[A] The Middle Class on the Alert
[B] The Middle Class on the Cliff
[C] The Middle Class in Conflict
[D] The Middle Class in Ruins
既然主题是经济威胁，那么许多答案都会与威胁以及有关的不良后果相联系。在文章对应的五道题中，除最后一道题直接问主题以外，其他四道题也涉及主题。第一题是对主题进行解释（注意答案中提到的本文主题：家庭经济变化）：
[C] they are more vulnerable to changes in family economies.
第二题与第三题都是以例子说明主题：
[B] less secured payments. （第二题）
[D] increase the families’ investment risk. （第三题）
第四题是对主题的引伸（经济变化可能带来的政治后果）：
[C] financial problems may bring about political problems.
除了主题，作者的态度也非常关键。如果这种态度在文中一以贯之，就很值得注意，因为不少题的答案都会涉及这一态度。例如，
Science, in practice, depends far less on the experiments it prepares than on the preparedness of the minds of the men who watch the experiments. Sir Isaac Newton supposedly discovered gravity through the fall of an apple. Apples had been falling in many places for centuries and thousands of people had seen them fall. But Newton for years had been curious about the cause of the orbital motion of the moon and planets. What kept them in place? Why didn’t they fall out of the sky? The fact that the apple fell down toward the earth and not up into the tree answered the question he had been asking himself about those larger fruits of the heavens, the moon and the planets.
……
What this amounts to, of course, is that the scientist has become the victim of his own writings. He has put forward unquestioned claims so consistently that he not only believes them himself, but has convinced industrial and business management that they are true. If experiments are planned and carried out according to plan as faithfully as the reports in the science journals indicate, then it is perfectly logical for management to expect research to produce results measurable in dollars and cents. It is entirely reasonable for auditors to believe that scientists who know exactly where they are going and how they will get there should not be distracted by the necessity of keeping one eye on the cash register while the other eye is on the microscope. Nor, if regularity and conformity to a standard pattern are as desirable to the scientist as the writing of his papers would appear to reflect, is management to be blamed for discriminating against the “odd balls” among researchers in favor of more conventional thinkers who “work well with the team.”(1999-5)
1. The author wants to prove with the example of Isaac Newton that.
[A]inquiring minds are more important than scientific experiments
[B]science advances when fruitful researches are conducted
[C]scientists seldom forget the essential nature of research
[D]unpredictability weighs less than prediction in scientific research
2. The author asserts that scientists.
[A]shouldn’t replace “scientific method” with imaginative thought
[B]shouldn’t neglect to speculate on unpredictable things
[C]should write more concise reports for technical journals
[D]should be confident about their research findings
3. It seems that some young scientists.
[A]have a keen interest in prediction
[B]often speculate on the future
[C]think highly of creative thinking
[D]stick to “scientific method”
4. The author implies that the results of scientific research.
[A]may not be as profitable as they are expected
[B]can be measured in dollars and cents
[C]rely on conformity to a standard pattern
[D]are mostly underestimated by management
上面四道题中，除了第一题外，都与作者的态度有关：第二与第四题直接问作者态度（第二题的（B）与第四题的（A）为正确答案），第三题问的是作者对有些科学家的态度（（D）为正确答案）。
综上所述，可见从宏观上把握主题与态度的好处。希望大家在复习真题时对每篇文章的主题（包含全文主题与段落主题）以及作者的态度加以思考，以便实战时能应付自如。
今天的结束语是：Don’t lose the forest for the trees（不要见木不见林）。