单选题{{B}}Text 1{{/B}} Prices arc sky-high, with profits to match. But looking further ahead, the industry faces wrenching change, says an expert of energy. "The time when we could count on cheap oil and even cheaper natural gas is clearly ending." That was the gloomy forecast delivered in February by Dave O'Reilly, the chairman of Chevron Texaco, to hundreds of oilmen gathered for a conference in Houston. The following month, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez gleefully echoed the sentiment: "The world should forget about cheap oil." The surge in oil prices, from $10 a barrel in 1998 to above $50 in early 2005, has prompted talk of a new era of sustained higher prices. But whenever a "new era" in oil is hailed, scepticism is in order. After all, this is essentially a cyclical business in which prices habitually yo-yo. Even so, an unusually loud chorus is now joining Messrs O'Reilly and Chavez, pointing to intriguing evidence of a new "price floor" of $30 or perhaps even $40. Confusingly, though, there are also signs that high oil prices may be caused by a speculative bubble that could burst quite suddenly. To see which camp is right, two questions need answering: why did the oil price soar? And what could keep it high? To make matters more complicated, there is in fact no such thing as a single "oil price": rather, there are dozens of varieties of crude trading at different prices. When newspapers write about oil prices, they usually mean one of two reference crudes: Brent from the North Sea, or West Texas Intermediate (WTI). But when ministers from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) discuss prices, they usually refer to a basket of heavier cartel crudes, which trade at a discount to WTI and Brent. All oil prices mentioned in this survey are per barrel of WTI. The recent volatility in prices is only one of several challenges facing the oil industry. Although at first sight Big Oil seems to be in rude health, posting record profits, this survey will argue that the western oil majors will have their work cut out to cope with the rise of resource nationalism, which threatens to choke off access to new oil reserves. This is essential to replace their existing reserves, which are rapidly declining. They will also have to respond to efforts by governments to deal with oil's serious environmental and geopolitical side-effects. Together, these challenges could yet wipe out the oil majors.

单选题Husband: Can I wait at the coffee bar? I feel ill at ease when you are picking things out. Wife: ______. I don't want to shop alone. You can always give me advice, or enjoy looking at beautiful women. Husband: Don't talk nonsense.

单选题______ both sides accept the agreement ______ a lasting peace be established in this region. A. Should, will B. Unless, would C. Only if, will D. If only, would

单选题New York City's first large electric sign, (which was) over six stories (high) and topped by a (forty-feet-long) green signboard, (appeared) on the side of a building in 1900.A. which wasB. highC. forty-feet-longD. appeared

单选题Theme-park-hound bargain seekers would be wise to spend some time surfing online before they get in line at the parks this summer. A growing number of these attractions now allow customers to print e-tickets at home with large discounts off the gate price, in part to spur attendance that has declined in recent years. After boom times in the late 1990s, theme park attendance began to decrease, with an overall decline of about 400% over the past few years at North America's 50 most-visited establishments, says James Zoltak, editor of Amusement Business. "The boom was off the rose as we turned the comer into 2000, so there's more discounting now," he says. Discounting isn't new to an industry that has longer partnered with other commercial enterprises, such as soft drink companies, to offer deals. But e-ticketing adds a new opportunity that not only brings savings but convenience as well, since it allows visitors to avoid the line at the gate. "If you can get in early before the lines fill up, you're getting more for your money," says Robert Niles of the website Theme Park Insider.

单选题The next time the men were taken up onto the deck, Kunta made a point of looking at the man behind him in line, the one who laid beside him to the left when they were below. He was a Serer tribesman much older than Kunta, arid his body, front and back, was creased with whip cuts, some of them so deep and festering that Kunta, felt badly for having wished sometimes that he might strike the man in the darkness for moaning so steadily in his pain. Staring back at Kunta, the Serer's dark eyes were full of fury and defiance. A whip lashed out even as they stood looking at each other—this time at Kunta, spurring him to move ahead. Trying to roll away, Kunta was kicked heavily in his ribs. But somehow he and the gasping Wolof managed to stagger back up among the other men from their shelf who were shambling toward their dousing with buckets of seawater. A moment later, the stinging saltiness of it was burning in Kunta's wounds, and his screams joined those of others over the sound of the drum and the wheezing thing that had again begun marking time for the chained men to jump and dance for the toubob. Kunta and the Wolof were so weak from their new beating that twice they stumbled, but whip blows and kicks sent them hopping clumsily up and down in their chains. So great was his fury that Kunta was barely aware of the women singing "Toubob fa!" And when he had finally been chained back down in his place in the dark hold, his heart throbbed with a lust to murder toubob. Every few days the eight naked toubob would again come into the stinking darkness and scrape their tubs full of the excrement that had accumulated on the shelves where the chained men lay. Kunta would lie still with his eyes staring balefully in hatred, following the bobbing orange lights, listening to the toubob cursing and sometimes slipping and tailing into the slickness underfoot—so plentiful now, because of the increasing looseness of the men's bowels, that the filth had begun to drop off the edges of the shelves down into the aisle way. The last time they were on deck, Kunta had noticed a man limping on a badly infected leg. This time the man was kept up on deck when the rest were taken back below. A few days later, the women told the other prisoners in their singing that the man's leg had been cut off and that one of the women had been brought to tend him, but the man had died that night and been thrown over the side. Starting then, when the toubob came to clean the shelves, they also dropped red-hot pieces of metal into pails of strong vinegar. The clouds of acrid steam left the hold smelling better, but soon it would again be overwhelmed by the choking stink. It was a smell that Kunta felt would never leave his lungs and skin. The steady murmuring that went on in the hold whenever the toubob were kept growing in volume and intensity as the men began to communicate better and better with one another. Words not understood were whispered from mouth to ear along the shelves until someone who knew more than one tongue would send back their meanings. In the process, all of the men along each shelf learned new words in tongues they had not spoken before. Sometimes men jerked upward, bumping their heads, in the double excitement of communicating with each other and the fact that it was being done without the toubob's knowledge. Muttering among themselves for hours, the men developed a deepening sense of intrigue and of brotherhood. Though they were of different villages and tribes, the feeling grew that they were not from different peoples or places.

单选题The ghostly presence was just a(n) ______ sensation of some people.

单选题{{B}}Passage Three{{/B}} The study of ecology is important for everyone who cares about our world. Air, water, and land -- we would not live without any of these. But what do we mean by land? It is the earth beneath our feet, wherever we are. It is mountains and plains. It is wide fields for growing com and wheat. Or it may be an airfield or a parking lot or a highway or a whole city -- land covered with cement, asphalt, and buildings. Land is the solid part of the Earth. Land is the soil plants grow in. That is the most important things about the land -- it is the place where green plants grow. Without green plants there would be not life on Earth. Green leaves make oxygen. All of us -- ants, elephants, people, every living creature -- must have oxygen to stay alive. We breathe in oxygen and our bodies use it. Carbon dioxide is formed in the process and we breathe it out. Leaves use carbon dioxide along with water to make food for plants. Then they give off oxygen. This process has been going on for millions of years. It is part of the pattern of our natural life on Earth. This pattern had changed very little for millions of years before people arrived on Earth. People found ways to improve their lives by changing nature, by trying to make nature fit in with their way of life. Warm houses in winter, electric lights at night, factories to produce our food, our clothes, our gadgets(零用品) -- all this people have accomplished. And we learned to grow more food on the land than nature could grow without our help. All this is good -- up to a point. But it has gone too far. We have produced too much and we have failed to see what this was doing to our world. We have not understood the ways in which all living things on Earth depend on one another. We ourselves have increased until the sheer numbers of people on Earth have upset the balance of nature.

单选题 Directions: In this part there are four passages, each followed by five questions or unfinished statements. For each of them, there are four suggested answers. Choose the one that you think is the best answer.{{B}}11-15{{/B}} Unless we spend money to spot and prevent asteroids (小行星) now, one might crash into Earth and destroy life as we know it, say some scientists. Asteroids are bigger versions of the meteoroids (流星) that race across the night sky. Most orbit the sun far from Earth and don't threaten us. But there are also thousands whose orbits put them on a collision course with Earth. Buy $ 40 million worth of new telescopes right now. Then spend $10 million a year for the next 25 years to locate most of the space rocks. By the time we spot a fatal one, the scientists say, we'll have a way to change its course. Some scientists favor pushing asteroids off course with nuclear weapons. But the cost wouldn't be cheap. Is it worth it? Two things experts consider when judging any risk are: 1) How likely the event is; and 2) How bad the consequences if the event occurs. Experts think an asteroid big enough to destroy lots of life might strike Earth once every 400000 years. Sounds pretty rare—but if one did fall, it would be the end of the world. "If we don't take care of these big asteroids, they'll take care of us," says one scientist. "It's that simple. " The cure, though, might be worse than the disease. Do we really want fleets of nuclear weapons sitting around on Earth? "The world has less to fear from doomsday (毁灭性的) rocks than from a great nuclear fleet set against them," said a New York Times article.

单选题How many years did it take to complete the collection of recordings?

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单选题______ the housework, Mary began to write her report.

单选题A wise man once said that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. So, as a police officer, I have some urgent things to say to good people. Day after day my men and I struggle to hold back a tidal wave of crime. Something has gone terribly wrong with our once-proud American way of life. It has happened in the area of values. A key ingredient is disappearing, and I think I know what it is. accountability. Accountability isn"t hard to define. It means that every person is responsible for his or her actions and liable for their consequences. Of the many values that hold civilization together—honesty, kindness, and so on—accountability may be the most important of all. Without it, there can be no respect, no trust, no law—and, ultimately, no society. My job as a police officer is to impose accountability on people who refuse, or have never learned, to impose it on themselves. But as every policeman knows, external controls on people"s behavior are far less effective than internal restraints such as guilt, shame and embarrassment. Fortunately there are still communities—smaller towns, usually—where schools maintain discipline and where parents hold up standards that proclaim: "In this family certain things are not tolerated—they simply are not done!" Yet more and more, especially in our larger cities and suburbs, these inner restraints are loosening. Your typical robber has none. He considers your property his property; he takes what he wants, including your life if you enrage him. The main cause of this break-down is a radical shift in attitudes. Thirty years ago, if a crime was committed, society was considered the victim. Now, in a shocking reversal, it"s the criminal who is considered victimized, by his underprivileged upbringing, by the school that didn"t teach him to read, by the church that failed to reach him with moral guidance, by the parents who didn"t provide a stable home. I don"t believe it. Many others in equally disadvantaged circumstances choose not to engage in criminal activities. If we free the criminal, even partly, from accountability, we become a society of endless excuses where no one accepts responsibility for anything. We in America desperately need more people who believe that the person who commits a crime is the one responsible for it.

单选题He would rather ______ part in such dishonest business deals. A. resign than take B. resign than to take C. resign than taking D. resigning than take

单选题In a family where the roles of men and women are not sharply separated and where many household tasks are shared to a greater or lesser extent, notions of male superiority are hard to maintain. The pattern of sharing in tasks and in decisions makes for equality, and this in turn leads to further sharing. In such a home, the growing boy and girl learn to accept that equality more easily than did their parents and to prepare more fully for participation in a world characterized by cooperation, rather than by the "battle of the sexes". Man's role is sometimes regarded as less important. It's time to reassess the role of the man in the American family. What we need, rather, is the recognition that bringing up children involves a partnership of equals. Psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and specialists on the family are becoming more aware of the part men play and that they have decided that women should not receive all the credit—nor all the blame. We have almost given up saying that a woman's place is in the home. We are beginning, however, to analyze man's place in the home and to insist that he does have a place in it. Nor is that place irrelevant to the healthy development of the child. The family is a cooperative enterprise for which it is difficult to lay down rules, because each family needs to work out its own ways for solving its own problems. Excessive authoritarianism has unhappy consequences, whether it wears skirt or trousers, and the ideal of equal rights and equal responsibilities is pertinent not only to a healthy democracy, but also to a healthy family.

单选题John Dewey thought that children (will learn) (better) through participating in experiences (rather than) through (listening) to lectures.

单选题President Coolidge's statement, "The business of America is business," still points to an important truth today-- that business institutions have more prestige (威望) in American society than any other kind of organization, including the government. Why do business institutions possess this great prestige? One reason is that Americans view business as being more firmly based on the ideal of competition than other institutions in society. Since competition is seen as the major source of progress and prosperity by most Americans, competitive business institutions are respected. Competition is not only good in itself, it is the means by which other basic American values such as individual freedom, equality of opportunity, and hard work are protected. Competition protects the freedom of the individual by ensuring that there is no monopoly (垄断) of power. In contrast to one, all-powerful government, many businesses compete against each other for profits. Theoretically, if one business tries to take unfair advantage of its customers, it will lose to competing business which treats its customers more fairly. Where many businesses compete for the customers' dollar, they cannot afford to treat them like inferiors or slaves. A contrast is often made between business, which is competitive, and government, which is a monopoly. Because business is competitive, many Americans believe that it is more supportive of freedom than government, even though government leaders are elected by the people and business leaders are not. Many Americans believe, then, that competition is as important, or even more important, than democracy in preserving freedom. Competition in business is also believed to strengthen the ideal of equality of opportunity. Competition is seen as an open and fair race where success goes to the swiftest person regardless of his or her social class background. Competitive success is commonly seen as the American alternative to social rank based on family background. Business is therefore viewed as an expression of the idea of equality of opportunity rather than the aristocratic (贵族的) idea of inherited privilege.

单选题 Concern with money, and then more money, in order to buy the conveniences and luxuries of modern life, has brought great changes to the lives of most Frenchmen. More people are working than ever before in France. In the cities the traditional leisurely midday meal is disappearing. Offices, shops and factories are discovering the greater efficiency of a short lunch hour in company lunchrooms. In almost all lines of work emphasis now falls on ever-increasing output. Thus the "typical" Frenchman produces more, earns more, and buys more consumer goods than his counterpart of only a generation ago. He gains in creature comforts and ease of life. What he loses to some extent is his sense of personal uniqueness, or individuality. Some say that France has been Americanized. This is because the United States is a world symbol of the technological society and its consumer products: The so-called Americanization of France has its critics. They fear that "assembly-line life" will lead to the disappearance of the pleasures of the more graceful and leisurely old French style. What will happen, they ask, to taste, elegance, and the cultivation of the good things in life-to joy in the smell of a freshly picked apple, a stroll by the river, or just happy hours of conversation in a local cafe? Since the late 1940's life in France has indeed taken on qualities of rush, tension, and the pursuit of material gain. Some of the strongest critics of the new way of life are the young, especially university students. They are concerned with the future, and they fear that France is threatened by the triumph of the competitive, goods-oriented culture. Occasionally, they have reacted against the trend with considerable violence. In spite of the critics, however, countless Frenchmen are committed to keeping France in the forefront of the modern economic world. They find that the present life brings more rewards, conveniences, and pleasures than that of the past. They believe that a modern, industrial France is preferable to the old.