40. Based on Passage Two, one can infer that ________________. (A) Taiwan’s entering the WTO will lead to the political reconciliation with China (B) there will be commitments to be made when Taiwan becomes a member of the WTO (C) there will be reduction of taxes on every item in agricultural, industrial, and service industries for foreign investors (D) the establishment of the WTO owes to the significant contribution of the APEC English poetry owes much to the Italian, especially for one of its best-known lyric forms—sonnets. Back in the 16th century, sonnets were employed by many of the greatest poets, including William Shakespeare. The greatest Italian sonneteers were Petrarch, Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, Michelangelo, and Vittoria Colonna. Among these Italian sonneteers, English poets identified themselves more with the Petrarchan style. The first requirement of the Petrarchan sonnet was that it be limited to fourteen lines, which are organically divided into an octave rhyming (with eight lines of lyrics) “abba abba,” and a sestet (with another six lines) in which several rhyme schemes were permitted. At the end of the octave there was a volte, or turn. Structurally speaking, the first eight lines provided the subject and sufficiently amplified it, and the sestet provided the resolution. Almost from the beginning, the English poets felt free to modify the strict Italian form, typically by eliminating the volte and varying the rhyme scheme. In the hands of Petrarch’s imitators, Italian, French and English, the sonnet became chiefly a literary exercise, providing the poet, sometimes a gifted amateur, with the opportunity to display his ingenuity in the expression of love which was entirely fictitious or directed to an imaginary person. Certain conventions were usually followed. The male lover is the speaker; he is deeply in love with a fair young lady whom he describes in superlatives. But the lady is as cold as she is chaste and beautiful, and the man’s love remains unrequited, although he cannot choose but to continue in a state of adoration and misery.

45. Based on the passage, one can be certain that ________________. (A) the male character in the sonnet is the one who is usually a gifted amateur at displaying his ingenuity and eventually won the females’ love in return (B) the lady in the sonnets is usually cold, chaste and beautiful and usually submitted to the knights’ bravery and heroic quest (C) sonnets have been used as a literary exercise for displaying poets’ ingenuity in the expression of love (D) English poets felt free to modify the strict Italian form as conventions of the Italian sonnets were flexible in nature A power crisis has occurred in several countries recently. In the United States, the emergent increase of utility rates and blackouts in California is sending shock waves nationwide. California was the first state to deregulate its electricity market in 1996. The move was intended to lower customers’ bills by prohibiting most utilities from passing costs on to their consumers until at least March 2002. Under deregulation, the state’s investor-owned utilities sold most of their power generating plants. Now they have to buy back that power at a much higher market price. “I think those people who insisted on getting into deregulation in 1996 made an enormous miscalculation,” said Gray Davis, Governor of California. “First, they did not anticipate the huge economic recovery of California. Particularly, there is a high demand for power in the area of Silicon Valley where a great number of technological companies have located. Secondly, there was no effort to build new plants to meet the demand.” But while his Republican predecessor, Pete Wilson, signed the deregulation bill, Davis failed to act when early power shortages signaled a looming crisis. Davis proposed several plans to solve the power crisis in California. He, firstly, requested President Bush to speed up federal approvals in order to build power plants. But Bush stated that all expedited actions must be consistent with statutes and ensure continued protection of public health and the environment. Davis further proposed a plan for the state to buy out much of California’s electric transmission lines from the power companies. However, the power crisis still remains unsolved. A power crisis is also happening in Taiwan. The lack of adequate, reliable power has been one of the main reasons that technological companies in Hsinchu Science Park are expanding into other countries. Not long ago, semiconductor chip manufacturing plants were temporarily throttled back by a fire that damaged one electrical transformer in the Science Park. According to local estimates, the fire caused as much as $6 million lost in production. More than 20 similar incidents have occurred in the Science Park during each of the past five years. The cancellation of a nuclear power plant in Kungliao is casting another shadow across the electronics industry in Taiwan. The political maneuver offered little long-term comfort for electronic companies that have been facing rising energy costs and an inability to expand to meet market demands. Technological companies have roundly rejected alternatives proposed by the new Taiwan government, including the creation of privatized utilities. Many of them say that they have no interest in entering the energy industry. For most of electronic companies, the alternatives proposed by the government are neither concrete nor convincing.

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