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单选题 There is a basic hypothesis that the majority of serious motoring offences are derived from accidents, and there is nothing in the offender's personality or background that predisposes him to break the law. If an accident is a chance event that happens so quickly and suddenly that it is beyond anyone's control to prevent it, then it is clear that this hypothesis is disproved. For only about 14 per cent of the 653 offences considered in a recent survey could possibly be called inadvertent accidents in this sense, and even this estimate is stretching credulity to its limits. In the great majority of cases the offences were largely of the offenders' own making. In 11 per cent of the 653 cases and 21 per cent of 43 offenders who were interviewed there was evidence of selfish, and even ruthless, self-interest, but it was not possible to infer personality disturbance in more than 25 per cent of the 653 and 39 per cent of the 43 offenders. Though the inferences with regard to personality traits may be an overestimate in the interpretation of qualitative data, they could equally be an underestimate, since so very little was ever recorded about the offenders themselves. The lack of data is a consequence of the almost total lack of interest in motoring offenders as persons. It must be assumed, therefore, in the absence of evidence to the contrary that the majority of serious motoring offenders considered in the survey were normal people, who succumbed to temptation when circumstances were favourable and it was expedient to take a chance, so perhaps there is something in the normal personality that predisposes a driver to break the law. Whatever it is, its presence is much more evident in males than in females, since the analysis of the national statistics shows a predominance of males over females of between 18:1 and 22:1. The real significance of these figures is hard to assess, because the relative proportions of each sex at risk are unknown. One research worker produced a ratio of six males to one female from his sample of insurance policy holders, but this is almost certainly an underestimate since many females — probably more than males — are likely to be driving on someone else's policy. A ration of three to one is probably nearer to the real state of affairs. Females reached noticeable proportions only among the hit-and-run drivers, and there seems to be some justification for calling this the feminine offence. The difference between the sexes in their relative propensity to break the law on the roads is important, because it shows that motoring offenders have a characteristic in common with offenders in other fields of criminal activity, where males predominate to a marked degree. One motor insurance underwriter recently announced his intention to offer discounts on premiums where the policy holder or the named driver was a woman. The basic hypothesis is further disproved by the very high incidence, among the offences studied, of failing to insure against third-party risks. Yet accidents brought to light only a very small percentage of this kind of crime. Moreover, it could not possibly be said that this, the most common of the serious offences, was brought about by providence. On the contrary, it can be regarded as a typical form of economic crime, which, although sometimes committed through inadvertence, is more usually quite deliberate and calculated.

单选题Whatsportsaretheytalkingabout?[A]Skiing．[B]Basketball．[C]Diving．

单选题The farm is a major marketplace for millions of tons of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and for advanced machinery and the fuel required to run it. The modern superfarm, large and highly capitalized, is resource dependent compared with the diversified small farms that were once dominant. On diversified farms, major energy needs may be supplied by resident humans and animals. Soil fertility may be maintained by alternating cash crops and restorative crops, and also by returning animal manure to the soil. This fanning model of relatively self-sufficient agriculture, and the way of life associated with it, are still economically viable, as demonstrated by prosperous Amish farmers and other practitioners of "alternative" agriculture. Particularly relevant to today"s mainstream agriculture are the energy-saving practices on large "organic" farms, which are thoroughly mechanized but which minimize the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. By comparison, mainstream American agriculture has until lately been careless in its use of energy, water, and land. When fossil energy was cheap, applications of fertilizers and pesticides paid large dividends, so farmers were encouraged to use these products. Soon most farmers used too much fertilizer and pesticide. Farmers in dry regions enjoyed an era of cheap water, obtained from publicly subsidized irrigation systems or from pumping groundwater using inexpensive energy. The soil too was expendable as demand grew for U.S. agricultural products. The period of extraordinary profligacy in the use of soil, water, and fossil fuels may well be at an end. The new structure of large farms is quite sensitive to cost factors. These adaptive farms, whose development was assisted by public tax, subsidy and research policies, have access to capital, technologies, and management skills, enabling them to switch relatively quickly to resource-conserving practices—for example, to low-tillage system that requires less fuel, that shepherds soil moisture, and that may reduce soil erosion. It seems likely that federal programs that have enlarged our farms, therefore, have had a further result of creating the potential for a more conserving agriculture. With respect to energy use. for example, energy costs per unit of output are lower for large farms, mainly because these farms quickly economized on energy as costs rose. In the future, according to one authoritative assessment, "agricultural production is likely to use capital and land more intensively but energy, fertilizer and labor less intensively".

单选题"The FAA demonstration" in para. 2 refers to ______.

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单选题Which of the following about the "green tag" is NOT true?

单选题Questions 15-18

单选题Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following interview.

单选题Questions 19-22

单选题The author implies that the "normalizing images" (Para. 5) we are surrounded with have the effect of______.

单选题When the British artist Paul Day unveiled his nine metre-high bronze statue of two lovers locked in an embrace at London's brand new St Pancreas International Station last year it was lambasted as "kitsch", "overblown" and "truly horrific". Now, a brief glimpse of a new frieze to wrap around a plinth for The Meeting Place statue has been revealed, depicting "dream-like" scenes inspired by the railways. Passengers arriving from the continent will be greeted with a series of images including a Tube train driven by a skeleton as a bearded drunk sways precariously close to the passing train Another shows the attempted suicide of a jilted lover under a train reflected in the sunglasses of a fellow passenger. Another section reveals a woman in short skirt with her legs wrapped round her lover while they wait for the next train. Other less controversial parts of the terracotta draft frieze depicts soldiers leaving on troop trains for the First World War and the evacuation of London's underground network after the terror attacks of 7 July 2005. Until the unveiling of The Meeting Place last year, Day, who lives in France, was best known for the Battle of Britain memorial on Embankment. His new frieze looks set to be a return to the sort of crammed bronze montages that has made him so well known Day said he wanted the new plinth to act as the ying to the larger statue's yang. "For me this sculpture has always been about how our dreams collide with the real world," he said. "The couple kissing represent an ideal, a perfect dream reality that ultimately we cannot obtain. The same is true of the railways. They were a dream come true, an incredible feat of engineering but they also brought with them mechanized warfare, Blitzkrieg and death. " Day is still working on the final bronze frieze which will be wrapped around the bottom of the plinth in June next year but he says he wants the 50 million passengers that pass through St Pancras every year to be able to get up close and personal with the final product. "The statue is like a signpost to be seen and understood from far away," he said. "Its size is measured in terms of the station itself. The frieze, on the other hand, is intended to capture the gaze of passers-by and lead them on a short journey of reflections about travel and change that echoes their presence in St Pancras, adding a very different experience to The Meeting Place sculpture. " Brushing aside some of the criticism leveled at his work that has compared it to cartoons or comic strips, Day said he believed his work would stand the test of time. "All the crap that was hurled at the sculpture was just that, crap," he said "The reaction from the critics was so strangely hostile but I believe time will tell whether people, not the art press, will value the piece. "When people criticise my reliefs for looking like comic strips they have got the wrong end of the stick. Throughout the ages, man has been telling stories through a series of pictures, whether it’s stained glass windows, sculptures or photojournalism. My friezes are part of that tradition " Stephen Jordan, from London and Continental Railways, which commissioned the piece, said: " The Meeting Place seeks to challenge and has been well received by visitors who love to photograph it. In addition, it performs an important role within the station, being visible from pretty much anywhere on the upper level of St Pancras International and doing exactly what was planned, making the perfect meeting place for friends. /

单选题 {{B}}Questions 15-18{{/B}}

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单选题Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following talk.

单选题Questions 21-25 No one can be a great thinker who does not realize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of one who with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think. Not that it is solely or chiefly to form great thinkers that freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is as much or even more indispensable to enable average human beings to attain the mental stature of which they are capable. There have been and may again great individual thinkers in a general atmosphere of mental slavery. But there never has been nor ever will be in that atmosphere an intellectually active people. Where any people have made even a temporary approach to such a character, it has been because the dread of heterodox speculation was for a time suspended. Where there is a tacit convention that principles are not to be disputed, where the discussion of the greatest questions which can occupy humanity is considered to be closed, one cannot hope to find that generally high scale of mental activity which has made some periods of history so remarkable! Never when controversy avoided the subjects which are large and important enough to kindle enthusiasm, were the minds of a people stirred up from their foundations and the impulse given which raised even persons of the most ordinary intellect to something of the dignity of thinking beings. He who knows only his side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons of the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. The rational position for him would be suspension of judgment and unless he contends himself with that, he is either led by authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the side to which he feels the most inclination. Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or to bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them form persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty. Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called educated persons are in this condition--even of those who can argue fluently for their opinions. Their conclusions may be true, but they might be false for anything they know; they have never thrown themselves into the mental position of those who think differently from them and considered what such persons may have to say. Consequently they do not, in any proper sense of the word, know the doctrines which they themselves profess.

单选题Right now, Prince Charles is probably wishing he had hit the slopes after all. Britain"s Prince of Wales decided last year to begin reducing his carbon footprint—the amount of carbon dioxide created by his activities—by cutting down on his flights abroad, including an annual skiing vacation in Switzerland. Though we should all be in the position to make such sacrifices, Charles didn"t win plaudits for his holiday martyrdom. Instead British green groups, seconded by Environment Secretary David Miliband, spanked the Prince for deciding to fly to the U.S. on Jan. 27 to pick up a prestigious environmental award, arguing that the carbon emissions created by his travel canceled out his green cred. It"s too easy to mock His Royal Highness; in England it"s practically the national sport. But his critics may be onto something. Jets are uniquely polluting, and the carbon they emit at high altitudes appears to have a greater warming effect than the same amount of carbon released on the ground by cars or factories. On an individual level, a single long-haul flight can emit more carbon per passenger than months of SUV driving. Though air travel is responsible for only 1.6% of total greenhouse gas emissions, in many countries it"s the fastest-growing single source—and with annual airline passengers worldwide predicted to double to 9 billion by 2025, that growth is unlikely to abate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) put it bluntly last year: "The growth in aviation and the need to address climate change cannot be reconciled." One of the biggest problems, as the IPCC points out, is that the carbon emitted by air travel currently has "no technofix". As messy a source of pollution as electricity generation and ground transportation are, technologies do exist that could drastically cut carbon from power plants and cars. Not so for planes: the same aircraft models will almost certainly be flying on the same kerosene fuel for decades. Admittedly, the airline industry has improved efficiency over the past 40 years, with technological upgrades more than doubling efficiency. There are tweaks in aircraft operations that could nip carbon emissions even further. Virgin Atlantic airlines tycoon Richard Branson, who pledged $ 3 billion in the fight against climate change, advocates having planes towed on the ground rather than taxiing, which he has said could cut a yet unspecified portion of fuel on long flights. Emissions trading for the air industry could help as well, with airlines given carbon caps and then being required to purchase credits from other industries if they exceed their limits. But there"s nothing on the horizon for aircraft with the carbon-cutting potential of hydrogen engines or solar energy. "It"s not like having leaky home windows you can fix with double glazing," says Leo Murray, a spokesman for the green group Plane Stupid, which led the criticism of Prince Charles. Nor is there any replacement for long-haul air travel itself. I can take a train from Boston to Washington, but until we can figure out how to travel via fireplace, Harry Potter-style, the only way I"m getting from Tokyo to New York City is in aircraft that may emit more than 5,200 lbs. (about 2,400 kg) of carbon per passenger, round-trip, according to one estimate. On an individual level, you can try to make your flight carbon neutral by donating to, say, a forestry project that will soak up the greenhouse gases you have created. An increasing number of airlines and travel agents do offer such options. The London-based CarbonNeutral Company reports that requests for carbon offsetting from individual travelers have jumped over the past six months. But the still tiny number of neutralized flights can hardly compensate for the rapid increases in global air travel. So is grounding ourselves the only answer? That seems to be the conclusion of environmentalists in Britain, who also went after Prime Minister Tony Blair for a recent holiday trip to Miami. Though Blair belatedly promised to begin offsetting his leisure travel, he insisted that telling people to fly less was simply impractical—and he"s probably right. Some environmentalists suggest that we could learn to live more locally, but good luck keeping them in Brighton after they"ve seen Beijing—and vice versa. Our best bet for now may be to limit any business and leisure flights that we can and offset the rest. So when you"re pondering that luxury Swiss vacation, ask yourself: What would Prince Charles do?

单选题How we look and how we appear to others probably worries us more when are in our teens or early twenties than at any other time in our life. Few of us are content to accept ourselves as we are, and few are brave enough to ignore the trends of fashion. Most fashion magazines or TV advertisements try to persuade us that we should dress in a certain way or behave in a certain manner. If we do, they tell us, we will be able to meet new people with confidence and deal with every situation confidently and without embarrassment. Changing fashion, of course, does not apply just to dress. A barber today does not cut a boy's hair in the same way as he used to, and girls do not make up in the same way as their mothers and grandmothers did. The advertisers show us the latest fashionable styles and we are constantly under pressure to follow the fashion in case our friends think we are odd or dull. What causes fashions to change? Sometimes convenience or practical necessity or just the fancy of an influential person can establish a fashion. Take hats for example, in cold climates, early buildings were cold inside, so people wore hats indoors as well as outside. In recent times, the late President Kennedy caused a depression in the American hat industry by not wearing hats. More American men followed his example. There is also a cyclical pattern in fashion. In the 1920s in Europe and America, short skirts became fashionable. After World War Two, they dropped to ankle length, then they got shorter and shorter and miniskirt was in fashion. After a few more years, skirts became longer again. Today, society is much freer and easier than it used to be. It is no longer necessary to dress like everyone else. Within reason, you can dress as you like or do your hair the way you like instead of the way you should because it is the fashion. The popularity of jeans and the "untidy" look seems to be a reaction against the increasingly expensive fashion of the top fashion houses. At the same time, appearance is still important in certain circumstances and then we must choose our clothes carefully. It would be foolish to go to an interview for a job in a law firm wearing jeans and a sweater; and it would be discourteous to visit some distinguished scholar looking as if we were going to the beach or a night club. However, you need never feel depressed if you don't look like the latest fashion photo. Look around you and you'll see that no one else does either!

单选题A meager diet may give you health and long life, but it"s not much fun—and it might not even be necessary. We may be able to hang on to most of that youthful vigor even if we don"t start to diet until old age. Stephen Spindler and his colleagues from the University of California at Riverside have found that some of an elderly mouse"s liver genes can be made to behave as they did when the mouse was young simply by limiting its food for four weeks. The genetic rejuvenation won"t reverse other damage caused by time for the mouse, but could help its liver metabolize drugs or get rid of toxins. Spindler"s team fed three mice a normal diet for their whole lives, and fed another three on half-rations. Three more mice were switched from the normal diet to half-feed for a month when they were 34 months old—equivalent to about 70 human years. The researchers checked the activity of 11,000 genes from the mouse livers, and found that 46 changed with age in the normally fed mice. The changes were associated with things like inflammation and free radical production—probably bad news for mouse health. In the mice that had dieted all their lives, 27 of those 46 genes continued to behave like young genes. But the most surprising finding was that the mice that only started dieting in old age also benefited from 70 percent of these gene changes. "This is the first indication that these effects kick in pretty quickly," says Huber Warner from the National Institute on Aging near Washington, D.C.. No one yet knows if calorie restriction works in people as it does in mice, but Spindler is hopeful. "There"s attracting and tempting evidence out there that it will work," he says. If it does work in people, there might be good reasons for rejuvenating the liver. As we get older, our bodies are less efficient at metabolizing drugs, for example. A brief period of time of dieting, says Spindler, could be enough to make sure a drug is effective. But Spindler isn"t sure the trade-off is worth it. "The mice get less disease, they live longer, but they"re hungry," he says. "Even seeing what a diet does, it"s still hard to go to a restaurant and say: "I can only eat half of that"." Spindler hopes we soon won"t need to diet at all. His company, Life Span Genetics in California, is looking for drugs that have the effects of calorie restriction.

单选题Every generation has its emblematic boy"s toy. Once upon a time there was the golf cart: a little toy car specifically designed for middle-aged men too rich to care about looking ridiculous. Later came the beach buggy, a briefly fashionable, wildly impractical, single-terrain vehicle. One might include the motorcycle or the snowmobile on this list, were they not, in certain contexts, quite useful, but there is no doubt which pointless recreational vehicle has captured the imagination of the landed, middle-aged celebrity: it"s the quad bike. What is it about this squat, ungainly, easy-to-flip machine that celebrities love so much? As recreational vehicles go, the quad bike is hardly sophisticated. They are to the countryside what the jet-ski is to Lake Windermere. "There"s nothing cool about a quad", says Simon Tiffin, editor of a well-known magazine. "It"s a strange thing to want to hare round beautiful bits of the country in a petrol-guzzling machine." But celebrities love quad bikes. Musicians, comedians, DJs, actors and sportsmen have all been photographed aboard quads. "They"re the latest rich person"s toy", says Tiffin. "Spoilt children get them for Christmas." Provided you~ ye got a large estate to go with it, however, the quad bike can remain a secret indulgence. You can go out and tear up your own piece of countryside without anyone knowing you"re doing it. The quad bike"s nonsensical name—"quad" means four, but "bike" is an abbreviation of "bicycle", which means two—that comes to six—hints at its odd history. Originally the ATV, or all-terrain vehicle, as quads are sometimes known, was developed in Japan as a three-wheeled farm vehicle, an inexpensive mini-tractor that could go just about anywhere. In the 1980s the more stable four-wheeled quad was officially introduced—enthusiasts had been converting their trikes for some time—again primarily for farming, but its recreational appeal soon became apparent. At the same time a market for racing models was developing. Paul Anderson, a former British quad racing champion, says the quad"s recreational appeal lies in its potential to deliver a safe thrill. It"s a mix between a motorbike and driving a car; when you turn a corner, you"ve got to lean into the corner, and then if the ground"s greasy, the rear end slides out, he says. "Plus they"re much easier to ride than a two-wheeled motorcycle." The quad bike, in short, provides middle-aged excitement for men who think a Harley might be a bit dangerous. Anderson is keen to point out that quad bikes are, in his experience, much safer than motorcycles. "With quad racing it"s very rare that we see anybody having an accident and getting injured," he says. "In the right hands, personally, I think a quad bike is a very safe recreational vehicle", he adds. Outside of racing, quad bikes are growing in popularity and injuries have trebled in the last five years. Although retailers offer would-be purchasers basic safety instructions and recommend that riders wear gloves, helmets, goggles, boots and elbow pads, there is no licence required to drive a quad bike and few ways to encourage people to ride them wisely. Employers are required to provide training to workers who use quad bikes, but there is nothing to stop other buyers hurting themselves. For the rest of the world, quad bikes are here to stay. They feature heavily in the programmes of holiday activity centres, they have all but replaced the tractor as the all-purpose agricultural workhorse and now police constables ride them while patrolling the Merseyside coastline. It has more or less usurped the beach buggy, the dirt bike and the snowmobile, anywhere they can go the quad bike can. They even race them on ice. You can"t drive round Lake Windermere on one, or at least nobody"s tried it yet. Just wait.