单选题While still in its early stages, welfare reform has already been judged a great success m many states at least in getting people off welfare. It's estimated that more than 2 million people have left the rolls since 1994. In the past four years, welfare rolls in Athens County have been cut in half. But 70 percent of the people who left in the past two years took jobs that paid less than $ 6 an hour. The result: The Athens County poverty rate still remains at more than 30 percent— twice the national average. For advocates (代言人) for the poor, that's an indication much more needs to be done. "More people are getting jobs, but it's not making their lives any better," says Kathy Lain, a policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington. A center analysis of US Census data nationwide found that between 1995 and 1996, a greater percentage of single, female headed households were earning money on their own, but that average income for these households actually went down. But for many, the fact that poor people are able to support themselves almost as well without government aid as they did with it is in itself a huge victory. "Welfare was a poison. It was a toxin(毒素) that was poisoning the family," says Robert Rector, a welfare reform policy analyst. "The reform is changing the moral climate in low-income communities. It's beginning to rebuild the work ethic (道德观), which is much more important. " Mr. Rector and others argued that once "the habit of dependency is cracked", then the country can make other policy changes aimed at improving living standards.

单选题 Every morning, kids from a local high school are working hard. They are making and selling special coffee at a coffee cafe. They are also making a lot of money. These students can make up to twelve hundred dollars a day. They are selling their special coffee to airplane passengers. After the students get paid, the rest of the money goes to helping a local youth project. These high school students use a space in the Oakland airport. It is usually very crowded. Many people who fly on the planes like to drink the special coffee. One customer thinks that the coffee costs a lot but it is good and worth it. Most customers are pleasant but some are unhappy. They do not like it if the cafe is not open for business. The students earn $6.10 an hour plus tips. They also get school credit whiel they learn how to run a business. Many of the students enjoy the work although it took some time to learn how to do it. They have to learn how to steam milk, load the pots, and add flavor. It takes some skill and sometimes mistakes are made. The most common mistake is forgetting to add the coffee.

单选题You ______ all those clothes by hand! You have a washing-machine to that kind of thing. A. mustn't have washed B. cannot have washed C. needn't have washed D. shouldn't wash

单选题He tries to______himself with everyone by paying them compliments.

单选题Prices determine how resources are to be used. They are also the means by which products and services that are in limited supply are rationed among buyers. The price system of the United States is a very complex network composed of the prices of all the products bought and sold in the economy as well as those of a myriad of services, including labor, professional, transportation, and public-utility services. The interrelationships of all these prices make up the "system" of prices. The price of any particular product or service is linked to a broad, complicated system of prices in which everything seems to depend more or less upon everything else. If one were to ask a group of randomly selected individuals to define "price", many would reply that price is an amount of money paid by the buyer to the seller of a product or service or, in other words, that price is the money value of a product or service as agreed upon in a market transaction. This definition is, of course, valid as far as it goes. For a complete understanding of a price in any particular transaction, much more than the amount of money involved must be known. Both the buyer anti the seller should be familiar with not only the money amount, but with the amount and quality of the product or service to be exchanged, the time and place at which the exchange will take place and payment will be made, the form of money to be used, the credit terms and discounts that apply to the transaction, guarantees on the product or service, delivery terms, return privileges, and other factors. In other words, both buyer and seller should be fully aware of all the factors that comprise the total "package" being exchanged for the asked-for amount of money in order that they may evaluate a given price.

单选题Someone has calculated that by the time an American reaches the age of 40, he or she has been exposed to one million ads. Another estimate is that we have encountered more than 600, 000 ads by the time we reach the age of only 18. Now, of course, we don't remember what exactly they said or even what the product was, but a composite message gets through: that you deserve the best, that you should have it now, and that it's okay to indulge yourself, because you deserve the compliments, sex appeal, or adventure you are going to get as a result of buying this car or those cigarettes. Our consumer-based economy makes two absolutely reciprocal psychological demands on its members. On the one hand, you need the "discipline" values to ensure that people will be good workers and lead orderly, law-abiding lives. On the other hand, you need the "enjoy yourself" messages to get people to be good consumers. One author was disturbed about the "enjoy yourself" side, but acknowledged that "without a means of stimulating mass consumption, the very structure of our business enterprise would collapse." The interesting question has to do with the psychological consequences of the discrepancy between the dual messages. The "discipline" or "traditional values" theme demands that one compartment of the personality have a will strong enough to keep the individual doing unpleasant work at low wages, or to stay in an unhappy marriage, and, in general, to do things for the good of the commonwealth. The "enjoy yourself" message, on the other hand, tends to encourage a very different kind of personality-one that is self-centered, based on impulse, and is unwilling to delay rewards. As an illustration, I can't. resist reciting one of my favorite ads of all time, an ad from a psychology magazine: "I love me. I'm just a good friend to myself. And I like to do what makes me feel good. I used to sit around, putting things off till tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll drink champagne, and buy a set of pearls, and pick up that new stereo. But now I live my dreams today, not tomorrow." So what happens to us as we take in these opposing messages, as we are, in fact, torn between the opposite personality types that our society seems to require of us? Tile result is anxiety, fear, and a mysterious dread. The fear of being sucked in and dragged down by our consumer culture is real: the credit card company is not friendly when you default on your bills. And we all know that the path of pleasure-seeking and blind acquisition is a recipe for financial ruin-for most of us, anyway-and that, in American society, there isn't much of a safety net to catch you if you fall.

单选题The old folk song is well worth______A. listening B. listening to C. to listen D. to listen to

单选题Richard Satava, program manager for advanced medical technologies, has been a driving force in bringing virtual reality to medicine, where computers create a "virtual" or simulated environment for surgeons and other medical practitioners. "With virtual reality we'll be able to put a surgeon in every trench," said Satava. He envisaged a time when soldiers who are wounded fighting overseas are put in mobile surgical units equipped with computers. The computers would transmit images of the soldiers to surgeons back in the U. S.. The surgeons would look at the soldiers through virtual reality helmets that contain a small screen displaying the image of the wound. The doctors would guide robotic instruments in the battlefield mobile surgical unit that operate on the soldier. Although Satava's vision may be years away from standard operating procedure, scientists are progressing toward virtual reality surgery. Engineers at an international organization in California are developing a tele-operating device. As surgeons watch a three-dimensional image of the surgery, they move instruments that are connected to a computer, which passes their movements to the robotic instruments that perform the surgery. The computer provides feedback to the surgeon on force, textures, and sound. These technological wonders may not yet be part of the community hospital setting but increasingly some of the machinery is finding its way into civilian medicine. At Wayne State University Medical School, surgeon Lucia Zamorano takes images of the brain from computerized scans and uses a computer program to produce a 3D image. She can then maneuver the 3D image on the computer screen to map the shortest, least invasive surgical path to the tumor. Zamorano is also using technology that attaches a probe to surgical instruments so that she can track their positions. While cutting away a tumor deep in the brain, she watches the movement of her surgical tools in a computer graphics image of the patient's brain taken before surgery. During these procedures—operations that are done through small cuts in the body in which a miniature camera and surgical tools are maneuvered—surgeons are wearing 3D glasses for a better view. And they are commanding robot surgeons to cut away tissues more accurately than human surgeons can. Satava says, "We are in the midst of a fundamental change in the field of medicine."

单选题Children need many things, but ______ they need love. A. after all B. above all C. at all D. at best

单选题Speaker A: Excuse me, could you tell me how to get to the railway station?Speaker B: ______

单选题To Journalists, three of anything makes a trend. So after three school shootings in six days, speculation about an epidemic of violence in American classrooms was inevitable, and wrong. Violence in schools has fallen by half since the mid-1990s; children are more than 100 times more likely to be murdered outside the school walls than within them. On September 27th a 53-year-old petty criminal, Duane Morrison, walked into a school in Bailey, Colorado, with two guns. He took six girls hostage, molested some of them, and killed one before committing suicide as police stormed the room. And on September 29th a boy brought two guns into his school in Cazenovia, Wisconsin. Prosecutors say that 15-year-old Eric Hainstock may have planned to kill several people. But staff acted quickly when they saw him with a shotgun, calling the police and putting the school into "lock-down". The head teacher, who confronted him in a corridor, was the only one killed. October 2nd a 32-year-old milk-truck driver, Charles Roberts, entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He lined the girls up, tied their feet and, after an hour, shot them, killing at least five. He killed himself as police broke into the classroom. What to make of such horrors? Some experts see the Colorado and Pennsylvania cases as an extreme manifestation of a culture of violence against women. Both killers appeared to have a sexual motive, and both let all the boys in the classroom go free. But it is hard to infer from such unusual examples, and one must note that violence against women is less than half what it was in 1995. Other experts see all three cases as symptomatic of a change in the way men commit suicide. Helen Smith, a forensic psychologist, told a radio audience "men are deciding to take their lives, "and they're not going alone anymore. They're taking people down with them." True, but not very often. Gun-control enthusiasts think school massacres show the need for tighter restrictions. It is too easy, they say, for criminals such as Mr. Morrison and juveniles such as Mr. Hainstock to obtain guns. Gun enthusiasts draw the opposite conclusion: that if more teachers carried concealed handguns, they could shoot potential child-killers before they kill. George Bush has now called for a conference on school violence. Will it unearth anything new, or valuable? After the Columbine massacre in 1999, the FBI produced a report on school shooters. It concluded that it was impossible to draw up a useful profile of a potential shooter because "a great many adolescents who will never commit violent acts will show some of the behaviours on any checklist of warning signs./

单选题Text 4 When we worry about who might be spying on our private lives, we usually think about the Federal agents. But the private sector outdoes the government every time. It's Linda Tripp, not the FBI, who is facing charges under Maryland's laws against secret telephone taping. It's our banks, not the Internal Revenue Service(IRS), that pass our private financial data to telemarketing firms. Consumer activists are pressing Congress for better privacy laws without much result so far. The legislators lean toward letting business people track our financial habits virtually at will. As an example of what's going on, consider U.S. Bancorp, which was recently sued for deceptive practices by the state of Minnesota. According to the lawsuit, the bank supplied a telemarketer called Member Works with sensitive customer data such as names, phone numbers, bank account and credit-card numbers, Social Security numbers, account balances and credit limits. With these customer lists in hand, Member Works started dialing for dollars—selling dental plans, videogames, computer software and other products and services. Customers who accepted a "free trial offer" had, 30 days to cancel. If the deadline passed, they were charged automatically through their bank or credit card accounts. U.S. Bancorp collected a share of the revenues. Customers were doubly deceived, the lawsuit claims. They didn't know that the bank was giving account numbers to Member Works. And if customers asked, they were led to think the answer was no. The state sued Member Works separately for deceptive selling. The company defends that it did anything wrong. For its part, U.S. Bancorp settled without admit ting any mistakes. But it agreed to stop exposing its customers to nonfinancial products sold by outside firms. A few top banks decided to do the same. Many other banks will still do business with Member Works and similar firms. And banks will still be mining data from your account in order to sell you financial products, including things of little value, such as credit insurance and credit card protection plans. You have almost no protection from businesses that use your personal accounts for profit. For example, no federal law shields "transaction and experience" information—mainly the details of your bank and credit card accounts. Social Security numbers are for sale by private firms. They've generally agreed not to sell to the public. But to businesses, the numbers are an open book. Self-regulation doesn't work. A firm might publish a privacy-protection policy, but who enforces it? Take U.S. Bancorp again. Customers were told, in writing, that "all personal information you supply to us will be considered confidential." Then it sold your data to Member Works. The bank even claims that it doesn't "sell" your data at all. It merely "shares" it and reaps a profit. Now you know.

单选题 通读下面的短文，掌握其大意。然后从每小题的四个选择项中选出可填入相应空白处的最佳选项。 Two travelers were riding on horseback through the south of Italy. Towards evening they{{U}} (21) {{/U}}they has lost their way. They began to look for a house where they could rest for the night and perhaps they could find a guide to{{U}} (22) {{/U}}them the right way in the morning. After{{U}} (23) {{/U}}for some time, they saw a farm house. When they{{U}} (24) {{/U}}the house, they found a farmer and his wife having supper. They were asked to sit down and{{U}} (25) {{/U}}too. As they were very hungry, they did so with{{U}} (26) {{/U}} While eating his supper the farmer kept his eyes on the plate without saying{{U}} (27) {{/U}}. This made the travelers a little afraid. After supper the farmer's wife{{U}} (28) {{/U}}them up to a store room, and showed them a{{U}} (29) {{/U}}where they could sleep. Being{{U}} (30) {{/U}}, they soon book off their clothes and went to bed. But the younger traveler was too{{U}} (31) {{/U}}to go to sleep. He heard the farmer and his wife talking in the room in a{{U}} (32) {{/U}}voice. At first he couldn't hear any words, but then he{{U}} (33) {{/U}}heard the husband say, "Must we kill them both?" and the wife replied, "Yes, of course we must." A moment later, he again heard the farmer{{U}} (34) i{{/U}}nto the room, so he quickly{{U}} (35) {{/U}}behind the door. The door slowly{{U}} (36) {{/U}}, and the farmer came in with a light in one hand and a long knife in the other. He went to the{{U}} (37) {{/U}}hanging on the wall, cut off a piece, and returned as{{U}} (38) {{/U}}as he had come. The two travelers didn't dare to go to{{U}} (39) {{/U}}. Early in the morning they began to{{U}} (40) {{/U}}in the dark through the kitchen, finding on the table a piece of meat cleaned and two chicks killed.

单选题My father was always very strict about how I talked to mother, but he was more ______ if I yelled at my brother. A. tolerable B. understandable C. harsh D. favorable

单选题Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates recently told the nation"s governors that American high school education is "obsolete." He said, "When I compare our high schools to what I see when I"m traveling abroad, I am terrified for our workforce of tomorrow. In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than the United States did. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor"s degrees as the U. S. and has six times as many graduates majoring in engineering. America is falling behind." Gates was describing a global economy in which the chance to move up into a better economic life is slipping overseas, along with jobs that can be performed anywhere—manufacturing in China, technology support in India, online order fulfillment across borders. The Internet brings Bhutan and Bangalore just as close to our offices and living rooms as Boise. Maybe closer. Our children"s competitors are not the other schools in the district or the state or even the nation. They are the technologically literate young people in Taiwan, India, Korea, and other developing nations. For today"s American students, learning and retraining will be a lifelong experience. In The World is Flat , a recent book analyzing the shift in the global economy, Thomas Friedman points out that the dot. com bubble inspired a massive outlay of capital to connect the continents. Undersea cable, universal software, high-tech imagery, and Google have erased geography. College graduates in Latin America, Central Asia, India, China, and Russia can do the information work Americans used to count on—in many cases better and in all cases cheaper. We are burning through reliable careers for our young people at high speed as technology relieves us of the tedium of repetitive work. The robots that vacuum our floors today will be filling our teeth tomorrow. Even jobs at Wal-Mart are endangered. Have you seen the self-check-out lanes? No cashiers required. To be competitive now, U. S. students must develop sophisticated critical thinking and analytical skills to manage the conceptual nature of the work they will do. They will need to be able to recognize patterns, create narrative, and imagine solutions to problems we have yet to discover. They will have to see the big picture and ask the big questions. How many high schools do you know that are nurturing minds like that? Are we supplying the conditions in our schools to create a new crop of original thinkers? Are we making sure our curricula and instructional programs are not relegated for repetitive practice, gathering and organizing information, remediation, and test preparation? Are we requiring all students to use their learning?

单选题—I enjoyed the food very much.—Im glad you like it. Please drop in any time you like.—______ A．Is it all right? B．Im afraid I wont be free. C．Yes. I will. D．Thats great.

单选题The following questions present a sentence, part of which or all of which is underlined. Beneath the sentence, you will find five ways of phrasing the underlined part. The first of these repeats the original; the other four are different. If you think the original is best, choose the first answer; otherwise choose one of the others. These questions test correctness and effectiveness of expression. In choosing your answer, follow the requirements of standard written English; that is, pay attention to grammar, choice of words, and sentence construction. Choose the answer that produces the most effective sentence; this answer should be clear and exact, without awkwardness, ambiguity, redundancy, or grammatical error.

单选题You are exposed to obtrusive ads that ______ seemingly from nowhere even when you are disconnected from the Net, and your personal information is gathered and sent off without you being aware of it. A. size up B. dwindle away C. conjure up D. pop up

单选题The______to the contract must be signed by two witnesses.