One of the most widely discussed subjects these days is. energy crisis. Automobile drivers cannot get gasoline; homeowners may not get enough heating oil; factories are (56) by a fuel shortage.
The crisis has (57) questions about the large oil companies and windfall (58) . Critics of the oil industry charge that the major companies are getting richer because of the oil shortage. Shortage, of course, drives prices up. As oil prices rise, the critics say, the oil companies will make more money (windfall profits) without doing a thing to (59) the extra cash. "Windfall" profits are sudden unearned profits--profits made (60) luck, or some special turn of events.
The word itself tells what "windfall" means--something blown down by the wind, such as trees, or fruit (61) from trees. But the word has taken on a special meaning. This meaning (getting something unearned) was first used in medieval England.
This is (62) it started: at that time much of the land was in the hands of (63) barons. The rest of the people, commoners, lived and worked on their vast estates. They planted the seed, cared for the farm animals and harvested the crops. Not all the land, however, was used for farming. Every baron kept a large private forest for (64) deer and wild bear.
When hungry, the people sometimes would kill the animals in the lord’s forest for food. And there were times (65) they might cut down trees for fuel. So, p laws were passed to protect the forests, and the animals. Violations were severely (66) .
But there was one way people could get wood from the forest. If they found trees blown down by the wind ("windfall") they were free to take them for use as fuel in their homes. And that is the meaning that has come down to us--something good gotten by luck or (67) .
The common people of old England, often hungry and cold, must often have prayed for a good p wind. Critics today (68) that the oil industry has also been praying for something just like it --some political or military (69) that might produce a windfall--a rise in oil prices and profits.
The oil companies deny that this is so. In Congress, critics of the oil companies have proposed a (70) on such profits. The debate on rising oil price will go on for some time, and most likely we will hear more and more about windfall profits.
Part Ⅳ Cloze
Directions: In this part, there is a passage with 15 blanks. For each blank, there are 4 choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best answer for each blank and mark the corresponding letter with a single bar across the square brackets on your machine-scoring ANSWER SHEET.
A．except
B．because of
C．beyond
D．for