单选题A proposed Russian ban on European Union meat exports could jeopardize Russia's aspirations to join the World Trade organization next year, the EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, warned Friday. He warned that several of the 25 EU member states were growing weary of Russia's trade tactics and could move to block its WTO bid. He emphasized that the European Union supported Russia's WTO accession in principle and that he did not want to link the Russian meat ban to Russia's WTO prospects, though EU states could do so. In order to join the organization, Russia must reach agreement with each of the 149 WTO members. "Issues like this will affect the attitude of member states toward signing off on accession," Mandelson said. "This is not the only trade irritant between us and Russia—there are at least half a dozen—and this latest ban is bound to affect the attitude of member states," toward Russia's aim of joining the WTO. "We can't have so many of these trade irritants hanging over us. " Mandelson said he would work to get Russia to back off from its current plans to ban all EU animal products as of Jan. 1, which would affect C = $1.7 billion, or $ 2. 2 billion, in exports to Russia. Moscow has justified the ban on the grounds that Bulgaria and Romania, which will join the European Union on that day, do not have adequate food safety measures. But Mandelson warned that if Moscow refused to back down, it could sour overall trade relations with the European Union, which is already concerned about fair access to Moscow's energy resources. "Russia is acting in a disproportionate way," he said. President Vladimir Putin has made WTO membership one of his key economic objectives. He is keen to improve access to world markets for Russian exports and to provide a lift to the country's neglected agricultural sector. European resistance would add to reservations by trade negotiators in Washington who want Russia to make more progress on reducing tariffs on U. S. meat imports and protecting intellectual property before joining the world trade body. Trade disputes cast a shadow over the summit meeting, which was supposed to mark the start of talks on a partnership agreement between the European Union and Russia covering energy, trade and human rights. But Poland—in a separate dispute with Moscow over a Russian ban on Polish farm exports—used its veto to stop the talks on Friday. Putin defended the Russian ban after earlier complaining that the European Commission had failed to consult him before agreeing to admit Bulgaria and Romania, whose food safety practices he called into question. EU officials said privately that Putin's stance suggested he was suffering from a Cold War hangover because the former Soviet satellites will soon become EU members.

单选题The first and smallest unit that can be discussed in relation to language is the word. In speaking, the choice of words is (21) the utmost importance. Proper selection will eliminate one source of (22) breakdown in the communication cycle. Too often, careless use of words (23) a meeting of the minds of the speaker and listener. The words used by the speaker may (24) unfavorable reactions in the listener (25) interfere with his comprehension; hence, the transmission-reception system breaks down. (26) , inaccurate or indefinite words may make (27) difficult for the listener to understand the (28) which is being transmitted to him. The speaker who does not have specific words in his working vocabulary may be (29) to explain or describe in a (30) that can be understood by his listeners.

单选题Signs of deafness had given him great anxiety as early as 1798. For a long time he successfully concealed it from all but his most intimate friends, while he consulted physicians and quacks with eagerness. But neither quackery nor the best skill of his time availed him, and it has been pointed out that the root of the evil lay deeper than could have been supposed during his lifetime. Although his constitution was magnificently strong and his health was preserved by his passion for outdoor life, a post-mortem examination revealed a very complicated state of disorder, evidently dating from childhood (if not inherited) and aggravated by lack of care and good food. The touching document addressed to his brothers in 1802, and known as his "will" should be read in its entirety. No verbal quotation short of the whole will do justice to the overpowering outburst which runs in almost one long unpunctuated sentence through the whole tragedy of Beethoven's life, as he knew it then and foresaw it. He reproaches men for their injustice in thinking and calling him pugnacious, stubborn, and misanthropical when they do not know that for six years he has suffered from an incurable condition aggravted by incompetent doctors. He dwells upon his delight in human society from which he has had so early to isolate himself, but the thought of which now fills him with dread as it makes him realize his loss, not only in music but in all finer interchange of ideas, and terrifies him lest the cause of his distresses should appear. He declares that, when those near him had heard a flute or a singing shepherd while he heard nothing, he was only prevented from taking his life by the thougth of his art, but it seemed impossible for him to leave the world until he had brought out all that he felt to be in his power. He requests that after his death his present doctor , if surviving, shall be asked to describe his illness and to append it to this document in order that at least then the world may be as far as possible reconciled with him. He leaves his brothers property, such as it is, and in terms not less touching, if more conventional than the rest of the document, he declares that his experience shows that only virtue has preserved his life and his courage through all his misery. During the last twelve years of his life, his nephew was the cause of most of his anxiety and distress. His brother, Kaspar Karl, had often given him trouble—for example, by obtaining and publishing some of Beethoven's early indiscretions, such as the trio variations, op. 44, the sonatas, op. 49, and other trifles. In 1815, after Beethoven had quarreled with his oldest friend, Stephan Breuning, for warning him against trusting his brother in money matters, Kaspar died, leaving a widow of whom Beethoven strongly disapproved, and a son, nine years old, for the guardianship of whom Beethoven fought the widow through all the law courts. The boy turned out utterly unworthy of his uncle's persistent devotion and gave him every cause for anxiety. He failed in all his examinations, including an attempt to learn some trade in all his examinations, including an attempt to learn some trade in the polytechnic school, whereupon he fell into the hands of the police for attempting suicide, and after being expelled from Vienna, joined the army. Beethoven's utterly simple nature could neither educate nor understand a human being who was not possessed by the wish to do his best. His nature was passionately affectionate, and he had suffered all his life from the want of a natural outlet for it. He had often been deeply in love and made no secret of it. But Robert Browning had not a more intense dislike of "the artistic temperament" in morals, and though Beethoven's attachments were almost hopelessly above him in rank, there is not one that was not honorable and respected by society as showing the truthfulness and self-control of a great man. Beethoven's orthodoxy in such matters has provoked the smiles of Philistines, especially when it showed itself in his objections to Mozart's Don Giovanni and the grounds for selecting the subject of Fidelio for his own opera. The last thing that Philistines will ever understand is that genius is far too independent of convention to abuse it, and Beethoven's life, with all its mistakes, its grotesqueness, and its pathos, is as far beyond the shafts of Philistine wit as his art.

单选题Passage Four Have you ever been afraid to talk back when you were treated unfairly? Have you ever bought something just because the salesman talked you into it? Are you afraid to ask someone for a date? Many people are afraid to assert themselves (坚持已见). Dr. Robert Alberti, author of Stand Up, Speak Out, and Talk Back, thinks it's because of their lack of confidence. "Our structure of organization tends to make people distrust themselves," says Alberti. "There's always a 'superior' around—a parent, a teacher, a boss—who knows better'. These 'superiors' often gain when they keep breaking at your self-image." But Alberti and other scientists are doing something to help people assert themselves. They offer "assertiveness training" courses—AT for short. In the AT course people learn that they have a right to be themselves. They learn to speak out and feel good about doing so. They learn to be aggressive without hurting people. In one way, learning to speak out is to overcome fear. A group taking an AT course will help the shy person to lose his fear. But AT uses an even stronger motive—the need to share. The shy person speaks out in the group because he wants to tell how he feels. Whether or not you speak up for yourself depends on your self-image. If someone you face is more "important" than you, you may feel less of a person. You start to doubt your own good sense. You go by the other person's label. But, why should you? AT says you can get to feel good about yourself. And once you do, you can learn to speak out.

单选题{{B}}Passage Three{{/B}} Forget what Virginia Woolf said about What a writer needs-a room of one's own. The writer she had in mind wasn't at work on a novel in cyberspace, one with multiple hypertexts, animated graphics and downloads of trancey, chiming music. For that you also need graphic interfaces, ReslPlayer and maybe even a computer laboratory at Brown University. That was where Mark Amerika—his legally adopted name; don't ask him about his birth name-composed much of his novel Grammatron. But Grammatron isn't just a story. It's an online narrative (grammatron. com) that uses the capabilities of cyberspace to tie the conventional story line into complicated knots. In the four years it took to produce—it was completed in 1997—each new advance in computer software became another potential story device. "I became sort of dependent on the industry", jokes Amerika, who is also the author of two novels printed on paper." That's unusual for a writer, because if you just write on paper the" technology is pretty stable." Nothing about Grammatron is stable. At its center, if there is one, is Abe Golam, the inventor of Nanoscript, a quasi-mystical computer code that some unmystical corporations are itching to acquire. For much of the story, Abe wanders through Prague-23, a virtual "city" in cyberspace where visitors indulge in fantasy encounters and virtual sex, which can get fairly graphic. The reader wanders too, because most of Grammatron's 1,000-plus text screens contain several passages in hypertext. To reach the next screen, just double-click. But each of those hypertexts is a trapdoor that can plunge you down a different pathway of the story. Choose one and you drop into a corporate- strategy memo, Choose another and there's a XXX- rated sexual rant. The story you read is in some sense the story you make. Amerika teaches digital art at the University of Colorado, where his students develop works that straddle the lines between art, film and literature. "I tell them not to get caught up in mere plot," he says. Some avant-garde writers—Julio Cortazar, Italo Calvino-have also experimented with novels that wander out of their author's control. "But what makes the Net so exciting," says Amerika, "is that you can add sound, randomly generated links, 3-D modeling, animation." That room of one's own is turning into a fun house.

单选题The first two questions were easy, but the rest of them ______ not.A. wasB. wereC. beingD. to be

单选题He had to quit the job ______ his ill health. A. because B. as C. because of D. as for

单选题She______the chance to spend a whole day with her father.

单选题{{B}}C{{/B}} A recent study shows that more and more Americans are choosing to work at home. There are several reasons for the change. One reason is many parents want more time to be with their children at home. Another is that people want the freedom to decide for them- selves how and when to do their job. The chance to work at home lets people live wherever they wish—out in the country, perhaps. It also makes it possible for many others—disabled and other persons, new mothers-to do useful work and earn money. About half the people who work at home operate their own business. They sell products or services. The other half works for companies. They may make things, such as clothes. Or they may do office work, such as copying letters. A smaller number work at highly skilled jobs as designers or engineers. The revolution(革命) in computer technology is one of the main reasons for the change to working at home. Computers are now used in almost every American workplace in offices, in factories, even on farms. Computers make it much easier and quicker to do any task that involves information: writing, counting, designing, planning, keeping records. With computers, there is less need for people to come together to work. Computers can he linked by telephone lines with other computers far away. A worker can write a report oradd information to company records on a computer at home and then send the finished work to a computer in another city. Americans already are using computers to do many different kinds of jobs at home. Many highly skilled workers, for example, ask their companies for the chance to work at least part of the time at home. They say they can think more clearly and be more creative in the quiet, peaceful atmosphere of their home. Many engineers, writers and computer scientists are among those who now do at least part of their work at home, using a computer. Most of such professional workers, however, spend at least a day or two each week in the company office to discuss their work with oth- ers. Working at home is a good idea for some people in some industries. However, it does not work for everyone. Some home workers have said their personal lives and work lives became too close. Some have said they needed to be with other people to develop new ideas. And others have said it is more difficult to get a better job with the company when you are not working in the company's office.

单选题Nearly all "speed reading" courses have a "pacing" element—some timing device which lets the student know how many words a minute he is reading. You can do this simply by looking at your watch every 5 or 10 minutes and noting clown the page number you have reached. Check the average number of words per page for the particular book you are reading. How do you know when 5 minutes has passed on your watch if you are busy reading the book? Well, this is difficult at first. A friend can help by timing you over a set period, or you can read within hearing distance of a public clock which strikes the quarter hours. Pace yourself every three or four days, always with the same kind of easy, general interest books. You should soon notice your accustomed w. p. m. rate creeping up. Obviously there is little point in increasing your w. p. m. rate if you do not understand what you are reading. When you are consciously trying to increase your reading speed, stop after every chapter (if you are reading a novel) or every section or group of ten or twelve pages (if it is a text-book) and ask yourself a few questions about what you have been reading. If you find you have lost the thread of the story, or you cannot remember dearly the details of what was said, reread the section or chapter. You can also try "lightning speed" exercise from time to time. Take four or five pages of the general interest book you happen to be reading and read them as fast as you possibly can. Do not bother about whether you understand or not. Now go back and read them at what you feel to be your "normal" w. p. m. rate, the rate at which you can comfortably understand. After a "lightning speed" reading through (probably 600 w. p. m.) you will usually find that your "normal" speed has increased—perhaps by as much as 50- 100 w. p. m. This is the technique sportsmen use when they usually run further in training than they will have to on the day of the big race.

单选题In the scientific station ______ to record earthquakes． A．instruments were B．do instruments C．are instruments D．instruments are

单选题Homework has never been terribly popular with students and even many parents, but in recent years it has been particularly scorned. School districts across the country, most recently Los Angeles Unified, are revising their thinking on this educational ritual. Unfortunately, L. A. Unified has produced an inflexible policy which mandates that with the exception of some advanced courses, homework may no longer count for more than 10% of a student' s academic grade. This rule is meant to address the difficulty that students from impoverished or chaotic homes might have in completing their homework. But the policy is unclear and contradictory. Certainly, no homework should be assigned that students cannot complete on their own or that they cannot do without expensive equipment. But if the district is essentially giving a pass to students who do not do their homework because of complicated family lives, it is going riskily close to the implication that standards need to be lowered for poor children. District administrators say that homework will still be a part of schooling; teachers are allowed to assign as much of it as they want. But with homework counting for no more than 10% of their grades, students can easily skip half their homework and see very little difference on their report cards. Some students might do well on state tests without completing their homework, but what about the students who performed well on the tests and did their homework? It is quite possible that the homework helped. Yet rather than empowering teachers to find what works best for their students, the policy imposes a fiat, across-the-board rule. At the same time, the policy addresses none of the truly thorny questions about homework. If the district finds homework to be unimportant to its students' academic achievement, it should move to reduce or eliminate the assignments, not make them count for almost nothing. Conversely, if homework matters, it should account for a significant portion of the grade. Meanwhile, this policy does nothing to ensure that the homework students receive is meaningful or appropriate to their age and the subject, or that teachers are not assigning more than they are willing to review and correct. The homework rules should be put on hold while the school board ,which is responsible for setting educational policy, looks into the matter and conducts public hearings. It is not too late for L. A. Unified to do homework right.

单选题The one pleasure that Einstein ______ his great fame was the ability it gave him to help others.

单选题The children will not be allowed to come with us if they don't______themselves better.

单选题Judges-would make the final ______ as to who should be the winner of the competition.

单选题The first few months of the year I had dreaded the ringing of the telephone, because I knew it meant another Ucritical/U decision to be made.