17. Governor Gray Davis was dissatisfied with the Federal Regulatory Commission because .
A) they did not know what the real problem was
B) they were living an easy life in an ivory tower
C) they could not experience the life in San Diego
D) they turned a blind eye to the situation in California
18. The Federal Commission uncapped the energy price with the intention to .
A) help California’s economy booming steadily
B) prevent power price from going up any further
C) enable the market to deal with supply and demand problems
D) have contracts signed between power producers and the utilities
19. To help keep prices from going higher, people and groups in California .
A) imposed reasonable price caps
B) beat down the door of federal regulators
C) urged the federal authorities to take action
D) struggled against federal policy to hike prices
20. Energy experts against price caps believe that .
A) the present situation in California will continue unless there is price control
B) the current crisis is partly attributed to previous command and control policy
C) price caps can temporarily solve energy problems an individual state meets with
D) they do understand what is going on in California and will take proper measures
Passage Three
Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage.
Another cultural aspect of nonverbal communication is one that you might not think about: space. Every person perceives himself to have a sort of invisible shield surrounding his physical body. When someone comes too close, he feels uncomfortable. When he bumps onto someone, he feels obligated to apologize. But the size of a person’s “comfort zone” depends on his cultural ethnic origin. For example, in casual conversation, many Americans stand about four feet apart. In other words, they like to keep each other “at arms length”,people in Latin or Arab
cultures, in contrast, stand very close to each other, and touch each other often. If someone from one of those
cultures stands too close to an American while in conversation, the American may feel uncomfortable and back away.
When Americans are talking, they expect others to respond to what they are saying. To Americans, polite conversationalists empathize by displaying expressions of excitement or disgust, shock or sadness. People with a “poker face”, whose emotions are hidden by a deadpan expression, are looked upon with suspicion. Americans also indicate their attentiveness in a conversation by raising their eyebrows, nodding, smiling politely and maintaining good eye contact. Whereas some
cultures view direct eye contact as impolite or threatening, Americans see it as a sign of genuineness and honesty. If a person doesn’t look you in the eye, American might say, you should question his motives—or assume that he doesn’t like you. Yet with all the concern for eye contact, Americans still consider staring—especially at strangers—to be rude.
21. What the author discussed in the previous section is most probably about .
A) classification of nonverbal communication
B) the reasons why people should think about space
C) the relationship between communication and space
D) some other cultural aspects of nonverbal communication
22. How far people keep to each other while talking is closely associated with their .
A) origin B)
culture C) custom D) nationality
