Text 3

　　①The journal Science is adding an extra round of statistical checks to its peer-review process, editor-in-chief Marcia McNutt announced today. ②The policy follows similar efforts from other journals, after widespread concern that basic mistakes in data analysis are contributing to the irreproducibility of many published research findings.

　　① “Readers must have confidence in the conclusions published in our journal,” writes McNutt in an editorial. ②Working with the American Statistical Association, the journal has appointed seven experts to a statistics board of reviewing editors (SBoRE).③ Manuscript will be flagged up for additional scrutiny by the journal’s internal editors, or by its existing Board of Reviewing Editors or by outside peer reviewers. ④The SBoRE panel will then find external statisticians to review these manuscripts.

　　①Asked whether any particular papers had impelled the change, McNutt said: “The creation of the ‘statistics board’ was motivated by concerns broadly with the application of statistics and data analysis in scientific research and is part of Science’s overall drive to increase reproducibility in the research we publish.”

　　①Giovanni Parmigiani, a biostatistician at the Harvard School of Public Health, is a member of the SBoRE group. ②He says he expects the board to “play primarily an advisory role.”③ He agreed to join because he “found the foresight behind the establishment of the SBoRE to be novel, unique and likely to have a lasting impact. ④This impact will not only be through the publications in Science itself, but hopefully through a larger group of publishing places that may want to model their approach after Science.”

　　①John Ioannidis, a physician who studies research methodology, says that the policy is “a most welcome step forward” and “long overdue.”② “Most journals are weak in statistical review, and this damages the quality of what they publish. ③I think that, for the majority of scientific papers nowadays, statistical review is more essential than expert review,” he says. ④ But he noted that biomedical journals such as Annals of Internal Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association and The Lancet pay strong attention to statistical review.

　　①Professional scientists are expected to know how to analyze data, but statistical errors are alarmingly common in published research, according to David Vaux, a cell biologist. ②Researchers should improve their standards, he wrote in 2012, but journals should also take a tougher line, “engaging reviewers who are statistically literate and editors who can verify the process”. ③Vaux says that Science’s idea to pass some papers to statisticians “has some merit, but a weakness is that it relies on the board of reviewing editors to identify ‘the papers that need scrutiny’ in the first place”.

　　31. It can be learned from Paragraph 1 that _______.

　　[A] Science intends to simplify its peer-review process

　　[B] journals are strengthening their statistical checks

　　[C] few journals are blamed for mistakes in data analysis

　　[D] lack of data analysis is common in research projects

　　32. The phrase “flagged up” (Para. 2) is the closest in meaning to_______.

　　[A] found

　　[B] marked

　　[C] revised

　　[D] stored

　　33. Giovanni Parmigiani believes that the establishment of the SBoRE may _______.

　　[A] pose a threat to all its peers

　　[B] meet with strong opposition

　　[C] increase Science’s circulation

　　[D] set an example for other journals

　　34. David Vaux holds that what Science is doing now _______.

　　[A] adds to researchers’ workload

　　[B] diminishes the role of reviewers

　　[C] has room for further improvement

　　[D] is to fail in the foreseeable future

　　35. Which of the following is the best title of the text?

　　[A] Science Joins Push to Screen Statistics in Papers

　　[B] Professional Statisticians Deserve More Respect

　　[C] Data Analysis Finds Its Way onto Editors’ Desks

　　[D] Statisticians Are Coming Back with Science

　　Text 4

　　①Two years ago, Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, Elisabeth, spoke of the “unsettling dearth of integrity across so many of our institutions”. ②Integrity had collapsed, she argued, because of a collective acceptance that the only “sorting mechanism” in society should be profit and the market. ③But “it’s us, human beings, we the people who create the society we want, not profit”.

　　①Driving her point home, she continued: “It’s increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose, of a moral language within government, media or business could become one of the most dangerous goals for capitalism and freedom.” ②This same absence of moral purpose was wounding companies such as News International, she thought, making it more likely that it would lose its way as it had with widespread illegal telephone hacking .

　　①As the hacking trial concludes—finding guilty one ex-editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson, for conspiring to hack phones, and finding his predecessor, Rebekah Brooks, innocent of the same charge—the wider issue of dearth of integrity still stand. ②Journalists are known to have hacked the phones of up to 5,500 people. ③This is hacking on an industrial scale, as was acknowledged by Glenn Mulcaire, the man hired by the News of the World in 2001 to be the point person for phone hacking. ④Others await trial. ⑤This long story still unfolds.

　　①In many respects, the dearth of moral purpose frames not only the fact of such widespread phone hacking but the terms on which the trial took place. ②One of the astonishing revelations was how little Rebekah Brooks knew of what went on in her newsroom, how little she thought to ask and the fact that she never inquired how the stories arrived. ③The core of her successful defence was that she knew nothing.

　　①In today’s world, it has become normal that well-paid executives should not be accountable for what happens in the organizations that they run. ②Perhaps we should not be so surprised. ③For a generation, the collective doctrine has been that the sorting mechanism of society should be profit. ④The words that have mattered are efficiency, flexibility, shareholder value, business-friendly, wealth generation, sales, impact and, in newspapers, circulation. ⑤Words degraded to the margin have been justice, fairness, tolerance, proportionality and accountability.

　　①The purpose of editing the News of the World was not to promote reader understanding, to be fair in what was written or to betray any common humanity. ②It was to ruin lives in the quest for circulation and impact. ③Ms Brooks may or may not have had suspicions about how her journalists got their stories, but she asked no questions, gave no instructions—nor received traceable, recorded answers.

　　36. According to the first two paragraphs, Elisabeth was upset by_______.

　　[A] the consequences of the current sorting mechanism

　　[B] companies’ financial loss due to immoral practices

　　[C] governmental ineffectiveness on moral issues

　　[D]the wide misuse of integrity among institutions

　　37. It can be inferred from Paragraph 3 that_______.

　　[A] Glem Mulcaire may deny phone hacking as a crime

　　[B] more journalists may be found guilty of phone hacking

　　[C] Andy Coulson should be held innocent of the charge

　　[D] phone hacking will be accepted on certain occasions

　　38. The author believes the Rebekah Books’s defence_______.

　　[A] revealed a cunning personality

　　[B] centered on trivial issues

　　[C] was hardly convincing

　　[D] was part of a conspiracy

　　39. The author holds that the current collective doctrine shows_______.

　　[A] generally distorted values

　　[B] unfair wealth distribution

　　[C] a marginalized lifestyle

　　[D] a rigid moral code

　　40. Which of the following is suggested in the last paragraph?

　　[A] The quality of writing is of primary importance.

　　[B] Common humanity is central in news reporting.

　　[C] Moral awareness matters in editing a newspaper.

　　[D] Journalists need stricter industrial regulations.