单选题 {{B}}Directions: {{/B}} In this part there are ten incomplete sentences, each with four suggested answers. Choose the one that you think is the best answer. Mark your answer on the {{B}}ANSWER SHEET{{/B}} by drawing with a pencil a short bar across the corresponding letter in the brackets.

单选题Each day, computers help millions of people do their jobs more effectively. For example, they can help managers decide on a future course of action, and they can then help with the follow-up checks on performance to see if planned goals are being achieved. By using accurate and timely facts supplied by data base management software, a manager can do a better job of identifying problems and opportunities. And managers may not need to spend as much time in controlling when a computer can respond with a triggered report if actual performance varies from what was planned. The time saved in controlling may allow managers to give more attention to employees' concerns, and this, in turn, may result in improved morale (土气) . But employment benefits certainly aren't restricted to managers. Healthcare researchers and other scientists also use computers to conduct research into complex problem areas that couldn't otherwise be studied. Lawyers use online legal data banks to locate precedent (先前的) cases in order to serve clients better. Salespeople can receive more timely information about products in stock, can promise customers that their sales orders will be handled promptly, and can thus improve their sales performance because of the computer system. And the job duties of some office and factory workers have changed from routine, repetitive operations to more varied and appealing tasks through computer usage. For example, office workers who understand text processing, computing, and data communication usually have vital roles and are given critical office functions to perform.

单选题Preliminary figures show Bibb County's tax digest is slightly ______ with state guidelines, which could result in a fine of up to $100,000. A. out for the count B. out and out C. out of blast D. out of whack

单选题With the guide leading the way, the visitors were able to travel through the forest not by air but ______ foot.A. byB. onC. inD. with

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} If the opinion polls are to be believed, most Americans are coming to trust their government more than they used to. The habit has not yet spread widely among American Indians, who suspect an organization which has so often patronized them, lied to them and defrauded them. But the Indians may soon win a victory in a legal battle that epitomizes those abuses. Elouise Cobell, a banker who also happens to be a member of the Blackfeet tribe in Montana, is the leading plaintiff in a massive class-action suit against the government. At issue is up to $10 billion in trust payments owed to some 500,000 Indians. The suit revolves around Individual Indian Money (11M) accounts that are administered by the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Back in the 1880s, the government divided more than 11m acres of tribal land into {{U}}parcels of 80 to 160 acres{{/U}} that were assigned to individual Indians. Because these parcels were rarely occupied by their new owners, the government assumed responsibility for managing them. As the Indians' trustee, it leased the land out for grazing, logging, mining and oil drilling--but it was supposed to distribute the royalties to the Indian owners. In fact, officials admit that royalties have been lost or stolen. Records were destroyed, and the government lost track of which Indians owned what land. The plaintiffs say that money is owing to 500,000 Indians, but even the government accepts a figure of about 300,000. For years, Cobell heard Indians complain of not getting payment from the government for the oil-drilling and ranching leases on their land. But nothing much got done. She returned to Washington and, after a brush-off from government lawyers, filed the suit. Gale Norton, George Bush's interior secretary was charged with contempt in November because her department had failed to fix the problem. In December, Judge Lam berth ordered the interior Department to shut down all its computers for ten weeks because trust-fund records were vulnerable to hackers. The system was partly restored last month and payments to some Indians, which had been interrupted l resumed. And that is not the end of it. Ms Norton has proposed the creation of a new Bureau of Indian Trust Management, separate from the BIA. Indians are cross that she suggested this without consulting them. Some want the trust funds to be placed in receivership, under a , neutral supervisor. Others have called for Congress to establish an independent commission, including Indians, to draw up a plan for reforming the whole system. A messy injustice may at last be getting sorted out.

单选题Some studies indicate that young children stop being______as soon as they reach school age because the classroom is a place where facts rather than imagination predominate.

单选题E-Business 电子商务 There is no universally accepted definition of e-Business, but here we assume that it embraces all aspects of buying and selling products and services over a network. The essential characteristics of e-Business are that the dealings between two parties, be it business to consumer or business to business, are online transactions, and that the key commodity being traded is information. Figure 1 The Essential Elements of an Electronic Business In effect, we see e-Business as the gateway to a deal—it is a transaction that may, but doesnt necessarily have to, lead to the delivery of a physical product. There are several commonly used names for e-Business, the most popular being e-Commerce and e-Trade. Some of the more academic treatises attempt to distinguish the terms (for instance, e- Commerce is sometimes limited to the buying and selling of goods and the flows of associated information and funds; e-Trade can be viewed as covering only supplier to supplier transactions). We have used such terms as synonyms here, and we take them as referring to the same thing. Figure 1 gives some idea of how the key elements fit together. It should be said that the perspective is intended to be general, and should fit business to business trade as well as the case where individual consumers interact with an online business. So you can daisy chain[1] the picture, such that someone who takes the role of supplier to one set of customers may also take the role of customer to a different supplier further back in the chain. In any case, they all have to be on a shared network, work from the same catalogue, have some means of delivering goods, and be able to settle up after the transaction. THE WHISTLE STOP TOUR So far, we have described e-Business in broad terms as a mass market capability that is enabled by a combination of the Internets global reach and the vast resources of traditional Information Technology. Given this, it should come as no surprise[2] that it is a multi faceted beast or, potentially, a many headed monster. Many of those facets are technical, but others are not. To get a grasp on the overall scope and nature of the e-Business proposition, this section looks at the constituent parts of trading over a network. There is a lot more detail on each of these areas later on. For now, though, we have the surfers guide. The Marketplace Before we think about business, we should first think about the market where that business is conducted. So, what is an electronic market? It can be viewed as direct parallel of the familiar shop, store or emporium. It is, in essence, a virtual trading area where deals are struck over a network. The shop front is the computer and the server is the warehouse. In fact, there is an electronic analogue of virtually all of the items youd find in a conventional market—including bogus traders, inferior goods and dubious bargains. The size and scope of the marketplace is, however, a little different from the familiar high street model. In e-Business, unlike many other areas of high technology, size really does not matter. It is quite possible to conduct a large volume of business over a wide area with little overhead. The information smallholder can compete on an equal footing with the multinational corporation. In fact, it is often not that easy to distinguish between the two. People who have encountered Amazon. com on the Internet probably have no idea how it compares in size with, say, W. H. Smith, who have bookshops in most large towns in the UK, or Blackwells, who position themselves as global suppliers of academic books[3]. To be an effective player—as well as the basic technology to enter the market you need a brand, some content, service support and a means of fulfilment (i. e. delivering the goods). This does not imply that all have be owned. An e-Business that looks like a cogent entity to the consumer may in reality be a host of co operating suppliers. One supplier might provide the online content and another the application hosting. The delivery vans might be contracted from the Post Office or Federal Express, and they might deliver a set of products branded by someone completely different. In this respect, the electronic market is a more complex beast than the traditional one of manufacturer, retailer and wholesaler. Furthermore, the nature of e-Business lends itself to more than one trading model. For instance, the age old idea of a marketplace owned by oneorganisation, populated by authorised traders is quite tenable. This model can be extended to add the idea of having guilds that control standards within their particular area. There are many other trading models, such as conventional auction and then there is barter—e-Business draws on a lot of history! All have their merits and are suitable to a certain type of trading. Most online trading models have a physical dual, some dont. Whatever the market looks like, it can often becategorised by the dominant party. In seller driven markets, it is the large, dominant vender who sets the price, not really for negotiation; in a buyer driven markets there are many people selling into the market, and a small number of dominant buyers who take best bids, for example, UK supermarkets are often accused of having undue influence—downwards—on the price of agricultural produce. It iS these dynamics that determine the appropriate technology for e-Business. There are also open markets in which the buyer and seller negotiate, or a free market, where the behaviour of the market itself sets prices. Insurance brokering is an example of this, as are the optimization packages used for pricing and selling airline seat capacity. e-Shops The electronic shop can be thought of as the look and feel[4] of the screen that fronts the customer. Just as with high street stores, the aim is to entice the customer to browse and ultimately, to buy. Although unlikely to supplant real world shops, the online variety can provide features that seem likely to promote their growth. As well as being readily available and easy to search, they can provide some measure of masscustomisation. For instance, the made to measure shirtmaker, Charles Tyrwhitt has an online shop that can apply a buyers previously entered measurements and preferences as it mails each order from the Jermyn Street shop. Every customer is thus treated as an individual, but there is capacity to cater for a mass market. The fundamental prerequisite for presenting products and services online in the e- Business world is the catalogue. These are central, and are the electronic equivalent of a shops shelves, goods, special offers and departments. The catalogue is the onlinerepresentation of what is for sale (or more correctly, what is available for trading). It is important to appreciate that there are different scales of catalogue. They range from a set of web pages and a simple script that allows orders to be taken through mid range catalogue products that arecharacterised by a pre-defined structure of product categories and sub categories, up to large scale corporate catalogues that are customisable. In this last case, there is usually back end integration with inventory, stock control and ordering systems. Another important point about catalogues is that they are different for buyers and for sellers. The former is a virtual directory that allows the buyer to look at and judge a range of competing products from a number of different suppliers. The latter is a structured set of information that represents what a particular supplier has to sell. The technology used to represent these different types of catalogue has to match, that is, it either has to beoptimised for one seller and multiple buyers, or vice versa. More on this later. One further differentiation in catalogues that should be made is that of business to business as opposed to business to consumer. The consumer oriented catalogues tend to be stronger on presentation, as they usually have to sell on the basis of eye appeal. The business catalogues are more focused on quick access to another business needs, and these tend to be high volume and fairly routine. For instance, many supermarkets issue stock replenishment orders from their automated stock control systems they buya lot of carrots on a regular basis! In short, the distinction between consumer and business oriented catalogues is akin to food mart against delicatessen. Payment So to the core of any business (and e-Business is no exception )—profit. Trade, commerce and business only exist to satisfy the needs and desires of the participants. This means one party getting something they want in exchange for something the other party wants; and usually it is money that fuels the desire to trade. By its very nature, e-Business needs to emulate in some way the customary direct exchange of cash for goods. Attitudes to the use of different payment mechanisms are changing and vary when considering Europe, the US, Asia Pacific or the whole world. A priority in establishing an e-Business is to put in place an acceptable mechanism for payment. There are many technical options, and to choose appropriately, factors such as scale and acceptability all need to be carefully examined. By way of illustration, there are various scales of payment to be considered: items such as books are regularly purchased electronically, and it is common for a single customer to buy a single book and pay with a single credit card transaction (probably in the ＄10 range). However, the cost of processing credit card transactions is quite high, and may not be economical for the purchase of small value items such as consumer reports or individual music tracks, which would typically be in the ＄110 range. Technologies exist for handling these small value payments (known as micropayments), and lumping them together into single credit card transactions. The range below ＄1 is often referred to as the area of nanopayments. Such payments may represent, for example, the price of viewing an individual Internet page of information. Not only are different technologies required to aggregate these various categories of small scale payments, but also the e-Business will need to put in place different strategies for such things as handling account queries and dealing with bad debts. For instance, a sensible way of dealing with lost nanopayments would be to write off the debts and blacklist the offenders—the cost of recovering the debt would be too high. Settlement It is all very well taking: a virtual payment for goods or services offered over the Internet but, at some point, this must be converted into dollar bills, Euros, or some other tangible form of money. Hence, we need a gateway between the virtual world and the real world—a payments gateway. This can be effected with automated connection to Merchant acquirers[5], direct debits, or other systems. Of course, traditional settlements are not mandatory. In the past, people have used all kinds of different objects to represent money: leaves, sticks, beads and even bits of metal or pieces of printed paper! In the electronic world there are additional possibilities, such as token based systems, where you first buy a number of tokens, in your chosen currency, and are then free to spend them on goods which are priced in tokens. An example of this is web beanz which are rather like on line loyalty card points. Electronic wallets and smart cards provide another alternative. Some of these types of electronic cash are fully portable, whereas others retain your wallet on your PC or on a server. Presentation As with catalogues, the way in which online products and services are presented depends upon the market. For the electronic shop, the art of window dressing is not really one that has transferred online as yet. Already the ease of use of online systems is coming under the scrutiny of consumer watchdogs such as Which? Magazine, who report a significant impact of true presentation quality. When there are many suppliers, the look and feel of the shop will make a big difference, as will the ease of use. In much the same vein, business to business transactions will need to be reliable and easy to use, in their own way. The design of online information is very much in its infancy, but there are some basic guidelines for getting the right presence and operation for the job in hand. Navigational dead ends, inconsistent and out of date information, lack of an overall information map, frustrating and non intuitive structures and poor search/browse capabilities all put customers off. The electronic window dresser is one of a number of new skills being driven by e-Business. One of the interesting twists to presenting what you have to offer online is that it is possible to find out exactly what each customer has looked at, what they purchased and when. This would consume a huge amount of time and video to do in a conventionalshop, but consists of little more than analysing system logs for an e-Business. Information about individual customers, their browsing and buying patterns, is an important piece of feedback on how to go about presenting your goods. Security In the real world you go into a shop to make somejudgement from its location, size, type of premises, how long it has been there, and so on, and you hand over cash in return for goods which you carry away. The risks are very small, and even if things do go wrong, you can usually exchange the faulty goods. You know where to go back to and who to talk to. If you dont get satisfaction you can even, as a last resort, make a scene, standing in the middle of a busy store, telling an assistant, as loudly as you are able, how badly you have been treated, can elicit rapid solutions to your problems. When trading over the Internet, things are not so simple, the dream of the virtual trader can suddenly become a nightmare. For example, how do consumers know that the company they are dealing with is reputable, and is what it purports to be? Conversely, how does the trader know that the consumer is not using stolen credit card details? Furthermore, how do both parties ensure that their transaction takes place privately without someone else snooping on it or, even worse, tinkering with the transaction details while they are in transit across the network? And when things go wrong as they inevitably do, what sorts of mechanism are there to ensure that both parties fulfill their obligations? Secret codes have long been used to ensure the privacy of, information that must be sent byuntrusted carriers or public networks, in 1660, it was said that such codes were certainly for use by English aristocrats communicating with the exiled King Charles. In e- Business, the principle is the same, although the codes need to be a lot stronger because the potential eavesdroppers are sophisticated, and are assumed to have access to powerful computers and software. There are many ways of establishing a secure communications link. Basically, for two people to be able to communicate using a code, they must share a secret, and this secret must be denied to everyone else. The problem is how a trader and a consumer whowill probably never meet agree on a secret code that cannot be guessed by anyone else. The answer is to use a type of coding which employs a so called asymmetric code. This is one in which the message is encoded using one key and decoded using a different key. In this instance, getting a copy of the encoding key, the so called public key, does not allow you to decode the message for that you need the other, private, key. Even if a link is secure, you need to know that it is the one you wanted. So, when you access an Internet site that calls itself First National Bank, you want to be sure that it is truly what it purports to be before you engage in a financial transaction with it. The way this is done is to have the site certified by a trusted third party, who checks the authenticity of the site and provides certified copies of that sites public key for communicating securely. There are a number of types of certificates that are issued by such trusted third parties, each with its own level of trustworthiness and area of application. Finally, what happens if something goes wrong? There has to be some means of checking who promised what to whom, and when. The concept of non repudiation proving that a deal was struck is one that needs to be transferred into the world of e-Business. Thisis where verifiable records, and digital signatures fit. A successful e-Business should consider and have viable policies, approaches and, solutions to all of the above issues. In addition, there is the small but important practicality that a certain amount of infrastructure has to be established before you can actually begin to trade online. The established mechanism for inter company transactions is known as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI[6]). There are established standards, and an established body of know how in how to link to the fulfillment, inventory and other back end systems that make it possible to automate the end to end e-Business process, from ordering through to delivery. The behind the scenes[7] aspects are an important part of the overall picture, and will be explained fully as we unfold our story. Notes [1] daisy chain: 串级链。 [2] Given this, it should come as no surprise: 假如情况是这样，…也不会令人吃惊。 [3] W. H. Smith, who have bookshops in most large towns in the UK, or Blackwells, who position themselves as global suppliers of academic books. W. H. Smith是英国的书店名。Blackwells是全球最大的学术书供应商。 [4] look and feel: 品质，观感。 [5] Merchant acquirers: (在线)收单会员，验证机构。 [6] Electronic Data Interchange(EDI): 电子数据交换(机)。 [7] behind the scenes: 在后台，在幕后。 Choose the best answer for each of the following:

单选题She ______ down and soon fell asleep.

单选题All theories ______ from practice and m turn serve practice. A. originate B. restrain C. modify D. reflect

单选题That small country (at one time) (must be) prosperous, (for) it enjoyed (a high level) of civilization. A. at one time B. must be C. for D. a high level

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} If American investors have learned any lesson in the last 25 years, it is to buy shares on the dips. The slide in 2000--2002 may have been longer and deeper than they were used to but normal service was eventually resumed, driving the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a record high on October 1st. Among American financial commentators, it is almost universally accepted that shares always rise over the long run. And one ought to expect shares (which are risky) to deliver a higher return than risk free assets such as government bonds. Nevertheless, investors ought also to remember the world's second largest economy, Japan. Its most popular stock-market average, the Nikkei 225, peaked at 38,915 on the last trading day of the 1980s; this week, nearly 18 years later, it is still only around 17,000, less than half its peak. Buying on the dips did not work either. Professionals of the London Business School examined the record of 16 stock markets which were in continuous operation over the course of the 20th century. In itself, this selection showed survivorship bias by excluding the likes of Russia and China. The academies found that only three other countries could match the American record of having no 20-year periods with negative real returns. Other investors were far less lucky. Japanese, French, German and Spanish investors all suffered instances where they had to wait 50--60 years to earn a positive real return. It was no good following the famous advice to "put the shares in a drawer and forget about them"; the furniture would not have lasted that long. Besides survivorship bias, there is another problem with the belief that stock markets must always go up. Investors will keep buying until prices reach stratospheric(稳定的) levels. That clearly happened in Japan in the late 1980s, and after seven years, it is still not much more than half its peak level. A significant proportion of the return from equities in the second half of the 20(上标)th century came from a re-rating of shares; investors were willing to pay a higher multiple for profits. But re-rating cannot continue forever. If investors want a simple parallel with share prices, they need only mm to the American housing market. Back in 2005 an economic adviser to the president said," We've never had a decline in housing prices on a nationwide basis. What I think is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize." Lots of people took the same view and were willing to borrow (and lend) on a vast scale on the grounds that higher house prices would always bail them out. They are now counting their losses. Investors in equities should beware of over-committing themselves on the basis of a similar belief Just ask the Japanese.

单选题The American idea of customer is to make each customer the center of the attention. People going shopping in America can expect to be treated with respect from the very beginning. When a customer gets to the store, they are treated as honored guests. Customers don"t usually find store clerks sitting around watching TV or playing cards. Instead the clerks greet them warmly and offer to help them find what they want. In many stores, the signs that label each department make shopping a breeze(容易的事情). Customers usually don"t have to ask how mush items cost, since prices are clearly marked. When customers are ready to check out, they find the nearest and shortest checkout lane. But as Murphy"s Law would have it, whichever lane they get in, all the other lanes will move faster. Good stores open new checkout lanes when the lanes get too long. Some even offer express lanes for customers with 10 items or less. After they pay for their purchases, customers receive a smile and a warm "thank you" from the clerk. Many stores even allow customers to take their shopping carts out to the parking lot. That way, they don"t have to carry heavy bags out to the car. In America, customer service continues long after the sale. Many products come with a money back guarantee. If there is a problem with the product, customers can take it back. The customer service representative will often allow them to exchange the item or return it for a full refund.

单选题A______person is one who gives away money or things in large quantity.

单选题" Sesame Street" (芝麻街) has been called "the longest street in the world". That is because the television program by that name can now be seen in so many parts of the world. That program became one of America's exports soon after it went on the air in the New York in 1969 . In the United States more than six million children watch the program regularly. The viewers include more than half of the nation's pre-school children. Although some educators object to certain elements in the program, parents praise it highly. Many teachers also consider it a great help, though some teachers find that problems arise when first graders who have learned from "Sesame Street" are in the same class with children who have not watched the program. The program uses songs, stories, jokes and pictures to give children a basic understanding of numbers, letters and human relationships. Tests have shown that children have benefited from watching "Sesame Street". Those who watch five times a week learn more than the occasional viewers. In the United States the program is shown at different times during the week in order to increase the number of children who can watch it regularly. Why has "Sesame Street" been so much more successful than other children's shows? Many reasons have been suggested. People mention the educational theories of its creators, the support by the government and private businesses, and the skillful use of a variety of TV tricks. Perhaps an equally important reason is that mothers watch "Sesame Street" along with their children. This is partly because famous adult stars often appear on "Sesame Street". But the best reason for the success of the program may be that it makes every child watching it feel able to learn. The child finds himself learning, and he wants to learn more.

单选题The 1990s have been designated the Decade Against Drug Abuse by the United Nations. But, (1) less than three years to go before the end of the decade, governments and health organizations (2) that they have made (3) progress in reducing drug, alcohol and tobacco abuse. Today, consumption of all these substances is increasingly steadily worldwide. (4) every country now has problems with (5) drugs. And the world is producing and consuming more alcohol and tobacco than ever. Between 1970 and 1990 beer production (6) rose by over 80 per cent. And, (7) the number of smokers keeps on (8) ,by the second or third (9) of the next century there could be 10 million deaths each year (10) smoking related illnesses. Drugs are also a huge burden (11) the world economy. In the United States, for example, it's estimated that alcohol and illegal drug use costs the country tens of billions of dollars each year, mainly (12) health care. When the cost of tobacco related illnesses is added, (13) total more than doubles. Drugs are also closely (14) crime. Many police forces no longer (15) between illegal and legal drugs when fighting crime. In Australia, for example, experts (16) that police in some parts of the country spend between 70 and 80 per cent of their time dealing with alcohol-related incidents. One explanation for the increase in drug (17) is simply that people have more money to spend. Tobacco and alcohol companies are now (18) much more on developing countries to take (19) of greater wealth there. And criminals involved in the illegal drug trade are following (20) ,introducing drugs into countries where they were previously hardly use.

单选题There is hope for the 21st century if women can