单选题 People find it hard to like businesses once they grow beyond a certain size. Banks that were "too big to fail" sparked a global economic crisis and burned bundles of taxpayers' cash. Big retailers such as Walmart and Tesco squeeze suppliers and crush small rivals. Some big British firms minimize their tax bills so aggressively that they provoke outrage. It is shrewd politics to champion the little guy. But the popular fetish for small business is at odds with economic reality. Big firms are generally more productive, offer higher wages and pay more taxes than small ones. Economies dominated by small firms are often sluggish. Countries such as Greece, Italy and Portugal have lots of small firms which, thanks to burdensome regulations, have failed to grow. Firms with at least 250 workers account for less than half the share of manufacturing jobs in these countries than they do in Germany, the euro zone's strongest economy. For all the support around small business, it is economies with lots of biggish companies that have been able to sustain the highest living standards. Big firms can reap economies of scale. A big factory uses far less cash and labor to make each car or steel pipe than a small workshop. Big supermarkets such as the Walmart offer a wider range of highquality goods at lower prices than any corner store. Size allows specialization, which fosters innovation. Big firms have their flaws, of course. They can be slow to respond to customers' needs, changing tastes or innovative technology. To idolize big firms would be as unwise as to idolize small ones. Rather than focusing on size, policymakers should look at growth. One of the reasons why everyone loves small firms is that they create more jobs than big ones. But many small businesses stay small indefinitely. The link between small firms and jobs growth relies entirely on new start-ups, which are usually small, and which by definition create new jobs. Rather than spooning out subsidies and regulatory favors to small firms, governments should concentrate on removing barriers to expansion. In parts of Europe, for example, small firms are exemptedfrom the most burdensome social regulations. {{U}}This{{/U}} gives them an incentive to stay small. Far better to abolish burdensome rules for all firms. The same goes for differential tax rates, such as Britain's, and the separate bureaucracy America maintains to deal with small businesses. In a healthy economy, entrepreneurs with ideas can easily start companies, the best of which grow fast and the worst of which are quickly swept aside. Size doesn't matter. Growth does.

单选题Suppose you go into a fruiterer's shop, wanting an apple—you take up one, and on biting it you find it is sour; you look at it, and see that it is hard and green. You take up another one, and that, too, is hard, green, and sour. The shopman offers you a third; but, before biting it, you examine it, and find that it is hard and green, and you immediately say that you will not have it, as it must be sour, like those that you have already tried. Nothing can be more simple than that, you think; but if you will take the trouble to analyze and trace out into its logical elements what has been done by the mind, you will be greatly surprised. In the first place you have performed the operation of induction. You find that, in two experiences, hardness and greenness in apples went together with sourness. It was so in the first case, and it was confirmed by the second. True, it is a very small basis, but still it is enough from which to make an induction; you generalize the facts, and you expect to find sourness in apples where you get hardness and greenness. You found upon that a general law, that all hard and green apples are sour; and that, so far as it goes, is a perfect induction. Well, having got your natural law in this way, when you are offered another apple which you find it hard and green, you say, "all hard and green apples are sour; this apple is hard and green; therefore, this apple is sour." That train of reasoning is what logicians call a syllogism, and has all its various parts and terms — its major premises, its minor premises, and its conclusion. And by the help of further reasoning, which, if drawn out, would have to be exhibited in two or three other syllogisms, you arrive at your final determination, "I will not have that apple. " So that, you see, you have, in the first place, established a law by induction, and upon that you have founded a deduction, and reasoned out the special particular case. Well now, suppose, having got your conclusion of the law, that at some times afterwards, you are discussing the qualities of apple with a friend; you will say to him, "It is a very curious thing, but I find that all hard and green apples are sour!" Your friend says to you, "But how do you know that?" You at once reply, "Oh, because I have tried them over and over again, and have always found them to be so." Well, if we are talking science instead of common sense, we should call that an experimental verification. And, if still opposed, you go further, and say, "I have heard from people, in Somerset shire and Devon shire, where a large number of apples are grown, and in London, where many apples are sold and eaten, that they have observed the same thing." It is also found to be the case in Normandy, and in North America. In short, I find it to be the universal experience of mankind wherever attention has been directed to the subject. Whereupon, your friend, unless he is a very unreasonable man, agrees with you, and is convinced that you are quite right in the conclusion you have drawn. He believes, although perhaps he does not know he believes it, that the more extensive verifications have been made, and results of the same kind arrived at—that the more varied the conditions under which the same results are attained, the more certain is the ultimate conclusion, and he disputes the question no further. He sees that the experiment has been tried under all sorts of conditions, as to time, place, and people, with the same result; and he says with you, therefore, that the law you have laid down must be a good one, and he must believe it.

单选题The current political debate over family values personal responsibility, and welfare takes for granted the entrenched American belief that dependence on government assistance is a recent and destructive phenomenon. Conservatives tend to blame this dependence on personal irresponsibility aggravated by a swollen welfare apparatus that saps individual initiative. Liberals are more likely to blame it on personal misfortune magnified by the harsh lot that falls to losers in our competitive market economy. But both sides believe that "winners" in America make it on their own that dependence reflects some kind of individual or family failure, and that the ideal family is the self-reliant unit of traditional lore--a family that takes care of its own, carves out a future for its children, and never asks for handouts. Politicians at both ends of the ideological spectrum have wrapped themselves in the mantle of these "family values" arguing over why the poor have not been able to make do without assistance, or whether aid has exacerbated their situation, but never questioning the assumption that American families traditionally achieve success by establishing their independence from the government. The myth of family self-reliance is not compelling that our actual national and personal histories often buckle under its emotional weight. "We always stood on our own two feet", my grandfather used to say about his pioneer heritage, whenever he walked me to the top of the hill to survey the property in Washington State that his family had bought for next to nothing after it had been logged off in the early 1900s. Perhaps he didn't know that the land came so cheap because much of it was part of a federal subsidy originally allotted to the railroad companies, which had received 183 million acres of the public domain in the nineteenth century. These federal giveaways were the original source of most major western logging companies' land, and when some of these logging companies moved on to virgin stands of timber, federal lands trickled down to a few early settlers who were able to purchase them inexpensively. Like my grandparents, few families in American history--whatever their "values" have been able to rely solely on their own resources. Instead, they have depended on the legislative, judicial and social support structures set up by governing authorities, whether those authorities were the clan elders of Native American societies, the church courts and city officials of colonial America, or the judicial and legislative bodies established by the Constitution. At America's inception, this was considered not a dirty little secret but the norm, one that confirmed our social and personal interdependence. The idea that the family should have the sole or even primary responsibility for educating and socializing its members, finding them suitable work, or keeping them from poverty and crime was not only ludicrous to colonial and revolutionary thinkers but dangerously parochial.

单选题The idea of a fish being able to generate electricity strong enough to light lamp bulbs--or even to run a small electric motor--is almost unbelievable, but several kinds of fish are able to do this. Even more strangely, this curious power has been acquired in different ways by fish be- longing to very different families. Perhaps the best known are the electric rays, or torpedoes (电鱼), of which several kinds live in warm seas. They posses on each side of the head, behind the eyes, a large organ consisting of a number of hexagonal shaped cells rather like a honeycomb. The cells are filled with a jelly-like substance, and contain a series of flat electric plates. One side, the negative side, of each plate, is supplied with very fine nerves, connected with a main nerve coming from a special part of the brain. Current passes from the upper, positive side of the organ downwards to the negative, lower side. Generally it is necessary to touch the fish in two places, completing the circuit, in order to receive a shock. The strength of this shock depends on the size of the fish, but newly born ones only about 5 centimeters across can be made to light the bulb of a pocket flashlight for a few moments, while a fully grown torpedo gives a shock capable of knocking a man down, and, if suitable wires arc connected, will operate a small electric motor for several minutes. Another famous example is the electric eel. This fish gives an even more powerful shock. The system is different from that of the torpedo in that the electric plates run longitudinally(纵向) and are supplied with nerves from the spinal(脊骨) cord. Consequently, the current passes along the fish from head to tail. The electric or gans of these fish are really altered muscles and like all muscles are apt(likely) to tire, so they are not able to produce electricity for very long. The power of producing electricity may serve these fish both for defence and attack.

单选题The word "haywire" ( Line 5, Paragraph 3) most probably means

单选题W: I' m anxious to get started on our project. Can we meet sometime before the weekend?M:______A. Never mind. Shall we meet on Sunday?B. Your project? I have no time studying your project.C. OK. What about Friday morning?D. OK. Library is the best place for us to meet.

单选题The ______ are a hard-working people.

单选题Discipline cannot be ______ until the last day of school has passed.

单选题I arrive at nine o'clock, teach until twelve thirty and then have a meal; that is my morning ______. A) habit B) custom C) practice D) routine

单选题Inexperienced as he is, he has succeeded ______ other experienced researchers fail. A. where B. what C. which D. how

单选题We______the New Year's Day with a dance party.

单选题I saw an accident _______ home.

单选题Evolution A is always about competition, but for humans, B with Darwin speculated , competition among groups C has turned us into pretty cooperative, empathetic and altruistic creatures—D at least within our families, groups and sometimes nations.

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1. Many people invest in the stock market hoping to find the next Microsoft and Dell. However, I know{{U}} (1) {{/U}}personal experience how difficult this really is. For more than a year, I waw{{U}} (2) {{/U}}hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars a day investing in the market. It seemed so easy, I dreamed of{{U}} (3) {{/U}}my job at the end of the year, of buying a small apartment in Paris, of traveling around the world. But these dreams{{U}} (4) {{/U}}to a sudden and dramatic end when a stock I{{U}} (5) {{/U}}, Texas cellular pone wholesaler, fell by more than 75 percent{{U}} (6) {{/U}}a one year period. On the{{U}} (7) {{/U}}day, it plunged by more than $ 15 a share. There was a rumor the company was{{U}} (8) {{/U}}sales figures. That was when I leamed how quickly Wall street{{U}} (9) {{/U}}companies that misrepresent the{{U}} (10) {{/U}}. In a{{U}} (11) {{/U}}, I sold all my stock in the company, paying{{U}} (12) {{/U}}margin debt with cash advances from my{{U}} (13) {{/U}}card. Because I owned so many shares, I{{U}} (14) {{/U}}a small fortune, half of it from money I borrowed from the brokerage company. One month, I am a{{U}} (15) {{/U}}, the next, a loser. This one big loss was my first lesson in the market. My father was a stockbroker, as way my grandfather{{U}} (16) {{/U}}him. (In fact, he founded one of Chicago's earliest brokerage firms. ) But like so many things in life, we don't learn anything until we{{U}} (17) {{/U}}it for ourselves. The only way to really understand the inner{{U}} (18) {{/U}}of the stock market is to invest your own hard-earned money. When all your stocks are doing{{U}} (19) {{/U}}and you feel like a winner, you learn very little. It's when all your stocks are losing and everyone is questioning your stock-picking{{U}} (20) {{/U}}that you find out if you have what it takes to invest in the market.

单选题 For years, doctors have given cancer patients three main treatments: surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Now researchers are developing a fourth weapon: the patient's own immune system. New vaccines and drugs can stimulate the production of an army of cells and antibodies that kill cancer cells. Drug-vaccine therapy may be lifesaver for Deerfield man. Few people survive advanced melanoma, but immune therapy is giving Deerfield resident Douglas Parker a fighting chance. The 46-year-old salesman noticed a mole on his chest three and a half years ago that was found to be cancerous. Doctors removed the mole but didn't get all of the cancer. The cancer spread to other parts of his body, including his liver, where a tumor grew as large as a baseball. Parker took interferon and interleukin-2 to boost his immune system's ability to fight the cancer. The tumor shrank but didn't disappear. In August, 1997, surgeons removed it, along with two-thirds of his liver. Last January, doctors discovered a new tumor on Parker's left adrenal gland. He received an experimental cancer vaccine at the University of Chicago Hospitals, but the vaccine didn't stop the cancer from spreading to his right adrenal gland. To augment the vaccine, doctors at Lutheran General Hospital gave Parker a new round of interleukin-2 and interferon. The drug-vaccine combination has shrunk the tumors. And while it's too early to pronounce Parker cured, immune therapy may save his life. "I want to do this to help myself as well as other people who have melanoma, ' he said. Immune therapy "ultimately will be a significant change in the way we treat a lot of different cancers," said Dr. Jon Richards of Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, who is testing cancer vaccines on melanoma patients. "It will be an equal partner with the other three treatments in the next five to ten years." Several drugs that bolster the immune system have been approved, and vaccines are being tested in dozens of clinical trials, including several in the Chicago area. Many of the experimental vaccines have been tested on patients with advanced melanoma who have little chance of surviving with conventional treatments alone. Researchers also have begun doing work that could lead to vaccines to treat prostate, lung, colon and other cancers. Immune therapy alone won't cure cancer. But when used after conventional treatments, it could kill cancer cells that survive surgery, radiation or chemotherapy, researchers said. Some day, vaccines also might be able to prevent certain cancers. It may be possible to vaccinate against viruses and bacteria that help cause cervical, liver and stomach cancers, the National Cancer Institute said.

单选题{{B}}Questions 16-20 are based on the following passage:{{/B}} Perhaps the most familiar plant movement belongs to one species of mimosa called the sensitive plant. Within seconds, it can lower its leaves and make its tiny leaflets close up like folding chairs. This movement is thought to be initiated by electrical impulses remarkably similar to nerve signals in animals. But without the animals' sophisticated motion machinery, the mimosa has had to be creative in devising a way to move. For motion, the plant depends on tiny, bulb-shaped organs located at the base of each leaf stalk and leaflet. Called pulvini, these organs hold the plant parts in place. When the mimosa is stimulated—say, by a crawling insect or a sudden change in temperature—an electrical impulse sweeps through the plant. This causes potassium and then water to be shifted from certain cells in the pulvini to others, quickly turning one side of the organs flaccid. Because the pulvini can no longer support the leaves and leaflets, this shift results in a corresponding change in their position.

单选题By the mid-sixties, blue jeans were an essential part of the wardrobe of those with a commitment to social struggle. In the American Deep South, black farmers and grandchildren of slaves still segregated from whites, continued to wear jeans in their mid-nineteenth-century sense; but now they were joined by college students-black and white-in a battle to overturn deeply embedded race hatred. The clothes of the workers became a sacred bond between them. The clothing of toil came to signify the dignity of struggle. In the student rebellion and the antiwar movement that followed, blue jeans and work shirts provided a contrast to the uniforms of the dominant culture. Jeans were the opposite of high fashion, the opposite of the suit or military uniform. With the rise of the women's movement in the late 1960s, the political significance of dress became increasingly explicit; Rejecting orthodox sex roles, blue jeans were a woman's weapon against uncomfortable popular fashions and the view that women should be passive. This was the cloth of action; the cloth of labor became the badge of freedom. If blue jeans were for rebels in the 1960s and early 1970s, by the 1980s they had become a foundation of fashion-available in a variety of colors, textures, fabrics, and fit. These simple pants have made the long journey "from workers' clothes to cultural revolt to status symbol." On television, in magazine advertising, on the sides of buildings and buses, jeans call out to us. Their humble past is obscured; practical roots arc incorporated into a new aesthetic. Jeans are now the universal symbol of the individual and Western democracy. They are the costume of liberated women, with a fit tight enough to restrict like the harness of old-but with the look of freedom and motion. In blue jeans, fashion reveals itself as a complex world of history and change. Yet looking at fashions, in and of themselves, reveals situations that often defy understanding. Our ability to understand a specific fashion-the current one of jeans, for example-shows us that as we try to make sense of it, our confusion intensifies. It is a fashion whose very essence is contradiction and confusion. To pursue the goal of understanding is to move beyond the actual cloth itself, toward the more general phenomenon of fashion and the world in which it has risen to importance. Exploring the role of fashion within the social and political history of industrial America helps to reveal the parameters and possibilities of American society. The ultimate question is whether the development of images of rebellion into mass-produced fashions has actually resulted in social change.