单选题The speaker could hardly find safe ground ( ) his arguments.

单选题I have observed that the Americans show a less decided taste for general ideas than the French. This is especially true in politics. Although the Americans infuse into their legislation far more general ideas than the English, and although they strive more than the latter to adjust the practice of affairs to theory, no political bodies in the United States have ever shown so much love for general ideas as the Constituent Assembly and the Convention in France. At no time has the American people laid hold on ideas of this kind with the passionate energy of the French people in the eighteenth century, or displayed the same blind confidence in the value and absolute truth of any theory. This difference between the Americans and the French originates in several causes, but principally in the following one. The Americans are a democratic people who have always directed public affairs themselves. The French are a democratic people who for a long time could only speculate on the best manner of conducting them. The social condition of the French led them to conceive very general ideas on the subject of government, while their political constitution prevented them from correcting those ideas by experiment and from gradually detecting their insufficiency; whereas in America the two things constantly balance and correct each other. It may seem at first sight that this is very much opposed to what I have said before, that democratic nations derive their love of theory from the very excitement of their active life. A more attentive-examination will show that there is nothing contradictory in the proposition. Men living in democratic countries eagerly lay hold of general ideas because they have but little leisure and because these ideas spare them the trouble of studying particulars. This is true, but it is only to be understood of those matters which are not the necessary and habitual subjects of their thoughts. Mercantile men will take up very eagerly, and without any close scrutiny, all the general ideas on philosophy, politics, science, or the arts which may be presented to them; but for such as relate to commerce, they will not receive them without inquiry or adopt them without reserve. The same thing applies to statesman with regard to general ideas in politics. If, then, there is a subject upon which a democratic people is peculiarly liable to abandon itself, blindly and extravagantly, to general ideas, the best corrective that can be used will be to make that subject a part of their daily practical occupation. They will then be compelled to enter into details, and the details will teach them the weak points of the theory. This remedy may frequently be a painful one, but its effect is certain. Thus it happens that the democratic institutions which compel every citizen to take a practical part in the government moderate that excessive taste for general theories in polities which the principle of equality suggests. Comprehension questions

单选题The obstacles in course sequences in academic schooling are indicated in all of the following EXCEPT ______.

单选题Balancing the budget or reforming welfare has individual winners and losers. But when no trade association or advocacy coalition stands to win or lose, beliefs about what"s best have a better chance to ______.

单选题The Sydney express was ______ for two hours by the sudden storm.

单选题 'Usually when we walk through the rain forest we hear a soft sound from all the moist leaves and organic debris on the forest floor, ' says ecologist Daniel Nepstad. 'Now we increasingly get rustle and crunch. That's the sound of a dying forest.' Predictions of the collapse of the tropical rain forests have been around for years. Yet until recently the worst forecasts were almost exclusively linked to direct human activity, such as clear-cutting and burning for pastures or farms. Left alone, it was assumed, the world's rain forests would not only flourish but might even rescue us from disaster by absorbing the excess carbon dioxide and other planet-warming greenhouse gases. Now it turns out that may be wishful thinking. Some scientists believe that the rise in carbon levels means that the Amazon and other rain forests in Asia and Africa may go from being assets in the battle against rising temperatures to liabilities. Amazon plants, for instance, hold more than 100billion metric tons of carbon, equal to 15 years of tailpipe and chimney emissions. If the collapse of the rain forests speeds up dramatically, it could eventually release 3.5-5 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year—making forests the leading source of greenhouse gases, Uncommonly severe droughts brought on by global climate changes have led to forest-eating wildfires from Australia to Indonesia, but nowhere more acutely than in the Amazon. Some experts say that the rain forest is already at the brink of collapse. Extreme weather and reckless development are plotting against the rain forest in ways that scientists have never seen. Trees need more water as temperatures rise, but the prolonged droughts have robbed them of moisture, making whole forests easily cleared of trees and turned into farmland. The picture worsens with each round of El Ni?o, the unusually warm currents in the Pacific Ocean that drive up temperatures and invariably presage (预示) droughts and fires in the rain forest. Runaway fires pour even more carbon into the air, which increases temperatures, starting the whole vicious cycle all over again. More than paradise lost, a perishing rain forest could trigger a domino effect—sending winds and rains kilometers off course and loading the skies with even greater levels of greenhouse gases—that will be felt far beyond the Amazon basin. In a sense, we are already getting a glimpse of what's to come. Each burning season in the Amazon, fires deliberately set by frontier settlers and developers hurl up almost half a billion metric tons of carbon a year, placing Brazil among the top five contributors to greenhouse gases in the world.

单选题The person who found Amy's baby was ______.

单选题Mr. Herpin is one of the foreign experts who______in China.

单选题Undoubtedly, ______wins the election is going to have a tough job getting the economy back on its feet.

单选题I admire the way she's still so cheerful after all she has ______.

单选题 We raised a mortgage from Bank of China and were informed to pay it off by the end of this year.

单选题Coconut椰子is an unusual food for many reasons.It is one of the largest edible seeds produced by any plant.Its unusual contents also make it unique in the seed world—it consists of both “meat“ and “wate

单选题We can learn from the beginning of the text that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will

单选题A large part of human activity, particularly in relation to the environment, is ______ conditions or events.

单选题By this time next week, the winners______their awards.

单选题You ______ her in her office last Friday; she' s been out of town for two weeks. A. needn't have seen B. must have seen C. might have seen D. can' t have seen