Has America gone insane Season six for American Idol has caused us to ask some fundamental questions about the reality television phenomenon. Show judge Simon Cowell repeatedly chides(斥责) contestants," This is a singing competition. But is it really When talented singers such as Gina Glocksen are voted off in favor of a tone-deaf Sanjaya Malakar, with his trainwreck performances, the question is whether Idol is really a singing competition, or something altogether different.
Although Sanjaya was only in the middle of the pack for last week’s vote, on the Web he was the most searched for Idol contestant of the season, garnering(获得) more than twice the volume of searches than his nearest rival (not counting the continuing quests for racy photos of Antonella Barba, who is no longer in the competition).
Theories abound as to Sanjaya’s staying power on the show, from suggestions of a flood of offshore voting to the texting power of pre-pubescent girls. There is one theory that can actually be quantified by Internet data: shock-jock Howard Stern’s campaigning for show-spoiler site Vote for the Worst" to support voting for the entertaining contestants who the producers would hate to see win on American Idol, according to site creator Dave Della Terza, who teaches a course in reality television at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Ill.
While Votefortheworst.com is small compared to the official American Idol site, the fact that it gets nearly a fifth as many online visits gives it the strength to sway a vote. Vote for the Worst is gaining strength, with over a 50% growth since last season, which can be attributed largely to the self-proclaimed "King of All Media."
But what does the American public think of the unlikely Idol star Of all of the searches for Sanjaya over the last four weeks, 41% were searching on variations of his name," Sanjaya, or" Sanjaya Malakar, and various misspellings. At least 2.9% searched for information on Sanjaya’s sister, who didn’t make the cut on the show. The next most popular search topic regarded questions about Sanjaya’s sexual orientation, with searches such as "Sanjaya Malakar gay", "Sanjaya gay" and" is Sanjaya gay What’s missing are searches related to Sanjaya’s musical selection or talent.
The Sanjaya phenomenon, while amusing, highlights the biggest challenge to reality shows that depend on a public vote for show outcome. It’s not a singing contest, or even a popularity contest; it’s become a race to see who can make the biggest spectacle. In that context, Sanjaya has the advantage.
According to the author, in essence American Idol reflects ______.

A:the reality of American TV phenomenon. B:the problem of some American TV programs. C:the reality of the public entertaining trend. D:the reality of American singing contest.

Has America gone insane Season six for American Idol has caused us to ask some fundamental questions about the reality television phenomenon. Show judge Simon Cowell repeatedly chides(斥责) contestants," This is a singing competition. But is it really When talented singers such as Gina Glocksen are voted off in favor of a tone-deaf Sanjaya Malakar, with his trainwreck performances, the question is whether Idol is really a singing competition, or something altogether different.
Although Sanjaya was only in the middle of the pack for last week’s vote, on the Web he was the most searched for Idol contestant of the season, garnering(获得) more than twice the volume of searches than his nearest rival (not counting the continuing quests for racy photos of Antonella Barba, who is no longer in the competition).
Theories abound as to Sanjaya’s staying power on the show, from suggestions of a flood of offshore voting to the texting power of pre-pubescent girls. There is one theory that can actually be quantified by Internet data: shock-jock Howard Stern’s campaigning for show-spoiler site Vote for the Worst" to support voting for the entertaining contestants who the producers would hate to see win on American Idol, according to site creator Dave Della Terza, who teaches a course in reality television at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Ill.
While Votefortheworst.com is small compared to the official American Idol site, the fact that it gets nearly a fifth as many online visits gives it the strength to sway a vote. Vote for the Worst is gaining strength, with over a 50% growth since last season, which can be attributed largely to the self-proclaimed "King of All Media."
But what does the American public think of the unlikely Idol star Of all of the searches for Sanjaya over the last four weeks, 41% were searching on variations of his name," Sanjaya, or" Sanjaya Malakar, and various misspellings. At least 2.9% searched for information on Sanjaya’s sister, who didn’t make the cut on the show. The next most popular search topic regarded questions about Sanjaya’s sexual orientation, with searches such as "Sanjaya Malakar gay", "Sanjaya gay" and" is Sanjaya gay What’s missing are searches related to Sanjaya’s musical selection or talent.
The Sanjaya phenomenon, while amusing, highlights the biggest challenge to reality shows that depend on a public vote for show outcome. It’s not a singing contest, or even a popularity contest; it’s become a race to see who can make the biggest spectacle. In that context, Sanjaya has the advantage.

A:the reality of American TV phenomenon. B:the problem of some American TV programs. C:the reality of the public entertaining trend. D:the reality of American singing contest.

Passage Four
When I began reading Catch -22, I thought it was a farcical satire on life in the United States Army Air Force. Later I believed that Mr. Heller’s target was modern war and all those who are responsible for waging it. Still later it seemed that he was attacking social organization and anyone who derives power from it. But by the end of the book it had become plain to me that it is——no other phrase will do——the human condition itself which is the object of Mr. Heller’s outraged fury and disgust.
A reviewer must always keep an anxious eye on the state of his currency. If he announces too many masterpieces he risks inflation (though it is sometimes forgotten by some of us that the cowardice of perpetual crabbing (挑剔) receives its own kind of punishment). It does not seem many weeks since I was proclaiming that Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano is one of the great English novels of the century; and not long before that I was urging that attention should be paid to the magnificent and neglected talent of William Gerhardi.
But at the risk of inflation I cannot help writing that Catch - 22 is the greatest satirical work in English since Erewhon. For the fact is that all my successive interpretations of this book now seem to have been accurate, even if the earlier ones were also incomplete. The book has an immense and devastating (讽刺的) theme, but this theme is illustrated, as it should be, by means of an observed reality.
I am not suggesting that Catch - 22 is a realistic account of life in the war time Air Force of America or any other country. The method of satire is to inflate (放大) reality so that all its partially concealed blemishes (缺点) turn into monstrous and apparent deformations. The effect of good satire is to make us laugh with horror. And this means that social and personal evils which are being satirized must have been there, and must be felt by the reader to be there even while be is laughing at the results of the satirist’s inflating imagination.

A:focuses on the horrors at the human condition B:has little or no connection with reality C:distorts reality so that it becomes unrecognizable D:must be seen to be rooted in reality

The old idea that child prodigies(神童)"burn themselves" or "overtax their brains" in the early years, therefore, are prey to failure and (at worst)mental illness is just a myth. As a matter of fact, the outstanding thing that happens to bright children is that they are very likely to grow into bright adults.
To find this out, 1,500 gifted persons were followed up to their thirty-fifth year with these results.
On adult intelligence tests, they scored as high as they did as children. They were, as a group, in good health, physically and mentally. Eighty-four percent of their group were married and seemed content with their life.
About 70 percent had graduated from colleges, though only 30 percent had graduated with honors. A few had even flunked out (退学), but nearly half of these had returned to graduate.
Of the men, 80 percent were in one of the professions or in business, managers or semi- professional jobs. The women who had remained single had offices, business, or professional occupations.
The group had published 90 books and 1,500 articles in scientific, scholarly, and literary magazines and had collected more than 100 patents(专利权).
In a material .way they didn’t do badly either. Average income was considerably higher among the gifted people, especially the men, than for the country as a whole, despite their comparative youth when last surveyed.
In fact, far from being strange, maladjusted(难以适应)people locked in an ivory tower, most of the gifted were turning their early promises into practical reality.
The explanation of the underlined "turning their early promises into practical reality" is ______.

A:earning their living and keeping promises B:doing practical jobs and facing reality C:doing what they have promised D:realizing what they were expected

B

A:earning their living and keeping promises B:doing practical jobs and facing reality C:doing what they have promised D:realizing what they were expected

Although the bulk of industry resources and energies have focused on developing the fastest (71) or slickest (72) more and more mindshare is turning to the evolution of the computer interface. Advancements in the areas of input devices, (73) processing and vitual reality could lead to fundamental changes in the way human and computer interact. The technological battlefield of the future will be adding layers between the user and the raw machine to make the (74) as invisible as possible. (75) represents the next evolutionary step for the interface.

A:application software B:eye-tracking device C:application programs D:vitual reality

Although the bulk of industry resources and energies have focused on developing the fastest (1) or slickest (2) more and more mindshare is turning to the evolution of the computer interface. Advancements in the areas of input devices, (3) processing and vitual reality could lead to fundamental changes in the way human and computer interact. The technological battlefield of the future will be adding layers between the user and the raw machine to make the (4) as invisible as possible. (5) represents the next evolutionary step for the interface.

A:application software B:eye-tracking device C:application programs D:vitual reality

Although the bulk of industry resources and energies have focused on developing the fastest (11) or slickest (12) , more and more mindshare is turning to the evolution of the computer interface. Advancements in the areas of input devices, (13) processing and virtual reality could lead to fundamental changes in the way human and computer interact. The technological battlefield of the future will be adding layers between the user and the raw machine to make the (14) as invisible as possible. (15) represents the next evolutionary step for the interface.

A:microprocessor B:operating systems C:voice D:virtual reality