单选题In 1956, when the cold war was at its peak, America deployed a "secret sonic weapon", as a newspaper headline put it at the time. That weapon was Dizzy Gillespie, a famed jazz musician, who was given the task of changing the world"s view of American culture through rhythm and beat. Crowds poured into the street to dance. Cultural diplomacy died down after the cold war ended. But the attacks of September 11th 2001 convinced the State Department to send out America"s musicians once again to woo hearts and minds with melody. Rhythm Road, a program run by the State Department and a non-profit organization, Jazz at Lincoln Centre, has made informal diplomats out of both musicians and audiences. Since it began in 2005, musicians have travelled to 96 countries. One band went to Mauritania, a country in northwestern Africa, after last year"s coup; many depart for countries that have strained relationships with America. The musicians travel to places where some people have never seen an American. Jazz, so participants in the program, is well-suited to diplomacy. It is collaborative, allowing individuals both to harmonize and play solo—much like a democracy, says Ari Roland, who plays bass for a band that left New York to tour the Middle East on March 31st. Jazz is also a reminder of music"s power. It helped break down racial barriers, as enthusiasts of all colors gathered to listen to jazz when segregation was still the law of the land. The State Department spent 10 million U.S. dollars on cultural diplomacy programs in the year to September 30th 2008. But most expect funding for the initiative to increase under Barack Obama, who pledged his support for cultural diplomacy during his campaign. Rhythm Road now sends out hip-hop and bluegrass bands as well. There are some dissenters. Nick Cull, the director of the Public Diplomacy Program at the University of Southern California, thinks that these diplomatic projects would be more productive if they were not administered by the same agency that oversees the country"s foreign-policy agenda. And there is also clamor for Mr. Obama to appoint a secretary of culture in his cabinet. What good, they ask, is sending American culture abroad, when the country is not giving it proper attention at home?

单选题My secretary usually opens my post ______ it"s marked "private".

单选题The year of 776 BC is considered to be the founding date of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece. The Games lasted more than 11 centuries ______ they were banned in 393 A D.

单选题The Black Prince is a novel by ______.

单选题Look at this mess! If only I______your advice.(南京大学2007年试题)

单选题The government has to decide whether cost or concern for the environment should take ______ when choosing the route for the new road crossing the well known scenic spot.

单选题The word "gain" in Para 3 means ______.

单选题Facial expressions carry meanings that are partly determined by culture. For example, many Japanese do not show their emotions as freely as Americans do, so teachers in the United States sometimes have trouble knowing whether their Japanese students understand and enjoy their lessons. Another example is the smile. As a common facial expression, it may show affection, convey politeness, or disguise(掩饰)true feelings. But in different cultures. smiles have different meanings. Many people in Russia consider smiling at strangers in public to be unusual and even a suspicious behavior. Yet many Americans smile freely at strangers in public places, for American culture a smile is typically an expression of pleasure. Therefore some Russians believe that Americans smile in the wrong places; some Americans believe that Russians don't smile enough. In Southeast Asian cultures, a smile is frequently used to cover emotional pain or embarrassment. Vietnamese people may tell the sad story of how they had to leave their country but end the story with a smile.

单选题Away from their profession, scientists are inherently no more honest or ______ than other people. A. ethical B. moderate C. civilized D. liberal

单选题His work was ______ than that of any other man in the school. A) by far better B) better by far C) by far the best D) the best by far

单选题Galena, the chief ore of lead, is a {{U}}brittle{{/U}} mineral with a metallic luster. A. hazel B. dense C. breakable D. sparking

单选题Shoppers who have flocked to online stores for their holiday shopping are losing privacy with every mouse click, according to a new report. The study by the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center scrutinized privacy policies on 100 of the most popular online shopping sites and compared those policies with a set of basic privacy principles that have come to be known as "fair information practices". The group found that none of the 100 sites met all of the basic criteria for privacy protection, which include giving notice of what information is collected and how it is used, offering consumers a choice over whether the information will be used in certain ways, allowing access to data that give consumers a chance to see and correct the information collected, and instituting the kind of security measures that ensure that information won't fall into the wrong hands. "This study shows that somebody else, other than Santa, is reading your Christmas list," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Media Education, which also worked on the survey. The online privacy of children is protected by Federal Trade Commission rules, but adults do not share the same degree of privacy protection. The movement, like the online shopping industry, favors self-regulation over imposition of further movement restrictions on electronic commerce. Marc Rosenberg, executive director of the privacy group, said the study shows that self regulations have failed, "We need legislation to enforce fair information practices," he said, "Consumers are at greater risk than they were in 1997," when the group released its first report. The survey also asked whether the 100 sites used "profile-based" advertising, and whether the sites incorporate "cookies" technology, which gives Websites basic information on visitors. Profiling is the practice of gathering in then used to create targeted advertising on Websites. All but 18 of the top shopping sites did display a privacy policy, a major improvement over the early days of electronic commerce, when such policies were scarce. But that did not satisfy the privacy group. "Companies are posting privacy policies, but these policies are not the same thing as fair information practices," Rosenberg said. The sites also did not perform well by other measures, the group said it found that 35 of the sites feature profile-based advertising, and 87 percent use cookies. The group concluded that the phonies that were posted "are typically confusing, incomplete, and inconsistent". The report, "Surfer Beware III: Privacy Policies Without Privacy Protection, " is the third such survey by the group. It called for further development of technologies that help consumers protect their privacy and even anonymity when exploring the Internet.

单选题Larry was so absorbed in his novel that he forgot about his dinner cooking in the oven.

单选题Many students find the experience of attending university lectures to be a confusing and frustrating experience. The lecturer speaks for one or two hours, perhaps (36) the talk with slides, writing up important information on the blackboard, (37) reading material and giving out (38) .The new student sees the other students continuously writing on notebooks and (39) what to write. Very often the student leaves the lecture (40) notes which do not catch the main points and (41) become hard even for the (42) to understand. Most institutions provide courses which (43) new students to develop the skills they need to be (44) listeners and note-takers. (45) these are unavailable, there are many useful study-skills guides which (46) learners to practice these skills (47) . In all cases it is important to (48) the problem (49) . actually starting your studies. It is important to (50) that most students have difficulty in acquiring the language skills (51) in college study. One way of (52) these difficulties is to attend the language and study-skills classes, which most institutions provide throughout the (53) year. Another basic (54) is to find a study partner (55) it is possible to identify difficulties, exchange ideas and provide support.

单选题There is a confusion about two distinct questions: (a) will computers made books obsolete? and (b) will computers make written and printed material obsolete? Let us suppose that computers will make books disappear (I do not think this will happen and I shall elaborate later on this point, but let us suppose so for the sake of the argument). Still, this would not entail the disappearance of printed material. We have seen that it was wishful thinking to hope that computers, and particularly word processors, would have helped to save trees. Computers encourage the production of printed material. We can imagine a culture in which there will be no books, and yet where people go around with tons and tons of unbound sheets of paper. This will be quite unwieldy, and will pose a new problem for libraries. Debray has observed that the fact that Hebrew civilization was a civilization based upon a book is not independent of the fact that it was a nomadic civilization. I think that this remark is very important. Egyptians could carve their records on stone obelisks, Moses could not. If you want to cross the Red Sea, a book is a more practical instrument for recording wisdom. By the way, another nomadic civilization, the Arabic one, was based upon a book, and privileged writing upon images. But books also have an advantage with respect to computers. Even if printed on acid paper, which lasts only seventy years or so, they are more durable than magnetic supports. Moreover, they do not suffer power shortages and blackouts, and are more resistant to shocks. As Bolter remarked, "it is unwise to try to predict technological change more than few years in advance," but it is certain that, up to now at least, books still represent the most economical, flexible, wash-and-wear way to transport information at a very low cost. Electronic communication travels ahead of you, books, travel with you and at your speed, but if you are shipwrecked on a desert island, a book can be useful, while a computer cannot—as Landow remarks, electronic texts need a reading station and a decoding device. Books are still the best companions for a shipwreck, or for the Day After. I am pretty sure that new technologies will render obsolete many kinds of books, like encyclopedias and manuals. Take for example the Encyclomedia project developed by Horizons Unlimited. When finished it will probably contain more information than the Encyclopedia Britannica (or Treccani or Larousse), with the advantage that it permits cross-references and nonlinear retrieval of information. The whole of the compact disks, plus the computer, will occupy one-fifth of the space occupied by an encyclopedia. The encyclopedia cannot be transported as the CD-ROM can, and cannot be easily updated; it does not have the practical advantages of a normal book, therefore it can be replaced by a CD-ROM, just a phone book can. The shelves today occupied, at my home as well as in public libraries, by meters and meters of encyclopedia volumes could be eliminated in the next age, and there will be no reason to lament their disappearance. For the same reason today I no longer need a heavy portrait painted by an indifferent artist, for I can send my sweetheart a glossy and faithful photograph. Such a change in the social functions of painting has not made painting obsolete, not even the realistic paintings of Annigoni, which do not fulfill the function of portraying a person, but of celebrating an important person, so that the commissioning, the purchasing, and the exhibition of such portraits acquire aristocratic connotations. Books will remain indispensable not only for literature, but for any circumstance in which one needs to read carefully, not only to receive information but also to speculate and to reflect about it. To read a computer screen is not the same as to read a book. Think of the process of learning how to use a piece of software. Usually the system is able to display on the screen all the instructions you need. But the users who want to learn the program generally either print the instructions and read them as if they were in book form, or they buy a printed manual (let me skip over the fact that currently all the manuals that come with a computer, on-line or off-line, are obviously written by irresponsible and tautological idiots, while commercial handbooks are written by intelligent people). It is possible to conceive of a visual program that explains very well how to print and bind a book, but in order to get instructions on how to write such a computer program, we need a printed manual. After having spent no more than twelve hours at a computer console, my eyes are like two tennis balls, and I feel the need to sit comfortably down in an armchair and read a newspaper, or maybe a good poem. It seems to me that computers are diffusing a new form of literacy but are incapable of satisfying all the intellectual needs they are stimulating. In my periods of optimism I dream of a computer generation which, compelled to read a computer screen, gets acquainted with reading from a screen, but at a certain moment feels unsatisfied and looks for a different, more relaxed, and differently-committing form of reading.

单选题The orderly came back in a few minutes with a rifle and five cartridges, and meanwhile some Burmans had arrived and told us that the elephant was in the paddy fields below, only a few hundred yards away. As I started forward practically the whole population of the quarter flocked out of the houses and followed me. They had seen the rifle and were all shouting excitedly that I was going to shoot the elephant. They had not shown much interest in the elephant when he was merely ravaging their homes, but it was different now that he was going to be shot. It was a bit of fun to them, as it would be to an English crowd; besides they wanted the meat. It made me vaguely uneasy. I had no intention of shooting the elephant—I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary—and it is always unnerving to have a crowd following you. I marched down the hill, looking and feeling a fool, with the rifle over my shoulder and an ever-growing army of people jostling at my heels. At the bottom, when you got away from the huts, there was a metalled road and beyond that a miry waste of paddy fields a thousand yards across, not yet ploughed but soggy from the first rains and dotted with coarse grass. The elephant was standing eight yards from the road, his left side towards us. He took not the slightest notice of the crowd"s approach. He was tearing up bunches of grass, beating them against his knees to clean them and stuffing them into his mouth. I had halted on the road. As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him. It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant—it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery—and obviously one ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided. And at that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. I thought then and I think now that this attack of "must" was already passing off; in which case he would merely wander harmlessly about until the mahout came back and caught him. Moreover, I did not in the least want to shoot him. I decided that I would watch him for a little while to make sure that he did not turn savage again, and then go home. But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. It blocked the road for a long distance on either side. I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes—faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I and got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man"s dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd—seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the natives and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. After reading each of the following questions, choose the ONE correct answer, and indicate it by writing down the letter that stands for it. In all questions only ONE answer is correct. This is stressed in some questions, but remember that the rule applies to all of them.

单选题In another institute study, 35% of U. S. employees said they had health care responsibilities during the last year. It can be episodic, unpredictable and very ______. A. stressing B. stressed C. stressful D. stress