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单选题 Questions 15—18

单选题 {{B}}Questions 15-18{{/B}}

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单选题 There is evidence to believe that gambling in many forms has been engaged in for almost as long as civilization. Even in primitive tribes today there exist games of chance that give rise to our suspicion that gambling may have begun when our ancestors were wearing skins and hunting and gathering food. There seems to be something in the human psyche that is fascinated by the prospect of gaining much by venturing little. Yet it is clearly stated in all religions, at least in the better known ones, that gambling is abominable. In several countries of the world gambling is prohibited at least in certain forms and sometimes severely restricted. This gives rise to the assumption that most governments, if not all, see gambling as evil. Now what is it in gambling that has so much appeal? Strange though it may seem, many people who gamble and aim to win are those who do not need the large amounts of money that they want to win. We see rich men and women, who have enough wealth to live more than comfortably their whole lives, gambling and hoping to win large sums of money which they really don't need. Often it has turned out that these people gamble for the thrill of it. It seems that the possibility that they might lose large sums of money or even be mined is a thrill much like motor racing or bungy jumping. Rich men and women have been known to spend almost their whole lives frequenting gambling houses and there trying to ruin people and run the risk of ruining themselves. Since gamblers consider this a game and all they seek are thrills, they believe they are harming no one but people who seek similar thrills. Hence the popular appeal of gambling. Another appeal is of course that if a player who is not so rich should suddenly make a big strike, then he is assured of a comfortable life. Gambling which can make a man rich beyond his dreams may be comparatively the harmless types—like lotteries, many of which are state run. In some countries many of the lotteries are means of raising money for charity. The appeal is that one hopes to spend a few dollars on tickets and hopes to win enormous sums of money. If he fails then his contribution helps some charitable cause. In spite of its appeal, gambling has the reputation of having mined countless men and women all over the world. One main drawback is that gambling is addictive. Some people can take gambling so seriously that it becomes an obsession. They spend everything they have and all their time gambling—at the neglect of family, friends and even their own health. It is intriguing that people who win at gambling and people who lose too can become hopeless addicts. People who win seem to think that since they have a "lucky streak" they can win even more, often they indulge in it until they have lost what they had won and more. As for those who lose, the temptation is even greater. They want so much to win what they have lost that they play with money they do not have—like borrowed money. Everyone wants that one great opportunity to win a great stun and retire, but alas!, such a situation seldom, if ever, rises. Eventually there are very few winners in gambling. Most gamblers lose. Hence the drawbacks of gambling are most destructive. They can wipe out families and ruin the lives of individuals. Whatever appeal they may have, it is well that in most countries in the world they are kept under strict rules and are sometimes banned.

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

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单选题{{B}}Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following conversation.{{/B}}

单选题"Unfold" means ______.

单选题Questions 11～15 Eric Liu has spent most of his life climbing up the social ladder without looking back. The son of Chinese immigrants from Taiwan, he grew up learning to play down his ethnic identity in the mostly white community of Wappingers Falls, N.Y. Then he went on to amass a heap of power credentials: he graduated from Yale, at 25 he wrote speeches for President Clinton, and now he"s at Harvard Law School. In his provocative, wonderfully honest new book, The Accidental Asian , Liu, 29, finally pauses long enough to reflect on his assimilationist"s guilt, on the feeling that he"s left something behind without knowing exactly what it is. Half cultural commentary, half memoir, "Accidental" is a remarkable accomplishment—both a defense of assimilation and an intense recounting of personal loss. Though he"s one of Asian America"s biggest stars, Liu doesn"t act or feel particularly Asian- American. He married a white woman—half of all Asian-Americans intermarry, he points out. He says he cannot escape the feeling that the Asian-American identity is "contrived" and "unnecessary". "Asian-Americans are only as isolated as they want to be," he writes. "They do not face the levels of discrimination and hatred that demand an enclave mentality. The choice to invent and sustain a pan- Asian identity is just that: a choice, not an imperative. " His book, which just hit stores, is already infuriating Asian-Americans who have a fierce sense of ethnic pride. "Liu has been totally co-opted by the white mainstream," says Bert Wang, who works on labor issues and anti-Asian violence, and christened his rock band Superchink. "But would he be where he is today if he weren"t Asian? They love him because he"s this novelty who"s pro-assimilation." Jeff Yang, the founder of A. Magazine, a sort of Asian Vanity Fair, finds Liu"s view misguided and a bit naive. "Race is an obsession in our society," he says. "To be out of the racial equation takes us away from the table of dialogue completely. But we"re creating a culture out of our common experiences: immigration, being perceived as strangers in our own land, serving as a bridge between East and West. " But even the most militant Asian-Americans admit to an identity crisis. Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos and other "Asians" have not only different cultures and languages but deep historical antagonisms toward one another. More than anything, what binds them together in America is what they look like—the exact basis for their stigmatization. The Asian-American "race" is just three decades old, born with the immigration boom in 1965. "Race is fundamentally an invention," says Liu. "And just as something can be invented, so it can be dismantled. If you believe in the identity, I can respect that. I"m just not sure it"ll last another generation. " The economic success many Asian-Americans have achieved may only further weaken that identity. They account for 4 percent of the population, and have the highest median income of all races, including whites. A higher percentage of them earn advanced degrees than of any other group. But those statistics hide the growing number of poor immigrants who feel increasingly alienated from upper-class Asians. "The poor are an embarrassment to professionals who don"t want to be seen as peasants," says Peter Kwong, head of Asian-American Studies at New York"s Hunter College. "You"re taught to be ashamed of your parents," says Chinatown labor activist Trinh Duong, whose mother works in a garment factory. Some activists, who say they have a hard time drawing attention to the plight of those immigrants, try to play down the achievements of upper-class Asians and chafe at the "model minority" stereotype. "That label is clearly part of a hostile discourse between whites and blacks," says Kwong. "Whites are basically saying to blacks, "We"re not racist, and the reason you"re not as successful is because you"re not working as hard as Asians"." Yet the abstract debate over assimilation can"t do justice to the complex emotional acrobatics of dealing with your own ethnicity. While Liu grew up trying to fit into white America, that was the last thing I wanted. I was taught that Asians were smarter and harder-working than everyone else and that explained their success when the truth is that immigration laws favored professionals, a highly selective group to begin with. There seemed to be no way to have ethnic pride without ethnocentrism. The only solution, it seemed, was to try and transcend race to erase racial concerns by ignoring them. I started to think a lot like Liu. But something always comes along to jolt me out of this colorblind slumber. The rising number of incidents of anti-Asian violence. College-admission quotas against us. Coverage of the campaign- finance scandals, filled with "shadowy" Orientals creeping into power, practicing the ancient Chinese art of guanxi , a scarily exotic word for "connections." And why do so many articles on race neglect to mention us? Why do so many reports from the Census Bureau include only blacks, whites and Hispanics? Is racial identity formed only through racial persecution? I was once berated by a white classmate for claiming I had never been persecuted, which made me wish that I had. But I can"t help feeling that it would be contrived to suddenly become passionate about my ethnicity, or to dredge up racial scars that don"t exist. Liu says, "Race for people of color should be as much of an option as ethnicity is for whites." But in America, trying to forget about being a minority can still get you in as much trouble as being one.

单选题Why did the author say "Schumpeter, no doubt, would call this maladjustment."?

单选题 In colonial days, huge flocks of snowy egrets inhabited coastal wetlands and marshes of the southeastern United States. In the 1800s, when fashion dictated fancy hats adorned with feathers, egrets and other birds were hunted for their plumage. By the late 1800s, egrets were almost extinct. In 1886 the newly formed Audubon Society began a press campaign to shame feather wearers and end the terrible folly. The campaign caught on, and gradually, attitudes changed and new laws followed. Florida and Texas were the first states to pass laws protecting such birds. Then, in 1900, the United States Congress passed the Lacey Act, forbidding interstate commerce to deal in illegally killed wildlife, making it more difficult for hunters to sell their kill. Since then, numerous wildlife refuges have been established to protect the birds' feeding habitats. With millions of people visiting these refuges and seeing the birds in their natural locales, attitudes have changed significantly. Today the thought of hunting these birds would be abhorrent to most people, even if official protection were removed. Thus protected, egret populations were able to recover substantially. In the mean time, the Lacey Act has become the most important piece of legislation protecting wildlife from illegal killing or smuggling. Congress took another major step when it passed a series of acts to protect endangered species. The most comprehensive and recent of these acts is the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973 (reauthorized in 1988). An endangered species is a species that has been reduced to the point where it is in imminent danger of becoming extinct if protection is not provided. The act also provides for the protection of threatened species, which are judged to be in jeopardy but not on the brink of extinction. When a species is officially recognized as being either endangered or threatened, the law specifies substantial fines for killing, trapping, uprooting (plants), or engaging in commerce in the species or its parts. The legislation forbidding commerce includes wildlife threatened with extinction anywhere in the world. The ESA requires the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), under the Department of the interior, to draft recovery plans for protected species. Habitats must be mapped and a program for the preservation and management of critical habitats must be designed, such that the species can rebuild its population. Some critics of the ESA believe that the act does not go far enough. A major shortcoming is that protection is not provided until a species is officially listed as endangered or threatened by the USFWS and a recovery plan is established. Species usually will not make the list until their populations have become dangerously low. Over the past years, the USFWS has been working intensely on listing species and developing recovery plans for them. One of the species recently removed from the list, and an amazing recovery story, is that of the American peregrine falcon. The bald eagle also is scheduled to be removed from the list soon. Both the peregrine falcon and the bald eagle were driven to extremely low numbers because of the use of DDT as a pesticide from the 1940s through the 1960s. Carried up to these predators through the food chain, DDT caused a serious thinning of the birds' eggshells that led to nesting failures in the two species and in numerous other predatory birds. By 1975 a survey indicated that there were only 324 pairs of nesting peregrines in North America. DDT use was banned in both the United States and Canada in the early 1970s and the stage was set for recovery of the bird. Working with several nonprofit captive-breeding institutions such as the Peregrine Fund, the USFWS sponsored efforts that resulted in the release of some 6,000 captive-bred young falcons in 34 states over a period of 23 years. There are now about 1,600 known breeding pairs in the United States and Canada- well above the targeted recovery population of 631 pairs.

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单选题 Directions: In this part of the test there will be some short talks and conversations. After each one, you will be asked some questions. The talks, conversations and questions will be spoken ONLY ONCE. Now listen carefully and choose the right answer to each question you have heard and write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET. Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following conversation.

单选题 Everybody loves a fat pay rise. Yet pleasure at your own can vanish if you learn that a colleague has been given a bigger one. Indeed, if he has a reputation for slacking, you might even be outraged. Such behaviour is regarded as "all too human", with the underlying assumption that other animals would not be capable of this finely developed sense of grievance. But a study by Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, which has just been published in Nature, suggests that it all too monkey, as well. The researchers studied the behaviour of female brown capuchin monkeys. They look cute. They are good-natured, co-operative creatures, and they share their food tardily. Above all, like their female human counterparts, they tend to pay much closer attention to the value of goods and services" than males. Such characteristics make them perfect candidates for Dr. Brosnan's and Dr. de Waal's study. The researchers spent two years teaching their monkeys to exchange tokens for food. Normally, the monkeys were happy enough to exchange pieces of rock for slices of cucumber. However, when two monkeys were placed in separate but adjoining chambers, so that each could observe what the other was getting in return for its rock, their became markedly different. In the world of capuchins grapes are luxury goods (and much preferable to cucumbers). So when one monkey was handed a grape in exchange for her token, the second was reluctant to hand hers over for a mere piece of cucumber. And if one received a grape without having to provide her token in exchange at all, the other either tossed her own token at the researcher or out of the chamber, or refused to accept the slice of cucumber. Indeed, the mere presence of a grape in the other chamber (without an actual monkey to eat it) was enough to reduce resentment in a female capuchin. The researches suggest that capuchin monkeys, like humans, are guided by social emotions, in the wild, they are a co-operative, groupliving species, Such co-operation is likely to be stable only when each animal feels it is not being cheated. Feelings of righteous indignation, it seems, are not the preserve of people alone, Refusing a lesser reward completely makes these feelings abundantly clear to other members of the group. However, whether such a sense of fairness evolved independently in capuchins and humans, or whether it stems from the common ancestor that the species had 35 million years ago, is, as yet, an unanswered question.

单选题Questions 23-26

单选题In the information technology industry, it is widely acknowledged that how well IT departments of the future can fulfill their business goals will depend not on the regular updating of technology, which is essential for them to do, but on how well they can hold on to the people skilled at manipulating the newest technology. This is becoming more difficult. Best estimates of the current shortfall in IT staff in the UK are between 30,000 and 50,000, and growing. And there is no end to the problem in sight. A severe industry-wide lack of investment in training means the long-term skills base is both ageing and shrinking. Employers are chasing experienced staff in ever-decreasing circles, and, according to a recent government report, 250,000 new IT jobs will be created over the next decade. Most employers are confining themselves to dealing with the immediate problems. There is little evidence, for example, that they are stepping up their intake of raw recruits for in-house training, or retraining existing staff from other functions. This is the course of action recommended by the Computer Software Services Association, but research shows its members are adopting the short-term measure of bringing in more and more consultants on a contract basis. With IT professionals increasingly attracted to the financial rewards and flexibility of consultancy work, average staff turnover rates are estimated to be around 15%. While many companies in the financial services sector are managing to contain their losses by offering skilled IT staff "golden handcuffs" — deferred loyalty bonuses that tie them in until a certain date — other organizations, like local governments, are unable to match the competitive salaries and perks on offer in the private sector and contractor market, and are suffering turnover rates of up to 60% a year. But while loyalty bonuses have grabbed the headlines, there are other means of holding on to staff. Some companies are doing additional IT pay reviews in the year and paying market premiums. But such measures can create serious employee relations problems among those excluded, both within and outside IT departments. Many industry experts advise employers to link bonuses to performance wherever possible. However, employers are realising that bonuses will only succeed if they are accompanied by other incentives such as attractive career prospects, training, and challenging work that meets the individual"s long-term ambitions.

单选题 Does using a word processor affect a writer's style? The medium usually does do something to the message after all, even if Marshall McLuhan's claim that the medium simply is the message has been heard and largely forgotten now. The question matters. Ray Hammond, in his excellent guide The Writer and the Word Processor (Coronet ￡2.95 pp224), predicts that over half of the professional writers in Britain and the USA will be using word processors by the end of 1995. The best-known recruit is Len Deighton, from as long ago as 1968, though most users have only started since the micro-computer boom began in 1980. Ironically word processing is in some ways psychologically more like writing in rough than typing, since it restores fluidity and provisionality to the text. The typist's dread of having to get out the Tippex, the scissors and paste, or of redoing the whole thing if he has any substantial second thoughts, can make him consistently choose the safer option in his sentences, or let something stand which he knows to be unsatisfactory or incomplete, out of weariness. In word processing the text is loosened up whilst still retaining the advantage of looking formally finished. This has, I think, two apparently contradictory effects. The initial writing can become excessively sloppy and careless, in the expectation that it will be corrected later. That crucial first inspiration is never easy to recapture though, and therefore, on the other hand, the writing can become over-deliberated, lacking in flow and spontaneity, since revision becomes a larger part of composition. However these are faults easier to detect in others than in oneself. For most writers, word processing quite rapidly comes to feel like the ideal method (and can always be a second step after drafting on paper if you prefer). Most of the writers interviewed by Hammond say it has improved their style ("immensely", says Deighton). Seeing your own words on a screen helps you to feel cool and detached about them. Thus it is not just by freeing you from the labour of mechanical re-typing that a word processor can help you to write. One author (Terence Feely) claims it has increased his output by 400%. Possibly the feeling of having a reactive machine, which appears to do things, rather than just have things done with it, accounts for this — your slave works hard and so do you. Are there no drawbacks? It costs a lot and takes time to learn — "expect to lose weeks of work", says Hammond, though days might be nearer the mark. Notoriously it is possible to lose work altogether on a word processor, and this happens to everybody at least once. The awareness that what you have written no longer exists at all anywhere, is unbelievably enraging and baffling.

单选题 You have seen them in movies: scientists who are infallible and coldly objective--little more than animated computers in white lab coats. They take measurements and record results as if the collection of data were the sole object of their lives. The assumption= If one gathers enough facts about something, the relationships between those facts will spontaneously reveal themselves. Nonsense! The myth of the infallible scientist evaporates when one thinks of the number of great ideas in science whose originators were correct in general but wrong in detail. The English physicist John Dalton gets credit for modern atomic theory, but his mathematical formulas for calculating atomic weights were incorrect. The Polish astronomer Copernicus, who corrected Ptolemy's ancient concept of an Earth-centered universe, nevertheless was mistaken in the particulars of the planets' orbits. Luck, too, has played a determining role in scientific discovery. The French chemist Pasteur demonstrated that life does not arise spontaneously from air. But it may have been luck that he happened to use an easy-to-kill yeast and not the hay bacillus that another, long-forgotten, investigator had chosen for the same experiment. We now know that hay bacillus is heat-resistant and grows even after the boiling that killed Pasteur's yeast. If Pasteur had used the hay bacillus, his "proof" would not have materialized. Gregor Mendel, the founder of modern genetics, epitomizes the humanness of the scientist. Plant hybridization intrigued and puzzled Mendel, an Augustinian monk with some training in mathematics and the natural sciences. He had read in the professional literature that crosses between certain species regularly yielded many hybrids with identical traits; but when hybrids were crossed, all kinds of strange new combinations of traits cropped up. The principle of inheritance, if there was one, was elusive. Mendel had the basic idea that there might be simple mathematical relationships among plants in different generations. To pursue this hypothesis, he decided to establish experimental plots in the monastery garden at Brunn, raise a number of varieties of peas, interbreed them, count and classify the offspring of each generation, and see whether any reliable mathematical ratios could be deduced. After many years of meticulously growing, harvesting, and counting pea plants, Mendel thought he had something worth talking about. So, in 1865, he appeared before the Brunn Society for the Study of Natural Science, reported on his research, and postulated what have since come to be called the Mendelian laws. Society members listened politely but, insofar as anybody knows, asked few questions and engaged in little discussion. It may even be that, as he proceeded, a certain suspicion emerged out of the embarrassed silence. After all, Mendel lacked a degree and had published no research. Now, if Pasteur had advanced this idea... Mendel's assertion that separate and distinct "elements" of inheritance must exist, despite the fact that he couldn't produce any, was close to asking the society to accept something on faith. There was no evidence for Mendel's hypothesis other than his computations; and his wildly unconventional application of algebra to botany made it difficult for his listeners to understand that those computations were the evidence. Mendel undoubtedly died without knowing that his findings on peas had indeed illuminated a well-nigh universal pattern. Luck had been with him in his choice of which particular traits to study. We now know that groups of genes do not always act independently. Often they are linked, their effect being to transmit a package of traits. Knowing nothing about genes, let alone the phenomenon of linkage, Mendel was spared failure because the traits that he chose to follow were each controlled separately. The probability of making such a happy choice in random picks is only about 1 in 163!