单选题Your library has ______ books about computer science than ours. A. even more B. still one C. many more D. much more

单选题By the end of last year the railway ______.

单选题People joke that no one in Los Angeles reads; everyone watches TV, rents videos, or goes to the movies. The most popular reading material is comic books, movie magazines, and TV guides. City libraries have only 10 percent of the traffic that car washes have. But how do you explain this? An annual book festival in west Los Angeles is flourishing year after year. People wait haft an hour for a parking space to become available. This outdoor festival, sponsored by a newspaper, occurs every April for one weekend. This year's attendance was estimated at 70,000 on Saturday and 75,000 on Sunday. The festival consisted of 280 exhibitors. There were about 90 talks given by authors, with an audience question-and-answer period following each talk. Autograph(亲笔签名)seekers sought out more than 150 authors. A food court sold all kinds of popular food and diverse foreign foods, from American hamburgers to Hawaiian shave ice drinks. Except for a $ 7 parking fee, the festival was free. Even so, some people avoided the food court prices by staying away and having their own sandwiches and drinks. Passage Three People came from all over California. One couple drove down from San Francisco. "This is our sixth year here now. We love it, "said the husband. "It's just fantastic to be in the great outdoors, to be among so many books and authors, and to get some very good deals, too." The idea for the festival occurred years ago, but nobody knew if it would succeed. Although book festivals were already popular in other US cities, would Los Angeles residents welcome one? "The citizens of the city are very unpredictable, "said one of the festival founders.

单选题Professor Smith has already retired but his teachings still_____a strong influence on his students.

单选题City traffic jam—one of the least wanted effects of the motor vehicle—is something with which we're all familiar and for which most of us have an answer. But which solution is best? Some people suggest for better roads, others for cars to be banned (禁止) from city centers and yet others say better public transport would attract drivers from their lonely and boring journeys. But the important question is what natural power creates a big city center. We are, after all, in an age of electronic communication; our big shopping areas have moved out of city centers, and our living areas moved out of them long ago. Yet some force causes offices and service industries related to them to gather in London or New York or Tokyo. This suggests that far from the problems of a crowded environment forcing companies and people to move out, there is a critical (重大的) size beyond which more companies are attracted to move in. Nobody seems to know why, yet the answer is important to the way traffic jam is dealt with.

单选题The Charter had been ratified by a majority of the participants who were the ones that asked for its draft.

单选题 As NASA prepares to set twin robots loose on the Martian surface and makes plans to send another in 2007, the agency's long term goal is clear: determine whether the red planet does or ever did harbor life. But the current search for life is necessarily limited to life as we know it, organisms dependent on liquid water. A SPACE.com reader recently suggested that "We as humans are arrogant, simply believing that any other form of life will be just like us." Researchers devoted to the search for extraterrestrial (ET) have a similar view. "Scientists' approach to finding life is very Earth-centric," says Kenneth Nealson, a geobiologist at the University of Southern California. "Based on what we know about life on Earth, we set the limits for where we might look on other planets," Nealson said. Within that framework, however, there are extreme cases of life on Earth that suggest the range of places to look on frigid Mars. Nealson and his colleagues recently found the most extreme sort of organism in a salty liquid lake under the permafrost of Siberia. The organism, named cryopegella, can exist at colder temperatures than any previously discovered. Nealson's team figures that if the ice at the polar caps of Mars warmed to liquid water, organisms like cryopegella could have awakened and repaired any damage that might have occurred to their various cellular components. That does not mean there are necessarily dormant microbes within the ice caps of Mars. But it does suggest a broader range of potential cradles for life. Other researchers agree, and a host of so-called "extremophile" discoveries on Earth in recent years indicate the polar regions of Mars might be prime hunting grounds. As on Earth, organisms there might be slathered in natural antifreeze or be able to go dormant for tens of thousands of years, waiting for a brief thaw, their moment in the Sun. Meanwhile, scientists recognize that there could indeed be life elsewhere in the universe that does not require water. And some astrobiologists are trying to explore the possibilities. But it is a tough problem to approach. In looking for "life as we don't know it," it's hard to even imagine what to expect. Life might or might not exist on Mars. If there are critters there, they might or might not be like bacteria on Earth. In laboratory conditions, scientists in 2001 were able to get one-celled organisms to incorporate an amino acid—a fundamental building block of life—that no other known life uses. The discovery borders on the creation of artificial life, experts said. It also suggests that ET might operate by entirely different rules than those we're used to. If life on Mars is fundamentally different from what scientists understand life to be, then current spacecraft and others in the works may well not recognize what's right under their mechanical noses.

单选题The majority of people, about nine out of ten, are right-handed. (1) until recently, people who were left-handed were considered (2) , and once children showed this tendency they were forced to use their right hands. Today left-handedness is generally (3) , but it is still a disadvantage in a world (4) most people are right-handed. For example, most tools and implements are still (5) for right-handed people. In sports (6) contrast, doing things with the left hand or foot, .is often an advantage. Throwing, kicking, punching or batting from the" (7) "side may result in throwing (8) many opponents who are more accustomed to dealing with the (9) of players who are right-handed. This is why, in many (10) at a professional level, a (11) proportion of players are left-handed than in the population as a whole. The word "right" in many languages means "correct" or is (12) with lawfulness, whereas the words associated (13) "left", such as "sinister", generally have (14) associations. Moreover, among a number of primitive peoples, there is (15) close association between death and the left hand. In the past, in (16) western societies, children were often forced to use their right hands, especially to write with. In some cases the left hand was (17) behind the child's back so that it could not be used. If, in the future, they are allowed to choose, (18) will certainly be more left-handers, and probably (19) people with minor psychological disturbances as a result of being forced to use their (20) hand.

单选题When language is used to get information from others, it serves an informative function. (清华2001研)

单选题That Arctic sea ice is disappearing has been known for decades. The underlying cause is believed by all but a handful of climatologists to be global warming brought about by greenhouse-gas emissions. Yet the rate the ice is vanishing confuses these climatologists' models. These predict that if the level of carbon dioxide, methane and so on in the atmosphere continues to rise, then the Arctic Ocean will be free of floating summer ice by the end of the century. At current rates of shrinkage, by contrast, this looks likely to happen sometime between 2020 and 2050. The reason is that Arctic air is warming twice as fast as the atmosphere as a whole. Some of the causes of this are understood, but some are not. The darkness of land and water compared with the reflectiveness of snow and ice means that when the latter melt to reveal the former, the area exposed absorbs more heat from the sun and reflects less of it back into space. The result is a feedback loop that accelerates local warming. Such feedback, though, does not completely explain what is happening. Hence the search for other things that might assist the ice's rapid disappearance. One is physical change in the ice itself. Formerly a solid mass that melted and refroze at its edges, it is now thinner, more fractured, and so more liable to melt. But that is (literally and figuratively) a marginal effect. Filling the gap between model and reality may need something besides this. The latest candidates are "short-term climate forcings". These are pollutants, particularly ozone and soot (also called "black carbon") that do not hang around in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide does, but have to be renewed continually if they are to have a lasting effect. If they are so renewed, though, their impact may be as big as CO2's. Reducing soot would not stop the summer sea ice disappearing, but it might delay the process by a decade or two. According to a recent report by the United Nations Environment Program, reducing soot and ozone in the lower part of the atmosphere, especially in the Arctic countries of America, Canada, Russia and Scandinavia, could cut warming in the Arctic by two-thirds over the next three decades. Indeed, the report suggests, if such measures—preventing crop burning and forest fires, cleaning up diesel engines and wood stoves, and so on—were adopted everywhere they could halve the wider rate of wanning by 2050. The rapid melting of the Arctic sea ice, then, illuminates the difficulty of modeling the climate—but not in a way that brings much comfort to those who hope that fears about the future climate might prove exaggerated. When reality is changing faster than theory suggests it should, a certain amount of nervousness is a reasonable response.

单选题Student A: Would you like to go with me for a movie tonight? Student B: If I can finish my homework.Student A: ______

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Search engine Google was aiming to float on Wall Street this week, valued at up to $ 36 billion. But the Internet company's advisers are meeting this weekend to discuss possibly delaying the public listing after a sharp fall in share prices in New York on Friday. An insider said last night:' "The float is teetering on the brink -- it really is 50/50 at this stage, although many of us are optimistic." The initial public offering (IPO) of shares in Google, which could raise nearly $ 4bn, will amount to one of the biggest IPOs for years. But many US firms have shelved their IPOs amid volatile market conditions and investors appear unwilling to subscribe to new equity. A Wall Street analyst said that the Google IPO "would be a seminal event for the American stock market" as its real significance was that it would test whether or not the recovery in equity prices since the end of the Iraq war had taken hold. "If this float works, a lot of other companies will be encouraged and come to the market later in the year," the insider added. "But it will be bad news if the IPO is pulled or the shares fall sharply after the company is listed. If that happens, it could kill off the IPO market in America and elsewhere for at least 12 months." Several fund managers have already expressed reservations about Google, in particular its high valuation and the complex way the shares are being sold. Moreover, the Google flotation is taking place at a time when technology companies in the US have been shunned. On Thursday, the IPO hit a technical hitch over the failure of the company to meet its legal obligations concerning its employees' stock option plans. But the company did not think that the disclosure would mean a delay to the IPO, which is due on Tuesday. At the top of the suggested price range, Google would be valued not far short of its rival Internet firm Yahoo! -- and this has raised eyebrows within the industry. The auction is being conducted over the Internet, and potential buyers will have to register by signing on to a Google website. But only investors who have brokerage accounts with one of the 28 US banks and brokers underwriting the stock sale, will be able to apply. Google suffered a setback last month after it re- ported an unexpected slowdown in its huge growth rate. But sources close to Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, said that the tailing-off of growth was due to seasonal factors and would not affect the IPO.

单选题The door was ______ and I could not see who she was talking to. A. shut B. shutted C. shutting D. being shut

单选题From the living room and family auto to the supermarket and office, it"s impossible to escape the electronic revolution that is ______ the way people live and work.

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} There are 4 reading passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C, and D. You should decide on the best choice and mark your answer on the ANSWER SHEET by blackening the corresponding letter in the brackets.{{B}}Passage 1{{/B}} Despite their many differences of temperament and of literary perspective, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman share certain beliefs. Common to all these writers is their humanistic perspective. Its basic premises are that humans are the spiritual center of the universe and that in them alone is the clue to nature, history, and ultimately the cosmos itself. Without denying outright the existence either of a deity or of brute matter, this perspective nevertheless rejects them as exclusive principles of interpretation and prefers to explain humans and the world in terms of humanity itself. This preference is expressed most clearly in the transcendentalist principle that the structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self. Therefore, all knowledge begins with self-knowledge. This common perspective is almost always universalized. Its emphasis is not upon the individual as a particular European or American, but upon the human as universal, freed from the accidents of times, space, birth, and talent. Thus, for Emerson, the "American Scholar" turns out to be simply "Man Thinking". While, for Whitman, the "Song of Myself" merges imperceptibly into a song of all the "children of Adam" where "every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you". Also common to all the five writers is the belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization, which, in turn, depends upon the harmonious reconciliation of two universal psychological tendencies. First, the self-asserting impulse of the individual to withdraw, to remain unique and separate, and to be responsible only to himself or herself. Second, the self-transcending impulse of the individual to embrace the whole world in the experience of a single moment and to know and become one with that world. These conflicting impulses can be seen in the democratic ethic. Democracy advocates individualism, the preservation of the individual's freedom and self-expression. But the democratic self is torn between the duty to self, which is implied by the concept of liberty, and the duty to society, which is implied by the concepts of equality and fraternity. A third assumption common to the five writers is that intuition and imagination offer a surer road to truth than does abstract logic or scientific method. It is illustrated by their emphasis upon introspection——their belief that the clue to external nature is to be found in the inner world of individual psychology——and by their interpretation of experience as, in essence, symbolic. Both these stresses presume an organic relationship between the self and the cosmos of which only intuition and imagination can properly take account. These writers' faith in the imagination and in themselves as practitioners of imagination led them to conceive of the writer as a seer and enabled them to achieve supreme confidence in their own moral and metaphysical insights.

单选题When I was about 12 1 had an enemy, a girl who liked to point out my shortcomings. Week by week her list grew: I was skinny, I wasn't a good student, I was boyish, I talked too loud, and so on. I put up with her as long as I could. At last, with great anger, I ran to my father in tears. He listened to my outburst quietly. Then he asked, "Are the things she says true or not?" True? I wanted to know how to strike back. What did truth have to do with it? "Mary, didn't you ever wonder what you are really like? Well, you now have that girl's opinion. Go and make a list of everything she said and mark the points that are true. Pay no attention to the other things she said." I did as he directed and discovered to my surprise that about half the things were true. Some of them I couldn't change (like being skinny), but a good number I could and suddenly wanted to change. For the first time in my life I got a fairly clear picture of myself. I brought the list back to Daddy. He refused to take it. "That's just for you," he said. "You know better than anybody else the truth about yourself, once you hear it. But you've got to learn to listen, not to close your ears in anger or hurt. When something said about you is true you'll know it. You'll find that it will echo inside you." Daddy's advice has returned to me at many important moments.

单选题For an infant just beginning to interact with the surrounding world, it is imperative that he quickly become proficient in his native language. While developing a vocabulary and the ability to communicate using it are obviously important steps in this process, an infant must first be able to learn from the various streams of audible communication around him. To that end, during the course of even the first few months of development, an infant will begin to absorb the rhythmic patterns and sequences of sounds that characterize his language, and will begin to differentiate between the meanings of various pitch and stress changes. However, it is important to recognize that such learning does not take place in a vacuum. Infants must confront these language acquisition challenges in an environment where, quite frequently, several streams of communication or noise are occurring simultaneously. In other words, infants must not only learn how to segment individual speech streams into their component words, but they must also be able to distinguish between concurrent streams of sound. Consider, for example, an infant being spoken to by his mother. Before he can leam from the slight differences of his mother"s speech, he must first separate that speech from the sounds of the dishwasher, the family dog, the bus stopping on the street outside, and, quite possibly, background noise in the form of speech; a newscaster on the television down the hall or siblings playing in an adjacent room. How exactly do infants wade through such a murky conglomeration of audible stimuli? While most infants are capable of separating out two different voices despite the presence of additional, competing streams of sound, this capability is predicated upon several specific conditions. First, infants are better able to learn from a particular speech stream when that voice is louder than any of. the competing streams of background speech; when two voices are of equal amplitude, infants typically demonstrate little preference towards one stream or the other. Most likely, equally loud competing voice streams, for the infant, become combined into a single stream that necessarily contains unfamiliar patterns and sounds that can quite easily induce confusion. Secondly, an infant is more likely to attend to a particular voice stream if it is perceived as more familiar than another stream. When an infant, for example, is presented with a voice stream spoken by his mother and a background stream delivered by an unfamiliar voice, usually he can easily separate out her voice from the distraction of the background stream. By using these simple yet important cues an infant can become quite adept at concentrating on a single stream of communication and, therefore, capable of more quickly learning the invaluable characteristics and rules of his native language.

单选题Traditionally, the study of history has had fixed boundaries and focal points—periods, countries, dramatic events, and great leaders. It also has had clear and firm notions of scholarly procedure; how one inquires into a historical problem, how one presents and documents one's findings, what constitutes admissible and adequate proof. Anyone who has followed recent historical literature can testify to the revolution that is taking place in historical studies. The currently fashionable subjects come directly from the sociology catalog: childhood, work, leisure. The new subjects are accompanied by new methods. Where history once was primarily narrative, it is now entirely analytic. The old questions "What happened?" and "How did it happen?" have given way to the question "Why did it happen?" Prominent among the methods used to answer the question "Why" is psychoanalysis, and its use has given rise to psychohistory. Psychohistory does not merely use psychological explanations in historical contexts. Historians have always used such explanations when they were appropriate and when there was sufficient evidence for them. But this pragmatic use of psychology is not what psychohistorians intend. They are committed, not just to psychology in general, but to Freudian psychoanalysis. This commitment precludes a commitment to history as historians have always understood it. Psychohistory derives its "facts" not from history, the detailed records of events and their consequences, but from psychoanalysis of the individuals who made history, and deduces its theories not from this or that instance in their lives, but from a view of human nature that transcends history. It denies the basic criterion of historical evidence; that evidence be publicly accessible to, and therefore assessable by, all historians. And it violates the basic tenet of historical method: that historians be alert to the negative instances that would refute their theses. Psychohistorians, convinced of the absolute lightness of their own theories, are also convinced that theirs is the "deepest" explanation of any event, that other explanations fall short of the truth. Psychohistory is not content to violate the discipline of history(in the sense of the proper mode of studying and writing about the past); it also violates the past itself. It denies to the past an integrity and will of its own, in which people acted out of a variety of motives and in which events had a multiplicity of causes and effects. It imposes upon the past the same determinism that it imposes upon the present, thus robbing people and events of their individuality and of their complexity. Instead of respecting the particularity of the past, it assimilates all events, past and present, into a single deterministic schema that is presumed to be true at all times and in all circumstances.