单选题 You hear the refrain all the time: the U. S. economy looks good statistically, but it doesn't feel good. Why doesn't ever-greater wealth promote ever-greater happiness? It is a question that dates at least to the appearance in 1958 of The Affluent (富裕的) Society by John Kenneth Galbraith, who died recently at 97. The Affluent Society is a modern classic because it helped define a new moment in the human condition. For most of history, "hunger, sickness, and cold" threatened nearly everyone, Galbraith wrote. "Poverty was found everywhere in that world. Obviously it is not of ours. " After World War Ⅱ, the dread of another Great Depression gave way to an economic boom. In the 1930s unemployment had averaged 18.2 percent; in the 1950s it was 4. 5 percent. To Galbraith, materialism had gone mad and would breed discontent. Through advertising, companies conditioned consumers to buy things they didn' t really want or need. Because so much spending was artificial, it would be unfulfilling. Meanwhile, government spending that would make everyone better off was being cut down because people instinctively—and wrongly—labeled government only as "a necessary evil" It's often said that only the rich are getting ahead; everyone else is standing still or falling behind. Well, there are many undeserving rich—overpaid chief executives, for instance. But over any meaningful period, most people's incomes are increasing. From 1995 to 2004, inflation-adjusted average family income rose 14.3 percent, to $43,200. People feel "squeezed" because their rising incomes often don't satisfy their rising wants—for bigger homes, more health care, more education, faster Internet connections. The other great frustration is that it has not eliminated insecurity. People regard job stability as part of their standard of living. As corporate layoffs increased, that part has eroded. More workers fear they've become "the disposable American," as Louis Uchitelle puts it in his book by the same name. Because so much previous suffering and social conflict stemmed from poverty, the arrival of widespread affluence suggested utopian (乌托邦式的) possibilities. Up to a point, affluence succeeds. There is much less physical misery than before. People are better off. Unfortunately, affluence also creates new complaints and contradictions. Advanced societies need economic growth to satisfy the multiplying wants of their citizens. But the quest for growth lets loose new anxieties and economic conflicts that disturb the social order. Affluence liberates the individual, promising that everyone can choose a unique way to self-fulfillment. But the promise is so extravagant that it predestines many disappointments and sometimes inspires choices that have anti-social consequences, including family breakdown and obesity (肥胖症). Statistical indicators of happiness have not risen with incomes. Should we be surprised? Not really. We've simply reaffirmed an old truth: the pursuit of affluence does not always end with happiness.

单选题{{B}}11-15{{/B}} After the violent earthquake that shook Los Angeles in 1994, earthquake scientists had good news to report: the damage and death toll could have been much worse. More than 60 people died in this earthquake. By comparison, an earthquake of similar intensity that shook America in 1988 claimed 25, 000 victims. Injuries and deaths were relatively less in Los Angeles because the quake occurred at 4:31 a.m. on a holiday, when traffic was light on the city's highways. In addition, changes made to the construction codes in Los Angeles during the last 20 years have strengthened the city's buildings and highways, making them more resistant to quakes. Despite the good news, civil engineers are not resting on their successes. Pinned to their drawing boards are blueprints for improved quake-resistant buildings. The new designs should offer even greater security to cities where earthquakes often take place. In the past, making structures quake-resistant meant firm yet flexible materials, such as steel and wood, that bend without breaking. Later, people tried to lift a building off its foundation, and insert rubber and steel between the building and its foundation to reduce the impact of ground vibrations. The most recent designs give buildings brains as well as concrete and steel supports, called smart buildings. The structures respond like living organisms to an earthquake's vibrations. When the ground shakes and the building tips forward, the computer would force the building to shift in the opposite direction. The new smart structures could be very expensive to build. However, they would save many lives and would be less likely to be damaged during earthquakes.

单选题Ploughs and other agricultural implements were on display at the recent exhibition. (清华大学2005年试题)

单选题"There is one and only one social responsibility of business," wrote Milton Friedman, a Nobel prize-winning economist, "That is, to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits." But even if you accept Friedman"s premise and regard corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies as a waste of shareholders" money, things may not be absolutely clear-cut. New research suggests that CSR may create monetary value for companies—at least when they are prosecuted for corruption. The largest firms in America and Britain together spend more than $15 billion a year on CSR, according to an estimate by EPG, a consulting firm. This could add value to their businesses in three ways. First, consumers may take CSR spending as a "signal" that a company"s products are of high quality. Second, customers may be willing to buy a company"s products as an indirect way to donate to the good causes it helps. And third, through a more diffuse "halo effect," whereby its good deeds earn it greater consideration from consumers and others. Previous studies on CSR have had trouble differentiating these effects because consumers can be affected by all three. A recent study attempts to separate them by looking at bribery prosecutions under America"s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). It argues that since prosecutors do not consume a company"s products as part of their investigations, they could be influenced only by the halo effect. The study found that, among prosecuted firms, those with the most comprehensive CSR programmes tended to get more lenient penalties. Their analysis ruled out the possibility that it was firms" political influence, rather than their CSR stand, that accounted for the leniency: Companies that contributed more to political campaigns did not receive lower fines. In all, the study concludes that whereas prosecutors should only evaluate a case based on its merits, they do seem to be influenced by a company"s record in CSR. "We estimate that either eliminating a substantial labour-rights concern, such as child labour, or increasing corporate giving by about 20% results in fines that generally are 40% lower than the typical punishment for bribing foreign officials," says one researcher. Researchers admit that their study does not answer the question of how much businesses ought to spend on CSR. Nor does it reveal how much companies are banking on the halo effect, rather than the other possible benefits, when they decide their do-gooding policies. But at least they have demonstrated that when companies get into trouble with the law, evidence of good character can win them a less costly punishment.

单选题King Richard III was a monster. He poisoned his wife, stole the throne from his two young nephews and ordered them to be smothered in the Tower of London. Richard was a sort of Antichrist the King --"that bottled spider, that poisonous bunchbacked toad. " Anyway, that was Shakespeare's version. Shakespeare did what the playwright does: he turned history into a vivid, articulate, organized dream-repeatable nightly. He put the crouch back onstage, and sold tickets. And who Would say that the real Richard known to family and friends was not identical to Shakespeare's memorably loathsome creation? The actual Richard went dimming into the past and vanished. When all the eye-witnesses are gone, the artist's imagination begins to twist. Variations on the King Richard Effect are at work in Oliver Stone's JFK. Richard III was art, but it was propaganda too. Shakespeare took the details of his plot from Tudor historians who wanted to blacken Richard's name. Several centuries passed before other historians began to write about Richard's virtues and suggest that he may have been a victim of Tudor malice and what is the cleverest conspiracy of all: art. JFK is a long and powerful harangue about the death of the man--Stone keeps calling "the slain young king.' What are the rules of Stone's game? Is Stone functioning as commercial entertainer? Propagandist? Documentary filmmaker? Historian? Journalist? Fantasist? Sensationalist? Crazy conspiracy-monger? Lone hero crusading for the truth against a corrupt Establishment? Answer: some of the above. The first superficial effect of JFK is to raise angry little scruples like welts in the conscience. Wouldn't it be absurd if a generation of younger Americans, with no memory of 1963, were to form their ideas about John Kennedy's assassination from Oliver Stone's report of it? But worse things have happened--including, perhaps, the Warren Commission report? Stone uses a suspect, mixed art form, and JFK raises the familiar ethical and historical problems of docudrama. But so what? Artists have always used public events as raw material, have taken history into their imaginations and transformed it. The fall of Troy vanished into the Iliad. The Battle of Borodino found its most memorable permanence in Tolstoy's imagining of it in War and Peace. Especially in a world of insatiable electronic storytelling, real history procreates, endlessly conjuring new versions of itself. Public life has become a metaphysical breeder of fictions. Watergate became an almost continuous television miniseries--although it is interesting that the movie of Woodward and Bernstein's All The President's Men stayed close to the known facts and, unlike JFK, did not validate dark conjecture.

单选题Predicting the future is risky business for a scientist. It is safe to say, however, that the global AIDS epidemic will get much worse before it gets any better. Sadly, this modern plague will be with us for several generations, despite major scientific advances. As of January 2000, the AIDS epidemic had claimed 15 million lives and left 40 million people living with a viral infection that slowly but relentlessly erodes the immune system. Accounting for more than 3 million deaths in the past year alone, the AIDS virus has become the deadliest microbe in the world. In Africa nearly a dozen countries have a rate higher than 10%, including four southern African nations in which a quarter of the people are infected. This is like condemning 16 000 people each day to a slow and miserable death. Fortunately, the AIDS story has not been all gloom and doom . Less than two years after AIDS was recognized, the guilty agent—human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV—was identified. We now know more about HIV than about any other virus, and 14 AIDS drugs have been developed and licensed in the U.S. and Western Europe. The epidemic continues to rage, however, in South America, Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. By the year 2025, AIDS will be by far the major killer of young Africans, decreasing life expectancy to as low as 40 years in some countries and single-handedly erasing the public health gains of the past 50 years. It is Asia, with its huge population at risk, that will have the biggest impact on the global spread of AIDS. The magnitude of the incidence could range from 100 million to 1 billion, depending largely on what happens in India and China. Four million people have already become HIV-positive in India, and infection is likely to reach several percent in a population of 1 billion. Half a million Chinese are now infected; the path of China"s epidemic, however, is less certain. An explosive AIDS epidemic in the U.S. is unlikely. Instead, HIV infection will continue to plague in about 0.5% of the population. But the complexion of the epidemic will change. New HIV infections will occur predominantly in the underclass, with rates 10 times as high in minority groups. Nevertheless, American patients will live quality lives for decades, thanks to advances in medical research. Dozens of powerful and well-tolerated AIDS drugs will be developed, as will novel means to restore the immune system. A cure for AIDS by the year 2025 is not inconceivable. But constrained by economic reality, these therapeutic advances will have only limited benefit outside the U.S. and Western Europe.

单选题(2007)Do you knew what the letters NBA stand______?

单选题The lives of very few Newark residents are untouched by violence: New Jersey's biggest city has seen it all. Yet the murder of three young people, who were forced to kneel before being shot in the back of the head in a school playground on August 4th, has shaken the city. A fourth, who survived, was stabbed and shot in the face. The four victims were by all accounts good kids, all enrolled in college, all with a future. But the cruel murder, it seems, has at last forced Newarkers to say they have had enough. Grassroots organizations, like Stop Shootin', have been flooded with offers of help and support since the killings. Yusef Ismail, its co-founder, says the group has been going door-to-door asking people to sign a pledge of non-violence. They hope to get 50,000 to promise to "stop shootin', start thinkin', and keep livin'." The Newark Community Foundation, which was launched last month, announced on August 14th that it will help pay for Community Eye, a surveillance system tailored towards gun crime. Cory Booker, who became mayor 13 months ago with a mission to revitalize the city, believes the surveillance program will be the largest camera and audio network in any American city. More than 30 cameras were installed earlier this summer and a further 50 will be installed soon in a seven-square-mile area where 80% of the city's recent shootings have occurred. And more cameras are planned. When a gunshot is detected, the surveillance camera zooms in on that spot. Similar technology in Chicago has increased arrests and decreased shootings. Mr. Booker plans to announce a comprehensive gun strategy later this week. Mr. Booker, as well as church leaders and others, believes (or hopes) that after the murder the city will no longer stand by in coldness. For generations, Newark has been paralyzed by poverty—almost one in three people lives below the poverty line—and growing indifference to crime. Some are skeptical. Steve Malanga of the conservative Manhattan Institute notes that Newark has deep social problems: over 60% of children are in homes without fathers. The school system, taken over by the state in 1995, is a mess. But there is also some cause for hope. Since Mr. Booker was elected, there has been a rise in investment and re-zoning for development. Only around 7% of nearby Newark airport workers used to come from Newark; now, a year later, the figure is 30%. Mr Booker has launched a New York-style war on crime. So far this year, crime has fallen 11% and shootings are down 30% (though the murder rate looks likely to match last year's high).

单选题Zhejiang Geely secured Volvo at a price far less than the $6. 45 billion Ford paid the brand in 1999.

单选题The year 2000 will bring big changes in communication. Cell phones will be small enough to carry in your pocket. Videophones will let you see the person you are talking to on the phone. Tiny hand size computers will know your favorite subjects. The Internet and email will be everywhere. Technologists believe 2000 will be the year of video messaging. You will be able to see whom you’re talking to. Also in the near future small wireless boxes will pick up information from satellites. In 5 years, computers won’t need to be connected through wires. All of this will be good for rural areas and countries that don’t have cable or telephone now. In 20 years you may only need to think about something and the computer will do it. Constance Hale is the author of Sin and Syntax, "I believe that email has been an incredible boon to communication. People are writing today where they would have been telephoning yesterday. So people are engaging with words more than they have for the last couple generations." If people use email and the Internet more, it could make people better readers and writers. Some people think the most important part of communication is to make people understand each other better. Will technology make that easier? The translator also comes in handy in medical emergencies. Tam Dinh says, "Where people are injured it’s always important to get as much information as quickly as possible." Bob Parks is an Associate Editor of Wired Magazine, "Bob’s morning begins at about 6:45 am. and Bob is kind of mad, because Bob usually gets up at around 7:15 and likes to cut it close with his morning commute, but I look at my radio and it says that there’s a traffic jam on 101 South and I’m gonna need an extra 1/2 hour. And so my radio has got a net connection, wireless net connection as well as a good old power cord to the wall and it has received notice that there’s a traffic jam and it has calculated an extra 1/2 hour commute time." Some day everything may be connected to the Internet. Your refrigerator will add milk to your Internet grocery list when the date on the carton has passed. Light bulbs will be ordered before they bum out. It’s fun to try to guess the future. Usually the predictions are wrong. The one thing we know for sure is that we can’t imagine how technology will change.

单选题I had to wait for half an hour before he ______ see me. A. can B. may C. might D. could

单选题The professor's tests show that ______.

单选题A: It’s not like George to be late for an appointment. B: _____ He’s always punctual.

单选题How did people begin to use a fire?

单选题This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Alar apple scare, in which many American consumers were driven into a panic following the release of a report by an environmental organization claiming that apples containing the chemical Alar posed a serious health threat to preschoolers. The report was disseminated through a PR (Problem Report) campaign and bypassed any legitimate form of scientific peer review. Introduced to the American public by CBS" "60 Minutes," the unsubstantiated claims in the report led some school districts to remove apples from their school lunch programs and unduly frightened conscientious parents trying to develop good eating habits for their children. Last month, Consumers Union released a report warning consumers of the perils of consuming many fruits and vegetables that frequently contained "unsafe" levels of pesticide residues. This was especially true for children, they claimed. Like its predecessor 10 years earlier, the Consumers Union report received no legitimate scientific peer review and the public"s first exposure to it was through news coverage. Not only does such reporting potentially drive children for consuming healthful fruits and vegetables, the conclusions were based on a misleading interpretation of what constitutes a "safe" level of exposure. Briefly, the authors used values known as the "chronic reference doses," set by the U. S. environmental Protection Agency, as their barometers of safety. Used appropriately, these levels represent the maximum amount of pesticide that could be consumed daily for life without concern. For a 70-year lifetime, for example, consumers would have to ingest this average amount of pesticide every day for more than 25,000 days. It is clear, as the report points out, that there are days on which kids may be exposed to more; it is also clear that there are many more days when exposure is zero. Had the authors more appropriately calculated the cumulative exposures for which the safety standards are meant to apply, there would have been no risks and no warnings. Parents should feel proud, rather than guilty, of providing fruits and vegetables for their children. It is well established that a diet rich in such foods decreases the risk of heart disease and cancer. Such benefits dramatically overwhelm the theoretical risks of tiny amounts of pesticides in food. So keep serving up the peaches, apples, spinach, squash, grapes and pears.

单选题Research on animal intelligence always makes me wonder just how smart humans are. (51) the fruit-fly experiments described in Carl Zimmer's piece in the Science Times on Tuesday. Fruit flies who were taught to be smarter than the average fruit fly (52) to live shorter lives. This suggests that (53) bulbs burn longer, that there is an advantage in not being too terrifically bright. Intelligence, it (54) , is a high-priced option. It takes more upkeep, burns more fuel and is slow off the starting line because it depends on learning—a (55) process—instead of instinct. Plenty of other species are able to learn, and one of the things they've apparently learned is when to (56) . Is there an adaptive value to (57) intelligence? That's the question behind this new research. I like it. Instead of casting a wistful glance (58) at all the species we've left in the dust I.Q.-wise, it implicitly asks what the real (59) of our own intelligence might be. This is on the mind of every animal I've ever met. Research on animal intelligence also makes me wonder what experiments animals would (60) on humans if they had the chance.

单选题 The key position and role of women in the process of development is increasingly being recognized. Although the three great World Conferences of Women were more concerned with recognizing and compiling approaches to emancipation we can currently confirm a general sharpening of awareness. It has become clear that the Third World cultures, in earlier times strongly matriarchal, have been weakened in this respect by the methods of colonial education which are almost exclusively directed towards the male. Of the many criticisms of this situation let one voice be heard: "Development education' groups and programs are very much male dominated and lack woman's perspective". So, too, the hopes placed in vocational training--"vocationalization'--as an aid to equality have been disappointed since this in its turn was to large extent focused on the male. In these circumstances we should not be surprised that until now women have participated least in the educational processes which have been introduced. Only 20% attend primary school and the percentage of those who leave early is highest among girls. Because of the lack of basic training only around 10% take part in Adult Education programs. Hence it is vitally important to secure a turning point by increasing the awareness of the need for education. The International Conference at Jomtien in 1990 provided the solution to this: "A more educated mother raises a healthier family. She has fewer and better educated children. She is more productive at home and in the workplace and is better able to get further education." Many problems in school are consequences of incorrect or improperly balanced nutrition combined with .inadequate hygiene. Together these factors can lead to failure to keep pace in school. Hence even primary education for girls should be directed towards the basic needs and necessities and provide answers which are as simple as possible. In rural districts such answers will be different from those given in urban areas. The education of girls and women must to a large degree be an education for the life they will lead, tailored to a woman's position. In saying this we are in fact demanding that the education of women, like all educational work in the Third World, should be an integrated part of the community. Consequently there are many partners in this process school, family, small businesses, governmental and non-governmental organizations. The educational skill consists in keeping this interplay active in such a way that there is no deficiency in material content. An important consequence of this is the awakening of the desire to question, which, on the one hand presses for further education and on the other hand for its practical application.