单选题What accounts for the significant decline in humanistic studies today?

单选题Cities develop as a result of functions that they can perform. Some functions result directly from the ingenuity of the citizenry, but most functions result from the needs of the local area and of the surrounding hinterland (the region that supplies goods to the city and to which the city furnishes services and other goods). Geographers often make a distinction between the situation, and the site of a city. Situation refers to the general position in relation to the surrounding region, whereas site involves physical characteristics of the specific location. Situation is normally much more important to the continuing prosperity of a city. If a city is well situated in regard to its hinterland, its development is much more likely to continue. Chicago, for example, possesses an almost unparalleled situation. It is located at the southern end of a huge lake that forces east-west transportation lines to be compressed into its vicinity, and at a meeting of significant land and water transport routes. It also overlooks what is one of the world's finest large farming regions. These factors ensured that Chicago would become a great city regardless of the disadvantageous characteristics of the available site, such as being prone to flooding during thunderstorm activity. Similarly, it can be argued that much of New York City's importance stems from its early and continuing advantage of situation. Philadelphia and Boston both originated at about the same time as New York and shared New York's location at the western end of one of the world's most important oceanic' trade routes, but only New York possesses an easy-access functional connection (the Hudson-Mohawk lowland) to the vast Midwestern hinterland. This account does not alone explain New York's primacy, but it does include several important factors. Among the many aspects of situation that help to explain why some cities grow and others do not, original location on a navigable waterway seems particularly applicable. Of course, such characteristic as slope, drainage, power resources, river crossings, coastal shapes, and other physical characteristics help to determine city location, but such factors are normally more significant in early stages of city development than later.

单选题The research scientists often meet with problems ______ new types of instrument for their solution. A. requiring B. required C. to require D. being required

单选题The problem is that the loss of confidence among the soldiers can be highly {{U}}contagious{{/U}}. A. spreading B. contemptible C. contented D, depressing

单选题{{B}}Part A{{/B}}{{B}}Directions:{{/B}}Reading the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. {{B}}Text 1{{/B}} It was inevitable that any of President George W. Bush's fans had to be very disappointed by his decision to implement high tariffs on steel imported to the U.S. The president's defense was pathetic: He argued that the steel tariffs were somehow consistent with free trade, that the domestic industry was important and struggling, and that the relief was a temporary measure to allow time for restructuring. One reason that this argument is absurd is that U. S. integrated steel companies ("Big Steel") have received various forms of government protection and subsidy for more than 30 years. Instead of encouraging the industry to restructure, the long-term protection has sustained inefficient companies and cost U.S. consumers dearly. As Anne O. Krueger, now deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said in a report on Big Steel: "The American Big Steel industry has been the champion lobbyist and seeker of protection .... It provides a key and disillusioning example of the ability to lobby in Washington for measures which hurt the general public and help a very small group." Since 1950s, Big Steel has been reluctant to make the investments needed to match the new technologies introduced elsewhere. It agreed to high wages for its unionized labor force. Hence, the companies have difficulty in competing not only with more efficient producers in Asia and Europe but also with technologically advanced U. S. mini-mills, which rely on scrap metal as an input. Led by Nucor Cor. , these mills now capture about half of overall U. S. sales. The profitability of U. S. steel companies depends also on steel prices, which, despite attempts at protection by the U.S. and other governments, are determined primarily in world markets. These prices are relatively high as recently as early 2000 but have since declined with the world recession to reach the lowest dollar values of the last 20 years. Although these low prices are unfortunate for U.S. producers, they are beneficial for the overall U. S. economy. The low prices are also signal that the inefficient Big Steel companies should go out of business even faster than they have been. Instead of leaving or modernizing, the dying Big Steel industry complains that foreigners dump steels by selling at low prices. However, it is hard to see why it is bad for the overall U.S. economy if foreign producers wish to sell us their goods at low prices. After all, the extreme case of dumping is one where foreigners give us their steel for free and why would that be a bad thing?

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} My dictionary defines subtle as "not immediately obvious; characterized by skill or ingenuity; clever; elusive; [even] insidious." Let us look at some concrete instances of this. (The very word itself is an example, as the letter" b" is silent in pronunciation.)" Language can be straight-forward and directly to the point, but sometimes that takes the fun out of it. On occasion, at least, one appreciates subtleties—often as the mark of a quick wit. This particularly is true of jokes that generally have a double meaning. For example: Awaitress received only three pennies for a tip. Nonplussed, she told the customer that those three pennies told a lot about him. He took the bait and asked what they revealed. "The first penny," she said, "tells me you are thrifty." The patron agreed. "what does the second penny say?" asked the customer. "It tells me you're a bachelor." "Right again," he replied, "And what does the third penny tell you?" "The third penny," responded the waitress, "tells me your daddy was a bachelor, too." How's that for a subtle punishment? Subtleties also can be used on occasion for a good putdown. For instance, one can say a certain man was a big gun of industry. "Yes," is the counter, "he was fired several times." In this category was Mark Twain' s caustic time bomb: "He was a good man—in the worst sense of the term." In our day of political correctness (sometimes called the tyranny of the minority), police seldom talk about suspects, but only about" persons of interest." I guess law enforcement does not want another lawsuit on its hands. Then, too, with the campaign against fat and fried foods, Kentucky Fried Chicken calls itself KFC, figuring that few will think of "fried" that way. The meaning of a word or phrase seems to change more rapidly today and unless one is "with it", a faux pas (失礼) can be committed. Such is the case with the term, "an exceptional child." Way back when, one would think that referred to an especially bright youngster, whereas today it indicates a handicapped youth. So, too, the word "primitive" virtually has been erased from our language and replaced with "earlier culture" and Indians are known as Native Americans. The world of advertising is a master at subtleties with which it hopes to bamboozle (欺骗) the customer. For instance, when asked how much a gallon of gasoline costs, the reply might be something like $2.25. Yet, one must add a penny to that as a 9/10 follows the price, making it, in effect, $2.26. Cereal prices have skyrocketed over the years, but some companies claim to have held the line by keeping the price the same. What many do, however, is reduce the number of ounces in the package. I leave the reader with the truism that subtlety, not brevity, is the soul of wit. Use it to win friends and influence people.

单选题As I"ve examined A what it meant to be poor, B it has become clear to me what I am C most thankful ; both my tangible and my intangible D good fortune .

单选题A. fearB. dearC. disappearD. bear

单选题According to psychologists (心理学家) , an emotion is aroused when a man or animal views something as either bad or good. When a person feels like running away from something he thinks will hurt him, we call this emotion fear. If the person wants to remove the danger by attacking it, we call the emotion anger. The emotions of joy and love are aroused when we think something can help us. An emotion does not have to be created by something in the outside world. It can be created by a person's thoughts. Everyone has emotions. Many psychologists believe that infants are born without emotions. They believe children learn emotions just as they learn to read and write. A growing child not only learns his emotions but learns how to act in certain situations because of an emotion. Psychologists think that there are two types of emotions: positive and negative. Positive emotions include love, liking, joy, delight and hope. They are aroused by something that appeals to a person. Negative emotions make a person unhappy or dissatisfied. They include anger, fear, despair, sadness and disgust. In growing up, a person learns to cope with the negative emotions in order to be happy. Emotions may be weak or strong. Some strong emotions are so unpleasant that a person will try any means to escape from them. In order to feel happy, the person may choose unusual ways to avoid the emotion. Strong emotions can make it hard to think and to solve problems. They may prevent a person from learning or paying attention to what he is doing. For example, a student taking an examination may be so worried about failing that he cannot think properly. The worry drains valuable mental energy he needs for the examination.

单选题English is understood all over the world ______ Turkey is spoken by only a few people outside Turkey itself.A. whileB. whenC. ifD. as

单选题No one ______ him about his intention. A) dares ask B) dare ask C) dare to ask D) dares asking

单选题For someone whose life has been shattered, Hiroshi Shimizu is remarkably calm. In a cramped Tokyo law office, the subdued, bitter man in his 30s--using an assumed name for the interview relates how he became infected with the HIV virus from tainted blood products sold by Japanese hospitals to hemophiliacs during the mid-1980s. "I was raped," says Shimizu. "I never thought doctors would give me bad medicine. " last year, Shimizu was shocked when a doctor newly transferred to his hospital broke the news. Four years earlier, he had asked his previous doctor if he could safely marry. "He told me. 'There's absolutely no problem, 'even though he knew [I was infected]," Shimizu says. "I could have passed it to my wife. " Luckily, he hasn't. Shimizu is one of more than 2,000 hemophiliacs and their loved ones infected with the deadly virus before heat-treated blood products became available in Japan. It's a tragedy-and now it's a national scandal. In recent weeks, the country has been rocked by charges that Japanese drug and hospital companies kept selling tainted blood even after the AIDS threat was proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. Even worse is the charge that the Japanese government knowingly allowed this dangerous practice as part of a policy to protect domestic companies from foreign competition. Japan's bureaucrats are already under attack for their role in the banking fiasco. As the AIDS scandal unfolds, Japanese confidence in government could erode even further. Big settlements in a related lawsuit may also set a precedent in other AIDS liability cases around the world. The origins of the tragedy go back to 1983. By then, scientists were closing in on the virus that causes AIDS, and U. S. health authorities mandated that all blood products be heat-treated to protect hemophiliacs and patients from infection. Japanese authorities were concerned as well: the Health & Welfare Ministry formed an AIDS study group headed by the country's foremost hemophilia expert, Dr. Takeshi Abe. RAIN AND SLEET. What happened next has only just been revealed, thanks to an investigation by new Health Minister Naoto Kan. According to investigators, the ministry group on July 4, 1983, recommended banning untreated blood imports. Since no heattreated products were then available from Japanese companies, the group also advised allowing emergency imports of heat-treated blood from companies such as U. S. drug giant Baxter International Inc. But a week later, the recommendation was reversed. According to memos recovered from the records of Atsuaki Gunji, then head of the ministry's Biological & antibiotics Div., the recommendation was overturned because it would "deal a blow" to domestic companies. Japan's marketers of blood products bought imports of untreated blood--and they did not have their heat-treatment processes yet. The ministry insisted that Baxter conduct two years of clinical testing in Japan before it used its new heat treatment there. Domestic drug companies, led by Osaka-based Green Cross Ltd. rushed to develop their own treatment processes. Meanwhile, Baxter and other foreign companies that already sold untreated blood products in Japan had to continue the practice if they wanted to stay in the market. The recent revelations have sparked some startling events in a country where discussion of AIDS is still largely taboo. In February, health Minister Kan made front-page news when he officially apologized to HIV-infected hemophiliacs and families who had staged a 72-hour vigil in rain and sleet outside the ministry.

单选题{{B}}Passage 1{{/B}} The fridge is considered a necessity. It has been so since the 1960s when packaged food first appeared with the label: "store in the refrigerator." In my fridgeless fifties childhood, I was fed well and healthily. The milkman came daily, the grocer, the butcher, the baker, and the ice-cream man delivered two or three times a week. The Sunday meat would last until Wednesday and surplus bread and milk became all kinds of cakes. Nothing was wasted, and we were never troubled by rotten food. Thirty years on food deliveries have ceased, fresh vegetables are almost unobtainable in the country. The invention of the fridge contributed comparatively little to the art of food preservation. A vast way of well-tried techniques already existed--natural cooling, drying, smoking, salting, sugaring, bottling... What refrigeration did promote was marketing--marketing hardware and electricity, marketing soft drinks, marketing dead bodies of animals around the globe in search of a good price. Consequently, most of the world's fridges are to be found, not in the tropics where they might prove useful, but in the wealthy countries with mild temperatures where they are climatically almost unnecessary. Every winter, millions of fridges hum away continuously, and at vast expense, busily maintaining an artificially-cooled space inside an artificially-heated house--while outside, nature provides the desired temperature free of charge. The fridge's effect upon the environment has been evident, while its contribution to human happiness has been insignificant. If you don't believe me, try it yourself, invest in a food cabinet and turn off your fridge next Winter. You may miss the hamburgers, but at least you'll get rid of that terrible hum.

单选题They lost their way in the forest, and______made matters worse was that night began to fall.

单选题The bat is a marvel of evolutionary adaptation. Most of them roost during the day, and are active at night or twilight for they can avoid objects in the dark. I have seen this phenomenon at work. In my youth I used to explore old mining shafts in the Randsburg district. Sometimes my intrusion disturbed clans of bats that were hanging upside down in the dark caves. They would fly about to evident panic, but the panic was mine, not theirs. Some flew crazily out into the daylight but some merely returned to their perches. None ever touched me, much to my relief. They may exist but I have never seen a stuffed nylon bat. To children, bats may not be as lovable as koala bears. Perhaps manufacturers do not regard them as marketable. It is not so much their hideous faces and winged bodies that have caused us to get rid of bats, but rather the ancient myths in which dead humans, such as Count Dracula, leave their graves at night in the form of bats to suck blood from human victims, especially fragile young woman. As we know from some movies these vampires must return to their graves before daylight. Endangered young women can frustrate vampire by sleeping with a string of garlic around their necks. There are actually three species of bloodsucking bats. They are called vampire bats after the ancient legends, and their tactics are indeed frightful. Like Count Dracula, they feed at night. They make a small cut in their sleeping victim with sharp incisor teeth, usually not even awakening their prey. Then they suck the blood that sustains them. Should that discourage children from wanting them as pets? As Mitchell notes from the New 'Yorker ad, bats are clean and intelligent. Most of them are insect-eaters, and they serve nature by destroying crop-damaging insects. They also pollinate (传授花粉) flowers and spreading seed. Bat Conservation International claims that without bats a host of insects/pests would multiply unchecked and many of our planet's most valuable plants would go unpollinated. It is clear that the bat is our friend, and that, despite its appearance, it is here to serve humanity. I'd be the first to buy a stuffed nylon bat. Children's hearts are big, and bats need love, too.

单选题The sad story about the little girl and her sick parents ______ all of us.

单选题On AIDS Day, the minister of Health Department demanded that the problems______paid special attention to.

单选题More and more residences, businesses, and even government agencies are using telephone answering machines to take messages or give information or instructions. Sometimes these machines give (1) instructions, or play messages that are difficult to understand. If you (2) telephone calls, you need to be ready to respond if you get a (3) . The most common machine is the (4) used in residence. If you call a home (5) there is a telephone answering machine in operation you (6) hear several rings and then a recorded message (7) usually says something (8) this: "Hello. We can't come to the (9) right now. If you want us to call you back, please leave your name and number after the beep." Then you will hear a "beep," (10) is a brief, high-pitched (11) . Alter the beep, you can say who you are, whom you want to speak to, and what number the person should call to (12) you, or you can leave a (13) . Some telephone answering machines (14) for only 20 or 30 seconds after the beep, so you must respond quickly. Some large businesses and government agencies are using telephone answering machines to provide information on (15) about which they receive a large volume of (16) . Using these systems (17) you to have a touch-tone phone (a phone with buttons rather than a rotary dial). The voice on the machine will tell your to push a certain button on your telephone if you want in-formation on Topic A, another button for Topic B, and so on. You listen (18) you hear the topic you want to learn about, and then you push the (19) button. After making your (20) , you will hear a recorded message on the topic.

单选题(Only) by practice (will you) be able to improve your (speaking) English and gradually (speak) fluently. A. Only B. will you C. speaking D. speak