单选题{{B}}Passage 4{{/B}} The crucial years of the Depression, as they are brought into historical focus, increasingly emerge as the decisive decade for American art, if not for American culture in general. For it was during this decade that many of the conflicts which had blocked the progress of American art in the past came to a head and sometimes boiled over. Janus-faced, the thirties look backward, sometimes as far as the Renaissance; and at the same time forward, as far as the present and beyond. It was the moment when artists, like Thomas Hart Benton, who wished to turn back the clock to regain the virtues of simpler times came into direct conflict with others, like Stuart Davis and Frank Lloyd Wright, who were ready to come to terms with the Machine Age and to deal with its consequences. America in the thirties was changing rapidly. In many areas the past was giving way to the present, although not without a struggle. A Predominantly rural and small town society was being replaced by the giant complexes of the big cities; power was becoming increasingly centralized in the federal government and in large corporations. Many Americans, deeply attached to the old way of life, felt disinherited. At the same time, as immigration decreased and the population became more homogeneous, the need arose in art arid literature to commemorate the ethnic and regional differences that were fast disappearing. Thus, paradoxically, the conviction that art, at least, should serve some purpose or carry some message of moral uplift grew stronger as the Puritan ethos lost its contemporary reality. Often this elevating message was a sermon in favor of just those traditional American virtues, which were now threatened with obsolescence in a changed social and political context. In this new context, the appeal of the paintings by the regionalists and the American Scene painters often lay in their ability to recreate an atmosphere that glorified the traditional American values-self-reliance tempered with good-neighborliness, independence modified by a sense of community, hard work rewarded by a sense of order and purpose. Given the actual temper of the times, these themes were strangely anachronistic, just as the rhetoric supporting political isolationism was equally inappropriate in an international situation soon to involve America in a second world war. Such themes gained popularity because they filled a genome need for a comfortable collective fantasy of a God-fearing, white-picketfence America, which in retrospect took on the nostalgic appeal of a lost Golden Age. In this light, an autonomous art-for-art's sake was viewed as a foreign invader liable to subvert the native American desire for a purposeful art. Abstract art was assigned the role of the villainous alien; realism was to personify the genuine American means of expression. The arguments drew favor in many camps: among the artists, because most were realists; among the politically oriented intellectuals, because abstract art was apolitical; and among museum officials, because they were surfeited with mediocre imitations of European modernism and were convinced that American art must develop its own distinct identity. To help along this road to self-definition, the museums were prepared to set up an artificial double standard, one for American art, and another for European art. In 1934, Ralph Flint wrote in Art News, "We have today in our midst a greater array of what may be called second-, third-, and fourth string artists than any other country. Our big annuals are marvelous outpourings of intelligence and skill; they have all the diversity and animation of a fine-ring circus."

单选题I let my children make their own decisions. Now they are older; I wouldn't ______ to interfere.

单选题It can be inferred from the passage that the advertisers' attitude is usually based on the hope that customers

单选题For years, doctors advised their patients that the only thing taking multivitamins does is give them extensive urine(尿). After all, true vitamin deficiencies are practically unheard of in industrialized countries. Now it seems that those doctors may have been wrong. The results of a growing number of studies suggest that even a modest vitamin shortfall can be harmful to your health. Although proof of the benefits of multivitamins is still far from certain, the few dollars you spend on them is probably a good investment. Or at least that's the argument put forward in the New England Journal of Medicine. Ideally, said Dr. Walter Willett and Dr. Meir Stampfer of Harvard, all vitamin supplements would be evaluated in scientifically rigorous clinical trials. But those studies can take a long time and often raise more questions than they answer. At some point, while researchers work on figuring out where the truth lies, it just makes sense to say the potential benefit outweighs the cost. The best evidence to date concerns folate(叶酸), one of the B vitamins. It's been proved to limit the number of defects in embryos(胚胎), and a recent trial found that folate in combination with vitamin B12 and a form of B6 also decreases the re-blockage of arteries after surgical repair. The news on vitamin E has been more mixed. Healthy folks who take 400 international units daily for at least two years appear somewhat less likely to develop heart disease. But when doctors give vitamin E to patients who already have heart disease, the vitamin doesn't seem to help. It may turn out that vitamin E plays a role in prevention but cannot undo serious damage. Despite vitamin C's great popularity, consuming large amounts of it still has not been positively linked to any great benefit. The body quickly becomes saturated with C and simply excretes(排泄)any excess. The multivitamins question boils down to this: Do you need to wait until all the evidence is in before you take them, or are you willing to accept that there's enough evidence that they don't hurt and could help? If the latter, there's no need to go to extremes and buy the biggest horse pills or the most expensive bottles. Large doses can cause trouble, including excessive bleeding and nervous system problems. Multivitamins are no substitute for exercise and a balanced diet, of course. As long as you understand that any potential benefit is modest and subject to further refinement, taking a daily multivitamin makes a lot of sense.

单选题During the winter, most London auctioneers have wine auctions (拍卖). Same are of wines for everyday (21) , but most are of fine wines. Last winter, at Christies, a dozen bottles of Lafite 1945 were (22) down at ￡ 158 the bottle. 1945 and 1961 are the two most vintage (23) for claret(红葡萄酒). Of course, that is not the maximum you could pay. Not (24) ago, an American at Christies (25) ￡ 8,500 for one bottle of Lafite 1806. Sometimes, it is a matter of (26) objective. Last October, a restaurateur from Memphis, paid ￡ 9,000 for a magnum-that is, a two-bottle size - of 1864 Lafite. He (27) 30 people $ 1,500 each for a dinner with a small glass of the wine. It was (28) ten times the cost of the wine in publicity for his restaurant. Of course, some people buy wine purely for investment. A syndicate of four will buy a (29) of Lafite 1945 at, say, ￡ 2,000. Each takes three bottles. Then each drinks (30) bottle, and keeps the other two to sell later at the (31) price as the three cost in the first place. That is, naturally, taking inflation into (32) . But there is no (33) that a bottle of wine at ￡ 1,000 is a hundred times (34) than one that costs ￡ 10. Perhaps the top price you can pay for wine to enjoy for drinking is ￡ 100 a bottle. Above ￡ 100, you are paying for something (35) than taste.

单选题{{B}}Passage Five{{/B}} International ocean shipping constitutes a highly significant aspect of world economic and political relationships. The rapid growth in world trade and the emergence of new national entities in the last 30 years have further emphasized the role of international shipping. Because of the generally free environment in which it has operated, the industry is highly mobile and flexible—characteristics that, together with technological progress, have facilitated the rapid growth in world trade. In recent years, however, there have been several technological and institutional developments that are likely to have major efforts on the industry. One of the latter is the aggregation of conventions and practices known as the Law of the Sea, which has been discussed in the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea since 1958. The third UNCLOS began in 1974 and concluded when a treaty was issued on April 30, 1982. The treaty will enter in force when 60 nations have ratified it. How soon that will happen is, of course, not possible to say. What can be said is that a new legal structure governing the oceans appears to be evolving, with traditional principles giving way to new concepts. Since the environment in which an industry operates determines its structure and mode of operations, international shipping has been molded by the conventional principles governing the use of the oceans as highways and will be affected by shifts in the international climate and changes in the Law of Sea. Ocean shipping, as we know it today, has developed under the concepts of "freedom of the seas" and limited territorial waters with the rights of "innocent passage." Clearly, a new Law of the Sea derived from a reinterpretation of these concepts will significantly change the atmosphere in which the shipping industry operates and, accordingly, dictate revised policies and practices for both industry and public authorities. Minimally, ship operations must consider changes in the definitions of what constitutes the high seas. They must consider the corresponding changes in the jurisdiction of shipping lanes and coastal and open waters; compliance with rules for environmental protection; and vessel traffic controls in some areas. (355w)

单选题A: I'm dreadfully sorry, but I've burned a hole in the rug. B: ______

单选题______ is permanently stored in the computer and provides a link between the hardware and other programs that run on the PC. A．Interface B．Operating system C．Internet D．Application software

单选题Most of parents fell embarrassed when their children graduate from high school because they can't ______.

单选题What will be expected for a business manager?

单选题The young engineer was quite excited when he ______ the experts in this complicated project.

单选题Data are transferred between main memory and the disk surface by ______ at a time. A．track B．cylinder C．sector D．word

单选题The new laws threaten to ______ many people of the most elementary freedom.

单选题Harry Porter is said______into dozens of languages in the last few years.

单选题Think of the ocean on a calm day. Ignoring the rise and fall of the waves, you might imagine the surface was dead flat the whole way across. You'd be wrong. Hills and valleys are as much as a feature of the sea as the land, although on a much smaller scale. These undulations have a variety of causes. Tides, currents, eddies, winds, river flow and changes in salinity and temperature push the sea level up in some places and down in others by as much as 2 meters. Ever tried swimming uphill? How do we map these oceanic hills and valleys? First, we need to know what the planet would look like without them. This is where the geoid (大地水准面) comes in. It is a surface where the Earth's gravitational potential is equal and which best fits the global mean sea level. It is approximately an ellipsoid, though uneven distribution of mass within the Earth means that it can vary from this ideal by up to 150 meters. The geoid represents the shape the sea surface would be if the oceans were net moving and affected only by gravity. Thus it can be used as a reference to measure any deviations in the ocean surface height that aren't caused by gravity—the hills and valleys, for instance, or any regional increase in sea level. So how do you measure the geoid and the ocean's irregular topography? It's complicated. Geophysicists calculate the geoid using data on variation in gravitational acceleration from several dozen satellites. The hills and valleys of the oceans are all very interesting, but can the geoid tell us anything more significant about the state of the planet? It certainly can. Knowing accurately where the geoid lies and how the Ocean surface deviates from it will help meteorologists spot changes in Ocean currents associated with climate change. The circumpolar current around Antarctic is one they are particularly interested in. It can also predict local climate variations produced by events such as El Nino, El Nino keeps warm water that would normally move westwards close to the coast of South America, deprives Southeast Asia of its monsoon rains, and increases rainfall on the west coast of the Ametlca. Since temperature changes cause changes in sea level, geoid-watchers should be able to prepare us before it strikes.

单选题______ of them knew anything about the plan because it was a closely-guarded secret.

单选题In the post Cold War world few articles have influenced how Western policymakers view the world more than Samuel Huntington's 1993 article, "The Clash of Civilizations. " Suggesting that the world was returning to a civilization dominated world where future conflicts would originate from clashes between " civilizations" , the theory has been broadly criticized for oversimplification, ignoring local conflicts and for incorrectly predicting what has happened in the decade since its publication. The claim made by many that September the 11th has vindicated Huntington is simply not supported by the evidence. Huntington's thesis outlines a future where the " great divisions among 9 humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. " He divides the world's cultures into seven current civilizations, Western, Latin American, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu and Slavic-Orthodox. In addition he judged Africa only as a possible civilization depending on how far one viewed the development of an African consciousness had developed. These civilizations seem to be defined primarily by religion with a number of ad hoc exceptions. Huntington predicts conflict occurring between states from different civilizations for control of international institutions and for economic and military power. He views this mix of conflict as normal by asserting that nation-states are a new phenomenon in a world dominated for most of its history by conflicts between civilizations. This is a dubious statement as inter-civilizational conflict driven mainly by geo-political factors rather than cultural differences is an equally if not more persuasive way to view much of history. The theory at least differentiates between non-Western civilizations rather than grouping them together. He also explains how the West presents pro-Western policies as positive for the entire world and that the very idea of a universal culture is a Western idea. However, his escape from a Eurocentric bias is only temporary. He completely fails to account for local cultures even though one can argue they collectively comprise a separate civilization. The article also predicts future conflicts will be started by non-Western civilizations reacting to Western power and values ignoring the equally plausible situation where Western states use their military superiority to maintain their superior positions. The policy prescriptions he suggests to counter this perceived threat equate to increasing the power of the West to forestall any loss of the West's pre-eminence. Thus he suggests the Latin American and Orthodox-Slavic civilizations be drawn further into the Western orbit and the maintenance of Western military superiority.

单选题An unidentified wit once said, "laugh, and the world laughs with you. Snore, and you sleep alone." Yet snoring is far from a laughing matter, as those unfortunates with good hearing, who are rightly subjected to the sounds of the snoring disorder, will testify. It has been estimated that one of eight Americans snores: this means that there are approximately 21 million people—women as well as men—who render an unpleasant sound when they are asleep. And assuming that each snorer disturbs the sleep of at least one other person, it necessarily follows that there are 21 million unhappy listeners. While a sleeping person breathes, either in or out, several structures in his nose and throat generate the snoring. The sounds, coming from the soft palate and other soft structures of the throat, are caused by vibratory responses to inflowing and outflowing air. When the soft tissues of the mouth and throat come close to the lining of the throat, the vibrations that occur are caused by the position of the tongue. In short, the noise made by snoring can be compared to the noise when breezes flutter a flag on a pole. The frequency of the vibrations depends on the size, density, and elasticity of the affected tissues and on the force of the air flow. Although it is usually the process of in haling or exhaling through the mouth that cause snoring, short snores come from the nose of an open-mouthed sleeper. In all fairness to snorers, however, it should be emphasized that snoring is an involuntary out which stops as the offender is awakened.