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题目： Which of the following best describes the function of the second sentence of the passage (highlight text) in the context of the passage as a whole?

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题目： Inverse beta decay, the subatomic interaction by which an electron and a proton are "crushed" into a neutron, the process in which the recoil, on a massive scale of an entire stellar nucleus, pushes out the outer layers of the star in the cataclysmic explosion of a supernova and transforming the stellar nucleus into a neutron star.

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题目： Since around 1970, with world population of 3.5 billion, they have doubled it to our current level of over 7 billion in 2012.

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题目： The more cautious commanders of the Army of the Potomac, such as George McClellan and George Meade, chose to withdraw after costly battles, but commander Ulysses Grant's strategy was the keeping up of pressure on Lee's Confederates even after losing a battle to them, and then he occupied positions between Lee's army and Richmond to invite another open battle.

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题目： In elucidating and ultimately decrying the various strains of nihilism endemic to his native Russia, the novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky sought to edify the populace, to lead it away from the evil portended in a philosophy that denied all values.

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题目： The new crime legislation, introduced by Senator Gladstone in response to the Alkaline Scandal, would increase the interconnectedness of police databases, funding for neighborhood watch groups, programs for rehabilitating at-risk youth, and decrease the parole possibilities for violent convicts.

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题目： She explained she both wants a large house in the city, so that she can make visits the museums regularly, and also a cottage in the mountains, to which she can go on free weekends.

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题目： The incumbent mayor has overturned his predecessor's bill that allows for an increase in spending in the public sector.

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题目： As foreign-language learning moves online, the paradigm that, to speak a foreign language, we need to converse with a native speaker is becoming swiftly obsolete.

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题目： Because sales dropped in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, in 2009 Vendiflex Corporation slashed its workforce to 2,500, almost 80% fewer than 2008.

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题目： Snakes molt their skins regularly, for the purpose of regenerating skin worn by ground contact and for eliminating parasites, like ticks and mites, and this made ancient people venerate the snake as a symbol of resilience and healing.

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题目： That the Fifth Lateran Council (1512 – 1517), had it addressed the growing concerns of reformers within the Catholic Church rather than simply shoring up its own political prerogatives with respect to the monarchies of Western Europe, could have avoided the series of events that led to the Protestant Reformation still causes regret among modern Western Christian thinkers.

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题目： Because the People's Republic of China claims Taiwan as part of its "One China" territory and refuses to have diplomatic relations with any nation that recognizes Taiwan as an independent nation, most western nations do not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, though most unofficially consider that Taiwan is an independent state.

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题目： Unfairly criticized during his time, the Emperor Claudius expanded the Roman Empire to the east, constructed public works such as aqueducts, having passed laws for protecting the rights and freedoms of Jews throughout the Empire.

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题目： The outspoken abolitionist senator Charles Sumner, after delivering a speech on the senate floor, was accosted by the Southerner Preston Brooks, who, outraged by Sumner's words, bludgeoned the senator with a gutta-percha cane, which Brooks was able to do with impunity, due to a tradition holding that the laws of the United States did not obtain on the senate floor.