单选题Howmuchtimedothemanandthewomanhavebeforetheyaddresstheclass?A.Lessthantenminutes.B.Abouttwentyminutes.C.Fortyfiveminutes.D.Overanhour.

单选题Questions 14 to 16 are based on a conversation between two persons talking about computer. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 16.

单选题

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

单选题Today TV audiences all over the world are accustomed to the sight of American astronauts in tip-top condition, with fair hair, crew-cuts, good teeth, an uncomplicated sense of humour and a severely limited non-technical vocabulary.　　What marks out an astronaut from his earthbound fellow human beings is something of a difficult problem. Should you wish to interview him, you must apply beforehand, and you must be prepared for a longish wait, even if your application meets with success. It is, in any case, out of the question to interview an astronaut about his family life or personal activities, because all the astronauts have con- tracts with an American magazine under conditions forbidding any unauthorized disclosures about their private lives.　　Certain obvious qualities are needed. Any would be spaceman must be in perfect health, must have powers of concentration ( since work inside a spacecraft is exceptionally demanding) and must have considerable courage. Again, space-work calls for dedication. Courage and dedication are particularly essential. In the well-known case of the Challenger seven crew members lost their lives in space because of the faulty equipment in the shuttle. Another must is outstanding scientific expertise. It goes without saying that they all have to have professional aeronautical qualifications and experience.　　A striking feature of the astronauts is their ages. For the younger man, in his twenties, say, space is out. Only one of the fifty men working for NASA in 1970 was under 30. The oldest astronaut to date is Alan Shepard, America's first man in space, who, at nearly fifty, was also the man who captained Apollo 13. The average age is the late thirties. The crew members of Apollo 11 were all born well before the Second World War. In 1986 the Challenger astronauts had an average age of 39. The range was from 35 to 46.　　In a society where marital continuity is not always exhibited, the astronauts' record in this respect hits you in the eye. Of all the married men in NASA group, only two or three are divorced from their wives. Mind you, it is hard to tell whether something in the basic character of an astronaut encourages fidelity or whether the selection process demands that a candidate should be happily married.　　The NASA astronauts live in unattractive small communities dotted here and there around the base in Texas. You would expect them to find their friends from among their professional associates, but this is not the case. Rather, they prefer to make friends with the normal folk in their districts, A good job, too, Astronauts, like everybody else, must get fed up with talking shop all the time, and, whereas they are indeed an elite, their daily life outside work should be as normal as possible, if only for the sake of their families.　　As for the astronauts' political leanings, they seem to be towards the right. This may be due to the fact that a large proportion of the astronauts have a military background. On the other hand, it could be just coincidence.

单选题Questions 14 to 17 are based on an interview about swimming. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 17.

单选题InwhichstatewasEmilyDicksonborn?A.Michigan.B.Ohio.C.Massachusetts.D.Washington.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Letter-writing goes back thousands of years but heated up during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Historically(perhaps now)letters were indicators of status and breeding. Like conversation, they were used to manipulate, embellish, entertain, threaten, seduce and of course do business. On the way home from discovering America, Christopher Columbus got caught in a storm and his mind turned—as a good bourgeois parent—to his two sons. Who would pay their school fees if he came to a watery end? He picked up a quill and documented his accomplishments on the voyage for his Spanish patrons, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, rolled up the letter in a wooden Madeira cask and threw it into the sea. This was not so much for posterity but rather what University of York professor William H. Sherman has called "a father's desperate petition for the future support of his children." The 18th century was strong on the epistolary book, which made authors' quarrels especially amusing. Tobias Smollett wrote Travels Through France is this the fruit of your Promises and Vows ... how comes it then to pass, that you forsake me, ruine my Reputation, and leave me to become the Map of Shame and Ignominy ..." I long to use the Map of Shame bit but I suspect it was as unhelpful then as boiling bunnies is now. A Vanderbilt University study says children taught cursive writing learn and express themselves better. If so, I have a few suggestions for our educators; How about letters "On Reprimanding a Person of Difference Without Incurring Hate Charges", or "An Ailing Citizen to His Callous Minister of Health." The possibilities are, sadly, limitless.

单选题Questions 11 to 13 are based on the following talk on the world's changing climate. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11 to 13.

单选题As we age, the lenses in our eyes lose their flexibility (灵活性). Eventually, most of us need glasses for reading. The problem is that reading glasses will not work for seeing distant object, so we need bifocals, trifocals or multiple pairs of spectacles. This soon may change if a new development by The Egg Factory proves its worth. Optometrist (验光师，配镜师) Ronald D. Blum, head of The Egg Factory and its subsidiary eVision LLC, is leading the development of glasses that automatically change their focus as the wearer looks at objects at different distances. The eVision researchers claim to have produced a "crude" working prototype. The idea is based on patented technology from Motorola Inc. that describes eyeglasses with lenses that change their refractive (反射的，反光的) index when a voltage is applied. The eVision"s lenses are broken up into pixels that also respond to voltage by changing the refractive index. The glasses would carry a small onboard computer and infrared (红外线的) rangefinder (测距仪) that would determine the focal distance and transmit this information to the computer, which would adjust the refractive index of the pixels accordingly. Besides the ease of handling only one pair of glasses, the system offers people two other benefits. Users could cut down on the number of visits to the optician because a prescription change would be accomplished by changing the computer program. In addition, the system theoretically could give users "super vision" by compensating for imperfections in their vision in much the same way that adaptive optics allow astronomers to compensate for atmospheric turbulence. The eVision has several challenges to overcome before the spectacles are ready for market. The lens materials must transmit as much light as possible, and the electronics and chemical contacts must be nearly transparent. The researchers must shrink the computer and IR rangefinder to fit comfortably on a pair of glasses. Another packaging challenge is style. Most consumers will not wear bulky "geek (怪的) glasses" But eVision is undaunted. It believes the technology has the potential to generate more than $1 billion annually within five years.

单选题Paul Straussmann, retired vice president of Xerox,, indicates in his book Information Pay-off that" almost half of the U. S. information workers are in executive, managerial, administrative and professional positions. " He further states that "managers and professionals spend more than half of their time in communicating with each other. " In other words ,people are a corporation"s most expensive resource. For a typical office, over 90 percent of the operating budget is for salaries, benefits and over head. With this investment, is it any wonder that managers are focusing more and more attention on employee productivity? They realize that the paper jungle cannot be tamed simply by hiring more people. To receive a return on their investment, wise corporate executive officers are realizing what industrialists and agriculturists learned long ago--efficient tools are essential for increased productivity. A direct relationship exists between efficient flow of information and the quality and speed of the output of the end product. For those companies using technology, the per document cost of information processing is only a fraction of what it was a few years ago. The decreasing cost of computers and peripherals( equipment tied to the computer) will continue to make technology a cost-effective tool in the future. An example of this type of saving is illustrated in the case of the Western Division of General Telephone and Electronics Company(GTE). By making a one-time investment of $10 million to automate its facilities, management estimates an annual saving of $ 8.5 million for the company. This savings is gained mainly through the elimination of support people once needed for proposal projects. Through a telecommunications network that supports 150 computer terminals with good graphics capabilities, the engineers who conceptualize the projects are now direct participants. They use the graphics capacities of the computer rather than rely on drafters to prepare drawings, they enter their own text rather than employ typists, and they use the network to track project progress rather than conducting meetings.

单选题AccordingtoMr.Tait,whatshouldwedotoimprovethesituationoftoothdecay?A．Spendmoremoneyinfightingtoothdecay.B．Havebettereducation.C．Improvepeople'sstandardofliving.D．Getridofsomeofourteeth.

单选题Banking is about money; and no other familiar commodity arouses such excesses of passion and dislike. Nor is here any other about which more nonsense is talked. The type of thing that comes to mind is not what is normally called economics, which is inexact rather than nonsensical, and only in the same way as all sciences are at the point where they try to predict people's behavior and its consequences. Indeed most social sciences and, for example, medicine could probably be described in the same way. However, it is common to hear assertions of the kind "if you were left alone on a desert island a few seed potatoes would be more useful to you than a million pounds" as though this proved something important about money except the undeniable fact that it would not be much use to anyone in a situation where very few of us are at all likely to find ourselves. Money in fact is a token or symbolic object, exchangeable on demand by its holders for goods and services. Its use for these purposes is universal except within a small number of primitive agricultural communities. Money and the price mechanism, i. e., the changes in prices expressed in money terms of different goods and services, are the means by which all modern societies regulate demand and supply for these things. Especially important are the relative changes in price of different goods and services compared with each other. To take random examples: the price of house-building has over the past five years risen a good deal faster than that of domestic appliances like refrigerators, but slower than that of motor insurance or French Impressionist paintings. This fact has complex implications for students of the industry, trade unionism, town planning, insurance companies, fine-art auctions, and politics. Unpacking these implications is what economics is about, but their implications for bankers are quite different. In general, in modern industrialized societies, prices of services or goods produced in a context requiring a high service-content (e. g. a meal in a restaurant) are likely to rise in price more rapidly than goods capable of mass-production on a large scale. It is also a characteristic of highly developed economies that the number of workers employed in service industries tends to rise and that of workers employed in manufacturing to fall. The discomfort this truth causes has been an important source of tension in western political life for many years and is likely to remain so for many more.

单选题What may be the best title of this passage?

单选题"She was America's princess as much as she was Britain's princess, " wrote the foreign editor of the normally sharp Chicago Tribune a week after the death in Paris of Diana, Princess of Wales. He was not far off the mark. For Americans have indeed taken posthumous possession of Britain's "People's Princess". What was happening? How was it that a nation whose school children are taught in history class to look down on the "tyranny" of the English monarchy, suddenly appeared so supportive of a member of the British royal family? Why was it that numerous American commentators sought to expand into touch the rumour that Diana had planned to move to the United States to live? Part of the answer lies in America's status as the celebrity culture par excellence. It is from their celebrities that many Americans derive their sense of nationhood. Their presidents must be celebrities in order to be elected. Writer and commentator Norman Mailer made the point after the last presidential election that Bill Clinton won because he projected the image of a Hollywood star, while Bob Dole lost because he came across as a supporting actor. What seems to have happened is that the inhabitants of the nation that produced Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley have found it almost impossible to accept that Princess Diana, the world's biggest, classiest contemporary celebrity by far, should have come from another country. Even that, many seemed to say to themselves, was merely an accident of birth; because in many ways she was so American. Her New Age preferences--the astrologers, the psychics, the aromatherapy--were closer to the style of former US First Lady Nancy Reagan than the House of Windsor. Her dieting and her visits to the gym were lifestyle options that were typically American. Her famous TV confession of adultery and her (purportedly unauthorized) tell-all biography were also hallmarks of the American celebrity approach. Like another former First Lady, Jackie Kennedy, she auctioned her dresses-not in London or Pads, but New York. She visited America frequently and felt right at home there, reveling in the generous attentions of the rich and famous and delighting in the unreserved responsiveness of the public to her charms. For she seemed to have adapted brilliantly to another American invention: image manipulation, which all aspirants to political office in the US struggle to learn but which she appeared to have absorbed and refined naturally. She was, in short, a thoroughly modern woman and, like it or not, most of what is modern originates in the United States. But many Americans felt she also had more enduring qualities. Many viewed her as the incarnation of their country's dominant myth. As an editorial in the Miami Herald put it: "She was an American dream, a superstar Cinderella with the polish of a natural-born socialite... In a way she fulfilled the American dream: to emerge from insignificance and overcome hardship and make something of herself. " Elaine Showalter, a student of American popular culture who teaches English at Princeton University, noted the difference between the dullness of Prince Charles and Diana's "very American sensibility". "We have a sense here in America that anything is possible, that you are not a predetermined person; that if you are a woman from whom nothing is expected but you want to make your life count, you can do it. She shared that spirit and that's why she appealed so much to Americans. /

单选题{{B}}Text 1{{/B}} Suppose you lost a lot of blood, what would a doctor do? Replace the blood as quickly as possible by giving you a transfusion of blood donated by another person. But the doctor can't use just anyone's blood. The donor's blood has to be of a type that won't be destroyed by your blood. Blood type? What's that? To find your blood type, the doctor sends your blood to a laboratory. There your red cells are separated from the other parts of your blood. These ceils may have certain antigens (special proteins) on their surfaces—"A" antigens and/or "B" antigens. If your red ceils have "A" antigens you are Type A; "B" antigens make you Type B; both "A" and "B" make you Type AB; neither "A" nor "B' antigens makes you Type O. How do you find these antigens? A lab technician mixes your red blood cells with two kinds of blood serum. One contains anti-A antibodies. The other kind contains anti-B antibodies. An antibody is a substance that "attacks" a particular antigen, in this case "A" or "B" antigens. The technician then looks at each mixture under a microscope to see what will happen to your red blood cells. Certain mixtures may make your red cells clump together. By finding which mixtures do this and which do not, the technician can figure out your blood type. But blood typing isn't the only reason to have a blood test taken. It can also check for signs of infection. How? When you have an infection, especially a serious one, the number of white blood cells soars. This is normal response of your body to an invasion of germs. This time a sample of blood goes to the lab for a CBC — complete blood count. A technician will examine your blood under a microscope — counting the white cells in a small marked-off area If the number is much higher than it ought to be, the doctor may need to treat you to be sure the infection doesn't spread. Other blood tests can determine the concentration of various chemicals in your blood or the variety and types of blood cells circulating in the blood. The information hidden in a drop of blood may lead a doctor to suggest ways to treat, or avoid dangerous health conditions. Was the stick in the finger or arm necessary? If protecting yourself from danger is necessary, the answer has got to be... yes!

单选题 {{B}} Questions 11 to 13 are based on the following talk on the Oscar nominations for the 79th Academy Awards. You now have l5 seconds to read Questions 11 to 13.{{/B}}

单选题Questions 14 to 16 are based on the following news report. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 16.

单选题Which of the following about the Japanese aim of existence can be inferred from the passage?