单选题There are four basic types of competition in business that form a continuum from pure competition through monopolistic competition and oligopoly (商品供应垄断) to monopoly. At one end of the continuum, pure competition results when every company has a similar product. Companies that deal in commodities such as wheat or corn are often involved in pure competition. In pure competition, it is often the ease and efficiency of distribution that influences purchase. In contrast, in monopolistic competition several companies may compete for the sale of items that may be substituted. The classic example of monopolistic competition is coffee and tea. If the price of one is perceived as too high, consumers may begin to purchase the other. Coupons and other discounts (折扣) are often used as part of a marketing strategy to influence sales. Oligopoly occurs when a few companies dominate the sales of a product or service. For example, only five airline carriers control more than 70 percent of all ticket sales in the United States. In oligopoly, serious competition is not considered desirable because it would result in reduced revenue for every company in the group. Although price wars do occur, in which all companies offer substantial savings to customers, a somewhat similar tendency to raise prices simultaneously is also usual. Finally, monopoly occurs when only one firm sells the product. Some monopolies have been tolerated for producers of goods and services that have been considered basic or essential, including electricity and water. In these cases, it is government control, rather than competition, that protects and influences sales.

单选题There is a popular belief among parents that schools are no longer interested in spelling. No school I have taught in has ever ignored spelling or considered it unimportant as a basic skill. There are, however, vastly different ideas about how to teach it, or how much priority it must be given over general language development and writing ability. The problem is, how to encourage a child to express himself freely and confidently in writing without holding him back with the complexities of spelling. If spelling becomes the only focal point of his teacher"s interest, clearly a bright child will be likely to "play safe". He will tend to write only words within his spelling range, choosing to avoid adventurous language. That"s why teachers often encoreage the early use of dictionaries and pay attention to content rather than technical ability. I was once shocked to read on the bottom of a sensitive piece of writing about a personal experience: "This work is terrible! There are far too many spelling errors and your writing is illegible (难以辨认的)." It may have been a sharp criticism of the pupil"s technical abilities in writing, but it was also a sad reflection on the teacher who had omitted to read the essay, which contained some beautiful expressions of the child"s deep feelings. The teacher was not wrong to draw attention to the errors, but if his priorities had centred on the child"s idea, an expression of his disappointment with the presentation would have given the pupil more motivation to seek improvement.

单选题Obviously, he decided not to say anything about it because he hoped to ______.

单选题These days we hear a lot of nonsense about the "great classless society". The idea that the twentieth century is the age of the common man has become one of the great cliches of our time. The same old arguments are put forward in evidence. Here are some of them: monarchy as a system of government has been completely discredited. The monarchies that survive have been deprived of all political power. Inherited wealth has been savagely reduced by taxation and, in time, the great fortunes will disappear altogether. In a number of countries the victory has been complete. The people rule; the great millennium has become a political reality. But has it? Close examination doesn't bear out the claim. It is a fallacy to suppose that all men are equal and that society will be leveled out if you provide everybody with the same educational opportunities.(It is debatable whether you can ever provide everyone with the same educational opportunities, but that is another question.)The fact is that nature dispenses brains and ability with a total disregard for the principle of equality. The old rules of the jungle, "survival of the fittest" , and "might is right" are still with us. The spread of education has destroyed the old class system and created a new one. Rewards are based on merit. For "aristocracy" read "meritocracy" ; in other respects, society remains unaltered: the class system is rigidly maintained. Genuine ability, animal cunning, skill, the knack of seizing opportunities, all bring material rewards. And what is the first thing people do when they become rich? They use their wealth to secure the best possible opportunities for their children, to give them " a good start in life". For all the lip service we pay to the idea of equality, we do not consider this wrong in the western world. Private schools which offer unfair advantages over state schools are not banned because one of the principles in a democracy is that people should be free to choose how they will educate their children. In this way, the new meritocracy can perpetuate itself to a certain extent; an able child from a wealthy home can succeed far more rapidly than his poorer counterpart. Wealth is also used indiscriminately to further political ends. It would be almost impossible to become the leader of a democracy without massive financial backing. Money is as powerful a weapon as ever it was. In societies wholly dedicated to the principle of social equality, privileged private education is forbidden. But even here people are rewarded according to their abilities. In fact, so great is the need for skilled workers that the least able may be neglected. Bright children are carefully and expensively trained to become future rulers. In the end, all political ideologies boil down to the same thing: class divisions persist whether you are ruled by a feudal king or an educated peasant.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Guthrie's contiguity principle offers practical suggestions for how to break habits. One application of the threshold method involves the time young children spend on academic activities. Young children have short attention spans, so the length of time they can sustain work on one activity is limited. Most activities are scheduled to last no longer than 30 to 40 minutes. However, at the start of the school year, attention spans quickly wane and behavior problems often result. To apply Guthrie's theory, a teacher might, at the start of the year, limit activities to 15 to 20 minutes. Over the next few weeks the teacher could gradually increase the time students spend working on a single activity. The threshold method also can be applied to teaching printing and handwriting. When children first learn to form letters, their movements are awkward and they lack fine motor coordination. The distances between lines on a page are purposely wide so children can fit the letters into the space. If paper with narrow lines is initially introduced, students' etters would spill over the borders and students might become frustrated. Once students can form letters within the larger borders, they can use paper with smaller borders to help them refine their skills. The fatigue method can be applied when disciplining disruptive students who build paper airplanes and sail them across the room. The teacher can remove the students from the classroom, give them a large stack of paper, and tell him to start making paper airplanes. After the students have made several airplanes, the activity should lose its attraction and paper will become a cue for not building airplanes. Some students continually race around the gym when they first enter their physical education class. To employ the fatigue method, the teacher might decide to have these students continue to run a few more laps after the class has begun. The incompatible response method can be used with students who talk and misbehave in the media center. Reading is incompatible with talking. The media center teacher might ask the students to find interesting books and read them while in the center. Assuming that the students find the books enjoyable, the media center will, over time, become a cue for selecting and reading books rather than for talking with other students. In a social studies class some students regularly fall asleep. The teacher realized that using the board and overhead projector while lecturing was very boring. Soon the teacher began to incorporate other elements into each lesson, such as experiments, and debates, in an attempt to involve students and raise their interest in the course.

单选题They have cooperated so well that they decide to ______ their agreement for another five years.

单选题In some countries, societal and familial treatment of the elderly usually reflects a great degree of independence and individualism. Their financial support is often provided by social security or welfare systems which decrease dependence on their family. Additionally, older people may seek their own friends rather than become too emotionally dependent on their children. Senior citizens centers provide a means for peer-group association within one's own age groups. There are problems, however, with growing old, in the United States. Glorification of youth and indifference to the aged have left many older people alienated and alone. Some families send their older relatives to nursing homes rather than integrate them into the homes of the children or grandchildren. This separation of the elderly from the young has contributed to the isolation of an increasingly large segment of society. On the other hand, there are many older people who choose to live in retirement communities where they have the companionship of other older people and convenience of many recreational and social activities close home. The treatment of the elderly can be further understood by distinguishing between nuclear and extended family structures. In the United States the nuclear family, which consists of the father, the mother, and the children, is considered "the family". The extended family, common in other cultures, includes grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, and children in law. The distinction between the nuclear and extended family is important because it suggests the extent of family ties and obligations. In extended families the children and parents have strong ties and obligations to relatives. It is common in these families to support older family members, to have intensive contact with relatives, and to establish communal housing. The American nuclear family usually has its own separate residence and is economically independent of other family members. Relatives are still considered "family" but are often outside the basic obligations that people have to their immediate families. When couples many, they are expected to live independently of their parents and become "heads of households" when they have children. It is not unusual in times of financial need for nuclear family members to borrow money from a bank rather than from relatives. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, then, are not directly involved in the same way as they would be in an extended family structure.

单选题What makes a man spend 22 hours in freezing water or 14 days alone in a hot-air balloon? Adventurer Steve Fossett knows. His taste for adventure has driven him to set dozens of world records in both aviation (航空) and sailing. For him, it's the thrill of doing things that have never been done before. He also enjoys testing his own endurance and skills. Altogether, Fossett has 115 world records and world firsts to his name. His most recent success came in February 2006 when he broke the world's flight distance record. He traveled more than 26000 miles in 76 hours. Surprisingly, 62-year-old Fossett is not strong or athletic, but he is very persistent. His efforts to complete the first solo hot-air balloon ride round the world show his determination. He made six attempts over five years and finally succeeded in 2002. Fossett developed his appetite for adventure early. At the age of 11, he started rock climbing. While he was a student at Stanford University, he spent his summers climbing mountains and doing endurance swims throughout Europe. After graduating from Stanford, Fossett earned a master's degree in business from Washington University in St. Louis. In 1968, he began making his fortune as a stock trader in Chicago. By the late 1980s, he had become a millionaire. But, he spent his free time participating in endurance sports. In 1990, he finally decided to become a full-time adventurer and a part-time businessman. Fossett participated in numerous endurance competitions, including skiing, biking, swimming and car racing. But in the mid-1990s, Fossett began to change his focus. Instead of simply finishing races, he wanted to set world records. Fossett focused on sailing and aviation. He has set 23 official world records in sailing. In April 2004, after 58 days at sea, he and his crew of 12 set the world record for the fastest round-the-world sailing. In aviation, he has established more than 60 world records.

单选题______we have finished all the final exams, we'll have a good time enjoying ourselves.

单选题According to the passage which of the following occurred prior to 1890.9

单选题While (attempted) (to reach) his home before the storm, John (had an accident) (on) his bicycle.

单选题This is ______ for ten of us to sit at. Please get us a larger one.

单选题What have the Handlins argued about the relationship between racial prejudice and the institution of legal slavery in the English colonies of North America?

单选题"The one in the brown suit gaped at her. Blue suit grinned, might even have winked. The big nose in grey suit still stared—and he had small angry eyes and did not even smile." That is an example of ______.

单选题It is obvious ______ on more important things.

单选题______ a microscope we can see different kinds of things that are unable to be seen by our naked eyes.

单选题George Bernard Shaw once wrote: "There is no love sincerer than the love of food. "That love has limits, however. In thin years, diners value their wallets over their palates. Visits to posh restaurants in America declined by 15 % between May 2008 and May this year, according to the NPD Group, a research firm. Fast-food restaurants, on the other hand, saw traffic decline only 2%. To lure eaters back, many fine restaurants have done what luxury brands hate to do: have a cut-price sale. Some offer discounts to those who dine at unpopular times, such as early in the evening or on Sunday. Restaurant Week, a twice-yearly tradition in New York City where restaurants offer discounted prix-fixed menus at lunch and dinner, was extended by six weeks this summer. This may help. The 21 Club, a fancy joint in Manhattan, usually sees its business increase by around 25%～40% during Restaurant Week, says Bryan McGuire, its general manager. Many restaurants have also turned to the Internet. Gilt and Rue La La, two popular online shopping sites that offer heavy discounts on designer clothing, have started to peddle meals at fancy restaurants too. Gilt, for example, recently sold a four-course meal at the Tribeca Grill, a restaurant owned by Robert De Niro, an actor, for $160 (36% off). Shopping sites like these attract image-conscious restaurants, because only the site's members can see that the restaurant has started to offer leaner prices. Another website, Groupon, has gained popularity among restaurants as a way to bring in new customers. The company offers a daily discount in each of the 140 American and European cities where it operates. Some 40% of its promotions are for restaurants. The deals can be generous: some offer $50-worth of food and wine for $25. The deal only goes into effect, however, if enough people buy it. So people prod their Facebook friends to join the feeding frenzy. This type of "collective buying" has caught on. Since the firm started in 2008, it has brokered the sale of more than 8.8m "groupons" and saved customers around $375m. La Condesa, a restaurant in Austin, has sold 3,000 groupons. " It brings a lot of people into the restaurant who would never have come in," says Jesse Herman, an executive. Tasty offerings abound online. OpenTable, a website, allows people to book a table without having to plead with a snooty hostess. It also makes it easier for restaurants to track customers. SeamlessWeb allows people in America and Britain to search online for nearby eateries and order their food delivered. Even swanky restaurants have started to take part, betting that some people might want to eat haute cuisine without dressing for the occasion. But SeamlessWeb takes a cut of restaurants' sales for bringing them business, so restaurants have to decide whether' it's better to stay hungry for customers or share part of their meal with someone else.

单选题It"s no surprise that Jennifer Senior"s insightful, provocative magazine cover story, "I love My Children, I Hate My Life," is arousing much chatter—nothing gets people talking like the suggestion that child rearing is anything less than a completely fulfilling, life-enriching experience. Rather than concluding that children make parents either happy or miserable, Senior suggests we need to redefine happiness: instead of thinking of it as something that can be measured by moment-to-moment joy, we should consider being happy as a past-tense condition. Even though the day-to-day experience of raising kids can be soul-crushingly hard, Senior writes that "the very things that in the moment dampen our moods can later be sources of intense gratification and delight." The magazine cover showing an attractive mother holding a cute baby is hardly the only Madonna-and-child image on newsstands this week. There are also stories about newly adoptive—and newly single—mom Sandra Bullock, as well as the usual "Jennifer Aniston is pregnant" news. Practically every week features at least one celebrity morn, or mom-to-be, smiling on the newsstands. In a society that so persistently celebrates procreation, is it any wonder that admitting you regret having children is equivalent to admitting you support kitten-killing? It doesn"t seem quite fair, then, to compare the regrets of parents to the regrets of the childless. Unhappy parents rarely are provoked to wonder if they shouldn"t have had kids, but unhappy childless folks are bothered with the message that children are the single most important thing in the world: obviously their misery must be a direct result of the gaping baby-size holes in their lives. Of course, the image of parenthood that celebrity magazines like Us Weekly and People present is hugely unrealistic, especially when the parents are single mothers like Bullock. According to several studies concluding that parents are less happy than childless couples, single parents are the least happy of all. No shock there, considering how much work it is to raise a kid without a partner to lean on; yet to hear Sandra and Britney tell it, raising a kid on their "own" (read: with round-the-clock help) is a piece of cake. It"s hard to imagine that many people are dumb enough to want children just because Reese and Angelina make it look so glamorous: most adults understand that a baby is not a haircut. But it"s interesting to wonder if the images we see every week of stress-free, happiness-enhancing parenthood aren"t in some small, subconscious way contributing to our own dissatisfactions with the actual experience, in the same way that a small part of us hoped getting "the Rachel" might make us look just a little bit like Jennifer Aniston.

单选题Nobody will ever know the agony I go ______ waiting for him to come home.