单选题What are Ryan’s chances of making a complete recovery?

单选题Swept by the prevailing trend, the author ______.

单选题 Who's to blame? The trail of responsibility goes beyond poor maintenance of British railways, say industry critics. Stingy governments--both Labor and T9ry--have cut down on investments in trains and rails. In the mid-1990s a Conservative government pushed through the sale of the entire subsidy-guzzling rail network. Operating franchises were parceled out among private companies and a separate firm, Railtrack, was awarded ownership of the tracks and stations. In the future, the theory ran back then, the private sector could pay for any improvements--with a little help from the state--and take the blame for any failings. Today surveys show that travelers believe privatization is one of the reasons for the railways's failures. They ask whether the pursuit of profits is compatible with guaranteeing safety. Worse, splitting the network between companies has made coordination nearly impossible. "The railway was torn apart at privatization and the structure that was put in place was.., designed, if we are honest, to maximize the proceeds to the Treasury," said Railtrack boss Gerald Corbett before resigning last month in the wake of the Hatfield crash. Generally, the contrasts with mainland Europe are stark. Over the past few decades the Germans, French and Italians have invested 50 percent more than the British in transportation infrastructure. As a result, a web of high-speed trains now crisscross the Continent, funded by governments willing to commit state funds to major capital projects. Spain is currently planning 1,000 miles of new highspeed track. In France superfast trains already shuttle between all major cities, often on dedicated lines. And in Britain? When the Eurostar trains that link Paris, London and Brussels emerge from the Channel Tunnel onto British soil and join the crowded local network, they must slow down from 186 mph to a maximum of 100 mph--and they usually have to go even slower. For once, the government is listening. After all, commuters are voters, too. In a pre-vote spending spree, the government has committed itself to huge investment in transportation, as well as education and the public health service. Over the next 10 years, the railways should get an extra ￡60 billion, partly through higher subsidies to the private companies. As Blair ackoowledged last month, "Britain has been underinvested in and investment is central to Britain's future. " You don't have to tell the 3 million passengers who use the railways every day. Last week trains to Darlington were an hour late--and crawling at Locomotion No. 1 speeds.

单选题 {{B}} Questions 14-16 are based on the following talk. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14～16.{{/B}}

单选题{{B}}Test 2{{/B}} Economists believe that investors are rational, and that stock prices are therefore unpredictable. It sounds peculiar, but the logic is ironclad. Rational investors would take into account everything they know when buying or selling stock — all the information available about where profits, interest rates, technology and so on are going. So stock prices would reflect all available knowledge, and would change only when new information came in. And new information is, by definition, unpredictable, which means that changes in stock prices would be unpredictable, too. But investors, being human, are driven by fear, greed and the madness of crowds. In principle this should create patterns in stock prices, and in principle you can use those patterns to outperform the market. But while it may be very hard to tell whether the market is overvalued or undervalued, one thing is for sure: It fluctuates more than it should. That is, instead of rising or falling only when there is real news about future, stocks surge and plunge for no good reason. People sell because other people are selling, or buy because other people are buying. And, as a result, it is more a series of random leaps than a random walk. Tuesday was a case in point. On a slow news day, markets suddenly dived, with the Dow falling by more than 3 percent and the Nastaq by more than 5 without anything happening to change your fundamental view about what is going on in the U.S. economy. Why was the market so easily spooked? Presumably because everyone is even more confused than usual about what stocks are really worth these days. On one side, the U.S. economy has been wallowing in good news. Productivity has been soaring, allowing the economy to grow far faster than seemed possible. And with clever new applications of silicon chips coming out every day, it is easy to become exuberant about the future. On the other hand, as any financial theorist could tell you, good news that you already expect to hear isn't news. Five years ago, a 2 percent annual increase in worker productivity would have been regarded as excellent, and stocks would have risen sharply. Today it would be regarded as a disappointing performance, and would drive stocks down. So, is it terrific or incredible.'? Nobody really knows. And a rational market would accept this ignorance, and wait for some actual evidence in favor of one side or the other. Of course, it doesn' t work that way. On Tuesday, something caused investors to become slightly less convinced than they had been the day before that we are living in the best of all possible world. And the result was a huge destruction of paper — virtual — wealth.

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 depend ent 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 as some 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 time 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Questions 1--3 Choose the best answer.

单选题Accordingtothespeaker,whatareconveniencegoods?A.Commoditiesthatpeopleareinconstantneedof.B.Goodsthatareconvenienttouseorpurchase.C.Itemsthatpeopletendtobuyunderimpulse.D.Itemsthathavetobeboughtonceaweek.

单选题WhenwastheAmericanFootballAssociationfounded?A.In1913.B.In1930.C.In1914.D.In1917.

单选题 There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that our brain processes information in at least two major systems. The image system appears to be associated with the right hemisphere of the brain. This hemisphere seems to be specialized to process visual and auditory imagery, spatial representation, pure melodic thought, fantasy, and the emotional components of consciousness. Imagery allows us to continue to process information when we are not actively looking at or listening to new stimuli, It reproduces the sounds or sights of the past, enriching our thoughts, dreams, or fantasies with a sense of "actuality" or context. As a coding system, imagery operates by what is called "parallel" processing, e. g., we imagine the face of a friend in one instantaneous configuration. The lexical system is largely coordinated through the left hemisphere of the brain, and its chief functions include language and grammatical organization, abstract conceptualization and reasoning. This verbal or linguistic system functions sequentially; it takes time for a sentence to run its course so it can be understood. The lexical dimension is especially efficient for integrating diverse phenomena under one label or formula that allows extremely rapid retrieval of stored information (memories) later. Both imagery and lexical systems seem essential for the highest levels of thought. It is possible, however, that the immediacy of television precludes our more active integration of images and words. We need time to replay mentally material just witnessed and also to link pictures and sounds to word labels that make for the most efficient kind of storage and retrieval. So rapidly does television material come at us that it defies the capacities of our brain to store much of it unless we actively turn our attention from the set and engage in some kind of mental rehearsal. Only in the instant "replay" of sports programming does the medium itself consciously abet the human requirement for reduplication. Contrast this with the situation of reading. You are in control of the pace. You can reread a sentence, turn back to an earlier page and take the time to piece together combinations of images and words. As you read you are also likely on occasion to drift away into more extended private images and thoughts about the material. In effect, you are engaging in a more creative act of imagination and perhaps also in the forming of new combinations of words and images. Reading seems, therefore, harder work than watching television but ultimately more rewarding because it enhances your own imaginative capacities. We're not so naive as to believe that television can be eliminated from the household, as some suggest. Rather, we see the necessity for encouraging producers to free themselves from the assumption that the rapid paced, quick-cut format, whether directed at children or adults, is a necessity.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} At 67, CEO Toshifnmi Suzuki has enjoyed a distinguished career as the retailing visionary who made Seven-Eleven Japan CO, the country's No.1 convenience-store chain. But just when other execs would be winding down, Suzuki is gearing up for his next big challenge: to turn Seven-Eleven into an online shopping behemoth. In February, he gathered seven partners, including Sony, NEC, and Mitsui, the giant trading house, to develop e-commerce services ranging from book and ticket sales to online distribution of music and photos. By June, 7dream. com will be a reality. "With our large network of stores and distribution base, we're attracting powerful partners," Suzuki says proudly. Suzuki has long been a pioneer. In 1974 he opened the first konbini, as convenience stores are known in Japan. He was first to install an electronic inventory and sales system and to offer fast foods. In 1987, Seven-Eleven started accepting payments on behalf of utilities. Last year, it collected some ＄6 billion in such fees--earning commissions as well as increased traffic. Suzuki and his partners are putting ＄375 million into 7dream. com. The concept is simple: After placing orders on the Web, customers pick up and pay for them at any Seven-Eleven shop. Seven-Eleven attracts 2.6 billion customers yearly--a daily average of 950 per shop. And polls show that as many as 70% of Japanese dislike using credit cards for online purchases. "The Japanese would rather pick up their goods and pay for them at a konbini," observes Morihiko Ida, head of equities research at Century Securities. "So they could boost Net sales." There's no guarantee the model will work. Konbini accounted for a tiny part of Japan's ＄3.2 billion in consumer e-commerce last year. And if the idea catches on, it may not last. "In the short term, they'll be major players because of their networks," says Hirokazu Ishii, analyst at Nikko Salomon Smith Barney in Tokyo. "But the Japanese will begin using electronic cash and home delivery, like Americans." Maybe so. But Seven-Eleven's competitors certainly aren't waiting to find out. Lawson Products Inc., the No.2 convenience store chain, now plans an e-commerce group, as do five other chains, led by third-ranked Family Mart. Stilt, Suzuki's allies, which include top media, travel, retail, and Net technology companies, give him an early lead. And while he has no plans to go into such activities as lending, he has drawn interest from a number of prominent institutions. Suzuki isn't betting the store on his new venture. But he thinks he has at least one more big coup left in him before taking it easy.

单选题What is Martine’s conclusion about Brazil’s population growth?

单选题{{B}}A = Uganda B = Kenya C = ZaireWhich country...{{/B}} {{B}}Uganda{{/B}} Uganda is in the central part of Africa, near the equator. It became independent in 1962. Until then it had been a British protectorate. The area of Uganda is 93,981 square miles. About ten million people live there. Uganda is a land of mountains, lakes and plains. Mount Ruwenzori is in a mountain range with peaks above 16,700 feet. The chief rivers are the Victoria Nile and Albert Nile, branches of the great Nile River. Almost all the people of Uganda are African black people of various tribes. The Bugandas are most powerful and their language is semi-official, but there are more Bantus— the people who live in the north from another group. Nearly everyone understands the Swahili language. Most of the people are farmers. There are some wandering tribes that raise livestock, workers in the few factories, and miners. Important crops are coffee, tea, cotton, oil seeds, sugar, sisal, maize, and peanuts. The rich mineral deposits are not mined, except tin and apatite. The climate is usually very hot. The many wild animals include the elephant, buffalo, hippopotamus, and crocodile. Uganda is a republic and a member of the British Commonwealth. It has a National Assembly, a prime minister, and a president. But since independence there has been much political trouble, which has been caused by sectional and tribal rivalries. Uganda is surrounded by Kenya, Sudan, Zaire, and Tanzania. Lake Victoria lies in the south of Uganda. It is one of the largest lakes in Africa shared by several countries. {{B}}Kenya{{/B}} Kenya is a nation in East Africa that became independent in 1963 after being controlled by Great Britain for more than 75 years. It has an area of 225,000 square miles, and its population is twelve million. Nearly all of the people are African blacks. The largest group being the Kikiyu tribe, but in 1973 there were 270,321 Kenyans who were white Europeans or from India. The central part of Kenya is high and level, 3,000 to 6,000 feet above the sea. Here the climate is cool and comfortable. The seacoast of Kenya is hot and damp. There are three big rivers, the Juba, the Tana and the Sabaski. In central Kenya, there is an extinct volcano 17,040 feet high. The equator runs through Kenya. Most of the people are farmers. In central Kenya they grow grains and bananas; along the coast they grow rice, coffee, cotton, tobacco, and ninny tropical crops such as coconuts, cinnamon, pineapples, sugar cane, vanilla, and dates. There are big forests yielding rubber, timber and olives. The mountains produce gold, marble and other stones. Many tourists go to Kenya for big-game hunting. Great Britain took control of Kenya in 1886 and sent settlers there. In 1920 Kenya became a British colony. But tile native Kenyans wanted independence and about 1950 a group called the Mau Mau began a campaign to drive the British out. h won its independence through free elections. It is a member of the British Commonwealth. Kenya's neighboring countries are Somali, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania. Kenya also shares Lake Victoria. {{B}}Zaire{{/B}} Zaire is an independent country in central equatorial Africa. Prior to its independence in 1960, Zaire was a Belgian colony and was called the Belgian Congo. After its independence, the country has undergone several years of political upheavals. In 1966, political stability was achieved and the country was renamed Zaire. Zaire is rich in tropical vegetation, mineral resources, and abundant wildlife. The country is 905,328 square miles in size, and is subdivided into nine provinces. The country's population is primarily Blacks. They represent more than 200 different Bantu tribes. They speak many different languages but Swahili is widely used. Zaire depends mainly on agriculture and mining for its livelihood. Efforts are being made to expand industry: in the country. Many of the people are farmers, and they raise cotton, rubber, bananas, and coffee for export. Corn and sweet potatoes are grown for eating. Mining is important, and many people work in rich uranium, copper, and diamond mines. Geographically, Zaire is made up of a low plateau in the center, which is surrounded by higher land. The central region is tropical rainforest and contains valuable wood such as mahogany. Also from the forest, the country receives rubber, palm oil, and nuts. The animal life of Zaire includes lions, elephants, monkeys, crocodiles and other species. The Zaire. River is one of the longest rivers in the world. Zaire borders many countries such as Uganda, Angola, Zambia, Sudan, and Central African Republic.

单选题The purpose of insurance is to

单选题 {{I}}Questions 11 - 13 are based on the following talk. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11 - 13.{{/I}}

单选题{{B}}TEXT 1{{/B}} On an average of six limes a day, a doctor in Holland practices "active" euthanasia: intentionally administering a lethal drug to a terminally ill patient who has asked to be relieved of suffering. Twenty times a day, life-prolonging treatment is withheld or withdrawn when there is no hope that it can affect an ultimate cure. "Active" euthanasia remains a crime on the Dutch statute books punishable by 12 years in prison. But a series of court cases over the past 15 years has made it clear that a competent physician who carries it out will not be prosecuted. Euthanasia, often called "mercy killing", is a crime everywhere in Western Europe. But more and more doctors and nurses in Britain, West Germany, Holland and elsewhere readily admit to practicing it, most often in the "passive" form of withholding or withdrawing treatment. The long simmering euthanasia issue has lately boiled over into a sometimes fierce public debate, with both sides claiming the mantle of ultimate righteousness. Those opposed to the practice see themselves up-holding sacred principles of respect for life, while those in favor raise the banner of humane treatment. After years on the defensive, the advocates now seem to be gaining ground. Recent polls in Britain show that 72 percent of British subjects favor euthanasia in some circumstances. An astonishing 76 percent of respondents to a poll taken late last year in France said they would like the law changed to decriminalize mercy killings. Reasons for the latest surge of interest in euthanasia are not hard to find. Europeans, like Americans, are now living longer. The average European male now lives to the age of 72, women to almost 80. As Derek Humphrey, a leading British advocate of "rational euthanasia" says, "lingering chronic diseases have replaced critical illnesses as the primary cause of death." And so the euthanasists have begun to press their case with greater force. They argue that every human being should have the right to "die with dignity", by which they usually mean the right to escape the horrors of a painful or degrading hospitalization. Most advocates of voluntary euthanasia have argued that the right to die should be accorded only to the terminally and incurably ill, but the movement also includes a small minority who believe in euthanasia for anyone who rationally decides to take his own life. That right is unlikely to get legal recognition any time in the near future. Even in the Netherlands, the proposals now before Parliament would restrict euthanasia to a small number of cases and would surround even those with elaborate safeguards.

单选题People who are extremely careful and "finish what they start" may have a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, according to a study involving Catholic nuns and priests. The most conscientious and self-disciplined individuals were found to be 89% less likely to develop this form of dementia—deterioration of intellectual faculties, such as memory, concentration, and judgment, resulting from an organic disease or a disorder of the brain—than their peers over the course of the 12-year study. Robert Wilson at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois, US, and colleagues followed 997 healthy Catholic nuns, priests and Christian brothers between 1994 and 2006. Early on in the study, participants completed a personality test to determine how conscientious they were. Based on answers to 12 questions such as "I am a productive person who always gets the job done", they received a score ranging from 0 to 48. On average, volunteers scored 34 points in the test. Volunteers also underwent regular neurological examinations and cognitive tests. Over the lifetime of the study, 176 of the 997 participants developed Alzheimer's disease. However, those with the highest score on the personality test—40 points or above—had an 89% lower chance of developing the debilitating condition than participants who received 28 points or lower. "These are people who control impulses, and tend to follow norms and roles," Wilson told New Scientist. Previous studies suggest that exercise and intellectual stimulation can decrease the risk of Alzheimer's disease. But the link between self-discipline and a reduced risk of the illness remained strong even after researchers discounted these factors from their study. Subjects still had a 54% lower chance of developing the condition. Exactly why conscientiousness should have an impact on Alzheimer's risk remains unclear, says Wilson. He notes that brain autopsies conducted on 324 of the study's participants failed to resolve the mystery. Earlier work has linked the presence of plaques and protein tangles within the brain to Alzheimer. Yet, in general, the brains of those who scored highly on the conscientiousness test had as many plaques and protein tangles as those of subjects who scored lower. Wilson suggests that more careful and conscientious individuals may have more active frontal brain regions, an area that is responsible for decision-making and planning. Increased activity in this region may perhaps compensate for a decline in function in other brain regions, he speculates. Based on the new findings, doctors could perhaps consider certain patients at greater risk of dementia, says Ross Andel at the University of South Florida, US. "This is a study about identifying people at risk," he says.

单选题Automation refers to the introduction of electronic control and automatic operation of productive machinery. It reduces the human factors, mental and physical, in production, and is designed to make possible the manufacture of more goods with fewer workers. The development of automation in American industry has been called the "Second Industrial Revolution". Labour"s concern over automation arises from uncertainty about the effects on employment, and fears of major changes in jobs. In the main, labour has taken the view that resistance to technical change is unfruitful. Eventually, the result of automation may well be an increase in employment, since it is expected that vast industries will grow up around manufacturing, maintaining, and repairing automation equipment. The interest of labour lies in bringing about the transition with a minimum of inconvenience and distress to the workers involved. Also, union spokesmen emphasize that the benefit of the increased production and lower costs made possible by automation should be shared by workers in the form of higher wages, more leisure, and improved living standards. To protect the interests of their members in the era of automation, unions have adopted a number of new policies. One of these is the promotion of supplementary unemployment benefits plans. It is emphasized that since the employer involved in such a plan has a direct financial interest in preventing unemployment, he will have a strong drive for planning new installations so as to cause the least possible problems in jobs and job assignments. Some unions are working for dismissal pay agreements, requiring that permanently dismissed workers be paid a sum of money based on length of service. Another approach is the idea of the "improvement factor", which calls for wage increases based on increases in productivity. It is possible, however, that labour will rely mainly on reduction in working hours in order to gain a full share in the fruits of automation.