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.