单选题The narration of the European model in the second Paragraph implies that

单选题The Nicaragua Sign Language is__________.

单选题The more chemicals we send into the air, the less land we will possibly have because

单选题The author wants to write ______.

单选题"Aesthetic surgery" is mentioned to show that

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} Short of money? Need an instant loan? Since the early 1990s your best bet has been to go to the low-rent end of town and find an appointed loan-shop. There you can borrow money in small amounts, generally not much more than $500, against your post-dated pay-cheque. You will be charged around $15 interest for every $100 you borrow--and that is per month. For many people, there is no alternative. Banks refuse to make small loans because there is no money in it, and completely unregulated lending, via the internet or loan sharks, is too alarming. According to the Community Financial Services Association, an advocacy group for the industry, most borrowers are responsible and pay off their loans in a timely manner. But some don't. The Centre for Responsible Lending, a consumer group, says that many borrowers routinely roll over their loans. This quickly brings them into debt traps. A typical borrower may end up paying $793 for a $325 loan. The centre estimates that payday loans cost Americans $4.2 billion a year in interest and fees. The industry thrives, in large part, because it operates mostly outside state usury laws that prohibit excessive interest rates. Its spokesmen say lenders need such exemptions to make a profit on their basic service, small loans. Lenders say that their returns would amount to pennies on the dollar if interest rates were capped. In fact, they say, such restrictions would put them out of business. And that is exactly what many of their opponents would like to see--particularly when it comes to loans made to the families of soldiers. In one of the last acts of the Republican Congress, payday lenders were restricted to interest rates of 36% on loans to military personnel and their spouses. The Pentagon is worried that uniformed personnel, especially those serving in Iraq, have been losing their security clearances because of excessive debt at home. This, among other things, was leading to the costly reassignment of highly trained troops, such as communications experts, to ordinary low-skill jobs. Robert Frank, an economist at Cornell University, wrote recently in the New York Times that the industry -- not unlike the sub-prime mortgage sector -- is a beneficiary of the sweeping deregulation of the financial-services industry that has made credit more accessible. Its adverse consequences, he says, were" completely predictable". Once poor people get in over their heads, they will borrow themselves into bankruptcy if the law permits; and" if we are unhappy about that, the only solution is to change the rules."

单选题{{B}}Directions: {{/B}}Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points) During recent years we have heard much about "race": how this race does certain things and that race believes certain things and so on. Yet, the{{U}} (1) {{/U}}phenomenon of race consists of a few surface indications. We judge race usually{{U}} (2) {{/U}}the coloring of the skin: a white race, a brown race, a yellow race and a black race. But{{U}} (3) {{/U}}you were to remove the skin you could not{{U}} (4) {{/U}}anything about the race to which the individual belonged. There is{{U}} (5) {{/U}}in physical structure, the brain or the internal organs to{{U}} (6) {{/U}}a difference. There are four types of blood.{{U}} (7) {{/U}}types are found in every race, and no type is distinct to any race. Human brains are the{{U}} (8) {{/U}}. No scientists could examine a brain and tell you the race to which the individual belonged. Brains win{{U}} (9) {{/U}}in size, but this occurs within every race.{{U}} (10) {{/U}}does size have anything to do with intelligence. The largest brain{{U}} (11) {{/U}}examined belonged to a person of weak{{U}} (12) {{/U}}. On the other hand, some of our most distinguished people have had{{U}} (13) {{/U}}brains. Mental tests which are reasonably{{U}} (14) {{/U}}show no differences in intelligence between races. High and low test results both can be recorded by different members of any race.{{U}} (15) {{/U}}equal educational advantages, there will be no difference in average standings, either on account of race or geographical location. Individuals of every race{{U}} (16) {{/U}}civilization to go backward or forward. Training and education can change the response of groups of people,{{U}} (17) {{/U}}enable them to behave in a{{U}} (18) {{/U}}way. The behavior and ideals of people change according to circumstances, but they can always go back or go on to something new{{U}} (19) {{/U}}is better and higher than anything{{U}} (20) {{/U}}the past.

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} You cannot buy Prada shoes on Prada. com. In fact, there are no working links on the Web site. This is not a technical disorder. Since the late' 9Os, the site has been a single page, with only the name of the Italian fashion house and two photographs. No store locations or help numbers. Nothing. "I love Prada," ponders Nina Dietzel, president of Web-design company 300FeetOut. "But what's up with their 'site' ?" Prada claims a new Web site is "under development." But having a mysteriously useless home page, it admits, has an allure. It screams exclusivity: you can see, but you can't click. It's a uniquely Prada solution to this riddle: how to make your luxury brand work on the Internet without diminishing its value. In a sense, the Internet is antithetical to the "high touch" luxury experience. There is no indulgence by sales staff, and customers have come to see the Net as a path to cheap prices, not top-dollar goods. There's no velvet rope: anyone can place an order, or set up shop. That's why Prada strives to maintain the link between its name and the extravagant experience of shopping at stores like its $ 40 million New York flagship, designed by Rem Koolhaas. Unlike Prada, most luxury companies can't afford to ignore the Web: in the United States, ecommerce accounted for $ 2.5 billion in luxury sales. That figure is expected to grow to $ 7 billion by 2010, says Forrester Research. It's still a small fraction of the total market compared to other retail sectors, but five years ago analysts said there was "no way" luxury would sell online. They were betting customers wouldn't pay that much on the Web, and top brands wouldn't go slumming in this bargain basement. One of the first high-end luxury retailers, Ashford. com, had many well-publicized struggles, with its stock dropping to near rock bottom in 2001. Companies like Neiman Marcus that have strong catalog sales have made the transition to the Web more easily; online sales are the company's fastest-growing source of revenue. Swiss watchmakers Breitling and Patek Philippe have taken another tack with Web sites that offer only information, not sales. Breitling director of marketing Ben Balmer says a luxury brand needs to offer "a buying experience" that only a well-run store can provide. However, he notes that since 2002, it has presented 30 percent fewer catalogs in the United States, and seen sales rise more than 35 percent, thanks to exposure on the Internet. Prada may not need a working Web site after all.

单选题By quoting Whitman in paragraph 2, the author intends to

单选题LAST month, America's National Law Journal told its readers that "employment lawyers are warning lovestruck co-workers to take precautions in the office before locking lips outside". The advice came too late for Harry Stonecipher. The boss of Boeing was forced to resign last weekend—for reasons that will strike many outsiders as absurd—after his board were told of an affair that the 68-year-old married man had been conducting with a female employee "who did not report directly to him". Inevitably, as the week rolled on, details of the affair rolled out. The other party was reported to be Debra Peabody, who is unmarried and has worked for Boeing for 25 years. The couple were said to have first got together at Boeing's annual retreat at Palm Desert, California in January. After that much of the affair must have been conducted from a distance: Mr. Stonecipher's office is at Boeing's headquarters in Chicago; Ms Peabody runs the firm's government-relations office in Washington, DC. They exchanged e-mails, it seems, as office lovers tend to do these days, and therein probably lay Mr Stonecipher's downfall. Lewis Platt, Boeing's chairman, said that Mr Stonecipher broke a company rule that says: "Employees will not engage in conduct or activity that may raise questions as to the company's honesty, impartiality, reputation or otherwise cause embarrassment to the company." Having an affair with a fellow employee is not, of itself, against company rules; causing embarrassment to Boeing is. It seems that the board judged that the contents of the lovers' e-mails would have been bad for Boeing had they been made public. Gone are the days when a board considered such matters none of its business, as Citibank's did in 1991 when its boss, John Reed, became the talk of Wall Street for having an affair with a stewardess on Citi's corporate jet. At Boeing, a whistleblower is said to have forwarded the messages to Mr Platt. In general, e-mails are encrypted and not accessible to anyone who does not know the sender's password. But many firms install software designed to search electronic communications for key words such as, "sex" and "CEO". A study last year of 840 American firms by the American Management Association found that 60% of them check external e-mails (incoming and outgoing), while 27% scrutinize internal messages between employees. Sweet nothings whispered by the water cooler may travel less far these days than electronic billets doux. Boeing is particularly sensitive to embarrassment at the moment. Mr. Stonecipher was recalled from retirement only 15 months ago, after the company's previous boss, Phil Condit, and its chief financial officer, Michael Sears, had left in the wake of a scandal involving an illegal job offer to a Pentagon official. Mr Stonecipher, a crusty former number two at Boeing, was brought back specifically to raise the company's ethical standards and to help it be seen in its main (and affectedly puritanical) market, in Washington, DC, as squeaky clean. Verbally explicit extra-marital affairs are inconsistent with such a strategy, it seems, though they are not yet enough to bring down future kings of England. In corporate life, such affairs are hardly unusual. One survey found that one-quarter of all long-term relationships start at work; another found that over 40% of executives say they have been involved in an affair with a colleague, and that in half of these cases one or other party was married at the time. Many a boss has married his assistant and lived happily ever after. Boeing apparently used to accept this: Mr. Condit's fourth wife was a colleague before they married.

单选题A proven method for effective textbook reading is the SQ3R method developed by Francis Robinson. The first step is to survey (the S step) the chapter by reading the title, introduction, section headings, summary and by studying any graphs, tables, illustrations or charts. The purpose of this step is to get an overview of the chapter so that you will know before you read what it will be about. In the second step (the Q step), for each section you ask yourself questions such as "What do I already know about this topic?" and "What do I want to know?" In this step you also take the section heading and turn it into a question. This step gives you a purpose for reading the section. The third step (the first of the 3 R's) is to read to find the answer to your questions. Then at the end of each section, before going on to the next section, you recite (the second of the 3 R's) the answers to the questions that you formed in the question step. When you recite you should say the information you want to learn out loud in your own words. The fifth step is done after you have completed steps 2, 3 and 4 for each section. You review (the last of the 3 R's) the entire chapter. The review is done much as the survey was in the first step. As you review, hold a mental conversation with yourself as you recite the information you selected as important to learn. The mental conversation could take the form of asking and answering the questions fromed from the headings or reading the summary, which lists the main ideas in the chapter, and trying to fill in the details for each main idea.

单选题It can be learned from Paragraph 4 that

单选题Which of the following is closest in meaning to the word "clumsiness" ?

单选题Which one of the following statements would supporters of the "nature" theory agree with?