考研英语历年阅读理解真题精析--1999年part1

考研英语历年阅读理解真题精析

--1999

年

part1

Unit 6

Part One

It's

a

rough

world

out

there.

Step

outside

and

you

could

break

a

leg

slipping

on

your

doormat.

Light

up

the

stove

and

you

could

burn

down

the

house.

Luckily,

if

the

doormat

or stove failed to warn of coming disaster, a successful lawsuit might compensate

you

for

your

troubles.

Or

so

the

thinking

has

gone

since

the

early

1980s,

when

juries

began holding more companies liable for their customers' misfortunes.

Feeling

threatened,

companies

responded

by writing

ever-longer

warning labels,

trying

to

anticipate

every

possible

accident.

Today,

stepladders

carry

labels

several

inches long that warn, among other things, that you might - surprise! - fall off.

The label on a child's Batman cape cautions that the toy

fly.

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.

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.

information

can

get

buried

in

a

sea

of

trivialities,

says

a

law

professor

at Cornell Law School w

ho 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.

1. 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.

2. 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

3. 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

4. The author's attitude towards the issue seems to be ________.

[A] biased [B] indifferent [C] puzzling [D] objective

Unit 6

（

1999

）

Part 1

重点词汇：

1.

compensate

（补偿，赔偿）看作

com+pens+ate

，

com-

前缀

一起

，

pens

钢笔，

-ate