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    Dieting, according to an old joke, may not actually make you live longer, but it sure feels that way. Nevertheless, evidence has been accumulating since the 1930s that calorie restriction—reducing an animal’s energy intake below its energy expenditure—extends lifespan and delays the start of age—related diseases in rats, dogs, fish and monkeys. Such results have inspired thousands of people to put up with constant hunger in the hope of living longer, healthier lives. They have also led to a search for drugs that mimic the effects of calorie restriction without the pain of going on an actual diet.    Amid the trend, it is easy to forget that no one has until now shown that calorie restriction works in humans. That omission, however, changed this month, with the publication of the initial results of the first systematic investigation into the matter. This study took 48 men and women and assigned them randomly to either a control group or a calorie—restriction regime. Those in the second group were required to cut their calorie intake for six months to 75% of that needed to maintain their weight.    The study is a landmark in the history of the field, because its subjects were either of normal weight or only slightly overweight. Previous projects have used individuals who were clinically fat, thus confusing the unquestionable benefits to health of reducing fatness with the possible advantages of calorie restriction to the otherwise healthy.    At a molecular level, it suggests these advantages are real. Those on restricted diets showed drops in body temperature and blood—insulin levels—both phenomena that have been seen in long—lived, calorie—restricted animals. They also suffered less damage to their DNA.    Eric Ravussin, of Louisiana State University, says that such results provide support for the theory that calorie restriction produces a metabolic adaptation over and above that which would be expected from weight loss alone. Nevertheless, such metabolic adaptation could be the reason why calorie restriction is associated with longer lifespan in other animals—and that is certainly the hope of those who, for the past 15 years, have been searching for ways of triggering that metabolic adaptation by means other than semi-starvation.    The search for a drug that will delay old age is itself as old as the hills—as is the wishful thinking of the suckers who finance such efforts. Those who hope to find it by mimicking the effect of calorie restriction are not, however, complete snake-oil salesmen, for there is known to be a family of enzymes, which act both as sensors of nutrient availability and as regulators of metabolic rate. These might provide the necessary biochemical link between starving and living longer.1. We learn from the first two paragraphs that (  ).2. The word “landmark” (Line 1, Paragraph 3) probably means(  ).3. The results of previous research on the effects of calorie restriction are unconvincing because (  ).4. It can be inferred from paragraph 5 that people(  ) . 5. People might take enzymes as a substitute for calorie restriction in that (  ).

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    Historians have only recently begun to note the increase in demand for luxury goods and services that took place in eighteenth-century England. McKendrick has explored the Wedgwood firm’s remarkable success in marketing luxury pottery. Plumb has written about the proliferation of provincial theaters, musical festivals, and children’s toys and books. While the fact of this consumer revolution is hardly in doubt, three key questions remain: Who were the consumers? What were their motives? And what were the effects of the new demand for luxuries?    An answer to the first of these has been difficult to obtain. Although it has been possible to infer from the goods and services actually produced what manufacturers and servicing trades thought their customers wanted, only a study of relevant personal documents written by actual consumers will provide a precise picture of who wanted what. We still need to know how large this consumer market was and how far down the social scale the consumer demand for luxury goods penetrated. With regard to this last question, we might note in passing that Thompson, while rightly restoring laboring people to the stage of eighteenth-century English history, has probably exaggerated the opposition of these people to the inroads of capitalist consumerism in general; for example, laboring people in eighteenth-century England readily shifted from home-brewed beer to standardized beer produced by huge, heavily capitalized urban breweries.   To answer the question of why consumers became so eager to buy, some historians have pointed to the ability of manufacturers to advertise in a relatively uncensored press. This, however, hardly seems a sufficient answer. Mckendrick favors a Viable model of conspicuous consumption stimulated by competition for status. The “middling sort” bought goods and services because they wanted to follow fashions set by the rich. Again, we may wonder whether this explanation is sufficient. Do not people enjoy buying things as a form of self-gratification? If so, consumerism could be seen as a product of the rise of new concepts of individualism and materialism, but not necessarily of the frenzy for conspicuous competition.    Finally, what were the consequences of this consumer demand for luxuries? McKendrick claims that it goes a long way toward explaining the coming of the Industrial Revolution. But does it? What, for example, does the production of high-quality pottery and toys have to do with the development of iron manufacture or textile mills? It is perfectly possible to have the psychology and reality of a consumer society without a heavy industrial sector.    That future exploration of these key questions is undoubtedly necessary should not, however, diminish the force of the conclusion of recent studies: the insatiable demand in eighteenth-century England for frivolous as well as useful goods and services foreshadows our own world.1. In the first paragraph, the author mentions McKendrick and Plumb most probably in order to (  ).2. Which of the following items, if preserved from eighteenth-century England, would provide an example of the kind of documents mentioned in Lines 3-4, Paragraph 2?3. According to the text, Thompson attributes to laboring people in eighteenth-century England which of the following attitudes toward capitalist consumerism?4. In the third paragraph, the author is primarily concerned with (  ).5. According to the text, eighteenth-century England and the contemporary world of the text readers are(  ).

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    When executives at Google went looking for Wall Street investment bankers to underwrite the company’s massive initial public offering, they laid down strict terms of engagement: bring us new ideas on how to sell the deal to investors and save the usual political gamesmanship. But with such a huge payday at stake—an estimated $100 million in fees for handling the offering—would you expect all the big firms to play by the Google rules? Of course not, just ask Goldman Sachs.    To win a chunk of the Google business, Goldman, the nation’s premier investment bank, set free its CEO: Hank Paulson, to pull some strings. Paulson is one of Wall Street’s best “call men”, who can wave a Palm PDA full of connections when it’s crunch time to bring home a deal. But Newsweek has learned that Paulson tried to sidestep Google’s orders by reaching out to one of Google’s largest investors, Kleiner Perkins, the powerful venture-capital firm that was an early Google backer. The move helped doom Goldman’s efforts to win the lead underwriting spot, which went instead to Credit Suisse First Boston and Morgan Stanley.    Paulson thought his best shot was John Doerr, one of Kleiner’s top partners. Bad move, when word of Paulson’s misstep got back to Google’s top executives, Goldman was quickly bumped from the top of the short list. “The people at Google were such enthusiasts about the rules,” said one executive who works at a rival Wall Street firm. “When they heard about this, they went ape.” None of the parties involved—Google, Goldman Sachs or Doerr—would comment.    The two winners, CSFB and Morgan Stanley, managed to keep a low profile. John Mack, CSFB’s famously well-connected chief executive, purposely stayed out of the bidding process for fear that he might tip the scales to another player, people with knowledge of the matter say. Meanwhile, new rules for Wall Street research analysts appear to have prevented Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley’s top Internet analyst, from playing a direct role, even though she and Doerr have done business together for years.   Goldman, meanwhile, can’t blame its loss just on Paulson. People close to the deal say bankers for the firm bragged to Google about the Goldman name, and didn’t generate enough ideas about how to sell shares to investors through an auction. “Their lack of marketing wit may have hurt them more than Paulson,” said the executive from a rival firm. Sometimes, it really does pay to play by the rules.1. What can be inferred from the first paragraph?2. Hank Paulson’s name is mentioned to show that(  ).3. The speaker in the third paragraph thinks that(  ).4. John Mack and Mary Meeker shared similarities in that they both(  ).5. Goldman might learn a lesson from Google’s deal that (  ).

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