单选题Which of the following does not belong to the Island of Great Britain? A. England B. Scotland C. Wales D. Ireland

单选题{{B}}Text 1{{/B}} The Stone age, the Iron age. Entire epochs have been named for materials. So what to name the decades ahead? The choice will be tough. Welcome to the age of superstuff. Material science—once the least sexy technology—is bursting with new, practical discoveries led by superconducting ceramics that may revolutionize electronics. But superconductors are just part of the picture: from houses and cars to cook pots and artificial teeth, the world will sometime be made of different staff. Exotic plastics, glass and ceramics will shape the future just as surely as have genetic engineering and computer science. The key to the new materials is researchers' increasing ability to manipulate substances at the molecular level. Ceramics, for instance, have long been limited by their brittleness. But by minimizing the microscopic imperfections that cause it, scientists are making far stronger ceramics that still retain such qualities as hardness and beat resistance. Ford Motor Co. now uses ceramic tools to cut steel. A firm called Kyocera has created a line of ceramic scissors and knives that stay sharp for years and never rust or corrode. A similar transformation has overtaken plastics. High-strength polymers now form bridges, iceskating rinks and helicopter rotors. And one new plastic that generates electricity when vibrated or pushed is used in electric guitars, touch sensors for robot hands and karate jackets that automatically record each punch and chop. Even plastic litter, which once threatened to permanently blot the landscape, has proved amenable to molecular tinkering. Several manufacturers now make biodegradable forms; some plastic six-pack rings for example, gradually decompose when exposed to sunlight. Researchers are developing ways to make plastics as recyclable as metal or glass. What's more, composites—plastic reinforced with fibres of graphite or other compounds—made the round-the-world flight of tile voyager possible and have even been proved in combat: a helmet saved all infantryman's life by deflecting two bullets in the Grenada invasion. Some advanced materials are old standard with a new twist. The newest fiberoptic cables that carry telephone calls crass-country are made of glass so transparent that a piece of 100 miles thick is clearer than a standard window pane. But new materials have no impact until they are made into products. And that transition could prove difficult, for switching requires lengthy research and investment. It can be said a timer handle on how to move to commercialization will determine tile success or failure of a country in the coming future.

单选题

单选题Questions 11 to 13 are based on the following radio program "Science around Us". You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11 to 13.

单选题 {{B}} Questions 14 to 16 are based on a talk on pruritus, so called "severe itching"—why and how body parts itch. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 16.{{/B}}

单选题Text 2 You'd think that if the San Andreas Fault went to the trouble of having a perfectly good earthquake, the folks on the US West Coast might at least notice. A new study reveals, however, that in 1992, what should have been a China-smashing 4.8 Richter-scale quake hit central California, and yet nobody felt a thing. The explanation for the odd shadow-quake was published last week in the journal Nature and may help improve science's understanding of earthquakes in general. According to Alan T. Linda, a geophysicist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the study's leader, what makes seismic events so destructive is not just that the earth moves but the speed with which it does so. In many quakes the earth's surface movement that leads to shaking takes only seconds to unfold, sending energy exploding in all directions. But recent analysis of data from strain gauges along the San Andreas Fault reveals that four years ago, a skip occurred that took a week to play out. Such slow sliding almost eliminates an earthquake's quaking. Exactly what determines the speed with which the earth's plates move is unclear, but scientists have some ideas. "The fault material may play a role," Linda says, "Rock with holes containing water can move more smoothly than other rock. The pressure the plates are under can make a difference too: the bigher the stress, the likelier the fault will fail suddenly." Linda's work may never help seismologists determine which type of temblor is likely to strike which region, but he still believes the research has value. There may be no better way of understanding destructive quakes, he feels, than to learn what makes them less destructive.

单选题There is a section of the Western Atlantic, off the southeast coast of the United States, forming what has been termed a triangle, extending from Bermuda in the north to southern Florida, and then east to a point through the Bahamas to about 40~ west longitude and then back again to Bermuda. This area occupies a disturbing and almost unbelievable place in the world's catalogue of unexplained mysteries. This is usually referred to as the Bermuda Triangle, where more than 100 planes and ships have literally vanished into thin air, most of them since 1945, and where more than 1,000 lives have been lost in the past twenty-six years, without a single body or even a piece of wreckage from the vanishing planes or ships have been found. Disappearances continue to occur with apparently increasing frequency, in spite of the fact that the seaways and airways are today more traveled, searches are more thorough, and record's are more carefully kept. Investigators of the Bermuda Triangle have long noted the existence of another mystery area in the world's oceans, southeast of Japan, with a record and reputation indicative of special danger to ships and planes. Whether the ships have been lost from underwater volcanoes or sudden tidal waves, this area, often called the Devil's Sea, enjoys an even more sinister reputation than the Bermuda Triangle in that the Japanese authorities have proclaimed it a danger zone. The Devil's Sea had long been dreaded by fishermen, who believed it was inhabited by devils, demons, and monsters which seized the ships of the unwary. Aircraft and boats had disappeared in the area over a period of many years, but during the time when Japan was at peace, nine modern ships disappeared in the period of 1950 to 1954, with crews totaling several hundred persons, in circumstances characteristic (extensive air-sea searches, lack of wreckage or oil slicks) of the happenings in the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle and the Devil's Sea share a striking coincidence. The Bermuda Triangle includes almost at its western terminus, longitude 80~ west, a line where true north and magnetic north become aligned with no compass variation to be calculated. And this same 80~ W changes its designation when it passes the poles, becoming 150~ E. From the North Pole south, it continues on, passing east of Japan, and crosses the middle of the Devil's Sea. At this point in the center of the Devil's Sea, a compass needle will also point to true north and magnetic north at the same time, just as it does at the western border of the Bermuda Triangle on the other side of the world. The unexplained losses in this Japanese equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle were instrumental in inspiring a governmentsponsored investigation of the area, which took place in 1955. This expedition, with scientists taking data as their ship, the Kaiyo Maru No.5, cruised the Devil's Sea, ended on a rather spectacular note -the survey ship suddenly vanished with its crew and the investigating scientists!

单选题

单选题The largest city in Canada is [A] Vancouver. [B] Montreal. [C] Toronto. [D] Ottawa.

单选题We welcome rain, but a(an) ______ large amount of rainfall will cause floods.

单选题 {{B}} Questions 17～20 are based on the following talk. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 17～20.{{/B}}

单选题It has been assumed by Japanese that he ______.

单选题"Junk science" is how Elliot Morley, Britain"s minister responsible for genetically modified farming, describes studies that claim GM crops would be hazardous to Britain"s wildlife and consumers. This week the government granted permission for a strain of GM maize to be grown commercially as cattle feed. That has incensed environmentalists and organic farmers, who say GM is unpopular (probably correct) and based on bad science (probably not). Three years of field testing have shown the herbicide-resistant maize, Bayer"s Chardon LL, to be safe and even kinder to the environment than non-GM maize. Two other crops on trial—a GM sugar-beet and a GM oilseed rape—will not be grown because they were worse for biodiversity (weeds) than conventional strains. The trials have not made the worries about introducing even a safe GM crop go away, though. Opponents say GM will stealthily take over the country by cross-pollination, will damage wildlife and introduce something nasty into the human food chain. How solid is all this? Evidence from America, which planted 105.7m acres of biotech crops in 2003, suggests concerns are overblown. In practice it is easy to separate crops and prevent them from cross-pollinating. Even oilseed rape, which is particularly promiscuous, can be kept over 99% pure if it is a hundred metres away from another plantation. Cross-pollination probably will happen, but so far it has caused no problems, genetic material in plants changes all the time through sexual reproduction anyway. Damage to wildlife is difficult to measure, but there is evidence that GM has had a positive effect, with birds and insects returning to GM cotton plantations in America. Certainly, GM crops tend to need fewer chemicals to protect them. Monsanto says its sugarbeet, which was on trial along with the Chardon maize, requires 46% less herbicide than a conventional strain. Supposed threats to consumers, whether human or animal, are the most flaky. One recent study appeared to show that Chardon maize could be fatal to cattle, but the heifer in question in fact died from botulism. The British Medical Association now says there is "very little potential for GM foods to cause harmful health effects" in people either. People have been eating the stuff in America for years, with no ill effects so far. The messing around with genetic material that makes some people dislike GM crops has gone on for years in conventional plant breeding, where crops are exposed to radiation and chemicals to encourage them to mutate. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, over 2,000 types of crop have been bombarded with gamma rays to produce mutants, many of which are grown by organic farmers. "All food is frankenfood," according to Professor Howard Dalton, chief scientific adviser to the Department for Food and Rural Affairs, "but everybody"s got used to it." Maybe everybody will get used to GM soon, too.

单选题About30000to40000yearsago,specimensofNeanderthalmandisappearabruptlyfromthefossilrecordandarereplacedbywhatisknownasCro-Magonman,orsometimesasUpperPleistoceneman,whoisphysicallyindistinguishablefrommodernHomoSapiens.WedonotknowwhatbecameoftheNean-derthals.Perhapstheywereexterminatedinwarfare,althoughthereisnoevidenceofthis.Perhapstheyweresimplyunabletocompeteforfoodandlivingspacewiththebetter-equippedCro-Magnontype.Perhapstheyinterbred,althoughtherearenocleartracesofintermediateforms.SomehavesuggestedthatCro-MagnonmenbroughtwiththemsomediseasetowhichtheythemselveswereresistantandtheNeanderthalswerenot.Inanycase,soonaftertheappearanceofCro-Magnonman,therewerenootherhominidsinEurope,andwithinthecourseof10000to20000years,thisnewvarietyofprimatehadspreadthefaceoftheplanet.Cro-Magnonman,whenhefirstappearedinEurope,camebearinganew,quitedifferent,andfarbettertoolkit.Thestonetoolswereessentiallyflakeswhich,ofcourse,hadbeeninuseformorethanmillionyears—buttheywerestruckfromacarefullypreparedcorewiththeaidofapunch(atoolmadetomakeanothertool).Theseflakes,usuallyreferredtoasblades,weresmaller,flatter,andnarrower,and,mostimportant,theycouldbeandwereshapedinalargevarietyofways.Fromthebeginningtheyincludedvariousscrapingandpiecingtools.Usingthesetoolstoworkothermaterials,especiallyboneandivory,Cro-Magnonmanmadeavarietyofprojectilespoints,barbedpointsforspearsandharpoons,fishinghooks,andneedles.Thus,althoughCro-Magnonmanlivedmuchthesamesortofexistenceasthatofhisforebears,heapparentlyliveditwithmorepossessions,morecomfort,andmorestyle.PerhapsourclosestemotionallinkstothismostimmediateancestorarethecavepaintingsofwesternSpainandsouthernFrance.Theexamplesthatremaintous,manysurprisinglyuntouchedbytime,clearlyformapartofarichartistictraditionthatenduredforatleast10000years.Thecavedrawingsarealmostentirelyofanimals,nearlyallgameanimals,andtheyaredeepwithinthecaves,sotheymusthavebeenviewedbythelightofcrudelampsortorches.Themeaningofthesedrawingsandpaintingshaslongbeenamatterofdebate.Someoftheanimalsaremarkedwithdartsorwounds(althoughveryfewappeartobeseriouslyinjuredordying).Suchmarkingshaveledtothesuggestionthatthefiguresareexamplesofsympatheticmagic,inwhichthereisthenotionthatonecandoharmtoone'senemybystickingneedlesinhisimage.Thefactthatmanyoftheanimalsappeartobepregnantsuggeststhattheymaysymbolizefertility.Manyappearalsotobeinmotion.Perhapstheseanimals,sovitaltothehunters'welfare,weremigratoryintheseareas,andtheymayhaveseemedtovanishatcertaintimesintheyear,mysteriouslyreturning,heavywithyoung,inthespringtime.ThisreturnoftheanimalsmighthavebeenaneventtobesolicitedorcelebratedinmuchthesamespiritastheritesofspringofmorerecentpeoplesorEasterarecelebrated.

单选题 Questions 14 to 16 are based on a report on childhood and careers. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 16.

单选题During the reign of Augustus the Rome army became a professional one. Its core of legionaires was composed of Roman citizens who served for a minimum of twenty five years. Augustus in his reign tried to eliminate the loyalty of the legions to the generals who commanded them, forcing them to take an oath of allegiance directly to him. While the legions remained relatively loyal to Augustus during his reign, under others, especially the more corrupt emperors or those who unwisely treated the military poorly, the legions often took power into their own hands. Legions continued to move farther and farther to the outskirts of society, especially in the later periods of the empire as the majority of legionaires no longer came from Italy, and were instead born in the provinces. The loyalty the legions felt to their emperor only degraded more with time, and lead in the 2nd Centry and 3rd Century to a large number of military usurpers and civil wars. By the time of the military officer emperors that characterized the period following the Crisis of the Third Century the Roman army was just as likely to be attacking itself as an outside invader. Both the pre- and post-Marian armies were greatly assisted by auxiliary troops. A typical Roman legion was accompanied by a matching auxiliary legion. In the pre-Marian army these auxiliary troops were Italians, and often Latins, from cities near Rome. The post-Marian army incorporated these Italian soldiers into its standard legions (as all Italians were Roman citizens after the Social War). Its auxiliary troops were made up of foreigners from provinces distant to Rome, who gained Roman citizenship after completing their twenty five years of service. This system of foreign auxiliaries allowed the post-Marian army to strengthen traditional weak points of the Roman system, such as light missile troops and cavalry, with foreign specialists, especially as the richer classes took less and less part of military affairs and the Roman army lost much of its domestic calvary. At the beginning of the Imperial period the number of legions was 60, which Augustus more than halved to 28, numbering at approximately 160,000 men. As more territory was conquered throughout the Imperial period, this fluctuated into the mid-thirties. At the same time, at the beginning of the Imperial period the foreign auxiliaries made up a rather small portion of the military, but continued to rise, so that by the end of the period of the Five Good Emperors they probably equalled the legionaires in number, giving a combined total of between 300,000 and 400,000 men in the Army. The last major reform of the Imperial Army came under the reign of Diocletian in the late 3rd Century. During the instability that had marked most of that century, the army had fallen in number and lost much of its ability to effectively police and defend the empire. He quickly recruited a large number of men, increasing the number of legionaires from between 150,000-200,000 to 350,000-400,000, effectively doubling the number in a case of quantity over quality.

单选题Forecasters sensed the 2004 hurricane season would be very active, but even storm veterans have been surprised by the past 30 days. Last month marked the first time since the beginning of postwar hurricane reconnaissance flights that August generated three major hurricanes in the Atlantic. If the current forecast track for hurricane Ivan holds, it will be the third hurricane to strike Florida in a month. Yet for all its fury, this season's burst of activity falls well within the bounds of past experience. What's surprising, say experts, is that the US and Florida haven't seen more major storms make landfall over the past few decades. Despite the damage wrought by Charley and Frances, "we've been very fortunate," says William Gray, a tropical-meteorology specialist at Colorado State University who pioneered seasonal hurricane forecasting. He notes that since 1995, only 1 out of 7 major hurricanes spawned in the Atlantic have made landfall in the US, compared with the 100-year average of 1 in 3. The Florida peninsula alone saw 14 major hurricanes between 1926 and 1965. Since 1966, only three major storms have struck-Andrew, Charley, and Frances. Now forecasters have their eyes on Ivan, which has devastated Grenada and Jamaica and at press time was bearing down on the Cayman Islands and Cuba with sustained winds near 155 miles an hour. Ivan has been blamed for 56 deaths in the Caribbean basin and, according to Red Cross estimates, 60,000 people on Grenada-two-thirds of the island's population-are homeless and 34 people have died. On Jamaica, where an estimated 500,000 people ignored warnings to evacuate, at least 11 were killed. Several factors have converged to make this hurricane season one for the record books, researchers say. For one thing, long-term cycles affecting the ocean and atmosphere are at play. Known as the Atlantic multidecadal signal, "these atmospheric conditions and warmer ocean temperatures can turn up for decades at a time," says Gerald Bell, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md. Currently, long-term patterns favor hurricane seasons that yield more tropical storms and hurricanes than normal. Conditions are similar to those that held sway from the mid-1920s to the mid-1960s, another period of above-normal tropical cyclone activity. Within those periods, he adds, storm activity season to season is affected by features such as El Nino episodes. Their long-range reach can generate wind patterns over the Atlantic that suppress the formation of hurricanes. Forecasters see a weak E1 Nino beginning to build in the eastern tropical Pacific. But they add that it's unlikely to have much of an effect on this year's hurricane season. And if it remains weak, it could have little effect on next year's season. In forecasting monthly activity for August, Dr. Gray says he and his colleagues missed unusually warm sea-surface temperatures in the eastern Atlantic, where hurricanes and tropical storms are born. The team forecast above-average activity for the month, "but we could not have anticipated the unusually high amount of storm activity that occurred," he notes. August yielded eight named storms. With the Atlantic basin in the midst of a long-term active phase for hurricanes, "undoubtedly [over] the next 20 years, we're likely to see much more damage than during the last 20 years," Gray says. The reason: While hurricane activity is more or less readjusting to its long-term averages after a period of relative quiet, more people are placing themselves, their houses, yachts, and office high-rises in storm paths when they move to hurricane- prone states and their geologically fragile shorelines. In 1926, a hurricane struck Florida that-if it were to happen today-would cause $100 billion in damage, notes Roger Pielke Jr., with the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder. While no one advocates preventing people from moving to Florida or the Carolinas, the prospect of more growth in hurricane-prone areas puts the onus on residents to become familiar with preparing for hurricanes, on communities for enforcing building codes aimed at reducing damage, and on federal researchers to continue improvements in forecasting.

单选题Questions 17～20 are based on the following passage. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 17～20.

单选题Comets are the most oddly behaved objects in the sky. No two of them act exactly alike. Most appear without warning, seemingly out of nowhere, too faint at first to be detected except as fuzzy dots of light on the photographic plates of automatic cameras attached to telescope lenses; most of the members of the comet family move in elliptical paths, remain visible to earthly observers for a few weeks or months, then disappear into the depths of space. There are a few comets that return periodically, on predictable timetables following almost the same track they were on originally. But even those few have little in common. The tracks traveled by some of them must extend very far away from the sun, for decades pass between their appearances. Other comets come back at intervals as short as three to four years. Halley"s comet (named after the British astronomer Edmund Halley, who predicted its return in 1758) was seen, with a single exception, every seventy-seven year from 240 BC to 1910 and is expected to return again in 1987. It should be noted that one of the few, characteristics shared by all of the 1700 comets observed since 2316 Be is the common focal point of their elliptical orbits—the sun. Though most comets are too small to be measured accurately, some are enormous. The great comet of 1843 had a tail twice as long as the distance from the earth to the sun. The head of the comet of 1811 was alone bigger than the sun. The heads of some comets are composed of a bright nucleus shrouded by a nebulous coma; in the heads of other comets, no nucleus can be seen. The coma may or may not have a tail. Again, one of the few similarities among comets must be remarked on. Where a nucleus is present, discharges of some kind usually stream from it into the coma and the tail. Planet earth passed through the tail of Halley"s comet in 1910, while the comet head was 15,000,000 miles away. Despite its giant size, the comet did not contain enough mass to exert any noticeable gravitational pull on earth. Brooks comet in 1866 passed between the satellites of planet Jupiter and Jupiter itself without causing the slightest perturbation in the orbits of the satellites, although the comet"s own orbit was shortened from twenty-seven years to seven. By contrasting these experiences, it is seen that comets are by earthly measure insubstantial stuff. It is no surprise then that spectrographic examination of the light they emit shows comets to be molecular mixtures of frozen gases—principally hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon—and cosmic dust. As recently as the first half of the twentieth century, it was believed that the luminosity of comets rose solely from the reflected light of the sun. Subsequently, astronomers have determined that comets also shine with intrinsic light, perhaps triggered somehow by the sun. In searching for a possible triggering mechanism, it is first desirable to draw together, from the scientific literature on comets, descriptions of erratic fluctuations in comet light.

单选题 You will hear 3 conversations or talks and you must answer the questions by choosing A, B, C or D. You will hear the recording ONLY ONCE. {{B}} Questions 11～13 are based on the following talk. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11～13.{{/B}}