Text 4 Many Americans regard the jury sy

题库2022-08-02  11

问题 Text 4 Many Americans regard the jury system as a concrete expression of crucial democratic values,including the principles that all citizens who meet minimal qualifications of age and literacy are equally competent to serve on juries;that jurors should be selected randomly from a representative cross section of the community;that no citizen should be denied the right to serve on a jury on account of race,religion,sex,or national origin;that defendants are entitled to trial by their peers;and that verdicts should represent the conscience of the community and not just the letter of the law.The jury is also said to be the best surviving example of direct rather than representative democracy.In a direct democracy,citizens take turns governing themselves,rather than electing representatives to govern for them.But as recently as in 1968,jury selection procedures conflicted with these democratic ideals.In some states,for example,jury duty was limited to persons of supposedly superior intelligence,education,and moral character.Although the Supreme Court of the United States had prohibited intentional racial discrimination in jury selection as early as the 1880 case of Strauder v.West Virginia,the practice of selecting socalled elite or blueribbon juries provided a convenient way around this and other antidiscrimination laws.The system also failed to regularly include women on juries until the mid20th century.Although women first served on state juries in Utah in 1898,it was not until the 1940s that a majority of states made women eligible for jury duty.Even then several states automatically exempted women from jury duty unless they personally asked to have their names included on the jury list.This practice was justified by the claim that women were needed at home,and it kept juries unrepresentative of women through the 1960s.In 1968,the Congress of the United States passed the Jury Selection and Service Act,ushering in a new era of democratic reforms for the jury.This law abolished special educational requirements for federal jurors and required them to be selected at random from a cross section of the entire community.In the landmark 1975 decision Taylor v.Louisiana,the Supreme Court extended the requirement that juries be representative of all parts of the community to the state level.The Taylor decision also declared sex discrimination in jury selection to be unconstitutional and ordered states to use the same procedures for selecting male and female jurors.In discussing the US jury system,the text centers on____A.its nature and problemsB.its characteristics and traditionC.its problems and their solutionsD.its tradition and development

选项 A.its nature and problems
B.its characteristics and tradition
C.its problems and their solutions
D.its tradition and development

答案 D

解析 主旨题【命题思路】这是一道主旨题,主要考查考生对文章主旨的归纳和概括能力。【直击答案】文章第一段提出了陪审团制度的各项原则规定。第二段出现了转折,主要内容是:在1968年以前,很多州都没有严格的履行陪审团制度中规定的原则,出现了教育和阶级歧视。同样第三段指出陪审团制度在实际履行过程中的性别歧视。第四段指出1968年后,陪审团制度进一步完善,严格了各项原则的实施力度。因此不难看出,文章首段先总体介绍了陪审团制度,接下来则以时间为线索阐述了其发展的历程。因而D项为正确答案,它最具有概括性。【干扰排除】A项中陪审团制度的本质并没有在文章中提及,虽然第二和第三段确实叙述了其在实践过程中的一些问题,但该选项并没有将第四段的内容概括在其中,具有片面性,故排除。B项只涉及了第一段的内容,不具有全文概括性,故排除。文章第二、三和四段的叙述以时间为顺序,强调了其发展历程。因而C项也不具有全局概括性,没有将第一段的内容包含在内。
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