单选题Whatisthispassagemainlyabout?A.Thehumannoseasanorganforbreathingandsmelling.B.Thenoseprovidinguswithvariousexpressions.C.Awomanpoet'swishtohavetwonoses.D.InterestingcommentsmadeonCleopatra'snose.
单选题Most home-schoolers' opposition to public education stems from their ______.
单选题What does the author mean by the statement "A world beyond the immediate' community was rapidly becoming visible" in lines 15—16?
单选题 You will hear 3 conversations or talks and y, ou must
answer the questions by choosing A, B, C or D. You will hear the recording ONLY
ONCE.
单选题Inwhatwayisabankcreditcarddifferentfromastorecreditaccount?A.Itcanbepresentedatanyplace.B.Theholdercanuseitathisbankonly.C.Itisnotusedatashoponly,butatalmostallkindsofbusinesswherethereisabankcardsign.D.Itcanbeusedonlyatthebankwherethecardisissued.
单选题Cyberspace, data superhighway, multi media — for those who have seen the future, the linking of computers, television and telephones will change our lives for ever. Yet for all the talk of a forthcoming technological Utopia, little attention has been given to the implications of these developments for the poor. As with all new high technology, while the West concerns itself with the "how", the question of "for whom" is put aside once again.
Economists are only now realizing the full extent to which the communications revolution has affected the world economy. Information technology allows the extension of trade across geographical and industrial boundaries, and transnational corporations take full advantage of it. Terms of trade, exchange and interest rates and money movements are more important than the production of goods. The electronic economy made possible by information technology allows the haves to increase their control on global markets — with destructive impact on the have-nots.
For them the result is instability. Developing countries which rely on the production of a small range of goods for export are made to feel like small parts in the international economic machine. As "futures" are traded on computer screens, developing countries simply have less and less control of their destinies.
So what are the options for regaining control? One alternative is for developing countries to buy in the latest computers and telecommunications themselves — so-called " development communications" modernization. Yet this leads to long-term dependency and perhaps permanent constraints on developing countries'' economies.
Communications technology is generally exported from the U. S. , Europe or Japan; the patents, skills and ability to manufacture remain in the hands of a few industrialized countries. It is also expensive, and imported products and services must therefore be bought on credit — credit usually provided by the very countries whose companies stand to gain.
Furthermore, when new technology is introduced there is often too low a level of expertise to exploit it for native development. This means that while local elites, foreign communities and subsidiaries of transnational corporations may benefit, those whose lives depend on access to the information are denied it.
单选题Whatshouldonedoifhewantstoworkmoreefficientlyathislowpointinthemorning?A.Changehisenergycycle.B.Overcomehislaziness.C.Getupearlierthanusual.D.Gotobedearlier.
单选题{{I}}Questions 14 ~ 16 are based on the following talk. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 ~ 16.{{/I}}
单选题The reason a nose is not likely to turn into a kidney is that______ .
单选题{{I}} Questions 18 to 20 are based on the following talk about Jim's health problem. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 18 to 20.{{/I}}
单选题Text 3 Large companies need a way to reach the savings of the public at large. The same problem, on a smaller scale, faces practically every company trying to develop new products and create new jobs. There can be little prospects of raising the sort of sums need from friends and people we know, and while banks may agree to provide short term finance, they are generally unwilling to provide money on permanent basis for long-term project. So companies turn to the public, inviting people to lend them money, or take a share in the business through the Stock Exchange. By doing so they can put into circulation the savings of individuals and institutions, both at home and overseas. When the saver needs his money back, he does not have to go to the company with whom he originally placed it. Instead, he sells his shares through a stockbroker to some other saver who is seeking to invest his money. Many of the services needed both by industry and by each of us are provided by the Government or by local authorities. Without hospitals, roads, electricity, telephones, railways, this country could not function. All these require continuous spending on new equipment and new development if they are to serve us properly, requiring more money than is raised through taxes alone. The Government, local authorities, and nationalized industries therefore frequently need to borrow money to Finance major capital spending, and they, too, come to the Stock Exchange. There is hardly a man or woman in this country whose standard of living does not depend on the ability of his or her employers to raise money to finance new development. In one way or another this new change exists to provide a channel through which these savings can reach those who need finance.
单选题Questions 17 to 20 are based on the following interview with Bill Welch, an Official from the US Environmental Protection Agency, about the global warming phenomenon. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 17 to 20.
单选题Opinion polls are now beginning to show that, whoever is to blame and whatever happens from now on, high unemployment is probably here to stay. This means we shall have to make ways of sharing the available employment more widely.
But we need to go further. We must ask some primary questions about the future of work. Would we continue to treat employment as the norm? Would we not rather encourage many other ways for self-respecting people to work? Should we not create conditions in which many of us can work for ourselves, rather than for an employer?
Should we not aim to revive the household and the neighborhood, as well as the factory and the office, as centers of production and work?
The industrial age has been the only period of human history in which most people"s work has taken the form of jobs. The industrial age may now be coming to an end, and some of the changes in work patterns which it brought may have to be reversed. This seems a daunting thought. But, in fact, it could provide the prospect of a better future for work. Universal employment, as its history shows, has not meant economic freedom.
Employment became widespread when the enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries made many people dependent on paid work by depriving them of the use of the land, and thus of the means to provide a living for themselves.
Then the factory system destroyed the cottage industries and removed work from people"s homes. Later, as transportation improved, first by rail and then by road, people commuted longer distances to their places of employment until, eventually, many people"s work lost all connection with their home lives and the place in which they lived.
Meanwhile, employment put women at a disadvantage. In pre-industrial time, men and women had shared the productive work of the household and village community. Now it became customary for the husband to go out to paid employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and family to his wife. Tax and benefit regulations still assume this norm today and restrict more flexible sharing of work roles between the sexes.
It was not only women whose work status suffered. As employment became the dominant form of work, young people and old people were excluded—a problem now, as more teenagers become frustrated at school and more retired people want to live active lives.
All this may now have to change. The lime has certainly come to switch some effort and resources away from the idealist goal of creating jobs for all, to the urgent practical task of helping many people to manage without full time jobs.
单选题{{B}}Text 1{{/B}}
Visitors to St Paul's Cathedral are
sometimes astonished as they walk round the space under the dome to come upon a
statue which would appear to be that of a retired gladiator meditating upon a
wasted life. They are still more astonished when they see under it an
inscription indicating that it represents the English writer, Samuel Johnson.
The statue is by Bacon, but it is not one of his best works. The figure is, as
often in eighteenth-century sculpture, clothed only in a loose robe which leaves
arms, legs and one shoulder bare. But the strangeness for us is not one of
costume only. If we know anything of Johnson, we know that he was constantly iii
all through his life; and whether we know anything of him or not we are apt to
think of a literary man as a delicate, weak, nervous sort of person. Nothing can
be further from that than the muscular statue. And in this matter the statue is
perfectly right. And the fact which it reports is far from being unimportant.
The body and the mind are inextricably interwoven in all of us, and certainly on
Johnson's case the influence of the body was obvious and conspicuous. His
melancholy, his constantly repeated conviction of the general unhappiness of
human life, was certainly the result of his constitutional infirmities. On the
other hand, his courage, and his entire indifference to pain, were partly due to
his great bodily strength. Perhaps the vein of rudeness, almost of fierceness,
which sometimes showed itself in his conversation, was the natural temper of an
invalid and suffering giant. That at any rate is what he was. He was the victim
from childhood of a disease which resembled St Vitus's Dance. He never knew the
natural joy of a free and vigorous use of his limbs; when be walked it was like
the struggling walk of one in irons. All accounts agree that his strange
gesticulations and contortations were painful for his friends to witness and
attracted crowds of starers in the streets. But Reynolds says that he could sit
still for his portrait to be taken, and that when his mind was engaged by a
conversation the convulsions ceased. In any case, it is certain that neither
this perpetual misery, nor his constant feat of losing his reason, nor his many
grave attacks of illness, ever induced him to surrender the privileges that
belonged to his physical strength. He justly thought no character so
disagreeable as that of a chronic invalid, and was determined not to be one
himself. He had known what it was to live on fourpence a day and scorned the
life of sofa cushions and tea into which well-attended old gentlemen so easily
slip.
单选题AccordingtoEllen,theincreasingdemandforhiringisdueto[A]goodeconomicenvironment.[B]goodmajorsincolleges.[C]thenewpolicyoneconomy.[D]expansionofsomelargecorporations.
单选题
单选题What does "CBW' represent?
单选题Wherecantheexpression"lameduck"beheard?A.Onlyamonghunters.B.Amongprimaryschoolpupils.C.Amongbeautifulladies.D.Amongpeoplewhoarediscussingpolitics.
单选题The bank refused to ______ him any money, so he had to postpone buying a house.
单选题Austerity is a word often found on the lips of politicians and economists at the moment, but it is seldom heard from technologists. And although the idea that "less is more" has many adherents in architecture, design and fashion, the technology industry has historically espoused the opposite view. Products should have as many features as possible; and next year"s version should have even more. As prices fall, what starts off as a fancy new feature quickly becomes commonplace—try buying a phone without a camera, or a car without electric windows—prompting companies to add new features in an effort to outdo their rivals. Never mind if nobody uses most of these new features. In an arms race, more is always more.
But now there are signs that technologists are waking up to the benefits of minimalism, thanks to two things: feature fatigue among consumers who simply want things to work, and strong demand from less affluent consumers in the developing world. It is telling that the market value of Apple, the company most closely associated with simple, elegant high-tech products, recently overtook that of Microsoft, the company with the most notorious case of new-features. True, Apple"s products contain lots of features under the hood, but the company has a knack for concealing such complexities by using elegant designs. Other companies have also prospered by providing easy-to-use products: think of the Nintendo Wii video-game console or the Flip video camera. Gadgets are no longer just for geeks, and if technology is to appeal to a broad audience, simplicity trumps fancy specifications.
Another strand of techno-austerity can be found in software that keeps things simple in order to reduce distractions and ensure that computer-users remain focused and productive. Many word processors now have special full-screen modes, so that all unnecessary and distracting menus, palettes and so on are disabled or hidden; rather than fiddling with font sizes or checking e-mail, you are encouraged to get on with your writing. If the temptation to have a quick look at Facebook proves too much, there are programs that will disable access to particular websites at specified times of day; and if that is not draconian enough, there are even some programs that can block internet access altogether. A computer on which some features are not present, or have been deliberately disabled, may in fact be more useful if you are trying to get things done. There are no distracting hyperlinks on a typewriter. Then there is the phenomenon of "frugal" innovation. Low-cost laptops were inspired to be produced for children in poor countries, but have since proved popular with consumers around the world.
All this offers grounds for hope. If the feature-obsessed technology industry can change its tune, perhaps there is a chance that governments—which have also tended to be inveterate believers in the idea that more is more—might also come to appreciate the merits of minimalism.