单选题Tom ran from the house in a terrible rage, his arms ______ in the air. A. overriding B. flailing C. overacting D. forsaking

单选题Man: Have you finished reading the book you bought last month? Woman: Oh, I didn"t read it straight through the way you read a novel. I just cover the few chapters that interested me most. Question: How did the woman read the book?

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} The global reputation of Japan's animation industry -- an animated cartoon industry -- has never been higher, and at first glance it would appear to be in rude health. In the opening weekend of Miyazaki's new film, Howl's Moving Castle, a record 1.1 million Japanese crammed into cinemas nationwide. It has since been seen at home by nearly 10 million people, and has made Japan the only country in which The Incredibles has been kept out of the top slot. Yet Japan's animators are full of gloom. They fear that the future is bleak and that the success enjoyed by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, which makes his films, is actually masking a sad decline. Indus- try experts say that not only is there a lack of creative talent on a par with Miyazaki, but the overall standard of animators has fallen over the past decade as low pay and poor working conditions force many to quit. "Miyazaki can't be replaced, he's a one-off," says Jonathan Clements, a British animation expert, "Miyazaki isn't 100 per cent of Ghibli, but when he goes, the party is over." The creative and commercial success enjoyed by Ghibli has afforded it a unique breathing space. For other studios, however, commercial pressures force work to be done at breakneck speed and on shoestring budgets. Veterans of the industry say quality has been sacrificed as television cartoon episodes are 'made for as little as ￡ 10,000. Many young animators rely on parental support to put them through animation schools and continue to need financial help just to afford to work in Tokyo, the world's most expensive city. Yet, remarkably, animation has little problem attracting recruits. Dozens of students pore over desks painstakingly producing page after page of drawings. Most say they are aware that pay is low but desperately want to work in the industry they fell in love with as children through cartoons such as Doraemon, the blue talking cat, and Battle of the Planets. But reality often bites as animators reach their thirties, by which time they typically earn around a third of the average pay for Japanese their age and at lower hourly rates than supermarket clerks. Clements believes that the soul of animation is at stake. "Animation is, by definition, from Japan, but it's only a matter of time before the number of foreign contributors tips the balance, and what used to be animation becomes plain old cartoons," he says. "It may ultimately remove much of what makes animation appeal to its current foreign audience base: its exoticism."

单选题______ fun and good exercise, car racing is a very useful skill. A. For B. About C. Besides D. Beside

单选题{{B}}Passage Four{{/B}} The study of philosophies should make our own ideas flexible. We are all of us apt to take certain general ideas for granted, and call them common sense. We should learn that other people have held quite different ideas, and that our own have started as very original guesses of philosophers. A scientist is apt to think that all the problems of philosophy will ultimately be solved by science. I think this is true for a great many of the questions on which philosophers still argue. For example, Plato thought that when we saw something, one ray of light came to it from the sun, and another from our eyes and that seeing was something like feeling with a stick. We now know that the light comes from the sun, and is reflected into our eyes. We don't know in much detail how the changes in our eyes give rise to sensation. But there is every reason to think that as we learn more about the physiology of the brain, we shall do so, and that the great philosophical problems about knowledge are going to be pretty fully cleared up. But if our descendants know the answers to these questions and others that perplex us today, there will still be one field of which they do not know, namely the future. However exact our science; we cannot know it as we know the past. Philosophy may be described as argument about things of which we are ignorant. And where science gives us a hope of knowledge it is often reasonable to suspend judgment. That is one reason why Marx and Engels quite rightly wrote to many philosophical problems that interested their contemporaries. But we have got to prepare for the future, and we cannot do so rationally without some philosophy. Some people say we have only got to do the duties revealed in the past and laid down by religion, and god will look after the future. Others say that the world is a machine and the course of future events is certain, whatever efforts we may make. Marxists say that the future depends on ourselves, even though we are part of the historical process. This philosophical view certainly does inspire people to wry great achievements. Whether it is true or not, it is powerful guide to action. We need a philosophy, then, to help us to tackle the future. Agnosticism easily becomes an excuse for laziness and conservatism. Whether we adopt Marxism or any other philosophy, we cannot understand it without knowing something of how it developed. That is why knowledge of the history of philosophy is important to Marxists, even during the present critical days.

单选题 "You are not here to tell me what to do. You are here to tell me why I have done what I have already decided to do," Montagu Norman, the Bank of England's longest-serving governor (1920-1944), is reputed to have once told his economic adviser. Today, thankfully, central banks aim to be more transparent in their decision making, as well as more rational. But achieving either of these things is not always easy. With the most laudable of intentions, the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, may be about to take a step that could backfire. Unlike the Fed, many other central banks have long declared explicit inflation targets and then set interest rates to try to meet these. Some economists have argued that the Fed should do the same. With Alan Greenspan, the Fed's much-respected chairman, due to retire next year-after a mere 18 years in the job-some Fed officials want to adopt a target, presumably to maintain the central bank's credibility in the scary new post-Greenspan era. The Fed discussed such a target at its February meeting, according to minutes published this week. This sounds encouraging. However, the Fed is considering the idea just when some other central banks are beginning to question whether strict inflation targeting really works. At present centra1 banks focus almost exclusively on consumer-price indices. On this measure Mr. Greenspan can boast that inflation remains under control. But some central bankers now argue that the prices of assets, such as houses and shares, should also somehow be taken into account. A broad price index for America which includes house prices is currently running at 5.5%, its fastest pace since 1982. Inflation has simply taken a different form. Should central banks also try to curb increases in such asset prices? Mr. Greenspan continues to insist that monetary policy should not be used to prick asset-price bubbles. Identifying bubbles is difficult, except in retrospect, he says, and interest rates are a blunt weapon: an increase big enough to halt rising prices could trigger a recession. It is better, he says, to wait for a housing or stockmarket bubble to burst and then to cushion the economy by cutting interest rates-as he did in 2001-2002. And yet the risk is not just that asset prices can go swiftly into reverse. As with traditional inflation, surging asset prices also distort price signals and so can cause a misallocation of resources-encouraging too little saving, for example, or too much investment in housing. Surging house prices may therefore argue for higher interest rates than conventional inflation would demand. In other words, strict inflation targeting-the fad of the 1990s-is too crude.

单选题John continued to {{U}}defy{{/U}} his boss.

单选题Instead of answering, she merely smiled. Which of the following can best explain the meaning of the underlined word?A. onlyB. barelyC. almostD. scarecely

单选题In recent years, railroads have been combining with each other, merging into super systems, causing heightened concerns about monopoly. As recently as 1995, the top four railroads accounted for under 70 percent of the total ton-miles moved by rails. Next year, after a series of mergers is completed, just four railroads will control well over 90 percent of all the freight moved by major rail carriers. Supporters of the new super systems argue that these mergers will allow for substantial cost reductions and better coordinated service. Any threat of monopoly, they argue, is removed by fierce competition from trucks. But many shippers complain that for heavy bulk commodities traveling long distances, such as coal, chemicals, and grain, trucking is too costly and the railroads therefore have them by the throat. The vast consolidation within the rail industry means that most shippers are served by only one rail company. Railroads typically charge such "captive" shippers 20 to 30 percent more than they do when another railroad is competing for the business. Shippers who feel they are being overcharged have the right to appeal to the federal government's Surface Transportation Board for rate relief, but the process is expensive, time consuming, and will work only in truly extreme cases. Railroads justify rate discrimination against captive shippers on the grounds that in the long run it reduces everyone's cost. If railroads charged all customers the same average rate, they argue, shippers who have the option of switching to trucks or other forms of transportation would do so, leaving remaining customers to shoulder the cost of keeping up the line. It's theory to which many economists subscribe, but in practice it often leaves railroads in the position of determining which companies will flourish and which will fail. "Do we really want railroads to be the arbiters of who wins and who loses in the marketplace?" asks Martin Bercovici, a Washington lawyer who frequently represents shipper. Many captive shippers also worry they will soon be hit with a round of huge rate increases. The railroad industry as a whole, despite its brightening fortunes, still does not earn enough to cover the cost of the capital it must invest to keep up with its surging traffic. Yet railroads continue to borrow billions to acquire one another, with Wall Street cheering them on. Consider the 1.02 billion bid by Norfolk Southern and CSX to acquire Conrail this year. Conrail's net railway operating income in 1996 was just 427 million, less than half of the carrying costs of the transaction. Who's going to pay for the rest of the bill? Many captive shippers fear that they will, as Norfolk Southern and CSX increase their grip on the market.

单选题 Children model themselves largely on their parents. They do so mainly through identification. Children identify{{U}} (56) {{/U}}a parent when they believe they have the qualities and feelings that are{{U}} (57) {{/U}}of that parent. The things parents do and say--and the{{U}} (58) {{/U}}they do and say to them-- strongly influence a child's{{U}} (59) {{/U}}. A parent's actions{{U}} (60) {{/U}}affect the self image that a child forms{{U}} (61) {{/U}}identification. Children who see mainly positive qualities in their{{U}} (62) {{/U}}will likely learn to see themselves in a positive way. Children who observe chiefly{{U}} (63) {{/U}}qualities in their parents will have difficulty{{U}} (64) {{/U}}positive qualities in themselves. Children may{{U}} (65) {{/U}}their self image, however, as they become increasingly{{U}} (66) {{/U}}by peer groups: In the case of a dramatic change in family relations, the{{U}} (67) {{/U}}of an activity or experience depends on how the child interprets it. Children interpret such events according to their established attitudes and previous training. Children who know they are loved can, {{U}}(68) {{/U}}, accept the divorce of their parents or a parent's early{{U}} (69) {{/U}}. But if children feel unloved, they may interpret such events{{U}} (70) {{/U}}a sign of rejection or punishment.

单选题3 Psychologist George Spilich and colleagues at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, decided to find out whether, as many smokers say, smoking helps them to "think and concentrate. " Spilich put young non-smokers, active smokers and smokers de prived (被剥夺) of cigarettes through a series of tests. In the first test, each subject (实验对象) sat before a computer screen and pressed a key as soon as he or she recognized a target letter among a grouping of 96. In this simple test, smokers, deprived smokers and nonsmokers performed equally well. The next test was more complex, requiring all to scan sequences of 20 identical letters and respond the instant one of the letters was transformed into a different one. Non-smok ers were faster, but under the stimulation of nicotine (尼古丁), active smokers were fas ter than deprived smokers. In the third test of short-term memory, non-smokers made the fewest errors, but de prived smokers committed fewer errors than active smokers. The fourth test required people to read a passage, then answer questions about it. Non-smokers remembered 19 percent more of the most important information than active smokers, and deprived smokers bested those who had smoked a cigarette just before testing. Active smokers tended not only to have poorer memories but also had trouble separating important information from insignificant details. "As our tests became more complex," sums up Spilich, "non-smokers performed bet ter than smokers by wider and wider margins. " He predicts, "smokers might perform ad equately at many jobs until they got complicated. A smoking airline pilot could fly ade quately if no problems arose, but if something went wrong, smoking might damage his mental capacity. /

单选题Text 1 New technology links the world as never before. Our planet has shrunk. It's now a "global village" where countries are only seconds away by fax or phone or satellite link. And, of course, our ability to benefit from this high-tech communications equipment is greatly enhanced by foreign language skills. Deeply involved with this new technology is a breed of modern business people who have a growing respect for the economic value of doing business abroad. In modem markets, success overseas often helps support domestic business efforts. Overseas assignments are becoming increasingly important to advancement within executive ranks. The executive stationed in another country no longer need fear being "out of sight and out of mind". He or she can be sure that the overseas effort is central to the company's plan for success, and that promotions often follow or accompany an assignment abroad. If an employee can succeed in a difficult assignment overseas, superiors will have greater confidence in his or her ability to cope back in the United States where cross-cultural considerations and foreign language issues are becoming more and more prevalent. Thanks to a variety of relatively inexpensive communications devices with business applications, even small businesses in the United States are able to get into international markets. English is still the international language of business. But there is all ever-growing need for people who can speak another language. A second language isn't generally required to get a job in business, but having language skills gives a candidate the edge when other qualifications appear to be equal. The employee posted abroad who speaks the country's principal language has an opportunity to fast-forward certain negotiations, and can have the cultural insight to know when it is better to move more slowly. The employee at the home office who can communicate well with foreign clients over the telephone or by fax machine is an obvious asset to the firm.

单选题The producers of instant coffee found their product strongly resisted in the market places despite their manifest advantages. Furthermore, the advertising expenditure for instant coffee was far greater than that for regular coffee. Efforts were made to find the cause of the consumers" seemingly unreasonable resistance to the product. The reason given by most people was dislike for the taste. The producers suspected that there might be deeper reasons, however. This was confirmed by one of motivation research"s classic studies, one often cited in the trade. Mason Haire, of the University of California, constructed two shopping lists that were identical except for one item. There were six items common to both lists: hamburger, carrots, baking powder, bread, canned peaches and potatoes, with the brands or amounts specified. The seventh item, in the fifth place on both lists, read "I lb. Maxwell House coffee" on one list and "Nescafe instant coffee" on the other. One list was given to each person in a group of fifty women, and the other list to those in another group of the same size. The women were asked to study their lists and then to describe, as far as they could, the kind of woman ("personality and character") who would draw up that shopping list. Nearly half of those who had received the list including instant coffee described a housewife who was lazy and a poor planner. On the other hand, only one woman in the other group described the housewife, who had included regular coffee on her list, as lazy, only six of that group suggested that she was a poor planner. Eight women felt that the instant-coffee user was probably not a good wife! No one in the other group drew such a conclusion about the housewife who intended to buy regular coffee.

单选题I prefer ______ a term paper ______ an examination.

单选题The development of the English language falls into three reasonably ______periods: Old English, Middle English, and Modern English.

单选题All the following expenses are included in the term bill EXCEPT ______.

单选题The police ______ outside the hall in large numbers. A．have stationed B．were stationed C．stationed D．has been stationed

单选题The new teacher was ______ to the needs of all the children in her care. A. attentive C. earnest C. careful D. observant