2003年9月四级试题 Part Ⅱ prehension (35 minutes) Passage One Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage. A rectal study, published in last week’s Journal of the American Medical Association, offers a picture of how risky it is to get a lift from a teenage driver, Indeed, a 16-year-old driver with three or more passengers is three times as likely to have a fatal accident as a teenager driving alone, By contrast, the risk of death for drivers between 30 and 59 decreases with each additional passenger. The author also found that the death rates for teenage drivers increased dramatically after 10 ., and especially after midnight, With passengers in the car, the driver was even more likely to die in a late-night accident. Robert Foss, a scientist at the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center, says the higher death rates for teenage drivers have less to do with “really stupid behavior” than with just a lack of driving experience. “The basic issue.” Be says, “is that adults who are responsible for issuing licenses fail to recognize plex and skilled a task driving is.” Both he and the author of the study believe that the way to mitigate (使…缓解)the problem is to have states institute so-called graduated licensing systems, in which getting a license is a multistage process. A graduated license requires that a teenager first prove himself capable of
