a) are estimated to provide more earnings for the central government although it is not so successful at collecting taxes in uncontrollable provinces. b) should provide the central government with more earnings although it has to print less
money.
c) are expected to provide more income for the local governments, but tax-collecting is not
possible in some regions.
d) caused some people to revolt against the central government.
21. Another thing that Beijing wants to do is
a) to use a sophisticated weapon to curb the inflation.
b) to set up a strong central bank to control the money supply and credit creation. c) to introduce higher interest rates.
d) to decrease the number of workers employed by private sectors.
e) to send away more workers this year than previous years.
The media have come to be seen as a destructive force in American life, vastly more interested
in tearing things down than in providing the information people really need to know. Americans
populate two overlapping realities, the one they live every day and the one they experience
vicariously in what they are shown or told. It is the media, directly or indirectly, that shape
opinion about how America is doing as society, and the picture they present is not a pretty one.
Local newscasts pile up the bodies at a rate of a murder a minute, tabloid TV feeds on the sins
of the rich and famous. Call-in radio has become a festival of complaint. Attack politics assures
voters that all seekers and holders of public office are corrupt. Commercials tantalise
consumers with the unattainable. "The press likes to think of itself as representing the public
voice when it does not at all," Yankelovich says. "It represents the voice of the press, with its
own language, its own culture, its own interests."
22. The media is criticised in the paragraph
a) for covering up news about murders.
b) that it does not represent the political beliefs of politicians.
c) for its vicarious picture of what is happening in the U.S.
