Direction：There are five passages in this part，Each passage is followed by five questions

or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choice marked A，B，C and D. Choose the best one and mark the corresponding letter with a single bar across the square brackets on your machine-scoring ANSWER SHEET.

Passage One

They may be one of Britain’s most successful exports and among the world’s most popular TV shows，ranking alongside the World Cup Final and the Olympics Games opening ceremony in terms of audience. But，in Britain，beauty competitions are unfashionable. To most people，beauty contests seems as out-dated as bowing. Nicolas Baker，a lawyer in London，said that“As much as I think it’s fine for women to do it，I don’t think it’s interesting and in fact，I think they’re irrelevant to today.”Last year，Miss World was broadcast to 142 countries，but it wasn’t even shown in the country where it started in 1951.

It wasn’t always this way in Britain. Once beauty queens dated footballers，traveled the world and were guaranteed fame，fortune and fun. Now，they open new supermarkets，are sponsored by dry-cleaning companies and if they’re lucky，they get free clothes from supermarkets.

When Francesca Marchant was crowned Miss Sussex in 1969，it was something to be extremely proud of“I came from a small town，and all my friends were green with envy when they found out I’d won. My boyfriend at the time thought it was terrific and boasted to everyone that he was going out with a beauty queen.

But the good times couldn’t last. The feminist movement gathered momentum. Some women were determined to bring an end to these“cattle shows.” Nowadays，saying that you were a beauty queen just doesn’t sound good.

Miss World organizers claim that contestants are judged on qualities other than just their physical appearance. But Jacqueline Gold，England’s representative at this year’s contest，was not chosen because of her academic record. The Miss World Website states that she“left school having gained many computer qualifications，and certificates in First Aid and Lift Saving.”meaning，not much of an education.

The only time contests attract attention now is because of the protesters. At the 1999 Miss World in Britain around 60 demonstrators hurled flour bombs and fought with the police. They denounced the beauty contest as a“sexist cattle market”. They waved banners saying“fat girls are cool”and“women’s bodies are not for sale.”

31. Beauty contests in Britain are now .

A. bringing huge benefits for the country

B. as popular as the World Cup Final

C. no longer popular in the country

D. widely protested in the country