单选题Passsges 5 Given the lack of fit between gifted students and their schools, it is not surprising that such students often have little good to say about their school experience. In one study of 400 adults who had achieved distinction in all areas of life, researchers found that three-fifths of these individuals either did badly in school or were unhappy in school. Few MacArthur Prize fellows, winners of the MacArthur Award for creative accomplishment, had good things to say about their precollegiate schooling if they had not been placed in advanced programs. Anecdotal (名人轶事) reports support this. Pablo Picasso, Charles Darwin, Mark Twain, Oliver Goldsmith, and William Butler Yeats all disliked school. So did Winston Churchill, who almost failed out of Harrow, an elite British school. About Oliver Goldsmith, one of his teachers remarked, "never was so dull a boy." Often these children realize that they know more than their teachers, and their teachers often feel that these children are arrogant, inattentive, or unmotivated. Some of these gifted people may have done poorly in school because their gifts were not scholastic. Maybe we can account for Picasso in this way. But most fared poorly in school not because they lacked ability but because they found school unchallenging and consequently lost interest. Yeats described the lack of fit between his mind and school, "because I had found it difficult to attend to anything less interesting than my own thoughts, I was difficult to teach." As noted earlier, gifted children of all kinds tend to be strong-willed nonconformists. Nonconformity and stubbornness (and Yeats's level of arrogance and self-absorption) are likely to lead to conflicts with teachers. When highly gifted students in any domain talk about what was important to the development of their abilities, they are far more likely to mention their families than their schools or teachers. A writing prodigy (神童) studied by David Feldman and Lynn Goldsmith was taught far more about writing by his journalist father than his English teacher. High-IQ children, in Australia studied by Miraca Gross had much more positive feelings about their families than their schools. About half of the mathematicians studied by Benjamin Bloom had little good to say about school. They all did well in school and took honors classes when available, and some skipped grades.

单选题Computer used to _____.

单选题Language has always been—as the phrase goes — the mirror to society. English is no ______.

单选题The English language contains a(n) ______ of words which are comparatively seldom used in ordinary conversation. [A] altitude [B] latitude [C] multitude [D] attitude

单选题The professor, together with several students, ______ working in the laboratory this time last week.

单选题______is widely regarded as the first English novelist.

单选题Waiter:______Customer: Yes, I'll have a cheeseburger, with French fries (薯条).A. What do you want to eat?B. Have you decided what to have yet?C. Excuse me, are you ready to order now?D. Excuse me, but who' s like to order?

单选题Our public transportation system is not ______ for the needs of the people.

单选题I used to drink a lot of tea but these days I ______ coffee.A. preferB. preferredC. have preferredD. am preferring

单选题Some disputes among these countries are ______ by history. A. left over B. turned over C. handed over D. taken over

单选题About one million tourists go to Barcelona every year, just to visit the Gaudi's Church. This unusual church has a strange history. Gaudi was born in Spain in 1852. He had to work and study at the same time. He often missed classes because he had to work, but one day he designed a very unusual show-case for an exhibition in Paris. People began to give him work. He designed houses, offices and gardens. They were all very unusual. He was soon rich and famous. Then a rich bookseller said, "Will you build a church for the poor people of Barcelona? I will pay. I will build schools and workshops, too. They will help the people." "I will do it," said Guadi. He worked for forty years, but he could not finish the church. It was too big. He needed $10, 000, 000. He gave all his money to the church. He was poor again when he died in 1926, and only the front part of the church was finished. Now, architects, engineers and tourists from all over the world like to come and see the church, which is very strange, very modem and very revolutionary.

单选题In what sense do e-books exert a negative impact on the environment?

单选题Recalculating the global use of phosphorus, an important fertilizer element of modem agriculture, a team of researchers warns that the world's stocks may soon be in short supply and that overuse in the industrialized world has become a leading cause of the pollution of lakes, rivers and streams. Writing in the Feb. 14 edition of the journal Environmental Research Letters, Stephen Carpenter of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Elena Bennett of McGill University report that the human use of phosphorus, primarily in the industrialized world, is causing the widespread eutrophication of fresh surface water. What's more, the minable global stocks of phosphorus are concentrated in just a few countries and are in decline, posing the risk of global shortages within the next 20 years. "There is a finite amount of phosphorus in the world," says Carpenter, one of the world's leading authorities on lakes and streams. "This is a material that's becoming rarer and we need to use it more efficiently." Phosphorus is an essential element for life. Living organisms, including humans, have small amounts and the element is crucial for driving the energetic processes of cells. In agriculture, phosphorus mined from ancient marine deposits is widely used to boost crop yields. The element also has other industrial uses. But excess phosphorus from fertilizer that washes from farm fields and suburban lawns into lakes and streams is the primary cause of the algae blooms that destroy freshwater ecosystems arid degrade water quality. Phosphorus pollution poses a risk to fish and other water life as well as to the animals and humans who depend on clean fresh water. In some instances, excess phosphorus sparks blooms of toxic algae, which pose a direct threat to human and animal life. "If you have too much phosphorus, you get eutrophication," explains Carpenter, of the cycle of excessive plant and algae growth that significantly degrades bodies of fresh water. "Phosphorus stimulates the growth of algae and weeds near shore and some of the algae can contain cyanobacteria, which are toxic. You lose fish. You lose water quality for drinking." The fertilizer-fueled algae blooms themselves amplify the problem as the algae die and release accumulated phosphorus back into the water. Complicating the problem, says Carpenter, is the fact that excess phosphorus in the environment is a problem primarily in the industrialized world, mainly Europe, North America and parts of Asia. In other parts of the world, notably Africa and Australia, soils are phosphorus poor, creating a stark imbalance. Ironically, soils in places like North America, where fertilizers with phosphorus are most commonly applied, are already loaded with the element. Bennett and Carpenter argue that agriculture practices to better conserve phosphate within agricultural ecosystems are necessary to avert the widespread pollution of surface waters. Phosphorus from parts of the world where the element is abundant, they say, can be moved to phosphorus deficient regions of the world by extracting phosphorus from manure, for example, using manure digesters. (490 words)

单选题Spain"s government is now championing a cause called " right to be forgotten ". It has ordered Google to stop indexing information about 90 citizens who filed formal complaints with its Data Protection Agency. All 90 people wanted information deleted from the Web. Among them was a victim of domestic violence who discovered that her address could easily be found through Google. Another, well into middle age now, thought it was unfair that a few computer key strokes could unearth an account of her arrest in her college days. They might not have received much of a hearing in the United States, where Google is based and where courts have consistently found that the right to publish the truth about someone"s past supersedes any right to privacy. But here, as elsewhere in Europe, an idea has taken hold—individuals should have a "right to be forgotten" on the Web. In fact, the phrase "right to be forgotten" is being used to cover abatch of issues, ranging from those in the Spanish case to the behavior of companies seeking to make money from private information that can be collected on the Web. Spain"s Data Protection Agency believes that search engines have altered the process by which most data ends up forgotten—and therefore adjustments need to be made. The deputy director of the agency, Jesús Rubí, pointed to the official government gazette公报), which used to publish every weekday, including bankruptcy auctions, official pardons, and who passed the civil service exams. Usually 220 pages of fine print, it quickly ended up gathering dust on various backroom shelves. The information was still there, but not easily accessible. Then two years ago, the 350-year-old publication went online, making it possible for embarrassing information—no matter how old—to be obtained easily. The publisher of the government publication, Fernando Pérez, said it was meant to foster transparency. Lists of scholarship winners, for instance, make it hard for the government officials to steer all the money to their own children. "But maybe," he said, "there is information that has a life cycle and only has value for a certain time." Many Europeans are broadly uncomfortable with the way personal information is found by search engines and used for commerce. When ads pop up on one"s screen, clearly linked to subjects that are of interest to him, one may find it Orwellian. A recent poll conducted by the European Union found that most Europeans agree. Three out of four said they were worried about how Internet companies used their information and wanted the right to delete personal data at any time. Ninety percent wanted the European Union to take action on the right to be forgotten. Experts say that Google and other search engines see some of these court cases as anassault on a principle of law already established—that search engines are essentially not responsible for the information they corral from the Web, and hope the Spanish court agrees. The companies believe if there are privacy issues, the complainants should address those who posted the material on the Web. But some experts in Europe believe that search engines should probably be reined in. "They are the ones that are spreading the word. Without them no one would find these things."

单选题A: It must feel great to be almost finished with school. At least you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. B: ______

单选题The Lewis and Clark expedition ______the ten Story of the Louisiana Purchase and beyond as far as the Pacific Ocean.

单选题Most good writers use every means at their ______ to make the reader"s way smooth and easy.

单选题Policeman: May I see your driver's license and vehicle registration card, please? Driver: ______ A. Sorry, don't write me a ticket. B. OK. But I was driving at 65 miles per hour. C. Sure. Did I do anything wrong? D. Yes. But I don't think I'm a bad driver.