听力原文：Originally we had planned to buy a car by the end of last year, but then with the recent fluctuation of the crude oil prices, we decided to postpone the purchase.
（24)
A．We decided to sell the car when the oil Prices rose.
B．We should not delay solving the problem of oil prices.
C．We were at a loss as to whether to buy that expensive car or not.
D．We didn't buy a car because of the floating oil prices.

Conflict between the president and the press indicates that ______.
A．the press publishes the truth even when it hurts the president
B．freedom of the press is alive and well in the United States
C．presidents have traditionally had little respect for the press
D．the press is made up mostly of critics and cynics

Gerald Feinberg, the Columbia University physicist, once went so far as to declare that "everything possible will eventually be accomplished." He didn't even think it would take very long for this to happen: "I am inclined to put two hundred years as an upper limit for the accomplishment of any possibility that we can imagine today."
Well, that of course left only the impossible as the one thing remaining for daring intellectual adventurers to whittle away at. Feinberg, for one, thought that they'd succeed even here. "Everything will be accomplished that does not violate known fundamental laws of science," he said, "as well as many things that do violate those laws."
So in no small numbers scientists tried to do the impossible. And how understandable this was. For what does the independent and inquiring mind hate more than being told that something just can't be done, pure and simple, by any agency at all, at any time, no matter what. Indeed, the whole concept of the impossible was something of an affront to creativity and advanced intelligence, which was why being told that something was impossible was an unparalleled stimulus for getting all sorts of people to try to accomplish it anyway, as witness all the attempts to build perpetual motion machines, antigravity generators, time-travel vehicles, and all the rest.
Besides, there was always the residual possibility that the naysayers would turn out to be wrong and the yeasayers right, and that one day the latter would reappear to laugh in your face. As one cryonicist pat it, "When you die, you're dead. When I die, I might come back. So who's the dummy？"
It was a point worth considering. How many times in the past had certain things been said to be impossible, only to have it turn out shortly thereafter that the item in question had already been done or soon would be. What greater cliche was there in the history of science than the comic litany of false it-couldn't-be-dones; the infamous case of Auguste Comte saying in 1844 that it would never be known what the stars were made of, followed in a few years by the spectroscope being applied to starlight to reveal the stars' chemical composition; or the case of Lord Rutherford, the man who discovered the structure of the atom, saying in 1933 that dreams of controlled nuclear fission were "moonshine".
And those weren't even the worst examples. No, the huffiest of all it-couldn't-be-done claims centered on the notion that human beings could actually fly, either at all, or across long distances, or to the moon, the stars, or wherever else. It was as if for unstated reasons human flight was something that couldn't be allowed to happen. "The demonstration that no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which man shall fly long distances through the air, seems to the writer as complete as it is possible for the demonstration of any physical fact to be." That was Simon Newcomb, the Johns Hopkins University mathematician and astronomer in 1906, three years after the Wright brothers actually flew.
There had been so many embarrassments of this type that about mid-century Arthur C. Clarke came out with a guideline for avoiding them, which he termed Clarke's Law: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
Still, one had to admit there were lots of things left that were really and truly impossible, even if it took some ingenuity in coming up with a proper list of examples. Such as: "A camel cannot pass through the eye of a needle." （Well, unless of course it was a very large needle.) Or: "It is impossible for a door to be simultaneously open and closed." （Well, unless of course it was a revolving door.)
Indeed, watertight examples of the
A．Science works by great leaps, not little steps.
B．Scientists will work harder than they do today.
C．Scientists' kno

When gas station manager Roger Randolph realized it was costing him money each time someone filled up with $ 4 agallon gas, he hung a sign on his pumps: "No more credit cards." He may be the first in West Virginia to ban plastic, but gas station operators nationwide are reporting similar woes as higher prices translate into higher credit card fees the managers must pay, squeezing profits at the pump."The more they buy, the more we lose, " said Randolph, who manages Mr. Ed's Chevron in St. Albans."Gas prices go up, and our profits go down." His complaints target the so-called interchange fee—a percentage of the sale price paid to credit card companies on every transaction. The percentage is usually fixed at just under 2 percent but the dollar amount of the fee rises with the price of the goods or services. As gas tops $ 4 a gallon, that pushes fees toward 10 cents a gallon. Now stations, which typically mark up gasoline by 11 to 12 cents a gallon, are seeing profits shrink or even reverse. In a good month, Randolph's small operation would yield a $ 60 profit on gasoline sales. But that's been buried as soaring prices forced the station to pay about $500 a month in interchange fees."At these prices, people aren't making any money, " said Jeff Lenard, spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores."It's brutal." Lenard's group reports convenience stores paid roughly $ 7. 6 billion in credit card fees last year, while making $ 3. 4 billion in profits.
The credit card companies say fees are just part of the cost of doing business. MasterCard has capped interchange fees for gas purchases of $ 50 or more, said company spokeswoman Sharon Gamsin. Accepting MasterCard also gives gas stations "increased sales, greater security and convenience, lower labor costs, and speed for their customers at the pump, " Gamsin said in an e-mail to the Associated Press. Visa argues that the fees are offset "by the tangible benefits to stations and their customers, such as the ability to pay at the pump, " the company said in a statement to the AP.
Which of the following sentences can best describe the main idea of this passage？
A．The gas station operator begin to say "no" to credit cards.
B．It is not convenient for both the customer and gas station manager to use credit cards.
C．Why do customers prefer to use credit cards？
D．How can small shops avoid customers using credit cards in the future？

The passage suggests that issues of a free press ______.
A．have been intertwined with matters concerning the separation of church and state
B．still raise controversy in the United States
C．are clearly discussed in the Constitution of the United States
D．originated during George Washington's administration

听力原文：Of the students participating in our university's research project, 73% classified themselves as freshmen and sophomores.
（23)
A．Many university students prefer soft drinks to fresh fruits.
B．Most of them are first-or-second year college students.
C．A number of college students refuse to disclose their identities.
D．Not many students are interested in our research projects.