2. 外语
  3. Susan Baroness Greenfield is a British institution. In a country that perceives its scientists as white-coated eccentrics, and p

Susan Baroness Greenfield is a British institution. In a country that perceives its scientists as white-coated eccentrics, and p

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问题     Susan Baroness Greenfield is a British institution. In a country that perceives its scientists as white-coated eccentrics, and probably male, Lady Greenfield is fashionable, extravagant, and female. At least, that is the image she has sought to project as a populariser of science. She is accused, though, of bringing another British institution, the Royal Institution (RI), to the verge of bankruptcy. The RI, of which she was director from 1998 until last Friday (January 8th), has made her job redundant. She says she plans to respond with a suit for sexual discrimination.
    Lady Greenfield, a neuroscientist at Oxford University, was recruited to shake up the two-century-old institution because she had made a name for herself, particularly on television, as one of the popular faces of science. The RI is, in part, a members’ club famous for its Christmas lectures "adapted to a juvenile audience" , which are broadcast on television every year, and its Friday evening discourses (black ties, please, gentlemen), in which prominent scientists chat about their work for precisely an hour—no more and no less—before everyone is served tea and chocolate cake. But it is also a serious research laboratory (one of the longest-established in the world), looking into things like the medical applications of nanotechnology.
    Lady Greenfield’s offence, if offence it be, was to modernize the RI’s headquarters in May-fair, one of the most stylish parts of London, without proper cost control. The redecoration included a high-class bar and restaurant that are open to the general public. Sadly, these opened for business in October 2008—the least favorable moment imaginable for such a venture.
    The redecoration, which cost ￡22m, much of which was raised by selling the institution’s shares of property, has left the RI ￡3m in debt, and the trustees have decided that one way to cut costs is to cut the job of director. Lady Greenfield, the first female director in a line that stretches back through Michael Faraday to Humphry Davy, seems to suspect that financial considerations were not the only ones when this decision was made.
    Instead of a director, the RI is to be led by a newly-invented chief executive officer, in the person of Chris Rofe. Mr. Rofe, who was appointed in April 2009, has a degree in business administration, not science. Given the debt, though, perhaps an alchemist, a person who devotes himself to turning ordinary metals into gold, would be the most appropriate person for the job.
How does the author feel about the prospects of the RI’s getting out of financial trouble?
选项 A、Confident.
B、Suspicious.
C、Optimistic.
D、Cautious.
答案B
解析 该题为态度题。由文章最后一句可知，作者认为，除非任用有点石成金能力的炼金术士，否则很难改善皇家科学院的经济困境。言语中有淡淡的讽刺意味，可见作者对于皇家科学院的前景是持怀疑态度的，故选B。
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