单选题For years, smokers have been exhorted to take the initiative and quit: use a nicotine patch, chew nicotine gum, take a prescription medication that can help, call a help line, just say no. But a new study finds that stopping is seldom an individual decision. Smokers tend to quit in groups, the study finds, which means smoking cessation programs should work best if they focus on groups rather than individuals. It also means that people may help many more than just themselves by quitting: quitting can have a ripple effect prompting an entire social network to break the habit. The study, by Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School and James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, followed thousands of smokers and nonsmokers for 32 years, from 1971 until 2003, studying them as part of a large network of relatives, co-workers, neighbors, friends and friends of friends. It was a time when the percentage of adult smokers in the United States fell to 21 percent from 45 percent. As the investigators watched the smokers and their social networks, they saw what they said was a striking effect—smokers had formed little social clusters and, as the years went by, entire clusters of smokers were stopping en masse. So were clusters of clusters that were only loosely connected. Dr. Christakis described watching the vanishing clusters as like lying on your back in a field, looking up at stars that were burning out. "It's not like one little star turning off at a time," he said,"Whole constellations are blinking off at once. " As cluster after cluster of smokers disappeared, those that remained were pushed to the margins of society, isolated, with fewer friends, fewer social connections. "Smokers used to be the center of the party," Dr. Fowler said, "but now they've become wallflowers." "We've known smoking was bad for your physical health," he said,"But this shows it also is bad for your social health. Smokers are likely to drive friends away. " "There is an essential public health message," said Richard Suzman, director of the office of behavioral and social research at the National Institute on Aging, which financed the study. "Obviously, people have to take responsibility for their behavior," Mr. Suzman said. "But a social environment," he added, "can just overpower free will. " With smoking, that can be a good thing, researchers noted. But there also is a sad side. As Dr. Steven Sehroeder of the University of California, San Francisco, pointed out in an editorial accompanying the paper, "a risk of the marginalization of smoking is that it further isolates the group of people with the highest rate of smoking—persons with mental illness, problems with substance abuse, or both. /

单选题__________ in thought while driving, he almost ran into the car coming in the opposite direction.

单选题He never hesitates to make such criticisms ______ are considered helpful to others.

单选题Without rules, people would live in a state of______.

单选题 An "{{U}}epidemic{{/U}}of poverty" in Britain is having a dramatic impact on the survival rates and health chances of children from poor families, an influential coalition will warn this week in a major report that casts doubt on government efforts to close the inequality gap. End Child Poverty, a network of children's charities, church groups, unions and think-tanks, claims that the gap between rich and poor represents a "huge injustice" in British society and has become one of the major factors affecting child mortality rates. Its report, based on a wide-ranging analysis of government data, finds that children from poor families are at 10 times the risk of sudden infant death as children from better-off homes. And it reveals how babies from disadvantaged families are more likely to be born underweight less than children from the richest families. Poorer children are two-and-a-half times more likely to suffer chronic illness when toddlers and twice as likely to have cerebral palsy, according to the report, "Health Consequences of Poverty for Children". "Poverty is now one of the greatest dangers faced by our children, " said Nick Spencer, one of the report's authors and professor of child health at the University of Warwick. "If poverty were an infection, we would be in the midst of a full-scale epidemic." The report is likely to revive the debate on child poverty and focus attention on Labor's record when it comes to tackling social inequalities. In March 1999, the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, promised to eradicate child poverty "within a generation". This was later defined as a commitment to end child poverty by 2020, with a target of halving the number of children living in poverty by 2010/11. But while the current row over social inequality has tended to focus on education and benefits, the implications for health have been largely ignored. Now, however, the End Child Poverty report highlights how socio-economic factors affect the entire life of children born into poverty, from fontal development and early infancy through to teenage years and adulthood. The government claims it is closing the gap between rich and poor, but accepts that more needs to be done. The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said in June: "Although we have already lifted hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty with new tax credits, more people in work and better public services, the latest figures show we have not made enough progress."

单选题The guilty Uverdict/U was widely expected, although harsher than many had predicted.

单选题As the plane circled over the airport, everyone sensed that something was wrong. The plane was moving unsteadily through the air, and (31) the passengers had fastened their seat belts, they were suddenly thrown forward. At that moment, the air-hostess (32) . She looked very pale, but was quite (33) . Speaking quickly but almost in a whisper, she (34) everyone that the pilot had fainted and asked if any of the passengers knew anything about machines or at least how to drive a car. After a moment's (35) , a man got up and followed the hostess into the pilot's cabin. Moving the pilot aside, the man took his seat and listened carefully to the urgent instructions that were being sent by radio from the airport below. The plane was now dangerously close (36) the ground, but to everyone's relief, it soon began to climb. The man had to (37) the airport several limes in order to become (38) with the controls. Therefore the danger had not yet passed. The terrible (39) came when he had to land. Following information, the man guided the plane toward the airfield. It shook violently (40) it touched the ground and then moved rapidly along the runway and after a long run it stopped safely.

单选题Although Lucy was slimming, she found cakes quite ______.

单选题The passage mentions all of the following as uses for copper in colonial America EXCEPT ______.

单选题They are confronting tremendous and more complicated problems.

单选题The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,The lowing herd wind slowly o" er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.The following selection is from______.

单选题The small group of onlookers presented a pathetic sight and did nothing to help the drowning child.

单选题How does the author feel about Mr Alan?

单选题Despite his ______ as a trouble-maker, he was promoted to department manger. A) repetition B) repression C) reputation D) representation

单选题According to the passage, one of Thomas Jefferson's political goals was to ______.

单选题This kind of work is ______ me.A. unfamiliar withB. unfamiliar byC. unfamiliar toD. not unfamiliar of

单选题John and Kate got married although they are very ______ from each other.