单选题Opinion polls are now beginning to show an unwilling general agreement that, whoever is to blame and whatever happens from now on, high unemployment is probably here to stay. This means we shall have to find ways of sharing the available employment more widely. But we need to go further. We must ask some fundamental questions about the future of work. Should we continue to treat employment as the norm? Should we not create conditions in which many of us can work for ourselves, rather than for an employer? Should we not aim to revive the household and the neighbourhood, as well as the factory and the office, as centres of production and work? The industrial age has been the only period of human history in which most people' s work has taken the form of jobs. The industrial age may now be coming to an end, and some of the changes in work patterns which it brought about may have to be reversed. This seems a discouraging thought. But, in fact, it could offer the prospect of a better future for work. Universal employment, as its history shows, has not meant economic freedom. Employment became widespread when the enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries made many people dependent on paid work by depriving them of the use of the land, and thus of the means to provide a living for themselves. Then the factory system destroyed the cottage industries and removed work from people's homes, Later, as transport improved, first by rail and then by road, people travelled longer distances to their places of employment until, eventually, many people's work lost all connection with their home lives and places in which they lived. Meanwhile, employment put women at a disadvantage. It became customary for the husband to go out paid employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and family to his wife. All this may now have to change. The time has certainly come to switch some effort and resources away from the impractical goal of creating jobs for all, to the urgent practical task of helping many people to manage without full-time jobs.

单选题The bus moved slowly in the thick fog. We arrived at our______almost two hours later.

单选题Locked in a vault within the North Carolina Department of Revenue is a bit of Kafka: a government-issued stamp that is expected to remain unpurchased, but which users of illegal goods must, by law, affix to substances they are not allowed to possess. North Carolina is one of about 20 states that tax illegal drugs. The cost varies by state and weight, as does the stamps' appearance (Nebraska's, with a skull surmounting a syringe and joint, looks like Grateful Dead tribute art). Penalties for non-payment also vary, from being classed as a misdemeanour in Georgia to 200% of the tax plus $10,000 or five years in prison in Louisiana. Few, if any, drug users actually buy the stamps. Most of those sold in Kansas, for instance, go to collectors. And according to a Mobile newspaper, the director of investigations for Alabama's revenue department said the state never expected actually to sell stamps to drug users. Instead, the tax exists to further punish those arrested for possession by making them liable to penalties for tax evasion if their drugs are stampless, as they almost invariably are. And those penalties can be lucrative: over the past decade Kansas has collected $10.3m. If legislators feel that drug users get off too lightly, they could simply increase the criminal penalties, rather than creating a new class of crime that requires the involvement of another government agency. As it is, these laws are not merely complicated, but have often been found unconstitutional. In 1994 the US Supreme Court ruled that because Montana's illegal-drug tax was a second punishment for a single crime it amounted to double jeopardy. Other states' drug-tax schemes have also been challenged on constitutional grounds. In response some states have abolished or modified their schemes, usually by allowing buyers of the stamps to remain anonymous or by forbidding revenue departments from telling law enforcement when someone buys the stamps. The concept of taxing illegal drugs punitively dates back to the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. This did not ban the drug completely; it subjected anyone who dealt in it commercially to a nominal tax but a heavy array of regulations and criminal penalties for non-compliance. Bureaucracy lives on.

单选题Yesterday we saw a ______ film about the Independence War. A. historied B. historical C. historian D. historic

单选题"Wife", which used to refer to any woman, stands for "a married woman" in modern English. This phenomenon is known as______. (西安交大2008研)

单选题Tomorrow Japan and South Korea will celebrate White Day, an annual event when men are expected to buy a gift for the adored women in their lives. It is a relatively new (21) that was commercially created as payback for Valentine's Day. That's (22) in both countries, 14 February is all about the man. On Valentine's Day, women are expected to buy all the important male (23) in their lives a token gift= not just their partners, (24) their bosses or older relatives too. This seems (25) enough. Surely it's reasonable for men to be indulged on one day of the year, (26) the number of times they're expected to produce bouquets of flowers and (27) their woman with perfume or pearls. But the idea of a woman (28) a man didn't sit easily with people. In 1978, the National Confectionery Industry Association (糖果业协会) (29) an idea to solve this problem. They started to market white chocolate that men could give to women on 14 March, as (30) for the male-oriented Valentine's Day. It started with a handful of sweet makers' producing candy (31) a simple gift idea. The day (32) the public imagination, and is now a nationally (33) date in the diary— and one where men are (34) to whip out their credit cards. In fact, men are now expected to give gifts worth (35) the value of those they received. What a complication: not only do men have to remember who bought them what, they have to estimate the value and multiply it by three.

单选题For multinational corporations, tax planning has become extremely complex affairs. It has been stated that no multinational corporation possesses the ultimate tax expertise. Therefore, in addition to having their own experts, MNCs rely on heavily on local tax experts and legal counsel. Taxes have a very important impact on foreign direct investment decisions. Taxes will determine the financial structure of subsidiary, and they will influence pricing decisions. They may also lead to the formation of holding companies. An MNC may decide to establish a branch rather than a subsidiary because of a given tax situation. The absence of a tax treaty between the country of a would-be investor and the nation where a foreign investment is to take place might lead to cancellation of investment plans. An unfavorable depreciation allowance may keep the foreign investor out. This unit will deal with the different tax systems in the world and their impact on an MNC's global strategy. Basically, any tax system can be divided into direct and indirect taxes. Corporate and individual income taxes are direct, value-added taxes, sales taxes, and import duties are indirect taxes. Corporate income taxes (taxes levied on earning) vary among the industrialized nations. France, the United States, Holland, Canada, and Germany have rates of around 50 percent; Italy, the United Kingdom and Japan have rates of between 36 and 40 percent. Less developed countries usually have lower corporate tax rates in order to attract foreign investment. Thus, Brazil has a rate of 30 percent, and Indonesia has a 40 percent tax rate. A corporate tax is levied on taxable earnings. Taxable earnings are more significant than the tax rate itself. They determine what can be deducted before the tax is computed; in other words, these items are tax deductible. Countries differ greatly in determining taxable earnings. Some allow accelerated depreciation, whereby the asset (usually the plant or equipment) is written off at a substantially higher rate during the first years than in the later years. This allows for smaller taxable earnings in the early years. Other countries allow tax-free investment reserves. These are used at a later stage for investment in undeveloped areas of countries or are sent when countries are in a recession. A recent type of tax that has won recognition in the European Common Market is value-added tax (VAT). This is a national sales tax levied at each stage of production or at the sale of consumer goods. The tax is assessed in proportion to the value added during that stage. Generally, manufacturing goods, such as plant and equipment, have been exempted from this tax. In most cases, food items also have been exempted. Here is an example of how VAT works. A tree owner who sells part of a tree to a lumber mill for $1 must set aside ten cents VAT to pay to the government. The lumber mill processes the tree into building material and sells the wood for $3 to a lumber wholesaler. The mill adds $2 in value, and thus sets aside 10 percent of the added value, or twenty cents, to pay to the government. And so the VAT continues until the final sale. The VAT system offers advantages, such as rebates on exports. Profitable and unprofitable firms are taxed alike, as there is no possibility of tax deductions to determine taxable income. A badly run company is, therefore, forced to improve or go out of business. Further, VAT is easy to calculate and collect. But VAT is often accused of having contributed to serious inflation in countries where it was introduced, notably in Western Europe.

单选题 In America and Europe magazine publishers have a common headache: total circulation is either flat or declining slightly as people devote more time to the internet, and an ever greater share of advertising spending is going online. Magazine units are mostly a drag on growth for their parents. Time Inc, the world's biggest magazine company, has to fend off rumours that its parent, Time Warner, will sell it. People in the industry expect that Time Warner will soon sell IPC Media, its British magazine subsidiary. The business model for consumer magazines is under pressure from several directions at once, both online and off. Magazines have become more expensive to launch, and the cost of attracting and keeping new subscribers has risen. In America newsstand sales have been worryingly weak, partly because supermarkets dominate distribution and shelf-space is in short supply. The internet's popularity has hit men's titles the hardest. FHM, the flagship "lads" magazine of Emap— a British media firm, for instance, lost a quarter of its circulation in the year to June. Not long ago consumer magazines were Emap's prize asset, but slowing growth from the division contributed to the company's decision to put itself up for sale. Men's magazines are in trouble in most developed-world markets as people have quickly switched from magazines to online services. There are good reasons why magazine owners should not feel pessimistic, however. For readers, many of the pleasing characteristics of magazines—their portability and glossiness, for instance—cannot be matched online. And magazines are not losing younger readers in the way that newspapers are. According to a study by the digital arm of Ogilvy Group, appetite for magazines is largely unchanged between older "baby boomers" and young "millennials" . On the advertising side, magazines are fearing much better than newspapers, which are losing big chunks of revenue as classified advertising shifts online. Advertisers like the fact that in many genres, such as fashion, readers accept and value magazine ads and even consider them part of the product. Unfortunately, magazine publishers have been slow to get onto the internet. "Eighteen months ago the internet was something they worried about after 4pm on Friday, " says Peter Kreisky, a consultant to the media industry, "but now it's at the heart of their business model. " To their credit, however, big magazine firms are doing far more than reproducing their print products online. They offer people useful, fun services online— Lagardère's Car and Driver website, for instance, offers virtual test drives, and Better Homes and Gardens online has a 3D planning tool to help people redesign their homes.

单选题Statuses are marvelous human inventions that enable us to get along with one another and to determine where we "fit" in society. As we go about our everyday lives, we mentally attempt to place people in terms of their statuses. For example, we must judge whether the person in the library is a reader or a librarian, whether the telephone caller is a friend or a salesman, whether the unfamiliar person on our property is a thief or a meter reader, and so on. The statuses we assume often vary with the people we encounter, and change throughout life. Most of us can, at very high speed, assume the statuses that various situations require. Much of social interaction consists of identifying and selecting among appropriate statuses and allowing other people to assume their statuses in relation to us. This means that we fit our actions to those of other people based on a constant mental process of appraisal and interpretation. Although some of us find the task more difficult than others, most of us perform it rather effortlessly. A status has been compared to ready-made clothes. Within certain limits, the buyer can choose style and fabric. But an American is not free to choose the costume of a Chinese peasant or that of a Hindu prince. We must choose from among the clothing presented by our society. Furthermore, our choice is limited to a size that will fit, as well as by our pocketbook. Having made a choice within these limits we can have certain alterations made, hut apart from minor adjustments, we tend to be limited to what the stores have on their racks. Statuses too come ready made, and the range of choice among them is limited.

单选题A strong support from the local authority is ______ to the success of the project.

单选题{{B}}Passage Four{{/B}} The most noticeable trend among today's media companies is vertical integration—an attempt to control several related aspects of the media business at once, each part helping the other. Besides publishing magazines and books, Time Warner, for example, owns Home Box Office (HBO), Warner movie studios, various cable TV systems throughout the United States and CNN as well. The Japanese company Matsushita owns MCA Records and Universal Studios and manufactures broadcast production equipment. To describe the financial status of today's media is also to talk about acquisitions (并购). The media are buying and selling each other in unprecedented numbers and forming media groups to position themselves in the marketplace to maintain and increase their profits. In 1986, the first time a broadcast network had been sold, two networks were sold that year—ABC and NBC. Media acquisitions have skyrocketed (剧增) since 1980 for two reasons. The first is that most big corporations today are publicly traded companies, which means that their stock is traded on one of the nation's stock exchanges. This makes acquisitions relatively easy. A media company that wants to buy a publicly owned company can buy that company's stock when the stock becomes available. The open availability of stock in these companies means that anybody with enough money can invest in the American media industries, which is exactly how Rupert Murdoch joined the media business. The second reason for the increase in media alliances is that beginning in 1980, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gradually deregulated (解除管制) the broadcast media. Before 1980, for example, the FCC allowed one company to own only five TV stations, five AM radio stations, and five FM radio stations; companies also were required to hold onto a station for three years before the station could be sold. The post-1980 FCC eliminated the three-year rule and raised the number of broadcast holdings allowed for one owner. This trend of media acquisitions is continuing throughout the 1990s, as changing technology expands the market for media products. The issue of media ownership is important. If only a few corporations direct the media industries in this country, the outlets for differing political viewpoints and innovative ideas could be limited.

单选题This past academic year, 146 New York City kids from 4 to 14 dutifully attended Rosalyn Chao's Mandarin class at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral Academy. Many of the students were first-generation Americans; for several, Mandarin would be their third language, after English and Spanish. Get used to this picture; around the world, more adults and kids are learning Chinese. Beijing is pouring money into new Confucius Institutes (Chinese language and culture centers), and two U.S. senators recently proposed spending $1.3 billion on Chinese-language programs over the next five years. From Ulan Bator to Chicago, it sometimes seems as if everyone is trying to learn the language now spoken by a fifth of the world's population. Their reasoning is easy to understand. China is booming, and citizens around the globe want a piece of the action. Speaking Mandarin can facilitate communication with newly wealthy Chinese tourists or smooth bilateral trade relations. In a form of intense cultural diplomacy, Beijing is also promoting its films, music, art and language as never before. Front and center are the Confucius Institutes, modeled on the British Council, Germany's Goethe Institutes or the Alliance Francaise. China's Ministry of Education is sending thousands of language instructors to foreign programs and inviting foreign students from Asia, Africa and elsewhere to study in its universities. As a result, Beijing predicts that 100 million individuals will be studying Mandarin as a second language by the end of the decade. The U.S. Department of Education announced earlier this year that it hopes to have 5 percent of all elementary, secondary and college students enrolled in Mandarin studies by 2010. The Chinese boom hasn't escaped criticism, however. For one thing, the language is hard, with more than 2,500 characters generally employed in daily writing and a complex tonal speaking system. Then there's the danger that other important languages, such as Russian or Japanese, will be neglected; for example, there are now 10 times more students learning Mandarin than Japanese in the United States. And other countries fear a growing encroachment(侵蚀) of Chinese power; some Africans have complained about Beijing's "neocolonialist(新殖民主义)" attitudes, for example, and this could breed resentment against Confucius Institutes on their soil. Yet most Mandarin students, like those at St. Pat's, aren't letting such concerns dissuade them. Mandarin represents a new way of thinking. Chao says that" we must begin preparing our students for the interconnected world." Accordingly, she has encouraged her Mandarin students to correspond with pen pals in Shanghai. Chao says that" in reading the Chinese students' letters, we learned quickly that American students are far behind their Asian counterparts." If they hope to catch up to their Chinese competitors, her students--like the growing legions of Mandarin pupils around the globe -- are going to have to study hard indeed.

单选题The journalists (had to) stop (working) on the news (that) the president had suddenly (as soon as) they heard it.

单选题If the doctor had come earlier, the poor child would not ______.A. have laid there for two hoursB. have been lied there for two hoursC. have lied there for two hoursD. have lain there for two hours

单选题My calculation was wrong because I overlooked one tiny point.

单选题Failure to control the growth of international debt will also Uconstrain/U living standards.