单选题 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 aren't 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I found, while thinking about the far-reaching world of the creative black woman, that often the truest answer to a question that really matters can be found very close. In the late 1920s, my mother ran away from home to 1 my father. Marriage, if not running away, was 2 of seventeen-year-old girls. By the time she was twenty, she had two children and was pregnant 3 a third. Five children later, I was born. And this is how I 4 to know my mother: she 5 a large, soft, loving-eyed woman who was 6 impatient in our home. Her quick, violent temper was on 7 only a few times a year, when she 8 with the white landlord who had the misfortune to suggest to her that her children did not need to go to school. She made all the clothes we wore, even my brother"s 9 . She made all the towels and sheers we used. She spent the summers canning vegetables and fruits. She spent the winter evenings making quilts 10 to cover all our beds.

单选题{{B}}Part A{{/B}}Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D． {{B}}Text 1{{/B}} Cabinet meetings outside London are rare and reluctant things. Harold Wilson held one in Brighton in 1966, but only because the Labour Party was already there for its annual conference. In 1921 David Lloyd George summoned the Liberals to Inverness because he didn't want to cut short his holiday. Gordon Brown's decision to hold his first cabinet meeting after the summer break in Birmingham, on September 8th, was born of a nobler desire to show the almost nine tenths of Britons who live outside London that they are not ignored. He will have to do better: constitutionally, they are more sidelined now than ever. Many legislatures use their second chamber to strengthen the representation of sparsely populated areas (every American state, from Wyoming to California, gets two votes in the Senate, for example). Britain's House of Lords, most of whose members are appointed supposedly on merit, has the opposite bias. A survey by the New Local Government Network (NLGN), a think-tank, finds that London and two of its neighbouring regions are home to more peers than the rest of Britain combined; even Birmingham, the country's second-largest city, has just one. Oddly, this distortion is partly thanks to reforms that were supposed to make the Lords more representative. By throwing out most of the hereditary peers in 1999, Labour paved the way for a second chamber that was less posh, less white and less male than before. But in booting out the landed gentry, it also ditched many of those who came from the provinces. The Duke of Northumberland (270th in the Sunday Times's " Rich List") may not be a member of a downtrodden minority. But Alnwick Castle, his family pile, is in the North-east region, home to just 2% of the Lords' members now. Geographically speaking, the duke and his fellow toffs were champions of diversity. The government now wants to reintroduce some geographical fairness, but minus dukes. Long-incubated plans to reform the Lords would see it converted during the next parliament into a body that is mainly or entirely elected. A white paper in July outlined various electoral systems, all based on regional or sub-regional constituencies. Some would like to see the seat of government prised out of the capital altogether, though in the past this has normally required a civil war or a plague. Southerners whisper that no one would show up if Parliament were based in a backwater such as Manchester. But many don't now. The NLGN found that peers resident in Northern Ireland vote least often. But next from the bottom are the London-dwellers, who show up for less than a third of the votes on their doorstep. Even the eight who live abroad are more assiduous. The north may seem an awfully long way away, but apparently so is Westminster.

单选题______to hurt her, he did not tell her the truth.

单选题At the______ moment, people from all corners of the country offered their help to the earthquake survivors.

单选题What worried the child most was ______ to visit his mother in the hospital.A. his not allowingB. his not being allowedC. his being not allowedD. having not been allowed

单选题Every officer and every soldier ______ obey the rules.

单选题What we today call America folk art was, indeed, art of, by, and for ordinary, everyday "folks" who, with increasing prosperity and leisure, created a market for art of all kinds, and especially for portraits. Citizens of prosperous, essentially middel-class republics—whether ancient Romans, seventeenth-century Dutch burghers, or nineteenth-century Americans—have always shown a marked taste for portraiture. Starting in the late eighteenth century, the United States contained increasing numbers of such people, and of the artists how could meet their demands. The earliest American folk art portraits come, not surpisingly, form New England—especially Connecticut and Massachusetts—for this was a wealthy and populous region and the center of a strong craft tradition. Within a few decades after the singning of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the population was pushing westward, and Missouri. Midway through its first century as a nation, the United States' population had increased roughly five times, and eleven new states had been added to the original thirteen. During these years the demand for portraits grew and grew, eventually to be satisfied by the camera. In 1839 the daguerreotype was introduced to America, ushering in the age of photography, and within a generation the new invention put an end to the popularity of painted portraits. Once again an original portrait became a luxury, commissioned by the wealthy and executed by the professional. But in the heyday of portrait painting-from the late eighteenth century until the 1850's—anyone with a modicum of artistic ability could become a limner, as such a portaitist was called. Local craftspeople-sign, coach, and house painters—began to paint portraits as a profitable sideline; sometimes a talented man or woman who began by sketching family members gained a local reputation and was besieged with requests for portraits; artists found it worth their while to pack their paints, canvases, and brushes and to travel the countryside, often combining house decorating with portrait painting.

单选题Several novels by Mo Yan ______ into English so far.

单选题Speaker A: Are you feeling better now?Speaker B:______A. Well, not too better yet, thank you.B. Well, not too good yet. Better than I was though.C. Well, it doesn' t matter.D. I'm all right now.

单选题If we ______ our relations with that country, we'll have to find another supplier of raw materials. A. diffuse B. diminish C. terminate D. preclude

单选题Teacher: Are you following me? Student: ______

单选题The loss of lusitania and so many of its passengers, including 128 U.S. citizens, aroused a wave of indignation in the United States.

单选题Grace's eyes were wet with tears as she put her face______she could, gripping my left hand and stroking it.