单选题The questions in this group are based on the content of a passage. After reading the passage, choose the best answer to each question. Answer all questions following the passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage. Although hard statistics are difficult to come by, there is substantial anecdotal evidence that use of performance-enhancing drugs, or doping, is rampant in professional sports. Of perhaps greater significance to society are the estimated 1.5 million amateur athletes who use steroids, either to improve their appearance or to emulate the performance of their favorite professional athletes. This chemical epidemic is a pernicious threat to both the nation's health and our collective sense of "fair play." Nonprescription anabolic steroids have been illegal in the United States since 1991, and most professional sports leagues have banned them since the 1980s. These bans are partly a matter of fairness--a talented athlete trained to the peak of her ability simply cannot compete with an equivalent athlete using steroids--but also based on issues of health. Anabolic androgenic steroids ("anabolic" means that they build tissues; "androgenic" means that they increase masculine traits) have been linked to liver damage, kidney tumors, high blood pressure, balding, and acne. They function by increasing the body's level of testosterone, the primary male sex hormone. In men, this dramatic increase in testosterone can lead to the shrinking of testicles, infertility, and the development of breasts; in women, it can lead to the growth of facial hair and permanent damage to the reproductive system. Steroids have also been linked to a range of psychological problems, including depression and psychotic rage. The punishments for getting caught using steroids are severe, and the serious health consequences are well documented. Despite this, millions of professional and amateur athletes continue to use performance-enhancing drugs. Why is this? One clear pattern is that many athletes will do whatever it takes to get an edge on the competition. Since the 1950s, Olympic athletes have played a cat-and-mouse game with Olympic Committee officials to get away with doping, because the drugs really do work. Athletes who dope are simply stronger and faster than their competitors who play fair. Professional athletes in football and baseball have found that steroids and human growth hormone can give them the edge to score that extra touch-down or home run, and in the modern sports market, those results can translate into millions of dollars in salary. For the millions of less talented athletes in gyms and playing fields across the country, drugs seem like the only way to approach the abilities of their heroes in professional sports. The other clear pattern, unfortunately, is that it has been all too easy for abusers to get away with it. Steroid abuse is often regarded as a "victimless crime." One of the favored ways to trick the testers is to use "designer" steroids. There are thousands of permutations of testosterone, such as THG, that can be produced in a lab. Chemists have discovered that they can create new drugs that produce androgenic effects but do not set off the standard doping tests. Other methods have been to use the steroids but stop a few weeks before testing, to use other chemicals to mask the traces of steroids, or to switch in a "clean" sample of urine at the testing site. Other athletes use steroid precursors, such as androstene-dione, that have androgenic effects similar to those of steroids but are not illegal because they are not technically steroids. The sad fact is that unless the government and professional sports organizations are willing to get tough on the steroid problem, the use of performance-enhancing dugs in sports is not going to end.

单选题The following two questions are based on the following passage: An automaker is facing financial difficulties. The vice president of marketing has determined that the root of the company's problems is low brand loyalty. The vice president proposes, therefore, that the company begin an aggressive advertising campaign focused on children aged from three to eight years. By securing strong brand recognition with this demographic, he argues, the company will have an advantage when these customers reach an age when they can buy cars.

单选题The questions in this group are based on the content of a passage. After reading the passage, choose the best answer to each question, Answer all questions following the passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage. Forget hostile aliens. According to a forthcoming book by noted astrophysicist Egbert Larson, the intrepid humans who first attempt interstellar space travel will face far more daunting challenges before they ever meet the Little Green Men. Larson begins with the problem of relativistic time dilation. If you travel all the way to Alpha Centauri, you'd like to come back and tell your friends about it, right? It's not too likely to happen, though. If Mr. Einstein was right about relativity--and we're not going to say he wasn't--then time slows down when you approach the speed of light. A person traveling at any velocity near the speed of light will age only days for every week, month, or even year that passes on earth. Relativity does not present a problem for interstellar space travel, per se, but it does mean that interstellar civilizations or even just interstellar communications will require a mind-boggling amount of calendar juggling. Did we mention that you'd have to travel at near the speed of light? That's because the distance between stars is so vast that even if you could travel at the speed of light--which, Larson reminds us, you can't--it would take more than four years to reach our closest star neighbors, Alpha Proxima and Alpha Centauri, and decades or centuries to reach the other stars in our "immediate neighborhood." And if you tried to accelerate directly to the speed of light like they do in the movies, you'd be instantly splattered on the back of your theoretical spacecraft. Achieving anything close to light speed will require sustained accelera- tion at a level that human bodies can withstand--say, a crushing two gravities--for over a year. Better hope somebody brings some chips. Speaking of chips, food is going to be a problem. Since it is economically, if not physically, impossible to accelerate 200 years' worth of food to nearly the speed of light, and since you're not likely to find any grocery stores along the way, someone will have to figure out how to make food in space. Keeping a crew alive on the way turns out to be the trickiest part of all. Once you've got the nearly impossible physics of space travel worked out, you still have to figure out the chemistry and biology of keeping your air and water clean and keeping your crew fed and safe from radiation and infection, and--did we mention the 200 years?--you'll probably need several generations of crew members to complete the trip. Ever been on a bus for more than 24 hours? It's not a pretty picture. We applaud Larson for his insightful writing and his scrupulous attention to scientific detail. For those of you seeking a cold, hard look at the reality of interstellar space travel, this is a stellar read. But be warned: Larson doesn't let you down gently. For those of you sincerely hoping to beam up with Scotty--and you know who you are--you might want to give this one a pass.

单选题While western governments worry over the threat of Ebola, a more pervasive but far less harmful 1 is spreading through their populations like a winter sniffle: mobile personal technology. The similarity between disease organisms and personal devices is 2 . Viruses and other parasites control larger organisms, 3 resources in order to multiply and spread. Smartphones and other gadgets do the same thing, 4 ever-increasing amounts of human attention and electricity supplied 5 wire umbilici. It is tempting to 6 a "strategy" to both phages and phablets, neither of which is sentient. 7 , the process is evolutionary, consisting of many random evolutions, 8 experimented with by many product designers. This makes it all the more powerful. Tech 9 occurs through actively-learnt responses, or "operant conditioning" as animal behaviourists call it. The scientific parallel here also involves a rodent, typically a rat, which occupies a 10 cage called a Skinner Box. The animal is 11 with a food pellet for solving puzzles and punished with an electric shock when it fails. "Are we getting a positive boost of hormones when we 12 look at our phone, seeking rewards?" asks David Shuker, an animal behaviourist at St Andrews university, sounding a little like a man withholding serious scientific endorsement 13 an idea that a journalist had in the shower. Research is needed, he says. Tech tycoons would meanwhile 14 that the popularity &mobile devices is attributed to the brilliance of their designs. This is precisely what people whose thought processes have been 15 by an invasive pseudo-organism would believe. 16 , mobile technology causes symptoms less severe than physiological diseases. There are even benefits to 17 sufferers for shortened attention spans and the caffeine overload triggered by visits to Starbucks for the free Wi-Fi. Most importantly, you can 18 the Financial Times in places as remote as Alaska or Sidcup. In this 19 , a mobile device is closer to a symbiotic organism than a parasite. This would make it 20 to an intestinal bacterium that helps a person to stay alive, rather than a virus that may kill you.

单选题Which of the following might the another mostly agree with?

单选题When APPEAL is said slowly, ______ sound segments can be recognized. A. three B. four C. five D. six

单选题Recent epidemiological studies have shown that the residents of Greenborough County have substantially higher rates of pancreatic and stomach cancer than do the residents of the state as a whole. Researchers have concluded that the high rates of these cancers are due to the presence in the county of a large petrochemical facility that manufactures chemicals known to be carcinogenic. Which of the following, if true, most weakens the researchers' conclusion? A. The county's residents have the highest rate in the state of smoking, a habit that has been conclusively linked with higher rates of several types of cancer. B. The residents of the county get their water from springs that could not have been contaminated by the petrochemical plant implicated by the researchers. C. The petrochemical plant has been found to be in violation of EPA emissions standards five times in the last two years. D. Residents of Greenborough County, like people throughout the state, are fond of spicy and fatty foods that have been linked to a number of health problems. E. There are no known medical treatments that can permanently halt the development of certain forms of pancreatic cancer.

单选题A certain prosthodontist specializes in implanting gold and silver teeth in his patients' mouths. He charges $650 for a gold tooth and $325 for a silver tooth. If his total fees for implanting gold and silver teeth last week were $15,925 in total, and he implanted five more gold teeth than silver teeth, how many teeth in total did he implant over the week? A. 31 B. 32 C. 33 D. 34 E. 35

单选题[Focus on deictic expressions] A. there B. yesterday C. you D. it

单选题An agricultural cooperative wants to sell more of its less popular vegetables, zucchini in particular. A consultant has suggested that the cooperative's farmers should attempt to market a purple form of zucchini instead of the conventional green form, because people generally dislike green-colored vegetables. Which of the following, if true, casts the most doubt on the accuracy of the consultant's assertion? A. Broccoli and green peas, which are both green vegetables, are among the most popular vegetables in the country. B. Grapes and eggplants, which both have purple skin, are popular among consumers of all ages. C. Summer squash, a yellow-colored cousin of the zucchini, is one of the most popular summer vegetables. D. Green tomatoes are far less popular than red tomatoes. E. A chewing gum company reports that its purple-colored grape gum is less popular than its green-colored sour apple flavor.

单选题If Josh, Doug, and Brad have a total of $72 among them, and Josh has three times as much money as Brad but only three-fourths as much as Doug, how much money does Doug have? A. $8 B. $9 C. $27 D. $32 E. $36

单选题The Elk City garbage dumps are so full that Elk City has been forced to pay a large sum to Caribou City to accept much of Elk City's garbage. The Elk City mayor has proposed paying for this garbage relocation by imposing a tax on manufacturing businesses in ELk City. MegaCorp, the largest manufacturing business in the area, protests that this tax is unfair because businesses should not have to pay for a garbage problem that has been created by homeowners. Which of the following, if true, most weakens MegaCorp's argument? A. MegaCorp already pays more than $10,000 per year in taxes and fees to Elk City. B. MegaCorp employs more than 60 percent of the employed residents of Elk City. C. A recycling program would address the garbage problem more effectively by reducing the overall quantity of waste. D. MegaCorp's manufacturing processes produce more than 90 percent of the total waste that goes into Elk City's garbage dumps. E. Caribou City is happy to receive the extra garbage because the fees it collects from Elk City have helped to address a shortfall in education funding.

单选题36 If x is an integer and y=4x+3, which of the following cannot be a divisor of y? A. 5 B. 6 C. 7 D. 9 E. 23

单选题 "I promise." "I swear to you it'll never happen again." "I give you my word." "Honestly. Believe me." Sure, I trust. Why not? I teach English composition at a private college. With a certain excitement and intensity, I read my students' essays, hoping to find the person behind the pen. As each semester progresses, plagiarism (剽窃) appears. Not only is my intelligence insulted as one assumes I won't detect a polished piece of prose from an otherwise-average writer, but I feel a sadness that a student has resorted to buying a paper from a peer. Writers have styles like fingerprints and after several assignments, I can match a student's work with his or her name even if it's missing from the upper left-hand corner. Why is learning less important than a higher grade-point average (GPA)? When we're threatened or sick, we make conditional promises. "If you let me pass math I will…" "Lord, if you get me over this before the big homecoming game I'll…" Once the situation is behind us, so are the promises. Human nature? Perhaps, but we do use that cliché(陈词滥调) to get us out of uncomfortable bargains. Divine interference during distress is asked; gratitude is unpaid. After all, few fulfill the contract, so why should anyone be the exception. Why not? Six years ago, I took a student before the dean. He had turned in an essay with the vocabulary and sentence structure of a PhD thesis. Up until that time, both his out-of-class and in-class work were {{U}}borderline passing{{/U}}. I questioned the person regarding his essay and he swore it was his own work. I gave him the identical assignment and told him to write it in class, and that I'd understand this copy would not have the time and attention an out-of-class paper is given, but he had already a finished piece so he understood what was asked. He sat one hour, then turned in part of a page of unskilled writing and faulty logic. I confronted him with both essays. "I promise …, I'm not lying. I swear to you that I wrote the essay. I'm just nervous today." The head of the English department agreed with my findings, and the meeting with the dean had the boy's parents present. After an hour of discussion, touching on eight of the boy's previous essays and his grade-point average, which indicated he was already on academic probation (留校查看), the dean agreed that the student had plagiarized. His parents protested, "He's only. a child" and we instructors are wiser and should be compassionate. College people are not really children and most times would resent being labeled as such… except in this uncomfortable circumstance.

单选题Olympic Games are held every four years at a different site, in which athletes 21 different nations compete against each other in a 22 of sports. There are two types of Olympics, the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics. In order to 23 the Olympics, a city must submit a proposal to the International Olympic committee (IOC). After all proposals have been 24 , the IOC votes. If no one city is successful in gaining a majority in the first vote, the city with the fewest votes is eliminated, and voting continues with 25 rounds, until a majority winner is determined. Typically the Games are awarded several years in advance, 26 the winning city time to prepare for the Games. In selecting the 27 of the Olympic Games, the IOC considers a number of factors, chief among them which city has, or promises to build, the best facilities, and which organizing committee seems most likely to 28 the Games effectively. The IOC also 29 which parts of the world have not yet hosted the Games. 30 , Tokyo, Japan, the host of the 1964 Summer Games, and Mexico city, Mexico, the host of the 1968 Summer Games, were chosen 31 to popularize the Olympic movement In Asia and in Latin America. 32 the growing importance of television worldwide, the IOC in recent years has also taken into 33 the host city"s time zone. 34 the Games take place in the United States or Canada, for example, American television networks are willing to pay 35 higher amounts for television rights because they can broadcast popular events 36 , in prime viewing hours. 37 the Games have been awarded, it is the responsibility of the local organizing committee to finance them. This is often done with a portion of the Olympic television 38 and with corporate sponsorships, ticket sales, and other smaller revenue sources. In many 39 there is also direct government support. Although many cities have achieved a financial profit by hosting the Games, the Olympics can be financially 40 . When the revenues from the Games were less than expected, the city was left with large debts.

单选题The questions in this group are based on the content of a passage. After reading the passage, choose the best answer to each question. Answer all questions following the passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage. One of the biggest questions facing the art world today is the dilemma over the repatriation of cultural treasures. Although the subject has not been widely noted by the general public, in recent decades museums and art dealers have repeatedly faced off against the representatives of nations and ethnic groups whose cultural legacies have been robbed by the rapacious collecting of these so-called art experts. Advocates of repatriation have argued that cultural treasures should be returned to their nations of origin, both because of basic fairness and because the artwork and cultural artifacts in question are best understood within their local context. Several prominent museums, most notably the British Museum in London and the Louvre in Paris, have defended themselves on the grounds that they can better protect and preserve these cultural treasures than can the developing nations and impoverished ethnic groups that frequently seek their return. They further argue that more people can see the treasures if they are proudly displayed in a major museum, as opposed to some poorly funded national museum in a backwater country; evidently, the quantity of viewers is more important than the relevance of the art and artifacts to the viewer. The arguments of the museum curators fall apart in an instance such as the Elgin Marbles. These majestic marble sculptures, which once graced the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens, were stolen by Lord Elgin in the nineteenth century and given to the British Museum, which holds them to this day. The people of Athens have built a beautiful, modern museum on the Acropolis to display the Elgin Marbles and other treasures from the Greek cultural heritage, so there can be no valid argument that the Greeks are unable to house the sculptures properly. Furthermore, more people visit the Acropolis every day than visit the British Museum.

单选题Our criminal justice system is inherently flawed because it relies on amateur juries of decent citizens, who lack the perspective to understand the criminal mind. To have an effective criminal justice system would require professional juries, who would be able to deal with these criminals in a way that gets results. The argument above depends on which of the following assumptions? A. Professional jurors will be more reliable than amateur jurors because they will not attempt to avoid jury duty. B. Professional jurors will not be burdened by the biases against race, gender, and religion that amateur jurors bring into the courtroom. C. Dealing with criminals in a way that gets results requires an understanding of the criminal mind. D. No amount of professional training can impart the perspective of the criminal mind necessary to run an effective criminal justice system. E. Jurors possessing the perspective to understand the criminal mind are unfit to serve on a jury, because they are likely to be criminals.

单选题You"re busy filling out the application form for a position you really need. Let"s assume you once actually completed a couple of years of college work or even that you completed your degree. Isn"t it tempting to lie just a little, to claim on the form that your diploma "represents a Harvard degree? Or that you finished an extra couple of years back at State University? More and more people are turning to utter deception like this to land their job or to move ahead in their careers, for personnel officers, like most Americans, value degrees from famous schools. A job applicant may have a good education anyway, but he or she assumes that chances of being hired are better with a diploma from a well-known university. Registrars at most well-known colleges say they deal with deceitful claims like these at the rate of about one per week. Personnel officers do check up on degrees listed on application forms, then. If it turns out that an applicant is lying, most colleges are reluctant to accuse the applicant directly. One Ivy League school calls them "impostors"; another refers to them as "special cases". One well-known West Coast school, in perhaps the most delicate phrase of all, says that these claims are made by "no such people". To avoid outright lies, some job-seekers claim that they "attended" or "were associated with" a college or university. After carefully checking, a personnel officer may discover that "attending" means being dismissed after one semester. It may be that "being associated with" a college means that the job-seeker visited his younger brother for a football weekend. One school that keeps records of false claims says that the practice dates back at least to the turn of the century—that"s when they began keeping records, anyhow. If you don"t want to lie or even stretch the truth, there are companies that will sell you a phony diploma. One company, with offices in New York and on the West Coast, will put your name on a diploma from any number of nonexistent colleges. The price begins at around twenty dollars for a diploma from "Smoot State University". The prices increase rapidly for a degree from the "University of Purdue". As there is no Smoot State and the real school in Indiana is properly called Purdue University, the prices seem rather high for one sheet of paper.

单选题Drug use among teens concerns many people in California. Advocates of the "Stop Drugs Now" program, which was piloted in public schools in five California counties last year, argue that the program should be used throughout the state to decrease drug use among teenagers. Which of the following statements, if true, would most strengthen the argument of the advocates of "Stop Drugs Now" that the program should be expanded statewide? A. School programs are far less important than parental messages in influencing a teenager's decision to use drugs. B. Drug use among teens in the five counties where the "Stop Drugs Now" program was piloted has been dropping steadily for over a decade. C. Teenagers at the public schools where the "Stop Drugs Now" program was piloted reported higher average levels of drug use than did teenagers at private schools in the same counties where the program was not piloted. D. There is evidence that teenagers who start smoking at an early age are more likely to experiment with illegal drugs than teenagers who do not smoke. E. The percentage of teenagers who reported using drugs at the schools where the "Stop Drugs Now" program was piloted dropped more in the last year than in any other year over the last decade.

单选题Ruth Simmons joined Goldman Sachs"s board as an outside director in January 2000; a year later she became president of Brown University. For the rest of the decade she apparently managed both roles without attracting much criticism. But by the end of 2009 Ms. Simmons was under fire for having sat on Goldman"s compensation committee; how could she have let those enormous bonus payouts pass unremarked? By February the next year Ms. Simmons had left the board. The position was just taking up too much time, she said. Outside directors are supposed to serve as helpful, yet less biased, advisers on a firm"s board. Having made their wealth and their reputations elsewhere, they presumably have enough independence to disagree with the chief executive"s proposals. If the sky, and the share price is falling, outside directors should be able to give advice based on having weathered their own crises. The researchers from Ohio University used a database that covered more than 10,000 firms and more than 64,000 different directors between 1989 and 2004. Then they simply checked which directors stayed from one proxy statement to the next. The most likely reason for departing a board was age, so the researchers concentrated on those "surprise" disappearances by directors under the age of 70. They found that after a surprise departure, the probability that the company will subsequently have to restate earnings increased by nearly 20G. The likelihood of being named in a federal class-action lawsuit also increases, and the stock is likely to perform worse. The effect tended to be larger for larger firms. Although a correlation between their leaving and subsequent bad performance at the firm is suggestive, it does not mean that such directors are always jumping off a sinking ship. Often they "trade up," leaving riskier, smaller firms for larger and more stable firms. But the researchers believe that outside directors have an easier time of avoiding a blow to their reputations if they leave a firm before bad news breaks, even if a review of history shows they were on the board at the time any wrongdoing occurred. Firms who want to keep their outside directors through tough times may have to create incentives. Otherwise outside directors will follow the example of Ms. Simmons, once again very popular on campus.