单选题In November the European Parliament's culture and education committee is due to move forward on its proposed "audiovisual media services" directive, before sending it to the full parliament in December. The new rules update and relax the "Television Without Frontiers" directive of 1989, which opened Europe's national markets. But critics complain that they also seek to extend fusty regulations from the era of broadcast television to today's very different technologies. Rules on advertising, the protection of children and so on could potentially also apply to all kinds of video streams, including video blogs, online games and mobile-video services. This could have a chilling effect on innovation and risks stifling emerging technologies with rules designed for another age, says Chris Marsden of RAND Europe, a think-tank that has analysed the potential impact of the proposed rules for Ofcom, Britain's media and telecoms regulator. "Regulators have to be thoughtful. They cannot predict the future of television "or the internet—no one can," says Niklas Zennstr. m, a co-founder of Skype, who is now setting up an internet television firm. The proposed rules may be unrealistic as well as onerous. The idea that websites can be regulated like broadcasters, which are required to keep strict records of what they show in order to help watchdogs investigate complaints, is untenable. Firms could simply relocate outside the European Union to escape the new rules. Last week Ruth Hieronymi, a member of parliament, said she would introduce wording that might help to overcome some of the objections. Behind the debate is the question of how best to balance competition and protection. Traditional broadcasters worry that they will be shackled by regulations while brisk start-ups can do as they please—so they like the idea of extending regulation to their new rivals. But even if the rules are approved as they stand, they will not come into force until 2010. Such a long, slow process seems incongruous given the pace of technological change.

单选题He is always full of ______ as though he never knew tiredness. A．strength B．energy C．force D．power

单选题She went for a swim in the pool yesterday and Ill do ______ this afternoon. A．it B．such C．same D．the same

单选题I 'm sorry I have ( ) Dictionary. You'd better go to the library.

单选题Editors of the world"s leading scientific journals announced Saturday they would delete details from published studies that might help terrorists make biological weapons. The editors, joined by several prominent scientists, said they would not censor scientific data or adopt a top-secret classification system similar to that used by the military and government intelligence agencies. But they said scientists working in the post-Sept. 11 world must face the dismaying paradox that many of their impressive breakthroughs can be used for sinister purposes. The new editing methods will be voluntary and will differ among the 32 publications and scientific associations that agreed to the effort. Those include the journals Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. Most major advancements—from decoding the human genome to the cloning of Dolly the sheep—are revealed to the world through those journals. The new policy emerged from a Jan. 9 meeting at the National Academy of Sciences where researchers and journal editors reviewed potentially sensitive studies. They unveiled their agreement at the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Proponents acknowledged they are walking a " very fine line" in trying to protect the public without chilling research. Few, if any, of the thousands of research papers reviewed annually for publication would be rejected outright, they said. Papers would still contain sufficient details to allow other scientists to independently duplicate experiments—a vital step in validation discoveries. " We do live in different times now, " said Ronald Atlas, president of the American Society of Microbiology and a leader of the biosecurity review movement. "The information we possess has the potential for misuse. We will take the appropriate steps to protect the public. " Indeed, it has never been easier to tweak a microbe"s genes to create a deadlier, drug-resistant superbug for a germ bomb or hijack aerosol technology meant for convenient spray vaccines to make anthrax spores float through the air. Journal editors said they were establishing their own expert panels to review papers that contain alarming information, and would work with the authors to make specific changes and "tone them down. " Most journals rarely face such questions. Atlas said journals published by the microbiology association found only two research papers in that past year that raised eyebrows, and both were published after the authors agreed to changes. One of the excised details demonstrated how a microbe could be modified so it could kill 1 million people instead of 10, 000. "It was something that was best not told, " Atlas said. He declined to identify the microbe.

单选题First of all, this difficult problem has to be tackled, thus ______ us to proceed to the others.

单选题It is advisable to ______ an electric wire with rubber in order to secure safety. A. desolate B. resolute C. insolate D. insulate

单选题Seldom______ his wife punish her children for speaking out their own ideas freely.

单选题The university offered several more courses for the purpose of furthering the career {{U}}aspirations{{/U}} of its students.

单选题Low-level slash-and-burn farming doesn"t harm rainforest. On the contrary, it helps farmers and improves forest soils. This is the unorthodox view of a German soil scientist who has shown that burnt clearings in the Amazon, dating back more than 1,000 years, helped create patches of rich, fertile soil that farmers still benefit from today. Most rainforest soils are thin and poor because they lack minerals and because the heat and heavy rainfall destroy most organic matter in the soils within four years of it reaching the forest floor. This means topsoil contains few of the ingredients needed for long-term successful farming. But Bruno Glaser, a soil scientist of the University of Bayreuth, has studied unexpected patches of fertile soils in the central Amazon. These soils contain lots of organic matter. Glaser has shown that most of this fertile organic matter comes from "black carbon" —the organic particles from camp fires and charred wood left over from thousands of years of slash-and-burn farming. "The soils, known as Terra Preta, contained up to 70 times more black carbon than the surrounding soil." says Glaser. Unburnt vegetation rots quickly, but black carbon persists in the soil for many centuries. Radiocarbon dating shows that the charred wood in Terra Preta soils is typically more than 1,000 years old. "Slash-and-burn farming can be good for soils provided it doesn"t completely burn all the vegetation, and leaves behind charred wood," says Glaser. "It can be better than manure." Burning the forest just once can leave behind enough black carbon to keep the soil fertile for thousands of years. And rainforests easily regrow after small-scale clearing. Contrary to the conventional view that human activities damage the environment, Glaser says: "Black carbon combined with human wastes is responsible for the richness of Terra Preta soils." Terra Preta soils turn up in large patches all over the Amazon, where they are highly prized by farmers. All the patches fall within 500 square kilometers in the central Amazon. Glaser says the widespread presence of pottery confirms the soil"s human origins. The findings add weight to the theory that large areas of the Amazon have recovered so well from past periods of agricultural use that the regrowth has been mistaken by generations of biologists for" virgin" forest. During the past decade, researchers have discovered hundreds of large earth works deep in the jungle. They are up to 20 meters high and cover up to a square kilometer. Glaser claims that these earth works, built between AD 400 and 1400, were at the heart of urban civilizations. Now it seems the richness of the Terra Preta soils may explain how such civilizations managed to feed themselves.

单选题He isn't legally responsible for his nephew, but he feels he has a moral ______ to help him.

单选题A major incentive (动力) for college attendance is the belief that it will prepare you for a career. Chances are that the career you want, whether in nursing, counseling, law, or management, requires a college education. Even if the return of your education isn't as great as it used to be, you would probably rather be a relatively poorly paid lawyer than a secretary or a construction worker: you would probably rather be a manager than a managee. In the sense that a degree is increasingly required for even middle-level jobs, your investment in a college education will still pay off. It can pay off in other ways too. It is a value judgement to say that a college education will make you a better person, but it is a value judgement that the vast majority of college graduates are willing to make survey after survey to demonstrate that people feel very positive about their college education, believing that it has made them better and more tolerant people. Whether it makes you a better person or not, a college education is likely to have a lasting effect on your knowledge and values. If you finish college, you will sit through 30 to 45 different courses. Even the least dedicated student is bound to learn something from these courses. In addition, students learn informally. Whether you go to college in you hometown or across the country, college will introduce you to a greater diversity of people than you ' re likely to have experienced before. This diversity will challenge your mind and broaden your horizons. As a result of formal and informal learning, college graduates are more knowledgeable about the world around them, more tolerant and less prejudiced, more active in public and community affairs, and, more open to new ideas.

单选题There are some that would argue that hospitals are no place for dogs, while they are wrong. At least according to new research reported at the American Heart Association"s Scientific Sessions 2005. For people hospitalized with advanced heart disease , it is better to have visitors than to lie quietly alone. But one type of visitor seems to be especially beneficial, researchers reported on Tuesday. That visitor is a dog. In the first controlled study of the effects of pet therapy in a random sample of acute and critically ill heart patients, anxiety as measured on a standard rating scale dropped 24 percent for those visited by a dog and a human volunteer, by 10 percent for those visited by a volunteer alone and not at all for those with no visitors. Similar results were found in measures of heart and lung function. The senior author of the Pet Therapy Study, Kathie M. Cole, said 76 patients with heart failure, a condition that affects an estimated five million Americans, were randomly assigned one of the three visit types. The dogs, from 12 breeds, were screened for behavior and disease before participating in the study. "Some patients in the first group," Ms. Cole said, "began to smile and immediately engaged in conversation with dog and volunteer." "Their worries seemed to vanish from their faces," she said. The researchers examined the patients three times: right before the 12-minute visit, eight minutes into it and four minutes after it was over. Besides the anxiety measurement, researchers found, patients" levels of epinephrine, a hormone the body makes when under stress, dropped 17 percent when visited by a person and a dog, and 2 percent when visited by only a person. Epinephrine levels rose an average of 7 percent in the unvisited group in the study, which was financed by the Pet Care Trust Foundation, a nonprofit group. Pressure in the heart"s top left chamber dropped 10 percent after a visit by volunteer and dog. The same pressure rose 3 percent for those visited by a volunteer and 5 percent for the unvisited group. Pressure in the pulmonary artery dropped 5 percent during and after a visit by volunteer and dog, but rose in the other two groups. Ms. Cole recommended further studies to determine how long the benefits lasted. "Dogs are a great comfort," she said. "They make people happier, calmer and feel more loved. That is huge when you are scared and not feeling well."

单选题 Since we are social beings, the quality of our lives depends in large measure on our in- terpersonal relationships. One strength of the human condition is our tendency to give and receive support from one another under stressful circumstances. Social support consists of the exchange of resources among people based on their interpersonal ties. Those of us with strong support systems appear better able to cope with major life changes and daily hassles (困难). People with strong social ties live longer and have bet- ter health than those without such ties. Studies over a range of illnesses, from depression to heart disease, reveal that the presence of social support helps people fend off (挡开) illness, and the absence of such support makes poor health more likely. Social support cushions stress in a number of ways. First, friends, relatives, and co-workers may let us know that they value us. Our self-respect is strengthened when we feel accepted by others despite our faults and difficulties. Second, other people often pro- vide us with informational support. They help us to define and understand our prob- lems and find solutions to them. Third, we typically find social companionship sup- portive. Engaging in leisure-time activities with others helps us to meet our social needs while at the same time distracting (转移……注意力) us from our worries and troubles. Finally, other people may give us instrumental support--a financial aid, material resources, and needed services--that reduces stress by helping us resolve and cope with our problems.

单选题Every artist knows in his heart that he is saying something to the public. Not only does he want to say it well, but he wants it to be something which has not been said before. He hopes the public will listen and understand—he wants to teach them, and he wants them to learn from him. What visual artists like painters want to teach is easy to make out but difficult to explain, because painters translate their experiences into shapes and colors, not words. They seem to feel that a certain selection of shapes and colors, out of the countless billions possible, is exceptionally interesting for them and worth showing to us. Without their work we should never have noticed these particular shapes and colors, or have felt the delight which they brought to the artist. Most artists take their shapes and colors from the world of nature and from human bodies in motion and repose (安息); their choices indicate that these aspects of the world are worth looking at, that they contain beautiful sights. Contemporary artists might say that they merely choose subjects that provide an interesting pattern, that there is nothing more in it. Yet even they do not choose entirely without reference to the character of their subjects. If one painter chooses to paint a gangrenous (坏疽) leg and another a lake in moonlight, each of them is directing our attention to a certain aspect of the world. Each painter is telling us something, showing us something, emphasizing something—all of which means that, consciously or unconsciously, he is trying to teach us.

单选题"You are not here to tell me what to do. You are here to tell me why I have done what I have already decided to do," Montagu Norman, the Bank of England' s longest- serving governor (1920 -1944), is reputed to have once told his economic adviser. To- day, thankfully, central banks aim to be more transparent in their decision making, as well as more rational. But achieving either of these things is not always easy. With the most laudable of intentions, the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, may be about to take a step that could backfire. Unlike the Fed, many other central banks have long declared explicit inflation tar- gels and then set interest rates to try to meet these. Some economists have argued that the Fed should do the same. With Alan Greenspan, the Fed' s much-respected chairman, due to retire next year—after a mere 18 years in the job—some Fed officials want to adopt a target, presumably to maintain the central bank' s credibility in the scary new post-Greenspan era. The Fed discussed such a target at its February meeting, according to minutes published this week. This sounds encouraging. However, the Fed is considering the idea just when some other central banks are beginning to question whether strict inflation targeting really works. At present central banks focus almost exclusively on consumer-price indices. On this measure Mr. Greenspan can boast that inflation remains under control. But some central bankers now argue that the prices of assets, such as houses and shares, should also some- how be taken into account. A broad price index for America which includes house prices is currently running at 5.5% , its fastest pace since 1982. Inflation has simply taken a different form. Should central banks also try to curb increases in such asset prices? Mr. Greenspan continues to insist that monetary policy should not be used to prick asset-price bubbles. Identifying bubbles is difficult, except in retrospect, he says, and interest rates are a blunt weapon: an increase big enough to halt rising prices could trigger a recession. It is better, he says, to wait for a housing or stockmarket bubble to burst and then to cushion the economy by cutting interest rates—as he did in 2001-2002. And yet the risk is not just that asset prices can go swiftly into reverse. As with traditional inflation, surging asset prices also distort price signals and so can cause a misallocation of resources—encouraging too little saving, for example, or ,too much investment in housing. Surging house prices may therefore argue for higher interest rates than conventional inflation would demand. In other words, strict inflation targeting—the fad of the 1990s—is too crude.

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} What an elegant party! The Press Complaints Commission's glittering bash this week m celebrate its tenth anniversary was the nearest London gets to high society. In a gathering too close m imitate for comfort, the PCC succeeded in bringing together Prince William, the heir to the throne, his father, Prince Charles, the royal mistress. Camilla Parker-Bowles. as well as pop stars, super-models, cabinet ministers, senior civil servants and other admirers. The one thing this different group had in common was that most of them had sought the protection of the PCC over the past decade. Their principal tormentors, the editors of the nation's tabloid newspapers, were there in force to greet their victims, so it was not surprising that a certain tremble swirled around the party. That so many prominent upper circles turned up to devour the PCC's canape5 and rub shoulders with the royals is. no doubt, a triumph for its chairman. Lord Wakeham. He can fairly claim to have restored confidence in self-regulation and saved the press from privacy legislation. A skilled political fixer, he has used his chairmanship m pressure the press barons such as Rupert Murdoch into enclosing their editors. The PCC's code of conduct, drawn up by a panel of editors, is generally observed. Press standards have improved and complaints have fallen by nearly a third over the past five years. The industry, which not so long ago was said to be "{{U}}drinking in the last-chance saloon{{/U}}", with self-regulation in terminal disrepute, is grateful. The party was meant m celebrate this success. The soap stars and the models, judging by the amount of drink going down their throats, certainly 9njoyed themselves, as did the editors. But whether Prince Charles and Prince William were wise to associate themselves with this lot is doubtful. "Never sup with the enemy" is a good motto. At least the royals could tell who to avoid because all the guests had name tabs. Lord Wakeham, who helped get rid of Lady Thatcher without her even knowing, is a skilled operator. But this luxury party has given an opening to those critics who claim he is too close to the industry and too protective of the powerful. "We're here to protect the vulnerable" was the slogan of a big banner that greeted the guests. That was not the main impression the evening made on the minds of those who staggered out of the grandeur of Somerset House, high on champagne and celebrity. The truly vulnerable were nowhere to be seen.