单选题 Americans today don't place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athletes, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not scholars. Even our schools are where we send our children to get a practical education—not to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Symptoms of pervasive anti-intellectualism in our schools aren't difficult to find. 'Schools have always been in a society where practice is more important than intellect', says education writer Diane Ravitch. 'Schools could be a counterbalance'. Ravitch's latest book, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms, traces the roots of anti-intellectualism in our schools, concluding they are anything but a counterbalance to the American distaste for intellectual pursuits. But they could and should be. Encouraging kids to reject the life of the mind leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and control. Without the ability to think critically, to defend their ideas and understand the ideas of others, they cannot fully participate in our democracy. Continuing along this path, says writer Earl Shorris, 'We will become a second-rate country. We will have a less civil society'. 'Intellect is resented as a form. of power or privilege', writes historian and Professor Richard Hofstadter in Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, a Pulitzer Prize winning book on the roots of anti-intellectualism in U.S. politics, religion, and education. From the beginning of our history, says Hofstadter, our democratic and populist urges have driven us to reject anything that smells of elitism. Practicality, common sense, and native intelligence have been considered more noble qualities than anything you could learn from a book. Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children, 'We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing'. Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn exemplified American anti-intellectualism. Its hero avoids being civilized—going to school and learning to read, so he can preserve his innate goodness. Intellect, according to Hofstadter, is different from native intelligence, a quality we reluctantly admire. Intellect is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of the mind. Intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re-order, and adjust, while intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes and imagines. School remains a place where intellect is mistrusted. Hofstadter says our country's educational system is in the grips of people who 'joyfully and militantly proclaim their hostility to intellect and their eagerness to identify with children who show the least intellectual promise'.

单选题Jack was in the conference room (discussing) plans with (the other) committee members when the chairman (had called) to say (he'd be late).A. discussingB. the otherC. had calledD. he'd be late

单选题Which of the following is Not true according to the first two paragraphs?

单选题His ______ handwriting resulted from haste and carelessness rather than from the inability to form the letters correctly.

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the saying 'All shall pass with time going by.' You can cite examples to illustrate the meaning of letting go of past glory and suffering in life. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.

单选题The items contained in the parcel do not ______ with those on the list that accompanied it. A. correspond B. agree C. cope D. associate

单选题 Listen to the following passage. Altogether the passage will be read to you four times. During the first reading, which will be done at normal speed, listen and try to understand the meaning. For the second and third readings, the passage will be read sentence by sentence, or phrase by phrase, with intervals of 15 seconds. The last reading will be done at normal speed again and during this time you should check your work. You will then be given 1 minute to check through your work once more. Calendar In the modem calendar, we label all years with B.C. or A.D.

单选题—It's so noisy upstairs. What are they doing? —They be having a party.

单选题Not too many decades ago it seemed "obvious" both to the general public and to sociologists that modern society has changed people's natural relations, loosened their responsibilities to kin (亲戚) and neighbors, and substituted in their place superficial relationships with passing acquaintances. However, in recent years a growing body of research has revealed that the "obviousness" is not tree. It seems that if you are a city resident, you typically know a smaller proportion of your neighbors than you do if you are a resident of a smaller community. But, for the most part, this fact has few significant consequences. It does not necessarily follow that if you know few of your neighbors you will know no one else. Even in very large cities, people maintain close social ties within small, private social worlds. Indeed, the number and quality of meaningful relationships do not differ between more and less urban people. Small-town residents are more involved with kin than big-city residents. Yet city dwellers compensate by developing friendships with people who share similar interests and activities. Urbanism may produce a different style of life, but the quality of life does not differ between town and city. Nor are residents of large communities any likelier to display psychological symptoms of stress or alienation, a feeling of not belonging, than are residents of smaller communities. However, city dwellers do worry more about crime, and this leads them to a distrust of strangers. These findings do not imply that urbanism makes little or no difference. If neighbors are strangers to one another, they are less likely to sweep the sidewalk of an elderly couple living next door or keep an eye out for young troublemakers. Moreover, as Wirth suggested, there may be a link between a community's population size and its social heterogeneity (多样性). For instance, sociologists have found that the size of a community is associated with bad behavior including gambling, drugs, etc. Large-city urbanites are also more likely than their small-town counterparts to have a cosmopolitan (见多识广者的) outlook, to display less responsibility to traditional kinship roles, to vote for leftist political candidates, and to be tolerant of nontraditional religious groups, unpopular political groups, and so-called undesirables. Everything considered, heterogeneity and unusual behavior seem to be outcomes of large population size.

单选题 Anger is a very common human 28 and at some time or another we all experience it. From young children to old people we all feel anger at various times and for various reasons. There is nothing wrong with this, it is only when you lose 29 of your feelings and begin to rant and rave unnecessarily about something very trivial that it is seen as a 30 . Because it is a natural emotion you do not have to strive to get rid of it 31 , but you only have to control it getting out of hand. If you know that the lack of self confidence is your main problem. Do something about it. There are 32 books written about this subject and there is much to be learned from them. Check your local churches or clubs and find out if there are any 33 currently running on the subject of self confidence and self esteem. It is well worth the effort to 34 your self confidence. Make yourself do things that might freak you out. Talking to strangers might 35 you. If this is the case make a point of 36 one stranger per day and starting a conversation. Make a list of things that 37 you and lead to you getting angry. Discuss your list with your family and they will give you their support in helping you any way they can. They will be so pleased that you are trying to be different that you can be sure that they will do everything they can to make you happy. A. aggravate B. approaching C. classes D. completely E. control F. emotion G. tournament H. trailed I. lecture J. numerous K. problem L. followed M. regain N. scare O. view

单选题In order to understand a problem thoroughly, da Vinci ______.

单选题 'Depression' is more than a serious economic downturn. What distinguishes a depression from a harsh recession is paralyzing fear—fear of the unknown so great that it causes consumers, businesses, and investors to retreat and panic. They save up cash and desperately cut spending. They sell stocks and other assets. A shattering loss of confidence inspires behavior that overwhelms the normal self-correcting mechanisms that usually prevent a recession from becoming deep and prolonged; a depression. Comparing 1929 with 2007-09, Christina Romer, the head of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, finds the initial blow to confidence far greater now than then. True, stock prices fell a third from September to December 1929, but fewer Americans then owned stocks. Moreover, home prices barely dropped. From December 1928 to December 1929, total household wealth declined only 3%. By contrast, the loss in household wealth between December 2007 and December 2008 was 17%. Both stocks and homes, more widely held, dropped more. Thus traumatized (受到创伤), the economy might have gone into a free fall ending in depression. Indeed, it did go into free fall. Shoppers refrained from buying cars, appliances, and other big-ticket items. Spending on such 'durables' dropped at a 12% annual rate in 2008's third quarter, a 20% rate in the fourth. And businesses shelved investment projects. That these huge declines didn't lead to depression mainly reflects, as Romer argues, countermeasures taken by the government. Private markets for goods, services, labor, and securities do mostly self-correct, but panic feeds on itself and disarms these stabilizing tendencies. In this situation, only government can protect the economy as a whole, because most individuals and companies are involved in the self-defeating behavior of self-protection. Government's failure to perform this role in the early 1930s transformed recession into depression. Scholars will debate which interventions this time—the Federal Reserve's support of a failing credit system, guarantees of bank debt, Obama's 'stimulus' plan and bank 'stress test '—counted most in preventing a recurrence. Regardless, all these complex measures had the same psychological purpose., to reassure people that the free fall would stop and, thereby, curb the fear that would perpetuate (使持久) a free fall. All this improved confidence. But the consumer sentiment index remains weak, and all the rebound has occurred in Americans' evaluation of future economic conditions, not the present. Unemployment (9.8%) is abysmal (糟透的), the recovery's strength unclear. Here, too, there is an echo from the 1930s. Despite bottoming out in 1933, the Depression didn't end until World War Ⅱ. Some government policies aided recovery; some hindered it. The good news today is that the bad news is not worse.

单选题These are the pictures of the hotel __________ we held our annual meetings.

单选题A: Our flight is behind the schedule again.B: ______

单选题As unemployment began to ______, it may also have been true that those who were the first to be made redundant or were turned down for work were those who were least efficient.

单选题When we gave the children ice cream, they immediately Uceased/U crying.

单选题We are all ______ at the way her husband treated her.

单选题The women who disagree say that ______.

单选题Anyone who doubts that global financial markets control national economies need only look at the crisis facing the "tigers" of the Far East. Last year, the value of their currencies dropped rapidly, after investors decided that their economic policies were not strong enough; now the region is suffering slower growth, lower living standards and rising unemployment. The situation in Asia shows how power has shifted from individual governments to the markets. In theory, governments are free to set their own economic policies; in practice, they must conform to a global economic model or risk being penalized by the markets. Adjusting to this new "economic order" is proving difficult, in the developed world, and in particular the European Union, globalization is facing widespread public resistance. Critics complain that, without the protection of trade barriers, jobs are being lost to workers in poorer countries, and wages for employees in rich countries are falling. Opponents in the European Union point to the effects that globalization has had in the U.S. and Britain. In those countries, wages are stagnant--except for a few privileged--and taxes and welfare benefits have been reduced to help companies compete with industries in the developing world. Those in favor of globalization accuse their critics of being shortsighted protectionists. They claim that a more integrated global economy will ultimately benefit everyone because it will enable countries to specialize in those areas where they perform best. Developing countries, with their higher populations and lower wages, will concentrate on labor-intensive industries. The richer countries, on the other hand, will diversify into high-tech industries, where high productivity and specialist knowledge are paramount. The effect of this will be to improve productivity in all countries, leading to higher living standards. The free movement of capital will also help poorer countries develop so that they can play a full and active role in the world economy. But how close are we to a truly global economy? For those in favor of globalization, probably too close. But in terms of real economic integration, there are still many problems to be solved. A global economy would mean complete freedom of movement of goods and services, capital, and labor. Yet, even ignoring the tariffs and other restrictions still in place, cross-border trade remains tiny as compared with the volume of goods and services traded within countries; foreign investment is also extremely small, amounting to little more than five percent of the developed world's domestic investments. But what is really holding globalization back is the lack of labor mobility. Labor markets remain overwhelmingly national, even in areas like the European Union, where citizens can live and work in any EU country. The main reasons for this are language and cultural barriers; the lack of internationally recognized qualifications; and, in some cases, strict immigration controls.

单选题Some pessimistic experts feel that the automobile is bound to fall into disuse. They see a day in the not-mo-distant future when all autos will be abandoned and allowed to rust. Other authorities, however, think the auto is here to stay. They hold that the car will remain a leading means of travel in the foreseeable future. The motorcar will undoubtedly change significantly over the next 30 years. It should become smaller, safer, and more economical, and should not be powered by the gasoline engine. The car of the future should be far more pollution-free than present types. Regardless of its power source, the auto in the future will still be the main problem in urban traffic congestion (拥挤). One proposed solution to this problem is the automated highway system. When the auto enters the highway system, a retractable (可伸缩的) arm will drop from the auto and make contact with a rail, which is similar to those powering subway trains electrically. Once attached to the rail, the car will become electrically powered from the system, and control of the vehicle will pass to a central computer. The computer will then monitor all of the car's movements. The driver will use a telephone to dial instructions about his destination into the system. The computer will calculate the best route, and reserve space for the car all the way to the correct exit from the highway. The driver will then be free to relax and wak for the buzzer (蜂鸣器) that will warn of his coming exit. It is estimated that an automated highway will be able to handle 10,000 vehicles per hour, compared with the 1,400 to 2,000 vehicles that can be carried by a present-day highway.