Legal training is not a requirement to serve in Congress, although many of the members are, and have been, lawyers. Nor is it ne

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问题     Legal training is not a requirement to serve in Congress, although many of the members are, and have been, lawyers. Nor is it necessary for a House or Senate member to have served in another government post, although many have, and their experience at forging alliances and compromises has been helpful. We no longer have literacy tests for voters, a technique southern state’s used until the 1960s, effectively to disenfranchise African-American voters.
    Yet, it might not be a bad idea to require incoming members of Congress to take a basic test in civics.
    How else, other than an alarming misunderstanding of the basic of American government, to explain the effort of House Republicans to shut the Senate out of the budget process? Their sanctimoniously titled Government Shutdown Prevention Act would do just that, deeming that if the Senate failed to pass a measure to keep the government running amid the current budget dispute, that the House-passed version would become law.
    The idea is bizarre on so many levels—not least because the Senate would actually have to pass the Government Shutdown Prevention Act for the House to assume a dictatorial role in one of the three branches of the world’s greatest democracy. The current fashion of anti-intellectual-ism in politics aside, do the House Republicans not understand the elementary-school fundamentals of how a bill becomes a law?
    The freshman GOP lawmakers are annoyed with the Democratic-controlled Senate, this time for failing to cave in on the dramatic cuts the House Republicans want in the budget. Ask the House Democrats, who approved more than 300 bills in the last Congress that ended up dying in a Senate that failed to pass them or even consider them.
    But the rudimentary lesson of lawmaking are nowhere near as important as the lesson about getting things done in a country of diverse interests. The Tea Party crowd ran campaigns of anger and frustration, blaming Congress for its failure to get balanced budgets and myriad other things. There’s a reason for that, and it’s not because members are stupid or lazy or weak. It’s because this is a country of wildly divergent attitudes and perspectives, reflected in the lawmakers those citizens send to Congress. The Tea Partyers believe they were sent to Washington with a mission, and they likely were. So were Nancy Pelosi and other liberal members whose constituents have drastically different perspectives than those in the Tea Party team’s districts. And their views are no less valid.
    Legislating requires compromise, and compromise is hard, especially during times of economic stress. Being a congressman is a difficult job, forcing them to balance their districts’ needs with the national interest. The new members signed up for this job. They should do it.
Which of the following is true about the House Republicans and the Senate?

选项 A、The Senate used to set aside the bills approved by the House.
B、The Senate has passed the Government Shutdown Prevention Act.
C、The Senate failed to resolve the current budget dispute.
D、The Senate has been greatly irritated by the House Republicans.

答案A

解析 事实细节题。根据题干关键词House Republicans and the Senate定位至第三至五段。其中第五段第二句提到,他们(下议院)在去年通过了300多项议案,但最终都被参议院否决,甚至置之不理,故[A]符合文意。第三段第二句提到,如果参议院无法使政府在当前的预算争议下正常运转,下议院的《政府关闭防治法》将成为正式法律,可见,参议院目前并没有通过这个议案,[B]和[C]与文意相悖,故排除;第五段第一句提到因为参议院大幅减少众议院共和党派的要求,所以将他们惹怒了,[D]主宾颠倒,故排除。
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