单选题The past ages of man have all been carefully labeled by anthropologists. Descriptions like "Palaeolithic Man", "Neolithic Man", etc., neatly sum up whole periods. When the time comes for anthropologists to turn their attention to the twentieth century, they will surely choose the label "Legless Man". Histories of the time will go something like this: "In the twentieth century, people forgot how to use their legs. Men and women moved about in cars, buses and trains from a very early age. There were lifts and escalators in all large buildings to prevent people from walking. This situation was forced upon earth dwellers of that time because of their extraordinary way of life. In those days, people thought nothing of traveling hundreds of miles each day. But the surprising thing is that they didn"t use their legs even when they went on holiday. They built cable railways, ski-lifts and roads to the top of every huge mountain. All the beauty spots on earth were marred by the presence of large car parks." The future history books might also record that we were deprived of the use of our eyes. In our hurry to get from one place to another, we failed to see anything on the way. Air travel gives you a bird"s-eye view of the world—or even less if the wing of the aircraft happens to get in your way. When you travel by car or train a blurred image of the countryside constantly smears the windows. Car drivers, in particular, are forever obsessed with the urge to go on and on. they never want to stop. Is it the lure of the great motorways, or what? And as for sea travel, it hardly deserves mention. The typical twentieth-century traveler is the man who always says "I"ve been there." When you travel at high speeds, the present means nothing: you live mainly in the future because you spend most of your time looking forward to arriving at some other place. But actual arrival, when it is achieved, is meaningless. You want to move on again. By traveling like this, you suspend all experience; the present ceases to be a reality: you might just as well be dead. The traveler on foot, on the other hand, lives constantly in the present. For him traveling and arriving are one and the same thing: he arrives somewhere with every step he makes. He experiences the present moment with his eyes, his ears and the whole of his body. At the end of his journey he feels a delicious physical weariness. He knows that sound. Satisfying sleep will be his: the just reward of all true travellers.

单选题 Should a leader strive to be loved or feared? This question, famously posed by Machiavelli, lies at the heart of Joseph Nye's new book. Mr. Nye, a former dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and one-time chairman of America's National Intelligence Council, is best known for promoting the idea of “soft power”, based on persuasion and influence, as a counterpoint to "hard power" , based on coercion (强迫) and force. Having analyzed the use of soft and hard power in politics and diplomacy in his previous books, Mr. Nye has now turned his attention to the relationship between power and leadership, in both the political and business spheres. Machiavelli, he notes, concluded that "one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved." In short, hard power is preferable to soft power. But modern leadership theorists have come to the opposite conclusion. The context of leadership is changing, they observe, and the historical emphasis on hard power is becoming outdated. In modern companies and democracies, power is increasingly diffused and traditional hierarchies (等级制) are being undermined, making soft power ever more important. But that does not mean coercion should now take a back seat to persuasion, Mr. Nye argues. Instead, he advocates a synthesis of these two views. The conclusion of The Powers to Lead, his survey of the theory of leadership, is that a combination of hard and soft power, which he calls "smart power”, is the best approach. The dominant theoretical model of leadership at the moment is, apparently, the “transformational leadership pattern”. Anyone allergic (反感) to management term will already be running for the exit, but Mr. Nye has performed a valuable service in rounding up and summarizing the various academic studies and theories of leadership into a single, slim volume. He examines different approaches to leadership, the morality of leadership and how the wider context can determine the effectiveness of a particular leader. There are plenty of anecdotes and examples, both historical and contemporary, political and corporate. Alas, leadership is a slippery subject, and as he depicts various theories, even Mr. Nye never quite nails the jelly to the wall. He is at his most interesting when discussing the moral aspects of leadership—in particular, the question of whether it is sometimes necessary for good leaders to lie—and he provides a helpful 12-point summary of his conclusions. A recurring theme is that as circumstances change, different sorts of leaders are required; a leader who thrives in one environment may struggle in another, and vice versa. Ultimately that is just a fancy way of saying that leadership offers no easy answers.

单选题A real estate developer in Florida, desiring to protect his high-rise apartment building on the beach from hurricane damage, has planted sea oats in two rows in front of his building in order to encourage the development of sand dunes between the water and his building. Which of the following, if true, casts the most doubt on the probable effectiveness of the developer's plan? A. Sand dunes provide little protection for tall buildings against the wind, which is sufficiently powerful even in minor hurricanes to cause serious damage to buildings. B. Sand dunes have been shown to provide effective protection against the storm surge, the pounding waves driven by hurricane-force winds onto dry land. C. Although sea oats will lead to the growth of sand dunes over many years, it would be far faster to build concrete bunkers between the building and the water. D. Hurricane insurance has become so expensive that many owners of beachfront property choose not to buy it. E. The developer has invested in reinforced steel girders and shatterproof glass as a way of minimizing damage to his building in the event that a hurricane hits the area.

单选题Americans live in a style-conscious culture even elementary school children know the difference between Air Jordans and the cheaper imitations. By the time they enter junior high school, most American adolescents are already highly skilled at distinguishing between brand names. The real lesson young Americans learn is that they live in a world where it matters what brand of clothes or furniture or car they buy. It matters what style of music they listen to, how they wear their hair, whether they"re tattooed or pierced, and what kind of food they like to eat. Even everyday use—objects from staplers to tooth brushes to laptop computers matter too. In many ways, it seems that such a concern for personal style and the appearance of objects is shallow and trivial. After all, what does it really matter whether or not someone"s clothes or music or computer is at the cutting edge of style? Why should anyone care? One reason is that style is a guide to economic and social class in America Style identities. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we make judgments about people based on their appearance and their style. Simply by growing up in American culture, we acquire a sense of the style appropriate to different walks of life—how, for example, a high school teacher, a business executive, a truck driver, or a rock star ought to look. Style communicates messages about economic and social class precisely because we share with others cultural codes that define what"s normal and expected. For example, we expect wealthy professionals in metropolitan areas to be museum members, go to the opera, and enjoy gourmet food and fine wine. On the other hand, we are likely to expect that working-class men in the Midwest drink beer, listen to classic rock, and support their local pro-football team. This doesn"t mean that everyone in a particular social group conforms to these cultural codes. What it does indicate, however, is that style carries cultural meanings that go far beyond individual likes and dislikes. Style, in other words, is linked tc the way of life that identifies groups of people, cultures, and subcultures. If the styles we adopt seem to be freely taken personal choices, they are contained nonetheless in a larger system of cultural codes that organize the way we think about identity, social status, prestige, good (and bad) taste, tradition, and innovation. Fashion designers, graphic designers, and product designers understand this intimate connection between style and identity. They design everything from corporate logos and brand trademarks to the latest style of jeans and athletic shoes to computers and cars. Their job is to match styles to people"s identities and, at the same time, to create styles that offer people new identities.

单选题Last weekend Kyle MacDonald in Montreal threw a party to celebrate the fact that he got his new home in exchange for a red paper clip. Starting a year ago, MacDonald bartered the clip for increasingly valuable stuff, including a camp stove and free rent in a Phoenix flat. Having announced his aim (the house) in advance, MacDonald likely got a boost from techies eager to see the Internet pass this daring test of its networking power. "My whole motto was "Start small, think big, and have fun"," says MacDonald, 26, "I really kept my effort on the creative side rather than the business side." Yet as odd as the MacDonald exchange was, barter is now big business on the Net. This year more than 400,000 companies worldwide will exchange some $10 billion worth of goods and services on a growing number of barter sites. These Web sites allow companies to trade products for a virtual currency, which they can use to buy goods from other members. In Iceland, garment-maker Kapusalan sells a third of its output on the booming Vidskiptanetid exchange, earning virtual money that it uses to buy machinery and pay part of employee salaries. The Troc-services exchange in France offers more than 4,600 services, from math lessons to ironing. This is not a primitive barter system. By creating currencies, the Internet removes a major barrier—what Bob Meyer, publisher of BarterNews, calls "the double coincidence of wants." That is, two parties once not only had to find each other, but also an exchange of goods that both desired. Now, they can price the deal in virtual currency. Barter also helps firms make use of idle capacity. For example, advertising is "hugely bartered" because many media, particularly on the Web can supply new ad space at little cost. Moreover, Internet ads don"t register in industry-growth statistics, because many exchanges are arranged outside the formal exchanges. Like eBay, most barter sites allow members to "grade" trading partners for honesty quality and so on. Barter exchanges can allow firms in countries with hyperinflation or non-tradable currencies to enter global trades. Next year, a nonprofit exchange called Quick Lift Two (QL2) plans to open in Nairobi, offering barter deals to 38,000 Kenyan farmers in remote areas. Two small planes will deliver the goods. QL2 director Gacii Waciuma says the farmers are excited to be "liberated from corrupt middlemen." For them, barter evokes a bright future, not a precapitalist past.

单选题For three decades we"ve heard endlessly about the virtues of aerobic (increasing oxygen consumption) exercise. Medical authorities have praised running and jumping as the key to good health, and millions of Americans have taken to the treadmill (踏车) to reap the rewards. But the story is changing. Everyone from the American Heart Association to the surgeon general"s office has recently embraced strength training as a complement to aerobics. And as weight lifting has gone mainstream, so has the once obscure practice known as "Super Slow" training. Enthusiasts claim that by pumping iron at a snail"s pace—making each "rep" (repeat) last 14 seconds instead of the usual seven—you can safely place extraordinary demands on your muscles, and call forth an extraordinary response. Slow lifting may not be the only exercise you need, as some advocates believe, but the benefits are often dramatic. Almost anyone can handle this routine. The only requirements are complete focus and a tolerance for deep muscular burn. For each exercise—leg press, bench press, shoulder press and so on—you set the machine to provide only moderate resistance. But as you draw out each rep, depriving yourself of impetus, the weight soon feels unbearable. Defying the impulse to stop, you keep going until you can"t complete a rep. Then you sustain your vain effort for 10 more seconds while the weight sinks gradually toward its cradle. Intense? Uncomfortable? Totally. But once you embrace muscle failure as the goal of the workout, it can become almost pleasure. The goal is not to burn calories while you"re exercising but to make your body burn them all the time. Running a few miles may make you sweat, but it expends only 100 calories per mile, and it doesn"t stimulate much bone or muscle development. Strength training doesn"t burn many calories, either. But when you push a muscle to failure, you set off a pour of physiological changes. As the muscle recovers over several days, it will thicken and the new muscle tissue will demand sustenance. By the time you add three pounds of muscle, your body requires an extra 9,000 calories a month just to break even. Hold your diet steady and, very quickly, you are vaporizing body fat. One might have benefited from any strength-training program. But advocates insist that the slow technique is safer and more effective than traditional methods.

单选题If x, y, and z are positive integers, and 4x=5y=6z, then the least possible value of x+y+z is A. 15 B. 28 C. 37 D. 42 E. 6O

单选题His change of job has ____ him with a new challenge in life

单选题Three hundred multiples of three are picked at random, and three hundred multiples of four are picked at random. Approximately what percentage of the six hundred selected numbers are even? A. 100% B. 75% C. 66% D. 50% E. 33%

单选题The Spanish, French, Dutch, and English all Uvied for/U North American territiry.

单选题I remember meeting him one evening with his pushcart. I had managed to sell all my papers and was coming home in the snow. It was that strange hour in downtown New York when the workers were pouring homeward in the twilight. I marched among thousands of tired men and women whom the factory whistles had unyoked. They flowed in rivers through the clothing factory districts, then down along the avenues to the East Side. I met my father near Cooper Union. I recognized him, a hunched, frozen figure in an old overcoat standing by a banana cart. He looked so lonely; the tears came to my eyes. Then he saw me, and his face lit with his sad, beautiful smile—Charlie Chaplin"s smile. "Arch, it"s Mickey," he said. "So you have sold your papers! Come and eat a banana." He offered me one. I refused it. I felt it crucial that my father sell his bananas, not give them away. He thought I was shy, and coaxed and joked with me, and made me eat the banana. It smelled of wet straw and snow. "You haven"t sold many bananas today, pop," I said anxiously. He shrugged his shoulders. "What can I do? No one seems to want them." It was true. The work crowds pushed home morosely over the pavements. The rusty sky darkened over New York building, the tall street lamps were lit, innumerable trucks, street cars and elevated trains clattered by. Nobody and nothing in the great city stopped for my father"s bananas. "I ought to yell," said my father dolefully. "I ought to make a big noise like other peddlers, but it makes my throat sore. Anyway, I"m ashamed of yelling, it makes me feel like a fool." I had eaten one of his bananas. My sick conscience told me that I ought to pay for it somehow. I must remain here and help my father. "I"ll yell for you, pop," I volunteered. "Arch, no," he said, "go home; you have worked enough today. Just tell momma I"ll be late." But I yelled and yelled. My father, standing by, spoke occasional words of praise, and said I was a wonderful yeller, Nobody else paid attention. The workers drifted past us wearily, endlessly; a defeated army wrapped in dreams of home. Elevated trains crashed; the Cooper Union clock burned above us; the sky grew black, the wind poured, the slush burned through our shoes. There were thousands of strange, silent figures pouring over the sidewalks in snow. None of them stopped to buy bananas. I yelled and yelled, nobody listened. My father tried to stop me at last. "Nu," he said smiling to console me, "that was wonderful yelling, Mickey. But it"s plain we are unlucky today! Let"s go home." I was frantic, and almost in tears. I insisted on keeping up my desperate yells. But at last my father persuaded me to leave with him.

单选题I must leave now. ______ , if you want that book I'll bring it to you tomorrow,

单选题The type of language constructed by second or foreign language learners who are still in the process of learning a language is often referred to as ______. A. parole B. langue C. interlanguage D. pidgin

单选题The Internet affords anonymity to its users, a blessing to privacy and freedom of speech. But that very anonymity is also behind the explosion of cyber-crime that has 1 across the Web. Can privacy be preserved 2 bringing safety and security to a world that seems increasingly 3 ? Last month, Howard Schmidt, the nation"s cyber-czar, offered the federal government a 4 to make the Web a safer place—a "voluntary trusted identity" system that would be the high-tech 5 of a physical key, a fingerprint and a photo ID card, all rolled 6 one. The system might use a smart identity card, or a digital credential 7 to a specific computer, and would authenticate users at a range of online services. The idea is to 8 a federation of private online identity systems. User could 9 which system to join, and only registered users whose identities have been authenticated could navigate those systems. The approach contrasts with one that would require an Internet driver"s license 10 by the government. Google and Microsoft are among companies that already have these "single sign-on" systems that make it possible for users to 11 just once but use many different services. 12 , the approach would create a "walled garden" in cyberspace, with safe "neighborhoods" and bright "streetlights" to establish a sense of a 13 community. Mr. Schmidt described it as a "voluntary ecosystem" in which "individuals and organizations can complete online transactions with 14 , trusting the identities of each other and the identities of the infrastructure 15 which the transaction runs." Still, the administration"s plan has 16 privacy rights activists. Some applaud the approach; others are concerned. It seems clear that such a scheme is an initiative push toward what would 17 be a compulsory Internet "driver"s license" mentality. The plan has also been greeted with 18 by some computer security experts, who worry that the "voluntary ecosystem" envisioned by Mr. Schmidt would still leave much of the Internet 19 They argue that all Internet users should be 20 to register and identify themselves, in the same way that drivers must be licensed to drive on public roads.

单选题Covington College has four full-time Classics professors, but only 12 Classics majors. This three-to-one student-to-professor ratio is the lowest in the college. Since the college is facing financial difficulties, and since the tuition fees from just 12 students is not sufficient to pay the salaries of 4 full-time professors, the college should cancel the Classics program to reduce expenses. Which of the following, if true, most weakens the conclusion above? A. Professors in the Classics department teach popular language and literature classes that are attended by hundreds of students who are not Classics majors. B. Students at Covington College pay, on average, $22,500 per year in tuition and fees, while the average professor of humanities receives a salary of $61,500 per year. C. A well-regarded Classics program adds prestige to a college or university. D. The Classics department has already decreased in size from six frill-time professors 10 years ago. E. The study of classical literature and languages is increasingly irrelevant to the high-tech workplace of today.

单选题The Perils of Efficiency This spring, disaster loomed in the global food market. Precipitous increases in the prices of staples like rice (up more than a hundred and fifty percent in a few months) and maize provoked food riots, toppled governments, and threatened the lives of tens of millions. But the bursting of the commodity bubble eased those pressures, and food prices, while still high, have come well off the astronomical levels they hit in April. For American, the drop in commodity prices has put a few more bucks in people"s pockets; in much of the developing world, it may have saved many from actually starving. So did the global financial crisis solve the global food crisis? Temporarily, perhaps. But the recent price drop doesn"t provide any long-term respite from the threat food shortages or future price spikes. Nor has it reassured anyone about the health of the global agricultural system, which the crisis revealed as dangerously unstable. Four decades after the Green Revolution, and after waves of market reforms intended to transform agricultural production, we"re still having a hard time insuring that people simply get enough to eat, and we seen to be vulnerable to supply shocks than ever. It wasn"t supposed to be this way. Over the past two decades, countries around the world have moved away from their focus on "food security" and handed market forces a greater role in shaping agricultural policy. Before the nineteen-eighties, developing countries had so-called "agricultural marketing boards", which would buy commodities from farmers at fixed prices (prices high enough to keep farmers farming), and then store them in strategic reserves that could be used in the event of bad harvests or soaring import prices. But in the eighties and nineties, often as part of structural-adjustment programs imposed by the I.M.F. or the World Bank, many marketing boards were eliminated or cut back, and grain reserves, deemed inefficient and unnecessary, were sold off. In the same way, structural-adjustment programs often did away with government investment in and subsidies to agriculture—most notably, subsidies for things like fertilizers and high-yield seeds. The logic behind these reforms was simple: the market would allocate resources more efficiently than government, leading to greater productivity. Farmers, instead of growing subsidized maize and wheat at high cost, could concentrate on cash crops, like cashews and chocolate, and use the money they made to buy staple foods. If a country couldn"t compete in the global economy, production would migrate to countries that could. It was also assumed that, once governments stepped out of the way, private investment would flood into agriculture, boosting performance. And international aid seemed a more efficient way of relieving food crises than relying on countries to maintain surpluses and food- security programs, which are wasteful and costly. This "marketization" of agriculture has not, to be sure, been fully carried through. Subsidies are still endemic in rich countries and poor, while developing countries often place tariffs on imported food, which benefit their farmers but drive up prices for consumers. And in extreme circumstance countries restrict exports, hoarding food for their own citizens. Nonetheless, we clearly have a leaner, more market-friendly agriculture system than before. It looks, in fact, a bit like global manufacturing, with low inventories (wheat stocks are at their lowest since 1977), concentrated production (three countries provide ninety percent of corn exports, and five countries provide eighty percent of rice exports,) and fewer redundancies. Governments have a much smaller role, and public spending on agriculture has been cut sharply. The problem is that, while this system is undeniably more efficient, it"s also much more fragile. Bad weather in just a few countries can wreak havoc across the entire system. When prices spike as they did this spring, the result is food shortages and malnutrition in poorer countries, since they are far more dependent on imports and have few food reserves to draw on. And, while higher prices and market reforms were supposed to bring a boom in agricultural productivity, global crop yields actually rose less between 1990 and 2007 than they did in the previous twenty years, in part because in many developing countries private-sector agricultural investment never materialized, while the cutbacks in government spending left them with feeble infrastructures. These changes did not cause the rising prices of the past couple of years, but they have made them more damaging. The old emphasis on food security was undoubtedly costly, and often wasteful. But the redundancies it created also had tremendous value when things went wrong. And one sure thing about a system as complex as agriculture is that things will go wrong, often with devastating consequences. If the just-in-time system for producing cars runs into a hitch and the supply of cars shrinks for a while, people can easily adapt. When the same happens with food, people go hungry or even starve. That doesn"t mean that we need to embrace price controls or collective farms, and there are sensible market reforms, like doing away with import tariffs, that would make developing-country consumers better off. But a few weeks ago Bill Clinton, no enemy of market reform, got it right when he said that we should help countries achieve "maximum agricultural self-sufficiency". Instead of a more efficient system. We should be trying to build a more reliable one.

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. Pretty much everybody agrees that clean air is a good thing, right? Evidently not so. Since the 1960s, when people started talking about clean air in the first place, the American energy industry, which includes coal companies, oil companies, and utility companies, has dragged its heels on every initiative to improve the quality of the air we breathe. Even after the Clean Air Act of 1970 and its amendments in 1977 and 1990 made it clear that controlling air pollution is a national priority, these companies have found tricks and loopholes to avoid compliance. Perhaps the most egregious loophole is the one that allows older power plants to disregard limits on sulfux dioxide emissions until they undergo a major renovation, at which point they have to comply. Sulfur dioxide from coal-burning power plants is the primary cause of acid rain in North America. The Clean Air Act states that when coal-burning power plants upgrade their equipment, they must then comply with sulfur dioxide limitations by either installing scrubbing equipment that cleans the emissions or using fuel with lower sulfur content. The law tied the timing of compliance to major renovations in order to give power plants a grace period in which to comply. Many power plants, however, have exploited a loophole in this law by instituting a series of "minor" renovations that, in effect, upgrade their equipment without requiring them to comply with the Clean Air Act. Some plants have cheated the system by undergoing "minor" renovations for decades. The power companies claim that they have to resort to these underhanded measures because the cost of compliance with the Clean Air Act is too high. And if everyone else is cheating the system, why should they have to install costly sulfur dioxide scrubbers? This cost argument falls apart upon scrutiny. Since 1977, more than 400 power plants across the country have managed to comply with the restrictions and are still making money. The sulfur dioxide scrubbing equipment has turned out to be far less expensive than the power industry naysayers claimed it would be. Many power plants have even complied with the emissions limits and reduced their operating costs by switching from high-sulfur Appalachian coal to the low-sulfur coal produced in western states such as Wyoming and Idaho. Western coal is not only cleaner than eastern coal, but also, because it is generally closer to the surface, as much as 30 percent less expensive to extract. Clearly, the costs of compliance with the Clean Air Act can be justified, but if these companies were honest, such justifications would not have to be made. If they were honest, they would acknowledge the costs of not complying: the health costs of increased rates of asthma and lung cancer in high-emissions areas; the environmental costs of acid-scarred forests and lakes; the aesthetic costs of a haze of sulfur dioxide cutting visibility across the eastern United States to only half of what it was in pre-industrial times. When you look at the true costs you have to ask, is any cost too high for clean air?

单选题The following questions present a sentence, part of which or all of which is underlined. Beneath the sentence, you will find five ways of phrasing the underlined part. The first of these repeats the original; the other four are different. If you think the original is best, choose the first answer; otherwise choose one of the others. These questions test correctness and effectiveness of expression. In choosing your answer, follow the requirements of standard written English; that is, pay attention to grammar, choice of words, and sentence construction. Choose the answer that produces the most effective sentence; this answer should be clear and exact, without awkwardness, ambiguity, redundancy, or grammatical error.

单选题From childhood to old age, we all use language as a means of broadening our knowledge of ourselves and the world about us. When humans first 41 , they were like newborn children, unable to use this 42 tool. Yet once language developed, the possibilities for humankind"s future 43 and cultural growth increased. Many linguists believe that evolution is 44 for our ability to produce and use language. They 45 that our highly evolved brain provides us 46 an innate language ability not found in lower 47 . Proponents of this innateness theory say that our 48 for language is inborn, but that language itself develops gradually, 49 a function of the growth of the brain during childhood. Therefore there are critical 50 times for language development. Current 51 of innateness theory are mixed, however, evidence supporting the existence of some innate abilities is undeniable. 52 , more and more schools are discovering that foreign languages are best taught in 53 grades. Young children often can learn several languages by being 54 to them, while adults have a much harder time learning another language once the 55 of their first language have become firmly fixed. 56 some aspects of language are undeniably innate, language does not develop automatically in a vacuum. Children who have been 57 from other human beings do not possess language. This demonstrates that 58 with other human beings is necessary for proper language development. Some linguists believe that this is even more basic to human language 59 than any innate capacities. These theorists view language as imitative, learned behavior. 60 , children learn language from their parents by imitating them. Parents gradually shape their child"s language skills by positively reinforcing precise imitations and negatively reinforcing imprecise ones.

单选题Your manager will notify you in advance of a forthcoming appraisal. Then you"re often given time to fill in a form that included questions about how you ______ your work.