单选题 What enables some people to get big creative breakthroughs while others only get small and non-creative breakdowns, blaming themselves and society? Are some people gifted? Are there other factors 21

单选题______ that saw the trade between the two countries reach its highest point.

单选题______ the claim about German economic might, it is somewhat surprising how relatively small the German economy actually is. A. To give B. Given C. Giving D. Having given

单选题This type of chair, easily ______ or folded away, is ideal for use in the garden.

单选题Birth, marriage and death: these are the greatest events in human life. Many things, good and bad, can happen to us in our lives. (79)Yet there are three days which are usually marked by some kind of special ceremony: the day we are born; the day we get married and the day we die. These are the three main events in life. We only have a choice in the second of these: we can choose whether or not to marry. But we have no choice in birth and death. All human beings— from the most primitive to the most sophisticated—are affected by these three events. The only thing that differs in each society is the way these events are celebrated. Yet all societies share common characteristics. Birth is a time of joy. The proud parents receive congratulations and presents on behalf of the new-born. Marriage is also a time of joy. The young couple go through a special wedding ceremony and receive presents to help them set up their home. (80) Death is a time of sorrow and is marked by a special ceremony and mourning. The dates of ail three events arc usually remembered.

单选题________ breaks the law will be punished sooner or later.________ breaks the law will be punished sooner or later.

单选题 Researchers for Cornell University and Intel produced a chip called Loihi that reportedly makes computers think like biological brains, according to Daily Mail. The researchers created the circuit on the chip, mirroring organic circuits found in the olfactory bulbs (嗅球) of a dog's brain, which is how they process their sense of smell. The Loihi chip can identify a specific odor on the first try and even tell other background smells, said Intel, according to Daily Mail. The chip can even detect smells humans emit when sick with a disease—which vary depending on the illness—and smells linked to environmental gases and drugs. The key to sniffer dogs isn't their olfactory system alone, but their incredible ability to remember—this is why they're trained. Similarly, the artificial intelligence of the chip is trained to identify different smells and remember them, so that next time, it knows. The chip processes information just like mammal brains by using electrical signals to process smells. When a person smells something, the air molecules interact with nasal receptors that forward signals to the olfactory bulb in the brain. Then the brain translates the signals to identify which smell it's experiencing, based on memories of previous experiences with the specific smell. 'We are developing a method for Loihi to mimic (模仿) what happens in your brain when you smell something,' said Senior Research Scientist in Intel's Lab, Nabil Imam, in a statement, according to Daily Mail. Imam added that the work 'demonstrates Loihi's potential to provide important sensing capabilities that could benefit various industries.' So far, the researchers have trained it on ten harmful smells. It can be installed on robots in airports to help identify hazardous objects, or integrated with sensors in power plants or hospitals to detect dangerous gases. Similar biotechnology has seen the implementation in grasshoppers recently outfitted with computer chips to sniff-out bombs. However, this negatively affects their lifespan, limiting their use. While sniffer dogs might one day be out of a job, the circuits using AI to mimic the process of smell bring us one step closer to recreating the human sensory system in artificial intelligence.

单选题 Listen to the following passage. Altogether the passage will be read to you four times. During the first reading, which will be done at normal speed, listen and try to understand the meaning. For the second and third readings, the passage will be read sentence by sentence, or phrase by phrase, with intervals of 15 seconds. The last reading will be done at normal speed again and during this time you should check your work. You will then be given 2 minutes to check through your work once more. Effects of Education Studies going back over half a century seem to show that attending college in the US affects political attitudes, usually in a liberal direction.

单选题Physical activity through sports can enhance your child’s physical health.Sports can also have a positive effect on his mental health.Sports participation helps children ____21____life skills such as

单选题The spring floods had washed away the bridge, we were forced to take a ______ route.

单选题 A Nation that's Losing Its Toolbox A. The scene inside the Home Depot on Weyman Avenue here would give the old-time Ameri-can craftsman pause. In Aisle 34 is precut plastic flooring, the glue already in place. In Aisle 26 are prefabricated windows. Stacked near the checkout counters, and as colorful as a Fisher-Price toy, is a not-so-serious-looking power tool: a battery-operated saw-and-drill combination. And if you don't want to do it yourself, head to Aisle 23 or Aisle 35, where a help desk will arrange for an in- staller. B. It's all very handy stuff, I guess, a convenient way to be a do-it-yourselfer without being all that good with tools. But at a time when the American factory seems to be a shrinking presence, and when good manufacturing jobs have vanished, perhaps never to return, there is something deeply troubling about this dilution of American craftsmanship. C. This isn't a lament (伤感)—or not merely a lament—for bygone times. It's a social and cultural issue, as well as an economic one. The Home Depot approach to craftsmanship—simplify it, dumb it down, hire a contractor—is one signal that mastering tools and working with one's hands is receding in America as a hobby, as a valued skill, as a cultural influence that shaped thinking and behavior in vast sections of the country. D. That should be a matter of concern in a presidential election year. Yet neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney promotes himself as tool-savvy (使用工具很在行的) presidential timber, in the mold of a Jimmy Carter, a skilled carpenter and cabinet maker. E. The Obama administration does worry publicly about manufacturing, a first cousin of craftsmanship. When the Ford Motor Company, for example, recently announced that it was bringing some production home, the White House cheered. 'When you see things like Ford moving new production from Mexico to Detroit, instead of the other way around, you know things are changing,' says Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council. F. Ask the administration or the Republicans or most academics why America needs more manufacturing, and they respond that manufacturing gives birth to innovation, brings down the trade deficit, strengthens the dollar, generates jobs, arms the military and brings about a recovery from re-cession. But rarely, if ever, do they publicly take the argument a step further, asserting that a growing manufacturing sector encourages craftsmanship and that craftsmanship is, if not a birthright, then a vital ingredient of the American serf-image as a can-do, inventive, we-can-make-anything people. G. Traditional vocational training in public high schools is gradually declining, stranding thou-sands of young people who seek training for a craft without going to college. Colleges, for their part, have since 1985 graduated fewer chemical, mechanical, industrial and metallurgical (冶金的)engineers, partly in response to the reduced role of manufacturing, a big employer of them. H. The decline started in the 1950s, when manufacturing generated a sturdy 28% of the national income, or gross domestic product, and employed one-third of the workforce. Today, factory output generates just 12% of G. D. P. and employs barely 9% of the nation's workers. I. Mass layoffs and plant closings have drawn plenty of headlines and public debate over the years, and they still occasionally do. But the damage to skill and craftsmanship—what's needed to build a complex airliner or a tractor, or for a worker to move up from assembler to machinist to supervisor—went largely unnoticed. J. 'In an earlier generation, we lost our connection to the land, and now we are losing our connection to the machinery we depend on,' says Michael Hout, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley. 'People who work with their hands,' he went on, 'are doing things today that we call service jobs, in restaurants and laundries, or in medical technology and the like.' K. That's one explanation for the decline in traditional craftsmanship. Lack of interest is another. The big money is in fields like finance. Starting in the 1980s, skill in finance grew in importance, and, as depicted in the news media and the movies, became a more appealing source of in-come. By last year, Wall Street traders, bankers and those who deal in real estate generated 21% of the national income, double their share in the 1950s. And Warren Buffett, the good-natured financier, became a homespun folk hero, without the tools and overalls (工作服). L. 'Young people grow up without developing the skills to fix things around the house,' says Richard Curtin, director of the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. 'They know about computers, of course, but they don't know how to build them.' M. Manufacturing's shrinking presence undoubtedly helps explain the decline in craftsmanship, if only because many of the nation's assembly line workers were skilled in craft work, if not on the job then in their spare time. In a late 1990s study of blue-collar employees at a General Motors plant (now closed) in Linden, N. J. , the sociologist Ruth Milkman of City University of New York found that many line workers, in their off-hours, did home renovation and other skilled work. 'I have often thought,' Ms. Milkman says, 'that these extracurricular jobs were an effort on the part of the workers to regain their dignity after suffering the degradation of repetitive assembly line work in the factory.' N. Craft work has higher status in nations like Germany, which invests in apprenticeship (学徒) programs for high school students. 'Corporations in Germany realized that there was an interest to be served economically and patriotically in building up a skilled labor force at home; we never had that ethos (风气),' says Richard Sennett, a New York University sociologist who has written about the connection of craft and culture. O. The damage to American craftsmanship seems to parallel the steep slide in manufacturing employment. Though the decline started in the 1970s, it became much steeper beginning in 2000. Since then, some 5.3 million jobs, or one-third of the workforce in manufacturing, have been lost. A stated goal of the Obama administration is to restore a big chunk of this employment, along with the multitude of skills that many of the jobs required. P. As for craftsmanship itself, the issue is how to preserve it as a valued skill in the general population. Ms. Milkman, the sociologist, argues that American craftsmanship isn't disappearing as quickly as some would argue—that it has instead shifted to immigrants. 'Pride in craft, it is alive in the immigrant world,' she says. Sol Axelrod, 37, the manager of the Home Depot here, fittingly learned to fix his own car as a teenager, even changing the brakes. Now he finds immigrant crafts-men gathered in abundance outside his store in the early morning, waiting for it to open so they can buy supplies for the day's work as contractors. Skilled day laborers, also mostly immigrants, wait quietly in hopes of being hired by the contractors. Q. Mr. Axelrod also says the recession and persistently high unemployment have forced many people to try to save money by doing more themselves, and Home Depot in response offers classes in fixing water taps and other simple repairs. The teachers are store employees, many of them older and semi-retired from a skilled trade, or laid off. 'Our customers may not be building cabinets or out-door decks; we try to do that for them,' Mr. Axelrod says, 'but some are trying to build up skills so they can do more for themselves in these hard times.'

单选题All the ______ of the city went to the meeting last Saturday.

单选题Even if they are on sale, these refrigerators are equal in price to, if not more expensive than, ______ at the other store.

单选题No sooner had we finished the conversation ______ we heard a knock on the door. A. when B. then C. than D. until

单选题—Look! There______" "Oh, there______"

单选题He has failed me so many times that I no longer place any ______ on what he promises. A. faith B. belief C. credit D. reliance

单选题In fact, there is perhaps only one human being (in) a thousand who (are) passionately interested in (his) job for the job's (sake).