①Two years ago, Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, Elisabeth, spoke of the “unsettling dearth of integrity across so many of our institutions”. Integrity had collapsed, she argued, because of a collective acceptance that the only “sorting mechanism” in society should be profit and the market. But “it’s us, human beings, we the people who create the society we want, not profit.”

②Driving her point home, she continued: “It’s increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose, of a moral language within government, media or business could become one of the most dangerous goals for capitalism and freedom.” This same absence of moral purpose was wounding companies such as News International, she thought, making it more likely that it would lose its way as it had with widespread illegal telephone hacking.

③As the hacking trial concludes—finding guilty one ex-editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson, for conspiring to hack phones, and finding his predecessor, Rebekah Brooks, innocent of the same charge—the wider issue of dearth of integrity still stands. Journalists are known to have hacked the phones of up to 5,500 people. This is hacking on an industrial scale, as was acknowledged by Glenn Mulcaire, the man hired by the News of the World in 2001 to be the point person for phone hacking. Others await trial. This long story still unfolds.

④In many respects, the dearth of moral purpose frames not only the fact of such widespread phone hacking but the terms on which the trial took place. One of the astonishing revelations was how little Rebekah Brooks knew of what went on in her newsroom, how little she thought to ask and the fact that she never inquired how the stories arrived. The core of her successful defence was that she knew nothing.

⑤In today’s world, it has become normal that well-paid executives should not be accountable for what happens in the organisations that they run. Perhaps we should not be so surprised. For a generation, the collective doctrine has been that the sorting mechanism of society should be profit. The words that have mattered are efficiency, flexibility, shareholder value, business-friendly, wealth generation, sales, impact and, in newspapers, circulation. Words degraded to the margin have been justice, fairness, tolerance, proportionality and accountability.

⑥The purpose of editing the News of the World was not to promote reader understanding, to be fair in what was written or to betray any common humanity. It was to ruin lives in the quest for circulation and impact. Ms Brooks may or may not have had suspicions about how her journalists got their stories, but she asked no questions, gave no instructions—nor received traceable, recorded answers.

1.According to the first two paragraphs, Elisabeth was upset by_______.

A the consequences of the current sorting mechanism

B companies’ financial loss due to immoral practices

C governmental ineffectiveness on moral issues

D the wide misuse of integrity among institutions

解析：选A。A 推理判断题。题干意为：根据前两段内容可知，伊丽莎白对_______感到焦虑不安。 第一段第一句直接提出Elisabeth 的观点：我们如此多公共机构中都缺失诚实正直精神，这很令人担忧；接着第二句阐述了她持该论点原因：人们普遍认为社会中唯一的“分类机制”应该是利润和市场；第二段中她继续阐述“以利益为中心的后果”：即会影响到资本主义和自由的发展，会让社会机构迷失其发展方向。由此推断Elisabeth担忧的是当前分类机制带来的后果，故选A。

2.It can be inferred from Paragraph 3 that_______.

A Glenn Mulcaire may deny phone hacking as a crime

B more journalists may be found guilty of phone hacking

C Andy Coulson should be held innocent of the charge

D phone hacking will be accepted on certain occasions

解析：选B。B 推理判断题。第三段第一句表明两位前主编的判决情况，后四句陈述：进行窃听的记者人数多达 5500 人；其余的人还在候审，案件事实的调查仍在展开；由此可推测，随着案件调查的推进，可能会查出许多其他犯案记者的犯罪行为，故选B。

3.The author believes that Rebekah Brooks’s defence_______.

A was hardly convincing

B centered on trivial issues

C revealed a cunning personality

D was part of a conspiracy

解析：选A。A 观点态度题。第四段第一句认为：道德缺失不仅存在于广泛的电话窃听实施中，还存在于审判的辩词中。接下来两句中作者描述身为主编的Rebekah Brooks却对编辑室中发生的事毫不了解，也不闻不问，甚至从不询问新闻内容来源，可见作者认为她无视道德，试图以毫不知情来推卸责任（The core of her successful defence was that she knew nothing），亦即，她的辩护词是难以令人信服的。故选A。

4.The author holds that the current collective doctrine shows_______.

A a marginalized lifestyle

B unfair wealth distribution

C generally distorted values

D a rigid moral code

解析：选C。C 推理判断题。答案出处定位到第五段：在当今世界，薪酬丰厚的高管不用再为自己所管理的机构内所发生的事情负责，这已成为常态，对此我们不应该感到惊讶。现在这代人普遍接受了以利益为中心的分类机制，他们重利益轻道德。其实，作者的言外之意就是人们的价值观已经被扭曲了。故选C。

5.Which of the following is suggested in the last paragraph?

A The quality of writings is of primary importance.

B Moral awareness matters in editing a newspaper.

C Common humanity is central to news reporting.

D Journalists need stricter industrial regulations.

解析：选B。B 推理判断题。最后一段中作者对《世界新闻报》的电话窃听行为进行了强烈的谴责：编辑新闻的目的不是为了增进读者认知，不是为了客观公正地呈现事实，也不是为了彰显共同的人性，而是为了追求发行量和影响力，并且不惜以人们的生活为代价，由此可见，作者试图强调的是道德意识对于报纸编辑的重要性。故选B。