单选题A study released a little over a week ago, which found that eldest children end up, on average, with slightly higher IQ's than younger siblings, was a reminder that the fight for self- definition starts much earlier than freshman year. Families, whatever the relative intelligence of their members, often treat the firstborn as if he or she were the most academic, and the younger siblings fill in other niches: the wild one, the flirt. These imposed caricatures, in combination with the other labels that accumulate from the sandbox through adolescence, can seem over time like a miserable entourage of identities that can be silenced only with hours of therapy. But there's another way to see these alternate identities: as challenges that can sharpen psychological skills. In a country where reinvention is considered a birthright, many people seem to treat old identities the way Houdini treated padlocked boxes: something to wriggle free from, before being dragged down. And psychological research suggests that this ability can be a sign of mental resilience, of taking control of your own story rather than being trapped by it. The late-night bull sessions in college or at backyard barbecues are at some level like out-of-body experiences, allowing a re-coloring of past experience to connect with new acquaintances. A more obvious outlet to expand identity--and one that's available to those who have not or cannot escape the family and community where they're known and labeled-- is the Internet. Admittedly, a lot of the role-playing on the Internet can have a deviant quality. But researchers have found that many people who play life-simulation games, for example, set up the kind of families they would like to have had, even script alternate versions of their own role in the family or in a peer group. Decades ago the psychologist Erik Erickson conceived of middle age as a stage of life defined by a tension between stagnation and generativity-a healthy sense of guiding and nourishing the next generation, of helping the community. Ina series of studies, the Northwestern psychologist Dan P. McAdams has found that adults in their 40s and 50s whose lives show this generous quality - who often volunteer, who have a sense of accomplishment - tell very similar stories about how they came to be who they are. Whether they grew up in rural poverty or with views of Central Park, they told their life stories as series of redemptive lessons. When they failed a grade, they found a wonderful tutor, and later made the honor roll; when fired from a good job, they were forced to start their own business. This similarity in narrative constructions most likely reflects some agency, a willful reshaping and re-imagining of the past that informs the present. These are people who, whether pegged as nerds or rebels or plodders, have taken control of the stories that form their identities. In conversation, people are often willing to hand out thumbnail descriptions of themselves: "I'm kind of a hermit. " Or a talker, a practical joker, a striver, a snob, a morning person. But they are more likely to wince when someone else describes them so authoritatively. Maybe that's because they have come too far, shaken off enough old labels already. Like escape artists with a lifetime's experience slipping through chains, they don't want or need any additional work. Because while most people can leave their family niches, schoolyard nicknames and high school reputations behind, they don't ever entirely forget them.

单选题{{B}}Directions: For each blank in the following passage, there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that is most suitable and mark your answer by blackening the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet.{{/B}} One of the political issues we hear a lot about lately is campaign finance reform. The people who are calling for{{U}} (21) {{/U}}usually want the government to pay for campaigns and/or limit the mount of money that candidates and their supporters can spend. One reason that reform is{{U}} (22) {{/U}}for is that it costs so much to run for political office. Candidates have to spend a great deal of time and effort{{U}} (23) {{/U}}money. The incumbents (those already in office) have{{U}} (24) {{/U}}time to do their jobs since they must attend so many fund raising events. Another{{U}} (25) {{/U}}is the fear that candidates will be owned or controlled by the "special interest groups" that contribute to their campaigns. Sometimes this certainly seems to be the{{U}} (26) {{/U}}. On the{{U}} (27) {{/U}}side are those who caution that just because you call something "reform," doesn’t mean it’s really{{U}} (28) {{/U}}. They{{U}} (29) {{/U}}that our right to freedom of speech is meaningless if the government can limit anyone’s ability to get his or her message out to the people. If one person or a group of people want to tell the{{U}} (32) {{/U}}what they think about an issue or candidate, they have to{{U}} (31) {{/U}}advertising on TV, radio, and in newspapers and magazines. They might want to display billboards along highways and banners on heavily trafficked Web sites. All this{{U}} (32) {{/U}}a-lot of money. Opponents of laws that regulate or limit spending say that you don’t really have freedom of speech or freedom of the press if you can’t get your message out. They say that in a democracy, the government should never be able to regulate political discussion or the means to distribute ideas. They believe that this is most important when the voters are about to make{{U}} (33) {{/U}}. What do you think about this issue? Listen to what the{{U}} (34) {{/U}}for national office have to say. Which candidates make the most,{{U}} (35) {{/U}}to you?

单选题You ______ include this section. It's not necessary.

单选题We moved to the front row______we could hear and see better.

单选题Think ______ and you'll have some idea.A. overB. over itC. it overD. it

单选题The commissioner of a professional sports league dictated that teams could not put players on the field who had a greater than 20 percent chance of suffering a career-ending spinal injury during competition. The commissioner justified this decision as a way to protect players from injury while protecting the league from lawsuits. Which of the following, if true, would most undermine the effectiveness of the commissioner's new policy? A. Spinal injuries can result in paralysis, loss of fine motor skills, and even death. B. The previous year, more than seven players in the league suffered career-ending spinal injuries. C. The players' union agrees that the risk of injury is an inevitable part of playing the game at a professional level. D. There is no scientifically valid method for determining the likelihood of any player suffering a career-ending spinal injury at any given time. E. Players barred from playing because of this new regulation will be entitled to compensation for lost wages at a level determined by the commissioner's office.

单选题Government reports, examination, and most business letters are the main situation formal language is used.

单选题Merrilee Miller, merchants association marketing director, called the festivities a (n)______ for the sickening feelings left by the shootings at Westroads Mall on Wednesday. A. antifebrile B. antidote C. counteract D. neutralization

单选题The two main causes are population pressures, especially the pressures (of) large metropolitan populations, and the desire—a (highly) commendable one—to bring a decent (life) at the lowest possible cost to the (largest) possible number of people.

单选题The representative presented to the committee a ______ signed by 1,200 electors asking for a thorough probe into the financial scandal surrounding the candidate for the regional legislator.

单选题Since the price you quoted would leave us no margin of ______, we must do business with other suppliers who are offering lower prices for Dinner Sets of the same quality.

单选题The children ______ around their grandmother. A. were seated B. seat C. was seated D. seated

单选题The teacher insisted that we ( ) our homework before 9 o'clock.

单选题If sustainable competitive advantage depends on work force skills, American firms have a problem. Human management is not traditionally seen as central to the competitive survival of the firm in the United States. Skill acquisition is considered as individual responsibility. Labor is simply another force of production to be hired/rented at the lowest possible cost, which is a must as one buys raw material or equipment. The lack of importance attached to human resource management can be seen in the corporate pecking order. In an American firm the chief financial officer is almost always second in command. The post of head of human resource management is usually a specialized job, off at the edge of the corporate hierarchy. The executive who holds it is never consulted on major strategic decisions and has no chance to move up to Chief Executive Officer. By way of contrast, in Japan the head of human resource management is central—usually the second most important executive, after the CEO, in the firm's hierarchy. While American firms often talk about the vast amounts spent on training their work force, in fact, they invest less in the skills of their employees than do either Japanese or German firms. The money they do invest is also more highly concentrated on professional or managerial employees. And the limited investments that are made in training workers are also much more narrowly focused on the specific skills necessary to do the next job rather than on the basic background skills that make it possible to absorb new technologies. As a result, problems emerge when new breakthrough technologies arrive. If American workers, for example, take much longer to learn how to operate new flexible manufacturing stations than workers in Germany (as they do), the effective cost of those stations is lower in Germany than it is in the United States. More time is required before equipment is up and running at the speed with which new equipment is up and running at capacity, and the need for extensive retraining generates costs and creates bottlenecks that limit the speed with which new equipment can be employed. The result is a slower pace of technological change. And in the end the skills of the bottom half of the population affect the wages of the top half. If the bottom half can't effectively staff the processes that have to be operated, the management and professional jobs that go with these processes will disappear.

单选题Two decades ago only spies and systems administrators had to worry about passwords. But today you have to enter one even to do humdrum things like turning on your computer, downloading an album or buying a book online. No wonder many people use a single, simple password for everything. Analysis of password databases, often stolen from websites, shows that the most common choices include "password", "123456" and "abc123". But using these, or any word that appears in a dictionary, is insecure. Even changing some letters to numbers ("e" to "3", "i" to "1" and so forth) does little to reduce the vulnerability of such passwords to an automated "dictionary attack", because these substitutions are so common. The fundamental problem is that secure passwords tend to be hard to remember, and memorable passwords tend to be insecure. Weak passwords open the door to fraud, identity theft and breaches of privacy. An analysis by Verizon, an American telecoms firm, found that the biggest reason for successful security breaches was easily guessable passwords. Some viruses spread by trying common passwords. The solution, say security researchers, is to upgrade the software in people's heads, by teaching them to choose more secure passwords. One approach is to use passphrases containing unrelated words, such as "correct horse battery staple", linked by a mental image. Passphrases are, on average, several orders of magnitude harder to crack than passwords. But a new study by researchers at the University of Cambridge finds that people tend to choose phrases made up not of unrelated words but of words that already occur together, such as "dead poets society" . Such phrases are vulnerable to a dictionary attack based on common phrases taken from the Internet. And many systems limit the length of passwords, making a long phrase impractical. An alternative approach, championed by Bruce Schneier, a security guru, is to turn a sentence into a password, taking the first letter of each word and substituting numbers and punctuation marks where possible. "Too much food and wine will make you sick" thus becomes "2mf&wwmUs". This is no panacea: the danger with this "mnemonic password" approach is that people will use a proverb, or a line from a film or a song, as the starting point, which makes it vulnerable to attack. Some websites make an effort to enhance security by indicating how easily guessed a password is likely to be, rejecting weak passwords, ensuring that password databases are kept properly coded and limiting the rate at which login attempts can be made. More should do so. But don't rely on it happening. Instead, beef up your own security by upgrading your brain to use mnemonic passwords.

单选题When ______ ,the museum will be open to the public next year. A. completed B. completing C. being completed D. to be completed

单选题The attack was meticulously planned and executed. A. negligently B. slovenly C. fussily D. discreetly