[C] a biological component of human being
[D] a contributing factor to eventual success
10.The views of Jerome Wakefield and Paul Keedwell on depressive feeling are____。
[A] different [B] complementary [C] opposite [D] similar
11.The word “manna”(Paragraph 3) most probably means____。
[A] a gift [B] a pain [C] a reward [D] a challenge
12.The story of Richard Yates shows that depressive men tend to be____。
[A] serious and mature
[B] brave and talented
[C] creative and persistent
[D] unfortunate and degenerate
13.According to the text, we can learn that____。
[A] The number of people addicted to antidepressants is on the rise
[B] Antidepressants may be going against human being evolution
[C] The writers are at high risk of suffering from depressive disorder
[D] Discontented workers may be more popular than the sunny ones
写出下列词汇(词组)在文章中的意思。
Para. 1
in the consequence of (L4)
redundancy (L5)
Para. 2
presume (L3)
chronic (L8)
Para. 3
irresistible (L2)
appeal (L2)
insult (L3)
Para. 4
miserable (L2)
Para. 5
tend to (L3)
III Translate the following passage into Chinese: 30 points
In country after country, talk of non-smokers’ right is in the air. While a majority of countries have taken little or no action yet, some 30 nations have introduced legislative steps to control smoking. Many laws have been introduced in other countries to help clear the air for nonsmokers, or to cut cigarette consumption。
In some developed countries the consumption of cigarettes has become more or less stabilized. However, in many developing nations, cigarette smoking is seen as a sign of economic progress — and is even encouraged. As more tobacco companies go international, new markets are sought to gain new smokers in those countries。
Smoking is harmful to the health of people. World governments should conduct serious campaigns against it. Restrictions on cigarette advertisements, plus health warnings on packages and bans on public smoking in certain places such as theatres, cinemas and restaurants, are the most popular tools used by nations in support of nonsmokers or in curbing smoking. But world attention also is focusing on another step which will make the smoker increasingly self-conscious and uncomfortable about his habit. Great efforts should be made to inform young people especially of the dreadful consequences of taking up the habit. And cigarette price should be boosted。
