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1 、 不定项选择题
For the executive producer of a network nightly news programme, the workday often
begins at midnight as mine did during seven years with ABC’s evening newscast.
The first order of business was a call to the assignment desk for a pre-
bedtime?rundownof latest developments.
The assignment desk operates 24 hours a day, staffed by editors who move
crews, correspondents and equipment to the scene of events. Assignment-desk
editors ate logistics experts; they have to know plane schedules, satellite availability,
and whom to get in touch with at local stations and overseas broadcasting systems.
They are required to assess stories as they break on the wire services—sometimes
even before they do - and to decide how much effort to make to cover those stories.
When the United States was going to appeal to arms against Iraq, the number of
correspondents and crews was constantly evaluated. Based on reports from the field
and also upon the skilled judgments of desk editors in New York City, the right
number of personnel was kept on the alert. The rest were allowed to continue
working throughout the world, in America and Iraq ready to move but not tied down
by false alarms.
The studio staff of ABC’s “World News Tonight” assembles at 9 a.m. to
prepare for the 6:30 “air” p.m. deadline. Overnight dispatches from outlying
bureaus and press services are read. There are phone conversations with the
broadcast’s staff producers in domestic bureaus and with the London bureau
senior producer, who coordinates overseas coverage. A pattern emerges for the
day’s news, a pattern outlined in the executive producer’s first lineup. The lineup
tells the staff what stories are scheduled; what the priorities are for processing film of
editing tape; what scripts need to be written; what commercials ate scheduled; how
long stories should run and in what order. Without a lineup, there would be chaos.
Each story’s relative value in dollars and cents must be continually assessed by
the executive producer. Cutting back satellite booking to save money might mean
that an explanation delivered by an anchor person will replace actual photos of an
event. A decline in live coverage could send viewers away and drive ratings down, but
there is not enough money to do everything. So decisions must be made and made
rapidly—because delay can mean a missed connection for shipping tape or access to
a satellite blocked by a competitor.
The broadcasts themselves require pacing and style. The audience has to be
allowed to breathe between periods of intense excitement. A vivid pictorial report
followed by less exacting materials allows the viewer to reflect on information that
has just flashed by. Frequent switches from one anchor to another or from one film
or tape report to another create a sense of forward movement. Ideally, leading andlags to stories are worked out with field correspondents, enabling them to fit their
reports into the programme’s narrative flow so the audience’s attention does not
wander and more substance is absorbed.
Scripts are constantly rewritten to blend well with incoming pictures. Good copy
is crisp, informative. Our rule: the fewer words the better. If a picture can do the
work, let it.
What does the word “rundown” (Line 3, Para. 1) possibly mean?
A ： The rehearsal of tomorrow’s programme.
B ： A working report or summary to his superior or head.
C ： An explanation of the programme.
D ： Preparation for the programme.
2 、 不定项选择题
Got milk? If you do, take a moment to ponder the true oddness of being able to drink
milk after you’re a baby.
No other species but humans can. And most humans can’t either.
The long lists of food allergies some people claim to have can make it seem as if
they’re just finicky eaters trying to rationalize likes and dislikes. Not so. Eggs,
peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish soy and gluten all can wreak havoc on the immune
system of allergic individuals, even causing a deadly reaction called anaphylaxis.
But those allergic reactions are relatively rare, affecting an estimated 4% of
adults.
Milk’s different.
There are people who have true milk allergies that can cause deadly reactions.
But most people who have bad reactions to milk aren’t actually allergic to it, in that
it’s not their immune system that’s responding to the milk. Instead, people who
are lactose intolerant can’t digest the main sugar—lactose—found in milk. In
normal humans, the enzyme that does so—lactase—stops being produced when the
person is between two and five years old. The undigested sugars end up in the colon,
where they begin to ferment, producing gas that can cause cramping, bloating,
nausea, flatulence and diarrhea.
If you’re American or European it’s hard to realize this, but being able to
digest milk as an adult is one weird genetic adaptation.
It’s not normal. Somewhat less than 40% of people in the world retain the
ability to digest lactose after childhood. The numbers are often given as close to 0%
of Native Americans, 5% of Asians, 25% of African and Caribbean peoples, 50% of
Mediterranean peoples and 90% of northern Europeans. Sweden has one of the
world’s highest percentages of lactase tolerant people.
Being able to digest milk is so strange that scientists say we shouldn’t really call
lactose intolerance a disease, because that presumes it’s abnormal, instead, they
call it lactase persistence, indicating what’s really weird is the ability to continue to
drink milk.
There’s been a lot of research over the past decade looking at the genetic
mutation that allows this subset of humanity to stay milk drinkers into adulthood.
A long-held theory was that the mutation showed up first in Northern Europe,
where people got less vitamin D from the sun and therefore did better if they could
also get the crucial hormone (it’s not really a vitamin at all) from milk.But now a group at University College London has shown that the mutation
actually appeared about 7,500 years ago in dairy farmers who lived in a region
between the central Balkans and central Europe, in what was known as the Funnel
Beaker culture.
The paper was published this week in PLOS Computational Biology.
The researchers used a computer to model the spread of lactase persistence,
dairy farming, other food gathering practices and genes in Europe.
Today, the highest proportion of people with lactase persistence live in
Northwest Europe, especially the Netherlands, Ireland and Scandinavia. But the
computer model suggests that dairy farmers carrying this gene variant probably
originated in central Europe and then spread more widely and rapidly than non-
dairying groups.
Author Mark Thomas of University College London’s dept of Genetics, Evolution
and Environment says, “In Europe, a single genetic change...is strongly associated
with lactase persistence and appears to have people with it a big survival
advantage.”
The European mutation is different from several lactase persistence genes
associated with small populations of African peoples who historically have been
cattle herders.
Researchers at the University of Mary land identified one such mutation among
Nilo-Saharan-speaking peoples in Kenya and Tanzania. That mutation seems to have
arisen between 2,700 to 6,800 years ago. Two other mutations have been found
among the Beja people of northeastern Sudan and tribes of the same language family
in northern Kenya.
What is the relationship between “lactase” and “lactose” according to the
passage?
A ： Lactase is indispensable to decomposing lactose.
B ： They both can act as a kind of enzyme.
C ： Lactase is the physical form of lactose.
D ： Lactase can be used to synthesize lactose.
3 、 不定项选择题
Nobody ever went into academic circles to make a fast fortune. Professors, especially
those in medical-and technology-related fields, typically earn a fraction of what their
colleagues in industry do. But suddenly, big money is starting to flow into the ivory
tower, as university administrators make up to the commercial potential of academic
research. And the institutions are wrestling with a whole new set of issues.
The profits are impressive: the Association of University Technology Managers
surveyed 132 universities and found that they earned a combined $576 million from
patent royalties in 1998, a number that promises to keep rising dramatically. Schools
like Columbia University in New York have aggressively marketed their inventions to
corporations, particularly pharmaceutical and high-tech companies.
Now Columbia is going retail—on the Web. It plans to go beyond the typical
“dot. edu” model, free sites listing courses and professors’ research interests.
Instead, it will offer the expertise of its faculty on a new for-profit site which will be
spun off as an independent company. The site will provide free access to educational
and research content, say administrators, as well as advanced features that are
already available to Columbia students, such as a simulation of the construction andarchitecture of a French cathedral and interactive 3-D models of organic chemicals.
Free pages will feed into profit-generating areas, such as online courses and
seminars, and related books and tapes. Columbia executive vice president Michael
Crow imagines “millions of visitors” to the new site, including retirees and students
willing to pay to tap into this educational resource. “We can offer the best of
what’s thought and written and researched,” says Ann Kirschner, who heads the
project. Columbia also is anxious not be beaten by some of the other for-profit
“knowledge sites,” such as About.com and Hungry Minds. “If they capture this
space,” says Crow, “they’ll begin to cherry-pick our best faculty.”
Profits from the sale of patents typically have been divided between the
researcher, the department and the university, and Web profits would work the same
way, so many faculty members are delighted. But others find the trend worrisome: is
a professor who stands to profit from his or her research as credible as one who
doesn’t? Will universities provide more support to researchers working in profitable
fields than to scholars toiling in more musty areas?
“If there’s the perception that we might be making money from our efforts,
the authority of the university could be diminished,” worries Herve Varenne, a
cultural anthropology professor at Columbia’s education school. Says Kirschner:
“we would never compromise the integrity of the university.” Whether the new site
can add to the growing profits from patents remains to be seen, but one thing is
clear. It’s going to take the best minds on camps to find a new balance between
profit and purity.
Which of the following will those worrying about the trend support?
A ： Professors working in profitable fields are less reliable.
B ： More support should be given to musty areas other than profit-generating ones.
C ： Professors in technology-related fields should earn more than their counterparts
do in industry.
D ： People working in pharmaceutical and high-tech companies should earn the
biggest money.
4 、 不定项选择题
Got milk? If you do, take a moment to ponder the true oddness of being able to drink
milk after you’re a baby.
No other species but humans can. And most humans can’t either.
The long lists of food allergies some people claim to have can make it seem as if
they’re just finicky eaters trying to rationalize likes and dislikes. Not so. Eggs,
peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish soy and gluten all can wreak havoc on the immune
system of allergic individuals, even causing a deadly reaction called anaphylaxis.
But those allergic reactions are relatively rare, affecting an estimated 4% of
adults.
Milk’s different.
There are people who have true milk allergies that can cause deadly reactions.
But most people who have bad reactions to milk aren’t actually allergic to it, in that
it’s not their immune system that’s responding to the milk. Instead, people who
are lactose intolerant can’t digest the main sugar—lactose—found in milk. In
normal humans, the enzyme that does so—lactase—stops being produced when the
person is between two and five years old. The undigested sugars end up in the colon,where they begin to ferment, producing gas that can cause cramping, bloating,
nausea, flatulence and diarrhea.
If you’re American or European it’s hard to realize this, but being able to
digest milk as an adult is one weird genetic adaptation.
It’s not normal. Somewhat less than 40% of people in the world retain the
ability to digest lactose after childhood. The numbers are often given as close to 0%
of Native Americans, 5% of Asians, 25% of African and Caribbean peoples, 50% of
Mediterranean peoples and 90% of northern Europeans. Sweden has one of the
world’s highest percentages of lactase tolerant people.
Being able to digest milk is so strange that scientists say we shouldn’t really call
lactose intolerance a disease, because that presumes it’s abnormal, instead, they
call it lactase persistence, indicating what’s really weird is the ability to continue to
drink milk.
There’s been a lot of research over the past decade looking at the genetic
mutation that allows this subset of humanity to stay milk drinkers into adulthood.
A long-held theory was that the mutation showed up first in Northern Europe,
where people got less vitamin D from the sun and therefore did better if they could
also get the crucial hormone (it’s not really a vitamin at all) from milk.
But now a group at University College London has shown that the mutation
actually appeared about 7,500 years ago in dairy farmers who lived in a region
between the central Balkans and central Europe, in what was known as the Funnel
Beaker culture.
The paper was published this week in PLOS Computational Biology.
The researchers used a computer to model the spread of lactase persistence,
dairy farming, other food gathering practices and genes in Europe.
Today, the highest proportion of people with lactase persistence live in
Northwest Europe, especially the Netherlands, Ireland and Scandinavia. But the
computer model suggests that dairy farmers carrying this gene variant probably
originated in central Europe and then spread more widely and rapidly than non-
dairying groups.
Author Mark Thomas of University College London’s dept of Genetics, Evolution
and Environment says, “In Europe, a single genetic change...is strongly associated
with lactase persistence and appears to have people with it a big survival
advantage.”
The European mutation is different from several lactase persistence genes
associated with small populations of African peoples who historically have been
cattle herders.
Researchers at the University of Mary land identified one such mutation among
Nilo-Saharan-speaking peoples in Kenya and Tanzania. That mutation seems to have
arisen between 2,700 to 6,800 years ago. Two other mutations have been found
among the Beja people of northeastern Sudan and tribes of the same language family
in northern Kenya.
According to the third sentence of Paragraph 3, which of the following items is
INCORRECT?
A ： naphylaxis may cause people to die.
B ： Eggs can damage all the allergic individuals’ immune system.
C ： One who is allergic to gluten can not eat com.
D ： Tuna may cause a person who is allergic to fish to die.5 、 不定项选择题
Some believe that in the age of identikit computer games, mass entertainment and
conformity on the supermarket shelves, truly inspired thinking has gone out of the
window. But, there are others who hold the view that there is still plenty of scope for
innovation, lateral thought and creative solutions. Despite the standardization of
modern life, there is an unabated appetite for great ideas, visionary thinking and
inspired debate. In the first of a series of monthly debates on contemporary issues,
we ask two original thinkers to discuss the nature of creativity. Here is the first one.
Yes. Absolutely. Since I started working as an inventor 10 or 12 years ago, I’ve
seen a big change in attitudes to creativity and invention. Back then, there was hardly
any support for inventors, apart from the national organization the Institute of
Patentees and Inventors. Today, there are lots of little inventors’ clubs popping up
all over the place, my last count was 19 nationally and growing. These non-profit
clubs, run by inventors for inventors, are an indication that people are once again
interested in invention.
I’ve been a project leader, a croupier, an IT consultant and I’ve written a
motor mandrel. I spent my teens under a 1950s two-tone Riley RME ear, learning to
put it together. Back in the Sixties, kids like me were always out doing things, making
go-karts, riding bicycles or exploring. We learned to overcome challenges and solve
problems. We weren’t just sitting at a PlayStation, like many kids do today.
But I think, and hope, things are shifting back. There’s a lot more internl in
design and creativity and such talents are getting a much higher profile in the media.
It’s evident with TV programmes such as Channe14’s?Scrapheap Challenge?or
BBC2’s?The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den, where people are given a task to solve
or face the challenge of selling their idea to a panel.
And. thankfully, the image of the mad scientist with electrified hair working in
the garden shed is long gone—although, there are still a few exceptions!
That’s not to say there aren’t problems. With the decline in manufacturing we
are losing the ability to know how to make things. There’s a real skills gap
developing. In my opinion, the Government does little or nothing to help innovation
at the lone-inventor or small or medium enterprise level. I would love to see more
money spent on teaching our school kids how to be inventive. But, despite
everything, if you have a good idea and real determination, you can still do very well.
My own specialist area is packaging closures—almost every product needs it. I
got the idea for Squeezeopen after looking at an old tin of boot polish when my
mother complained she couldn’t get the lid off. If you can do something cheaper,
better, and you are 100 percent committed, there is a chance it will be a success.
I see a fantastic amount of innovation and opportunities out there. People
don’t realise how much is going on. New materials are coming out all the time and
the space programme and scientific research are producing a variety of spin-offs.
Innovation doesn’t have to be high-tech: creativity and inventing is about finding
the right solution to a problem, whatever it is. There’s a lot of talent out there and,
thankfully, some of the more progressive companies are suddenly realizing they
don’t want to miss out—it’s an exciting time.
Which of the following is the suggestion of the interviewer to the problem?
A ： The government should spend more money helping innovation.B ： The kids should cultivate their love of science and invention.
C ： More inventors’ clubs should be set up.
D ： Invention courses are necessary to children.
6 、 不定项选择题
It can be argued that much consumer dissatisfaction with marketing strategies arises
from an inability to aim advertising at only the likely buyers of a given product. There
are three groups of consumers who are affected by the marketing process. First,
there is the market segment—people who need the commodity in question. Second,
there is the program target—people in the market segment with the “best fit”
characteristics for a specific product. Lots of people may need trousers, but only a
few qualify as likely buyers of very expensive designer trousers. Finally, there is the
program audience—all people who are actually exposed to the marketing program
without regard to whether they need or want the product
These three groups are rarely identical. An exception occurs in cases where
customers for a particular industrial product may be few and easily identifiable. Such
customers, all sharing a particular need, are likely to form a meaningful target, for
example, all companies with a particular application of the product in question, such
as high-speed fillers of bottles at breweries. In such circumstances, direct selling
(marketing that reaches only the program target) is likely to be economically justified,
and highly specialized trade media exist to expose members of the program
target—and only members of the program target—to the marketing program.
Most consumer-goods markets are significantly different. Typically, there are
many rather than few potential customers. Each represents a relatively small
percentage of potential sales. Rarely do members of a particular market segment
group themselves neatly into a meaningful program target. There are substantial
differences among consumers with similar demographic characteristics. Even with all
the past decade’s advances in information technology, direct selling of consumer
goods is rare, and mass marketing—a marketing approach that aims at a wide
audience—remains the only economically feasible mode. Unfortunately, there are
few media that allow the marketer to direct a marketing program exclusively to the
program target. Inevitably, people get exposed to a great deal of marketing for
products in which they have no interest and so they become annoyed.
The author mentions “trousers” in paragraph 1 most likely in order to _____.
A ： make a comparison between the program target and the program audience
B ： emphasize the similarities between the market segment and the program target
C ： provide an example of the way three groups of consumers are affected by a
marketing program
D ： clarify the distinction between the market segment and the program target
7 、 不定项选择题
The age at which young children begin to make moral discriminations about harmful
actions committed against themselves or others has been the focus of recent
research into the moral development of children. Until recently, child psychologists
supported pioneer developmentalist Jean Piaget in his hypothesis that because oftheir immaturity, children under age seven do not take into account the intentions of
a person committing accidental or deliberate harm, but rather simply assign
punishment for transgressions on the basis of the magnitude of the negative
consequences caused. According to Piaget, children under age seven occupy the first
stage of moral development, which is characterized by moral absolutism (rules made
by authorities must be obeyed) and imminent justice (if rules are broken, punishment
will be meted out). Until young children mature, their moral judgments are based
entirely on the effect rather than the cause of a transgression. However, in recent
research, Keasey found that six-year-old children not only distinguish between
accidental and intentional harm, but also judge intentional harm as naughtier,
regardless of the amount of damage produced. Both of these findings seem to
indicate that children, at an earlier age than Piaget claimed, advance into the second
stage of moral development, moral autonomy, in which they accept social rules but
view them as more arbitrary than do children in the first stage.
Keasey’s research raises two key questions for developmental psychologists
about children under age seven: do they recognize justifications for harmful actions,
and do they make distinctions between harmful acts that are preventable and those
acts that have unforeseen harmful consequences? Studies indicate that justifications
excusing harmful actions might include?public?duty, self-defense, and provocation.
For example, Nesdale and Rule concluded that children were capable of considering
whether or not an aggressor’s action was justified by public duty: five year olds
reacted very differently to “Bonnie wrecks Arm’s pretend house” depending on
whether Bonnie did it “so somebody won’t fall over it” or because Bonnie wanted
“to make Ann feel bad”. Thus, a child of five begins to understand that certain
harmful actions, though intentional, can be justified; the constraints of moral
absolutism no longer solely guide their judgments.
Psychologists have determined that during kindergarten children learn to make
subtle distinctions involving harm. Darley observed that among-acts involving
unintentional harm, six-year-old children just entering kindergarten could not
differentiate between foreseeable, and thus preventable, harm and unforeseeable
harm for which the perpetrator cannot be blamed. Seven months later, however,
Darley found that these same children could make both distinctions, thus
demonstrating that they had become morally autonomous.
According to the passage, Piaget and Keasey would not have agreed on which of the
following points?
A ： The kinds of excuses children give for harmful acts they commit
B ： The age at which children begin to discriminate between intentional and
unintentional harm
C ： The intentions children have in perpetrating harm
D ： The circumstances under which children punish harmful acts
8 、 不定项选择题
The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions ever
witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive America to Europe and reaches the
emerging countries with unsurpassed might. Many in these countries are looking at
this process and worrying: “Won’t the wave of business concentration turn into an
uncontrollable anti-competitive force?”There’s no question that the big are getting bigger and more powerful.
Multinational corporations accounted for less than 20% of international trade in
1982. Today the figure is more than 25% and growing rapidly. International affiliates
account for a fast-growing segment of production in economies that open up and
welcome foreign investment. In Argentina, for instance, after the reforms of the early
1990s, multinationals went from 43% to almost 70% of the industrial production of
the 200 largest firms. This phenomenon has created serious concerns over the role of
smaller economic firms, of national businessmen and over the ultimate stability, of
the world economy.
I believe that the most important forces behind the massive M&A wave are the
same that underlie the globalization process: falling transportation, and
communication costs, lower trade and investment barriers and enlarged markets that
require enlarged operations capable of meeting customers’ demands. All these are
beneficial, not detrimental to consumers. As productivity grows, the world’s wealth
increases.
Examples of benefits or costs of the current concentration-wave are scanty. Yet it
is hard to imagine that the merge of a few oil firms today could recreate the same
threats to competition that were feared nearly a century ago in the U.S., when the
Standard Oil trust was broken up. The mergers of telecom companies, such as World
Corn, hardly seem to bring higher prices for consumers or a reduction in the pace of
technical progress. On the contrary, the price of communications is coming down
fast. In cars, too, concentration is increasing—witness Daimler and Chrysler, Renault
and Nissan—but it does not appear that consumers am being hurt.
Yet the fact remains that the merger movement must be watched. A few weeks
ago, Alan Greenspan warned against the megamergers in the banking industry. Who
is going to supervise, regulate and operate, as lender of last resort with the gigantic
banks that are being created? won’t multinationals shift production from one place
to another when a nation gets too strict about infringements to fair corn petition?
And should one country take upon itself the role of “defending competition” on
issues that affect many other nations, as in the U.S.
Toward the new business wave, the writer’s attitude can be said to be _____.
A ： optimistic
B ： objective
C ： pessimistic
D ： biased
9 、 不定项选择题
“When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results,”
Calvin Coolidge once observed. As the U. S. economy crumbles, Coolidge’s silly
maxim might appear to be as apt as ever: the number of unemployment insurance
claims is rising, and overall joblessness is creeping upward. But in today’s vast and
complex labor market, things aren’t always what they seem. More and more people
are indeed losing their jobs but not necessarily because the economy appears to be
in recession. And old-fashioned unemployment isn’t the inevitable result of job loss.
New work, at less pay, often is.
Call it new-wave unemployment: structural changes in the economy are
overlapping the business downturn, giving joblessness a grim new twist. Smallwonder that the U. S. unemployment rate is rising. Now at 5.7 percent, it is widely
expected to edge toward 7 percent by the end of next year. But statistics alone can’t
fully capture a complex reality. The unemployment rate has been held down by slow
growth in the labor force—the number of people working or looking for work—since
few people sense attractive job opportunities in a weak economy. In addition, many
more people are losing their jobs than are actually ending up unemployed. Faced
with hungry mouths to feed, thousands of women, for example, are taking two or
more part-time positions or agreeing to shave the hours they work in service-sector
jobs. For better and for worse, work in America clearly isn’t what it used to be. Now
unemployment isn’t, either.
Like sour old wine in new bottles, this downturn blends a little of the old and the
new reflecting a decade’s worth of change in the dynamic U. S. economy. Yet, in
many respects the decline is following the classic pattern, with new layoffs
concentrated among blue-collar workers in the most “cyclical” industries, whose
ups and downs track the economy most closely.
As the downturn attracts attention on workers’ ill fortunes, some analysts
predict that political upheaval may lie ahead. Real wages for the average U. S. worker
peaked in 1973 and have been falling almost ever since. As a result, a growing group
of downwardly mobile Americans could soon begin pressing policymakers to help
produce better-paying jobs. Just how loud the outcry becomes will depend partly on
the course of the recession. But in the long run, there’s little doubt that the bleak
outlook for jobs and joblessness is “politically, socially and psychologically
dynamite”.
According to the passage, the unemployment rate has been kept under limits
because _____.
A ： the number of the people in the work force slowly increases
B ： very few people really lose their original jobs
C ： less and less people are out finding new jobs
D ： the government has taken strong measures to control the unemployment rate
10 、 不定项选择题
Hormones in the Body Up to the beginning of the twentieth century, the nervous
system was thought to control all communication within the body and the resulting
integration of behavior. Scientists had determined that nerves ran, essentially, on
electrical impulses. These impulses were thought to be the engine for thought,
emotion, movement, and internal processes such as digestion. However, experiments
by William Bayliss and Ernest Starling on the chemical secretin, which is produced in
the small intestine when food enters the stomach, eventually challenged that view.
From the small intestine, secretin travels through the bloodstream to the pancreas.
There, it stimulates the release of digestive chemicals. In this fashion, the intestinal
cells that produce secretin ultimately regulate the production of different chemicals
in a different organ, the pancreas.
Such a coordination of processes had been thought to require control by the
nervous system; Bayliss and Starling showed that it could occur through chemicals
alone. This discovery spurred Starting to coin the term hormone to refer to secretin,
taking it from the Greek word hormon, meaning “to excite” or “to set in
motion.” A hormone is a chemical produced by one tissue to make things happenelsewhere.
As more hormones were discovered, they were categorized, primarily according
to the process by which they operated on the body. Some glands (which make up the
endocrine system) secrete hormones directly into the bloodstream. Such glands
include the thyroid and the pituitary. The exocrine system consists of organs and
glands that produce substances that are used outside the bloodstream, primarily for
digestion. The pancreas is one such organ, although it secretes some chemicals into
the blood and thus is also part of the endocrine system.
Much has been learned about hormones since their discovery. Some play such
key roles in regulating bodily processes or behavior that their absence would cause
immediate death. The most abundant hormones have effects that are less obviously
urgent but can be more far-reaching and difficult to track: They modify moods and
affect human behavior, even some behavior we normally think of as voluntary.
Hormonal systems are very intricate. Even minute amounts of the right chemicals can
suppress appetite, calm aggression, and change the attitude of a parent toward a
child. Certain hormones accelerate the development of the body, regulating growth
and form; others may even define an individual’s personality characteristics. The
quantities and proportions of hormones produce change with age, so scientists have
given a great deal of study to shifts in the endocrine system over time in the hopes of
alleviating ailments associated with aging.
In fact, some hormone therapies are already very common. A combination of
estrogen and progesterone has been prescribed for decades to women who want to
reduce mood swings, sudden changes in body temperature, and other discomforts
caused by lower natural levels of those hormones as they enter middle age. Known
as hormone replacement therapy (HRT), the treatment was also believed to prevent
weakening of the bones. At least one study has linked HRT with a heightened risk of
heart disease and certain types of cancer. HRT may also increase the likelihood that
blood clots—dangerous because they could travel through the bloodstream and
block major blood vessels—will form. Some proponents of HRT have tempered their
enthusiasm in the face of this new evidence, recommending it only to patients whose
symptoms interfere with their abilities to live normal lives.
Human growth hormone may also be given to patients who are secreting
abnormally low amounts on their own. Because of the complicated effects growth
hormone has on the body, such treatments are generally restricted to children who
would be pathologically small in stature without it. Growth hormone affects not just
physical size but also the digestion of food and the aging process. Researchers and
family physicians tend to agree that it is foolhardy to dispense it in cases in which the
risks are not clearly outweighed by the benefits.
Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the
highlighted sentence in the passage?
A ： Most moods and actions are not voluntary because they are actually produced
by the production of hormones in the body.
B ： ecause the effects of hormones are difficult to measure, scientists remain
unsure how far-reaching their effects on moods and actions are.
C ： When the body is not producing enough hormones, urgent treatment may be
necessary to avoid psychological damage.
D ： The influence of many hormones is not easy to measure, but they can affect
both people’s psychology and actions extensively.11 、 不定项选择题
It’s nothing new that English use is on the rise around the world, especially in
business circles. This also happens in France, the headquarters of the global battle
against American cultural hegemony. If French guys are giving in to English,
something really big must be going on. And something big is going on.
Partly, it’s that American hegemony. Didier Benchimol, CEO of a French e-
commerce software company, feels compelled to speak English perfectly because the
Internet software business is dominated by Americans. He and other French
businessmen also have to speak, English because they want to get their message out
to American investors, possessors of the world’s deepest pockets.
The triumph of English in France and elsewhere in Europe, however, may rest on
something more enduring. As they become entwined with each other politically and
economically, Europeans need a way to talk to one another and to the rest of the
world. And for a number of reasons, they’ve decided upon English as their common
tongue.
So when German chemical and pharmaceutical company Hoechst merged with
French competitor Rhone-Poulenc last year, the companies chose the vaguely
Latinate Aventis as the new company name—and settled on English as the
company’s common language. When monetary policymakers from around Europe
began meeting at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt last year to set interest
rates for the new Euroland, they held their deliberations in English. Even the
European Commission, with 11 official languages and a traditionally French-spiriting
bureaucracy, effectively switched over to English as its working language last year.
How did this happen? One school attributes English’s great success to the sheer
weight of its merit. It’s a Germanic language, brought to Britain around the fifth
century A.D. During the four centuries of French-speaking rule that followed Norman
Conquest of 1066, the language morphed into something else entirely. French words
were added wholesale, and most of the complications of Germanic grammar were
shed while few of the complications of French were added. The result is a language
with a huge vocabulary and a simple grammar that can express most things more
efficiently than either of its parents. What’s more, English has remained
ungoverned and open to change—foreign words, coinages, and grammatical
shifts—in a way that French, ruled by the purist Académie Francaise, has not.
So it’s a swell language, especially for business. But the rise of English over the
past few centuries clearly owes at least as much to history and economies as to the
language’s ability to economically express the concept win-win. What happened is
that the competition—first Latin, then French, then, briefly, German—faded with the
waning of the political, economic, and military fortunes of, respectively, the Catholic
Church, France, and Germany. All along, English was increasing in importance: Britain
was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and London the world’s most
important financial center, which made English a key language for business.
England’s colonies around the world also made it the language with the most global
reach. And as that former colony the U.S. rose to the status of the world’s
preeminent political, economic, military, and cultural power, English became the
obvious second language to learn.
In the 1990s more and more Europeans found themselves forced to use English.
The last generation of business and government leaders who hadn’t studied English
in school was leaving the stage. The European Community was adding new members
and evolving from a paper-shuffling club into a serious regional government thatwould need a single common language if it were ever to get anything done.
Meanwhile, economic barriers between European nations have been disappearing,
meaning that more and more companies are beginning to look at the whole
continent as their domestic market. And then the Internet came along.
The Net had two big impacts. One was that it was an exciting, potentially
lucrative new industry that had its roots in the U.S., so if you wanted to get in on it,
you had to speak some English. The other was that by surfing the Web, Europeans
who had previously encountered English only in school and in pop songs were now
coming into contact with it daily.
None of this means English has taken over European life. According to the
European Union, 47% of Western Europeans (including the British and Irish) speak
English well enough to carry on a conversation. That’s a lot more than those who
can speak German (32%) or French (28%), but it still means more Europeans don’t
speak the language. If you want to sell shampoo or cell phones, you have to do it in
French or German or Spanish or Greek. Even the U.S. and British media companies
that stand to benefit most from the spread of English have been hedging their
bets—CNN broadcasts in Spanish; the?Financial Times?has recently launched a daily
German-language edition.
But just look at who speaks English: 77% of Western European college student,
69% of managers, and 65% of those aged 15 to 24. In the secondary schools of the
European Union’s non-English-speaking countries, 91% of students study English,
all of which means that the transition to English as the language of European
business hasn’t been all that traumatic, and it’s only going to get easier in the
future.
In the author’s opinion, what really underlies the rising status of English in France
and Europe is _____.
A ： merican dominance in the Internet software business
B ： a practical need for effective communication among Europeans
C ： Europeans’ eagerness to do business with American businessmen
D ： the recent trend for foreign companies to merge with each other
12 、 不定项选择题
Children as young as four will study Shakespeare in a project being launched today
by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
The RSC is holding its first national conference for primary school teachers to
encourage them to use the Bard’s plays imaginatively in the classroom from
reception classes onwards. The conference will be told that they should learn how
Shakespearian characters like Puck in?A Midsummer Night’s Dream?are “jolly
characters” and how to write about them.
At present, the national curriculum does not require pupils to approach
Shakespeare until secondary school. All it says is that pupils should study “texts
drawn from a variety of cultures and traditions” and “myths, legends and
traditional stories”.
However, educationists at the RSC believe children will gain a better appreciation
of Shakespeare if they are introduced to him at a much younger age. “Even very
young children can enjoy Shakespeare’s plays,” said Mary Johnson, head of the
learning department. “It is just a question of pitching it for the age group. Even
reception classes and key stage one pupils (five-to-seven-year-olds) can enjoy hisstories. For instance, if you build up Puck as a character who skips, children of that
age can enjoy the character. They can be inspired by Puck and they could even start
writing about him at that age.”
It is the RSC’s belief that building the Bard up as a fun playwright in primary
school could counter some of the negative images conjured up about teaching
Shakespeare in secondary schools. Then, pupils have to concentrate on scenes from
the plays to answer questions for compulsory English national-curriculum tests for
14-year-olds. Critics of the tests have complained that pupils no longer have the time
to study or read the whole play—and therefore lose interest in Shakespeare.
However, Ms. Johnson is encouraging teachers to present 20-minute versions of
the plays—a classroom version of the?Reduced Shakespeare Company’s Complete
Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)?which told his 37 plays in 97 minutes—to give
pupils a flavour of the whole drama.
The RSC’s venture coincides with a call for schools to allow pupils to be more
creative in writing about Shakespeare. Professor Kate McLuskie, the new director of
the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute - also based in
Stratford—said it was time to get away from the idea that there was “a right
answer” to any question about Shakespeare. Her first foray into the world of
Shakespeare was to berate him as a misogynist in a 1985 essay but she now insists
this should not be interpreted as a criticism of his works—although she admits: “I
probably wouldn’t have written it quite the same way if I had been writing it now.
What we should be doing is making sure that someone is getting something out of
Shakespeare,” she said. “People are very scared about getting the right answer. I
know it’s difficult but I don’t care if they come up with a right answer that I can
agree with about Shakespeare.”
What’s Puck’s characteristic according to your understanding of the passage?
A ： Rude, rush and impolite.
B ： Happy, interesting and full of fun.
C ： Dull, absurd and ridiculous.
D ： Shrewd, cunning and tricky.
13 、 不定项选择题
A closer observer of the small screen once called it a “vast wasteland of violence,
sadism and murder, private eyes, gangsters and more violence - and cartoons.” That
is how Newton Minow, a US television regulator, described it in 1961.
Since than television language has become more colourful, violence more
explicit and sex more prevalent.?Lady Chatterley’s Lover has moved from the
banned book shelf to a classic BBC serial.
Concern over such changing standards has shaped our view of television—and
masked its broader influence in developing countries.
To illustrate its effects, Kenny cites the case of Brazil. When television there
began to show a steady diet of local soaps in the 1970s, Brazilian women typically
had five or more children and were trapped in poverty. As the popularity of the soaps
grew, birth rates fell
According to researchers, 72% of the leading female characters in the main
soaps had no children and only 7% had more than one. One study calculated that
such soaps had the same effect on fertility rates as keeping girls in school for fiveyears more than normal.
It is not just birth rates that are affected. Kenny notes: “Kids who watch TV out
of school, according to a World Bank survey of young people in the shanty towns of
Fortaleza in Brazil, are considerably less likely to consume drugs.”
Television appears to have more power to reduce youth drug use than the
strictures of an educated mother and Brazilian soaps presenting educated urban
woman running their own businesses are thought to be compelling role models.
Television can also improve health, In Ghana a soap opera line that warned
mothers they were feeding their children “more than just rice” if they did not wash
their hands after defecating was followed by a seemingly permanent improvement in
personal hygiene.
Why do such changes happen? Simple, says Kenny: soap operas, whether local
versions of Ugly Betty or vintage imports of Baywatch, open up new horizons.
“Some hours could he better spout planting trees, helping old ladies across the road
or playing cricket,” he said. “But watching TV exposes people to new ideas and
different people. With that will come greater opportunity, growing equality and a
better understanding of the world. Not bad.”
What is the meaning of “mask” in the third paragraph?
A ： suggest
B ： cover
C ： discover
D ： reveal
14 、 不定项选择题
I live in the land of Disney, Hollywood and year-round sun. You may think people in
such a glamorous, fun-filled p lace are happier than others. If so, you have some
mistaken ideas about the nature of happiness.
Many intelligent people still equate happiness with fun. The truth is that fun and
happiness have little or nothing in common. Fun is what we experience during an act.
Happiness is what we experience after an act. It is a deeper more abiding emotion.
Going to an amusement park or ball game, watching a movie or television, are
fun activities that help us relax, temporarily forget our problems and maybe even
laugh. But they do not bring happiness, because their positive effects end when the
fun ends.
I have often thought that if Hollywood stars have a role to play, it is to teach us
that happiness has nothing to do with fan. These rich, beautiful individuals have
constant access to glamorous parties, fancy cars, expensive homes, everything that
spells “happiness”. But in memoir after memoir, celebrities reveal the unhappiness
hidden beneath all their fun: depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, broken
marriages, troubled children and profound loneliness.
Ask a bachelor why he resists marriage even though he finds dating to be less
and less satisfying. If he’s honest, he will tell you that he is afraid of making a
commitment. For commitment is in tact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun,
adventure and excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most
distinguishing features.
Similarly, couples that choose not to have children are deciding in favor of
painless fun over painful happiness. They can dine out ever they want and sleep as
late as they want. Couples with infant children are lucky to get a whole night’s sleepor a three-day vacation. I don’t know any parent who would choose the word fun to
describe raising children.
Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is
one of the most liberating realizations we can ever come to. It liberates time: now we
can devote more hours to activities that can genuinely increase our happiness. It
liberates money: buying that new car or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to
increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy: we now
understand that all those rich and glamorous people we were so sure are happy
because they are always having so much fun actually may not be happy at all.
In the author’s opinion, marriage _____.
A ： affords greater fun
B ： leads to raising children
C ： indicates commitment
D ： ends in pain
15 、 不定项选择题
When the television is good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines, or
newspapers—nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite
you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and
stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, or anything else to distract you and
keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you
will observe a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, violence,
audience-participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families,
blood and thunder, Mayhem, more violence, sadism, murder, Western badmen,
Western goodmen, private eyes, Gangsters, still more violence, and cartoons. And
endlessly, commercials that stream and cajole and offend. And most of all, boredom.
True, you will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if
you think I exaggerate, try it.
Is there no room on television to teach, to inform, to uplift, to stretch, to enlarge
the capacities of our children? Is there no room for programs to deepen the
children’s understanding of children in other lands? Is there no room for a
children’s news show explaining something about the world for them at their level
of understanding? Is there no room for reading the great literature of the past,
teaching them the great traditions of freedom? There are some fine children’s
shows, but they are drowned out in the massive doses of cartoons, violence, and
more violence. Must these be your trademarks? Search your conscience and see
whether you cannot offer more to your young beneficiaries whose future you guard
so many hours each and every day.
There are many people in this great country, and you must serve all of us. You
will get no argument from me if you say that, given a choice between a Western and a
symphony, more people will watch the Western. I like Westerns and private eyes,
too—but a steady diet for the whole country is obviously not in the public interest.
We all know that people would more often prefer to be entertained than stimulated
or informed. But your obligations are not satisfied if you look only to popularity as a
test of what to broadcast. Yon are not only in show business: you are free to
communicate ideas as well as to give relaxation. You must provide a wide range ofchoices, more diversity, more alternatives. It is not enough to cater to the nation’s
whims—you must also serve the nation’s needs. The people own the air. They own
it as much in prime evening time as they do at six o’clock in the morning. For every
hour that the people give you--you own them something. I intend to see that your
debt is paid with service.
Concerning programs for children, it may be inferred that the author believes that
such programs should _____.
A ： include no cartoons at all
B ： include ones which provide culture
C ： be presented only in the morning
D ： be presented without commercials
16 、 不定项选择题
What is the charm of necklaces? Why would anyone put something extra around her
neck and then invest it with special significance? A necklace doesn’t afford warmth
in cold weather, like a scarf, or protection in combat, like chain mail; it only
decorates. We might say it borrows meaning from what it surrounds and sets off: the
head with its supremely important material contents, and the face, that register of
the soul. When photograph reduces the reality it represents, they mention not only
the passage from three dimensions to two, but also the selection of a?point du
vue?favors the top of the body rather than the bottom and the front rather than the
back. The face is the jewel in the crown of the body, and so we give it a setting.
When people are intensely concerned with something that is obviously
impractical, anthropologists take note, for lovely useless things often express archaic
to exist in contemporary American houses already heated by gas and electricity, yet
most people want one and it is still the focus of the living room. This desire testifies, I
think, to the hundreds of thousands of years during which we Homo sapiens huddled
around a cave fire. We watch ourselves, rather anxiously, vanish backward down
those lone temporary corridors, as my daughter gazes at her infinitely multiplied
small self in the mutually opposed mirrors of the beauty salon, and wonders, is it
me? Our fireplaces and necklaces and tombstones say it is, they are.
In American culture, an interest in necklaces seems to be rather gender specific.
Many men to whom I mention the enterprise feign polite interest and then change
the subject, though I know some who admire, construct, and wear necklaces,
including the distinguished scientist and poet to whom this essay is dedicated. Most
women, by contrast, become mildly or wildly enthusiastic. A doctor in Blois brought
out her entire collection of costume jewelry for me, exhibited the most splendid
pieces with an account of where and when they were purchased, and then explain
them all with the help of a large glossy book on the history of costume jewelry, with
dozens of pictures. A former student of mine who had moved to California mailed me
six plastic boxes full of beads gleaned from a warehouse managed by an eccentric
friend who just their settings; a feature bead painted with a naked lady; crystal
roundels of truly exceptional shine; and tiny silver hematite seed beads. Beads lend
themselves to exchange, Beads travel. And clearly these two facts are related.
From this article we can gather that _____.
A ： Only women like necklacesB ： Only men like necklaces
C ： Most women like necklaces
D ： Most men like necklaces
17 、 不定项选择题
In its modern form the concept of “literature” did not emerge earlier than the
eighteenth century and was not fully developed until the nineteenth century. Yet the
conditions for its emergence had been developing since the Renaissance. The word
itself came into English use in the fourteenth century, following French and Latin
precedents; its root was Latin?littera, a letter of the alphabet.?Litterature, in the
common early spelling, was then in effect a condition of reading: of being able to
read and of having read. It was often close to the sense of modern?literacy, which
was not in the language until the late nineteenth century, its introduction in part
made necessary by the movement of?literature?to a different sense. The normal
adjective associated with literature was?literate. Literary appeared in the sense of
reading ability and experience in the seventeenth century, and did not acquire its
specialized modern meaning until the eighteenth century.
Literature?as a new category was then a specialization of the area formerly
categorized as?rhetoric?and?grammar: a specialization to reading and, in the material
context of the development of printing, to the printed word and especially the book.
It was eventually to become a more general category than?poetry?or the
earlier?poesy, which had been general terms for imaginative composition, but which
in relation to the development of?literaturebecame predominantly specialized, from
the seventeenth century, to metrical composition and especially written and printed
metrical composition. But literature was never primarily the active composition─the
“making”─which poetry had described. As reading rather than writing, it was a
category of a different kind. The characteristic use can be seen in Bacon “learned in
all literature and erudition, divine and humane”─and as late as Johnson “he had
probably more than common literature, as his son addresses him in one of his most
elaborate Latin poems.”?Literature, that is to say, was a category of use and
condition rather than of production. It was a particular specialization of what had
hitherto been seen as an activity or practice, and a specialization, in the
circumstances, which was inevitably made in terms of social class. In its first
extended sense, beyond the bare sense of “literacy,” it was a definition of
“polite” or “humane” learning, and thus specified a particular social distinction.
New political concepts of the “nation” and new valuations of the “vernacular”
interacted with a persistent emphasis on “literature” as reading in the “classical”
languages. But still, in this first stage, into the eighteenth century,?literature?was
primarily a generalized social concept, expressing a certain (minority) level of
educational achievement. This carded with it a potential and eventually realized
alternative definition of?literature?as “printed books:” the objects in and through
which this achievement was demonstrated.
It is important that, within the terms of this development, literature normally
included all printed books. There was not necessary specialization to “imaginative”
works. Literature was still primarily reading ability and experience, and this included
philosophy, history, and essays as well as poems. Were the new eighteenth century
novels literature? That question was first approached, not by definition of their mode
or content, but by reference to the standards of “polite” or “humane” learning.Was drama literature? This question was to exercise successive generations, not
because of any substantial difficulty but because of the practical limits of the
category. If literature was reading, could a mode written for spoken performance be
said to be literature, and if not, where was Shakespeare?
At one level the definition indicated by this development has persisted.
Literature lost its earliest sense of reading ability and reading experience, and
became an apparently objective category of printed works of a certain quality. The
concerns of a “literary editor” or a “literary supplement” would still be defined
in this way. But three complicating tendencies can then be distinguished: first, a shift
from “learning” to “taste” or “sensibility” as a criterion defining literary
quality; second, an increasing specialization of literature to “creative” or
“imaginative” works; third, a development of the concept of “tradition” within
national terms, resulting in the more effective definition of “a national literature.”
The source of each of these tendencies can be discerned from the Renaissance, but it
was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that they came through most
powerfully, until they became, in the twentieth century, in effect received
assumptions.
What did literature mean in its earliest sense?
A ： Reading ability.
B ： Reading ability and experience
C ： Writing ability
D ： Reading and writing
18 、 不定项选择题
When the television is good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines, or
newspapers—nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite
you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and
stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, or anything else to distract you and
keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you
will observe a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, violence,
audience-participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families,
blood and thunder, Mayhem, more violence, sadism, murder, Western badmen,
Western goodmen, private eyes, Gangsters, still more violence, and cartoons. And
endlessly, commercials that stream and cajole and offend. And most of all, boredom.
True, you will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if
you think I exaggerate, try it.
Is there no room on television to teach, to inform, to uplift, to stretch, to enlarge
the capacities of our children? Is there no room for programs to deepen the
children’s understanding of children in other lands? Is there no room for a
children’s news show explaining something about the world for them at their level
of understanding? Is there no room for reading the great literature of the past,
teaching them the great traditions of freedom? There are some fine children’s
shows, but they are drowned out in the massive doses of cartoons, violence, and
more violence. Must these be your trademarks? Search your conscience and see
whether you cannot offer more to your young beneficiaries whose future you guard
so many hours each and every day.
There are many people in this great country, and you must serve all of us. Youwill get no argument from me if you say that, given a choice between a Western and a
symphony, more people will watch the Western. I like Westerns and private eyes,
too—but a steady diet for the whole country is obviously not in the public interest.
We all know that people would more often prefer to be entertained than stimulated
or informed. But your obligations are not satisfied if you look only to popularity as a
test of what to broadcast. Yon are not only in show business: you are free to
communicate ideas as well as to give relaxation. You must provide a wide range of
choices, more diversity, more alternatives. It is not enough to cater to the nation’s
whims—you must also serve the nation’s needs. The people own the air. They own
it as much in prime evening time as they do at six o’clock in the morning. For every
hour that the people give you--you own them something. I intend to see that your
debt is paid with service.
The author’s attitude toward television can best be described as _____.
A ： sullenness at defeat
B ： reconciliation with the broadcasters
C ： righteous indignation
D ： determination to prevail
19 、 不定项选择题
For the executive producer of a network nightly news programme, the workday often
begins at midnight as mine did during seven years with ABC’s evening newscast.
The first order of business was a call to the assignment desk for a pre-
bedtime?rundownof latest developments.
The assignment desk operates 24 hours a day, staffed by editors who move
crews, correspondents and equipment to the scene of events. Assignment-desk
editors ate logistics experts; they have to know plane schedules, satellite availability,
and whom to get in touch with at local stations and overseas broadcasting systems.
They are required to assess stories as they break on the wire services—sometimes
even before they do - and to decide how much effort to make to cover those stories.
When the United States was going to appeal to arms against Iraq, the number of
correspondents and crews was constantly evaluated. Based on reports from the field
and also upon the skilled judgments of desk editors in New York City, the right
number of personnel was kept on the alert. The rest were allowed to continue
working throughout the world, in America and Iraq ready to move but not tied down
by false alarms.
The studio staff of ABC’s “World News Tonight” assembles at 9 a.m. to
prepare for the 6:30 “air” p.m. deadline. Overnight dispatches from outlying
bureaus and press services are read. There are phone conversations with the
broadcast’s staff producers in domestic bureaus and with the London bureau
senior producer, who coordinates overseas coverage. A pattern emerges for the
day’s news, a pattern outlined in the executive producer’s first lineup. The lineup
tells the staff what stories are scheduled; what the priorities are for processing film of
editing tape; what scripts need to be written; what commercials ate scheduled; how
long stories should run and in what order. Without a lineup, there would be chaos.
Each story’s relative value in dollars and cents must be continually assessed by
the executive producer. Cutting back satellite booking to save money might mean
that an explanation delivered by an anchor person will replace actual photos of anevent. A decline in live coverage could send viewers away and drive ratings down, but
there is not enough money to do everything. So decisions must be made and made
rapidly—because delay can mean a missed connection for shipping tape or access to
a satellite blocked by a competitor.
The broadcasts themselves require pacing and style. The audience has to be
allowed to breathe between periods of intense excitement. A vivid pictorial report
followed by less exacting materials allows the viewer to reflect on information that
has just flashed by. Frequent switches from one anchor to another or from one film
or tape report to another create a sense of forward movement. Ideally, leading and
lags to stories are worked out with field correspondents, enabling them to fit their
reports into the programme’s narrative flow so the audience’s attention does not
wander and more substance is absorbed.
Scripts are constantly rewritten to blend well with incoming pictures. Good copy
is crisp, informative. Our rule: the fewer words the better. If a picture can do the
work, let it.
All the following can be employed to make the report more effective EXCEPT_____.
A ： providing more vivid pictures and details
B ： changing the style to cater for the audience’s appetite
C ： more live coverage to replace the linguistic explanation
D ： interval shifts of the materials of the coverage
20 、 不定项选择题
Hormones in the Body Up to the beginning of the twentieth century, the nervous
system was thought to control all communication within the body and the resulting
integration of behavior. Scientists had determined that nerves ran, essentially, on
electrical impulses. These impulses were thought to be the engine for thought,
emotion, movement, and internal processes such as digestion. However, experiments
by William Bayliss and Ernest Starling on the chemical secretin, which is produced in
the small intestine when food enters the stomach, eventually challenged that view.
From the small intestine, secretin travels through the bloodstream to the pancreas.
There, it stimulates the release of digestive chemicals. In this fashion, the intestinal
cells that produce secretin ultimately regulate the production of different chemicals
in a different organ, the pancreas.
Such a coordination of processes had been thought to require control by the
nervous system; Bayliss and Starling showed that it could occur through chemicals
alone. This discovery spurred Starting to coin the term hormone to refer to secretin,
taking it from the Greek word hormon, meaning “to excite” or “to set in
motion.” A hormone is a chemical produced by one tissue to make things happen
elsewhere.
As more hormones were discovered, they were categorized, primarily according
to the process by which they operated on the body. Some glands (which make up the
endocrine system) secrete hormones directly into the bloodstream. Such glands
include the thyroid and the pituitary. The exocrine system consists of organs and
glands that produce substances that are used outside the bloodstream, primarily for
digestion. The pancreas is one such organ, although it secretes some chemicals into
the blood and thus is also part of the endocrine system.
Much has been learned about hormones since their discovery. Some play suchkey roles in regulating bodily processes or behavior that their absence would cause
immediate death. The most abundant hormones have effects that are less obviously
urgent but can be more far-reaching and difficult to track: They modify moods and
affect human behavior, even some behavior we normally think of as voluntary.
Hormonal systems are very intricate. Even minute amounts of the right chemicals can
suppress appetite, calm aggression, and change the attitude of a parent toward a
child. Certain hormones accelerate the development of the body, regulating growth
and form; others may even define an individual’s personality characteristics. The
quantities and proportions of hormones produce change with age, so scientists have
given a great deal of study to shifts in the endocrine system over time in the hopes of
alleviating ailments associated with aging.
In fact, some hormone therapies are already very common. A combination of
estrogen and progesterone has been prescribed for decades to women who want to
reduce mood swings, sudden changes in body temperature, and other discomforts
caused by lower natural levels of those hormones as they enter middle age. Known
as hormone replacement therapy (HRT), the treatment was also believed to prevent
weakening of the bones. At least one study has linked HRT with a heightened risk of
heart disease and certain types of cancer. HRT may also increase the likelihood that
blood clots—dangerous because they could travel through the bloodstream and
block major blood vessels—will form. Some proponents of HRT have tempered their
enthusiasm in the face of this new evidence, recommending it only to patients whose
symptoms interfere with their abilities to live normal lives.
Human growth hormone may also be given to patients who are secreting
abnormally low amounts on their own. Because of the complicated effects growth
hormone has on the body, such treatments are generally restricted to children who
would be pathologically small in stature without it. Growth hormone affects not just
physical size but also the digestion of food and the aging process. Researchers and
family physicians tend to agree that it is foolhardy to dispense it in cases in which the
risks are not clearly outweighed by the benefits.
Which of the following sentences explains the primary goal of hormone replacement
therapy?
A ： The quantities and proportions of hormones produce change with age, so
scientists have given a great deal of study to shifts in the endocrine system over time
in the hopes of alleviating ailments associated with aging.
B ： A combination of estrogen and progesterone has been prescribed for decades to
women who want to reduce mood swings, sudden changes in body temperature, and
other discomforts caused by lower natural levels of those hormones as they enter
middle age.
C ： HRT may also increase the likelihood that blood clots—dangerous because they
could travel through the bloodstream and block major blood vessels—will form.
D ： Because of the complicated effects growth hormone has on the body, such
treatments are generally restricted to children who would be pathologically small in
stature without it.
21 、 不定项选择题
Australia’s frogs are having trouble finding love. Traffic noise and other sounds of
city life, such as air conditioners and construction noise, are drowning out the matingcalls of male frogs in urban areas, 1eading to a sharp drop in frog populations. But, in
the first study of its kind, Parris, a scientist at the University of Melbourne has found
that some frogs have figured out a way to compensate for human interference in
their love lives.
A male southern brown tree frog sends out a mating call when he’s looking for
a date. It is music to the ears of a female southern brown tree frog. But, add the
sounds of nearby traffic and the message just is not going out. Parris spent seven
years studying frogs around Melbourne. She says some frogs have come up with an
interesting strategy for making themselves heard.
“We found that it’s changing the pitch of its call, so going higher up, up the
frequency spectrum, being higher and squeakier, further away from the traffic noise
and this increases the distance over which it can be for heard,” Parris said.
The old call is lower in pitch. The new one is higher in pitch.
Now, that may sound like a pretty simple solution. But, changing their calls to
cope with a noisy environment is actually quite extraordinary for frogs. And while the
males have figured out how to make themselves heard above the noise, Parris says it
may not be what the females are looking for.
“When females have a choice between two males calling, they tend to select the
one that calls at a lower frequency because, in frogs, the frequency of a call is related
to body size. So, the bigger frogs tend to call lower,” she explained. “And so they
also tend to be the older frogs, the guys perhaps with more experience, they know
what they’re doing and the women are attracted to those.”
Frog populations in Melbourne have dropped considerably since Parris began
her research, but it is not just because of noise. Much of Australia has been locked in
a 10-year drought, leaving frogs fewer and fewer ponds to go looking for that special
someone.
Parris is the first person who made study for _____
A ： frog’s population
B ： frog’s love lives
C ： frog’s mating calls and living environment
D ： the effects of human noises on frog
22 、 不定项选择题
Traffic statistics paint a gloomy picture. To help solve their traffic woes, some rapidly
growing U.S. cities have simply built more roads. But traffic experts say building more
roads is a quick-fix solution that will not alleviate the traffic problem in the long run.
Soaring land costs, increasing concern over social and environmental disruptions
caused by road-building, and the likelihood that more roads can only lead to more
cars and traffic are powerful factors bearing down on a 1950s-style construction
program.
The goal of smart-highway technology is to make traffic systems work at
optimum efficiency by treating the road and the vehicles traveling on them as an
integral transportation system. Proponents of the advanced technology say electronic
detection systems, closed-circuit television, radio communication, ramp metering,
variable message signing, and other smart-highway technology can now be used at a
reasonable cost to improve communication between drivers and the people who
monitor traffic.
Pathfinder, a Santa Monica, California-based smart-highway project in which a14-mile stretch of the Santa Monica Freeway, making up what is called a “smart
corridor”, is being instrumented with buried loops in the pavement. Closed-circuit
television cameras survey the flow of traffic, while communication linked to property
equipped automobiles advise motorists of the least congested routes or detours.
Not all traffic experts, however, look to smart-highway technology as the
ultimate solution to traffic gridlock. Some say the high-tech approach is limited and
can only offer temporary solutions to a serious problem.
“Electronics on the highway addresses just one aspect of the problem: how to
regulate traffic more efficiently,” explains Michael Renner, senior researcher at the
world-watch Institute. “It doesn’t deal with the central problem of too many cars
for roads that can’t be built fast enough. It sends people the wrong message”.
They start thinking “Yes, there used to be a traffic congestion problem, but that’s
been solved now because we have advanced high-tech system in place.” Larson
agrees and adds, “Smart highway is just one of the tools that we use to deal with
our traffic problems. It’s not the solution itself, just pan of the package. There are
different strategies.”
Other traffic problem-solving options being studied and experimented with
include car pooling, rapid mass-transit systems, staggered or flexible work hours, and
road pricing, a system whereby motorists pay a certain amount for the time they use
a highway.
It seems that we need a new, major thrust to deal with the traffic problems of
the next 20 years. There has to be a big change.
According to Larson, to redress the traffic problem, _____.
A ： car pooling must be studied
B ： rapid mass transit system must be introduced
C ： flexible work hours must be experimented
D ： overall strategies must be coordinated
23 、 不定项选择题
“Popular art” has a number of meanings, impossible to define with any precision,
which range from folklore to junk. The poles are clear enough, but the middle tends
to blur. The Hollywood Western of the 1930’s, for example, has elements of
folklore, but is closer to junk than to high art or folk art. There can be great trash, just
as there is bad high art. The musicals of George Gershwin are great popular art,
never aspiring to high art. Schubert and Brahms, however, used elements of popular
music—folk themes—in works clearly intended as high art. The case of Verdi is a
different one: he took a popular genre—bourgeois melodrama set to music (an
accurate definition of nineteenth-century opera)—and, without altering its
fundamental nature, transmuted it into high art. This remains one of the greatest
achievements in music, and one that cannot be fully appreciated without recognizing
the essential trashiness of the genre.
As an example of such a transmutation, consider what Verdi made of the typical
political elements of nineteenth-century opera. Generally in the plots of these operas,
a hero or heroine—usually portrayed only as an individual, unfettered by class—is
caught between the immoral corruption of the aristocracy and the doctrinaire rigidity
or secret greed of the leaders of the proletariat. Verdi transforms this naive and
unlikely formulation with music of extraordinary energy and rhythmic vitality, musicmore subtle than it seems at first hearing. There are scenes and arias that still sound
like calls to arms and were clearly understood as such when they were first
performed. Such pieces lend an immediacy to the otherwise veiled political message
of these operas and call up feelings beyond those of the opera itself.
Or consider Verdi’s treatment of character. Before Verdi, there were rarely any
characters at all in musical drama, only a series of situations which allowed the
singers to express a series of emotional states. Any attempt to find coherent
psychological portrayal in these operas is misplaced ingenuity. The only coherence
was the singer’s vocal technique: when the cast changed, new arias were almost
always substituted, generally adapted from other operas. Verdi’s characters, on the
other hand, have genuine consistency and integrity, even if, in many cases, the
consistency is that of pasteboard melodrama. The integrity of the character is
achieved through the music: once he had become established, Verdi did not rewrite
his music for different singers or countenance alterations or substitutions of
somebody else’s arias in one of his operas, as every eighteenth-century composer
had done. When he revised an opera, it was only for dramatic economy and
effectiveness.
It can be inferred that the author regards Verdi’s revisions to his operas with _____.
A ： regret that the original music and texts were altered
B ： concern that many of the revisions altered the plots of the original work
C ： approval for the intentions that motivated the revisions
D ： puzzlement, since the revisions seem largely insignificant
24 、 不定项选择题
Students of United States history, seeking to identify the circumstances that
encouraged the emergence of feminist movements, have thoroughly investigated the
mid-nineteenth-century American economic and social conditions that affected the
status of women. These historians, however, have analyzed less fully the
development of specifically feminist ideas and activities during the same period.
Furthermore, the ideological origins of feminism in the United States have been
obscured because, even when historians did take into account those feminist ideas
and activities occurring within the United States, they failed to recognize that
feminism was then a truly international movement actually centered in Europe.
American feminist activists who have been described as “solitary” and “individual
theorists” were in reality connected to a movement —utopian socialism—which was
already popularizing feminist ideas in Europe during the two decades that
cachinnated in the first women’s rights conference held at Seneca Falls, New York,
in 1848. Thus, a complete understanding of the origins and development of
nineteenth-century feminism in the United States requires that the geographical
focus be widened to include Europe and that the detailed study already made of
social conditions be expanded to include the ideological development of feminism.
The earliest and most popular of the utopian socialists were the Saint-Simonians.
The specifically feminist part of Saint-Simonianism has, however, been less studied
than the group’s contribution to early socialism. This is regrettable on two accounts.
By 1832 feminism was the central concern of Saint-Simonianism and entirely
absorbed its adherents’ energy; hence, by ignoring its feminism, European
historians have misunderstood Saint-Simonianism. Moreover, since many feministideas can be traced to Saint-Simonianism, European historians’ appreciation of later
feminism in France and the United States remained limited.
Saint-Simon’s followers, many of whom were women, based their feminism on
an interpretation of his project to reorganize the globe by replacing brute force with
the rule of spiritual powers. The new world order would be ruled together by a male,
to represent reflection, and a female, to represent sentiment. This complementarity
reflects the fact that, while the Saint-Simonians did not reject the belief that there
were innate differences between men and women, they nevertheless foresaw an
equally important social and political role for both sexes in their Utopia.
Only a few Saint-Simonians opposed a definition of sexual equality based on
gender distinction. This minority believed that individuals of both sexes were born
similar in capacity and character, and they ascribed male-female differences to
socialization and education. The envisioned result of both currents of thought,
however, was that women would enter public life in the new age and that sexual
equality would reward men as well as women with an improved way of life.
According to the passage, which of the following would be the most accurate
description of the society envisioned by most Saint-Simonians?
A ： society in which women were highly regarded for their extensive education.
B ： A society in which the two genders played complementary roles and had equal
status.
C ： A society in which women did not enter public life.
D ： A social order in which a body of men and women would rule together on the
basis of their spiritual power.
25 、 不定项选择题
The molecules of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere affect the heat balance
of the Earth by acting as a one-way screen. Although these molecules allow radiation
at visible wavelengths, where most of the energy of sunlight is concentrated, to pass
through, they absorb some of the longer-wavelength, infrared emissions radiated
from the Earth’s surface, radiation that would otherwise be transmitted back into
space. For the Earth to maintain a constant average temperature, such emissions
from the planet must balance incoming solar radiation. If there were no carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere, heat would escape from the Earth much more easily. The
surface temperature would be so much lower that the oceans might be a solid mass
of ice.
Today, however, the potential problem is too much carbon dioxide. The burning
of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide
by about 15 percent in the last hundred years, and we continue to add carbon
dioxide to the atmosphere. Could the increase in carbon dioxide cause a global rise
in average temperature, and could such a rise have serious consequences for human
society? Mathematical models that allow us to calculate the rise in temperature as a
function of the increase indicate that the answer is probably yes.
Under present conditions a temperature of -18℃ can be observed at an altitude
of 5 to 6 kilometers above the Earth. Below this altitude (called the radiating level),
the temperature increases by about 6℃ per kilometer approaching the Earth’s
surface, where the average temperature is about 15℃. An increase in the amount of
carbon dioxide means that there are more molecules of carbon dioxide to absorbinfrared radiation. As the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb infrared radiation
increases, the radiating level and the temperature of the surface must rise. One
mathematical model predicts that doubling the atmospheric carbon dioxide would
raise the global mean surface temperature by 2.5℃: This model assumes that the
atmosphere’s relative humidity remains constant and the temperature decreases
with altitude at a rate of 6.5℃ per kilometer. The assumption of constant relative
humidity is important, because water vapor in the atmosphere is another efficient
absorber of radiation at infrared wavelengths. Because warm air can hold more
moisture than cool air, the relative humidity will be constant only if the amount of
water vapor in the atmosphere increases as the temperature rises. Therefore, more
infrared radiation would be absorbed and reradiated back to the Earth’s surface.
The resultant warming at the surface could be expected to melt snow and ice,
reducing the Earth’s reflectivity. More solar radiation would then be absorbed,
leading to a further increase in temperature.
It can be concluded from information contained in the passage that the average
temperature at an altitude of 1 kilometer above the Earth is about _____.
A ： 15℃
B ： 9℃
C ： 2.5℃
D ： -12℃
26 、 不定项选择题
When the television is good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines, or
newspapers—nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite
you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and
stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, or anything else to distract you and
keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you
will observe a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, violence,
audience-participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families,
blood and thunder, Mayhem, more violence, sadism, murder, Western badmen,
Western goodmen, private eyes, Gangsters, still more violence, and cartoons. And
endlessly, commercials that stream and cajole and offend. And most of all, boredom.
True, you will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if
you think I exaggerate, try it.
Is there no room on television to teach, to inform, to uplift, to stretch, to enlarge
the capacities of our children? Is there no room for programs to deepen the
children’s understanding of children in other lands? Is there no room for a
children’s news show explaining something about the world for them at their level
of understanding? Is there no room for reading the great literature of the past,
teaching them the great traditions of freedom? There are some fine children’s
shows, but they are drowned out in the massive doses of cartoons, violence, and
more violence. Must these be your trademarks? Search your conscience and see
whether you cannot offer more to your young beneficiaries whose future you guard
so many hours each and every day.
There are many people in this great country, and you must serve all of us. You
will get no argument from me if you say that, given a choice between a Western and a
symphony, more people will watch the Western. I like Westerns and private eyes,too—but a steady diet for the whole country is obviously not in the public interest.
We all know that people would more often prefer to be entertained than stimulated
or informed. But your obligations are not satisfied if you look only to popularity as a
test of what to broadcast. Yon are not only in show business: you are free to
communicate ideas as well as to give relaxation. You must provide a wide range of
choices, more diversity, more alternatives. It is not enough to cater to the nation’s
whims—you must also serve the nation’s needs. The people own the air. They own
it as much in prime evening time as they do at six o’clock in the morning. For every
hour that the people give you--you own them something. I intend to see that your
debt is paid with service.
The statement that “the people own the air” implies that _____.
A ： citizens have the right to insist on worthwhile television programs
B ： television should be socialized to cater to the nation’s whims
C ： the government may build above present structures
D ： the people own nothing, for air is worthless
27 、 不定项选择题
It’s nothing new that English use is on the rise around the world, especially in
business circles. This also happens in France, the headquarters of the global battle
against American cultural hegemony. If French guys are giving in to English,
something really big must be going on. And something big is going on.
Partly, it’s that American hegemony. Didier Benchimol, CEO of a French e-
commerce software company, feels compelled to speak English perfectly because the
Internet software business is dominated by Americans. He and other French
businessmen also have to speak, English because they want to get their message out
to American investors, possessors of the world’s deepest pockets.
The triumph of English in France and elsewhere in Europe, however, may rest on
something more enduring. As they become entwined with each other politically and
economically, Europeans need a way to talk to one another and to the rest of the
world. And for a number of reasons, they’ve decided upon English as their common
tongue.
So when German chemical and pharmaceutical company Hoechst merged with
French competitor Rhone-Poulenc last year, the companies chose the vaguely
Latinate Aventis as the new company name—and settled on English as the
company’s common language. When monetary policymakers from around Europe
began meeting at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt last year to set interest
rates for the new Euroland, they held their deliberations in English. Even the
European Commission, with 11 official languages and a traditionally French-spiriting
bureaucracy, effectively switched over to English as its working language last year.
How did this happen? One school attributes English’s great success to the sheer
weight of its merit. It’s a Germanic language, brought to Britain around the fifth
century A.D. During the four centuries of French-speaking rule that followed Norman
Conquest of 1066, the language morphed into something else entirely. French words
were added wholesale, and most of the complications of Germanic grammar were
shed while few of the complications of French were added. The result is a language
with a huge vocabulary and a simple grammar that can express most things more
efficiently than either of its parents. What’s more, English has remainedungoverned and open to change—foreign words, coinages, and grammatical
shifts—in a way that French, ruled by the purist Académie Francaise, has not.
So it’s a swell language, especially for business. But the rise of English over the
past few centuries clearly owes at least as much to history and economies as to the
language’s ability to economically express the concept win-win. What happened is
that the competition—first Latin, then French, then, briefly, German—faded with the
waning of the political, economic, and military fortunes of, respectively, the Catholic
Church, France, and Germany. All along, English was increasing in importance: Britain
was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and London the world’s most
important financial center, which made English a key language for business.
England’s colonies around the world also made it the language with the most global
reach. And as that former colony the U.S. rose to the status of the world’s
preeminent political, economic, military, and cultural power, English became the
obvious second language to learn.
In the 1990s more and more Europeans found themselves forced to use English.
The last generation of business and government leaders who hadn’t studied English
in school was leaving the stage. The European Community was adding new members
and evolving from a paper-shuffling club into a serious regional government that
would need a single common language if it were ever to get anything done.
Meanwhile, economic barriers between European nations have been disappearing,
meaning that more and more companies are beginning to look at the whole
continent as their domestic market. And then the Internet came along.
The Net had two big impacts. One was that it was an exciting, potentially
lucrative new industry that had its roots in the U.S., so if you wanted to get in on it,
you had to speak some English. The other was that by surfing the Web, Europeans
who had previously encountered English only in school and in pop songs were now
coming into contact with it daily.
None of this means English has taken over European life. According to the
European Union, 47% of Western Europeans (including the British and Irish) speak
English well enough to carry on a conversation. That’s a lot more than those who
can speak German (32%) or French (28%), but it still means more Europeans don’t
speak the language. If you want to sell shampoo or cell phones, you have to do it in
French or German or Spanish or Greek. Even the U.S. and British media companies
that stand to benefit most from the spread of English have been hedging their
bets—CNN broadcasts in Spanish; the?Financial Times?has recently launched a daily
German-language edition.
But just look at who speaks English: 77% of Western European college student,
69% of managers, and 65% of those aged 15 to 24. In the secondary schools of the
European Union’s non-English-speaking countries, 91% of students study English,
all of which means that the transition to English as the language of European
business hasn’t been all that traumatic, and it’s only going to get easier in the
future.
The passage mainly examines the factors related to _____.
A ： the rising status of English in Europe
B ： English learning in non-English-speaking E.U. nations
C ： the preference for English by European businessmen
D ： the switch from French to English in the European Commission
28 、 不定项选择题I was eight years old the first time I fainted. I was at friend’s house, and a bee stung
me on the back of the neck. I had felt nothing but a slight pinch and the bug was
soon wiped away and flushed down the toilet, but since I looked pale I was urged to
call my mother. As I told her what had happened, I felt myself blacking out, sinking to
the floor, vaguely aware that I was still gripping the receiver.
Perhaps I was allergic to the bee sting—the only one I’ve ever gotten, although
to this day I have a phobia about bees, wasps, and other insects. But the image of an
eight-year-old in Keds crumpling to the ground while he describes his injury to his
Mommy seems to return us to Freudian territory. Note the umbilical image of the
phone cord.
Call me fanciful. Still, I’m afraid these undertones are hardly dissipated by the
second fainting incident I can recall, which practically reeks of the family romance.
This took place one weekend morning while we were gathered in the kitchen to eat
breakfast. My mother stood at the stove making French toast, which she had already
served to the kids; my father, seated at the table, was cutting a bagel with a sharp
bread knife. Contrary to every principle of kitchen safety, he was holding the bagel in
his hand and cutting inward, and eventually he made a neat, shallow incision in his
palm. The blood was profuse.
Being a hematologist, my father didn’t panic: this was just business as usual.
But my mother stopped flipping French toast and collapsed to the floor. I, inspired by
the blood and my mother’s collapse and the powerful odors of syrup and sugar
rising from my plate, slumped forward. My forehead went into the syrup. I heard a
roar—it seemed to me that I was being clutched beneath the armpits and whirled
around—and then my father shook me back into consciousness. He had already
attended to my mother.
Still think I’m fanciful? Then listen to this. Out of curiosity I asked my mother
when her first fainting episode had occurred.
She paused, thought it over, and came up with the following. At the age of
thirteen, she went to visit her father in the hospital, who only the day before had had
his appendix removed. Aside from her father, still conked out from the anesthesia,
the other person in the room was a nurse, who was busy changing the dressing on
the patient’s incision, which hadn’t quite closed. For some reason, the nurse had
to leave the room. At this point, she asked my mother to hold the soiled dressing in
place until she returned. My mother complied. Standing over her dazed father,
gingerly holding a used bandage over a hole in his lower abdomen, the thirteen-year-
old grew lightheaded. I assumed the nurse returned before she hit the floor.
It can be gathered from this article that the tendency to faint most probably is _____.
A ： genetically determined
B ： independently developed
C ： virus infected
D ： emotionally affected
29 、 不定项选择题
I was eight years old the first time I fainted. I was at friend’s house, and a bee stung
me on the back of the neck. I had felt nothing but a slight pinch and the bug was
soon wiped away and flushed down the toilet, but since I looked pale I was urged to
call my mother. As I told her what had happened, I felt myself blacking out, sinking tothe floor, vaguely aware that I was still gripping the receiver.
Perhaps I was allergic to the bee sting—the only one I’ve ever gotten, although
to this day I have a phobia about bees, wasps, and other insects. But the image of an
eight-year-old in Keds crumpling to the ground while he describes his injury to his
Mommy seems to return us to Freudian territory. Note the umbilical image of the
phone cord.
Call me fanciful. Still, I’m afraid these undertones are hardly dissipated by the
second fainting incident I can recall, which practically reeks of the family romance.
This took place one weekend morning while we were gathered in the kitchen to eat
breakfast. My mother stood at the stove making French toast, which she had already
served to the kids; my father, seated at the table, was cutting a bagel with a sharp
bread knife. Contrary to every principle of kitchen safety, he was holding the bagel in
his hand and cutting inward, and eventually he made a neat, shallow incision in his
palm. The blood was profuse.
Being a hematologist, my father didn’t panic: this was just business as usual.
But my mother stopped flipping French toast and collapsed to the floor. I, inspired by
the blood and my mother’s collapse and the powerful odors of syrup and sugar
rising from my plate, slumped forward. My forehead went into the syrup. I heard a
roar—it seemed to me that I was being clutched beneath the armpits and whirled
around—and then my father shook me back into consciousness. He had already
attended to my mother.
Still think I’m fanciful? Then listen to this. Out of curiosity I asked my mother
when her first fainting episode had occurred.
She paused, thought it over, and came up with the following. At the age of
thirteen, she went to visit her father in the hospital, who only the day before had had
his appendix removed. Aside from her father, still conked out from the anesthesia,
the other person in the room was a nurse, who was busy changing the dressing on
the patient’s incision, which hadn’t quite closed. For some reason, the nurse had
to leave the room. At this point, she asked my mother to hold the soiled dressing in
place until she returned. My mother complied. Standing over her dazed father,
gingerly holding a used bandage over a hole in his lower abdomen, the thirteen-year-
old grew lightheaded. I assumed the nurse returned before she hit the floor.
The faint related to the bee sting led to the author’s fear later in her life of _____.
A ： snakes
B ： elephants
C ： insects
D ： dogs
30 、 不定项选择题
I live in the land of Disney, Hollywood and year-round sun. You may think people in
such a glamorous, fun-filled p lace are happier than others. If so, you have some
mistaken ideas about the nature of happiness.
Many intelligent people still equate happiness with fun. The truth is that fun and
happiness have little or nothing in common. Fun is what we experience during an act.
Happiness is what we experience after an act. It is a deeper more abiding emotion.
Going to an amusement park or ball game, watching a movie or television, are
fun activities that help us relax, temporarily forget our problems and maybe evenlaugh. But they do not bring happiness, because their positive effects end when the
fun ends.
I have often thought that if Hollywood stars have a role to play, it is to teach us
that happiness has nothing to do with fan. These rich, beautiful individuals have
constant access to glamorous parties, fancy cars, expensive homes, everything that
spells “happiness”. But in memoir after memoir, celebrities reveal the unhappiness
hidden beneath all their fun: depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, broken
marriages, troubled children and profound loneliness.
Ask a bachelor why he resists marriage even though he finds dating to be less
and less satisfying. If he’s honest, he will tell you that he is afraid of making a
commitment. For commitment is in tact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun,
adventure and excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most
distinguishing features.
Similarly, couples that choose not to have children are deciding in favor of
painless fun over painful happiness. They can dine out ever they want and sleep as
late as they want. Couples with infant children are lucky to get a whole night’s sleep
or a three-day vacation. I don’t know any parent who would choose the word fun to
describe raising children.
Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is
one of the most liberating realizations we can ever come to. It liberates time: now we
can devote more hours to activities that can genuinely increase our happiness. It
liberates money: buying that new car or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to
increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy: we now
understand that all those rich and glamorous people we were so sure are happy
because they are always having so much fun actually may not be happy at all.
Couples having infant children _____.
A ： are lucky since they can have a whole night’s sleep
B ： find fun in tucking them into bed at night
C ： find more time to play and joke with them
D ： derive happiness from their endeavor
31 、 不定项选择题
This is not a good time to be foreign. Anti-immigrant parties are gaining ground in
Europe. Britain has been fretting this week over lapses in its border controls. In
America Barack Obama has failed to deliver the immigration reform he promised,
and Republican presidential candidates would rather electrify the border fence with
Mexico than educate the children of illegal aliens. America educates foreign scientists
in its universities and then expels them, a policy the mayor of New York calls
“national suicide”.
This illiberal turn in attitudes to migration is no surprise. It is the result of cyclical
economic gloom combined with a secular rise in pressure on rich countries’
borders. But governments now weighing up whether or not to try to slam the door
should consider another factor: the growing economic importance of Diasporas, and
the contribution they can make to a country’s economic growth.
Diaspora networks-of Huguenots, Scots, Jews and many others-have always been
a potent economic force, but the cheapness and ease of modern travel has madethem larger and more numerous than ever before. There are now 215m first-
generation migrants around the world: that’s 3％of the world’s population. If they
were a nation, it would be a little larger than Brazil. There are more Chinese people
living outside China than there are French people in France. Some 22m Indians are
scattered all over the globe. Small concentrations of ethnic and linguistic groups have
always been found in surprising places-Lebanese in West Africa, Japanese in Brazil
and Welsh in Patagonia, for instance-but they have been joined by newer ones, such
as west Africans in southern China.
These networks of kinship and language make it easier to do business across
borders. They speed the flow of information. Trust matters, especially in emerging
markets where the rule of law is weak. So does a knowledge of the local culture. And
modern communications make these networks an even more powerful tool of
business.
Diasporas also help spread ideas. Many of the emerging world’s brightest
minds are educated at Western universities. An increasing number go home, taking
with them both knowledge and contacts. Indian computer scientists in Bangalore
bounce ideas constantly off their Indian friends in Silicon Valley. China’s technology
industry is dominated by “sea turtles” (Chinese who have lived abroad and
returned.
Diasporas spread money, too. Migrants into rich countries not only send cash to
their families; they also help companies in their host country operate in their home
country. A Harvard Business School study shows that, American companies that
employ lots of ethnic Chinese people find it much easier to set up in China without a
joint venture with a local firm.
Such arguments are unlikely to make much headway against hostility towards
immigrants in rich countries. Fury against foreigners is usually based on two
(mutually incompatible) notions: that because so many migrants claim welfare they
are a drain on the public purse; and that because they are prepared to work harder
for less pay they will depress the wages of those at the bottom of the pile. The first is
usually not true (in Britain, for instance, immigrants claim benefits less than
indigenous people do), and the second is hard to establish either way. Some studies
do indeed suggest that competition from unskilled immigrants depresses the wages
of unskilled locals. But others find this effect to be small or non-existent.
Nor is it possible to establish the impact of migration on overall growth. The
sums are simply too difficult. Yet there are good reasons for believing that it is likely
to be positive. Migrants tend to be hard-working and innovative. That spurs
productivity and company formation. A recent study carried out by Duke University
showed that, while immigrants make up an eighth of America’s population, they
founded a quarter of the country’s technology and engineering firms. And, by
linking the West with emerging markets, Diasporas help rich countries to plug into
fast-growing economies.
Rich countries are thus likely to benefit from looser immigration policy; and fears
that poor countries will suffer as a result of a “brain drain” are overblown. The
prospect of working abroad spurs more people to acquire valuable skills, and not all
subsequently emigrate. Skilled migrants send money home, and they often return to
set up new businesses. One study found that unless they lose more than 20％of their
university graduates, the brain drain makes poor countries richer.
The word “Diaspora” in this passage means _____.
A ： the movement of the Jewish people away from their own country to live and
work in other countriesB ： the movement of people from any nation or group away from their own country
C ： any group that has been dispersed outside its traditional homeland
D ： a dispersion of an originally homogeneous entity, such as a language or culture
32 、 不定项选择题
Got milk? If you do, take a moment to ponder the true oddness of being able to drink
milk after you’re a baby.
No other species but humans can. And most humans can’t either.
The long lists of food allergies some people claim to have can make it seem as if
they’re just finicky eaters trying to rationalize likes and dislikes. Not so. Eggs,
peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish soy and gluten all can wreak havoc on the immune
system of allergic individuals, even causing a deadly reaction called anaphylaxis.
But those allergic reactions are relatively rare, affecting an estimated 4% of
adults.
Milk’s different.
There are people who have true milk allergies that can cause deadly reactions.
But most people who have bad reactions to milk aren’t actually allergic to it, in that
it’s not their immune system that’s responding to the milk. Instead, people who
are lactose intolerant can’t digest the main sugar—lactose—found in milk. In
normal humans, the enzyme that does so—lactase—stops being produced when the
person is between two and five years old. The undigested sugars end up in the colon,
where they begin to ferment, producing gas that can cause cramping, bloating,
nausea, flatulence and diarrhea.
If you’re American or European it’s hard to realize this, but being able to
digest milk as an adult is one weird genetic adaptation.
It’s not normal. Somewhat less than 40% of people in the world retain the
ability to digest lactose after childhood. The numbers are often given as close to 0%
of Native Americans, 5% of Asians, 25% of African and Caribbean peoples, 50% of
Mediterranean peoples and 90% of northern Europeans. Sweden has one of the
world’s highest percentages of lactase tolerant people.
Being able to digest milk is so strange that scientists say we shouldn’t really call
lactose intolerance a disease, because that presumes it’s abnormal, instead, they
call it lactase persistence, indicating what’s really weird is the ability to continue to
drink milk.
There’s been a lot of research over the past decade looking at the genetic
mutation that allows this subset of humanity to stay milk drinkers into adulthood.
A long-held theory was that the mutation showed up first in Northern Europe,
where people got less vitamin D from the sun and therefore did better if they could
also get the crucial hormone (it’s not really a vitamin at all) from milk.
But now a group at University College London has shown that the mutation
actually appeared about 7,500 years ago in dairy farmers who lived in a region
between the central Balkans and central Europe, in what was known as the Funnel
Beaker culture.
The paper was published this week in PLOS Computational Biology.
The researchers used a computer to model the spread of lactase persistence,
dairy farming, other food gathering practices and genes in Europe.
Today, the highest proportion of people with lactase persistence live in
Northwest Europe, especially the Netherlands, Ireland and Scandinavia. But thecomputer model suggests that dairy farmers carrying this gene variant probably
originated in central Europe and then spread more widely and rapidly than non-
dairying groups.
Author Mark Thomas of University College London’s dept of Genetics, Evolution
and Environment says, “In Europe, a single genetic change...is strongly associated
with lactase persistence and appears to have people with it a big survival
advantage.”
The European mutation is different from several lactase persistence genes
associated with small populations of African peoples who historically have been
cattle herders.
Researchers at the University of Mary land identified one such mutation among
Nilo-Saharan-speaking peoples in Kenya and Tanzania. That mutation seems to have
arisen between 2,700 to 6,800 years ago. Two other mutations have been found
among the Beja people of northeastern Sudan and tribes of the same language family
in northern Kenya.
Which of the following is the CORRECT explanation of “enzyme” （Para. 6）?
A ： kind of chemical hormone that is produced by human body.
B ： A kind of protein that act as catalyst in diagnosing lactose.
C ： A kind of fungus that can be used to decompose lactose.
D ： A kind of gene that is called lactase.
33 、 不定项选择题
The molecules of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere affect the heat balance
of the Earth by acting as a one-way screen. Although these molecules allow radiation
at visible wavelengths, where most of the energy of sunlight is concentrated, to pass
through, they absorb some of the longer-wavelength, infrared emissions radiated
from the Earth’s surface, radiation that would otherwise be transmitted back into
space. For the Earth to maintain a constant average temperature, such emissions
from the planet must balance incoming solar radiation. If there were no carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere, heat would escape from the Earth much more easily. The
surface temperature would be so much lower that the oceans might be a solid mass
of ice.
Today, however, the potential problem is too much carbon dioxide. The burning
of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide
by about 15 percent in the last hundred years, and we continue to add carbon
dioxide to the atmosphere. Could the increase in carbon dioxide cause a global rise
in average temperature, and could such a rise have serious consequences for human
society? Mathematical models that allow us to calculate the rise in temperature as a
function of the increase indicate that the answer is probably yes.
Under present conditions a temperature of -18℃ can be observed at an altitude
of 5 to 6 kilometers above the Earth. Below this altitude (called the radiating level),
the temperature increases by about 6℃ per kilometer approaching the Earth’s
surface, where the average temperature is about 15℃. An increase in the amount of
carbon dioxide means that there are more molecules of carbon dioxide to absorb
infrared radiation. As the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb infrared radiationincreases, the radiating level and the temperature of the surface must rise. One
mathematical model predicts that doubling the atmospheric carbon dioxide would
raise the global mean surface temperature by 2.5℃: This model assumes that the
atmosphere’s relative humidity remains constant and the temperature decreases
with altitude at a rate of 6.5℃ per kilometer. The assumption of constant relative
humidity is important, because water vapor in the atmosphere is another efficient
absorber of radiation at infrared wavelengths. Because warm air can hold more
moisture than cool air, the relative humidity will be constant only if the amount of
water vapor in the atmosphere increases as the temperature rises. Therefore, more
infrared radiation would be absorbed and reradiated back to the Earth’s surface.
The resultant warming at the surface could be expected to melt snow and ice,
reducing the Earth’s reflectivity. More solar radiation would then be absorbed,
leading to a further increase in temperature.
According to the passage, the greatest part of the solar energy that reaches the Earth
is _____.
A ： reflected back to space by snow and ice
B ： concentrated at visible wavelengths
C ： absorbed by carbon dioxide molecules
D ： absorbed by atmospheric water vapor
34 、 不定项选择题
In general, our society is becoming one of giant enterprises directed by a
bureaucratic management in which man becomes a small, well-oiled cog in the
machinery. The oiling is done with higher wages, well-ventilated factories and piped
music, and by psychologists and “human-relations” experts; yet all this oiling does
not alter the fact that man has become powerless, that he does not whole heartedly
participate in his work and that he is bored with it. In fact, the blue-and white-collar
workers have become economic puppets who dance to the tune of automated
machines and bureaucratic management.
The worker and employee are anxious, not only because they might find
themselves out of a job; they are anxious also because they are unable to acquire any
real satisfaction or interest in life. They live and die without ever having confronted
the fundamental realities of human existence as emotionally and intellectually
independent and productive human beings.
Those higher up on the social ladder are no less anxious. Their lives are no less
empty than those of their subordinates. They are even more insecure in some
respects. They are in a highly competitive race. To be promoted or to fall behind is
not a matter of salary but even more a matter of self-respect. When they apply for
their first job, they are tested for intelligence as well as for the right mixture of
submissiveness and independence. From that moment on they are tested again and
again—by the psychologists, for whom testing is a big business, and by their
superiors who judge their behavior, sociability, capacity to get along, etc. This
constant need to prove that one is as good as or better than one’s fellow-
competitor creates constant anxiety and stress, the very causes of unhappiness and
illness.
Am I suggesting that we should return to the preindustrial mode of production
or to nineteenth-century “free enterprise” capitalism? Certainly not. Problems arenever solved by returning to a stage which one has already outgrown. I suggest
transforming our social system from a bureaucratically managed industrialism in
which maximal production and consumption are ends in themselves into a humanist
industrialism in which man and full development of his potentialities—those of love
and of reason—are the aims of all social arrangements. Production and consumption
should serve only as means to this end, and should be prevented from ruling man.
To solve the present social problems the author suggests that we should _____.
A ： resort to the production mode of our ancestors
B ： offer higher wages to the workers and employees
C ： enable man to fully develop his potentialities
D ： take the fundamental realities for granted
35 、 不定项选择题
Many United States companies have, unfortunately, made the search for legal
protection from import competition into a major line of work. Since 1980 the United
States international Trade Commission (ITC) has received about 280 complaints
alleging damage from imports that benefit from subsidies by foreign governments.
Another 340 charge that foreign companies “dumped” their products in thee
United States at “less than fair value.” Even when no unfair practices are alleged,
the simple claim that an industry has been injured by imports is sufficient grounds to
seek relief.
Contrary to the general impression, this quest for import relief has hurt more
companies than it has helped. As corporations begin to function globally, they
develop an intricate web of marketing, production, and research relationships. The
complexity of these relationships makes it unlikely that a system of import relief laws
will meet the strategic needs of all the units under the same parent company, №.
Suppose a United States-owned company establishes an overseas plant to
manufacture a product while its competitor makes the same product in the United
States. If the competitor can prove injury from the imports-and that the United States
company received a subsidy from a foreign government to build its plant abroad-the
United States company’s products will be uncompetitive in the United States, since
they would be subject to duties.
Perhaps the most brazen ease occurred when the ITC investigated allegations
that Canadian companies were injuring the United States salt industry by dumping
rock salt, used to de-ice roads. The bizarre aspect of the complaint was that a foreign
conglomerate with United States operations was crying for help against a United
States company with foreign operations. The “United States” company claiming
injury was a subsidiary of a Dutch conglomerate, while the “Canadian” companies
included a subsidiary of a Chicago firm that was the second-largest domestic
producer of rock salt.
The last paragraph performs which of the following functions in the passage?
A ： It summarizes the discussion thus far and suggests additional areas of research.
B ： It presents a recommendation based on the evidence presented earlier.
C ： It cites a specific case that illustrates a problem presented more generally in the
previous paragraph.
D ： It introduces an additional area of concern not mentioned earlier.36 、 不定项选择题
For the executive producer of a network nightly news programme, the workday often
begins at midnight as mine did during seven years with ABC’s evening newscast.
The first order of business was a call to the assignment desk for a pre-
bedtime?rundownof latest developments.
The assignment desk operates 24 hours a day, staffed by editors who move
crews, correspondents and equipment to the scene of events. Assignment-desk
editors ate logistics experts; they have to know plane schedules, satellite availability,
and whom to get in touch with at local stations and overseas broadcasting systems.
They are required to assess stories as they break on the wire services—sometimes
even before they do - and to decide how much effort to make to cover those stories.
When the United States was going to appeal to arms against Iraq, the number of
correspondents and crews was constantly evaluated. Based on reports from the field
and also upon the skilled judgments of desk editors in New York City, the right
number of personnel was kept on the alert. The rest were allowed to continue
working throughout the world, in America and Iraq ready to move but not tied down
by false alarms.
The studio staff of ABC’s “World News Tonight” assembles at 9 a.m. to
prepare for the 6:30 “air” p.m. deadline. Overnight dispatches from outlying
bureaus and press services are read. There are phone conversations with the
broadcast’s staff producers in domestic bureaus and with the London bureau
senior producer, who coordinates overseas coverage. A pattern emerges for the
day’s news, a pattern outlined in the executive producer’s first lineup. The lineup
tells the staff what stories are scheduled; what the priorities are for processing film of
editing tape; what scripts need to be written; what commercials ate scheduled; how
long stories should run and in what order. Without a lineup, there would be chaos.
Each story’s relative value in dollars and cents must be continually assessed by
the executive producer. Cutting back satellite booking to save money might mean
that an explanation delivered by an anchor person will replace actual photos of an
event. A decline in live coverage could send viewers away and drive ratings down, but
there is not enough money to do everything. So decisions must be made and made
rapidly—because delay can mean a missed connection for shipping tape or access to
a satellite blocked by a competitor.
The broadcasts themselves require pacing and style. The audience has to be
allowed to breathe between periods of intense excitement. A vivid pictorial report
followed by less exacting materials allows the viewer to reflect on information that
has just flashed by. Frequent switches from one anchor to another or from one film
or tape report to another create a sense of forward movement. Ideally, leading and
lags to stories are worked out with field correspondents, enabling them to fit their
reports into the programme’s narrative flow so the audience’s attention does not
wander and more substance is absorbed.
Scripts are constantly rewritten to blend well with incoming pictures. Good copy
is crisp, informative. Our rule: the fewer words the better. If a picture can do the
work, let it.
What is the function of the third paragraph?
A ： To illustrate the important role and function of the assignment desk.
B ： To give us a brief introduction of their working conditions.
C ： To exemplify the cooperation of all sections in the company.D ： To emphasize the mission of the correspondents.
37 、 不定项选择题
Students of United States history, seeking to identify the circumstances that
encouraged the emergence of feminist movements, have thoroughly investigated the
mid-nineteenth-century American economic and social conditions that affected the
status of women. These historians, however, have analyzed less fully the
development of specifically feminist ideas and activities during the same period.
Furthermore, the ideological origins of feminism in the United States have been
obscured because, even when historians did take into account those feminist ideas
and activities occurring within the United States, they failed to recognize that
feminism was then a truly international movement actually centered in Europe.
American feminist activists who have been described as “solitary” and “individual
theorists” were in reality connected to a movement —utopian socialism—which was
already popularizing feminist ideas in Europe during the two decades that
cachinnated in the first women’s rights conference held at Seneca Falls, New York,
in 1848. Thus, a complete understanding of the origins and development of
nineteenth-century feminism in the United States requires that the geographical
focus be widened to include Europe and that the detailed study already made of
social conditions be expanded to include the ideological development of feminism.
The earliest and most popular of the utopian socialists were the Saint-Simonians.
The specifically feminist part of Saint-Simonianism has, however, been less studied
than the group’s contribution to early socialism. This is regrettable on two accounts.
By 1832 feminism was the central concern of Saint-Simonianism and entirely
absorbed its adherents’ energy; hence, by ignoring its feminism, European
historians have misunderstood Saint-Simonianism. Moreover, since many feminist
ideas can be traced to Saint-Simonianism, European historians’ appreciation of later
feminism in France and the United States remained limited.
Saint-Simon’s followers, many of whom were women, based their feminism on
an interpretation of his project to reorganize the globe by replacing brute force with
the rule of spiritual powers. The new world order would be ruled together by a male,
to represent reflection, and a female, to represent sentiment. This complementarity
reflects the fact that, while the Saint-Simonians did not reject the belief that there
were innate differences between men and women, they nevertheless foresaw an
equally important social and political role for both sexes in their Utopia.
Only a few Saint-Simonians opposed a definition of sexual equality based on
gender distinction. This minority believed that individuals of both sexes were born
similar in capacity and character, and they ascribed male-female differences to
socialization and education. The envisioned result of both currents of thought,
however, was that women would enter public life in the new age and that sexual
equality would reward men as well as women with an improved way of life.
It can be inferred from the passage that the author believes that study of Saint-
Simonianism is necessary for historians of American feminism because such study
_____.
A ： would clarify the ideological origins of those feminist ideas that influenced
American feminism
B ： would increase understanding of a movement that deeply influenced theUtopian socialism of early American feminists
C ： would focus attention on the most important aspect of Saint-Simonian thought
before 1832
D ： promises to offer insight into a movement that was a direct outgrowth of the
Seneca Falls conference of 1848
38 、 不定项选择题
“Popular art” has a number of meanings, impossible to define with any precision,
which range from folklore to junk. The poles are clear enough, but the middle tends
to blur. The Hollywood Western of the 1930’s, for example, has elements of
folklore, but is closer to junk than to high art or folk art. There can be great trash, just
as there is bad high art. The musicals of George Gershwin are great popular art,
never aspiring to high art. Schubert and Brahms, however, used elements of popular
music—folk themes—in works clearly intended as high art. The case of Verdi is a
different one: he took a popular genre—bourgeois melodrama set to music (an
accurate definition of nineteenth-century opera)—and, without altering its
fundamental nature, transmuted it into high art. This remains one of the greatest
achievements in music, and one that cannot be fully appreciated without recognizing
the essential trashiness of the genre.
As an example of such a transmutation, consider what Verdi made of the typical
political elements of nineteenth-century opera. Generally in the plots of these operas,
a hero or heroine—usually portrayed only as an individual, unfettered by class—is
caught between the immoral corruption of the aristocracy and the doctrinaire rigidity
or secret greed of the leaders of the proletariat. Verdi transforms this naive and
unlikely formulation with music of extraordinary energy and rhythmic vitality, music
more subtle than it seems at first hearing. There are scenes and arias that still sound
like calls to arms and were clearly understood as such when they were first
performed. Such pieces lend an immediacy to the otherwise veiled political message
of these operas and call up feelings beyond those of the opera itself.
Or consider Verdi’s treatment of character. Before Verdi, there were rarely any
characters at all in musical drama, only a series of situations which allowed the
singers to express a series of emotional states. Any attempt to find coherent
psychological portrayal in these operas is misplaced ingenuity. The only coherence
was the singer’s vocal technique: when the cast changed, new arias were almost
always substituted, generally adapted from other operas. Verdi’s characters, on the
other hand, have genuine consistency and integrity, even if, in many cases, the
consistency is that of pasteboard melodrama. The integrity of the character is
achieved through the music: once he had become established, Verdi did not rewrite
his music for different singers or countenance alterations or substitutions of
somebody else’s arias in one of his operas, as every eighteenth-century composer
had done. When he revised an opera, it was only for dramatic economy and
effectiveness.
According to the passage, all of the following characterize musical drama before
Verdi EXCEPT: _____.
A ： music used for the purpose of defining a character
B ： adaptation of music from other operas
C ： psychological inconsistency in the portrayal of charactersD ： expression of emotional states in a series of dramatic situations
39 、 不定项选择题
In its modern form the concept of “literature” did not emerge earlier than the
eighteenth century and was not fully developed until the nineteenth century. Yet the
conditions for its emergence had been developing since the Renaissance. The word
itself came into English use in the fourteenth century, following French and Latin
precedents; its root was Latin?littera, a letter of the alphabet.?Litterature, in the
common early spelling, was then in effect a condition of reading: of being able to
read and of having read. It was often close to the sense of modern?literacy, which
was not in the language until the late nineteenth century, its introduction in part
made necessary by the movement of?literature?to a different sense. The normal
adjective associated with literature was?literate. Literary appeared in the sense of
reading ability and experience in the seventeenth century, and did not acquire its
specialized modern meaning until the eighteenth century.
Literature?as a new category was then a specialization of the area formerly
categorized as?rhetoric?and?grammar: a specialization to reading and, in the material
context of the development of printing, to the printed word and especially the book.
It was eventually to become a more general category than?poetry?or the
earlier?poesy, which had been general terms for imaginative composition, but which
in relation to the development of?literaturebecame predominantly specialized, from
the seventeenth century, to metrical composition and especially written and printed
metrical composition. But literature was never primarily the active composition─the
“making”─which poetry had described. As reading rather than writing, it was a
category of a different kind. The characteristic use can be seen in Bacon “learned in
all literature and erudition, divine and humane”─and as late as Johnson “he had
probably more than common literature, as his son addresses him in one of his most
elaborate Latin poems.”?Literature, that is to say, was a category of use and
condition rather than of production. It was a particular specialization of what had
hitherto been seen as an activity or practice, and a specialization, in the
circumstances, which was inevitably made in terms of social class. In its first
extended sense, beyond the bare sense of “literacy,” it was a definition of
“polite” or “humane” learning, and thus specified a particular social distinction.
New political concepts of the “nation” and new valuations of the “vernacular”
interacted with a persistent emphasis on “literature” as reading in the “classical”
languages. But still, in this first stage, into the eighteenth century,?literature?was
primarily a generalized social concept, expressing a certain (minority) level of
educational achievement. This carded with it a potential and eventually realized
alternative definition of?literature?as “printed books:” the objects in and through
which this achievement was demonstrated.
It is important that, within the terms of this development, literature normally
included all printed books. There was not necessary specialization to “imaginative”
works. Literature was still primarily reading ability and experience, and this included
philosophy, history, and essays as well as poems. Were the new eighteenth century
novels literature? That question was first approached, not by definition of their mode
or content, but by reference to the standards of “polite” or “humane” learning.
Was drama literature? This question was to exercise successive generations, not
because of any substantial difficulty but because of the practical limits of thecategory. If literature was reading, could a mode written for spoken performance be
said to be literature, and if not, where was Shakespeare?
At one level the definition indicated by this development has persisted.
Literature lost its earliest sense of reading ability and reading experience, and
became an apparently objective category of printed works of a certain quality. The
concerns of a “literary editor” or a “literary supplement” would still be defined
in this way. But three complicating tendencies can then be distinguished: first, a shift
from “learning” to “taste” or “sensibility” as a criterion defining literary
quality; second, an increasing specialization of literature to “creative” or
“imaginative” works; third, a development of the concept of “tradition” within
national terms, resulting in the more effective definition of “a national literature.”
The source of each of these tendencies can be discerned from the Renaissance, but it
was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that they came through most
powerfully, until they became, in the twentieth century, in effect received
assumptions.
What challenged the definition of literature as reading in the eighteenth century?
A ： The emergence of novels.
B ： The emergence of dramas.
C ： The emergence of poems
D ： The emergence of essays.
40 、 不定项选择题
It can be argued that much consumer dissatisfaction with marketing strategies arises
from an inability to aim advertising at only the likely buyers of a given product. There
are three groups of consumers who are affected by the marketing process. First,
there is the market segment—people who need the commodity in question. Second,
there is the program target—people in the market segment with the “best fit”
characteristics for a specific product. Lots of people may need trousers, but only a
few qualify as likely buyers of very expensive designer trousers. Finally, there is the
program audience—all people who are actually exposed to the marketing program
without regard to whether they need or want the product
These three groups are rarely identical. An exception occurs in cases where
customers for a particular industrial product may be few and easily identifiable. Such
customers, all sharing a particular need, are likely to form a meaningful target, for
example, all companies with a particular application of the product in question, such
as high-speed fillers of bottles at breweries. In such circumstances, direct selling
(marketing that reaches only the program target) is likely to be economically justified,
and highly specialized trade media exist to expose members of the program
target—and only members of the program target—to the marketing program.
Most consumer-goods markets are significantly different. Typically, there are
many rather than few potential customers. Each represents a relatively small
percentage of potential sales. Rarely do members of a particular market segment
group themselves neatly into a meaningful program target. There are substantial
differences among consumers with similar demographic characteristics. Even with all
the past decade’s advances in information technology, direct selling of consumer
goods is rare, and mass marketing—a marketing approach that aims at a wide
audience—remains the only economically feasible mode. Unfortunately, there arefew media that allow the marketer to direct a marketing program exclusively to the
program target. Inevitably, people get exposed to a great deal of marketing for
products in which they have no interest and so they become annoyed.
The passage suggests which of the following about direct selling?
A ： It is used in the marketing of most industrial products.
B ： It is often used in cases where there is a large program target.
C ： It is not economically feasible for most marketing programs.
D ： It is used only for products for which there are many potential customers.
41 、 不定项选择题
It can be argued that much consumer dissatisfaction with marketing strategies arises
from an inability to aim advertising at only the likely buyers of a given product. There
are three groups of consumers who are affected by the marketing process. First,
there is the market segment—people who need the commodity in question. Second,
there is the program target—people in the market segment with the “best fit”
characteristics for a specific product. Lots of people may need trousers, but only a
few qualify as likely buyers of very expensive designer trousers. Finally, there is the
program audience—all people who are actually exposed to the marketing program
without regard to whether they need or want the product
These three groups are rarely identical. An exception occurs in cases where
customers for a particular industrial product may be few and easily identifiable. Such
customers, all sharing a particular need, are likely to form a meaningful target, for
example, all companies with a particular application of the product in question, such
as high-speed fillers of bottles at breweries. In such circumstances, direct selling
(marketing that reaches only the program target) is likely to be economically justified,
and highly specialized trade media exist to expose members of the program
target—and only members of the program target—to the marketing program.
Most consumer-goods markets are significantly different. Typically, there are
many rather than few potential customers. Each represents a relatively small
percentage of potential sales. Rarely do members of a particular market segment
group themselves neatly into a meaningful program target. There are substantial
differences among consumers with similar demographic characteristics. Even with all
the past decade’s advances in information technology, direct selling of consumer
goods is rare, and mass marketing—a marketing approach that aims at a wide
audience—remains the only economically feasible mode. Unfortunately, there are
few media that allow the marketer to direct a marketing program exclusively to the
program target. Inevitably, people get exposed to a great deal of marketing for
products in which they have no interest and so they become annoyed.
It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following is true for most
consumer-goods markets?
A ： The program target and the program audience are not usually identical.
B ： The program audience and the market segment are usually identical.
C ： The market segment and the program target are usually identical.
D ： The program target is larger than the market segment.42 、 不定项选择题
A closer observer of the small screen once called it a “vast wasteland of violence,
sadism and murder, private eyes, gangsters and more violence - and cartoons.” That
is how Newton Minow, a US television regulator, described it in 1961.
Since than television language has become more colourful, violence more
explicit and sex more prevalent.?Lady Chatterley’s Lover has moved from the
banned book shelf to a classic BBC serial.
Concern over such changing standards has shaped our view of television—and
masked its broader influence in developing countries.
To illustrate its effects, Kenny cites the case of Brazil. When television there
began to show a steady diet of local soaps in the 1970s, Brazilian women typically
had five or more children and were trapped in poverty. As the popularity of the soaps
grew, birth rates fell
According to researchers, 72% of the leading female characters in the main
soaps had no children and only 7% had more than one. One study calculated that
such soaps had the same effect on fertility rates as keeping girls in school for five
years more than normal.
It is not just birth rates that are affected. Kenny notes: “Kids who watch TV out
of school, according to a World Bank survey of young people in the shanty towns of
Fortaleza in Brazil, are considerably less likely to consume drugs.”
Television appears to have more power to reduce youth drug use than the
strictures of an educated mother and Brazilian soaps presenting educated urban
woman running their own businesses are thought to be compelling role models.
Television can also improve health, In Ghana a soap opera line that warned
mothers they were feeding their children “more than just rice” if they did not wash
their hands after defecating was followed by a seemingly permanent improvement in
personal hygiene.
Why do such changes happen? Simple, says Kenny: soap operas, whether local
versions of Ugly Betty or vintage imports of Baywatch, open up new horizons.
“Some hours could he better spout planting trees, helping old ladies across the road
or playing cricket,” he said. “But watching TV exposes people to new ideas and
different people. With that will come greater opportunity, growing equality and a
better understanding of the world. Not bad.”
Which of the following is NOT mentioned as the effects of TV?
A ： Lower birth rate.
B ： Less poor young people.
C ： Less drug users.
D ： Better sanitation habits.
43 、 不定项选择题
What is the charm of necklaces? Why would anyone put something extra around her
neck and then invest it with special significance? A necklace doesn’t afford warmth
in cold weather, like a scarf, or protection in combat, like chain mail; it only
decorates. We might say it borrows meaning from what it surrounds and sets off: the
head with its supremely important material contents, and the face, that register of
the soul. When photograph reduces the reality it represents, they mention not only
the passage from three dimensions to two, but also the selection of a?point duvue?favors the top of the body rather than the bottom and the front rather than the
back. The face is the jewel in the crown of the body, and so we give it a setting.
When people are intensely concerned with something that is obviously
impractical, anthropologists take note, for lovely useless things often express archaic
to exist in contemporary American houses already heated by gas and electricity, yet
most people want one and it is still the focus of the living room. This desire testifies, I
think, to the hundreds of thousands of years during which we Homo sapiens huddled
around a cave fire. We watch ourselves, rather anxiously, vanish backward down
those lone temporary corridors, as my daughter gazes at her infinitely multiplied
small self in the mutually opposed mirrors of the beauty salon, and wonders, is it
me? Our fireplaces and necklaces and tombstones say it is, they are.
In American culture, an interest in necklaces seems to be rather gender specific.
Many men to whom I mention the enterprise feign polite interest and then change
the subject, though I know some who admire, construct, and wear necklaces,
including the distinguished scientist and poet to whom this essay is dedicated. Most
women, by contrast, become mildly or wildly enthusiastic. A doctor in Blois brought
out her entire collection of costume jewelry for me, exhibited the most splendid
pieces with an account of where and when they were purchased, and then explain
them all with the help of a large glossy book on the history of costume jewelry, with
dozens of pictures. A former student of mine who had moved to California mailed me
six plastic boxes full of beads gleaned from a warehouse managed by an eccentric
friend who just their settings; a feature bead painted with a naked lady; crystal
roundels of truly exceptional shine; and tiny silver hematite seed beads. Beads lend
themselves to exchange, Beads travel. And clearly these two facts are related.
“Gender specific” means _____.
A ： both men and women
B ： either men or women
C ： neither men nor women
D ： related to one sex only
44 、 不定项选择题
I was eight years old the first time I fainted. I was at friend’s house, and a bee stung
me on the back of the neck. I had felt nothing but a slight pinch and the bug was
soon wiped away and flushed down the toilet, but since I looked pale I was urged to
call my mother. As I told her what had happened, I felt myself blacking out, sinking to
the floor, vaguely aware that I was still gripping the receiver.
Perhaps I was allergic to the bee sting—the only one I’ve ever gotten, although
to this day I have a phobia about bees, wasps, and other insects. But the image of an
eight-year-old in Keds crumpling to the ground while he describes his injury to his
Mommy seems to return us to Freudian territory. Note the umbilical image of the
phone cord.
Call me fanciful. Still, I’m afraid these undertones are hardly dissipated by the
second fainting incident I can recall, which practically reeks of the family romance.
This took place one weekend morning while we were gathered in the kitchen to eat
breakfast. My mother stood at the stove making French toast, which she had already
served to the kids; my father, seated at the table, was cutting a bagel with a sharp
bread knife. Contrary to every principle of kitchen safety, he was holding the bagel inhis hand and cutting inward, and eventually he made a neat, shallow incision in his
palm. The blood was profuse.
Being a hematologist, my father didn’t panic: this was just business as usual.
But my mother stopped flipping French toast and collapsed to the floor. I, inspired by
the blood and my mother’s collapse and the powerful odors of syrup and sugar
rising from my plate, slumped forward. My forehead went into the syrup. I heard a
roar—it seemed to me that I was being clutched beneath the armpits and whirled
around—and then my father shook me back into consciousness. He had already
attended to my mother.
Still think I’m fanciful? Then listen to this. Out of curiosity I asked my mother
when her first fainting episode had occurred.
She paused, thought it over, and came up with the following. At the age of
thirteen, she went to visit her father in the hospital, who only the day before had had
his appendix removed. Aside from her father, still conked out from the anesthesia,
the other person in the room was a nurse, who was busy changing the dressing on
the patient’s incision, which hadn’t quite closed. For some reason, the nurse had
to leave the room. At this point, she asked my mother to hold the soiled dressing in
place until she returned. My mother complied. Standing over her dazed father,
gingerly holding a used bandage over a hole in his lower abdomen, the thirteen-year-
old grew lightheaded. I assumed the nurse returned before she hit the floor.
The author’s mother fainting might be assumed to be related to _____.
A ： appendix
B ： abdomen
C ： nurse
D ： blood
45 、 不定项选择题
Hormones in the Body Up to the beginning of the twentieth century, the nervous
system was thought to control all communication within the body and the resulting
integration of behavior. Scientists had determined that nerves ran, essentially, on
electrical impulses. These impulses were thought to be the engine for thought,
emotion, movement, and internal processes such as digestion. However, experiments
by William Bayliss and Ernest Starling on the chemical secretin, which is produced in
the small intestine when food enters the stomach, eventually challenged that view.
From the small intestine, secretin travels through the bloodstream to the pancreas.
There, it stimulates the release of digestive chemicals. In this fashion, the intestinal
cells that produce secretin ultimately regulate the production of different chemicals
in a different organ, the pancreas.
Such a coordination of processes had been thought to require control by the
nervous system; Bayliss and Starling showed that it could occur through chemicals
alone. This discovery spurred Starting to coin the term hormone to refer to secretin,
taking it from the Greek word hormon, meaning “to excite” or “to set in
motion.” A hormone is a chemical produced by one tissue to make things happen
elsewhere.
As more hormones were discovered, they were categorized, primarily according
to the process by which they operated on the body. Some glands (which make up the
endocrine system) secrete hormones directly into the bloodstream. Such glandsinclude the thyroid and the pituitary. The exocrine system consists of organs and
glands that produce substances that are used outside the bloodstream, primarily for
digestion. The pancreas is one such organ, although it secretes some chemicals into
the blood and thus is also part of the endocrine system.
Much has been learned about hormones since their discovery. Some play such
key roles in regulating bodily processes or behavior that their absence would cause
immediate death. The most abundant hormones have effects that are less obviously
urgent but can be more far-reaching and difficult to track: They modify moods and
affect human behavior, even some behavior we normally think of as voluntary.
Hormonal systems are very intricate. Even minute amounts of the right chemicals can
suppress appetite, calm aggression, and change the attitude of a parent toward a
child. Certain hormones accelerate the development of the body, regulating growth
and form; others may even define an individual’s personality characteristics. The
quantities and proportions of hormones produce change with age, so scientists have
given a great deal of study to shifts in the endocrine system over time in the hopes of
alleviating ailments associated with aging.
In fact, some hormone therapies are already very common. A combination of
estrogen and progesterone has been prescribed for decades to women who want to
reduce mood swings, sudden changes in body temperature, and other discomforts
caused by lower natural levels of those hormones as they enter middle age. Known
as hormone replacement therapy (HRT), the treatment was also believed to prevent
weakening of the bones. At least one study has linked HRT with a heightened risk of
heart disease and certain types of cancer. HRT may also increase the likelihood that
blood clots—dangerous because they could travel through the bloodstream and
block major blood vessels—will form. Some proponents of HRT have tempered their
enthusiasm in the face of this new evidence, recommending it only to patients whose
symptoms interfere with their abilities to live normal lives.
Human growth hormone may also be given to patients who are secreting
abnormally low amounts on their own. Because of the complicated effects growth
hormone has on the body, such treatments are generally restricted to children who
would be pathologically small in stature without it. Growth hormone affects not just
physical size but also the digestion of food and the aging process. Researchers and
family physicians tend to agree that it is foolhardy to dispense it in cases in which the
risks are not clearly outweighed by the benefits.
Which patients are usually treated with growth hormone?
A ： dults of smaller statue than normal
B ： Adults with strong digestive systems
C ： hildren who are not at risk from the treatment
D ： Children who may remain abnormally small
46 、 不定项选择题
A closer observer of the small screen once called it a “vast wasteland of violence,
sadism and murder, private eyes, gangsters and more violence - and cartoons.” That
is how Newton Minow, a US television regulator, described it in 1961.
Since than television language has become more colourful, violence more
explicit and sex more prevalent.?Lady Chatterley’s Lover has moved from the
banned book shelf to a classic BBC serial.Concern over such changing standards has shaped our view of television—and
masked its broader influence in developing countries.
To illustrate its effects, Kenny cites the case of Brazil. When television there
began to show a steady diet of local soaps in the 1970s, Brazilian women typically
had five or more children and were trapped in poverty. As the popularity of the soaps
grew, birth rates fell
According to researchers, 72% of the leading female characters in the main
soaps had no children and only 7% had more than one. One study calculated that
such soaps had the same effect on fertility rates as keeping girls in school for five
years more than normal.
It is not just birth rates that are affected. Kenny notes: “Kids who watch TV out
of school, according to a World Bank survey of young people in the shanty towns of
Fortaleza in Brazil, are considerably less likely to consume drugs.”
Television appears to have more power to reduce youth drug use than the
strictures of an educated mother and Brazilian soaps presenting educated urban
woman running their own businesses are thought to be compelling role models.
Television can also improve health, In Ghana a soap opera line that warned
mothers they were feeding their children “more than just rice” if they did not wash
their hands after defecating was followed by a seemingly permanent improvement in
personal hygiene.
Why do such changes happen? Simple, says Kenny: soap operas, whether local
versions of Ugly Betty or vintage imports of Baywatch, open up new horizons.
“Some hours could he better spout planting trees, helping old ladies across the road
or playing cricket,” he said. “But watching TV exposes people to new ideas and
different people. With that will come greater opportunity, growing equality and a
better understanding of the world. Not bad.”
Why does the anther mention Lady Chatterley’s Lover?
A ： To show television has great influence on our daily life.
B ： To show that television’s content has new changes.
C ： To show that violence and sex are accepted by the audience.
D ： To show the standards of TV regulation have changed
47 、 不定项选择题
In general, our society is becoming one of giant enterprises directed by a
bureaucratic management in which man becomes a small, well-oiled cog in the
machinery. The oiling is done with higher wages, well-ventilated factories and piped
music, and by psychologists and “human-relations” experts; yet all this oiling does
not alter the fact that man has become powerless, that he does not whole heartedly
participate in his work and that he is bored with it. In fact, the blue-and white-collar
workers have become economic puppets who dance to the tune of automated
machines and bureaucratic management.
The worker and employee are anxious, not only because they might find
themselves out of a job; they are anxious also because they are unable to acquire any
real satisfaction or interest in life. They live and die without ever having confronted
the fundamental realities of human existence as emotionally and intellectually
independent and productive human beings.
Those higher up on the social ladder are no less anxious. Their lives are no less
empty than those of their subordinates. They are even more insecure in somerespects. They are in a highly competitive race. To be promoted or to fall behind is
not a matter of salary but even more a matter of self-respect. When they apply for
their first job, they are tested for intelligence as well as for the right mixture of
submissiveness and independence. From that moment on they are tested again and
again—by the psychologists, for whom testing is a big business, and by their
superiors who judge their behavior, sociability, capacity to get along, etc. This
constant need to prove that one is as good as or better than one’s fellow-
competitor creates constant anxiety and stress, the very causes of unhappiness and
illness.
Am I suggesting that we should return to the preindustrial mode of production
or to nineteenth-century “free enterprise” capitalism? Certainly not. Problems are
never solved by returning to a stage which one has already outgrown. I suggest
transforming our social system from a bureaucratically managed industrialism in
which maximal production and consumption are ends in themselves into a humanist
industrialism in which man and full development of his potentialities—those of love
and of reason—are the aims of all social arrangements. Production and consumption
should serve only as means to this end, and should be prevented from ruling man.
From the passage we can infer that real happiness of life belongs to those _____.
A ： who are at the bottom of the society
B ： who are higher up in their social status
C ： who prove better than their fellow-competitors
D ： who could keep far away from this competitive world
48 、 不定项选择题
Children as young as four will study Shakespeare in a project being launched today
by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
The RSC is holding its first national conference for primary school teachers to
encourage them to use the Bard’s plays imaginatively in the classroom from
reception classes onwards. The conference will be told that they should learn how
Shakespearian characters like Puck in?A Midsummer Night’s Dream?are “jolly
characters” and how to write about them.
At present, the national curriculum does not require pupils to approach
Shakespeare until secondary school. All it says is that pupils should study “texts
drawn from a variety of cultures and traditions” and “myths, legends and
traditional stories”.
However, educationists at the RSC believe children will gain a better appreciation
of Shakespeare if they are introduced to him at a much younger age. “Even very
young children can enjoy Shakespeare’s plays,” said Mary Johnson, head of the
learning department. “It is just a question of pitching it for the age group. Even
reception classes and key stage one pupils (five-to-seven-year-olds) can enjoy his
stories. For instance, if you build up Puck as a character who skips, children of that
age can enjoy the character. They can be inspired by Puck and they could even start
writing about him at that age.”
It is the RSC’s belief that building the Bard up as a fun playwright in primary
school could counter some of the negative images conjured up about teaching
Shakespeare in secondary schools. Then, pupils have to concentrate on scenes from
the plays to answer questions for compulsory English national-curriculum tests for
14-year-olds. Critics of the tests have complained that pupils no longer have the timeto study or read the whole play—and therefore lose interest in Shakespeare.
However, Ms. Johnson is encouraging teachers to present 20-minute versions of
the plays—a classroom version of the?Reduced Shakespeare Company’s Complete
Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)?which told his 37 plays in 97 minutes—to give
pupils a flavour of the whole drama.
The RSC’s venture coincides with a call for schools to allow pupils to be more
creative in writing about Shakespeare. Professor Kate McLuskie, the new director of
the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute - also based in
Stratford—said it was time to get away from the idea that there was “a right
answer” to any question about Shakespeare. Her first foray into the world of
Shakespeare was to berate him as a misogynist in a 1985 essay but she now insists
this should not be interpreted as a criticism of his works—although she admits: “I
probably wouldn’t have written it quite the same way if I had been writing it now.
What we should be doing is making sure that someone is getting something out of
Shakespeare,” she said. “People are very scared about getting the right answer. I
know it’s difficult but I don’t care if they come up with a right answer that I can
agree with about Shakespeare.”
Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
A ： The RSC insists on teaching Shakespeare from the secondary school.
B ： Pupils should study “texts drawn from a variety of cultures and traditions”
required by the national curriculum.
C ： The national curriculum does not require pupils to approach Shakespeare until
secondary school now.
D ： RSC believes children will gain a better appreciation of Shakespeare if they are
introduced to him at a much younger age.
49 、 不定项选择题
The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions ever
witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive America to Europe and reaches the
emerging countries with unsurpassed might. Many in these countries are looking at
this process and worrying: “Won’t the wave of business concentration turn into an
uncontrollable anti-competitive force?”
There’s no question that the big are getting bigger and more powerful.
Multinational corporations accounted for less than 20% of international trade in
1982. Today the figure is more than 25% and growing rapidly. International affiliates
account for a fast-growing segment of production in economies that open up and
welcome foreign investment. In Argentina, for instance, after the reforms of the early
1990s, multinationals went from 43% to almost 70% of the industrial production of
the 200 largest firms. This phenomenon has created serious concerns over the role of
smaller economic firms, of national businessmen and over the ultimate stability, of
the world economy.
I believe that the most important forces behind the massive M&A wave are the
same that underlie the globalization process: falling transportation, and
communication costs, lower trade and investment barriers and enlarged markets that
require enlarged operations capable of meeting customers’ demands. All these are
beneficial, not detrimental to consumers. As productivity grows, the world’s wealth
increases.Examples of benefits or costs of the current concentration-wave are scanty. Yet it
is hard to imagine that the merge of a few oil firms today could recreate the same
threats to competition that were feared nearly a century ago in the U.S., when the
Standard Oil trust was broken up. The mergers of telecom companies, such as World
Corn, hardly seem to bring higher prices for consumers or a reduction in the pace of
technical progress. On the contrary, the price of communications is coming down
fast. In cars, too, concentration is increasing—witness Daimler and Chrysler, Renault
and Nissan—but it does not appear that consumers am being hurt.
Yet the fact remains that the merger movement must be watched. A few weeks
ago, Alan Greenspan warned against the megamergers in the banking industry. Who
is going to supervise, regulate and operate, as lender of last resort with the gigantic
banks that are being created? won’t multinationals shift production from one place
to another when a nation gets too strict about infringements to fair corn petition?
And should one country take upon itself the role of “defending competition” on
issues that affect many other nations, as in the U.S.
Practice?4
The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions ever
witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive America to Europe and reaches the
emerging countries with unsurpassed might. Many in these countries are looking at
this process and worrying: “Won’t the wave of business concentration turn into an
uncontrollable anti-competitive force?”
There’s no question that the big are getting bigger and more powerful.
Multinational corporations accounted for less than 20% of international trade in
1982. Today the figure is more than 25% and growing rapidly. International affiliates
account for a fast-growing segment of production in economies that open up and
welcome foreign investment. In Argentina, for instance, after the reforms of the early
1990s, multinationals went from 43% to almost 70% of the industrial production of
the 200 largest firms. This phenomenon has created serious concerns over the role of
smaller economic firms, of national businessmen and over the ultimate stability, of
the world economy.
I believe that the most important forces behind the massive M&A wave are the
same that underlie the globalization process: falling transportation, and
communication costs, lower trade and investment barriers and enlarged markets that
require enlarged operations capable of meeting customers’ demands. All these are
beneficial, not detrimental to consumers. As productivity grows, the world’s wealth
increases.
Examples of benefits or costs of the current concentration-wave are scanty. Yet it
is hard to imagine that the merge of a few oil firms today could recreate the same
threats to competition that were feared nearly a century ago in the U.S., when the
Standard Oil trust was broken up. The mergers of telecom companies, such as World
Corn, hardly seem to bring higher prices for consumers or a reduction in the pace of
technical progress. On the contrary, the price of communications is coming down
fast. In cars, too, concentration is increasing—witness Daimler and Chrysler, Renault
and Nissan—but it does not appear that consumers am being hurt.
Yet the fact remains that the merger movement must be watched. A few weeks
ago, Alan Greenspan warned against the megamergers in the banking industry. Who
is going to supervise, regulate and operate, as lender of last resort with the gigantic
banks that are being created? won’t multinationals shift production from one place
to another when a nation gets too strict about infringements to fair corn petition?
And should one country take upon itself the role of “defending competition” onissues that affect many other nations, as in the U.S.
What is the typical trend, of businesses today?
A ： the increasing concentration is certain to hurt consumers
B ： World Corn serves as a good example of both benefits and costs
C ： the costs of the globalization process are enormous
D ： the Standard Oil trust might have threatened competition
50 、 不定项选择题
With thunderclouds looming over the trans-Atlantic economy, it was easy to miss a
bright piece of news last weekend from the other crucible of world trade, the Pacific
Rim. In Honolulu, where Barack Obama hosted a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders,
Canada, Japan and Mexico expressed interest in joining nine countries (America,
Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam) in
discussing a free-trade pact. Altogether, the possible members of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership(TPP) produce 40％ of world GDP—far more than the European Union.
Regional trade deals are not always a good idea. If they distract policymakers
from global trade liberalization, they are to be discouraged. But with the Doha round
of global trade talks showing no flicker of life, there is little danger that the TPP will
derail a broader agreement; and by cutting barriers, strengthening intellectual-
property protections and going beyond a web of existing trade deals, it should boost
world trade.
The creation of a wider TPP is still some way off. For it to come into being its
architects—Mr. Obama, who faces a tough election battle next year, and Japan’s
Yoshihiko Noda, who faces crony politics laced with passionate protectionism-need to
show more leadership.
Mr. Noda’s announcement on November 11th that Japan was interested in
joining the TPP negotiations was an exceedingly bold move. Signing up would mean
dramatic changes in Japan, a country which has 800％tariffs on rice and exports 65
vehicles to America for every one that is sent to Japan. Mr. Noda’s move could also
transform the prospects of the TPP, most obviously by uniting two of the world’s
leading three economies but also by galvanizing others. Until he expressed an
interest, Canada and Mexico had also remained on the sidelines. Unwittingly or not,
Mr. Noda has thrust mercantilist Japan into a central position on a trade treaty in
which free movement of everything except labor is on the table.
Immense obstacles loom for Mr. Noda. He came into office in September casting
himself as a conciliator of Japan’s warring political factions. Many of those groups
are opposed to the TPP. Farm co-operatives, which feather many a politician’s nest,
argue that it would rob Japan of its rice heritage. Doctors warn of the risks to
Japan’s cherished health system. Socialists see the TPP as a Washington-led
sideswipe at China, which had hoped to build an East Asian trade orbit including
Japan. Mr. Nora will have to contend not just with opposition from rival parties but
also with a split on the issue inside his Democratic Party of Japan.
Since Honolulu, Mr. Noda has already pandered to protectionists by watering
down his message. Having beamed next to Mr. Obama in a summit photo, he then
protested that the White House had overstated his intention to put all goods and
services up for negotiation. Polls, however, suggest the Japanese are crying out for
Leadership on the issue, not pusillanimity. More support the idea of entering TPPnegotiations than oppose it. On their behalf Mr. Noda should lead Japan forthrightly
into the discussions, confident that the country can bargain well enough to give its
sacred industries such as farming and health care time to adjust.
It is also a test for Mr. Obama’s new strategy of coping with China’s rise by
“pivoting” American foreign policy more towards Asia. He must stand up to the
unions in the car industry which have long bellyached about the imbalance of trade
with Japan. He should energetically promote the potential gains for jobs of his pro-
Asia strategy-both at home and abroad. America should also stress that the TPP is
meant to engage and incorporate China, rather than constrain it.
Such steps would help win support in Japan, while costing America little. And in
joining the TPP, Japan would be forced to reform hidebound parts of its economy,
such as services, which would stimulate growth. A revitalized Japan would add to the
dynamism of a more liberalized Asia-Pacific region. That is surely something worth
fighting for.
What should America do to win support in Japan?
A ： They should support the unions in the American car industry.
B ： They should increase the employment rate both at home and abroad.
C ： They should show their intention to incorporate China in the TPP.
D ： They should give. Japan sufficient time to reform the hidebound parts of its
economy.
51 、 不定项选择题
The newspaper must provide for the reader the facts, pure, unprejudiced, objectively
selected facts. But in these days of complex news it must provide more; it must
supply interpretation, the meaning of the facts. This is the most important
assignment confronting American journalism—to make clear to the reader the
problems of the day, to make international news understandable as community
news, to recognize that there is no longer any such thing (with the possible exception
of society news) as “local” news, because any event in the international area has
local reaction in the financial market, political circles, in terms, indeed, of our very
way of life.
There is in journalism a widespread view that when you consider giving an
interpretation, you are entering dangerous waters, the swirling tides of opinion. This
is nonsense.
The opponents of interpretation insist that the writer and the editor shall confine
himself to the “facts”. This insistence raises two questions. What are the facts?
And: Are the bare facts enough?
As for the first question, consider how a so-called “factual” story comes about.
The reporter collects, say, fifty facts; out these fifty, his space being necessarily
restricted, he selects the ten which he considers most important. This is judgment
Number One. Then he or his editor decides which of these ten facts shall constitute
the beginning of the article. (This is an important decision because many readers do
not proceed beyond the first paragraph.) This is Judgment Number Two. Then the
night editor determines whether the article shall be presented on page one, where it
has a large influence, or on page twenty-four, where it has little. Judgment Number
Three.
Thus in the presentation of a so-called “factual” or “objective” story, at leastthree judgments are involved. And they are judgments not at all unlike those involved
in interpretation, in which. reporter and editor, calling upon their research resources,
their general background, and their “news neutralism”, arrive at a conclusion as to
line significance of the news.
The two areas of judgment, presentation of the news and its interpretation, are
both objective rather than subjective processes—as objective, that is, as any human
being can be. (Note in passing: even though complete objectivity can never be
achieved, nevertheless the ideal must always be the light in the murky news
channels.) If an editor is intent on giving a prejudiced view of the news, he can do it
in other ways and more effectively than by interpretation. He can do it by the
selection of those facts that support his particular viewpoint. Or he can do it by line
play he gives a story—promoting it to page one or putting it on page thirty.
The best title for this passage is _____.
A ： Function of the Night Editor
B ： Interpreting the News
C ： Subjective versus Objective Processes
D ： Choosing Facts
52 、 不定项选择题
Many United States companies have, unfortunately, made the search for legal
protection from import competition into a major line of work. Since 1980 the United
States international Trade Commission (ITC) has received about 280 complaints
alleging damage from imports that benefit from subsidies by foreign governments.
Another 340 charge that foreign companies “dumped” their products in thee
United States at “less than fair value.” Even when no unfair practices are alleged,
the simple claim that an industry has been injured by imports is sufficient grounds to
seek relief.
Contrary to the general impression, this quest for import relief has hurt more
companies than it has helped. As corporations begin to function globally, they
develop an intricate web of marketing, production, and research relationships. The
complexity of these relationships makes it unlikely that a system of import relief laws
will meet the strategic needs of all the units under the same parent company, №.
Suppose a United States-owned company establishes an overseas plant to
manufacture a product while its competitor makes the same product in the United
States. If the competitor can prove injury from the imports-and that the United States
company received a subsidy from a foreign government to build its plant abroad-the
United States company’s products will be uncompetitive in the United States, since
they would be subject to duties.
Perhaps the most brazen ease occurred when the ITC investigated allegations
that Canadian companies were injuring the United States salt industry by dumping
rock salt, used to de-ice roads. The bizarre aspect of the complaint was that a foreign
conglomerate with United States operations was crying for help against a United
States company with foreign operations. The “United States” company claiming
injury was a subsidiary of a Dutch conglomerate, while the “Canadian” companies
included a subsidiary of a Chicago firm that was the second-largest domestic
producer of rock salt.
It can be inferred from the passage that the minimal basis for a complaint to theinternational Trade Commission is which of the following?
A ： foreign competitor has received a subsidy from a foreign government.
B ： A foreign competitor has substantially increased the volume of products shipped
to the United States.
C ： A foreign competitor selling products in the United States at less than fair
market value.
D ： The company requesting import relief has been injured by the sale of imports in
the United States.
53 、 不定项选择题
Students of United States history, seeking to identify the circumstances that
encouraged the emergence of feminist movements, have thoroughly investigated the
mid-nineteenth-century American economic and social conditions that affected the
status of women. These historians, however, have analyzed less fully the
development of specifically feminist ideas and activities during the same period.
Furthermore, the ideological origins of feminism in the United States have been
obscured because, even when historians did take into account those feminist ideas
and activities occurring within the United States, they failed to recognize that
feminism was then a truly international movement actually centered in Europe.
American feminist activists who have been described as “solitary” and “individual
theorists” were in reality connected to a movement —utopian socialism—which was
already popularizing feminist ideas in Europe during the two decades that
cachinnated in the first women’s rights conference held at Seneca Falls, New York,
in 1848. Thus, a complete understanding of the origins and development of
nineteenth-century feminism in the United States requires that the geographical
focus be widened to include Europe and that the detailed study already made of
social conditions be expanded to include the ideological development of feminism.
The earliest and most popular of the utopian socialists were the Saint-Simonians.
The specifically feminist part of Saint-Simonianism has, however, been less studied
than the group’s contribution to early socialism. This is regrettable on two accounts.
By 1832 feminism was the central concern of Saint-Simonianism and entirely
absorbed its adherents’ energy; hence, by ignoring its feminism, European
historians have misunderstood Saint-Simonianism. Moreover, since many feminist
ideas can be traced to Saint-Simonianism, European historians’ appreciation of later
feminism in France and the United States remained limited.
Saint-Simon’s followers, many of whom were women, based their feminism on
an interpretation of his project to reorganize the globe by replacing brute force with
the rule of spiritual powers. The new world order would be ruled together by a male,
to represent reflection, and a female, to represent sentiment. This complementarity
reflects the fact that, while the Saint-Simonians did not reject the belief that there
were innate differences between men and women, they nevertheless foresaw an
equally important social and political role for both sexes in their Utopia.
Only a few Saint-Simonians opposed a definition of sexual equality based on
gender distinction. This minority believed that individuals of both sexes were born
similar in capacity and character, and they ascribed male-female differences to
socialization and education. The envisioned result of both currents of thought,
however, was that women would enter public life in the new age and that sexual
equality would reward men as well as women with an improved way of life.It can be inferred that the author considers those historians who describe early
feminists in the Unrated States as “solitary” to be _____.
A ： insufficiently familiar with the international origins of nineteenth-century
American feminist thought
B ： overly concerned with the regional diversity of feminist ideas in the period
before 1848
C ： not focused narrowly enough in their geo-graphical scope
D ： insufficiently aware of the ideological consequences of the Seneca Falls
conference
54 、 不定项选择题
It’s nothing new that English use is on the rise around the world, especially in
business circles. This also happens in France, the headquarters of the global battle
against American cultural hegemony. If French guys are giving in to English,
something really big must be going on. And something big is going on.
Partly, it’s that American hegemony. Didier Benchimol, CEO of a French e-
commerce software company, feels compelled to speak English perfectly because the
Internet software business is dominated by Americans. He and other French
businessmen also have to speak, English because they want to get their message out
to American investors, possessors of the world’s deepest pockets.
The triumph of English in France and elsewhere in Europe, however, may rest on
something more enduring. As they become entwined with each other politically and
economically, Europeans need a way to talk to one another and to the rest of the
world. And for a number of reasons, they’ve decided upon English as their common
tongue.
So when German chemical and pharmaceutical company Hoechst merged with
French competitor Rhone-Poulenc last year, the companies chose the vaguely
Latinate Aventis as the new company name—and settled on English as the
company’s common language. When monetary policymakers from around Europe
began meeting at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt last year to set interest
rates for the new Euroland, they held their deliberations in English. Even the
European Commission, with 11 official languages and a traditionally French-spiriting
bureaucracy, effectively switched over to English as its working language last year.
How did this happen? One school attributes English’s great success to the sheer
weight of its merit. It’s a Germanic language, brought to Britain around the fifth
century A.D. During the four centuries of French-speaking rule that followed Norman
Conquest of 1066, the language morphed into something else entirely. French words
were added wholesale, and most of the complications of Germanic grammar were
shed while few of the complications of French were added. The result is a language
with a huge vocabulary and a simple grammar that can express most things more
efficiently than either of its parents. What’s more, English has remained
ungoverned and open to change—foreign words, coinages, and grammatical
shifts—in a way that French, ruled by the purist Académie Francaise, has not.
So it’s a swell language, especially for business. But the rise of English over the
past few centuries clearly owes at least as much to history and economies as to the
language’s ability to economically express the concept win-win. What happened is
that the competition—first Latin, then French, then, briefly, German—faded with the
waning of the political, economic, and military fortunes of, respectively, the CatholicChurch, France, and Germany. All along, English was increasing in importance: Britain
was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and London the world’s most
important financial center, which made English a key language for business.
England’s colonies around the world also made it the language with the most global
reach. And as that former colony the U.S. rose to the status of the world’s
preeminent political, economic, military, and cultural power, English became the
obvious second language to learn.
In the 1990s more and more Europeans found themselves forced to use English.
The last generation of business and government leaders who hadn’t studied English
in school was leaving the stage. The European Community was adding new members
and evolving from a paper-shuffling club into a serious regional government that
would need a single common language if it were ever to get anything done.
Meanwhile, economic barriers between European nations have been disappearing,
meaning that more and more companies are beginning to look at the whole
continent as their domestic market. And then the Internet came along.
The Net had two big impacts. One was that it was an exciting, potentially
lucrative new industry that had its roots in the U.S., so if you wanted to get in on it,
you had to speak some English. The other was that by surfing the Web, Europeans
who had previously encountered English only in school and in pop songs were now
coming into contact with it daily.
None of this means English has taken over European life. According to the
European Union, 47% of Western Europeans (including the British and Irish) speak
English well enough to carry on a conversation. That’s a lot more than those who
can speak German (32%) or French (28%), but it still means more Europeans don’t
speak the language. If you want to sell shampoo or cell phones, you have to do it in
French or German or Spanish or Greek. Even the U.S. and British media companies
that stand to benefit most from the spread of English have been hedging their
bets—CNN broadcasts in Spanish; the?Financial Times?has recently launched a daily
German-language edition.
But just look at who speaks English: 77% of Western European college student,
69% of managers, and 65% of those aged 15 to 24. In the secondary schools of the
European Union’s non-English-speaking countries, 91% of students study English,
all of which means that the transition to English as the language of European
business hasn’t been all that traumatic, and it’s only going to get easier in the
future.
The passage has discussed the rise in English use on the Continent from the following
perspectives EXCEPT _____.
A ： economics
B ： national security
C ： the emergence of the Internet
D ： the changing functions of the European Community
55 、 不定项选择题
Hormones in the Body Up to the beginning of the twentieth century, the nervous
system was thought to control all communication within the body and the resulting
integration of behavior. Scientists had determined that nerves ran, essentially, on
electrical impulses. These impulses were thought to be the engine for thought,
emotion, movement, and internal processes such as digestion. However, experimentsby William Bayliss and Ernest Starling on the chemical secretin, which is produced in
the small intestine when food enters the stomach, eventually challenged that view.
From the small intestine, secretin travels through the bloodstream to the pancreas.
There, it stimulates the release of digestive chemicals. In this fashion, the intestinal
cells that produce secretin ultimately regulate the production of different chemicals
in a different organ, the pancreas.
Such a coordination of processes had been thought to require control by the
nervous system; Bayliss and Starling showed that it could occur through chemicals
alone. This discovery spurred Starting to coin the term hormone to refer to secretin,
taking it from the Greek word hormon, meaning “to excite” or “to set in
motion.” A hormone is a chemical produced by one tissue to make things happen
elsewhere.
As more hormones were discovered, they were categorized, primarily according
to the process by which they operated on the body. Some glands (which make up the
endocrine system) secrete hormones directly into the bloodstream. Such glands
include the thyroid and the pituitary. The exocrine system consists of organs and
glands that produce substances that are used outside the bloodstream, primarily for
digestion. The pancreas is one such organ, although it secretes some chemicals into
the blood and thus is also part of the endocrine system.
Much has been learned about hormones since their discovery. Some play such
key roles in regulating bodily processes or behavior that their absence would cause
immediate death. The most abundant hormones have effects that are less obviously
urgent but can be more far-reaching and difficult to track: They modify moods and
affect human behavior, even some behavior we normally think of as voluntary.
Hormonal systems are very intricate. Even minute amounts of the right chemicals can
suppress appetite, calm aggression, and change the attitude of a parent toward a
child. Certain hormones accelerate the development of the body, regulating growth
and form; others may even define an individual’s personality characteristics. The
quantities and proportions of hormones produce change with age, so scientists have
given a great deal of study to shifts in the endocrine system over time in the hopes of
alleviating ailments associated with aging.
In fact, some hormone therapies are already very common. A combination of
estrogen and progesterone has been prescribed for decades to women who want to
reduce mood swings, sudden changes in body temperature, and other discomforts
caused by lower natural levels of those hormones as they enter middle age. Known
as hormone replacement therapy (HRT), the treatment was also believed to prevent
weakening of the bones. At least one study has linked HRT with a heightened risk of
heart disease and certain types of cancer. HRT may also increase the likelihood that
blood clots—dangerous because they could travel through the bloodstream and
block major blood vessels—will form. Some proponents of HRT have tempered their
enthusiasm in the face of this new evidence, recommending it only to patients whose
symptoms interfere with their abilities to live normal lives.
Human growth hormone may also be given to patients who are secreting
abnormally low amounts on their own. Because of the complicated effects growth
hormone has on the body, such treatments are generally restricted to children who
would be pathologically small in stature without it. Growth hormone affects not just
physical size but also the digestion of food and the aging process. Researchers and
family physicians tend to agree that it is foolhardy to dispense it in cases in which the
risks are not clearly outweighed by the benefits.The glands and organs mentioned in paragraph 3 are categorized according to _____.
A ： whether scientists understand their function
B ： how frequently they release hormones into the body
C ： whether the hormones they secrete influence the aging process
D ： whether they secrete chemicals into the blood
56 、 不定项选择题
It’s nothing new that English use is on the rise around the world, especially in
business circles. This also happens in France, the headquarters of the global battle
against American cultural hegemony. If French guys are giving in to English,
something really big must be going on. And something big is going on.
Partly, it’s that American hegemony. Didier Benchimol, CEO of a French e-
commerce software company, feels compelled to speak English perfectly because the
Internet software business is dominated by Americans. He and other French
businessmen also have to speak, English because they want to get their message out
to American investors, possessors of the world’s deepest pockets.
The triumph of English in France and elsewhere in Europe, however, may rest on
something more enduring. As they become entwined with each other politically and
economically, Europeans need a way to talk to one another and to the rest of the
world. And for a number of reasons, they’ve decided upon English as their common
tongue.
So when German chemical and pharmaceutical company Hoechst merged with
French competitor Rhone-Poulenc last year, the companies chose the vaguely
Latinate Aventis as the new company name—and settled on English as the
company’s common language. When monetary policymakers from around Europe
began meeting at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt last year to set interest
rates for the new Euroland, they held their deliberations in English. Even the
European Commission, with 11 official languages and a traditionally French-spiriting
bureaucracy, effectively switched over to English as its working language last year.
How did this happen? One school attributes English’s great success to the sheer
weight of its merit. It’s a Germanic language, brought to Britain around the fifth
century A.D. During the four centuries of French-speaking rule that followed Norman
Conquest of 1066, the language morphed into something else entirely. French words
were added wholesale, and most of the complications of Germanic grammar were
shed while few of the complications of French were added. The result is a language
with a huge vocabulary and a simple grammar that can express most things more
efficiently than either of its parents. What’s more, English has remained
ungoverned and open to change—foreign words, coinages, and grammatical
shifts—in a way that French, ruled by the purist Académie Francaise, has not.
So it’s a swell language, especially for business. But the rise of English over the
past few centuries clearly owes at least as much to history and economies as to the
language’s ability to economically express the concept win-win. What happened is
that the competition—first Latin, then French, then, briefly, German—faded with the
waning of the political, economic, and military fortunes of, respectively, the Catholic
Church, France, and Germany. All along, English was increasing in importance: Britain
was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and London the world’s most
important financial center, which made English a key language for business.
England’s colonies around the world also made it the language with the most globalreach. And as that former colony the U.S. rose to the status of the world’s
preeminent political, economic, military, and cultural power, English became the
obvious second language to learn.
In the 1990s more and more Europeans found themselves forced to use English.
The last generation of business and government leaders who hadn’t studied English
in school was leaving the stage. The European Community was adding new members
and evolving from a paper-shuffling club into a serious regional government that
would need a single common language if it were ever to get anything done.
Meanwhile, economic barriers between European nations have been disappearing,
meaning that more and more companies are beginning to look at the whole
continent as their domestic market. And then the Internet came along.
The Net had two big impacts. One was that it was an exciting, potentially
lucrative new industry that had its roots in the U.S., so if you wanted to get in on it,
you had to speak some English. The other was that by surfing the Web, Europeans
who had previously encountered English only in school and in pop songs were now
coming into contact with it daily.
None of this means English has taken over European life. According to the
European Union, 47% of Western Europeans (including the British and Irish) speak
English well enough to carry on a conversation. That’s a lot more than those who
can speak German (32%) or French (28%), but it still means more Europeans don’t
speak the language. If you want to sell shampoo or cell phones, you have to do it in
French or German or Spanish or Greek. Even the U.S. and British media companies
that stand to benefit most from the spread of English have been hedging their
bets—CNN broadcasts in Spanish; the?Financial Times?has recently launched a daily
German-language edition.
But just look at who speaks English: 77% of Western European college student,
69% of managers, and 65% of those aged 15 to 24. In the secondary schools of the
European Union’s non-English-speaking countries, 91% of students study English,
all of which means that the transition to English as the language of European
business hasn’t been all that traumatic, and it’s only going to get easier in the
future.
Europeans began to favour English for all the following reasons EXCEPT its _____.
A ： inherent linguistic properties
B ： association with the business world
C ： links with the United States
D ： disassociation from political changes
57 、 不定项选择题
I live in the land of Disney, Hollywood and year-round sun. You may think people in
such a glamorous, fun-filled p lace are happier than others. If so, you have some
mistaken ideas about the nature of happiness.
Many intelligent people still equate happiness with fun. The truth is that fun and
happiness have little or nothing in common. Fun is what we experience during an act.
Happiness is what we experience after an act. It is a deeper more abiding emotion.
Going to an amusement park or ball game, watching a movie or television, are
fun activities that help us relax, temporarily forget our problems and maybe even
laugh. But they do not bring happiness, because their positive effects end when the
fun ends.I have often thought that if Hollywood stars have a role to play, it is to teach us
that happiness has nothing to do with fan. These rich, beautiful individuals have
constant access to glamorous parties, fancy cars, expensive homes, everything that
spells “happiness”. But in memoir after memoir, celebrities reveal the unhappiness
hidden beneath all their fun: depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, broken
marriages, troubled children and profound loneliness.
Ask a bachelor why he resists marriage even though he finds dating to be less
and less satisfying. If he’s honest, he will tell you that he is afraid of making a
commitment. For commitment is in tact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun,
adventure and excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most
distinguishing features.
Similarly, couples that choose not to have children are deciding in favor of
painless fun over painful happiness. They can dine out ever they want and sleep as
late as they want. Couples with infant children are lucky to get a whole night’s sleep
or a three-day vacation. I don’t know any parent who would choose the word fun to
describe raising children.
Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is
one of the most liberating realizations we can ever come to. It liberates time: now we
can devote more hours to activities that can genuinely increase our happiness. It
liberates money: buying that new car or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to
increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy: we now
understand that all those rich and glamorous people we were so sure are happy
because they are always having so much fun actually may not be happy at all.
If one gets the meaning of the true sense of happiness, he will _____.
A ： stop playing games and joking with others
B ： make the best use of his time increasing happiness
C ： give a free hand to money
D ： keep himself with his family
58 、 不定项选择题
It’s nothing new that English use is on the rise around the world, especially in
business circles. This also happens in France, the headquarters of the global battle
against American cultural hegemony. If French guys are giving in to English,
something really big must be going on. And something big is going on.
Partly, it’s that American hegemony. Didier Benchimol, CEO of a French e-
commerce software company, feels compelled to speak English perfectly because the
Internet software business is dominated by Americans. He and other French
businessmen also have to speak, English because they want to get their message out
to American investors, possessors of the world’s deepest pockets.
The triumph of English in France and elsewhere in Europe, however, may rest on
something more enduring. As they become entwined with each other politically and
economically, Europeans need a way to talk to one another and to the rest of the
world. And for a number of reasons, they’ve decided upon English as their common
tongue.
So when German chemical and pharmaceutical company Hoechst merged with
French competitor Rhone-Poulenc last year, the companies chose the vaguelyLatinate Aventis as the new company name—and settled on English as the
company’s common language. When monetary policymakers from around Europe
began meeting at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt last year to set interest
rates for the new Euroland, they held their deliberations in English. Even the
European Commission, with 11 official languages and a traditionally French-spiriting
bureaucracy, effectively switched over to English as its working language last year.
How did this happen? One school attributes English’s great success to the sheer
weight of its merit. It’s a Germanic language, brought to Britain around the fifth
century A.D. During the four centuries of French-speaking rule that followed Norman
Conquest of 1066, the language morphed into something else entirely. French words
were added wholesale, and most of the complications of Germanic grammar were
shed while few of the complications of French were added. The result is a language
with a huge vocabulary and a simple grammar that can express most things more
efficiently than either of its parents. What’s more, English has remained
ungoverned and open to change—foreign words, coinages, and grammatical
shifts—in a way that French, ruled by the purist Académie Francaise, has not.
So it’s a swell language, especially for business. But the rise of English over the
past few centuries clearly owes at least as much to history and economies as to the
language’s ability to economically express the concept win-win. What happened is
that the competition—first Latin, then French, then, briefly, German—faded with the
waning of the political, economic, and military fortunes of, respectively, the Catholic
Church, France, and Germany. All along, English was increasing in importance: Britain
was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and London the world’s most
important financial center, which made English a key language for business.
England’s colonies around the world also made it the language with the most global
reach. And as that former colony the U.S. rose to the status of the world’s
preeminent political, economic, military, and cultural power, English became the
obvious second language to learn.
In the 1990s more and more Europeans found themselves forced to use English.
The last generation of business and government leaders who hadn’t studied English
in school was leaving the stage. The European Community was adding new members
and evolving from a paper-shuffling club into a serious regional government that
would need a single common language if it were ever to get anything done.
Meanwhile, economic barriers between European nations have been disappearing,
meaning that more and more companies are beginning to look at the whole
continent as their domestic market. And then the Internet came along.
The Net had two big impacts. One was that it was an exciting, potentially
lucrative new industry that had its roots in the U.S., so if you wanted to get in on it,
you had to speak some English. The other was that by surfing the Web, Europeans
who had previously encountered English only in school and in pop songs were now
coming into contact with it daily.
None of this means English has taken over European life. According to the
European Union, 47% of Western Europeans (including the British and Irish) speak
English well enough to carry on a conversation. That’s a lot more than those who
can speak German (32%) or French (28%), but it still means more Europeans don’t
speak the language. If you want to sell shampoo or cell phones, you have to do it in
French or German or Spanish or Greek. Even the U.S. and British media companies
that stand to benefit most from the spread of English have been hedging their
bets—CNN broadcasts in Spanish; the?Financial Times?has recently launched a daily
German-language edition.
But just look at who speaks English: 77% of Western European college student,69% of managers, and 65% of those aged 15 to 24. In the secondary schools of the
European Union’s non-English-speaking countries, 91% of students study English,
all of which means that the transition to English as the language of European
business hasn’t been all that traumatic, and it’s only going to get easier in the
future.
Which of the following statements forecasts the continuous rise of English in the
future?
A ： bout half of Western Europeans are now proficient in English.
B ： U.S. and British media companies are operating in Western Europe.
C ： Most secondary school students in Europe study English.
D ： Most Europeans continue to use their own language.
59 、 不定项选择题
I live in the land of Disney, Hollywood and year-round sun. You may think people in
such a glamorous, fun-filled p lace are happier than others. If so, you have some
mistaken ideas about the nature of happiness.
Many intelligent people still equate happiness with fun. The truth is that fun and
happiness have little or nothing in common. Fun is what we experience during an act.
Happiness is what we experience after an act. It is a deeper more abiding emotion.
Going to an amusement park or ball game, watching a movie or television, are
fun activities that help us relax, temporarily forget our problems and maybe even
laugh. But they do not bring happiness, because their positive effects end when the
fun ends.
I have often thought that if Hollywood stars have a role to play, it is to teach us
that happiness has nothing to do with fan. These rich, beautiful individuals have
constant access to glamorous parties, fancy cars, expensive homes, everything that
spells “happiness”. But in memoir after memoir, celebrities reveal the unhappiness
hidden beneath all their fun: depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, broken
marriages, troubled children and profound loneliness.
Ask a bachelor why he resists marriage even though he finds dating to be less
and less satisfying. If he’s honest, he will tell you that he is afraid of making a
commitment. For commitment is in tact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun,
adventure and excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most
distinguishing features.
Similarly, couples that choose not to have children are deciding in favor of
painless fun over painful happiness. They can dine out ever they want and sleep as
late as they want. Couples with infant children are lucky to get a whole night’s sleep
or a three-day vacation. I don’t know any parent who would choose the word fun to
describe raising children.
Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is
one of the most liberating realizations we can ever come to. It liberates time: now we
can devote more hours to activities that can genuinely increase our happiness. It
liberates money: buying that new car or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to
increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy: we now
understand that all those rich and glamorous people we were so sure are happy
because they are always having so much fun actually may not be happy at all.Which of the following is true?
A ： Fun creates long-lasting satisfaction
B ： Fun provides enjoyment while pain leads to happiness.
C ： Happiness is enduring whereas fun is short-lived.
D ： Fun that is long-standing may lead to happiness.
60 、 不定项选择题
In its modern form the concept of “literature” did not emerge earlier than the
eighteenth century and was not fully developed until the nineteenth century. Yet the
conditions for its emergence had been developing since the Renaissance. The word
itself came into English use in the fourteenth century, following French and Latin
precedents; its root was Latin?littera, a letter of the alphabet.?Litterature, in the
common early spelling, was then in effect a condition of reading: of being able to
read and of having read. It was often close to the sense of modern?literacy, which
was not in the language until the late nineteenth century, its introduction in part
made necessary by the movement of?literature?to a different sense. The normal
adjective associated with literature was?literate. Literary appeared in the sense of
reading ability and experience in the seventeenth century, and did not acquire its
specialized modern meaning until the eighteenth century.
Literature?as a new category was then a specialization of the area formerly
categorized as?rhetoric?and?grammar: a specialization to reading and, in the material
context of the development of printing, to the printed word and especially the book.
It was eventually to become a more general category than?poetry?or the
earlier?poesy, which had been general terms for imaginative composition, but which
in relation to the development of?literaturebecame predominantly specialized, from
the seventeenth century, to metrical composition and especially written and printed
metrical composition. But literature was never primarily the active composition─the
“making”─which poetry had described. As reading rather than writing, it was a
category of a different kind. The characteristic use can be seen in Bacon “learned in
all literature and erudition, divine and humane”─and as late as Johnson “he had
probably more than common literature, as his son addresses him in one of his most
elaborate Latin poems.”?Literature, that is to say, was a category of use and
condition rather than of production. It was a particular specialization of what had
hitherto been seen as an activity or practice, and a specialization, in the
circumstances, which was inevitably made in terms of social class. In its first
extended sense, beyond the bare sense of “literacy,” it was a definition of
“polite” or “humane” learning, and thus specified a particular social distinction.
New political concepts of the “nation” and new valuations of the “vernacular”
interacted with a persistent emphasis on “literature” as reading in the “classical”
languages. But still, in this first stage, into the eighteenth century,?literature?was
primarily a generalized social concept, expressing a certain (minority) level of
educational achievement. This carded with it a potential and eventually realized
alternative definition of?literature?as “printed books:” the objects in and through
which this achievement was demonstrated.
It is important that, within the terms of this development, literature normally
included all printed books. There was not necessary specialization to “imaginative”
works. Literature was still primarily reading ability and experience, and this included
philosophy, history, and essays as well as poems. Were the new eighteenth centurynovels literature? That question was first approached, not by definition of their mode
or content, but by reference to the standards of “polite” or “humane” learning.
Was drama literature? This question was to exercise successive generations, not
because of any substantial difficulty but because of the practical limits of the
category. If literature was reading, could a mode written for spoken performance be
said to be literature, and if not, where was Shakespeare?
At one level the definition indicated by this development has persisted.
Literature lost its earliest sense of reading ability and reading experience, and
became an apparently objective category of printed works of a certain quality. The
concerns of a “literary editor” or a “literary supplement” would still be defined
in this way. But three complicating tendencies can then be distinguished: first, a shift
from “learning” to “taste” or “sensibility” as a criterion defining literary
quality; second, an increasing specialization of literature to “creative” or
“imaginative” works; third, a development of the concept of “tradition” within
national terms, resulting in the more effective definition of “a national literature.”
The source of each of these tendencies can be discerned from the Renaissance, but it
was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that they came through most
powerfully, until they became, in the twentieth century, in effect received
assumptions.
What is the earliest adjective associated with literature?
A ： Literary.
B ： Literate.
C ： Literacy.
D ： Literal.
61 、 不定项选择题
Some believe that in the age of identikit computer games, mass entertainment and
conformity on the supermarket shelves, truly inspired thinking has gone out of the
window. But, there are others who hold the view that there is still plenty of scope for
innovation, lateral thought and creative solutions. Despite the standardization of
modern life, there is an unabated appetite for great ideas, visionary thinking and
inspired debate. In the first of a series of monthly debates on contemporary issues,
we ask two original thinkers to discuss the nature of creativity. Here is the first one.
Yes. Absolutely. Since I started working as an inventor 10 or 12 years ago, I’ve
seen a big change in attitudes to creativity and invention. Back then, there was hardly
any support for inventors, apart from the national organization the Institute of
Patentees and Inventors. Today, there are lots of little inventors’ clubs popping up
all over the place, my last count was 19 nationally and growing. These non-profit
clubs, run by inventors for inventors, are an indication that people are once again
interested in invention.
I’ve been a project leader, a croupier, an IT consultant and I’ve written a
motor mandrel. I spent my teens under a 1950s two-tone Riley RME ear, learning to
put it together. Back in the Sixties, kids like me were always out doing things, making
go-karts, riding bicycles or exploring. We learned to overcome challenges and solve
problems. We weren’t just sitting at a PlayStation, like many kids do today.
But I think, and hope, things are shifting back. There’s a lot more internl in
design and creativity and such talents are getting a much higher profile in the media.It’s evident with TV programmes such as Channe14’s?Scrapheap Challenge?or
BBC2’s?The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den, where people are given a task to solve
or face the challenge of selling their idea to a panel.
And. thankfully, the image of the mad scientist with electrified hair working in
the garden shed is long gone—although, there are still a few exceptions!
That’s not to say there aren’t problems. With the decline in manufacturing we
are losing the ability to know how to make things. There’s a real skills gap
developing. In my opinion, the Government does little or nothing to help innovation
at the lone-inventor or small or medium enterprise level. I would love to see more
money spent on teaching our school kids how to be inventive. But, despite
everything, if you have a good idea and real determination, you can still do very well.
My own specialist area is packaging closures—almost every product needs it. I
got the idea for Squeezeopen after looking at an old tin of boot polish when my
mother complained she couldn’t get the lid off. If you can do something cheaper,
better, and you are 100 percent committed, there is a chance it will be a success.
I see a fantastic amount of innovation and opportunities out there. People
don’t realise how much is going on. New materials are coming out all the time and
the space programme and scientific research are producing a variety of spin-offs.
Innovation doesn’t have to be high-tech: creativity and inventing is about finding
the right solution to a problem, whatever it is. There’s a lot of talent out there and,
thankfully, some of the more progressive companies are suddenly realizing they
don’t want to miss out—it’s an exciting time.
What is the debate concerned with?
A ： What should we do to inspire people’s creativity?
B ： Will people’s invention and inspiration be exhausted in the future?
C ： Is there still a future for invention and inspiration?
D ： Who will be winner of the future technology?
62 、 不定项选择题
Australia’s frogs are having trouble finding love. Traffic noise and other sounds of
city life, such as air conditioners and construction noise, are drowning out the mating
calls of male frogs in urban areas, 1eading to a sharp drop in frog populations. But, in
the first study of its kind, Parris, a scientist at the University of Melbourne has found
that some frogs have figured out a way to compensate for human interference in
their love lives.
A male southern brown tree frog sends out a mating call when he’s looking for
a date. It is music to the ears of a female southern brown tree frog. But, add the
sounds of nearby traffic and the message just is not going out. Parris spent seven
years studying frogs around Melbourne. She says some frogs have come up with an
interesting strategy for making themselves heard.
“We found that it’s changing the pitch of its call, so going higher up, up the
frequency spectrum, being higher and squeakier, further away from the traffic noise
and this increases the distance over which it can be for heard,” Parris said.
The old call is lower in pitch. The new one is higher in pitch.
Now, that may sound like a pretty simple solution. But, changing their calls to
cope with a noisy environment is actually quite extraordinary for frogs. And while the
males have figured out how to make themselves heard above the noise, Parris says itmay not be what the females are looking for.
“When females have a choice between two males calling, they tend to select the
one that calls at a lower frequency because, in frogs, the frequency of a call is related
to body size. So, the bigger frogs tend to call lower,” she explained. “And so they
also tend to be the older frogs, the guys perhaps with more experience, they know
what they’re doing and the women are attracted to those.”
Frog populations in Melbourne have dropped considerably since Parris began
her research, but it is not just because of noise. Much of Australia has been locked in
a 10-year drought, leaving frogs fewer and fewer ponds to go looking for that special
someone.
Female frogs may not be attracted by the new call because _____.
A ： it is strange and unusual
B ： they are used to the old call
C ： the male frogs don’t know how to attract them
D ： lower frequency has special physical meaning
63 、 不定项选择题
I was eight years old the first time I fainted. I was at friend’s house, and a bee stung
me on the back of the neck. I had felt nothing but a slight pinch and the bug was
soon wiped away and flushed down the toilet, but since I looked pale I was urged to
call my mother. As I told her what had happened, I felt myself blacking out, sinking to
the floor, vaguely aware that I was still gripping the receiver.
Perhaps I was allergic to the bee sting—the only one I’ve ever gotten, although
to this day I have a phobia about bees, wasps, and other insects. But the image of an
eight-year-old in Keds crumpling to the ground while he describes his injury to his
Mommy seems to return us to Freudian territory. Note the umbilical image of the
phone cord.
Call me fanciful. Still, I’m afraid these undertones are hardly dissipated by the
second fainting incident I can recall, which practically reeks of the family romance.
This took place one weekend morning while we were gathered in the kitchen to eat
breakfast. My mother stood at the stove making French toast, which she had already
served to the kids; my father, seated at the table, was cutting a bagel with a sharp
bread knife. Contrary to every principle of kitchen safety, he was holding the bagel in
his hand and cutting inward, and eventually he made a neat, shallow incision in his
palm. The blood was profuse.
Being a hematologist, my father didn’t panic: this was just business as usual.
But my mother stopped flipping French toast and collapsed to the floor. I, inspired by
the blood and my mother’s collapse and the powerful odors of syrup and sugar
rising from my plate, slumped forward. My forehead went into the syrup. I heard a
roar—it seemed to me that I was being clutched beneath the armpits and whirled
around—and then my father shook me back into consciousness. He had already
attended to my mother.
Still think I’m fanciful? Then listen to this. Out of curiosity I asked my mother
when her first fainting episode had occurred.
She paused, thought it over, and came up with the following. At the age of
thirteen, she went to visit her father in the hospital, who only the day before had had
his appendix removed. Aside from her father, still conked out from the anesthesia,
the other person in the room was a nurse, who was busy changing the dressing onthe patient’s incision, which hadn’t quite closed. For some reason, the nurse had
to leave the room. At this point, she asked my mother to hold the soiled dressing in
place until she returned. My mother complied. Standing over her dazed father,
gingerly holding a used bandage over a hole in his lower abdomen, the thirteen-year-
old grew lightheaded. I assumed the nurse returned before she hit the floor.
One most plausible reason that the author’s father did not panic when he cut
himself is _____.
A ： He had served in the army
B ： He was the head of the family
C ： He tried to maintain his authority
D ： He was an expert on blood
64 、 不定项选择题
Since the late 1970’s in the face of a severe loss of market share in dozens of
industries, manufacturers in the United States have been trying to improve
productivity—and therefore enhance their international competitiveness—through
cost-cutting programs. (Cost-cutting here is defined as raising labor output while
holding the amount of labor constant.) However, from 1978 through 1982,
productivity—the value of goods manufactured divided by the amount of labor
input—did not improve; and while the results were better in the business upturn of
the three years following, they ran 25percent lower than productivity improvements
during earlier, post-1945 upturns. At the same time, it became clear that the harder
manufactures worked to implement cost-cutting, the more they lost their competitive
edge.
With this paradox in mind, I recently visited 25 companies; it became clear to me
that the cost-cutting approach to increasing productivity is fundamentally flawed.
Manufacturing regularly observes a “40, 40, 20” rule. Roughly 40 percent of any
manufacturing-based competitive advantage derives from long-term changes in
manufacturing structure (decisions about the number, size, location, and capacity of
facilities) and in approaches to materials. Another 40 percent comes from major
changes in equipment and process technology. The final 20 percent rests on
implementing conventional cost-cutting. This rule does not imply that cost-cutting
should not be tried. The well-known tools of this approach—including simplifying
jobs and retraining employees to work smarter, not harder—do produce results. But
the tools quickly reach the limits of what they can contribute.
Another problem is that the cost-cutting approach hinders innovation and
discourages creative people. As Abernathy’s study of automobile manufacturers
has shown, an industry can easily become prisoner of its own investments in cost-
cutting techniques, reducing its ability to develop new products. And managers under
pressure to maximize cost-cutting will resist innovation because they know that more
fundamental changes in processes or systems will wreak havoc with the results on
which they are measured. Production managers have always seen their job as one of
minimizing costs and maximizing output. This dimension of performance has until
recently sufficed as a basis of evaluation, but it has created a penny-pinching,
mechanistic culture in most factories that has kept away creative managers.
Every company I know that has freed itself from the paradox has done so, in
part, by developing and implementing a manufacturing strategy. Such a strategyfocuses on the manufacturing structure and on equipment and process technology.
In one company a manufacturing strategy that allowed different areas of the factory
to specialize in different markets replaced the conventional cost-cutting approach;
within three years the company regained its competitive advantage. Together with
such strategies, successful companies are also encouraging managers to focus on a
wider set of objectives besides cutting costs. There is hope for manufacturing, but it
dearly rests oil a different way of managing.
It can be inferred from the passage that the manufacturers mentioned in paragraph
1 expected that the measures they implemented would _____.
A ： encourage innovation
B ： keep labor output constant
C ： increase their competitive advantage
D ： permit business upturns to be more easily predicted
65 、 不定项选择题
This is not a good time to be foreign. Anti-immigrant parties are gaining ground in
Europe. Britain has been fretting this week over lapses in its border controls. In
America Barack Obama has failed to deliver the immigration reform he promised,
and Republican presidential candidates would rather electrify the border fence with
Mexico than educate the children of illegal aliens. America educates foreign scientists
in its universities and then expels them, a policy the mayor of New York calls
“national suicide”.
This illiberal turn in attitudes to migration is no surprise. It is the result of cyclical
economic gloom combined with a secular rise in pressure on rich countries’
borders. But governments now weighing up whether or not to try to slam the door
should consider another factor: the growing economic importance of Diasporas, and
the contribution they can make to a country’s economic growth.
Diaspora networks-of Huguenots, Scots, Jews and many others-have always been
a potent economic force, but the cheapness and ease of modern travel has made
them larger and more numerous than ever before. There are now 215m first-
generation migrants around the world: that’s 3％of the world’s population. If they
were a nation, it would be a little larger than Brazil. There are more Chinese people
living outside China than there are French people in France. Some 22m Indians are
scattered all over the globe. Small concentrations of ethnic and linguistic groups have
always been found in surprising places-Lebanese in West Africa, Japanese in Brazil
and Welsh in Patagonia, for instance-but they have been joined by newer ones, such
as west Africans in southern China.
These networks of kinship and language make it easier to do business across
borders. They speed the flow of information. Trust matters, especially in emerging
markets where the rule of law is weak. So does a knowledge of the local culture. And
modern communications make these networks an even more powerful tool of
business.
Diasporas also help spread ideas. Many of the emerging world’s brightest
minds are educated at Western universities. An increasing number go home, taking
with them both knowledge and contacts. Indian computer scientists in Bangalore
bounce ideas constantly off their Indian friends in Silicon Valley. China’s technology
industry is dominated by “sea turtles” (Chinese who have lived abroad andreturned.
Diasporas spread money, too. Migrants into rich countries not only send cash to
their families; they also help companies in their host country operate in their home
country. A Harvard Business School study shows that, American companies that
employ lots of ethnic Chinese people find it much easier to set up in China without a
joint venture with a local firm.
Such arguments are unlikely to make much headway against hostility towards
immigrants in rich countries. Fury against foreigners is usually based on two
(mutually incompatible) notions: that because so many migrants claim welfare they
are a drain on the public purse; and that because they are prepared to work harder
for less pay they will depress the wages of those at the bottom of the pile. The first is
usually not true (in Britain, for instance, immigrants claim benefits less than
indigenous people do), and the second is hard to establish either way. Some studies
do indeed suggest that competition from unskilled immigrants depresses the wages
of unskilled locals. But others find this effect to be small or non-existent.
Nor is it possible to establish the impact of migration on overall growth. The
sums are simply too difficult. Yet there are good reasons for believing that it is likely
to be positive. Migrants tend to be hard-working and innovative. That spurs
productivity and company formation. A recent study carried out by Duke University
showed that, while immigrants make up an eighth of America’s population, they
founded a quarter of the country’s technology and engineering firms. And, by
linking the West with emerging markets, Diasporas help rich countries to plug into
fast-growing economies.
Rich countries are thus likely to benefit from looser immigration policy; and fears
that poor countries will suffer as a result of a “brain drain” are overblown. The
prospect of working abroad spurs more people to acquire valuable skills, and not all
subsequently emigrate. Skilled migrants send money home, and they often return to
set up new businesses. One study found that unless they lose more than 20％of their
university graduates, the brain drain makes poor countries richer.
It can be inferred from the passage that _____
A ： Immigrants are prepared to work harder for less pay, which can stimulate the
locals to work even harder.
B ： With the increasing number of Diasporas, they will form a new nation in the
world.
C ： The number of skilled migrants returning home is increasing.
D ： The networks of kinship and language contribute to international business by
taking advantage of legal loopholes.
66 、 不定项选择题
The molecules of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere affect the heat balance
of the Earth by acting as a one-way screen. Although these molecules allow radiation
at visible wavelengths, where most of the energy of sunlight is concentrated, to pass
through, they absorb some of the longer-wavelength, infrared emissions radiated
from the Earth’s surface, radiation that would otherwise be transmitted back into
space. For the Earth to maintain a constant average temperature, such emissions
from the planet must balance incoming solar radiation. If there were no carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere, heat would escape from the Earth much more easily. Thesurface temperature would be so much lower that the oceans might be a solid mass
of ice.
Today, however, the potential problem is too much carbon dioxide. The burning
of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide
by about 15 percent in the last hundred years, and we continue to add carbon
dioxide to the atmosphere. Could the increase in carbon dioxide cause a global rise
in average temperature, and could such a rise have serious consequences for human
society? Mathematical models that allow us to calculate the rise in temperature as a
function of the increase indicate that the answer is probably yes.
Under present conditions a temperature of -18℃ can be observed at an altitude
of 5 to 6 kilometers above the Earth. Below this altitude (called the radiating level),
the temperature increases by about 6℃ per kilometer approaching the Earth’s
surface, where the average temperature is about 15℃. An increase in the amount of
carbon dioxide means that there are more molecules of carbon dioxide to absorb
infrared radiation. As the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb infrared radiation
increases, the radiating level and the temperature of the surface must rise. One
mathematical model predicts that doubling the atmospheric carbon dioxide would
raise the global mean surface temperature by 2.5℃: This model assumes that the
atmosphere’s relative humidity remains constant and the temperature decreases
with altitude at a rate of 6.5℃ per kilometer. The assumption of constant relative
humidity is important, because water vapor in the atmosphere is another efficient
absorber of radiation at infrared wavelengths. Because warm air can hold more
moisture than cool air, the relative humidity will be constant only if the amount of
water vapor in the atmosphere increases as the temperature rises. Therefore, more
infrared radiation would be absorbed and reradiated back to the Earth’s surface.
The resultant warming at the surface could be expected to melt snow and ice,
reducing the Earth’s reflectivity. More solar radiation would then be absorbed,
leading to a further increase in temperature.
According to the passage, which of the following is true of the last hundred years?
A ： Fossil fuels were burned for the first time.
B ： Greater amounts of land were cleared than at any time before.
C ： The average temperature at the Earth’s surface has become 2℃ cooler.
D ： The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased measurably.
67 、 不定项选择题
Traffic statistics paint a gloomy picture. To help solve their traffic woes, some rapidly
growing U.S. cities have simply built more roads. But traffic experts say building more
roads is a quick-fix solution that will not alleviate the traffic problem in the long run.
Soaring land costs, increasing concern over social and environmental disruptions
caused by road-building, and the likelihood that more roads can only lead to more
cars and traffic are powerful factors bearing down on a 1950s-style construction
program.
The goal of smart-highway technology is to make traffic systems work at
optimum efficiency by treating the road and the vehicles traveling on them as an
integral transportation system. Proponents of the advanced technology say electronic
detection systems, closed-circuit television, radio communication, ramp metering,
variable message signing, and other smart-highway technology can now be used at areasonable cost to improve communication between drivers and the people who
monitor traffic.
Pathfinder, a Santa Monica, California-based smart-highway project in which a
14-mile stretch of the Santa Monica Freeway, making up what is called a “smart
corridor”, is being instrumented with buried loops in the pavement. Closed-circuit
television cameras survey the flow of traffic, while communication linked to property
equipped automobiles advise motorists of the least congested routes or detours.
Not all traffic experts, however, look to smart-highway technology as the
ultimate solution to traffic gridlock. Some say the high-tech approach is limited and
can only offer temporary solutions to a serious problem.
“Electronics on the highway addresses just one aspect of the problem: how to
regulate traffic more efficiently,” explains Michael Renner, senior researcher at the
world-watch Institute. “It doesn’t deal with the central problem of too many cars
for roads that can’t be built fast enough. It sends people the wrong message”.
They start thinking “Yes, there used to be a traffic congestion problem, but that’s
been solved now because we have advanced high-tech system in place.” Larson
agrees and adds, “Smart highway is just one of the tools that we use to deal with
our traffic problems. It’s not the solution itself, just pan of the package. There are
different strategies.”
Other traffic problem-solving options being studied and experimented with
include car pooling, rapid mass-transit systems, staggered or flexible work hours, and
road pricing, a system whereby motorists pay a certain amount for the time they use
a highway.
It seems that we need a new, major thrust to deal with the traffic problems of
the next 20 years. There has to be a big change.
Which of the following best describes the organization of the whole passage?
A ： Two contrasting views of a problem are presented.
B ： A problem is examined and complementary solutions are proposed or offered.
C ： Latest developments are outlined in order of importance.
D ： An innovation is explained with its importance emphasized.
68 、 不定项选择题
This is not a good time to be foreign. Anti-immigrant parties are gaining ground in
Europe. Britain has been fretting this week over lapses in its border controls. In
America Barack Obama has failed to deliver the immigration reform he promised,
and Republican presidential candidates would rather electrify the border fence with
Mexico than educate the children of illegal aliens. America educates foreign scientists
in its universities and then expels them, a policy the mayor of New York calls
“national suicide”.
This illiberal turn in attitudes to migration is no surprise. It is the result of cyclical
economic gloom combined with a secular rise in pressure on rich countries’
borders. But governments now weighing up whether or not to try to slam the door
should consider another factor: the growing economic importance of Diasporas, and
the contribution they can make to a country’s economic growth.
Diaspora networks-of Huguenots, Scots, Jews and many others-have always been
a potent economic force, but the cheapness and ease of modern travel has made
them larger and more numerous than ever before. There are now 215m first-generation migrants around the world: that’s 3％of the world’s population. If they
were a nation, it would be a little larger than Brazil. There are more Chinese people
living outside China than there are French people in France. Some 22m Indians are
scattered all over the globe. Small concentrations of ethnic and linguistic groups have
always been found in surprising places-Lebanese in West Africa, Japanese in Brazil
and Welsh in Patagonia, for instance-but they have been joined by newer ones, such
as west Africans in southern China.
These networks of kinship and language make it easier to do business across
borders. They speed the flow of information. Trust matters, especially in emerging
markets where the rule of law is weak. So does a knowledge of the local culture. And
modern communications make these networks an even more powerful tool of
business.
Diasporas also help spread ideas. Many of the emerging world’s brightest
minds are educated at Western universities. An increasing number go home, taking
with them both knowledge and contacts. Indian computer scientists in Bangalore
bounce ideas constantly off their Indian friends in Silicon Valley. China’s technology
industry is dominated by “sea turtles” (Chinese who have lived abroad and
returned.
Diasporas spread money, too. Migrants into rich countries not only send cash to
their families; they also help companies in their host country operate in their home
country. A Harvard Business School study shows that, American companies that
employ lots of ethnic Chinese people find it much easier to set up in China without a
joint venture with a local firm.
Such arguments are unlikely to make much headway against hostility towards
immigrants in rich countries. Fury against foreigners is usually based on two
(mutually incompatible) notions: that because so many migrants claim welfare they
are a drain on the public purse; and that because they are prepared to work harder
for less pay they will depress the wages of those at the bottom of the pile. The first is
usually not true (in Britain, for instance, immigrants claim benefits less than
indigenous people do), and the second is hard to establish either way. Some studies
do indeed suggest that competition from unskilled immigrants depresses the wages
of unskilled locals. But others find this effect to be small or non-existent.
Nor is it possible to establish the impact of migration on overall growth. The
sums are simply too difficult. Yet there are good reasons for believing that it is likely
to be positive. Migrants tend to be hard-working and innovative. That spurs
productivity and company formation. A recent study carried out by Duke University
showed that, while immigrants make up an eighth of America’s population, they
founded a quarter of the country’s technology and engineering firms. And, by
linking the West with emerging markets, Diasporas help rich countries to plug into
fast-growing economies.
Rich countries are thus likely to benefit from looser immigration policy; and fears
that poor countries will suffer as a result of a “brain drain” are overblown. The
prospect of working abroad spurs more people to acquire valuable skills, and not all
subsequently emigrate. Skilled migrants send money home, and they often return to
set up new businesses. One study found that unless they lose more than 20％of their
university graduates, the brain drain makes poor countries richer.
In which of the following aspect can the “sea turtles” make contributions to their
homeland?
A ： They return home with knowledge and contracts to set up new businesses.
B ： They help companies in their home country operate in their host country.C ： They work harder for less pay.
D ： They help to achieve a lower unemployment rate.
69 、 不定项选择题
“When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results,”
Calvin Coolidge once observed. As the U. S. economy crumbles, Coolidge’s silly
maxim might appear to be as apt as ever: the number of unemployment insurance
claims is rising, and overall joblessness is creeping upward. But in today’s vast and
complex labor market, things aren’t always what they seem. More and more people
are indeed losing their jobs but not necessarily because the economy appears to be
in recession. And old-fashioned unemployment isn’t the inevitable result of job loss.
New work, at less pay, often is.
Call it new-wave unemployment: structural changes in the economy are
overlapping the business downturn, giving joblessness a grim new twist. Small
wonder that the U. S. unemployment rate is rising. Now at 5.7 percent, it is widely
expected to edge toward 7 percent by the end of next year. But statistics alone can’t
fully capture a complex reality. The unemployment rate has been held down by slow
growth in the labor force—the number of people working or looking for work—since
few people sense attractive job opportunities in a weak economy. In addition, many
more people are losing their jobs than are actually ending up unemployed. Faced
with hungry mouths to feed, thousands of women, for example, are taking two or
more part-time positions or agreeing to shave the hours they work in service-sector
jobs. For better and for worse, work in America clearly isn’t what it used to be. Now
unemployment isn’t, either.
Like sour old wine in new bottles, this downturn blends a little of the old and the
new reflecting a decade’s worth of change in the dynamic U. S. economy. Yet, in
many respects the decline is following the classic pattern, with new layoffs
concentrated among blue-collar workers in the most “cyclical” industries, whose
ups and downs track the economy most closely.
As the downturn attracts attention on workers’ ill fortunes, some analysts
predict that political upheaval may lie ahead. Real wages for the average U. S. worker
peaked in 1973 and have been falling almost ever since. As a result, a growing group
of downwardly mobile Americans could soon begin pressing policymakers to help
produce better-paying jobs. Just how loud the outcry becomes will depend partly on
the course of the recession. But in the long run, there’s little doubt that the bleak
outlook for jobs and joblessness is “politically, socially and psychologically
dynamite”.
The present downturn is similar to traditional ones in that _____.
A ： we can never predict which way the economy will head
B ： the economic prospects have been unfavorable for 10 years
C ： the government has done relatively little to intervene the market
D ： physical laborers are the chief victims of the economic decline
70 、 不定项选择题
What is the charm of necklaces? Why would anyone put something extra around herneck and then invest it with special significance? A necklace doesn’t afford warmth
in cold weather, like a scarf, or protection in combat, like chain mail; it only
decorates. We might say it borrows meaning from what it surrounds and sets off: the
head with its supremely important material contents, and the face, that register of
the soul. When photograph reduces the reality it represents, they mention not only
the passage from three dimensions to two, but also the selection of a?point du
vue?favors the top of the body rather than the bottom and the front rather than the
back. The face is the jewel in the crown of the body, and so we give it a setting.
When people are intensely concerned with something that is obviously
impractical, anthropologists take note, for lovely useless things often express archaic
to exist in contemporary American houses already heated by gas and electricity, yet
most people want one and it is still the focus of the living room. This desire testifies, I
think, to the hundreds of thousands of years during which we Homo sapiens huddled
around a cave fire. We watch ourselves, rather anxiously, vanish backward down
those lone temporary corridors, as my daughter gazes at her infinitely multiplied
small self in the mutually opposed mirrors of the beauty salon, and wonders, is it
me? Our fireplaces and necklaces and tombstones say it is, they are.
In American culture, an interest in necklaces seems to be rather gender specific.
Many men to whom I mention the enterprise feign polite interest and then change
the subject, though I know some who admire, construct, and wear necklaces,
including the distinguished scientist and poet to whom this essay is dedicated. Most
women, by contrast, become mildly or wildly enthusiastic. A doctor in Blois brought
out her entire collection of costume jewelry for me, exhibited the most splendid
pieces with an account of where and when they were purchased, and then explain
them all with the help of a large glossy book on the history of costume jewelry, with
dozens of pictures. A former student of mine who had moved to California mailed me
six plastic boxes full of beads gleaned from a warehouse managed by an eccentric
friend who just their settings; a feature bead painted with a naked lady; crystal
roundels of truly exceptional shine; and tiny silver hematite seed beads. Beads lend
themselves to exchange, Beads travel. And clearly these two facts are related.
Lovely useless things, according to the author, serve the purpose of _____.
A ： decorating the house
B ： showing off one’s artistic taste
C ： reminding people of things past
D ： revealing one’s tendency to waste money
71 、 不定项选择题
In general, our society is becoming one of giant enterprises directed by a
bureaucratic management in which man becomes a small, well-oiled cog in the
machinery. The oiling is done with higher wages, well-ventilated factories and piped
music, and by psychologists and “human-relations” experts; yet all this oiling does
not alter the fact that man has become powerless, that he does not whole heartedly
participate in his work and that he is bored with it. In fact, the blue-and white-collar
workers have become economic puppets who dance to the tune of automated
machines and bureaucratic management.
The worker and employee are anxious, not only because they might find
themselves out of a job; they are anxious also because they are unable to acquire anyreal satisfaction or interest in life. They live and die without ever having confronted
the fundamental realities of human existence as emotionally and intellectually
independent and productive human beings.
Those higher up on the social ladder are no less anxious. Their lives are no less
empty than those of their subordinates. They are even more insecure in some
respects. They are in a highly competitive race. To be promoted or to fall behind is
not a matter of salary but even more a matter of self-respect. When they apply for
their first job, they are tested for intelligence as well as for the right mixture of
submissiveness and independence. From that moment on they are tested again and
again—by the psychologists, for whom testing is a big business, and by their
superiors who judge their behavior, sociability, capacity to get along, etc. This
constant need to prove that one is as good as or better than one’s fellow-
competitor creates constant anxiety and stress, the very causes of unhappiness and
illness.
Am I suggesting that we should return to the preindustrial mode of production
or to nineteenth-century “free enterprise” capitalism? Certainly not. Problems are
never solved by returning to a stage which one has already outgrown. I suggest
transforming our social system from a bureaucratically managed industrialism in
which maximal production and consumption are ends in themselves into a humanist
industrialism in which man and full development of his potentialities—those of love
and of reason—are the aims of all social arrangements. Production and consumption
should serve only as means to this end, and should be prevented from ruling man.
By “a well-oiled cog in the machinery” the author intends to render the idea that
man is _____.
A ： a necessary part of the society though each individual’s function is negligible
B ： working in complete harmony with the rest of the society
C ： an unimportant part in comparison with the rest of the society, though
functioning smoothly
D ： a humble component of the society, especially when working smoothly
72 、 不定项选择题
Got milk? If you do, take a moment to ponder the true oddness of being able to drink
milk after you’re a baby.
No other species but humans can. And most humans can’t either.
The long lists of food allergies some people claim to have can make it seem as if
they’re just finicky eaters trying to rationalize likes and dislikes. Not so. Eggs,
peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish soy and gluten all can wreak havoc on the immune
system of allergic individuals, even causing a deadly reaction called anaphylaxis.
But those allergic reactions are relatively rare, affecting an estimated 4% of
adults.
Milk’s different.
There are people who have true milk allergies that can cause deadly reactions.
But most people who have bad reactions to milk aren’t actually allergic to it, in that
it’s not their immune system that’s responding to the milk. Instead, people who
are lactose intolerant can’t digest the main sugar—lactose—found in milk. In
normal humans, the enzyme that does so—lactase—stops being produced when the
person is between two and five years old. The undigested sugars end up in the colon,
where they begin to ferment, producing gas that can cause cramping, bloating,nausea, flatulence and diarrhea.
If you’re American or European it’s hard to realize this, but being able to
digest milk as an adult is one weird genetic adaptation.
It’s not normal. Somewhat less than 40% of people in the world retain the
ability to digest lactose after childhood. The numbers are often given as close to 0%
of Native Americans, 5% of Asians, 25% of African and Caribbean peoples, 50% of
Mediterranean peoples and 90% of northern Europeans. Sweden has one of the
world’s highest percentages of lactase tolerant people.
Being able to digest milk is so strange that scientists say we shouldn’t really call
lactose intolerance a disease, because that presumes it’s abnormal, instead, they
call it lactase persistence, indicating what’s really weird is the ability to continue to
drink milk.
There’s been a lot of research over the past decade looking at the genetic
mutation that allows this subset of humanity to stay milk drinkers into adulthood.
A long-held theory was that the mutation showed up first in Northern Europe,
where people got less vitamin D from the sun and therefore did better if they could
also get the crucial hormone (it’s not really a vitamin at all) from milk.
But now a group at University College London has shown that the mutation
actually appeared about 7,500 years ago in dairy farmers who lived in a region
between the central Balkans and central Europe, in what was known as the Funnel
Beaker culture.
The paper was published this week in PLOS Computational Biology.
The researchers used a computer to model the spread of lactase persistence,
dairy farming, other food gathering practices and genes in Europe.
Today, the highest proportion of people with lactase persistence live in
Northwest Europe, especially the Netherlands, Ireland and Scandinavia. But the
computer model suggests that dairy farmers carrying this gene variant probably
originated in central Europe and then spread more widely and rapidly than non-
dairying groups.
Author Mark Thomas of University College London’s dept of Genetics, Evolution
and Environment says, “In Europe, a single genetic change...is strongly associated
with lactase persistence and appears to have people with it a big survival
advantage.”
The European mutation is different from several lactase persistence genes
associated with small populations of African peoples who historically have been
cattle herders.
Researchers at the University of Mary land identified one such mutation among
Nilo-Saharan-speaking peoples in Kenya and Tanzania. That mutation seems to have
arisen between 2,700 to 6,800 years ago. Two other mutations have been found
among the Beja people of northeastern Sudan and tribes of the same language family
in northern Kenya.
What is the purpose of the author in writing this passage?
A ： To stop people from drinking milk.
B ： To refute the theory that milk is good for health.
C ： To introduce us a new discovery on genetic mutation.
D ： To infer the declination of the cattle industry.
73 、 不定项选择题Children as young as four will study Shakespeare in a project being launched today
by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
The RSC is holding its first national conference for primary school teachers to
encourage them to use the Bard’s plays imaginatively in the classroom from
reception classes onwards. The conference will be told that they should learn how
Shakespearian characters like Puck in?A Midsummer Night’s Dream?are “jolly
characters” and how to write about them.
At present, the national curriculum does not require pupils to approach
Shakespeare until secondary school. All it says is that pupils should study “texts
drawn from a variety of cultures and traditions” and “myths, legends and
traditional stories”.
However, educationists at the RSC believe children will gain a better appreciation
of Shakespeare if they are introduced to him at a much younger age. “Even very
young children can enjoy Shakespeare’s plays,” said Mary Johnson, head of the
learning department. “It is just a question of pitching it for the age group. Even
reception classes and key stage one pupils (five-to-seven-year-olds) can enjoy his
stories. For instance, if you build up Puck as a character who skips, children of that
age can enjoy the character. They can be inspired by Puck and they could even start
writing about him at that age.”
It is the RSC’s belief that building the Bard up as a fun playwright in primary
school could counter some of the negative images conjured up about teaching
Shakespeare in secondary schools. Then, pupils have to concentrate on scenes from
the plays to answer questions for compulsory English national-curriculum tests for
14-year-olds. Critics of the tests have complained that pupils no longer have the time
to study or read the whole play—and therefore lose interest in Shakespeare.
However, Ms. Johnson is encouraging teachers to present 20-minute versions of
the plays—a classroom version of the?Reduced Shakespeare Company’s Complete
Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)?which told his 37 plays in 97 minutes—to give
pupils a flavour of the whole drama.
The RSC’s venture coincides with a call for schools to allow pupils to be more
creative in writing about Shakespeare. Professor Kate McLuskie, the new director of
the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute - also based in
Stratford—said it was time to get away from the idea that there was “a right
answer” to any question about Shakespeare. Her first foray into the world of
Shakespeare was to berate him as a misogynist in a 1985 essay but she now insists
this should not be interpreted as a criticism of his works—although she admits: “I
probably wouldn’t have written it quite the same way if I had been writing it now.
What we should be doing is making sure that someone is getting something out of
Shakespeare,” she said. “People are very scared about getting the right answer. I
know it’s difficult but I don’t care if they come up with a right answer that I can
agree with about Shakespeare.”
What is this passage mainly concerned with?
A ： How to give pupils a flavor of Shakespeare drama.
B ： The fun of reading Shakespeare.
C ： RSC project will teach children how to write on Shakespeare.
D ： RSC project will help four-year-old children find the fun in Shakespeare.
74 、 不定项选择题What is the charm of necklaces? Why would anyone put something extra around her
neck and then invest it with special significance? A necklace doesn’t afford warmth
in cold weather, like a scarf, or protection in combat, like chain mail; it only
decorates. We might say it borrows meaning from what it surrounds and sets off: the
head with its supremely important material contents, and the face, that register of
the soul. When photograph reduces the reality it represents, they mention not only
the passage from three dimensions to two, but also the selection of a?point du
vue?favors the top of the body rather than the bottom and the front rather than the
back. The face is the jewel in the crown of the body, and so we give it a setting.
When people are intensely concerned with something that is obviously
impractical, anthropologists take note, for lovely useless things often express archaic
to exist in contemporary American houses already heated by gas and electricity, yet
most people want one and it is still the focus of the living room. This desire testifies, I
think, to the hundreds of thousands of years during which we Homo sapiens huddled
around a cave fire. We watch ourselves, rather anxiously, vanish backward down
those lone temporary corridors, as my daughter gazes at her infinitely multiplied
small self in the mutually opposed mirrors of the beauty salon, and wonders, is it
me? Our fireplaces and necklaces and tombstones say it is, they are.
In American culture, an interest in necklaces seems to be rather gender specific.
Many men to whom I mention the enterprise feign polite interest and then change
the subject, though I know some who admire, construct, and wear necklaces,
including the distinguished scientist and poet to whom this essay is dedicated. Most
women, by contrast, become mildly or wildly enthusiastic. A doctor in Blois brought
out her entire collection of costume jewelry for me, exhibited the most splendid
pieces with an account of where and when they were purchased, and then explain
them all with the help of a large glossy book on the history of costume jewelry, with
dozens of pictures. A former student of mine who had moved to California mailed me
six plastic boxes full of beads gleaned from a warehouse managed by an eccentric
friend who just their settings; a feature bead painted with a naked lady; crystal
roundels of truly exceptional shine; and tiny silver hematite seed beads. Beads lend
themselves to exchange, Beads travel. And clearly these two facts are related.
Some men “feign polite interest” means _____.
A ： They are keenly interested
B ： They are not interested at all because they are men
C ： They are slightly interested
D ： They pretend to be interested out of politeness
75 、 不定项选择题
“When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results,”
Calvin Coolidge once observed. As the U. S. economy crumbles, Coolidge’s silly
maxim might appear to be as apt as ever: the number of unemployment insurance
claims is rising, and overall joblessness is creeping upward. But in today’s vast and
complex labor market, things aren’t always what they seem. More and more people
are indeed losing their jobs but not necessarily because the economy appears to be
in recession. And old-fashioned unemployment isn’t the inevitable result of job loss.
New work, at less pay, often is.
Call it new-wave unemployment: structural changes in the economy areoverlapping the business downturn, giving joblessness a grim new twist. Small
wonder that the U. S. unemployment rate is rising. Now at 5.7 percent, it is widely
expected to edge toward 7 percent by the end of next year. But statistics alone can’t
fully capture a complex reality. The unemployment rate has been held down by slow
growth in the labor force—the number of people working or looking for work—since
few people sense attractive job opportunities in a weak economy. In addition, many
more people are losing their jobs than are actually ending up unemployed. Faced
with hungry mouths to feed, thousands of women, for example, are taking two or
more part-time positions or agreeing to shave the hours they work in service-sector
jobs. For better and for worse, work in America clearly isn’t what it used to be. Now
unemployment isn’t, either.
Like sour old wine in new bottles, this downturn blends a little of the old and the
new reflecting a decade’s worth of change in the dynamic U. S. economy. Yet, in
many respects the decline is following the classic pattern, with new layoffs
concentrated among blue-collar workers in the most “cyclical” industries, whose
ups and downs track the economy most closely.
As the downturn attracts attention on workers’ ill fortunes, some analysts
predict that political upheaval may lie ahead. Real wages for the average U. S. worker
peaked in 1973 and have been falling almost ever since. As a result, a growing group
of downwardly mobile Americans could soon begin pressing policymakers to help
produce better-paying jobs. Just how loud the outcry becomes will depend partly on
the course of the recession. But in the long run, there’s little doubt that the bleak
outlook for jobs and joblessness is “politically, socially and psychologically
dynamite”.
What can be inferred from the last paragraph?
A ： Blue-collar workers are given less and less wages in recent years.
B ： The unemployment problem may lead to serious social problems.
C ： The unemployment problem will probably become less serious in no time.
D ： The government will create more jobs with better pay in the near future.
76 、 不定项选择题
She was glad of the lake. It’s soft; dark water helped to soothe and quiet her mind.
It took her away from the noisy, squawkish world of the cat-walk and let her lie
untroubled at its side, listening only to the gentle lapping of its waves.
She felt at peace. Alone. Unhindered and free. Free to do nothing but watch and
listen and dream.
London, Paris, New York - names, only names. Names that had once meant
excitement, then boredom, then frustration then slavery. Names that had brought
her to the edge of a breakdown and left her doubting her own sanity.
But here everything was at peace. The lake, the trees, the cottage. Here she could
stay for the rest of her life. Here she would be happy to die.
Across the sun hurried a darkening filter of cloud. The ripples on the water,
chased by a freshening wind, pushed their way anxiously from the far side of the lake
until they almost bounced at her feet. And in the East there was thunder.
Quickly she gathered her things together and made for the cottage. But already
the rain flecked the water behind her and pattered the leaves as she raced beneath
the trees. Sodden and breathless, she ran for the cottage door, and, as she opened it,the storm burst.
And there on the hearth, haggard and unwelcome, stood a man.
“Hello!”
I was an odd way to greet a complete stranger who had invaded her home, but it
was all she could think of to say. A casual greeting to someone who seemed to be
expecting her, waiting for her. Maybe it was the way they did things down here?
“I suppose you had to shelter from the storm too?” she asked.
The man said nothing.
She ought to have been angry at this rude intrusion on her privacy, but anger
somehow seemed pointless. It was as if the cottage was his, the hearth was his, and
she had come out of the storm to seek refuge at his door. She watched him,
cautiously; waiting for an explanation. He said nothing. Not a word
“Did you get wet?” she asked
He stood, huddled by the open fire, gazing at the dying embers.
She walked over, brushing against him as she bent to stir the logs into life, but
still he did not move. The flames burst forth, lighting up the sadness in his dark eyes.
“And kneeled and made the cheerless grate blaze up and all the cottage
warm...”
The words, spoken by him in a quiet, toneless voice, took her by surprise.
“Pardon?” she said
But he seemed not to hear.
She tried once more. “Ii look as if it’s set in for the evening. Would you like to
sit down for a while?”
His eyes followed her as she moved to take off her coat and brush out her hair.
“...and from her form withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, and laid her
soiled gloves by, untied her hat and let the damp hair fall...”
Poetry. He was quoting poetry
He looked vaguely like a poet; lean, distressed, with a certain bitterness in his
eyes and hopelessness in his form. And his voice was deep and languid, like the
middle of the lake where the water ran darkest.
Yet those ware not his lines. The words were not created by him. They were
somehow familiar. Half remembered. Surely she had heard them before?
She wished to stay by the lake for the rest of her life because _____.
A ： she liked the beautiful scenery there
B ： she enjoyed the solitude there
C ： she could withdraw from society
D ： she might encounter a stranger
77 、 不定项选择题
“Popular art” has a number of meanings, impossible to define with any precision,
which range from folklore to junk. The poles are clear enough, but the middle tends
to blur. The Hollywood Western of the 1930’s, for example, has elements of
folklore, but is closer to junk than to high art or folk art. There can be great trash, just
as there is bad high art. The musicals of George Gershwin are great popular art,
never aspiring to high art. Schubert and Brahms, however, used elements of popular
music—folk themes—in works clearly intended as high art. The case of Verdi is a
different one: he took a popular genre—bourgeois melodrama set to music (an
accurate definition of nineteenth-century opera)—and, without altering itsfundamental nature, transmuted it into high art. This remains one of the greatest
achievements in music, and one that cannot be fully appreciated without recognizing
the essential trashiness of the genre.
As an example of such a transmutation, consider what Verdi made of the typical
political elements of nineteenth-century opera. Generally in the plots of these operas,
a hero or heroine—usually portrayed only as an individual, unfettered by class—is
caught between the immoral corruption of the aristocracy and the doctrinaire rigidity
or secret greed of the leaders of the proletariat. Verdi transforms this naive and
unlikely formulation with music of extraordinary energy and rhythmic vitality, music
more subtle than it seems at first hearing. There are scenes and arias that still sound
like calls to arms and were clearly understood as such when they were first
performed. Such pieces lend an immediacy to the otherwise veiled political message
of these operas and call up feelings beyond those of the opera itself.
Or consider Verdi’s treatment of character. Before Verdi, there were rarely any
characters at all in musical drama, only a series of situations which allowed the
singers to express a series of emotional states. Any attempt to find coherent
psychological portrayal in these operas is misplaced ingenuity. The only coherence
was the singer’s vocal technique: when the cast changed, new arias were almost
always substituted, generally adapted from other operas. Verdi’s characters, on the
other hand, have genuine consistency and integrity, even if, in many cases, the
consistency is that of pasteboard melodrama. The integrity of the character is
achieved through the music: once he had become established, Verdi did not rewrite
his music for different singers or countenance alterations or substitutions of
somebody else’s arias in one of his operas, as every eighteenth-century composer
had done. When he revised an opera, it was only for dramatic economy and
effectiveness.
According to the passage, one of Verdi’s achievements within the framework of
nineteenth-century opera and its conventions was to _____.
A ： limit the extent to which singers influenced the musical compositions and
performance of his operas
B ： use his operas primarily as forums to protest both the moral corruption and
dogmatic rigidity of the political leaders of his time
C ： portray psychologically complex characters shaped by the political environment
surrounding them
D ： incorporate elements of folklore into both the music and plots of his operas
78 、 不定项选择题
Nobody ever went into academic circles to make a fast fortune. Professors, especially
those in medical-and technology-related fields, typically earn a fraction of what their
colleagues in industry do. But suddenly, big money is starting to flow into the ivory
tower, as university administrators make up to the commercial potential of academic
research. And the institutions are wrestling with a whole new set of issues.
The profits are impressive: the Association of University Technology Managers
surveyed 132 universities and found that they earned a combined $576 million from
patent royalties in 1998, a number that promises to keep rising dramatically. Schools
like Columbia University in New York have aggressively marketed their inventions to
corporations, particularly pharmaceutical and high-tech companies.Now Columbia is going retail—on the Web. It plans to go beyond the typical
“dot. edu” model, free sites listing courses and professors’ research interests.
Instead, it will offer the expertise of its faculty on a new for-profit site which will be
spun off as an independent company. The site will provide free access to educational
and research content, say administrators, as well as advanced features that are
already available to Columbia students, such as a simulation of the construction and
architecture of a French cathedral and interactive 3-D models of organic chemicals.
Free pages will feed into profit-generating areas, such as online courses and
seminars, and related books and tapes. Columbia executive vice president Michael
Crow imagines “millions of visitors” to the new site, including retirees and students
willing to pay to tap into this educational resource. “We can offer the best of
what’s thought and written and researched,” says Ann Kirschner, who heads the
project. Columbia also is anxious not be beaten by some of the other for-profit
“knowledge sites,” such as About.com and Hungry Minds. “If they capture this
space,” says Crow, “they’ll begin to cherry-pick our best faculty.”
Profits from the sale of patents typically have been divided between the
researcher, the department and the university, and Web profits would work the same
way, so many faculty members are delighted. But others find the trend worrisome: is
a professor who stands to profit from his or her research as credible as one who
doesn’t? Will universities provide more support to researchers working in profitable
fields than to scholars toiling in more musty areas?
“If there’s the perception that we might be making money from our efforts,
the authority of the university could be diminished,” worries Herve Varenne, a
cultural anthropology professor at Columbia’s education school. Says Kirschner:
“we would never compromise the integrity of the university.” Whether the new site
can add to the growing profits from patents remains to be seen, but one thing is
clear. It’s going to take the best minds on camps to find a new balance between
profit and purity.
What worries Michael Crow most is _____.
A ： that they’ll not beat other educational “knowledge sites”
B ： that the spun-off company will remain independent
C ： that their educational resource will be tapped into
D ： that their faculty’s brains will be picked by their competitors
79 、 不定项选择题
The age at which young children begin to make moral discriminations about harmful
actions committed against themselves or others has been the focus of recent
research into the moral development of children. Until recently, child psychologists
supported pioneer developmentalist Jean Piaget in his hypothesis that because of
their immaturity, children under age seven do not take into account the intentions of
a person committing accidental or deliberate harm, but rather simply assign
punishment for transgressions on the basis of the magnitude of the negative
consequences caused. According to Piaget, children under age seven occupy the first
stage of moral development, which is characterized by moral absolutism (rules made
by authorities must be obeyed) and imminent justice (if rules are broken, punishment
will be meted out). Until young children mature, their moral judgments are based
entirely on the effect rather than the cause of a transgression. However, in recentresearch, Keasey found that six-year-old children not only distinguish between
accidental and intentional harm, but also judge intentional harm as naughtier,
regardless of the amount of damage produced. Both of these findings seem to
indicate that children, at an earlier age than Piaget claimed, advance into the second
stage of moral development, moral autonomy, in which they accept social rules but
view them as more arbitrary than do children in the first stage.
Keasey’s research raises two key questions for developmental psychologists
about children under age seven: do they recognize justifications for harmful actions,
and do they make distinctions between harmful acts that are preventable and those
acts that have unforeseen harmful consequences? Studies indicate that justifications
excusing harmful actions might include?public?duty, self-defense, and provocation.
For example, Nesdale and Rule concluded that children were capable of considering
whether or not an aggressor’s action was justified by public duty: five year olds
reacted very differently to “Bonnie wrecks Arm’s pretend house” depending on
whether Bonnie did it “so somebody won’t fall over it” or because Bonnie wanted
“to make Ann feel bad”. Thus, a child of five begins to understand that certain
harmful actions, though intentional, can be justified; the constraints of moral
absolutism no longer solely guide their judgments.
Psychologists have determined that during kindergarten children learn to make
subtle distinctions involving harm. Darley observed that among-acts involving
unintentional harm, six-year-old children just entering kindergarten could not
differentiate between foreseeable, and thus preventable, harm and unforeseeable
harm for which the perpetrator cannot be blamed. Seven months later, however,
Darley found that these same children could make both distinctions, thus
demonstrating that they had become morally autonomous.
It can be inferred that the term “public?duty” (pra.2), in the context of the passage,
means which of the following?
A ： The necessity to apprehend perpetrators
B ： The responsibility to punish transgressors
C ： An obligation to prevent harm to another
D ： The assignment of punishment for harmful action
80 、 不定项选择题
Many United States companies have, unfortunately, made the search for legal
protection from import competition into a major line of work. Since 1980 the United
States international Trade Commission (ITC) has received about 280 complaints
alleging damage from imports that benefit from subsidies by foreign governments.
Another 340 charge that foreign companies “dumped” their products in thee
United States at “less than fair value.” Even when no unfair practices are alleged,
the simple claim that an industry has been injured by imports is sufficient grounds to
seek relief.
Contrary to the general impression, this quest for import relief has hurt more
companies than it has helped. As corporations begin to function globally, they
develop an intricate web of marketing, production, and research relationships. The
complexity of these relationships makes it unlikely that a system of import relief laws
will meet the strategic needs of all the units under the same parent company, №.
Suppose a United States-owned company establishes an overseas plant tomanufacture a product while its competitor makes the same product in the United
States. If the competitor can prove injury from the imports-and that the United States
company received a subsidy from a foreign government to build its plant abroad-the
United States company’s products will be uncompetitive in the United States, since
they would be subject to duties.
Perhaps the most brazen ease occurred when the ITC investigated allegations
that Canadian companies were injuring the United States salt industry by dumping
rock salt, used to de-ice roads. The bizarre aspect of the complaint was that a foreign
conglomerate with United States operations was crying for help against a United
States company with foreign operations. The “United States” company claiming
injury was a subsidiary of a Dutch conglomerate, while the “Canadian” companies
included a subsidiary of a Chicago firm that was the second-largest domestic
producer of rock salt.
The passage warns of which of the following dangers?
A ： Companies in the United States may receive no protection from imports unless
they actively seek protection from import competition.
B ： Companies that seek legal protection from import competition may incur legal
costs that far exceed any possible gain.
C ： ompanies that are United States owned but operate internationally may not be
eligible for protection from import competition under the laws of the countries in
which their plants operate.
D ： Companies that are not United States owned may seek legal protection from
import competition under United States import relief laws.
81 、 不定项选择题
Nobody ever went into academic circles to make a fast fortune. Professors, especially
those in medical-and technology-related fields, typically earn a fraction of what their
colleagues in industry do. But suddenly, big money is starting to flow into the ivory
tower, as university administrators make up to the commercial potential of academic
research. And the institutions are wrestling with a whole new set of issues.
The profits are impressive: the Association of University Technology Managers
surveyed 132 universities and found that they earned a combined $576 million from
patent royalties in 1998, a number that promises to keep rising dramatically. Schools
like Columbia University in New York have aggressively marketed their inventions to
corporations, particularly pharmaceutical and high-tech companies.
Now Columbia is going retail—on the Web. It plans to go beyond the typical
“dot. edu” model, free sites listing courses and professors’ research interests.
Instead, it will offer the expertise of its faculty on a new for-profit site which will be
spun off as an independent company. The site will provide free access to educational
and research content, say administrators, as well as advanced features that are
already available to Columbia students, such as a simulation of the construction and
architecture of a French cathedral and interactive 3-D models of organic chemicals.
Free pages will feed into profit-generating areas, such as online courses and
seminars, and related books and tapes. Columbia executive vice president Michael
Crow imagines “millions of visitors” to the new site, including retirees and students
willing to pay to tap into this educational resource. “We can offer the best of
what’s thought and written and researched,” says Ann Kirschner, who heads theproject. Columbia also is anxious not be beaten by some of the other for-profit
“knowledge sites,” such as About.com and Hungry Minds. “If they capture this
space,” says Crow, “they’ll begin to cherry-pick our best faculty.”
Profits from the sale of patents typically have been divided between the
researcher, the department and the university, and Web profits would work the same
way, so many faculty members are delighted. But others find the trend worrisome: is
a professor who stands to profit from his or her research as credible as one who
doesn’t? Will universities provide more support to researchers working in profitable
fields than to scholars toiling in more musty areas?
“If there’s the perception that we might be making money from our efforts,
the authority of the university could be diminished,” worries Herve Varenne, a
cultural anthropology professor at Columbia’s education school. Says Kirschner:
“we would never compromise the integrity of the university.” Whether the new site
can add to the growing profits from patents remains to be seen, but one thing is
clear. It’s going to take the best minds on camps to find a new balance between
profit and purity.
Columbia’s Web site can provide free _____.
A ： expertise of its professors
B ： listing of courses and professors’ research interests
C ： online courses and seminars
D ： books and tapes related to the course
82 、 不定项选择题
In its modern form the concept of “literature” did not emerge earlier than the
eighteenth century and was not fully developed until the nineteenth century. Yet the
conditions for its emergence had been developing since the Renaissance. The word
itself came into English use in the fourteenth century, following French and Latin
precedents; its root was Latin?littera, a letter of the alphabet.?Litterature, in the
common early spelling, was then in effect a condition of reading: of being able to
read and of having read. It was often close to the sense of modern?literacy, which
was not in the language until the late nineteenth century, its introduction in part
made necessary by the movement of?literature?to a different sense. The normal
adjective associated with literature was?literate. Literary appeared in the sense of
reading ability and experience in the seventeenth century, and did not acquire its
specialized modern meaning until the eighteenth century.
Literature?as a new category was then a specialization of the area formerly
categorized as?rhetoric?and?grammar: a specialization to reading and, in the material
context of the development of printing, to the printed word and especially the book.
It was eventually to become a more general category than?poetry?or the
earlier?poesy, which had been general terms for imaginative composition, but which
in relation to the development of?literaturebecame predominantly specialized, from
the seventeenth century, to metrical composition and especially written and printed
metrical composition. But literature was never primarily the active composition─the
“making”─which poetry had described. As reading rather than writing, it was a
category of a different kind. The characteristic use can be seen in Bacon “learned in
all literature and erudition, divine and humane”─and as late as Johnson “he had
probably more than common literature, as his son addresses him in one of his mostelaborate Latin poems.”?Literature, that is to say, was a category of use and
condition rather than of production. It was a particular specialization of what had
hitherto been seen as an activity or practice, and a specialization, in the
circumstances, which was inevitably made in terms of social class. In its first
extended sense, beyond the bare sense of “literacy,” it was a definition of
“polite” or “humane” learning, and thus specified a particular social distinction.
New political concepts of the “nation” and new valuations of the “vernacular”
interacted with a persistent emphasis on “literature” as reading in the “classical”
languages. But still, in this first stage, into the eighteenth century,?literature?was
primarily a generalized social concept, expressing a certain (minority) level of
educational achievement. This carded with it a potential and eventually realized
alternative definition of?literature?as “printed books:” the objects in and through
which this achievement was demonstrated.
It is important that, within the terms of this development, literature normally
included all printed books. There was not necessary specialization to “imaginative”
works. Literature was still primarily reading ability and experience, and this included
philosophy, history, and essays as well as poems. Were the new eighteenth century
novels literature? That question was first approached, not by definition of their mode
or content, but by reference to the standards of “polite” or “humane” learning.
Was drama literature? This question was to exercise successive generations, not
because of any substantial difficulty but because of the practical limits of the
category. If literature was reading, could a mode written for spoken performance be
said to be literature, and if not, where was Shakespeare?
At one level the definition indicated by this development has persisted.
Literature lost its earliest sense of reading ability and reading experience, and
became an apparently objective category of printed works of a certain quality. The
concerns of a “literary editor” or a “literary supplement” would still be defined
in this way. But three complicating tendencies can then be distinguished: first, a shift
from “learning” to “taste” or “sensibility” as a criterion defining literary
quality; second, an increasing specialization of literature to “creative” or
“imaginative” works; third, a development of the concept of “tradition” within
national terms, resulting in the more effective definition of “a national literature.”
The source of each of these tendencies can be discerned from the Renaissance, but it
was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that they came through most
powerfully, until they became, in the twentieth century, in effect received
assumptions.
Which of the following can best serve as the title of this passage?
A ： The Development of the Concept of Literature.
B ： The Development of the Modern Concept of Literature.
C ： The Development of Literature,
D ： The Development of Literacy.
83 、 不定项选择题
With thunderclouds looming over the trans-Atlantic economy, it was easy to miss a
bright piece of news last weekend from the other crucible of world trade, the Pacific
Rim. In Honolulu, where Barack Obama hosted a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders,
Canada, Japan and Mexico expressed interest in joining nine countries (America,Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam) in
discussing a free-trade pact. Altogether, the possible members of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership(TPP) produce 40％ of world GDP—far more than the European Union.
Regional trade deals are not always a good idea. If they distract policymakers
from global trade liberalization, they are to be discouraged. But with the Doha round
of global trade talks showing no flicker of life, there is little danger that the TPP will
derail a broader agreement; and by cutting barriers, strengthening intellectual-
property protections and going beyond a web of existing trade deals, it should boost
world trade.
The creation of a wider TPP is still some way off. For it to come into being its
architects—Mr. Obama, who faces a tough election battle next year, and Japan’s
Yoshihiko Noda, who faces crony politics laced with passionate protectionism-need to
show more leadership.
Mr. Noda’s announcement on November 11th that Japan was interested in
joining the TPP negotiations was an exceedingly bold move. Signing up would mean
dramatic changes in Japan, a country which has 800％tariffs on rice and exports 65
vehicles to America for every one that is sent to Japan. Mr. Noda’s move could also
transform the prospects of the TPP, most obviously by uniting two of the world’s
leading three economies but also by galvanizing others. Until he expressed an
interest, Canada and Mexico had also remained on the sidelines. Unwittingly or not,
Mr. Noda has thrust mercantilist Japan into a central position on a trade treaty in
which free movement of everything except labor is on the table.
Immense obstacles loom for Mr. Noda. He came into office in September casting
himself as a conciliator of Japan’s warring political factions. Many of those groups
are opposed to the TPP. Farm co-operatives, which feather many a politician’s nest,
argue that it would rob Japan of its rice heritage. Doctors warn of the risks to
Japan’s cherished health system. Socialists see the TPP as a Washington-led
sideswipe at China, which had hoped to build an East Asian trade orbit including
Japan. Mr. Nora will have to contend not just with opposition from rival parties but
also with a split on the issue inside his Democratic Party of Japan.
Since Honolulu, Mr. Noda has already pandered to protectionists by watering
down his message. Having beamed next to Mr. Obama in a summit photo, he then
protested that the White House had overstated his intention to put all goods and
services up for negotiation. Polls, however, suggest the Japanese are crying out for
Leadership on the issue, not pusillanimity. More support the idea of entering TPP
negotiations than oppose it. On their behalf Mr. Noda should lead Japan forthrightly
into the discussions, confident that the country can bargain well enough to give its
sacred industries such as farming and health care time to adjust.
It is also a test for Mr. Obama’s new strategy of coping with China’s rise by
“pivoting” American foreign policy more towards Asia. He must stand up to the
unions in the car industry which have long bellyached about the imbalance of trade
with Japan. He should energetically promote the potential gains for jobs of his pro-
Asia strategy-both at home and abroad. America should also stress that the TPP is
meant to engage and incorporate China, rather than constrain it.
Such steps would help win support in Japan, while costing America little. And in
joining the TPP, Japan would be forced to reform hidebound parts of its economy,
such as services, which would stimulate growth. A revitalized Japan would add to the
dynamism of a more liberalized Asia-Pacific region. That is surely something worth
fighting for.
Which of the majority of the following groups has Mr. Noda’s decision to join theTPP negotiations gained support from?
A ： His Democratic Party of Japan
B ： Farm co-operatives and doctors
C ： Socialists and protectionists
D ： The public
84 、 不定项选择题
With thunderclouds looming over the trans-Atlantic economy, it was easy to miss a
bright piece of news last weekend from the other crucible of world trade, the Pacific
Rim. In Honolulu, where Barack Obama hosted a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders,
Canada, Japan and Mexico expressed interest in joining nine countries (America,
Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam) in
discussing a free-trade pact. Altogether, the possible members of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership(TPP) produce 40％ of world GDP—far more than the European Union.
Regional trade deals are not always a good idea. If they distract policymakers
from global trade liberalization, they are to be discouraged. But with the Doha round
of global trade talks showing no flicker of life, there is little danger that the TPP will
derail a broader agreement; and by cutting barriers, strengthening intellectual-
property protections and going beyond a web of existing trade deals, it should boost
world trade.
The creation of a wider TPP is still some way off. For it to come into being its
architects—Mr. Obama, who faces a tough election battle next year, and Japan’s
Yoshihiko Noda, who faces crony politics laced with passionate protectionism-need to
show more leadership.
Mr. Noda’s announcement on November 11th that Japan was interested in
joining the TPP negotiations was an exceedingly bold move. Signing up would mean
dramatic changes in Japan, a country which has 800％tariffs on rice and exports 65
vehicles to America for every one that is sent to Japan. Mr. Noda’s move could also
transform the prospects of the TPP, most obviously by uniting two of the world’s
leading three economies but also by galvanizing others. Until he expressed an
interest, Canada and Mexico had also remained on the sidelines. Unwittingly or not,
Mr. Noda has thrust mercantilist Japan into a central position on a trade treaty in
which free movement of everything except labor is on the table.
Immense obstacles loom for Mr. Noda. He came into office in September casting
himself as a conciliator of Japan’s warring political factions. Many of those groups
are opposed to the TPP. Farm co-operatives, which feather many a politician’s nest,
argue that it would rob Japan of its rice heritage. Doctors warn of the risks to
Japan’s cherished health system. Socialists see the TPP as a Washington-led
sideswipe at China, which had hoped to build an East Asian trade orbit including
Japan. Mr. Nora will have to contend not just with opposition from rival parties but
also with a split on the issue inside his Democratic Party of Japan.
Since Honolulu, Mr. Noda has already pandered to protectionists by watering
down his message. Having beamed next to Mr. Obama in a summit photo, he then
protested that the White House had overstated his intention to put all goods and
services up for negotiation. Polls, however, suggest the Japanese are crying out for
Leadership on the issue, not pusillanimity. More support the idea of entering TPP
negotiations than oppose it. On their behalf Mr. Noda should lead Japan forthrightly
into the discussions, confident that the country can bargain well enough to give itssacred industries such as farming and health care time to adjust.
It is also a test for Mr. Obama’s new strategy of coping with China’s rise by
“pivoting” American foreign policy more towards Asia. He must stand up to the
unions in the car industry which have long bellyached about the imbalance of trade
with Japan. He should energetically promote the potential gains for jobs of his pro-
Asia strategy-both at home and abroad. America should also stress that the TPP is
meant to engage and incorporate China, rather than constrain it.
Such steps would help win support in Japan, while costing America little. And in
joining the TPP, Japan would be forced to reform hidebound parts of its economy,
such as services, which would stimulate growth. A revitalized Japan would add to the
dynamism of a more liberalized Asia-Pacific region. That is surely something worth
fighting for.
Which of the following main messages was conveyed in this passage?
A ： n inspiring idea to liberalize transpacific trade hinges on the courage of America
and, especially, Japan.
B ： TPP is meant to engage and incorporate China, rather than constrain it.
C ： The farming and health care industries in Japan would be severely affected by
the TPP.
D ： TPP as a Washington-led sideswipe at China will win support in Japan and add to
a more liberalized Asia-Pacific region.
85 、 不定项选择题
I was eight years old the first time I fainted. I was at friend’s house, and a bee stung
me on the back of the neck. I had felt nothing but a slight pinch and the bug was
soon wiped away and flushed down the toilet, but since I looked pale I was urged to
call my mother. As I told her what had happened, I felt myself blacking out, sinking to
the floor, vaguely aware that I was still gripping the receiver.
Perhaps I was allergic to the bee sting—the only one I’ve ever gotten, although
to this day I have a phobia about bees, wasps, and other insects. But the image of an
eight-year-old in Keds crumpling to the ground while he describes his injury to his
Mommy seems to return us to Freudian territory. Note the umbilical image of the
phone cord.
Call me fanciful. Still, I’m afraid these undertones are hardly dissipated by the
second fainting incident I can recall, which practically reeks of the family romance.
This took place one weekend morning while we were gathered in the kitchen to eat
breakfast. My mother stood at the stove making French toast, which she had already
served to the kids; my father, seated at the table, was cutting a bagel with a sharp
bread knife. Contrary to every principle of kitchen safety, he was holding the bagel in
his hand and cutting inward, and eventually he made a neat, shallow incision in his
palm. The blood was profuse.
Being a hematologist, my father didn’t panic: this was just business as usual.
But my mother stopped flipping French toast and collapsed to the floor. I, inspired by
the blood and my mother’s collapse and the powerful odors of syrup and sugar
rising from my plate, slumped forward. My forehead went into the syrup. I heard a
roar—it seemed to me that I was being clutched beneath the armpits and whirled
around—and then my father shook me back into consciousness. He had already
attended to my mother.Still think I’m fanciful? Then listen to this. Out of curiosity I asked my mother
when her first fainting episode had occurred.
She paused, thought it over, and came up with the following. At the age of
thirteen, she went to visit her father in the hospital, who only the day before had had
his appendix removed. Aside from her father, still conked out from the anesthesia,
the other person in the room was a nurse, who was busy changing the dressing on
the patient’s incision, which hadn’t quite closed. For some reason, the nurse had
to leave the room. At this point, she asked my mother to hold the soiled dressing in
place until she returned. My mother complied. Standing over her dazed father,
gingerly holding a used bandage over a hole in his lower abdomen, the thirteen-year-
old grew lightheaded. I assumed the nurse returned before she hit the floor.
“At this point” in this article most probably means _____.
A ： at this moment
B ： At this part
C ： at this house
D ： at this corner
86 、 不定项选择题
I live in the land of Disney, Hollywood and year-round sun. You may think people in
such a glamorous, fun-filled p lace are happier than others. If so, you have some
mistaken ideas about the nature of happiness.
Many intelligent people still equate happiness with fun. The truth is that fun and
happiness have little or nothing in common. Fun is what we experience during an act.
Happiness is what we experience after an act. It is a deeper more abiding emotion.
Going to an amusement park or ball game, watching a movie or television, are
fun activities that help us relax, temporarily forget our problems and maybe even
laugh. But they do not bring happiness, because their positive effects end when the
fun ends.
I have often thought that if Hollywood stars have a role to play, it is to teach us
that happiness has nothing to do with fan. These rich, beautiful individuals have
constant access to glamorous parties, fancy cars, expensive homes, everything that
spells “happiness”. But in memoir after memoir, celebrities reveal the unhappiness
hidden beneath all their fun: depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, broken
marriages, troubled children and profound loneliness.
Ask a bachelor why he resists marriage even though he finds dating to be less
and less satisfying. If he’s honest, he will tell you that he is afraid of making a
commitment. For commitment is in tact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun,
adventure and excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most
distinguishing features.
Similarly, couples that choose not to have children are deciding in favor of
painless fun over painful happiness. They can dine out ever they want and sleep as
late as they want. Couples with infant children are lucky to get a whole night’s sleep
or a three-day vacation. I don’t know any parent who would choose the word fun to
describe raising children.
Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is
one of the most liberating realizations we can ever come to. It liberates time: now we
can devote more hours to activities that can genuinely increase our happiness. Itliberates money: buying that new car or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to
increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy: we now
understand that all those rich and glamorous people we were so sure are happy
because they are always having so much fun actually may not be happy at all.
To the author, Hollywood stars all have an important role to play that is to _____.
A ： write memoir after memoir about their happiness
B ： tell the public that happiness has nothing to do with fun
C ： teach people how to enjoy their lives
D ： bring happiness to the public instead of going to glamorous parties
87 、 不定项选择题
Nobody ever went into academic circles to make a fast fortune. Professors, especially
those in medical-and technology-related fields, typically earn a fraction of what their
colleagues in industry do. But suddenly, big money is starting to flow into the ivory
tower, as university administrators make up to the commercial potential of academic
research. And the institutions are wrestling with a whole new set of issues.
The profits are impressive: the Association of University Technology Managers
surveyed 132 universities and found that they earned a combined $576 million from
patent royalties in 1998, a number that promises to keep rising dramatically. Schools
like Columbia University in New York have aggressively marketed their inventions to
corporations, particularly pharmaceutical and high-tech companies.
Now Columbia is going retail—on the Web. It plans to go beyond the typical
“dot. edu” model, free sites listing courses and professors’ research interests.
Instead, it will offer the expertise of its faculty on a new for-profit site which will be
spun off as an independent company. The site will provide free access to educational
and research content, say administrators, as well as advanced features that are
already available to Columbia students, such as a simulation of the construction and
architecture of a French cathedral and interactive 3-D models of organic chemicals.
Free pages will feed into profit-generating areas, such as online courses and
seminars, and related books and tapes. Columbia executive vice president Michael
Crow imagines “millions of visitors” to the new site, including retirees and students
willing to pay to tap into this educational resource. “We can offer the best of
what’s thought and written and researched,” says Ann Kirschner, who heads the
project. Columbia also is anxious not be beaten by some of the other for-profit
“knowledge sites,” such as About.com and Hungry Minds. “If they capture this
space,” says Crow, “they’ll begin to cherry-pick our best faculty.”
Profits from the sale of patents typically have been divided between the
researcher, the department and the university, and Web profits would work the same
way, so many faculty members are delighted. But others find the trend worrisome: is
a professor who stands to profit from his or her research as credible as one who
doesn’t? Will universities provide more support to researchers working in profitable
fields than to scholars toiling in more musty areas?
“If there’s the perception that we might be making money from our efforts,
the authority of the university could be diminished,” worries Herve Varenne, a
cultural anthropology professor at Columbia’s education school. Says Kirschner:
“we would never compromise the integrity of the university.” Whether the new sitecan add to the growing profits from patents remains to be seen, but one thing is
clear. It’s going to take the best minds on camps to find a new balance between
profit and purity.
Which of the following is the main idea of the passage?
A ： The impressive profits tend to undermine the integrity of the university.
B ： Some universities are struggling with new ways to turn ideas into cash.
C ： It’s important to make use of bright ideas to make more profits.
D ： Columbia’s new site is to create profits.
88 、 不定项选择题
She was glad of the lake. It’s soft; dark water helped to soothe and quiet her mind.
It took her away from the noisy, squawkish world of the cat-walk and let her lie
untroubled at its side, listening only to the gentle lapping of its waves.
She felt at peace. Alone. Unhindered and free. Free to do nothing but watch and
listen and dream.
London, Paris, New York - names, only names. Names that had once meant
excitement, then boredom, then frustration then slavery. Names that had brought
her to the edge of a breakdown and left her doubting her own sanity.
But here everything was at peace. The lake, the trees, the cottage. Here she could
stay for the rest of her life. Here she would be happy to die.
Across the sun hurried a darkening filter of cloud. The ripples on the water,
chased by a freshening wind, pushed their way anxiously from the far side of the lake
until they almost bounced at her feet. And in the East there was thunder.
Quickly she gathered her things together and made for the cottage. But already
the rain flecked the water behind her and pattered the leaves as she raced beneath
the trees. Sodden and breathless, she ran for the cottage door, and, as she opened it,
the storm burst.
And there on the hearth, haggard and unwelcome, stood a man.
“Hello!”
I was an odd way to greet a complete stranger who had invaded her home, but it
was all she could think of to say. A casual greeting to someone who seemed to be
expecting her, waiting for her. Maybe it was the way they did things down here?
“I suppose you had to shelter from the storm too?” she asked.
The man said nothing.
She ought to have been angry at this rude intrusion on her privacy, but anger
somehow seemed pointless. It was as if the cottage was his, the hearth was his, and
she had come out of the storm to seek refuge at his door. She watched him,
cautiously; waiting for an explanation. He said nothing. Not a word
“Did you get wet?” she asked
He stood, huddled by the open fire, gazing at the dying embers.
She walked over, brushing against him as she bent to stir the logs into life, but
still he did not move. The flames burst forth, lighting up the sadness in his dark eyes.
“And kneeled and made the cheerless grate blaze up and all the cottage
warm...”
The words, spoken by him in a quiet, toneless voice, took her by surprise.
“Pardon?” she said
But he seemed not to hear.She tried once more. “Ii look as if it’s set in for the evening. Would you like to
sit down for a while?”
His eyes followed her as she moved to take off her coat and brush out her hair.
“...and from her form withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, and laid her
soiled gloves by, untied her hat and let the damp hair fall...”
Poetry. He was quoting poetry
He looked vaguely like a poet; lean, distressed, with a certain bitterness in his
eyes and hopelessness in his form. And his voice was deep and languid, like the
middle of the lake where the water ran darkest.
Yet those ware not his lines. The words were not created by him. They were
somehow familiar. Half remembered. Surely she had heard them before?
What does she think of the lake?
A ： Dark.
B ： Alone.
C ： Free.
D ： Soft
89 、 不定项选择题
“Popular art” has a number of meanings, impossible to define with any precision,
which range from folklore to junk. The poles are clear enough, but the middle tends
to blur. The Hollywood Western of the 1930’s, for example, has elements of
folklore, but is closer to junk than to high art or folk art. There can be great trash, just
as there is bad high art. The musicals of George Gershwin are great popular art,
never aspiring to high art. Schubert and Brahms, however, used elements of popular
music—folk themes—in works clearly intended as high art. The case of Verdi is a
different one: he took a popular genre—bourgeois melodrama set to music (an
accurate definition of nineteenth-century opera)—and, without altering its
fundamental nature, transmuted it into high art. This remains one of the greatest
achievements in music, and one that cannot be fully appreciated without recognizing
the essential trashiness of the genre.
As an example of such a transmutation, consider what Verdi made of the typical
political elements of nineteenth-century opera. Generally in the plots of these operas,
a hero or heroine—usually portrayed only as an individual, unfettered by class—is
caught between the immoral corruption of the aristocracy and the doctrinaire rigidity
or secret greed of the leaders of the proletariat. Verdi transforms this naive and
unlikely formulation with music of extraordinary energy and rhythmic vitality, music
more subtle than it seems at first hearing. There are scenes and arias that still sound
like calls to arms and were clearly understood as such when they were first
performed. Such pieces lend an immediacy to the otherwise veiled political message
of these operas and call up feelings beyond those of the opera itself.
Or consider Verdi’s treatment of character. Before Verdi, there were rarely any
characters at all in musical drama, only a series of situations which allowed the
singers to express a series of emotional states. Any attempt to find coherent
psychological portrayal in these operas is misplaced ingenuity. The only coherence
was the singer’s vocal technique: when the cast changed, new arias were almost
always substituted, generally adapted from other operas. Verdi’s characters, on the
other hand, have genuine consistency and integrity, even if, in many cases, the
consistency is that of pasteboard melodrama. The integrity of the character isachieved through the music: once he had become established, Verdi did not rewrite
his music for different singers or countenance alterations or substitutions of
somebody else’s arias in one of his operas, as every eighteenth-century composer
had done. When he revised an opera, it was only for dramatic economy and
effectiveness.
The author refers to Schubert and Brahms in order to suggest _____.
A ： that their achievements are no less substantial than those of Verdi
B ： that their works are examples of great trash
C ： the extent to which Schubert and Brahms influenced the later compositions of
Verdi
D ： that popular music could be employed in compositions intended as high art
90 、 不定项选择题
She was glad of the lake. It’s soft; dark water helped to soothe and quiet her mind.
It took her away from the noisy, squawkish world of the cat-walk and let her lie
untroubled at its side, listening only to the gentle lapping of its waves.
She felt at peace. Alone. Unhindered and free. Free to do nothing but watch and
listen and dream.
London, Paris, New York - names, only names. Names that had once meant
excitement, then boredom, then frustration then slavery. Names that had brought
her to the edge of a breakdown and left her doubting her own sanity.
But here everything was at peace. The lake, the trees, the cottage. Here she could
stay for the rest of her life. Here she would be happy to die.
Across the sun hurried a darkening filter of cloud. The ripples on the water,
chased by a freshening wind, pushed their way anxiously from the far side of the lake
until they almost bounced at her feet. And in the East there was thunder.
Quickly she gathered her things together and made for the cottage. But already
the rain flecked the water behind her and pattered the leaves as she raced beneath
the trees. Sodden and breathless, she ran for the cottage door, and, as she opened it,
the storm burst.
And there on the hearth, haggard and unwelcome, stood a man.
“Hello!”
I was an odd way to greet a complete stranger who had invaded her home, but it
was all she could think of to say. A casual greeting to someone who seemed to be
expecting her, waiting for her. Maybe it was the way they did things down here?
“I suppose you had to shelter from the storm too?” she asked.
The man said nothing.
She ought to have been angry at this rude intrusion on her privacy, but anger
somehow seemed pointless. It was as if the cottage was his, the hearth was his, and
she had come out of the storm to seek refuge at his door. She watched him,
cautiously; waiting for an explanation. He said nothing. Not a word
“Did you get wet?” she asked
He stood, huddled by the open fire, gazing at the dying embers.
She walked over, brushing against him as she bent to stir the logs into life, but
still he did not move. The flames burst forth, lighting up the sadness in his dark eyes.
“And kneeled and made the cheerless grate blaze up and all the cottage
warm...”The words, spoken by him in a quiet, toneless voice, took her by surprise.
“Pardon?” she said
But he seemed not to hear.
She tried once more. “Ii look as if it’s set in for the evening. Would you like to
sit down for a while?”
His eyes followed her as she moved to take off her coat and brush out her hair.
“...and from her form withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, and laid her
soiled gloves by, untied her hat and let the damp hair fall...”
Poetry. He was quoting poetry
He looked vaguely like a poet; lean, distressed, with a certain bitterness in his
eyes and hopelessness in his form. And his voice was deep and languid, like the
middle of the lake where the water ran darkest.
Yet those ware not his lines. The words were not created by him. They were
somehow familiar. Half remembered. Surely she had heard them before?
We can conclude that the main character “She” is a _____.
A ： model
B ： teacher
C ： singer
D ： banker
91 、 不定项选择题
The age at which young children begin to make moral discriminations about harmful
actions committed against themselves or others has been the focus of recent
research into the moral development of children. Until recently, child psychologists
supported pioneer developmentalist Jean Piaget in his hypothesis that because of
their immaturity, children under age seven do not take into account the intentions of
a person committing accidental or deliberate harm, but rather simply assign
punishment for transgressions on the basis of the magnitude of the negative
consequences caused. According to Piaget, children under age seven occupy the first
stage of moral development, which is characterized by moral absolutism (rules made
by authorities must be obeyed) and imminent justice (if rules are broken, punishment
will be meted out). Until young children mature, their moral judgments are based
entirely on the effect rather than the cause of a transgression. However, in recent
research, Keasey found that six-year-old children not only distinguish between
accidental and intentional harm, but also judge intentional harm as naughtier,
regardless of the amount of damage produced. Both of these findings seem to
indicate that children, at an earlier age than Piaget claimed, advance into the second
stage of moral development, moral autonomy, in which they accept social rules but
view them as more arbitrary than do children in the first stage.
Keasey’s research raises two key questions for developmental psychologists
about children under age seven: do they recognize justifications for harmful actions,
and do they make distinctions between harmful acts that are preventable and those
acts that have unforeseen harmful consequences? Studies indicate that justifications
excusing harmful actions might include?public?duty, self-defense, and provocation.
For example, Nesdale and Rule concluded that children were capable of considering
whether or not an aggressor’s action was justified by public duty: five year olds
reacted very differently to “Bonnie wrecks Arm’s pretend house” depending on
whether Bonnie did it “so somebody won’t fall over it” or because Bonnie wanted“to make Ann feel bad”. Thus, a child of five begins to understand that certain
harmful actions, though intentional, can be justified; the constraints of moral
absolutism no longer solely guide their judgments.
Psychologists have determined that during kindergarten children learn to make
subtle distinctions involving harm. Darley observed that among-acts involving
unintentional harm, six-year-old children just entering kindergarten could not
differentiate between foreseeable, and thus preventable, harm and unforeseeable
harm for which the perpetrator cannot be blamed. Seven months later, however,
Darley found that these same children could make both distinctions, thus
demonstrating that they had become morally autonomous.
According to the passage, Keasey’s findings support which of the following
conclusions about six-year-old children?
A ： They have the ability to make autonomous moral judgments.
B ： They regard moral absolutism as a threat to their moral autonomy.
C ： They do not understand the concept of public duty.
D ： They accept moral judgments made by their peers more easily than do older
children.
92 、 不定项选择题
Children as young as four will study Shakespeare in a project being launched today
by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
The RSC is holding its first national conference for primary school teachers to
encourage them to use the Bard’s plays imaginatively in the classroom from
reception classes onwards. The conference will be told that they should learn how
Shakespearian characters like Puck in?A Midsummer Night’s Dream?are “jolly
characters” and how to write about them.
At present, the national curriculum does not require pupils to approach
Shakespeare until secondary school. All it says is that pupils should study “texts
drawn from a variety of cultures and traditions” and “myths, legends and
traditional stories”.
However, educationists at the RSC believe children will gain a better appreciation
of Shakespeare if they are introduced to him at a much younger age. “Even very
young children can enjoy Shakespeare’s plays,” said Mary Johnson, head of the
learning department. “It is just a question of pitching it for the age group. Even
reception classes and key stage one pupils (five-to-seven-year-olds) can enjoy his
stories. For instance, if you build up Puck as a character who skips, children of that
age can enjoy the character. They can be inspired by Puck and they could even start
writing about him at that age.”
It is the RSC’s belief that building the Bard up as a fun playwright in primary
school could counter some of the negative images conjured up about teaching
Shakespeare in secondary schools. Then, pupils have to concentrate on scenes from
the plays to answer questions for compulsory English national-curriculum tests for
14-year-olds. Critics of the tests have complained that pupils no longer have the time
to study or read the whole play—and therefore lose interest in Shakespeare.
However, Ms. Johnson is encouraging teachers to present 20-minute versions of
the plays—a classroom version of the?Reduced Shakespeare Company’s Complete
Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)?which told his 37 plays in 97 minutes—to givepupils a flavour of the whole drama.
The RSC’s venture coincides with a call for schools to allow pupils to be more
creative in writing about Shakespeare. Professor Kate McLuskie, the new director of
the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute - also based in
Stratford—said it was time to get away from the idea that there was “a right
answer” to any question about Shakespeare. Her first foray into the world of
Shakespeare was to berate him as a misogynist in a 1985 essay but she now insists
this should not be interpreted as a criticism of his works—although she admits: “I
probably wouldn’t have written it quite the same way if I had been writing it now.
What we should be doing is making sure that someone is getting something out of
Shakespeare,” she said. “People are very scared about getting the right answer. I
know it’s difficult but I don’t care if they come up with a right answer that I can
agree with about Shakespeare.”
Which of the following is NOT true according to the last paragraph?
A ： Professor Kate McLuskie once scolded Shakespeare in her essay.
B ： Professor Kate McLuskie insisted on her view on Shakespeare till now.
C ： Professor Kate McLuskie has changed her idea now.
D ： Ms. Kate thinks it was time to get away from the idea that there was “a right
answer” to any question about Shakespeare.
93 、 不定项选择题
When the television is good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines, or
newspapers—nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite
you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and
stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, or anything else to distract you and
keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you
will observe a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, violence,
audience-participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families,
blood and thunder, Mayhem, more violence, sadism, murder, Western badmen,
Western goodmen, private eyes, Gangsters, still more violence, and cartoons. And
endlessly, commercials that stream and cajole and offend. And most of all, boredom.
True, you will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if
you think I exaggerate, try it.
Is there no room on television to teach, to inform, to uplift, to stretch, to enlarge
the capacities of our children? Is there no room for programs to deepen the
children’s understanding of children in other lands? Is there no room for a
children’s news show explaining something about the world for them at their level
of understanding? Is there no room for reading the great literature of the past,
teaching them the great traditions of freedom? There are some fine children’s
shows, but they are drowned out in the massive doses of cartoons, violence, and
more violence. Must these be your trademarks? Search your conscience and see
whether you cannot offer more to your young beneficiaries whose future you guard
so many hours each and every day.
There are many people in this great country, and you must serve all of us. You
will get no argument from me if you say that, given a choice between a Western and a
symphony, more people will watch the Western. I like Westerns and private eyes,
too—but a steady diet for the whole country is obviously not in the public interest.We all know that people would more often prefer to be entertained than stimulated
or informed. But your obligations are not satisfied if you look only to popularity as a
test of what to broadcast. Yon are not only in show business: you are free to
communicate ideas as well as to give relaxation. You must provide a wide range of
choices, more diversity, more alternatives. It is not enough to cater to the nation’s
whims—you must also serve the nation’s needs. The people own the air. They own
it as much in prime evening time as they do at six o’clock in the morning. For every
hour that the people give you--you own them something. I intend to see that your
debt is paid with service.
The author believes that his tastes are _____.
A ： better than most people’s
B ： better than those of the television industry
C ： the same as most people
D ： better than the average children
94 、 不定项选择题
Since the late 1970’s in the face of a severe loss of market share in dozens of
industries, manufacturers in the United States have been trying to improve
productivity—and therefore enhance their international competitiveness—through
cost-cutting programs. (Cost-cutting here is defined as raising labor output while
holding the amount of labor constant.) However, from 1978 through 1982,
productivity—the value of goods manufactured divided by the amount of labor
input—did not improve; and while the results were better in the business upturn of
the three years following, they ran 25percent lower than productivity improvements
during earlier, post-1945 upturns. At the same time, it became clear that the harder
manufactures worked to implement cost-cutting, the more they lost their competitive
edge.
With this paradox in mind, I recently visited 25 companies; it became clear to me
that the cost-cutting approach to increasing productivity is fundamentally flawed.
Manufacturing regularly observes a “40, 40, 20” rule. Roughly 40 percent of any
manufacturing-based competitive advantage derives from long-term changes in
manufacturing structure (decisions about the number, size, location, and capacity of
facilities) and in approaches to materials. Another 40 percent comes from major
changes in equipment and process technology. The final 20 percent rests on
implementing conventional cost-cutting. This rule does not imply that cost-cutting
should not be tried. The well-known tools of this approach—including simplifying
jobs and retraining employees to work smarter, not harder—do produce results. But
the tools quickly reach the limits of what they can contribute.
Another problem is that the cost-cutting approach hinders innovation and
discourages creative people. As Abernathy’s study of automobile manufacturers
has shown, an industry can easily become prisoner of its own investments in cost-
cutting techniques, reducing its ability to develop new products. And managers under
pressure to maximize cost-cutting will resist innovation because they know that more
fundamental changes in processes or systems will wreak havoc with the results on
which they are measured. Production managers have always seen their job as one of
minimizing costs and maximizing output. This dimension of performance has until
recently sufficed as a basis of evaluation, but it has created a penny-pinching,mechanistic culture in most factories that has kept away creative managers.
Every company I know that has freed itself from the paradox has done so, in
part, by developing and implementing a manufacturing strategy. Such a strategy
focuses on the manufacturing structure and on equipment and process technology.
In one company a manufacturing strategy that allowed different areas of the factory
to specialize in different markets replaced the conventional cost-cutting approach;
within three years the company regained its competitive advantage. Together with
such strategies, successful companies are also encouraging managers to focus on a
wider set of objectives besides cutting costs. There is hope for manufacturing, but it
dearly rests oil a different way of managing.
The primary function of the first paragraph of the passage is to _____.
A ： present a historical context for the author’s observations
B ： anticipate challenges to the prescriptions that follow
C ： clarify some disputed definitions of economic terms
D ： summarize a number of long—accepted explanations
95 、 不定项选择题
Hormones in the Body Up to the beginning of the twentieth century, the nervous
system was thought to control all communication within the body and the resulting
integration of behavior. Scientists had determined that nerves ran, essentially, on
electrical impulses. These impulses were thought to be the engine for thought,
emotion, movement, and internal processes such as digestion. However, experiments
by William Bayliss and Ernest Starling on the chemical secretin, which is produced in
the small intestine when food enters the stomach, eventually challenged that view.
From the small intestine, secretin travels through the bloodstream to the pancreas.
There, it stimulates the release of digestive chemicals. In this fashion, the intestinal
cells that produce secretin ultimately regulate the production of different chemicals
in a different organ, the pancreas.
Such a coordination of processes had been thought to require control by the
nervous system; Bayliss and Starling showed that it could occur through chemicals
alone. This discovery spurred Starting to coin the term hormone to refer to secretin,
taking it from the Greek word hormon, meaning “to excite” or “to set in
motion.” A hormone is a chemical produced by one tissue to make things happen
elsewhere.
As more hormones were discovered, they were categorized, primarily according
to the process by which they operated on the body. Some glands (which make up the
endocrine system) secrete hormones directly into the bloodstream. Such glands
include the thyroid and the pituitary. The exocrine system consists of organs and
glands that produce substances that are used outside the bloodstream, primarily for
digestion. The pancreas is one such organ, although it secretes some chemicals into
the blood and thus is also part of the endocrine system.
Much has been learned about hormones since their discovery. Some play such
key roles in regulating bodily processes or behavior that their absence would cause
immediate death. The most abundant hormones have effects that are less obviously
urgent but can be more far-reaching and difficult to track: They modify moods and
affect human behavior, even some behavior we normally think of as voluntary.
Hormonal systems are very intricate. Even minute amounts of the right chemicals cansuppress appetite, calm aggression, and change the attitude of a parent toward a
child. Certain hormones accelerate the development of the body, regulating growth
and form; others may even define an individual’s personality characteristics. The
quantities and proportions of hormones produce change with age, so scientists have
given a great deal of study to shifts in the endocrine system over time in the hopes of
alleviating ailments associated with aging.
In fact, some hormone therapies are already very common. A combination of
estrogen and progesterone has been prescribed for decades to women who want to
reduce mood swings, sudden changes in body temperature, and other discomforts
caused by lower natural levels of those hormones as they enter middle age. Known
as hormone replacement therapy (HRT), the treatment was also believed to prevent
weakening of the bones. At least one study has linked HRT with a heightened risk of
heart disease and certain types of cancer. HRT may also increase the likelihood that
blood clots—dangerous because they could travel through the bloodstream and
block major blood vessels—will form. Some proponents of HRT have tempered their
enthusiasm in the face of this new evidence, recommending it only to patients whose
symptoms interfere with their abilities to live normal lives.
Human growth hormone may also be given to patients who are secreting
abnormally low amounts on their own. Because of the complicated effects growth
hormone has on the body, such treatments are generally restricted to children who
would be pathologically small in stature without it. Growth hormone affects not just
physical size but also the digestion of food and the aging process. Researchers and
family physicians tend to agree that it is foolhardy to dispense it in cases in which the
risks are not clearly outweighed by the benefits.
To be considered a hormone, a chemical produced in the body must _____.
A ： be part of the digestive process
B ： influence the operations of the nervous system
C ： affect processes in a different part of the body
D ： regulate attitudes and behavior
96 、 不定项选择题
Got milk? If you do, take a moment to ponder the true oddness of being able to drink
milk after you’re a baby.
No other species but humans can. And most humans can’t either.
The long lists of food allergies some people claim to have can make it seem as if
they’re just finicky eaters trying to rationalize likes and dislikes. Not so. Eggs,
peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish soy and gluten all can wreak havoc on the immune
system of allergic individuals, even causing a deadly reaction called anaphylaxis.
But those allergic reactions are relatively rare, affecting an estimated 4% of
adults.
Milk’s different.
There are people who have true milk allergies that can cause deadly reactions.
But most people who have bad reactions to milk aren’t actually allergic to it, in that
it’s not their immune system that’s responding to the milk. Instead, people who
are lactose intolerant can’t digest the main sugar—lactose—found in milk. In
normal humans, the enzyme that does so—lactase—stops being produced when the
person is between two and five years old. The undigested sugars end up in the colon,where they begin to ferment, producing gas that can cause cramping, bloating,
nausea, flatulence and diarrhea.
If you’re American or European it’s hard to realize this, but being able to
digest milk as an adult is one weird genetic adaptation.
It’s not normal. Somewhat less than 40% of people in the world retain the
ability to digest lactose after childhood. The numbers are often given as close to 0%
of Native Americans, 5% of Asians, 25% of African and Caribbean peoples, 50% of
Mediterranean peoples and 90% of northern Europeans. Sweden has one of the
world’s highest percentages of lactase tolerant people.
Being able to digest milk is so strange that scientists say we shouldn’t really call
lactose intolerance a disease, because that presumes it’s abnormal, instead, they
call it lactase persistence, indicating what’s really weird is the ability to continue to
drink milk.
There’s been a lot of research over the past decade looking at the genetic
mutation that allows this subset of humanity to stay milk drinkers into adulthood.
A long-held theory was that the mutation showed up first in Northern Europe,
where people got less vitamin D from the sun and therefore did better if they could
also get the crucial hormone (it’s not really a vitamin at all) from milk.
But now a group at University College London has shown that the mutation
actually appeared about 7,500 years ago in dairy farmers who lived in a region
between the central Balkans and central Europe, in what was known as the Funnel
Beaker culture.
The paper was published this week in PLOS Computational Biology.
The researchers used a computer to model the spread of lactase persistence,
dairy farming, other food gathering practices and genes in Europe.
Today, the highest proportion of people with lactase persistence live in
Northwest Europe, especially the Netherlands, Ireland and Scandinavia. But the
computer model suggests that dairy farmers carrying this gene variant probably
originated in central Europe and then spread more widely and rapidly than non-
dairying groups.
Author Mark Thomas of University College London’s dept of Genetics, Evolution
and Environment says, “In Europe, a single genetic change...is strongly associated
with lactase persistence and appears to have people with it a big survival
advantage.”
The European mutation is different from several lactase persistence genes
associated with small populations of African peoples who historically have been
cattle herders.
Researchers at the University of Mary land identified one such mutation among
Nilo-Saharan-speaking peoples in Kenya and Tanzania. That mutation seems to have
arisen between 2,700 to 6,800 years ago. Two other mutations have been found
among the Beja people of northeastern Sudan and tribes of the same language family
in northern Kenya.
According to Mark Thomas, we can infer that _____.
A ： in Europe, people with longevity must not be lactase persistence.
B ： a genetic mutation on lactase persistence changed people’s life.
C ： the European people benefit from genetic change.
D ： the Europeans have superior survival advantage to other human races.
97 、 不定项选择题Some believe that in the age of identikit computer games, mass entertainment and
conformity on the supermarket shelves, truly inspired thinking has gone out of the
window. But, there are others who hold the view that there is still plenty of scope for
innovation, lateral thought and creative solutions. Despite the standardization of
modern life, there is an unabated appetite for great ideas, visionary thinking and
inspired debate. In the first of a series of monthly debates on contemporary issues,
we ask two original thinkers to discuss the nature of creativity. Here is the first one.
Yes. Absolutely. Since I started working as an inventor 10 or 12 years ago, I’ve
seen a big change in attitudes to creativity and invention. Back then, there was hardly
any support for inventors, apart from the national organization the Institute of
Patentees and Inventors. Today, there are lots of little inventors’ clubs popping up
all over the place, my last count was 19 nationally and growing. These non-profit
clubs, run by inventors for inventors, are an indication that people are once again
interested in invention.
I’ve been a project leader, a croupier, an IT consultant and I’ve written a
motor mandrel. I spent my teens under a 1950s two-tone Riley RME ear, learning to
put it together. Back in the Sixties, kids like me were always out doing things, making
go-karts, riding bicycles or exploring. We learned to overcome challenges and solve
problems. We weren’t just sitting at a PlayStation, like many kids do today.
But I think, and hope, things are shifting back. There’s a lot more internl in
design and creativity and such talents are getting a much higher profile in the media.
It’s evident with TV programmes such as Channe14’s?Scrapheap Challenge?or
BBC2’s?The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den, where people are given a task to solve
or face the challenge of selling their idea to a panel.
And. thankfully, the image of the mad scientist with electrified hair working in
the garden shed is long gone—although, there are still a few exceptions!
That’s not to say there aren’t problems. With the decline in manufacturing we
are losing the ability to know how to make things. There’s a real skills gap
developing. In my opinion, the Government does little or nothing to help innovation
at the lone-inventor or small or medium enterprise level. I would love to see more
money spent on teaching our school kids how to be inventive. But, despite
everything, if you have a good idea and real determination, you can still do very well.
My own specialist area is packaging closures—almost every product needs it. I
got the idea for Squeezeopen after looking at an old tin of boot polish when my
mother complained she couldn’t get the lid off. If you can do something cheaper,
better, and you are 100 percent committed, there is a chance it will be a success.
I see a fantastic amount of innovation and opportunities out there. People
don’t realise how much is going on. New materials are coming out all the time and
the space programme and scientific research are producing a variety of spin-offs.
Innovation doesn’t have to be high-tech: creativity and inventing is about finding
the right solution to a problem, whatever it is. There’s a lot of talent out there and,
thankfully, some of the more progressive companies are suddenly realizing they
don’t want to miss out—it’s an exciting time.
What’s the central idea of the last paragraph?
A ： We should miss out the exciting time.
B ： A variety of spin-offs ate produced by the scientific research.
C ： The nature of innovation.
D ： The nature of talent.98 、 不定项选择题
It can be argued that much consumer dissatisfaction with marketing strategies arises
from an inability to aim advertising at only the likely buyers of a given product. There
are three groups of consumers who are affected by the marketing process. First,
there is the market segment—people who need the commodity in question. Second,
there is the program target—people in the market segment with the “best fit”
characteristics for a specific product. Lots of people may need trousers, but only a
few qualify as likely buyers of very expensive designer trousers. Finally, there is the
program audience—all people who are actually exposed to the marketing program
without regard to whether they need or want the product
These three groups are rarely identical. An exception occurs in cases where
customers for a particular industrial product may be few and easily identifiable. Such
customers, all sharing a particular need, are likely to form a meaningful target, for
example, all companies with a particular application of the product in question, such
as high-speed fillers of bottles at breweries. In such circumstances, direct selling
(marketing that reaches only the program target) is likely to be economically justified,
and highly specialized trade media exist to expose members of the program
target—and only members of the program target—to the marketing program.
Most consumer-goods markets are significantly different. Typically, there are
many rather than few potential customers. Each represents a relatively small
percentage of potential sales. Rarely do members of a particular market segment
group themselves neatly into a meaningful program target. There are substantial
differences among consumers with similar demographic characteristics. Even with all
the past decade’s advances in information technology, direct selling of consumer
goods is rare, and mass marketing—a marketing approach that aims at a wide
audience—remains the only economically feasible mode. Unfortunately, there are
few media that allow the marketer to direct a marketing program exclusively to the
program target. Inevitably, people get exposed to a great deal of marketing for
products in which they have no interest and so they become annoyed.
The passage suggests which of the following about highly specialized trade media?
A ： They should be used only when direct selling is not economically feasible.
B ： They can be used to exclude from the program audience people who are not
part of the program target.
C ： They are used only for very expensive products.
D ： They are rarely used in the implementation of marketing programs for industrial
products.
99 、 不定项选择题
Since the late 1970’s in the face of a severe loss of market share in dozens of
industries, manufacturers in the United States have been trying to improve
productivity—and therefore enhance their international competitiveness—through
cost-cutting programs. (Cost-cutting here is defined as raising labor output while
holding the amount of labor constant.) However, from 1978 through 1982,
productivity—the value of goods manufactured divided by the amount of labor
input—did not improve; and while the results were better in the business upturn of
the three years following, they ran 25percent lower than productivity improvementsduring earlier, post-1945 upturns. At the same time, it became clear that the harder
manufactures worked to implement cost-cutting, the more they lost their competitive
edge.
With this paradox in mind, I recently visited 25 companies; it became clear to me
that the cost-cutting approach to increasing productivity is fundamentally flawed.
Manufacturing regularly observes a “40, 40, 20” rule. Roughly 40 percent of any
manufacturing-based competitive advantage derives from long-term changes in
manufacturing structure (decisions about the number, size, location, and capacity of
facilities) and in approaches to materials. Another 40 percent comes from major
changes in equipment and process technology. The final 20 percent rests on
implementing conventional cost-cutting. This rule does not imply that cost-cutting
should not be tried. The well-known tools of this approach—including simplifying
jobs and retraining employees to work smarter, not harder—do produce results. But
the tools quickly reach the limits of what they can contribute.
Another problem is that the cost-cutting approach hinders innovation and
discourages creative people. As Abernathy’s study of automobile manufacturers
has shown, an industry can easily become prisoner of its own investments in cost-
cutting techniques, reducing its ability to develop new products. And managers under
pressure to maximize cost-cutting will resist innovation because they know that more
fundamental changes in processes or systems will wreak havoc with the results on
which they are measured. Production managers have always seen their job as one of
minimizing costs and maximizing output. This dimension of performance has until
recently sufficed as a basis of evaluation, but it has created a penny-pinching,
mechanistic culture in most factories that has kept away creative managers.
Every company I know that has freed itself from the paradox has done so, in
part, by developing and implementing a manufacturing strategy. Such a strategy
focuses on the manufacturing structure and on equipment and process technology.
In one company a manufacturing strategy that allowed different areas of the factory
to specialize in different markets replaced the conventional cost-cutting approach;
within three years the company regained its competitive advantage. Together with
such strategies, successful companies are also encouraging managers to focus on a
wider set of objectives besides cutting costs. There is hope for manufacturing, but it
dearly rests oil a different way of managing.
The author refers to Abernathy’s study most probably in order to _____.
A ： qualify an observation about one rule governing manufacturing
B ： address possible objections to a recommendation about improving
manufacturing competitiveness
C ： support an earlier assertion about method of increasing productivity
D ： suggest the centrality in the Unit States economy of a particular manufacturing
industry
100 、 不定项选择题
With thunderclouds looming over the trans-Atlantic economy, it was easy to miss a
bright piece of news last weekend from the other crucible of world trade, the Pacific
Rim. In Honolulu, where Barack Obama hosted a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders,
Canada, Japan and Mexico expressed interest in joining nine countries (America,
Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam) indiscussing a free-trade pact. Altogether, the possible members of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership(TPP) produce 40％ of world GDP—far more than the European Union.
Regional trade deals are not always a good idea. If they distract policymakers
from global trade liberalization, they are to be discouraged. But with the Doha round
of global trade talks showing no flicker of life, there is little danger that the TPP will
derail a broader agreement; and by cutting barriers, strengthening intellectual-
property protections and going beyond a web of existing trade deals, it should boost
world trade.
The creation of a wider TPP is still some way off. For it to come into being its
architects—Mr. Obama, who faces a tough election battle next year, and Japan’s
Yoshihiko Noda, who faces crony politics laced with passionate protectionism-need to
show more leadership.
Mr. Noda’s announcement on November 11th that Japan was interested in
joining the TPP negotiations was an exceedingly bold move. Signing up would mean
dramatic changes in Japan, a country which has 800％tariffs on rice and exports 65
vehicles to America for every one that is sent to Japan. Mr. Noda’s move could also
transform the prospects of the TPP, most obviously by uniting two of the world’s
leading three economies but also by galvanizing others. Until he expressed an
interest, Canada and Mexico had also remained on the sidelines. Unwittingly or not,
Mr. Noda has thrust mercantilist Japan into a central position on a trade treaty in
which free movement of everything except labor is on the table.
Immense obstacles loom for Mr. Noda. He came into office in September casting
himself as a conciliator of Japan’s warring political factions. Many of those groups
are opposed to the TPP. Farm co-operatives, which feather many a politician’s nest,
argue that it would rob Japan of its rice heritage. Doctors warn of the risks to
Japan’s cherished health system. Socialists see the TPP as a Washington-led
sideswipe at China, which had hoped to build an East Asian trade orbit including
Japan. Mr. Nora will have to contend not just with opposition from rival parties but
also with a split on the issue inside his Democratic Party of Japan.
Since Honolulu, Mr. Noda has already pandered to protectionists by watering
down his message. Having beamed next to Mr. Obama in a summit photo, he then
protested that the White House had overstated his intention to put all goods and
services up for negotiation. Polls, however, suggest the Japanese are crying out for
Leadership on the issue, not pusillanimity. More support the idea of entering TPP
negotiations than oppose it. On their behalf Mr. Noda should lead Japan forthrightly
into the discussions, confident that the country can bargain well enough to give its
sacred industries such as farming and health care time to adjust.
It is also a test for Mr. Obama’s new strategy of coping with China’s rise by
“pivoting” American foreign policy more towards Asia. He must stand up to the
unions in the car industry which have long bellyached about the imbalance of trade
with Japan. He should energetically promote the potential gains for jobs of his pro-
Asia strategy-both at home and abroad. America should also stress that the TPP is
meant to engage and incorporate China, rather than constrain it.
Such steps would help win support in Japan, while costing America little. And in
joining the TPP, Japan would be forced to reform hidebound parts of its economy,
such as services, which would stimulate growth. A revitalized Japan would add to the
dynamism of a more liberalized Asia-Pacific region. That is surely something worth
fighting for.
According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true?
A ： The members of the TPP produce 40％of world GDP-far more than the EU.B ： The farming and health care industries in Japan could be affected by the TPP.
C ： The car industry in America has complained a lot about the trade with Japan.
D ： Before Mr. Noda announced Japan’s interest in joining the TPP, Canada and
Mexico were not actually involved in it.
101 、 不定项选择题
In its modern form the concept of “literature” did not emerge earlier than the
eighteenth century and was not fully developed until the nineteenth century. Yet the
conditions for its emergence had been developing since the Renaissance. The word
itself came into English use in the fourteenth century, following French and Latin
precedents; its root was Latin?littera, a letter of the alphabet.?Litterature, in the
common early spelling, was then in effect a condition of reading: of being able to
read and of having read. It was often close to the sense of modern?literacy, which
was not in the language until the late nineteenth century, its introduction in part
made necessary by the movement of?literature?to a different sense. The normal
adjective associated with literature was?literate. Literary appeared in the sense of
reading ability and experience in the seventeenth century, and did not acquire its
specialized modern meaning until the eighteenth century.
Literature?as a new category was then a specialization of the area formerly
categorized as?rhetoric?and?grammar: a specialization to reading and, in the material
context of the development of printing, to the printed word and especially the book.
It was eventually to become a more general category than?poetry?or the
earlier?poesy, which had been general terms for imaginative composition, but which
in relation to the development of?literaturebecame predominantly specialized, from
the seventeenth century, to metrical composition and especially written and printed
metrical composition. But literature was never primarily the active composition─the
“making”─which poetry had described. As reading rather than writing, it was a
category of a different kind. The characteristic use can be seen in Bacon “learned in
all literature and erudition, divine and humane”─and as late as Johnson “he had
probably more than common literature, as his son addresses him in one of his most
elaborate Latin poems.”?Literature, that is to say, was a category of use and
condition rather than of production. It was a particular specialization of what had
hitherto been seen as an activity or practice, and a specialization, in the
circumstances, which was inevitably made in terms of social class. In its first
extended sense, beyond the bare sense of “literacy,” it was a definition of
“polite” or “humane” learning, and thus specified a particular social distinction.
New political concepts of the “nation” and new valuations of the “vernacular”
interacted with a persistent emphasis on “literature” as reading in the “classical”
languages. But still, in this first stage, into the eighteenth century,?literature?was
primarily a generalized social concept, expressing a certain (minority) level of
educational achievement. This carded with it a potential and eventually realized
alternative definition of?literature?as “printed books:” the objects in and through
which this achievement was demonstrated.
It is important that, within the terms of this development, literature normally
included all printed books. There was not necessary specialization to “imaginative”
works. Literature was still primarily reading ability and experience, and this included
philosophy, history, and essays as well as poems. Were the new eighteenth century
novels literature? That question was first approached, not by definition of their modeor content, but by reference to the standards of “polite” or “humane” learning.
Was drama literature? This question was to exercise successive generations, not
because of any substantial difficulty but because of the practical limits of the
category. If literature was reading, could a mode written for spoken performance be
said to be literature, and if not, where was Shakespeare?
At one level the definition indicated by this development has persisted.
Literature lost its earliest sense of reading ability and reading experience, and
became an apparently objective category of printed works of a certain quality. The
concerns of a “literary editor” or a “literary supplement” would still be defined
in this way. But three complicating tendencies can then be distinguished: first, a shift
from “learning” to “taste” or “sensibility” as a criterion defining literary
quality; second, an increasing specialization of literature to “creative” or
“imaginative” works; third, a development of the concept of “tradition” within
national terms, resulting in the more effective definition of “a national literature.”
The source of each of these tendencies can be discerned from the Renaissance, but it
was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that they came through most
powerfully, until they became, in the twentieth century, in effect received
assumptions.
When did the modern concept of “literature” emerge?
A ： In the seventeenth century.
B ： In the eighteenth century.
C ： In the nineteenth century.
D ： In the twentieth century.
102 、 不定项选择题
Traffic statistics paint a gloomy picture. To help solve their traffic woes, some rapidly
growing U.S. cities have simply built more roads. But traffic experts say building more
roads is a quick-fix solution that will not alleviate the traffic problem in the long run.
Soaring land costs, increasing concern over social and environmental disruptions
caused by road-building, and the likelihood that more roads can only lead to more
cars and traffic are powerful factors bearing down on a 1950s-style construction
program.
The goal of smart-highway technology is to make traffic systems work at
optimum efficiency by treating the road and the vehicles traveling on them as an
integral transportation system. Proponents of the advanced technology say electronic
detection systems, closed-circuit television, radio communication, ramp metering,
variable message signing, and other smart-highway technology can now be used at a
reasonable cost to improve communication between drivers and the people who
monitor traffic.
Pathfinder, a Santa Monica, California-based smart-highway project in which a
14-mile stretch of the Santa Monica Freeway, making up what is called a “smart
corridor”, is being instrumented with buried loops in the pavement. Closed-circuit
television cameras survey the flow of traffic, while communication linked to property
equipped automobiles advise motorists of the least congested routes or detours.
Not all traffic experts, however, look to smart-highway technology as the
ultimate solution to traffic gridlock. Some say the high-tech approach is limited and
can only offer temporary solutions to a serious problem.“Electronics on the highway addresses just one aspect of the problem: how to
regulate traffic more efficiently,” explains Michael Renner, senior researcher at the
world-watch Institute. “It doesn’t deal with the central problem of too many cars
for roads that can’t be built fast enough. It sends people the wrong message”.
They start thinking “Yes, there used to be a traffic congestion problem, but that’s
been solved now because we have advanced high-tech system in place.” Larson
agrees and adds, “Smart highway is just one of the tools that we use to deal with
our traffic problems. It’s not the solution itself, just pan of the package. There are
different strategies.”
Other traffic problem-solving options being studied and experimented with
include car pooling, rapid mass-transit systems, staggered or flexible work hours, and
road pricing, a system whereby motorists pay a certain amount for the time they use
a highway.
It seems that we need a new, major thrust to deal with the traffic problems of
the next 20 years. There has to be a big change.
According to the passage, the smart-highway technology is aimed to _____.
A ： develop sophisticated facilities on the interstate highways
B ： provide passenger vehicle with a variety of services
C ： optimize the highway capabilities
D ： improve communication between driver and the traffic monitors
103 、 不定项选择题
“When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results,”
Calvin Coolidge once observed. As the U. S. economy crumbles, Coolidge’s silly
maxim might appear to be as apt as ever: the number of unemployment insurance
claims is rising, and overall joblessness is creeping upward. But in today’s vast and
complex labor market, things aren’t always what they seem. More and more people
are indeed losing their jobs but not necessarily because the economy appears to be
in recession. And old-fashioned unemployment isn’t the inevitable result of job loss.
New work, at less pay, often is.
Call it new-wave unemployment: structural changes in the economy are
overlapping the business downturn, giving joblessness a grim new twist. Small
wonder that the U. S. unemployment rate is rising. Now at 5.7 percent, it is widely
expected to edge toward 7 percent by the end of next year. But statistics alone can’t
fully capture a complex reality. The unemployment rate has been held down by slow
growth in the labor force—the number of people working or looking for work—since
few people sense attractive job opportunities in a weak economy. In addition, many
more people are losing their jobs than are actually ending up unemployed. Faced
with hungry mouths to feed, thousands of women, for example, are taking two or
more part-time positions or agreeing to shave the hours they work in service-sector
jobs. For better and for worse, work in America clearly isn’t what it used to be. Now
unemployment isn’t, either.
Like sour old wine in new bottles, this downturn blends a little of the old and the
new reflecting a decade’s worth of change in the dynamic U. S. economy. Yet, in
many respects the decline is following the classic pattern, with new layoffs
concentrated among blue-collar workers in the most “cyclical” industries, whose
ups and downs track the economy most closely.As the downturn attracts attention on workers’ ill fortunes, some analysts
predict that political upheaval may lie ahead. Real wages for the average U. S. worker
peaked in 1973 and have been falling almost ever since. As a result, a growing group
of downwardly mobile Americans could soon begin pressing policymakers to help
produce better-paying jobs. Just how loud the outcry becomes will depend partly on
the course of the recession. But in the long run, there’s little doubt that the bleak
outlook for jobs and joblessness is “politically, socially and psychologically
dynamite”.
According to the passage, under the great pressure of life, many women _____.
A ： will do a part-time job along with the full-time job
B ： would rather stay at home than apply for a part-time position
C ： would be fired if they can not finish the job quickly
D ： will agree to have their working hours shortened if required
104 、 不定项选择题
Traffic statistics paint a gloomy picture. To help solve their traffic woes, some rapidly
growing U.S. cities have simply built more roads. But traffic experts say building more
roads is a quick-fix solution that will not alleviate the traffic problem in the long run.
Soaring land costs, increasing concern over social and environmental disruptions
caused by road-building, and the likelihood that more roads can only lead to more
cars and traffic are powerful factors bearing down on a 1950s-style construction
program.
The goal of smart-highway technology is to make traffic systems work at
optimum efficiency by treating the road and the vehicles traveling on them as an
integral transportation system. Proponents of the advanced technology say electronic
detection systems, closed-circuit television, radio communication, ramp metering,
variable message signing, and other smart-highway technology can now be used at a
reasonable cost to improve communication between drivers and the people who
monitor traffic.
Pathfinder, a Santa Monica, California-based smart-highway project in which a
14-mile stretch of the Santa Monica Freeway, making up what is called a “smart
corridor”, is being instrumented with buried loops in the pavement. Closed-circuit
television cameras survey the flow of traffic, while communication linked to property
equipped automobiles advise motorists of the least congested routes or detours.
Not all traffic experts, however, look to smart-highway technology as the
ultimate solution to traffic gridlock. Some say the high-tech approach is limited and
can only offer temporary solutions to a serious problem.
“Electronics on the highway addresses just one aspect of the problem: how to
regulate traffic more efficiently,” explains Michael Renner, senior researcher at the
world-watch Institute. “It doesn’t deal with the central problem of too many cars
for roads that can’t be built fast enough. It sends people the wrong message”.
They start thinking “Yes, there used to be a traffic congestion problem, but that’s
been solved now because we have advanced high-tech system in place.” Larson
agrees and adds, “Smart highway is just one of the tools that we use to deal with
our traffic problems. It’s not the solution itself, just pan of the package. There are
different strategies.”
Other traffic problem-solving options being studied and experimented withinclude car pooling, rapid mass-transit systems, staggered or flexible work hours, and
road pricing, a system whereby motorists pay a certain amount for the time they use
a highway.
It seems that we need a new, major thrust to deal with the traffic problems of
the next 20 years. There has to be a big change.
The compound word “quick-fix” in Paragraph 1, sentence 3 is closest in meaning to
_____.
A ： an optional solution
B ： an expedient solution
C ： a ready solution
D ： an efficient solution
105 、 不定项选择题
What is the charm of necklaces? Why would anyone put something extra around her
neck and then invest it with special significance? A necklace doesn’t afford warmth
in cold weather, like a scarf, or protection in combat, like chain mail; it only
decorates. We might say it borrows meaning from what it surrounds and sets off: the
head with its supremely important material contents, and the face, that register of
the soul. When photograph reduces the reality it represents, they mention not only
the passage from three dimensions to two, but also the selection of a?point du
vue?favors the top of the body rather than the bottom and the front rather than the
back. The face is the jewel in the crown of the body, and so we give it a setting.
When people are intensely concerned with something that is obviously
impractical, anthropologists take note, for lovely useless things often express archaic
to exist in contemporary American houses already heated by gas and electricity, yet
most people want one and it is still the focus of the living room. This desire testifies, I
think, to the hundreds of thousands of years during which we Homo sapiens huddled
around a cave fire. We watch ourselves, rather anxiously, vanish backward down
those lone temporary corridors, as my daughter gazes at her infinitely multiplied
small self in the mutually opposed mirrors of the beauty salon, and wonders, is it
me? Our fireplaces and necklaces and tombstones say it is, they are.
In American culture, an interest in necklaces seems to be rather gender specific.
Many men to whom I mention the enterprise feign polite interest and then change
the subject, though I know some who admire, construct, and wear necklaces,
including the distinguished scientist and poet to whom this essay is dedicated. Most
women, by contrast, become mildly or wildly enthusiastic. A doctor in Blois brought
out her entire collection of costume jewelry for me, exhibited the most splendid
pieces with an account of where and when they were purchased, and then explain
them all with the help of a large glossy book on the history of costume jewelry, with
dozens of pictures. A former student of mine who had moved to California mailed me
six plastic boxes full of beads gleaned from a warehouse managed by an eccentric
friend who just their settings; a feature bead painted with a naked lady; crystal
roundels of truly exceptional shine; and tiny silver hematite seed beads. Beads lend
themselves to exchange, Beads travel. And clearly these two facts are related.
The function of the necklace is to _____.
A ： keep people warmB ： provide people with protection
C ： make people beautiful
D ： build up people’s confidence
106 、 不定项选择题
For the executive producer of a network nightly news programme, the workday often
begins at midnight as mine did during seven years with ABC’s evening newscast.
The first order of business was a call to the assignment desk for a pre-
bedtime?rundownof latest developments.
The assignment desk operates 24 hours a day, staffed by editors who move
crews, correspondents and equipment to the scene of events. Assignment-desk
editors ate logistics experts; they have to know plane schedules, satellite availability,
and whom to get in touch with at local stations and overseas broadcasting systems.
They are required to assess stories as they break on the wire services—sometimes
even before they do - and to decide how much effort to make to cover those stories.
When the United States was going to appeal to arms against Iraq, the number of
correspondents and crews was constantly evaluated. Based on reports from the field
and also upon the skilled judgments of desk editors in New York City, the right
number of personnel was kept on the alert. The rest were allowed to continue
working throughout the world, in America and Iraq ready to move but not tied down
by false alarms.
The studio staff of ABC’s “World News Tonight” assembles at 9 a.m. to
prepare for the 6:30 “air” p.m. deadline. Overnight dispatches from outlying
bureaus and press services are read. There are phone conversations with the
broadcast’s staff producers in domestic bureaus and with the London bureau
senior producer, who coordinates overseas coverage. A pattern emerges for the
day’s news, a pattern outlined in the executive producer’s first lineup. The lineup
tells the staff what stories are scheduled; what the priorities are for processing film of
editing tape; what scripts need to be written; what commercials ate scheduled; how
long stories should run and in what order. Without a lineup, there would be chaos.
Each story’s relative value in dollars and cents must be continually assessed by
the executive producer. Cutting back satellite booking to save money might mean
that an explanation delivered by an anchor person will replace actual photos of an
event. A decline in live coverage could send viewers away and drive ratings down, but
there is not enough money to do everything. So decisions must be made and made
rapidly—because delay can mean a missed connection for shipping tape or access to
a satellite blocked by a competitor.
The broadcasts themselves require pacing and style. The audience has to be
allowed to breathe between periods of intense excitement. A vivid pictorial report
followed by less exacting materials allows the viewer to reflect on information that
has just flashed by. Frequent switches from one anchor to another or from one film
or tape report to another create a sense of forward movement. Ideally, leading and
lags to stories are worked out with field correspondents, enabling them to fit their
reports into the programme’s narrative flow so the audience’s attention does not
wander and more substance is absorbed.
Scripts are constantly rewritten to blend well with incoming pictures. Good copy
is crisp, informative. Our rule: the fewer words the better. If a picture can do the
work, let it.What will the executive producer mostly be concerned with?
A ： The cost and the effect.
B ： The truth of the coverage.
C ： The audience’s interest.
D ： The form of the coverage.
107 、 不定项选择题
She was glad of the lake. It’s soft; dark water helped to soothe and quiet her mind.
It took her away from the noisy, squawkish world of the cat-walk and let her lie
untroubled at its side, listening only to the gentle lapping of its waves.
She felt at peace. Alone. Unhindered and free. Free to do nothing but watch and
listen and dream.
London, Paris, New York - names, only names. Names that had once meant
excitement, then boredom, then frustration then slavery. Names that had brought
her to the edge of a breakdown and left her doubting her own sanity.
But here everything was at peace. The lake, the trees, the cottage. Here she could
stay for the rest of her life. Here she would be happy to die.
Across the sun hurried a darkening filter of cloud. The ripples on the water,
chased by a freshening wind, pushed their way anxiously from the far side of the lake
until they almost bounced at her feet. And in the East there was thunder.
Quickly she gathered her things together and made for the cottage. But already
the rain flecked the water behind her and pattered the leaves as she raced beneath
the trees. Sodden and breathless, she ran for the cottage door, and, as she opened it,
the storm burst.
And there on the hearth, haggard and unwelcome, stood a man.
“Hello!”
I was an odd way to greet a complete stranger who had invaded her home, but it
was all she could think of to say. A casual greeting to someone who seemed to be
expecting her, waiting for her. Maybe it was the way they did things down here?
“I suppose you had to shelter from the storm too?” she asked.
The man said nothing.
She ought to have been angry at this rude intrusion on her privacy, but anger
somehow seemed pointless. It was as if the cottage was his, the hearth was his, and
she had come out of the storm to seek refuge at his door. She watched him,
cautiously; waiting for an explanation. He said nothing. Not a word
“Did you get wet?” she asked
He stood, huddled by the open fire, gazing at the dying embers.
She walked over, brushing against him as she bent to stir the logs into life, but
still he did not move. The flames burst forth, lighting up the sadness in his dark eyes.
“And kneeled and made the cheerless grate blaze up and all the cottage
warm...”
The words, spoken by him in a quiet, toneless voice, took her by surprise.
“Pardon?” she said
But he seemed not to hear.
She tried once more. “Ii look as if it’s set in for the evening. Would you like to
sit down for a while?”
His eyes followed her as she moved to take off her coat and brush out her hair.
“...and from her form withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, and laid hersoiled gloves by, untied her hat and let the damp hair fall...”
Poetry. He was quoting poetry
He looked vaguely like a poet; lean, distressed, with a certain bitterness in his
eyes and hopelessness in his form. And his voice was deep and languid, like the
middle of the lake where the water ran darkest.
Yet those ware not his lines. The words were not created by him. They were
somehow familiar. Half remembered. Surely she had heard them before?
Which of the following can NOT describe the man?
A ： Desperate
B ： Thin
C ： Miserable
D ： Conspicuous
108 、 不定项选择题
Some believe that in the age of identikit computer games, mass entertainment and
conformity on the supermarket shelves, truly inspired thinking has gone out of the
window. But, there are others who hold the view that there is still plenty of scope for
innovation, lateral thought and creative solutions. Despite the standardization of
modern life, there is an unabated appetite for great ideas, visionary thinking and
inspired debate. In the first of a series of monthly debates on contemporary issues,
we ask two original thinkers to discuss the nature of creativity. Here is the first one.
Yes. Absolutely. Since I started working as an inventor 10 or 12 years ago, I’ve
seen a big change in attitudes to creativity and invention. Back then, there was hardly
any support for inventors, apart from the national organization the Institute of
Patentees and Inventors. Today, there are lots of little inventors’ clubs popping up
all over the place, my last count was 19 nationally and growing. These non-profit
clubs, run by inventors for inventors, are an indication that people are once again
interested in invention.
I’ve been a project leader, a croupier, an IT consultant and I’ve written a
motor mandrel. I spent my teens under a 1950s two-tone Riley RME ear, learning to
put it together. Back in the Sixties, kids like me were always out doing things, making
go-karts, riding bicycles or exploring. We learned to overcome challenges and solve
problems. We weren’t just sitting at a PlayStation, like many kids do today.
But I think, and hope, things are shifting back. There’s a lot more internl in
design and creativity and such talents are getting a much higher profile in the media.
It’s evident with TV programmes such as Channe14’s?Scrapheap Challenge?or
BBC2’s?The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den, where people are given a task to solve
or face the challenge of selling their idea to a panel.
And. thankfully, the image of the mad scientist with electrified hair working in
the garden shed is long gone—although, there are still a few exceptions!
That’s not to say there aren’t problems. With the decline in manufacturing we
are losing the ability to know how to make things. There’s a real skills gap
developing. In my opinion, the Government does little or nothing to help innovation
at the lone-inventor or small or medium enterprise level. I would love to see more
money spent on teaching our school kids how to be inventive. But, despite
everything, if you have a good idea and real determination, you can still do very well.
My own specialist area is packaging closures—almost every product needs it. I
got the idea for Squeezeopen after looking at an old tin of boot polish when mymother complained she couldn’t get the lid off. If you can do something cheaper,
better, and you are 100 percent committed, there is a chance it will be a success.
I see a fantastic amount of innovation and opportunities out there. People
don’t realise how much is going on. New materials are coming out all the time and
the space programme and scientific research are producing a variety of spin-offs.
Innovation doesn’t have to be high-tech: creativity and inventing is about finding
the right solution to a problem, whatever it is. There’s a lot of talent out there and,
thankfully, some of the more progressive companies are suddenly realizing they
don’t want to miss out—it’s an exciting time.
According to the opinion of the interviewer _____.
A ： the future for invention depends
B ： there is still a future for invention and inspiration
C ： there is no future for invention and inspiration in modern society
D ： the future for invention and inspiration is unclear
109 、 不定项选择题
Students of United States history, seeking to identify the circumstances that
encouraged the emergence of feminist movements, have thoroughly investigated the
mid-nineteenth-century American economic and social conditions that affected the
status of women. These historians, however, have analyzed less fully the
development of specifically feminist ideas and activities during the same period.
Furthermore, the ideological origins of feminism in the United States have been
obscured because, even when historians did take into account those feminist ideas
and activities occurring within the United States, they failed to recognize that
feminism was then a truly international movement actually centered in Europe.
American feminist activists who have been described as “solitary” and “individual
theorists” were in reality connected to a movement —utopian socialism—which was
already popularizing feminist ideas in Europe during the two decades that
cachinnated in the first women’s rights conference held at Seneca Falls, New York,
in 1848. Thus, a complete understanding of the origins and development of
nineteenth-century feminism in the United States requires that the geographical
focus be widened to include Europe and that the detailed study already made of
social conditions be expanded to include the ideological development of feminism.
The earliest and most popular of the utopian socialists were the Saint-Simonians.
The specifically feminist part of Saint-Simonianism has, however, been less studied
than the group’s contribution to early socialism. This is regrettable on two accounts.
By 1832 feminism was the central concern of Saint-Simonianism and entirely
absorbed its adherents’ energy; hence, by ignoring its feminism, European
historians have misunderstood Saint-Simonianism. Moreover, since many feminist
ideas can be traced to Saint-Simonianism, European historians’ appreciation of later
feminism in France and the United States remained limited.
Saint-Simon’s followers, many of whom were women, based their feminism on
an interpretation of his project to reorganize the globe by replacing brute force with
the rule of spiritual powers. The new world order would be ruled together by a male,
to represent reflection, and a female, to represent sentiment. This complementarity
reflects the fact that, while the Saint-Simonians did not reject the belief that there
were innate differences between men and women, they nevertheless foresaw anequally important social and political role for both sexes in their Utopia.
Only a few Saint-Simonians opposed a definition of sexual equality based on
gender distinction. This minority believed that individuals of both sexes were born
similar in capacity and character, and they ascribed male-female differences to
socialization and education. The envisioned result of both currents of thought,
however, was that women would enter public life in the new age and that sexual
equality would reward men as well as women with an improved way of life.
According to the passage, which of the following is true of the Seneca Falls
conference on women’s rights?
A ： It was primarily a product of nineteenth-century Saint-Simonian feminist
thought.
B ： It was the work of American activists who were independent of feminists abroad.
C ： It was the culminating achievement of the Utopian socialist movement.
D ： It was a manifestation of an international movement for social change and
feminism
110 、 不定项选择题
The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions ever
witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive America to Europe and reaches the
emerging countries with unsurpassed might. Many in these countries are looking at
this process and worrying: “Won’t the wave of business concentration turn into an
uncontrollable anti-competitive force?”
There’s no question that the big are getting bigger and more powerful.
Multinational corporations accounted for less than 20% of international trade in
1982. Today the figure is more than 25% and growing rapidly. International affiliates
account for a fast-growing segment of production in economies that open up and
welcome foreign investment. In Argentina, for instance, after the reforms of the early
1990s, multinationals went from 43% to almost 70% of the industrial production of
the 200 largest firms. This phenomenon has created serious concerns over the role of
smaller economic firms, of national businessmen and over the ultimate stability, of
the world economy.
I believe that the most important forces behind the massive M&A wave are the
same that underlie the globalization process: falling transportation, and
communication costs, lower trade and investment barriers and enlarged markets that
require enlarged operations capable of meeting customers’ demands. All these are
beneficial, not detrimental to consumers. As productivity grows, the world’s wealth
increases.
Examples of benefits or costs of the current concentration-wave are scanty. Yet it
is hard to imagine that the merge of a few oil firms today could recreate the same
threats to competition that were feared nearly a century ago in the U.S., when the
Standard Oil trust was broken up. The mergers of telecom companies, such as World
Corn, hardly seem to bring higher prices for consumers or a reduction in the pace of
technical progress. On the contrary, the price of communications is coming down
fast. In cars, too, concentration is increasing—witness Daimler and Chrysler, Renault
and Nissan—but it does not appear that consumers am being hurt.
Yet the fact remains that the merger movement must be watched. A few weeks
ago, Alan Greenspan warned against the megamergers in the banking industry. Whois going to supervise, regulate and operate, as lender of last resort with the gigantic
banks that are being created? won’t multinationals shift production from one place
to another when a nation gets too strict about infringements to fair corn petition?
And should one country take upon itself the role of “defending competition” on
issues that affect many other nations, as in the U.S.
According to the author, one of the driving forces behind M&A wave is _____.
A ： the greater customers’ demands
B ： a surplus supply for the market
C ： growing productivity
D ： the increase of the world’s wealth
111 、 不定项选择题
The age at which young children begin to make moral discriminations about harmful
actions committed against themselves or others has been the focus of recent
research into the moral development of children. Until recently, child psychologists
supported pioneer developmentalist Jean Piaget in his hypothesis that because of
their immaturity, children under age seven do not take into account the intentions of
a person committing accidental or deliberate harm, but rather simply assign
punishment for transgressions on the basis of the magnitude of the negative
consequences caused. According to Piaget, children under age seven occupy the first
stage of moral development, which is characterized by moral absolutism (rules made
by authorities must be obeyed) and imminent justice (if rules are broken, punishment
will be meted out). Until young children mature, their moral judgments are based
entirely on the effect rather than the cause of a transgression. However, in recent
research, Keasey found that six-year-old children not only distinguish between
accidental and intentional harm, but also judge intentional harm as naughtier,
regardless of the amount of damage produced. Both of these findings seem to
indicate that children, at an earlier age than Piaget claimed, advance into the second
stage of moral development, moral autonomy, in which they accept social rules but
view them as more arbitrary than do children in the first stage.
Keasey’s research raises two key questions for developmental psychologists
about children under age seven: do they recognize justifications for harmful actions,
and do they make distinctions between harmful acts that are preventable and those
acts that have unforeseen harmful consequences? Studies indicate that justifications
excusing harmful actions might include?public?duty, self-defense, and provocation.
For example, Nesdale and Rule concluded that children were capable of considering
whether or not an aggressor’s action was justified by public duty: five year olds
reacted very differently to “Bonnie wrecks Arm’s pretend house” depending on
whether Bonnie did it “so somebody won’t fall over it” or because Bonnie wanted
“to make Ann feel bad”. Thus, a child of five begins to understand that certain
harmful actions, though intentional, can be justified; the constraints of moral
absolutism no longer solely guide their judgments.
Psychologists have determined that during kindergarten children learn to make
subtle distinctions involving harm. Darley observed that among-acts involving
unintentional harm, six-year-old children just entering kindergarten could not
differentiate between foreseeable, and thus preventable, harm and unforeseeable
harm for which the perpetrator cannot be blamed. Seven months later, however,Darley found that these same children could make both distinctions, thus
demonstrating that they had become morally autonomous.
According to the passage, Darley found that after seven months of kindergarten six
year olds acquired which of the following abilities?
A ： Differentiating between foreseeable and unforeseeable harm
B ： Identifying with the perpetrator of a harmful action
C ： Justifying harmful actions that result from provocation
D ： Evaluating the magnitude of negative consequences resulting from the-breaking
of rules
112 、 不定项选择题
Some believe that in the age of identikit computer games, mass entertainment and
conformity on the supermarket shelves, truly inspired thinking has gone out of the
window. But, there are others who hold the view that there is still plenty of scope for
innovation, lateral thought and creative solutions. Despite the standardization of
modern life, there is an unabated appetite for great ideas, visionary thinking and
inspired debate. In the first of a series of monthly debates on contemporary issues,
we ask two original thinkers to discuss the nature of creativity. Here is the first one.
Yes. Absolutely. Since I started working as an inventor 10 or 12 years ago, I’ve
seen a big change in attitudes to creativity and invention. Back then, there was hardly
any support for inventors, apart from the national organization the Institute of
Patentees and Inventors. Today, there are lots of little inventors’ clubs popping up
all over the place, my last count was 19 nationally and growing. These non-profit
clubs, run by inventors for inventors, are an indication that people are once again
interested in invention.
I’ve been a project leader, a croupier, an IT consultant and I’ve written a
motor mandrel. I spent my teens under a 1950s two-tone Riley RME ear, learning to
put it together. Back in the Sixties, kids like me were always out doing things, making
go-karts, riding bicycles or exploring. We learned to overcome challenges and solve
problems. We weren’t just sitting at a PlayStation, like many kids do today.
But I think, and hope, things are shifting back. There’s a lot more internl in
design and creativity and such talents are getting a much higher profile in the media.
It’s evident with TV programmes such as Channe14’s?Scrapheap Challenge?or
BBC2’s?The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den, where people are given a task to solve
or face the challenge of selling their idea to a panel.
And. thankfully, the image of the mad scientist with electrified hair working in
the garden shed is long gone—although, there are still a few exceptions!
That’s not to say there aren’t problems. With the decline in manufacturing we
are losing the ability to know how to make things. There’s a real skills gap
developing. In my opinion, the Government does little or nothing to help innovation
at the lone-inventor or small or medium enterprise level. I would love to see more
money spent on teaching our school kids how to be inventive. But, despite
everything, if you have a good idea and real determination, you can still do very well.
My own specialist area is packaging closures—almost every product needs it. I
got the idea for Squeezeopen after looking at an old tin of boot polish when my
mother complained she couldn’t get the lid off. If you can do something cheaper,
better, and you are 100 percent committed, there is a chance it will be a success.I see a fantastic amount of innovation and opportunities out there. People
don’t realise how much is going on. New materials are coming out all the time and
the space programme and scientific research are producing a variety of spin-offs.
Innovation doesn’t have to be high-tech: creativity and inventing is about finding
the right solution to a problem, whatever it is. There’s a lot of talent out there and,
thankfully, some of the more progressive companies are suddenly realizing they
don’t want to miss out—it’s an exciting time.
Which of the following is NOT true about the kids in the sixties?
A ： Out doing things, making go-karts.
B ： Riding bicycle and exploring.
C ： Sitting before computers to play games.
D ： Like to overcome challenges and solve problems.
113 、 不定项选择题
Many United States companies have, unfortunately, made the search for legal
protection from import competition into a major line of work. Since 1980 the United
States international Trade Commission (ITC) has received about 280 complaints
alleging damage from imports that benefit from subsidies by foreign governments.
Another 340 charge that foreign companies “dumped” their products in thee
United States at “less than fair value.” Even when no unfair practices are alleged,
the simple claim that an industry has been injured by imports is sufficient grounds to
seek relief.
Contrary to the general impression, this quest for import relief has hurt more
companies than it has helped. As corporations begin to function globally, they
develop an intricate web of marketing, production, and research relationships. The
complexity of these relationships makes it unlikely that a system of import relief laws
will meet the strategic needs of all the units under the same parent company, №.
Suppose a United States-owned company establishes an overseas plant to
manufacture a product while its competitor makes the same product in the United
States. If the competitor can prove injury from the imports-and that the United States
company received a subsidy from a foreign government to build its plant abroad-the
United States company’s products will be uncompetitive in the United States, since
they would be subject to duties.
Perhaps the most brazen ease occurred when the ITC investigated allegations
that Canadian companies were injuring the United States salt industry by dumping
rock salt, used to de-ice roads. The bizarre aspect of the complaint was that a foreign
conglomerate with United States operations was crying for help against a United
States company with foreign operations. The “United States” company claiming
injury was a subsidiary of a Dutch conglomerate, while the “Canadian” companies
included a subsidiary of a Chicago firm that was the second-largest domestic
producer of rock salt.
According to the passage, the International Trade Commission is involved in which of
the following?
A ： Investigating allegations of unfair import competition
B ： Granting subsidies to companies in the United States that have been injured by
import competitionC ： Recommending legislation to ensure fair trade
D ： Identifying international corporations that wish to build plants in the United
States
114 、 不定项选择题
The age at which young children begin to make moral discriminations about harmful
actions committed against themselves or others has been the focus of recent
research into the moral development of children. Until recently, child psychologists
supported pioneer developmentalist Jean Piaget in his hypothesis that because of
their immaturity, children under age seven do not take into account the intentions of
a person committing accidental or deliberate harm, but rather simply assign
punishment for transgressions on the basis of the magnitude of the negative
consequences caused. According to Piaget, children under age seven occupy the first
stage of moral development, which is characterized by moral absolutism (rules made
by authorities must be obeyed) and imminent justice (if rules are broken, punishment
will be meted out). Until young children mature, their moral judgments are based
entirely on the effect rather than the cause of a transgression. However, in recent
research, Keasey found that six-year-old children not only distinguish between
accidental and intentional harm, but also judge intentional harm as naughtier,
regardless of the amount of damage produced. Both of these findings seem to
indicate that children, at an earlier age than Piaget claimed, advance into the second
stage of moral development, moral autonomy, in which they accept social rules but
view them as more arbitrary than do children in the first stage.
Keasey’s research raises two key questions for developmental psychologists
about children under age seven: do they recognize justifications for harmful actions,
and do they make distinctions between harmful acts that are preventable and those
acts that have unforeseen harmful consequences? Studies indicate that justifications
excusing harmful actions might include?public?duty, self-defense, and provocation.
For example, Nesdale and Rule concluded that children were capable of considering
whether or not an aggressor’s action was justified by public duty: five year olds
reacted very differently to “Bonnie wrecks Arm’s pretend house” depending on
whether Bonnie did it “so somebody won’t fall over it” or because Bonnie wanted
“to make Ann feel bad”. Thus, a child of five begins to understand that certain
harmful actions, though intentional, can be justified; the constraints of moral
absolutism no longer solely guide their judgments.
Psychologists have determined that during kindergarten children learn to make
subtle distinctions involving harm. Darley observed that among-acts involving
unintentional harm, six-year-old children just entering kindergarten could not
differentiate between foreseeable, and thus preventable, harm and unforeseeable
harm for which the perpetrator cannot be blamed. Seven months later, however,
Darley found that these same children could make both distinctions, thus
demonstrating that they had become morally autonomous.
Which of the following best describes the passage as a whole?
A ： n outline for future research
B ： An expanded definition of commonly misunderstood terms
C ： An analysis of a dispute between two theories
D ： A discussion of research findings in an ongoing inquiry115 、 不定项选择题
The newspaper must provide for the reader the facts, pure, unprejudiced, objectively
selected facts. But in these days of complex news it must provide more; it must
supply interpretation, the meaning of the facts. This is the most important
assignment confronting American journalism—to make clear to the reader the
problems of the day, to make international news understandable as community
news, to recognize that there is no longer any such thing (with the possible exception
of society news) as “local” news, because any event in the international area has
local reaction in the financial market, political circles, in terms, indeed, of our very
way of life.
There is in journalism a widespread view that when you consider giving an
interpretation, you are entering dangerous waters, the swirling tides of opinion. This
is nonsense.
The opponents of interpretation insist that the writer and the editor shall confine
himself to the “facts”. This insistence raises two questions. What are the facts?
And: Are the bare facts enough?
As for the first question, consider how a so-called “factual” story comes about.
The reporter collects, say, fifty facts; out these fifty, his space being necessarily
restricted, he selects the ten which he considers most important. This is judgment
Number One. Then he or his editor decides which of these ten facts shall constitute
the beginning of the article. (This is an important decision because many readers do
not proceed beyond the first paragraph.) This is Judgment Number Two. Then the
night editor determines whether the article shall be presented on page one, where it
has a large influence, or on page twenty-four, where it has little. Judgment Number
Three.
Thus in the presentation of a so-called “factual” or “objective” story, at least
three judgments are involved. And they are judgments not at all unlike those involved
in interpretation, in which. reporter and editor, calling upon their research resources,
their general background, and their “news neutralism”, arrive at a conclusion as to
line significance of the news.
The two areas of judgment, presentation of the news and its interpretation, are
both objective rather than subjective processes—as objective, that is, as any human
being can be. (Note in passing: even though complete objectivity can never be
achieved, nevertheless the ideal must always be the light in the murky news
channels.) If an editor is intent on giving a prejudiced view of the news, he can do it
in other ways and more effectively than by interpretation. He can do it by the
selection of those facts that support his particular viewpoint. Or he can do it by line
play he gives a story—promoting it to page one or putting it on page thirty.
The author implies that _____.
A ： in writing a factual story, the writer must use judgment
B ： fine writer should limit himself to the facts
C ： reporters give s prejudiced view of the facts
D ： editors control what the reporters write
116 、 不定项选择题
A closer observer of the small screen once called it a “vast wasteland of violence,
sadism and murder, private eyes, gangsters and more violence - and cartoons.” Thatis how Newton Minow, a US television regulator, described it in 1961.
Since than television language has become more colourful, violence more
explicit and sex more prevalent.?Lady Chatterley’s Lover has moved from the
banned book shelf to a classic BBC serial.
Concern over such changing standards has shaped our view of television—and
masked its broader influence in developing countries.
To illustrate its effects, Kenny cites the case of Brazil. When television there
began to show a steady diet of local soaps in the 1970s, Brazilian women typically
had five or more children and were trapped in poverty. As the popularity of the soaps
grew, birth rates fell
According to researchers, 72% of the leading female characters in the main
soaps had no children and only 7% had more than one. One study calculated that
such soaps had the same effect on fertility rates as keeping girls in school for five
years more than normal.
It is not just birth rates that are affected. Kenny notes: “Kids who watch TV out
of school, according to a World Bank survey of young people in the shanty towns of
Fortaleza in Brazil, are considerably less likely to consume drugs.”
Television appears to have more power to reduce youth drug use than the
strictures of an educated mother and Brazilian soaps presenting educated urban
woman running their own businesses are thought to be compelling role models.
Television can also improve health, In Ghana a soap opera line that warned
mothers they were feeding their children “more than just rice” if they did not wash
their hands after defecating was followed by a seemingly permanent improvement in
personal hygiene.
Why do such changes happen? Simple, says Kenny: soap operas, whether local
versions of Ugly Betty or vintage imports of Baywatch, open up new horizons.
“Some hours could he better spout planting trees, helping old ladies across the road
or playing cricket,” he said. “But watching TV exposes people to new ideas and
different people. With that will come greater opportunity, growing equality and a
better understanding of the world. Not bad.”
What does “it” refer to in the first paragraph?
A ： The small screen.
B ： A vast wasteland.
C ： Television language.
D ： Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
117 、 不定项选择题
The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions ever
witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive America to Europe and reaches the
emerging countries with unsurpassed might. Many in these countries are looking at
this process and worrying: “Won’t the wave of business concentration turn into an
uncontrollable anti-competitive force?”
There’s no question that the big are getting bigger and more powerful.
Multinational corporations accounted for less than 20% of international trade in
1982. Today the figure is more than 25% and growing rapidly. International affiliates
account for a fast-growing segment of production in economies that open up and
welcome foreign investment. In Argentina, for instance, after the reforms of the early
1990s, multinationals went from 43% to almost 70% of the industrial production ofthe 200 largest firms. This phenomenon has created serious concerns over the role of
smaller economic firms, of national businessmen and over the ultimate stability, of
the world economy.
I believe that the most important forces behind the massive M&A wave are the
same that underlie the globalization process: falling transportation, and
communication costs, lower trade and investment barriers and enlarged markets that
require enlarged operations capable of meeting customers’ demands. All these are
beneficial, not detrimental to consumers. As productivity grows, the world’s wealth
increases.
Examples of benefits or costs of the current concentration-wave are scanty. Yet it
is hard to imagine that the merge of a few oil firms today could recreate the same
threats to competition that were feared nearly a century ago in the U.S., when the
Standard Oil trust was broken up. The mergers of telecom companies, such as World
Corn, hardly seem to bring higher prices for consumers or a reduction in the pace of
technical progress. On the contrary, the price of communications is coming down
fast. In cars, too, concentration is increasing—witness Daimler and Chrysler, Renault
and Nissan—but it does not appear that consumers am being hurt.
Yet the fact remains that the merger movement must be watched. A few weeks
ago, Alan Greenspan warned against the megamergers in the banking industry. Who
is going to supervise, regulate and operate, as lender of last resort with the gigantic
banks that are being created? won’t multinationals shift production from one place
to another when a nation gets too strict about infringements to fair corn petition?
And should one country take upon itself the role of “defending competition” on
issues that affect many other nations, as in the U.S.
What is the best title of this passage?
A ： M&A Wave in Argentina.
B ： Disadvantages of the Merger Movement.
C ： M&A Wave around the World.
D ： Benefits of M&A Wave.
118 、 不定项选择题
This is not a good time to be foreign. Anti-immigrant parties are gaining ground in
Europe. Britain has been fretting this week over lapses in its border controls. In
America Barack Obama has failed to deliver the immigration reform he promised,
and Republican presidential candidates would rather electrify the border fence with
Mexico than educate the children of illegal aliens. America educates foreign scientists
in its universities and then expels them, a policy the mayor of New York calls
“national suicide”.
This illiberal turn in attitudes to migration is no surprise. It is the result of cyclical
economic gloom combined with a secular rise in pressure on rich countries’
borders. But governments now weighing up whether or not to try to slam the door
should consider another factor: the growing economic importance of Diasporas, and
the contribution they can make to a country’s economic growth.
Diaspora networks-of Huguenots, Scots, Jews and many others-have always been
a potent economic force, but the cheapness and ease of modern travel has made
them larger and more numerous than ever before. There are now 215m first-
generation migrants around the world: that’s 3％of the world’s population. If theywere a nation, it would be a little larger than Brazil. There are more Chinese people
living outside China than there are French people in France. Some 22m Indians are
scattered all over the globe. Small concentrations of ethnic and linguistic groups have
always been found in surprising places-Lebanese in West Africa, Japanese in Brazil
and Welsh in Patagonia, for instance-but they have been joined by newer ones, such
as west Africans in southern China.
These networks of kinship and language make it easier to do business across
borders. They speed the flow of information. Trust matters, especially in emerging
markets where the rule of law is weak. So does a knowledge of the local culture. And
modern communications make these networks an even more powerful tool of
business.
Diasporas also help spread ideas. Many of the emerging world’s brightest
minds are educated at Western universities. An increasing number go home, taking
with them both knowledge and contacts. Indian computer scientists in Bangalore
bounce ideas constantly off their Indian friends in Silicon Valley. China’s technology
industry is dominated by “sea turtles” (Chinese who have lived abroad and
returned.
Diasporas spread money, too. Migrants into rich countries not only send cash to
their families; they also help companies in their host country operate in their home
country. A Harvard Business School study shows that, American companies that
employ lots of ethnic Chinese people find it much easier to set up in China without a
joint venture with a local firm.
Such arguments are unlikely to make much headway against hostility towards
immigrants in rich countries. Fury against foreigners is usually based on two
(mutually incompatible) notions: that because so many migrants claim welfare they
are a drain on the public purse; and that because they are prepared to work harder
for less pay they will depress the wages of those at the bottom of the pile. The first is
usually not true (in Britain, for instance, immigrants claim benefits less than
indigenous people do), and the second is hard to establish either way. Some studies
do indeed suggest that competition from unskilled immigrants depresses the wages
of unskilled locals. But others find this effect to be small or non-existent.
Nor is it possible to establish the impact of migration on overall growth. The
sums are simply too difficult. Yet there are good reasons for believing that it is likely
to be positive. Migrants tend to be hard-working and innovative. That spurs
productivity and company formation. A recent study carried out by Duke University
showed that, while immigrants make up an eighth of America’s population, they
founded a quarter of the country’s technology and engineering firms. And, by
linking the West with emerging markets, Diasporas help rich countries to plug into
fast-growing economies.
Rich countries are thus likely to benefit from looser immigration policy; and fears
that poor countries will suffer as a result of a “brain drain” are overblown. The
prospect of working abroad spurs more people to acquire valuable skills, and not all
subsequently emigrate. Skilled migrants send money home, and they often return to
set up new businesses. One study found that unless they lose more than 20％of their
university graduates, the brain drain makes poor countries richer.
Which of the following is true?
A ： Many immigrants claim much more benefits than the locals.
B ： All research findings show that the competition from unskilled immigrants
depresses the wages of unskilled locals.
C ： Migrants into rich countries tend to send cash back to their families and havebecome a drain on the public purse.
D ： iasporas help rich countries establish business ties with emerging markets in
their home countries.
119 、 不定项选择题
Children as young as four will study Shakespeare in a project being launched today
by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
The RSC is holding its first national conference for primary school teachers to
encourage them to use the Bard’s plays imaginatively in the classroom from
reception classes onwards. The conference will be told that they should learn how
Shakespearian characters like Puck in?A Midsummer Night’s Dream?are “jolly
characters” and how to write about them.
At present, the national curriculum does not require pupils to approach
Shakespeare until secondary school. All it says is that pupils should study “texts
drawn from a variety of cultures and traditions” and “myths, legends and
traditional stories”.
However, educationists at the RSC believe children will gain a better appreciation
of Shakespeare if they are introduced to him at a much younger age. “Even very
young children can enjoy Shakespeare’s plays,” said Mary Johnson, head of the
learning department. “It is just a question of pitching it for the age group. Even
reception classes and key stage one pupils (five-to-seven-year-olds) can enjoy his
stories. For instance, if you build up Puck as a character who skips, children of that
age can enjoy the character. They can be inspired by Puck and they could even start
writing about him at that age.”
It is the RSC’s belief that building the Bard up as a fun playwright in primary
school could counter some of the negative images conjured up about teaching
Shakespeare in secondary schools. Then, pupils have to concentrate on scenes from
the plays to answer questions for compulsory English national-curriculum tests for
14-year-olds. Critics of the tests have complained that pupils no longer have the time
to study or read the whole play—and therefore lose interest in Shakespeare.
However, Ms. Johnson is encouraging teachers to present 20-minute versions of
the plays—a classroom version of the?Reduced Shakespeare Company’s Complete
Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)?which told his 37 plays in 97 minutes—to give
pupils a flavour of the whole drama.
The RSC’s venture coincides with a call for schools to allow pupils to be more
creative in writing about Shakespeare. Professor Kate McLuskie, the new director of
the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute - also based in
Stratford—said it was time to get away from the idea that there was “a right
answer” to any question about Shakespeare. Her first foray into the world of
Shakespeare was to berate him as a misogynist in a 1985 essay but she now insists
this should not be interpreted as a criticism of his works—although she admits: “I
probably wouldn’t have written it quite the same way if I had been writing it now.
What we should be doing is making sure that someone is getting something out of
Shakespeare,” she said. “People are very scared about getting the right answer. I
know it’s difficult but I don’t care if they come up with a right answer that I can
agree with about Shakespeare.”
Ms. Johnson encourages teachers to present 20-minute versions of the plays in orderto _____.
A ： introduce them into the world of Shakespeare
B ： deal with the final examination on Shakespeare
C ： give pupils a flavour of the whole drama
D ： strengthen the students with the knowledge of Shakespeare
120 、 不定项选择题
She was glad of the lake. It’s soft; dark water helped to soothe and quiet her mind.
It took her away from the noisy, squawkish world of the cat-walk and let her lie
untroubled at its side, listening only to the gentle lapping of its waves.
She felt at peace. Alone. Unhindered and free. Free to do nothing but watch and
listen and dream.
London, Paris, New York - names, only names. Names that had once meant
excitement, then boredom, then frustration then slavery. Names that had brought
her to the edge of a breakdown and left her doubting her own sanity.
But here everything was at peace. The lake, the trees, the cottage. Here she could
stay for the rest of her life. Here she would be happy to die.
Across the sun hurried a darkening filter of cloud. The ripples on the water,
chased by a freshening wind, pushed their way anxiously from the far side of the lake
until they almost bounced at her feet. And in the East there was thunder.
Quickly she gathered her things together and made for the cottage. But already
the rain flecked the water behind her and pattered the leaves as she raced beneath
the trees. Sodden and breathless, she ran for the cottage door, and, as she opened it,
the storm burst.
And there on the hearth, haggard and unwelcome, stood a man.
“Hello!”
I was an odd way to greet a complete stranger who had invaded her home, but it
was all she could think of to say. A casual greeting to someone who seemed to be
expecting her, waiting for her. Maybe it was the way they did things down here?
“I suppose you had to shelter from the storm too?” she asked.
The man said nothing.
She ought to have been angry at this rude intrusion on her privacy, but anger
somehow seemed pointless. It was as if the cottage was his, the hearth was his, and
she had come out of the storm to seek refuge at his door. She watched him,
cautiously; waiting for an explanation. He said nothing. Not a word
“Did you get wet?” she asked
He stood, huddled by the open fire, gazing at the dying embers.
She walked over, brushing against him as she bent to stir the logs into life, but
still he did not move. The flames burst forth, lighting up the sadness in his dark eyes.
“And kneeled and made the cheerless grate blaze up and all the cottage
warm...”
The words, spoken by him in a quiet, toneless voice, took her by surprise.
“Pardon?” she said
But he seemed not to hear.
She tried once more. “Ii look as if it’s set in for the evening. Would you like to
sit down for a while?”
His eyes followed her as she moved to take off her coat and brush out her hair.
“...and from her form withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, and laid hersoiled gloves by, untied her hat and let the damp hair fall...”
Poetry. He was quoting poetry
He looked vaguely like a poet; lean, distressed, with a certain bitterness in his
eyes and hopelessness in his form. And his voice was deep and languid, like the
middle of the lake where the water ran darkest.
Yet those ware not his lines. The words were not created by him. They were
somehow familiar. Half remembered. Surely she had heard them before?
As to names her profession brought her, she felt all the following EXCEPT _____.
A ： confined
B ： fed up
C ： agitated
D ： stirred
121 、 不定项选择题
Australia’s frogs are having trouble finding love. Traffic noise and other sounds of
city life, such as air conditioners and construction noise, are drowning out the mating
calls of male frogs in urban areas, 1eading to a sharp drop in frog populations. But, in
the first study of its kind, Parris, a scientist at the University of Melbourne has found
that some frogs have figured out a way to compensate for human interference in
their love lives.
A male southern brown tree frog sends out a mating call when he’s looking for
a date. It is music to the ears of a female southern brown tree frog. But, add the
sounds of nearby traffic and the message just is not going out. Parris spent seven
years studying frogs around Melbourne. She says some frogs have come up with an
interesting strategy for making themselves heard.
“We found that it’s changing the pitch of its call, so going higher up, up the
frequency spectrum, being higher and squeakier, further away from the traffic noise
and this increases the distance over which it can be for heard,” Parris said.
The old call is lower in pitch. The new one is higher in pitch.
Now, that may sound like a pretty simple solution. But, changing their calls to
cope with a noisy environment is actually quite extraordinary for frogs. And while the
males have figured out how to make themselves heard above the noise, Parris says it
may not be what the females are looking for.
“When females have a choice between two males calling, they tend to select the
one that calls at a lower frequency because, in frogs, the frequency of a call is related
to body size. So, the bigger frogs tend to call lower,” she explained. “And so they
also tend to be the older frogs, the guys perhaps with more experience, they know
what they’re doing and the women are attracted to those.”
Frog populations in Melbourne have dropped considerably since Parris began
her research, but it is not just because of noise. Much of Australia has been locked in
a 10-year drought, leaving frogs fewer and fewer ponds to go looking for that special
someone.
Why do some frogs change the pitch of its calls?
A ： To be different from others.
B ： To attract a female frog.
C ： To tend out messages.
D ： To go against traffic noises.122 、 不定项选择题
The molecules of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere affect the heat balance
of the Earth by acting as a one-way screen. Although these molecules allow radiation
at visible wavelengths, where most of the energy of sunlight is concentrated, to pass
through, they absorb some of the longer-wavelength, infrared emissions radiated
from the Earth’s surface, radiation that would otherwise be transmitted back into
space. For the Earth to maintain a constant average temperature, such emissions
from the planet must balance incoming solar radiation. If there were no carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere, heat would escape from the Earth much more easily. The
surface temperature would be so much lower that the oceans might be a solid mass
of ice.
Today, however, the potential problem is too much carbon dioxide. The burning
of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide
by about 15 percent in the last hundred years, and we continue to add carbon
dioxide to the atmosphere. Could the increase in carbon dioxide cause a global rise
in average temperature, and could such a rise have serious consequences for human
society? Mathematical models that allow us to calculate the rise in temperature as a
function of the increase indicate that the answer is probably yes.
Under present conditions a temperature of -18℃ can be observed at an altitude
of 5 to 6 kilometers above the Earth. Below this altitude (called the radiating level),
the temperature increases by about 6℃ per kilometer approaching the Earth’s
surface, where the average temperature is about 15℃. An increase in the amount of
carbon dioxide means that there are more molecules of carbon dioxide to absorb
infrared radiation. As the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb infrared radiation
increases, the radiating level and the temperature of the surface must rise. One
mathematical model predicts that doubling the atmospheric carbon dioxide would
raise the global mean surface temperature by 2.5℃: This model assumes that the
atmosphere’s relative humidity remains constant and the temperature decreases
with altitude at a rate of 6.5℃ per kilometer. The assumption of constant relative
humidity is important, because water vapor in the atmosphere is another efficient
absorber of radiation at infrared wavelengths. Because warm air can hold more
moisture than cool air, the relative humidity will be constant only if the amount of
water vapor in the atmosphere increases as the temperature rises. Therefore, more
infrared radiation would be absorbed and reradiated back to the Earth’s surface.
The resultant warming at the surface could be expected to melt snow and ice,
reducing the Earth’s reflectivity. More solar radiation would then be absorbed,
leading to a further increase in temperature.
The primary purpose of the passage is to _____.
A ： warn of the dangers of continued burning of fossil fuels
B ： discuss the significance of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
C ： demonstrate the usefulness of mathematical models in predicting long-range
climatic change
D ： describe the ways in which various atmospheric and climatic conditions
contribute to the Earth’s weather
123 、 不定项选择题The newspaper must provide for the reader the facts, pure, unprejudiced, objectively
selected facts. But in these days of complex news it must provide more; it must
supply interpretation, the meaning of the facts. This is the most important
assignment confronting American journalism—to make clear to the reader the
problems of the day, to make international news understandable as community
news, to recognize that there is no longer any such thing (with the possible exception
of society news) as “local” news, because any event in the international area has
local reaction in the financial market, political circles, in terms, indeed, of our very
way of life.
There is in journalism a widespread view that when you consider giving an
interpretation, you are entering dangerous waters, the swirling tides of opinion. This
is nonsense.
The opponents of interpretation insist that the writer and the editor shall confine
himself to the “facts”. This insistence raises two questions. What are the facts?
And: Are the bare facts enough?
As for the first question, consider how a so-called “factual” story comes about.
The reporter collects, say, fifty facts; out these fifty, his space being necessarily
restricted, he selects the ten which he considers most important. This is judgment
Number One. Then he or his editor decides which of these ten facts shall constitute
the beginning of the article. (This is an important decision because many readers do
not proceed beyond the first paragraph.) This is Judgment Number Two. Then the
night editor determines whether the article shall be presented on page one, where it
has a large influence, or on page twenty-four, where it has little. Judgment Number
Three.
Thus in the presentation of a so-called “factual” or “objective” story, at least
three judgments are involved. And they are judgments not at all unlike those involved
in interpretation, in which. reporter and editor, calling upon their research resources,
their general background, and their “news neutralism”, arrive at a conclusion as to
line significance of the news.
The two areas of judgment, presentation of the news and its interpretation, are
both objective rather than subjective processes—as objective, that is, as any human
being can be. (Note in passing: even though complete objectivity can never be
achieved, nevertheless the ideal must always be the light in the murky news
channels.) If an editor is intent on giving a prejudiced view of the news, he can do it
in other ways and more effectively than by interpretation. He can do it by the
selection of those facts that support his particular viewpoint. Or he can do it by line
play he gives a story—promoting it to page one or putting it on page thirty.
Readers are justified in thinking that the most important aspect of the news reported
in the newspaper is that it should be _____.
A ： interpreted in detail
B ： edited properly
C ： objectively reported
D ： impartial
124 、 不定项选择题
The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions ever
witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive America to Europe and reaches the
emerging countries with unsurpassed might. Many in these countries are looking atthis process and worrying: “Won’t the wave of business concentration turn into an
uncontrollable anti-competitive force?”
There’s no question that the big are getting bigger and more powerful.
Multinational corporations accounted for less than 20% of international trade in
1982. Today the figure is more than 25% and growing rapidly. International affiliates
account for a fast-growing segment of production in economies that open up and
welcome foreign investment. In Argentina, for instance, after the reforms of the early
1990s, multinationals went from 43% to almost 70% of the industrial production of
the 200 largest firms. This phenomenon has created serious concerns over the role of
smaller economic firms, of national businessmen and over the ultimate stability, of
the world economy.
I believe that the most important forces behind the massive M&A wave are the
same that underlie the globalization process: falling transportation, and
communication costs, lower trade and investment barriers and enlarged markets that
require enlarged operations capable of meeting customers’ demands. All these are
beneficial, not detrimental to consumers. As productivity grows, the world’s wealth
increases.
Examples of benefits or costs of the current concentration-wave are scanty. Yet it
is hard to imagine that the merge of a few oil firms today could recreate the same
threats to competition that were feared nearly a century ago in the U.S., when the
Standard Oil trust was broken up. The mergers of telecom companies, such as World
Corn, hardly seem to bring higher prices for consumers or a reduction in the pace of
technical progress. On the contrary, the price of communications is coming down
fast. In cars, too, concentration is increasing—witness Daimler and Chrysler, Renault
and Nissan—but it does not appear that consumers am being hurt.
Yet the fact remains that the merger movement must be watched. A few weeks
ago, Alan Greenspan warned against the megamergers in the banking industry. Who
is going to supervise, regulate and operate, as lender of last resort with the gigantic
banks that are being created? won’t multinationals shift production from one place
to another when a nation gets too strict about infringements to fair corn petition?
And should one country take upon itself the role of “defending competition” on
issues that affect many other nations, as in the U.S.
What is the typical trend, of businesses today?
A ： To take in more foreign funds.
B ： To invest-more abroad.
C ： To combine and become bigger.
D ： To trade with more, countries.
125 、 不定项选择题
Australia’s frogs are having trouble finding love. Traffic noise and other sounds of
city life, such as air conditioners and construction noise, are drowning out the mating
calls of male frogs in urban areas, 1eading to a sharp drop in frog populations. But, in
the first study of its kind, Parris, a scientist at the University of Melbourne has found
that some frogs have figured out a way to compensate for human interference in
their love lives.
A male southern brown tree frog sends out a mating call when he’s looking for
a date. It is music to the ears of a female southern brown tree frog. But, add thesounds of nearby traffic and the message just is not going out. Parris spent seven
years studying frogs around Melbourne. She says some frogs have come up with an
interesting strategy for making themselves heard.
“We found that it’s changing the pitch of its call, so going higher up, up the
frequency spectrum, being higher and squeakier, further away from the traffic noise
and this increases the distance over which it can be for heard,” Parris said.
The old call is lower in pitch. The new one is higher in pitch.
Now, that may sound like a pretty simple solution. But, changing their calls to
cope with a noisy environment is actually quite extraordinary for frogs. And while the
males have figured out how to make themselves heard above the noise, Parris says it
may not be what the females are looking for.
“When females have a choice between two males calling, they tend to select the
one that calls at a lower frequency because, in frogs, the frequency of a call is related
to body size. So, the bigger frogs tend to call lower,” she explained. “And so they
also tend to be the older frogs, the guys perhaps with more experience, they know
what they’re doing and the women are attracted to those.”
Frog populations in Melbourne have dropped considerably since Parris began
her research, but it is not just because of noise. Much of Australia has been locked in
a 10-year drought, leaving frogs fewer and fewer ponds to go looking for that special
someone.
What does the word “considerably” in the last paragraph mean?
A ： immediately
B ： directly
C ： carefully
D ： much
126 、 不定项选择题
Traffic statistics paint a gloomy picture. To help solve their traffic woes, some rapidly
growing U.S. cities have simply built more roads. But traffic experts say building more
roads is a quick-fix solution that will not alleviate the traffic problem in the long run.
Soaring land costs, increasing concern over social and environmental disruptions
caused by road-building, and the likelihood that more roads can only lead to more
cars and traffic are powerful factors bearing down on a 1950s-style construction
program.
The goal of smart-highway technology is to make traffic systems work at
optimum efficiency by treating the road and the vehicles traveling on them as an
integral transportation system. Proponents of the advanced technology say electronic
detection systems, closed-circuit television, radio communication, ramp metering,
variable message signing, and other smart-highway technology can now be used at a
reasonable cost to improve communication between drivers and the people who
monitor traffic.
Pathfinder, a Santa Monica, California-based smart-highway project in which a
14-mile stretch of the Santa Monica Freeway, making up what is called a “smart
corridor”, is being instrumented with buried loops in the pavement. Closed-circuit
television cameras survey the flow of traffic, while communication linked to property
equipped automobiles advise motorists of the least congested routes or detours.
Not all traffic experts, however, look to smart-highway technology as the
ultimate solution to traffic gridlock. Some say the high-tech approach is limited andcan only offer temporary solutions to a serious problem.
“Electronics on the highway addresses just one aspect of the problem: how to
regulate traffic more efficiently,” explains Michael Renner, senior researcher at the
world-watch Institute. “It doesn’t deal with the central problem of too many cars
for roads that can’t be built fast enough. It sends people the wrong message”.
They start thinking “Yes, there used to be a traffic congestion problem, but that’s
been solved now because we have advanced high-tech system in place.” Larson
agrees and adds, “Smart highway is just one of the tools that we use to deal with
our traffic problems. It’s not the solution itself, just pan of the package. There are
different strategies.”
Other traffic problem-solving options being studied and experimented with
include car pooling, rapid mass-transit systems, staggered or flexible work hours, and
road pricing, a system whereby motorists pay a certain amount for the time they use
a highway.
It seems that we need a new, major thrust to deal with the traffic problems of
the next 20 years. There has to be a big change.
What is the appropriate title for the passage?
A ： Smart Highway Projects—The Ultimate Solution to Traffic Congestion.
B ： A Quick Fix Solution for the Traffic Problems.
C ： A Venture to Remedy Traffic Woes.
D ： Highways Get Smart—Part of the Package to Relieve Traffic Gridlock.
127 、 不定项选择题
Nobody ever went into academic circles to make a fast fortune. Professors, especially
those in medical-and technology-related fields, typically earn a fraction of what their
colleagues in industry do. But suddenly, big money is starting to flow into the ivory
tower, as university administrators make up to the commercial potential of academic
research. And the institutions are wrestling with a whole new set of issues.
The profits are impressive: the Association of University Technology Managers
surveyed 132 universities and found that they earned a combined $576 million from
patent royalties in 1998, a number that promises to keep rising dramatically. Schools
like Columbia University in New York have aggressively marketed their inventions to
corporations, particularly pharmaceutical and high-tech companies.
Now Columbia is going retail—on the Web. It plans to go beyond the typical
“dot. edu” model, free sites listing courses and professors’ research interests.
Instead, it will offer the expertise of its faculty on a new for-profit site which will be
spun off as an independent company. The site will provide free access to educational
and research content, say administrators, as well as advanced features that are
already available to Columbia students, such as a simulation of the construction and
architecture of a French cathedral and interactive 3-D models of organic chemicals.
Free pages will feed into profit-generating areas, such as online courses and
seminars, and related books and tapes. Columbia executive vice president Michael
Crow imagines “millions of visitors” to the new site, including retirees and students
willing to pay to tap into this educational resource. “We can offer the best of
what’s thought and written and researched,” says Ann Kirschner, who heads the
project. Columbia also is anxious not be beaten by some of the other for-profit
“knowledge sites,” such as About.com and Hungry Minds. “If they capture thisspace,” says Crow, “they’ll begin to cherry-pick our best faculty.”
Profits from the sale of patents typically have been divided between the
researcher, the department and the university, and Web profits would work the same
way, so many faculty members are delighted. But others find the trend worrisome: is
a professor who stands to profit from his or her research as credible as one who
doesn’t? Will universities provide more support to researchers working in profitable
fields than to scholars toiling in more musty areas?
“If there’s the perception that we might be making money from our efforts,
the authority of the university could be diminished,” worries Herve Varenne, a
cultural anthropology professor at Columbia’s education school. Says Kirschner:
“we would never compromise the integrity of the university.” Whether the new site
can add to the growing profits from patents remains to be seen, but one thing is
clear. It’s going to take the best minds on camps to find a new balance between
profit and purity.
In the past, professors _____.
A ： could earn as much as doctors
B ： were able to earn more than engineers
C ： were not good at earning money
D ： did not intend to earn money easily
128 、 不定项选择题
The newspaper must provide for the reader the facts, pure, unprejudiced, objectively
selected facts. But in these days of complex news it must provide more; it must
supply interpretation, the meaning of the facts. This is the most important
assignment confronting American journalism—to make clear to the reader the
problems of the day, to make international news understandable as community
news, to recognize that there is no longer any such thing (with the possible exception
of society news) as “local” news, because any event in the international area has
local reaction in the financial market, political circles, in terms, indeed, of our very
way of life.
There is in journalism a widespread view that when you consider giving an
interpretation, you are entering dangerous waters, the swirling tides of opinion. This
is nonsense.
The opponents of interpretation insist that the writer and the editor shall confine
himself to the “facts”. This insistence raises two questions. What are the facts?
And: Are the bare facts enough?
As for the first question, consider how a so-called “factual” story comes about.
The reporter collects, say, fifty facts; out these fifty, his space being necessarily
restricted, he selects the ten which he considers most important. This is judgment
Number One. Then he or his editor decides which of these ten facts shall constitute
the beginning of the article. (This is an important decision because many readers do
not proceed beyond the first paragraph.) This is Judgment Number Two. Then the
night editor determines whether the article shall be presented on page one, where it
has a large influence, or on page twenty-four, where it has little. Judgment Number
Three.
Thus in the presentation of a so-called “factual” or “objective” story, at least
three judgments are involved. And they are judgments not at all unlike those involvedin interpretation, in which. reporter and editor, calling upon their research resources,
their general background, and their “news neutralism”, arrive at a conclusion as to
line significance of the news.
The two areas of judgment, presentation of the news and its interpretation, are
both objective rather than subjective processes—as objective, that is, as any human
being can be. (Note in passing: even though complete objectivity can never be
achieved, nevertheless the ideal must always be the light in the murky news
channels.) If an editor is intent on giving a prejudiced view of the news, he can do it
in other ways and more effectively than by interpretation. He can do it by the
selection of those facts that support his particular viewpoint. Or he can do it by line
play he gives a story—promoting it to page one or putting it on page thirty.
The beginning sentence should present the most important fact because _____.
A ： it will influence the reader to continue
B ： most readers read only the first paragraph
C ： it is line best way to write according to the schools of journalism
D ： it details the general attitude of the writer
129 、 不定项选择题
For the executive producer of a network nightly news programme, the workday often
begins at midnight as mine did during seven years with ABC’s evening newscast.
The first order of business was a call to the assignment desk for a pre-
bedtime?rundownof latest developments.
The assignment desk operates 24 hours a day, staffed by editors who move
crews, correspondents and equipment to the scene of events. Assignment-desk
editors ate logistics experts; they have to know plane schedules, satellite availability,
and whom to get in touch with at local stations and overseas broadcasting systems.
They are required to assess stories as they break on the wire services—sometimes
even before they do - and to decide how much effort to make to cover those stories.
When the United States was going to appeal to arms against Iraq, the number of
correspondents and crews was constantly evaluated. Based on reports from the field
and also upon the skilled judgments of desk editors in New York City, the right
number of personnel was kept on the alert. The rest were allowed to continue
working throughout the world, in America and Iraq ready to move but not tied down
by false alarms.
The studio staff of ABC’s “World News Tonight” assembles at 9 a.m. to
prepare for the 6:30 “air” p.m. deadline. Overnight dispatches from outlying
bureaus and press services are read. There are phone conversations with the
broadcast’s staff producers in domestic bureaus and with the London bureau
senior producer, who coordinates overseas coverage. A pattern emerges for the
day’s news, a pattern outlined in the executive producer’s first lineup. The lineup
tells the staff what stories are scheduled; what the priorities are for processing film of
editing tape; what scripts need to be written; what commercials ate scheduled; how
long stories should run and in what order. Without a lineup, there would be chaos.
Each story’s relative value in dollars and cents must be continually assessed by
the executive producer. Cutting back satellite booking to save money might mean
that an explanation delivered by an anchor person will replace actual photos of an
event. A decline in live coverage could send viewers away and drive ratings down, but
there is not enough money to do everything. So decisions must be made and maderapidly—because delay can mean a missed connection for shipping tape or access to
a satellite blocked by a competitor.
The broadcasts themselves require pacing and style. The audience has to be
allowed to breathe between periods of intense excitement. A vivid pictorial report
followed by less exacting materials allows the viewer to reflect on information that
has just flashed by. Frequent switches from one anchor to another or from one film
or tape report to another create a sense of forward movement. Ideally, leading and
lags to stories are worked out with field correspondents, enabling them to fit their
reports into the programme’s narrative flow so the audience’s attention does not
wander and more substance is absorbed.
Scripts are constantly rewritten to blend well with incoming pictures. Good copy
is crisp, informative. Our rule: the fewer words the better. If a picture can do the
work, let it.
What is the text mainly about?
A ： Ways to cut down the cost of the coverage,
B ： How to make the report more attractive.
C ： To describe the work of the executive producer.
D ： To introduce the style and features of the news programme.
130 、 不定项选择题
In general, our society is becoming one of giant enterprises directed by a
bureaucratic management in which man becomes a small, well-oiled cog in the
machinery. The oiling is done with higher wages, well-ventilated factories and piped
music, and by psychologists and “human-relations” experts; yet all this oiling does
not alter the fact that man has become powerless, that he does not whole heartedly
participate in his work and that he is bored with it. In fact, the blue-and white-collar
workers have become economic puppets who dance to the tune of automated
machines and bureaucratic management.
The worker and employee are anxious, not only because they might find
themselves out of a job; they are anxious also because they are unable to acquire any
real satisfaction or interest in life. They live and die without ever having confronted
the fundamental realities of human existence as emotionally and intellectually
independent and productive human beings.
Those higher up on the social ladder are no less anxious. Their lives are no less
empty than those of their subordinates. They are even more insecure in some
respects. They are in a highly competitive race. To be promoted or to fall behind is
not a matter of salary but even more a matter of self-respect. When they apply for
their first job, they are tested for intelligence as well as for the right mixture of
submissiveness and independence. From that moment on they are tested again and
again—by the psychologists, for whom testing is a big business, and by their
superiors who judge their behavior, sociability, capacity to get along, etc. This
constant need to prove that one is as good as or better than one’s fellow-
competitor creates constant anxiety and stress, the very causes of unhappiness and
illness.
Am I suggesting that we should return to the preindustrial mode of production
or to nineteenth-century “free enterprise” capitalism? Certainly not. Problems are
never solved by returning to a stage which one has already outgrown. I suggesttransforming our social system from a bureaucratically managed industrialism in
which maximal production and consumption are ends in themselves into a humanist
industrialism in which man and full development of his potentialities—those of love
and of reason—are the aims of all social arrangements. Production and consumption
should serve only as means to this end, and should be prevented from ruling man.
The real cause of the anxiety of the workers and employees is that _____.
A ： they are likely to lose their jobs
B ： they have no genuine satisfaction or interest in life
C ： they are faced with the fundamental realities of human existence
D ： they are deprived of their individuality and independence
131 、 不定项选择题
Australia’s frogs are having trouble finding love. Traffic noise and other sounds of
city life, such as air conditioners and construction noise, are drowning out the mating
calls of male frogs in urban areas, 1eading to a sharp drop in frog populations. But, in
the first study of its kind, Parris, a scientist at the University of Melbourne has found
that some frogs have figured out a way to compensate for human interference in
their love lives.
A male southern brown tree frog sends out a mating call when he’s looking for
a date. It is music to the ears of a female southern brown tree frog. But, add the
sounds of nearby traffic and the message just is not going out. Parris spent seven
years studying frogs around Melbourne. She says some frogs have come up with an
interesting strategy for making themselves heard.
“We found that it’s changing the pitch of its call, so going higher up, up the
frequency spectrum, being higher and squeakier, further away from the traffic noise
and this increases the distance over which it can be for heard,” Parris said.
The old call is lower in pitch. The new one is higher in pitch.
Now, that may sound like a pretty simple solution. But, changing their calls to
cope with a noisy environment is actually quite extraordinary for frogs. And while the
males have figured out how to make themselves heard above the noise, Parris says it
may not be what the females are looking for.
“When females have a choice between two males calling, they tend to select the
one that calls at a lower frequency because, in frogs, the frequency of a call is related
to body size. So, the bigger frogs tend to call lower,” she explained. “And so they
also tend to be the older frogs, the guys perhaps with more experience, they know
what they’re doing and the women are attracted to those.”
Frog populations in Melbourne have dropped considerably since Parris began
her research, but it is not just because of noise. Much of Australia has been locked in
a 10-year drought, leaving frogs fewer and fewer ponds to go looking for that special
someone.
According to Parris, what are the reasons for the dropping of the frog’s population
in Melbourne?
A ： ir conditioners and construction noise.
B ： The urban noises and the lack of rainfall.
C ： The change of the frequency of the mating call.
D ： Fewer ponds.132 、 不定项选择题
“Popular art” has a number of meanings, impossible to define with any precision,
which range from folklore to junk. The poles are clear enough, but the middle tends
to blur. The Hollywood Western of the 1930’s, for example, has elements of
folklore, but is closer to junk than to high art or folk art. There can be great trash, just
as there is bad high art. The musicals of George Gershwin are great popular art,
never aspiring to high art. Schubert and Brahms, however, used elements of popular
music—folk themes—in works clearly intended as high art. The case of Verdi is a
different one: he took a popular genre—bourgeois melodrama set to music (an
accurate definition of nineteenth-century opera)—and, without altering its
fundamental nature, transmuted it into high art. This remains one of the greatest
achievements in music, and one that cannot be fully appreciated without recognizing
the essential trashiness of the genre.
As an example of such a transmutation, consider what Verdi made of the typical
political elements of nineteenth-century opera. Generally in the plots of these operas,
a hero or heroine—usually portrayed only as an individual, unfettered by class—is
caught between the immoral corruption of the aristocracy and the doctrinaire rigidity
or secret greed of the leaders of the proletariat. Verdi transforms this naive and
unlikely formulation with music of extraordinary energy and rhythmic vitality, music
more subtle than it seems at first hearing. There are scenes and arias that still sound
like calls to arms and were clearly understood as such when they were first
performed. Such pieces lend an immediacy to the otherwise veiled political message
of these operas and call up feelings beyond those of the opera itself.
Or consider Verdi’s treatment of character. Before Verdi, there were rarely any
characters at all in musical drama, only a series of situations which allowed the
singers to express a series of emotional states. Any attempt to find coherent
psychological portrayal in these operas is misplaced ingenuity. The only coherence
was the singer’s vocal technique: when the cast changed, new arias were almost
always substituted, generally adapted from other operas. Verdi’s characters, on the
other hand, have genuine consistency and integrity, even if, in many cases, the
consistency is that of pasteboard melodrama. The integrity of the character is
achieved through the music: once he had become established, Verdi did not rewrite
his music for different singers or countenance alterations or substitutions of
somebody else’s arias in one of his operas, as every eighteenth-century composer
had done. When he revised an opera, it was only for dramatic economy and
effectiveness.
According to the passage, the immediacy of the political message in Verdi’s operas
stems from the _____.
A ： vitality and subtlety of the music
B ： audience’s familiarity with earlier operas
C ： verisimilitude of the characters
D ： individual talents of the singers
133 、 不定项选择题
The molecules of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere affect the heat balance
of the Earth by acting as a one-way screen. Although these molecules allow radiationat visible wavelengths, where most of the energy of sunlight is concentrated, to pass
through, they absorb some of the longer-wavelength, infrared emissions radiated
from the Earth’s surface, radiation that would otherwise be transmitted back into
space. For the Earth to maintain a constant average temperature, such emissions
from the planet must balance incoming solar radiation. If there were no carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere, heat would escape from the Earth much more easily. The
surface temperature would be so much lower that the oceans might be a solid mass
of ice.
Today, however, the potential problem is too much carbon dioxide. The burning
of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide
by about 15 percent in the last hundred years, and we continue to add carbon
dioxide to the atmosphere. Could the increase in carbon dioxide cause a global rise
in average temperature, and could such a rise have serious consequences for human
society? Mathematical models that allow us to calculate the rise in temperature as a
function of the increase indicate that the answer is probably yes.
Under present conditions a temperature of -18℃ can be observed at an altitude
of 5 to 6 kilometers above the Earth. Below this altitude (called the radiating level),
the temperature increases by about 6℃ per kilometer approaching the Earth’s
surface, where the average temperature is about 15℃. An increase in the amount of
carbon dioxide means that there are more molecules of carbon dioxide to absorb
infrared radiation. As the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb infrared radiation
increases, the radiating level and the temperature of the surface must rise. One
mathematical model predicts that doubling the atmospheric carbon dioxide would
raise the global mean surface temperature by 2.5℃: This model assumes that the
atmosphere’s relative humidity remains constant and the temperature decreases
with altitude at a rate of 6.5℃ per kilometer. The assumption of constant relative
humidity is important, because water vapor in the atmosphere is another efficient
absorber of radiation at infrared wavelengths. Because warm air can hold more
moisture than cool air, the relative humidity will be constant only if the amount of
water vapor in the atmosphere increases as the temperature rises. Therefore, more
infrared radiation would be absorbed and reradiated back to the Earth’s surface.
The resultant warming at the surface could be expected to melt snow and ice,
reducing the Earth’s reflectivity. More solar radiation would then be absorbed,
leading to a further increase in temperature.
According to the passage, atmospheric carbon dioxide performs all of the following
functions EXCEPT: _____.
A ： absorbing radiation at visible wavelengths
B ： absorbing infrared radiation
C ： absorbing outgoing radiation from the Earth
D ： helping to retain heat near the Earth’s surface
134 、 不定项选择题
Since the late 1970’s in the face of a severe loss of market share in dozens of
industries, manufacturers in the United States have been trying to improve
productivity—and therefore enhance their international competitiveness—through
cost-cutting programs. (Cost-cutting here is defined as raising labor output while
holding the amount of labor constant.) However, from 1978 through 1982,productivity—the value of goods manufactured divided by the amount of labor
input—did not improve; and while the results were better in the business upturn of
the three years following, they ran 25percent lower than productivity improvements
during earlier, post-1945 upturns. At the same time, it became clear that the harder
manufactures worked to implement cost-cutting, the more they lost their competitive
edge.
With this paradox in mind, I recently visited 25 companies; it became clear to me
that the cost-cutting approach to increasing productivity is fundamentally flawed.
Manufacturing regularly observes a “40, 40, 20” rule. Roughly 40 percent of any
manufacturing-based competitive advantage derives from long-term changes in
manufacturing structure (decisions about the number, size, location, and capacity of
facilities) and in approaches to materials. Another 40 percent comes from major
changes in equipment and process technology. The final 20 percent rests on
implementing conventional cost-cutting. This rule does not imply that cost-cutting
should not be tried. The well-known tools of this approach—including simplifying
jobs and retraining employees to work smarter, not harder—do produce results. But
the tools quickly reach the limits of what they can contribute.
Another problem is that the cost-cutting approach hinders innovation and
discourages creative people. As Abernathy’s study of automobile manufacturers
has shown, an industry can easily become prisoner of its own investments in cost-
cutting techniques, reducing its ability to develop new products. And managers under
pressure to maximize cost-cutting will resist innovation because they know that more
fundamental changes in processes or systems will wreak havoc with the results on
which they are measured. Production managers have always seen their job as one of
minimizing costs and maximizing output. This dimension of performance has until
recently sufficed as a basis of evaluation, but it has created a penny-pinching,
mechanistic culture in most factories that has kept away creative managers.
Every company I know that has freed itself from the paradox has done so, in
part, by developing and implementing a manufacturing strategy. Such a strategy
focuses on the manufacturing structure and on equipment and process technology.
In one company a manufacturing strategy that allowed different areas of the factory
to specialize in different markets replaced the conventional cost-cutting approach;
within three years the company regained its competitive advantage. Together with
such strategies, successful companies are also encouraging managers to focus on a
wider set of objectives besides cutting costs. There is hope for manufacturing, but it
dearly rests oil a different way of managing.
The author’s attitude toward the culture in most factories is best described as _____.
A ： cautious
B ： critical
C ： disinterested
D ： respectful
135 、 不定项选择题
Since the late 1970’s in the face of a severe loss of market share in dozens of
industries, manufacturers in the United States have been trying to improve
productivity—and therefore enhance their international competitiveness—through
cost-cutting programs. (Cost-cutting here is defined as raising labor output whileholding the amount of labor constant.) However, from 1978 through 1982,
productivity—the value of goods manufactured divided by the amount of labor
input—did not improve; and while the results were better in the business upturn of
the three years following, they ran 25percent lower than productivity improvements
during earlier, post-1945 upturns. At the same time, it became clear that the harder
manufactures worked to implement cost-cutting, the more they lost their competitive
edge.
With this paradox in mind, I recently visited 25 companies; it became clear to me
that the cost-cutting approach to increasing productivity is fundamentally flawed.
Manufacturing regularly observes a “40, 40, 20” rule. Roughly 40 percent of any
manufacturing-based competitive advantage derives from long-term changes in
manufacturing structure (decisions about the number, size, location, and capacity of
facilities) and in approaches to materials. Another 40 percent comes from major
changes in equipment and process technology. The final 20 percent rests on
implementing conventional cost-cutting. This rule does not imply that cost-cutting
should not be tried. The well-known tools of this approach—including simplifying
jobs and retraining employees to work smarter, not harder—do produce results. But
the tools quickly reach the limits of what they can contribute.
Another problem is that the cost-cutting approach hinders innovation and
discourages creative people. As Abernathy’s study of automobile manufacturers
has shown, an industry can easily become prisoner of its own investments in cost-
cutting techniques, reducing its ability to develop new products. And managers under
pressure to maximize cost-cutting will resist innovation because they know that more
fundamental changes in processes or systems will wreak havoc with the results on
which they are measured. Production managers have always seen their job as one of
minimizing costs and maximizing output. This dimension of performance has until
recently sufficed as a basis of evaluation, but it has created a penny-pinching,
mechanistic culture in most factories that has kept away creative managers.
Every company I know that has freed itself from the paradox has done so, in
part, by developing and implementing a manufacturing strategy. Such a strategy
focuses on the manufacturing structure and on equipment and process technology.
In one company a manufacturing strategy that allowed different areas of the factory
to specialize in different markets replaced the conventional cost-cutting approach;
within three years the company regained its competitive advantage. Together with
such strategies, successful companies are also encouraging managers to focus on a
wider set of objectives besides cutting costs. There is hope for manufacturing, but it
dearly rests oil a different way of managing.
The author of the passage is primarily concerned with _____.
A ： summarizing a thesis
B ： recommending a different approach
C ： comparing points of view
D ： making a series of predictions
136 、 不定项选择题
Students of United States history, seeking to identify the circumstances that
encouraged the emergence of feminist movements, have thoroughly investigated the
mid-nineteenth-century American economic and social conditions that affected thestatus of women. These historians, however, have analyzed less fully the
development of specifically feminist ideas and activities during the same period.
Furthermore, the ideological origins of feminism in the United States have been
obscured because, even when historians did take into account those feminist ideas
and activities occurring within the United States, they failed to recognize that
feminism was then a truly international movement actually centered in Europe.
American feminist activists who have been described as “solitary” and “individual
theorists” were in reality connected to a movement —utopian socialism—which was
already popularizing feminist ideas in Europe during the two decades that
cachinnated in the first women’s rights conference held at Seneca Falls, New York,
in 1848. Thus, a complete understanding of the origins and development of
nineteenth-century feminism in the United States requires that the geographical
focus be widened to include Europe and that the detailed study already made of
social conditions be expanded to include the ideological development of feminism.
The earliest and most popular of the utopian socialists were the Saint-Simonians.
The specifically feminist part of Saint-Simonianism has, however, been less studied
than the group’s contribution to early socialism. This is regrettable on two accounts.
By 1832 feminism was the central concern of Saint-Simonianism and entirely
absorbed its adherents’ energy; hence, by ignoring its feminism, European
historians have misunderstood Saint-Simonianism. Moreover, since many feminist
ideas can be traced to Saint-Simonianism, European historians’ appreciation of later
feminism in France and the United States remained limited.
Saint-Simon’s followers, many of whom were women, based their feminism on
an interpretation of his project to reorganize the globe by replacing brute force with
the rule of spiritual powers. The new world order would be ruled together by a male,
to represent reflection, and a female, to represent sentiment. This complementarity
reflects the fact that, while the Saint-Simonians did not reject the belief that there
were innate differences between men and women, they nevertheless foresaw an
equally important social and political role for both sexes in their Utopia.
Only a few Saint-Simonians opposed a definition of sexual equality based on
gender distinction. This minority believed that individuals of both sexes were born
similar in capacity and character, and they ascribed male-female differences to
socialization and education. The envisioned result of both currents of thought,
however, was that women would enter public life in the new age and that sexual
equality would reward men as well as women with an improved way of life.
The author’s attitude toward most European historians who have studied the Saint-
Simonians is primarily one of _____.
A ： approval of the specific focus of their research
B ： disapproval of their lack of attention to the issue that absorbed most of the
Saint-Simonians’ energy after 1832
C ： approval of their general focus on social conditions
D ： disapproval of their lack of attention to links between the Saint-Simonians and
their American counterparts
137 、 不定项选择题
This is not a good time to be foreign. Anti-immigrant parties are gaining ground in
Europe. Britain has been fretting this week over lapses in its border controls. InAmerica Barack Obama has failed to deliver the immigration reform he promised,
and Republican presidential candidates would rather electrify the border fence with
Mexico than educate the children of illegal aliens. America educates foreign scientists
in its universities and then expels them, a policy the mayor of New York calls
“national suicide”.
This illiberal turn in attitudes to migration is no surprise. It is the result of cyclical
economic gloom combined with a secular rise in pressure on rich countries’
borders. But governments now weighing up whether or not to try to slam the door
should consider another factor: the growing economic importance of Diasporas, and
the contribution they can make to a country’s economic growth.
Diaspora networks-of Huguenots, Scots, Jews and many others-have always been
a potent economic force, but the cheapness and ease of modern travel has made
them larger and more numerous than ever before. There are now 215m first-
generation migrants around the world: that’s 3％of the world’s population. If they
were a nation, it would be a little larger than Brazil. There are more Chinese people
living outside China than there are French people in France. Some 22m Indians are
scattered all over the globe. Small concentrations of ethnic and linguistic groups have
always been found in surprising places-Lebanese in West Africa, Japanese in Brazil
and Welsh in Patagonia, for instance-but they have been joined by newer ones, such
as west Africans in southern China.
These networks of kinship and language make it easier to do business across
borders. They speed the flow of information. Trust matters, especially in emerging
markets where the rule of law is weak. So does a knowledge of the local culture. And
modern communications make these networks an even more powerful tool of
business.
Diasporas also help spread ideas. Many of the emerging world’s brightest
minds are educated at Western universities. An increasing number go home, taking
with them both knowledge and contacts. Indian computer scientists in Bangalore
bounce ideas constantly off their Indian friends in Silicon Valley. China’s technology
industry is dominated by “sea turtles” (Chinese who have lived abroad and
returned.
Diasporas spread money, too. Migrants into rich countries not only send cash to
their families; they also help companies in their host country operate in their home
country. A Harvard Business School study shows that, American companies that
employ lots of ethnic Chinese people find it much easier to set up in China without a
joint venture with a local firm.
Such arguments are unlikely to make much headway against hostility towards
immigrants in rich countries. Fury against foreigners is usually based on two
(mutually incompatible) notions: that because so many migrants claim welfare they
are a drain on the public purse; and that because they are prepared to work harder
for less pay they will depress the wages of those at the bottom of the pile. The first is
usually not true (in Britain, for instance, immigrants claim benefits less than
indigenous people do), and the second is hard to establish either way. Some studies
do indeed suggest that competition from unskilled immigrants depresses the wages
of unskilled locals. But others find this effect to be small or non-existent.
Nor is it possible to establish the impact of migration on overall growth. The
sums are simply too difficult. Yet there are good reasons for believing that it is likely
to be positive. Migrants tend to be hard-working and innovative. That spurs
productivity and company formation. A recent study carried out by Duke University
showed that, while immigrants make up an eighth of America’s population, they
founded a quarter of the country’s technology and engineering firms. And, bylinking the West with emerging markets, Diasporas help rich countries to plug into
fast-growing economies.
Rich countries are thus likely to benefit from looser immigration policy; and fears
that poor countries will suffer as a result of a “brain drain” are overblown. The
prospect of working abroad spurs more people to acquire valuable skills, and not all
subsequently emigrate. Skilled migrants send money home, and they often return to
set up new businesses. One study found that unless they lose more than 20％of their
university graduates, the brain drain makes poor countries richer.
The author’s attitude towards “Diasporas” is that _____.
A ： There is increasing hostility towards immigrants in rich countries.
B ： Immigrant networks are a rare bright spark in the world economy and rich
countries should welcome them.
C ： The Diasporas should return to their homelands so that poor countries will not
suffer as a result of “brain drain”.
D ： Hard-working immigrants will depress the wages of the locals although they may
greatly increase productivity.
138 、 不定项选择题
It can be argued that much consumer dissatisfaction with marketing strategies arises
from an inability to aim advertising at only the likely buyers of a given product. There
are three groups of consumers who are affected by the marketing process. First,
there is the market segment—people who need the commodity in question. Second,
there is the program target—people in the market segment with the “best fit”
characteristics for a specific product. Lots of people may need trousers, but only a
few qualify as likely buyers of very expensive designer trousers. Finally, there is the
program audience—all people who are actually exposed to the marketing program
without regard to whether they need or want the product
These three groups are rarely identical. An exception occurs in cases where
customers for a particular industrial product may be few and easily identifiable. Such
customers, all sharing a particular need, are likely to form a meaningful target, for
example, all companies with a particular application of the product in question, such
as high-speed fillers of bottles at breweries. In such circumstances, direct selling
(marketing that reaches only the program target) is likely to be economically justified,
and highly specialized trade media exist to expose members of the program
target—and only members of the program target—to the marketing program.
Most consumer-goods markets are significantly different. Typically, there are
many rather than few potential customers. Each represents a relatively small
percentage of potential sales. Rarely do members of a particular market segment
group themselves neatly into a meaningful program target. There are substantial
differences among consumers with similar demographic characteristics. Even with all
the past decade’s advances in information technology, direct selling of consumer
goods is rare, and mass marketing—a marketing approach that aims at a wide
audience—remains the only economically feasible mode. Unfortunately, there are
few media that allow the marketer to direct a marketing program exclusively to the
program target. Inevitably, people get exposed to a great deal of marketing for
products in which they have no interest and so they become annoyed.“the product in question” in Line 5 Paragraph 2 means _____ .
A ： “the product in the previous question”
B ： “the product under discussion”
C ： “the product on sale”
D ： “the product in doubt”
139 、 不定项选择题
With thunderclouds looming over the trans-Atlantic economy, it was easy to miss a
bright piece of news last weekend from the other crucible of world trade, the Pacific
Rim. In Honolulu, where Barack Obama hosted a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders,
Canada, Japan and Mexico expressed interest in joining nine countries (America,
Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam) in
discussing a free-trade pact. Altogether, the possible members of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership(TPP) produce 40％ of world GDP—far more than the European Union.
Regional trade deals are not always a good idea. If they distract policymakers
from global trade liberalization, they are to be discouraged. But with the Doha round
of global trade talks showing no flicker of life, there is little danger that the TPP will
derail a broader agreement; and by cutting barriers, strengthening intellectual-
property protections and going beyond a web of existing trade deals, it should boost
world trade.
The creation of a wider TPP is still some way off. For it to come into being its
architects—Mr. Obama, who faces a tough election battle next year, and Japan’s
Yoshihiko Noda, who faces crony politics laced with passionate protectionism-need to
show more leadership.
Mr. Noda’s announcement on November 11th that Japan was interested in
joining the TPP negotiations was an exceedingly bold move. Signing up would mean
dramatic changes in Japan, a country which has 800％tariffs on rice and exports 65
vehicles to America for every one that is sent to Japan. Mr. Noda’s move could also
transform the prospects of the TPP, most obviously by uniting two of the world’s
leading three economies but also by galvanizing others. Until he expressed an
interest, Canada and Mexico had also remained on the sidelines. Unwittingly or not,
Mr. Noda has thrust mercantilist Japan into a central position on a trade treaty in
which free movement of everything except labor is on the table.
Immense obstacles loom for Mr. Noda. He came into office in September casting
himself as a conciliator of Japan’s warring political factions. Many of those groups
are opposed to the TPP. Farm co-operatives, which feather many a politician’s nest,
argue that it would rob Japan of its rice heritage. Doctors warn of the risks to
Japan’s cherished health system. Socialists see the TPP as a Washington-led
sideswipe at China, which had hoped to build an East Asian trade orbit including
Japan. Mr. Nora will have to contend not just with opposition from rival parties but
also with a split on the issue inside his Democratic Party of Japan.
Since Honolulu, Mr. Noda has already pandered to protectionists by watering
down his message. Having beamed next to Mr. Obama in a summit photo, he then
protested that the White House had overstated his intention to put all goods and
services up for negotiation. Polls, however, suggest the Japanese are crying out for
Leadership on the issue, not pusillanimity. More support the idea of entering TPP
negotiations than oppose it. On their behalf Mr. Noda should lead Japan forthrightly
into the discussions, confident that the country can bargain well enough to give itssacred industries such as farming and health care time to adjust.
It is also a test for Mr. Obama’s new strategy of coping with China’s rise by
“pivoting” American foreign policy more towards Asia. He must stand up to the
unions in the car industry which have long bellyached about the imbalance of trade
with Japan. He should energetically promote the potential gains for jobs of his pro-
Asia strategy-both at home and abroad. America should also stress that the TPP is
meant to engage and incorporate China, rather than constrain it.
Such steps would help win support in Japan, while costing America little. And in
joining the TPP, Japan would be forced to reform hidebound parts of its economy,
such as services, which would stimulate growth. A revitalized Japan would add to the
dynamism of a more liberalized Asia-Pacific region. That is surely something worth
fighting for.
Which of the following could NOT be true as the possible consequences of Japan’s
joining the TPP?
A ： It would increase the GDP of the TPP members.
B ： It could transform the prospects of the TPP.
C ： It would become conciliation between Japan’s warring political factions.
D ： It would lead to a more liberalized transpacific trade relation.
140 、 不定项选择题
“When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results,”
Calvin Coolidge once observed. As the U. S. economy crumbles, Coolidge’s silly
maxim might appear to be as apt as ever: the number of unemployment insurance
claims is rising, and overall joblessness is creeping upward. But in today’s vast and
complex labor market, things aren’t always what they seem. More and more people
are indeed losing their jobs but not necessarily because the economy appears to be
in recession. And old-fashioned unemployment isn’t the inevitable result of job loss.
New work, at less pay, often is.
Call it new-wave unemployment: structural changes in the economy are
overlapping the business downturn, giving joblessness a grim new twist. Small
wonder that the U. S. unemployment rate is rising. Now at 5.7 percent, it is widely
expected to edge toward 7 percent by the end of next year. But statistics alone can’t
fully capture a complex reality. The unemployment rate has been held down by slow
growth in the labor force—the number of people working or looking for work—since
few people sense attractive job opportunities in a weak economy. In addition, many
more people are losing their jobs than are actually ending up unemployed. Faced
with hungry mouths to feed, thousands of women, for example, are taking two or
more part-time positions or agreeing to shave the hours they work in service-sector
jobs. For better and for worse, work in America clearly isn’t what it used to be. Now
unemployment isn’t, either.
Like sour old wine in new bottles, this downturn blends a little of the old and the
new reflecting a decade’s worth of change in the dynamic U. S. economy. Yet, in
many respects the decline is following the classic pattern, with new layoffs
concentrated among blue-collar workers in the most “cyclical” industries, whose
ups and downs track the economy most closely.
As the downturn attracts attention on workers’ ill fortunes, some analysts
predict that political upheaval may lie ahead. Real wages for the average U. S. workerpeaked in 1973 and have been falling almost ever since. As a result, a growing group
of downwardly mobile Americans could soon begin pressing policymakers to help
produce better-paying jobs. Just how loud the outcry becomes will depend partly on
the course of the recession. But in the long run, there’s little doubt that the bleak
outlook for jobs and joblessness is “politically, socially and psychologically
dynamite”.
Why does the author refer to Coolidge’s maxim as silly?
A ： More and more people are applying for unemployment insurance.
B ： Unemployment rate is not likely to rise quickly nowadays.
C ： Losing jobs doesn’t necessarily lead to unemployment.
D ： Today’s labor market is much too complicated than Coolidge’s time.
141 、 不定项选择题
A closer observer of the small screen once called it a “vast wasteland of violence,
sadism and murder, private eyes, gangsters and more violence - and cartoons.” That
is how Newton Minow, a US television regulator, described it in 1961.
Since than television language has become more colourful, violence more
explicit and sex more prevalent.?Lady Chatterley’s Lover has moved from the
banned book shelf to a classic BBC serial.
Concern over such changing standards has shaped our view of television—and
masked its broader influence in developing countries.
To illustrate its effects, Kenny cites the case of Brazil. When television there
began to show a steady diet of local soaps in the 1970s, Brazilian women typically
had five or more children and were trapped in poverty. As the popularity of the soaps
grew, birth rates fell
According to researchers, 72% of the leading female characters in the main
soaps had no children and only 7% had more than one. One study calculated that
such soaps had the same effect on fertility rates as keeping girls in school for five
years more than normal.
It is not just birth rates that are affected. Kenny notes: “Kids who watch TV out
of school, according to a World Bank survey of young people in the shanty towns of
Fortaleza in Brazil, are considerably less likely to consume drugs.”
Television appears to have more power to reduce youth drug use than the
strictures of an educated mother and Brazilian soaps presenting educated urban
woman running their own businesses are thought to be compelling role models.
Television can also improve health, In Ghana a soap opera line that warned
mothers they were feeding their children “more than just rice” if they did not wash
their hands after defecating was followed by a seemingly permanent improvement in
personal hygiene.
Why do such changes happen? Simple, says Kenny: soap operas, whether local
versions of Ugly Betty or vintage imports of Baywatch, open up new horizons.
“Some hours could he better spout planting trees, helping old ladies across the road
or playing cricket,” he said. “But watching TV exposes people to new ideas and
different people. With that will come greater opportunity, growing equality and a
better understanding of the world. Not bad.”
The main idea of this passage is _____.
A ： the effects of TV in developing countriesB ： people begin to receive more information
C ： TV has opened up new horizons
D ： the changes of TV language
142 、 不定项选择题
Many United States companies have, unfortunately, made the search for legal
protection from import competition into a major line of work. Since 1980 the United
States international Trade Commission (ITC) has received about 280 complaints
alleging damage from imports that benefit from subsidies by foreign governments.
Another 340 charge that foreign companies “dumped” their products in thee
United States at “less than fair value.” Even when no unfair practices are alleged,
the simple claim that an industry has been injured by imports is sufficient grounds to
seek relief.
Contrary to the general impression, this quest for import relief has hurt more
companies than it has helped. As corporations begin to function globally, they
develop an intricate web of marketing, production, and research relationships. The
complexity of these relationships makes it unlikely that a system of import relief laws
will meet the strategic needs of all the units under the same parent company, №.
Suppose a United States-owned company establishes an overseas plant to
manufacture a product while its competitor makes the same product in the United
States. If the competitor can prove injury from the imports-and that the United States
company received a subsidy from a foreign government to build its plant abroad-the
United States company’s products will be uncompetitive in the United States, since
they would be subject to duties.
Perhaps the most brazen ease occurred when the ITC investigated allegations
that Canadian companies were injuring the United States salt industry by dumping
rock salt, used to de-ice roads. The bizarre aspect of the complaint was that a foreign
conglomerate with United States operations was crying for help against a United
States company with foreign operations. The “United States” company claiming
injury was a subsidiary of a Dutch conglomerate, while the “Canadian” companies
included a subsidiary of a Chicago firm that was the second-largest domestic
producer of rock salt.
The passage is chiefly concerned with _____.
A ： arguing against the increased internationalization of United States corporations
B ： warning that the application of laws affecting trade frequently has unintended
consequences
C ： demonstrating that foreign-based firms receive more subsidies from their
governments than United States firms receive from the United States government
D ： advocating the use of trade restrictions for “dumped” products but not for
other imports
143 、 不定项选择题
When the television is good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines, or
newspapers—nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite
you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air andstay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, or anything else to distract you and
keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you
will observe a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, violence,
audience-participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families,
blood and thunder, Mayhem, more violence, sadism, murder, Western badmen,
Western goodmen, private eyes, Gangsters, still more violence, and cartoons. And
endlessly, commercials that stream and cajole and offend. And most of all, boredom.
True, you will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if
you think I exaggerate, try it.
Is there no room on television to teach, to inform, to uplift, to stretch, to enlarge
the capacities of our children? Is there no room for programs to deepen the
children’s understanding of children in other lands? Is there no room for a
children’s news show explaining something about the world for them at their level
of understanding? Is there no room for reading the great literature of the past,
teaching them the great traditions of freedom? There are some fine children’s
shows, but they are drowned out in the massive doses of cartoons, violence, and
more violence. Must these be your trademarks? Search your conscience and see
whether you cannot offer more to your young beneficiaries whose future you guard
so many hours each and every day.
There are many people in this great country, and you must serve all of us. You
will get no argument from me if you say that, given a choice between a Western and a
symphony, more people will watch the Western. I like Westerns and private eyes,
too—but a steady diet for the whole country is obviously not in the public interest.
We all know that people would more often prefer to be entertained than stimulated
or informed. But your obligations are not satisfied if you look only to popularity as a
test of what to broadcast. Yon are not only in show business: you are free to
communicate ideas as well as to give relaxation. You must provide a wide range of
choices, more diversity, more alternatives. It is not enough to cater to the nation’s
whims—you must also serve the nation’s needs. The people own the air. They own
it as much in prime evening time as they do at six o’clock in the morning. For every
hour that the people give you--you own them something. I intend to see that your
debt is paid with service.
It can be inferred from the passage in regard to television programming that the
author believes _____.
A ： the broadcasters are trying to do the right thing but are failing
B ： foreign countries are going to pattern their programs after ours
C ： the listeners do not necessarily know what is good for them
D ： six o’clock in the morning is too early for a television show
