单选题{{B}}Passage Five{{/B}} According to Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip (系列漫画) Dilbert, the annual performance review is "one of the most frightening and weakening experiences in every employee's life". Adams' stories and comic figures poke fun at the workplace, but his characterization of people's feelings about the annual performance review has its serious side. Although a recent study of 437 companies indicates that effective annual performance reviews can help raise profits, most employees of those companies hate them. In theory, annual performance reviews are constructive and positive interactions between managers and employees working together to attain maximum performance and strengthen the organization. In reality, they often create division, undermine morale, and spark anger and jealousy. Thus, although the object of the annual performance review is to improve performance, it often' has the opposite result. A programmer at an IT firm was stunned to learn at her annual performance review that she was denied a promotion because she wasn't a "team player." What were the data used to make this judgment? She didn't smile in the company photo. Although this story might sound as if it came straight out of Dilbert, it is a true account of one woman's experience. By following a few ideas and guidelines from industry analysis, this kind of {{U}}ordeal{{/U}} can be avoided: To end the year with a positive and useful performance review, managers and employees must start the year by working together to establish clear goals and expectations. It may be helpful to allow employees to propose a list of people associated with the company who will be in a good position to assess their performance at the end of the year; these people may be co-workers, suppliers, or even customer. Goals should be measurable but flexible, and everyone should sign off on the plan. By checking employees' progress at about nine months, managers can give them a chance to correct mistakes and provide guidance to those who need it before the year is out. When conducting the reviews, managers should highlight strengths and weaknesses during the past year and discuss future responsibilities, avoiding punishment of blame. In short, when employees leave their performance reviews, they should be focusing on what they can do better in the year ahead, not worrying about what went into their files about the past.

单选题The flyover at the crossing on the 6th ring road is now ______construction.

单选题My parents want very much to see you, and as we live in a very large house, we could offer you spacious accommodations.

单选题The author says that he is a naturalist rather than a scientist probably because he thinks he ______. A. comes up with solutions in a most natural way B. lacks some of the qualities required of a scientist C. just reads about other people's observations and discoveries D. has a great deal of trouble doing mental arithmetic

单选题But for your help, I ______ .

单选题There is a controversy even among doctors as to whether this disease is contagious or not.

单选题Born ten days earlier, the boy ______ his late father. A. could have seen B. must have seen C. may have seen D. should have been

单选题Violent criminals with something to hide have more reason than ever to be paranoid about a tap on the shoulder which could send them to jail. Queensland police are working through a backlog of unsolved murders with some dramatic success. Greater cooperation between the public and various law enforcement agencies is playing a role, but new genetic-testing techniques are the real key to providing the vital evidence to mount a prosecution. Evidence left behind at the scene of any murder is guaranteed to outlive the person who left it. A blood, saliva or tissue sample the size of a pin, kept dry and out of sunlight, will last several thousand years. From it, scientific analysis now can tell accurately the sex of the person who left it. When matched against a sample from a crime suspect, it can indicate with million-to-one certainty whether the samples come from the same source. Only twins share identical DNA. So precise is the technology if the biological parents of a suspect agree to provide a sample, forensic scientists can work out the rest for themselves without cooperation from the suspect. Queensland forensic scientists have been using the DNA testing technology since 1992, and last year they were recognized internationally for their competence in positive individual identification. That is part of the reason 20 of Queensland's most puzzling unsolved murders dating to 1952 are being actively investigated. There also have been several recent arrests for unsolved murders. Forensic evidence was instrumental in charges being laid over the bashing death of waitress Tasha Douty on Brampton Island in 1983. Douty's blood-splattered, naked body was found on a nude sunbathing beach at Dinghy Bay on the island. Footprints in the sand indicated that the killer had grappled with the 41-year-old mother who had fled up the beach before being caught and beaten to death. According to Leo Freney, the supervising forensic scientist at the John Tonge Centre at Brisbane's Griffith University, DNA testing has become an invaluable tool for police. Its use is in identifying and rejecting suspects. In fact, he says, it eliminates more people that it convicts. "It is easily as good as fingerprints for the purpose of identification," he says. "In the case of violent crime it is better than fingerprints. You can't innocently explain things like blood and semen at a crime scene where you may be able to innocently explain fingerprints. " In Queensland, a person who has been arrested on suspicion of an offence can be taken before a magistrate and ordered to provide a sample of body fluid by force if necessary.

单选题The Aerospace Bicycle That Fell to Earth A radical new bicycle had its first public showing at the National British Cycling Championships in Shrewsbury last weekend. Based on the gold medal-winning design from the Barcelona Olympics, it is the first commercial mountain bike made of a single piece of carbon fibre. Bicycles for amateurs have up to now been made of steel, aluminum or magnesium tubes welded together into the conventional "A-frame"shape. But last year, the British competitor Chris Boardman set world records while winning titles in the Olympic cycling pursuit events on a custom built, carbon-fibre bicycle with lower weight and wind resistance than standard models. Because carbon fibre is both light and extremely strong, it does not need the A-frame shape, saving further weight. Carbon fibre can also be moulded in a single piece, avoiding the weakness of welds. The new bike, which will cost between $ 2000 and $ 3000 when it reaches the shops next month, has the same advantages as the Olympic model. It weighs about 11 kilograms,a saving of 1.5 kilograms on metal frames. With no crossbar, it has a lower center of gravity, making it easier to use in race conditions. "When you're doing some aggressive riding,you throw the bike about from side to side," explains Eddie Eccleston, director of British Eagle, a British bicycle manufacturer based in Powys, Wales, which is marketing the bikes. "The low centre of gravity gives you better control. " The frames are being made in the U. S. for British Eagle by SP systems in Camarillo,California, which has clients in the aerospace industry, "This is aerospace technology brought into cycling by enthusiasts", says Eccleston. When professionals tested racing versions of the bike before the Tour de France, they were quicker than metal versions by up to 3 seconds per kilometer. The new design has no struts between the saddle and the back wheel; instead, the frame's flexibility can be "tuned" to individual tastes by changing the mixture of Kevlar fibre and carbon fibre in the back wheel strut, allowing up to 5 centimeters of movement. The carbon-fibre design has a lower centre of gravity and smoother back-wheel suspension than conventional bikes.

单选题It was exciting to see such a movie for first time, but we soon became ______ when our TV was flooded with programs of like-kind.

单选题It was at the exhibition that we______this kind of minicar made of plastics.

单选题Data security used to be all about spending big bucks on firewalls to defend data at the network perimeter and on antivirus software to protect individual computers. Internet-based computing, or cloud computing, has changed all that, at the same time expanding exponentially the chances for data thieves and hackers. The cloud creates other opportunities too. a handful of security vendors now deliver security as a service--a one-two punch of hardware and software that monitors and manages an enterprise's data security and bills customers only for the computing power they use. "For years, security was about big companies pushing technology to their customers," says Qualys CEO and founder Philippe Courtot. "Now it's about the customers pulling precisely what they need and providing them with those resources on demand. " Qualys, a privately held company in Redwood Shores, Calif. , was among the first to embrace the service-oriented model, in 1999. Today four different modules of QualysGuard, its flagship offering, are used by more than 3500 organizations in 85 countries. The company performs more than 200 million security audits per year. Courtot knows something about opportunity. The French entrepreneur arrived in Silicon Valley in 1987 and has built a number of companies into big-time players, including Signio, an electronic-payment start-up that was eventually sold to VeriSign in a combined deal for more than $1 billion. As CEO, he rebuilt Verity and transformed cc:Mail, a once unknown firm of 12 people, into a dominant e-mail platform before Lotus acquired it in 1991. "Throughout my career, I've been able to recognize that for a technology to succeed, it must have a purpose," he says. "Technology itself has no value. It's what you do with it that counts. " Under the old paradigm, according to Courtot, enterprises overspent for stand-alone security devices that became unruly and difficult to operate over the long term He says Qualys attacks the flaws in this strategy by streamlining security and tackling most of the service delivery through the cloud. "We control the infrastructure, software updates, quality assurance and just about everything in between," he says. The firm unveiled QualysGuard in 2000. After an infusion of $ 25 million from the venture firm Trident Capital and another $ 25 million from Gourtot, Qualys tweaked the service to focus mostly on vulnerability management. Much of the company's current revenue-sales, topped $ 50 million last year--is being driving by a set of standards established by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCISSC). "The PCI standard has been a major driver of business for all of them, especially Qualys," says Avivah Litan, a vice president and analyst at market-research firm Gartner. "When everyone has to comply, there's a lot of work to go around. /

单选题No culture exists in{{U}} {{/U}} . It all comes from someplace. Ancient customs were modern one time.

单选题{{B}}Passage 2{{/B}} In the old days, sending a thank-you note to a relative was easy. You wrote it, {{U}}(1) {{/U}} , a stamp on the envelope and dropped it {{U}}(2) {{/U}} a mailbox. {{U}}(3) {{/U}} it went in a red-white-and-blue U.S. Mail truck, and {{U}}(4) {{/U}} of days later the friendly neighborhood mailman walked it, {{U}}(5) {{/U}}. weather, right to the recipient's door. {{U}} (6) {{/U}} you’re as likely to send a fax, e-mail, or instant message. {{U}}(7) {{/U}} you cling to traditional pen and paper, it's no longer clear (8) it will travel. Airborne Express? Overnight? Two-Day Priority? {{U}} (9) {{/U}} it moves into the 1st century, the American mail system {{U}}(13) {{/U}} to survive. In the past few years, the U.S. Postal Service(USPS) has {{U}}(11) {{/U}} many new services, {{U}}(12) {{/U}} stamps over the Internet, electronic bill payment, and a service that prints and mails electronic documents Yet revenues depleted by alternative communications (e-mail, electronic banking), {{U}}(13) {{/U}} with rising fuel and operating costs, led to a $150 million loss in 2000. Meanwhile, private carriers are competing {{U}}(14) {{/U}} business, forcing the Postal Service to contract with the likes of DHL and Emery Worldwide just to maintain its global reach. {{U}}(15) {{/U}} still delivering 20 percent of the world's mail, the men and women in the blue uniforms of the Postal Service just can't seem to {{U}}(16) {{/U}}. The problem is that the U.S. hasn't {{U}}(17) {{/U}} grips with the fact that in a fast-changing world, mail delivery is better run as a competitive business than as a government monopoly. {{U}}(18) {{/U}} many countries have privatized their postal systems, the USPS has attempted to maintain business in both the public and private worlds. It is a semiprivate corporation with a lumbering government bureaucracy. It is {{U}}(19) {{/U}} by a board of governors {{U}}(20) {{/U}} a blend of local politicians, small-town business leaders and federal bureaucrats.

单选题We learn from Paragraph 2 that ______.

单选题Americans usually consider themselves a friendly people. Their friendships, however, tend to be shorter and more casual than friendships among people from other cultures. It is not uncommon for Americans to have only one close friend during their lifetime, and consider other "friends" to be just social acquaintances. This attitude probably has something to do with American mobility and the fact that Americans do not like to be dependent on other people. They tend to "compartmentalize (划分) friendships, having "friends at work", "friends on the softball team", "family friends", etc. Because the United States is a highly active society, full of movement and change, people always seem to be on the go. In this highly changed atmosphere, Americans can sometimes seem brusque (无礼的) or impatient. They want to get to know you as quickly as possible and then move on to something else. Sometimes, early on, they will ask you questions that you may feel very personal. No insult is intended; the questions usually grow out of their genuine interest or curiosity, and their impatience to get to the heart of the matter. And the same goes for you. If you do not understand certain American behavior or you want to know more about them, do not hesitate to ask them questions about themselves. Americans are usually eager to explain all about their country or anything "American" in which you may be interested. So much so in fact that you may become tired of listening. It doesn"t matter because Americans tend to be uncomfortable with silence during a conversation. They would rather talk about the weather or the latest sports scores, for example, than deal with silence. On the other hand, don"t expect Americans to be knowledgeable about international geography or world affairs, unless those subjects directly involve the United States. Because the United States is not surrounded by many other nations, some Americans tend to ignore the rest of the world.

单选题Peter is used to a simple way of living. He doesn't want to ______ so much money on food or clothing.

单选题{{B}}Passage Three{{/B}} The wandering ship was a dramatic symbol for a problem plaguing our age. In 1987, the ship, loaded with thousands of tons of New York garbage, spent weeks wandering from one port to another in search of a dump before finally returning home, mission unaccomplished. New York, like other communities throughout the world is running out of space to put its trash. As throwaway societies, the US and other industrialized countries expect their garbage to be picked up by trucks that magically transported the refuse to some out-of-sight incinerator(焚化炉) or dump. But in the developing counties of Asia, Africa and Latin America, thousands of tons of trash collected daily are thrown into open dumps, where it feeds huge populations of rats that swarm through poor neighborhoods. "The world is literally swimming in garbage," says a scientist, "Communities worldwide are being forced to confront the problem." Green Peace spokesman Bryan Bence adds, "The crisis in garbage stems in part from the fact that we've ignored long-term disposal problem in favor of cheap quick fixes." The garbage glut (过选剩) has inspired many communities in the U.S., Japan and Western Europe to start recycling programs. Once considered a curious counter culture activity recycling has moved firmly into the mainstream. Recycling involves separating usable products from trash, processing them so they can be substituted for more expensive raw materials and returning them to the marketplace as parts of new products. Many countries now have mandatory recycling programs, and others plan to follow the trend soon. Most notably, Japan has stood out as a model and leader of the waste management trend, recycling an estimated 65 percent of its waste. "That's what we should do, to the garbage crisis", says David Antonioli, a staff member with the New York Public Interest Research Corp. "The earth is not a dump!"