单选题Questions 19-22
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单选题We live in an age when everyone is a critic. "Criticism" is all over the Internet, in blogs and chat rooms, for everyone to access and add his two cents" worth on any subject, high or low. But if everyone is a critic, is that still criticism? Or are we heading toward the end of criticism? If all opinions are equally valid, there is no need for experts. Democracy works in life, but art is undemocratic. The result of this ultimately meaningless barrage is that more and more we are living in a profoundly- or shallowly-uncritical age.
A critic, as T.S. Eliot famously observed, must be very intelligent. Now, can anybody assume that the invasion of cyberspace by opinion upon opinion is proof of great intelligence and constitutes informed criticism rather than uninformed artistic chaos?
Of course, like any self-respecting critic, I have always encouraged my readers to think for themselves. They were to consider my positive or negative assessments, which I always tried to explain, a challenge to think along with me: here is my reasoning, follow it, then agree or disagree as you see fit. In an uncritical age, every pseudonymous chat-room chatterbox provides a snappy, self-confident judgment, without the process of arriving at it becoming clear to anyone, including the chatterer. Blogs, too, tend to be invitations to leap before a second look. Do the impassioned ramblings fed into a hungry blogosphere represent responses from anyone other than longheads?
How has it come to this? We have all been bitten by television sound bites that transmute into Internet sound bytes, proving that brevity can also be the soul of witlessness. So thoughtlessness multiplies. Do not, however, think I advocate censorship, an altogether unacceptable form of criticism. What we need in this age of rampant uncritical criticism is the simplest and hardest thing to come by: a critical attitude. How could it be fostered?
For starters, with the very thing discouraged by our print media: reading beyond the hectoring headlines and bold-type boxes embedded in reviews, providing a one-sentence summary that makes further reading unnecessary. With only slight exaggeration, we may say that words have been superseded by upward or downward pointing thumbs, self-destructively indulging a society used to instant self-gratification.
Criticism is inevitably constricted by our multinational culture and by political correctness. As society grows more diverse, there are fewer and fewer universal points of reference between a critic and his or her readers. As for freedom of expression. Arthur Miller long ago complained about protests and pressures making the only safe subjects for a dramatist babies and the unemployed.
My own experience is that over the years, print space for my reviews kept steadily shrinking, and the layouts themselves toadied to the whims of the graphic designer. In a jungle of oddball visuals, readers had difficulties finding my reviews. Simultaneously, our vocabulary went on a starvation diet. Where readers used to thank me for enlarging their vocabularies, more and more complaints were lodged about unwelcome trips to the dictionary, as if comparable to having to keep running to the toilet. Even my computer keeps questioning words I use, words that can be found in medium-size dictionaries. Can one give language lessons to a computer? What may be imperiled, more than criticism, is the word.
I keep encountering people who think "critical" means carping or fault-finding, and nothing more. So it would seem that the critic"s pen, once mightier than the sword, has been supplanted by the ax. Yet I have always maintained that the critic has three duties, to write as well as a novelist or playwright; to be a teacher, taking off from where the classroom, always prematurely, has stopped, and to be a thinker, looking beyond his specific subject at society, history, philosophy. Reduce him to a consumer guide, run his reviews on a Web site mixed in with the next-door neighbor"s pontifications, and you condemn criticism to obsolescence.
Still, one would like to think that the blog is not the enemy, and that readers seeking enlightenment could find it on the right blog— just as in the past one went looking through diverse publications for the congenial critic. But it remains up to the readers to learn how to discriminate.
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单选题It is said that in England death is pressing, in Canada inevitable and in California optional Small wonder. Americans" life expectancy has nearly doubled over the past century. Failing hips can be replaced, clinical depression controlled, cataracts removed in a 30-minute surgical procedure. Such advances offer the aging population a quality of life that was unimaginable when I entered medicine 50 years ago. But not even a great health-care system can cure death, and our failure to confront that reality now threatens this greatness of ours.
Death is normal; we are genetically programmed to disintegrate and perish, even under ideal conditions. We all understand that at some level, yet as medical consumers we treat death as a problem to be solved. Shielded by third-party payers from the cost of our care, we demand everything that can possibly be done for us, even if it"s useless. The most obvious example is late-stage cancer care. Physicians—frustrated by their inability to cure the disease and fearing loss of hope in the patient—too often offer aggressive treatment far beyond what is scientifically justified.
In 1950, the U.S. spent $12.7 billion on health care. In 2002, the cost will be $1,540 billion. Anyone can see this trend is unsustainable. Yet few seem willing to try to reverse it. Some scholars conclude that a government with finite resources should simply stop paying for medical care that sustains life beyond a certain age—say 83 or so. Former Colorado governor Richard Lamm has been quoted as saying that the old and infirm "have a duty to die and get out of the way", so that younger, healthier people can realize their potential.
I would not go that far. Energetic people now routinely work through their 60s and beyond, and remain dazzlingly productive. At 78, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone jokingly claims to be 53. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O"Connor is in her 70s, and former surgeon general C. Everett Koop chairs an Internet start-up in his 80s. These leaders are living proof that prevention works and that we can manage the health problems that come naturally with age. As a mere 68-year-old, I wish to age as productively as they have.
Yet there are limits to what a society can spend in this pursuit. As a physician, I know the most costly and dramatic measures may be ineffective and painful. I also know that people in Japan and Sweden, countries that spend far less on medical care, have achieved longer, healthier lives than we have. As a nation, we may be overfunding the quest for unlikely cures while underfunding research on humbler therapies that could improve people"s lives.
单选题A new catastrophe faces Afghanistan. The American bombing campaign is conspiring with years of civil conflict and drought to create an environmental crisis. Humanitarian and political concerns are dominating the headlines. But they are also masking the disappearance of the country's once rich habitat and wildlife, which are quietly being crushed by war. The UN is dispatching a team of investigators to the region next month to evaluate the damage. "A healthy environment is a prerequisite for rehabilitation," says Klaus Topfer, head of the UN environment Programme. Much of south-east Afghanistan was once lush forest watered by monsoon rains. Forests now cover less than 2 per cent of the country. "The Worst deforestation occurred during Taliban rule, when its timber mafia denuded forests to sell to Pakistani markets," says Usman Qazi, an environmental consultant based in Quetta, Pakistan. And the intense bombing intended to flush out the last of the Taliban troops is destroying or burning much of what remains. The refugee crisis is also wrecking the environment, anti much damage may be irreversible. Forests and vegetation are being cleared for much-needed farming, but the gains are likely to be short-term. "Eventually the land will be unfit for even the most basic form of agriculture,' warns Hammed Naqi of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Pakistan. Refugees—around 4 million as the last county—are also cutting into forests for firewood. The hail of bombs falling on Afghanistan is making life particularly bard for the country's wildlife. Birds such as the pelican and endangered Siberian crane cross eastern Afghanistan as they follow one of the world's great migratory thoroughfares from Siberia to Pakistan and India. But the number of the birds flying across the region has dropped by a staggering 85 per cent. "Cranes are very sensitive and they do not use file route if riley see any danger," says Ashiq Ahgmad, an environmental scientist for file WWF in Peshawar, Pakistan, who has tracked the collapse of the birds' migration this winter. The rugged mountains also usually provide a safe haven for mountain leopards, gazelles, bears and Marco Polo sheep—the world's largest species. "The same terrain that allows fighters to strike and disappear back into the frills has also historically enabled wild life to survive," says Peter Zahler of the Wildlife Conservation society, based in New York. But he warns they are now under intense pressure from file bombing and invasions of refugees and fighters. For instance, some refugees are hunting rare snow leopards to buy a safe passage across the border, A single fur can fetch $2,000 on the black market, says Zahler. Only 5,000 or so snow leopards are thought to survive in central Asia, and less than 100 in Afghanistan, their numbers already decimated by extensive hunting, and smuggling into Pakistan before the conflict." Timber, falcons and medicinal plants are also being smuggled across the border. The Taliban once controlled much of this trade, but the recent power vacuum could exacerbate the problem. Bombing will also leave its mark beyond file obvious craters. Defence analysts say that while depleted uranium has been used less in Afghanistan than in file Kosovo conflict, conventional explosives will litter the country with pollutants. They contain toxic compounds such as cyclonite, a carcinogen, and rocket propellants contain perchlorates, which damage thyroid glands.
单选题Questions 1-5
Each summer, no matter how pressing my work schedule, I take off one day exclusively for my son. We call it dad-son day. This year our third stop was the amusement park, where he discovered that he was tall enough to ride one of the fastest roller coasters in the world. We blasted through face-stretching turns and loops for ninety seconds. Then, as we stepped off the ride, he shrugged and, in a distressingly calm voice, remarked that it was not as exciting as other rides he"d been on. As I listened, I began to sense something seriously out of balance.
Throughout the season, I noticed similar events all around me. Parents seemed hard pressed to find new thrills for indifferent kids. Surrounded by ever-greater stimulation, their young faces were looking disappointed and bored.
Facing their children"s complaints of "nothing to do". Parents were shelling out large numbers of dollars for various forms of entertainment. In many cases the money seemed to do little more than buy transient relief from the terrible moans of their bored children. This set me pondering the obvious question. "How can it be so hard for kids to find something to do when there"s never been such a range of stimulating entertainment available to them?"
Why do children immersed in this much excitement seem starved for more? That was, I realized, the point. I discovered during my own reckless adolescence that what creates excitement is not going fast, but going faster. Thrills have less to do with speed than changes in speed.
I"m concerned about the cumulative effect of years at these levels of feverish activity. It is no mystery to me why many teenagers appear apathetic and burned out, with a "been there, done that" air of indifference toward much of life. As increasing numbers of friends" children are prescribed medications-stimulants to deal with inattentiveness at school or anti-depressants to help with the loss of interest and joy in their lives, I question the role of kids" boredom in some of the diagnoses.
My own work is focused on the chemical imbalances and biological factors related to behavioral and emotional disorders. These are complex problems. Yet I"ve been reflecting more and more on how the pace of life and the intensity of stimulation may be contributing to the rising rates of psychiatric problems among children and adolescents in our society.
单选题 Everyone seems to hate America's latest stab at
immigration reform, which went before the full Senate this week. Immigrant
groups think it offers little hope to low-skilled, mostly Hispanic would-be
migrants. Right-wingers snarl that it is nothing but an "amnesty" for illegals.
Companies, who it had been hoped would support the new compromise, hate it
because it imposes bureaucratic burdens on employers. And the left is
complaining because it fears it will depress low-end wages. It would be nice to
be able to report that opposition across so full a spectrum is a sign that the
bill is a well-crafted compromise. In fact, it may well tom out to be
doomed. That would be a pity, because there are some good
things in the proposal. Most important, it produces a reasonably fair solution
to the problem of what to do about the 12 minion or so illegal immigrants
already in America, most of them working hard at low-paid and disagreeable jobs.
Deporting a population the size of Ohio's is impossible, economically illiterate
and morally wrong. The new bill would make the 12 million legal, and offer them
a path, though a winding one, to full citizenship. The right
doesn't like this, of course, and points out that amnesties (which this really
isn't, given the fines and hurdles involved) have in the past drawn fresh waves
of migrants. So the other side of the bargain gives conservatives everything
they could wish for in terms of razor-wired fences, surveillance drones, armed
border guards and a programme that will force companies to check the legality of
their workers. Such measures are probably necessary to win support and rebuild
trust in the immigration system. No bill would pass without them.
The bad part of the deal is what happens to would-be immigrants once all
those sensors and spy-planes are in place. The bill proposes a dual system. A
guest-worker programme would allow 400,000 people a year to enter the country to
work for two years, after which they must go home for a year, with a six-year
cap on the total time they can spend in America. The other part is a new method
of granting residence permits, carrying the right to work. Such "green cards"
currently go mostly to relatives of American citizens or to people sponsored by
an employer. The bill would bring in a "points" system for 380,000 people a
year, similar to those in use in Canada and Australia. Permits for family
members would be restricted, to cover only spouses and young children. Employers
would have less ability to sponsor the people they need. There
are several problems. One is that extended families help build vibrant
communities in a way that guest workers don't. Second, the government should not
be in the business of telling companies whom they ought to him. There are ways
round this, such as awarding points not for specific jobs, but still the problem
is that most of the green cards will be used up by Indian software designers,
Bosnian engineers or the similarly blessed. America does indeed need such folk,
but it also needs legions of the less-skilled, too. That will
continue to mean a large, poorly paid and constantly rotating alien underclass
with little stake in American society. On May 23rd, the Senate voted to scale
the guest worker programme back to 200,000. So the illegals will keep
coming—except that now their journey will be still more dangerous and they will
be even further beyond the law. The current bill is better than nothing; but
unless it is improved, it will not solve the main problem of the
illegals.
单选题Eccentric people tend to form into groups because ______.
单选题Questions 15-18
单选题I am sure the soup tastes ______ . A. well B. deliciously C. goodly D. good
单选题Years ago, when I first started building websites for newspapers, many journalists told me that they saw the Internet as the end of reliable journalism. Since anyone could publish whatever they wanted online, "real journalism" would be overwhelmed, they said. Who would need professional reporters and editors if anyone could be a reporter or an editor? I would tell them not to worry. While my personal belief is that anyone can be a reporter or editor, I also know that quality counts. And that the "viral" nature of the Internet means that when people find quality, they let other people know about it. Even nontraditional media sites online will survive only if the quality of their information is trusted. The future of online news will demand more good reporters and editors, not fewer.
So I was intrigued when
Newsweek
recently published a story called "Revenge of the Expert". It argued that expertise would be the main component of "Web 3.0". "The wisdom of the crowds has peaked," says Jason Calacanis, founder of the Maholo "people-powered search engine" and a former AOL executive. "Web 3.0 is taking what we"ve built in Web 2.0—the wisdom of the crowds—and putting an editorial layer on it of truly talented, compensated people to make the product more trusted and refined." Well, yes and no. Sure, it is important for people to trust the information they find online. And as the Newsweek article argues, the need for people to find trusted information online is increasing, thus the need for more expertise. But the article fails to mention the most important feature of the world of digital information. It"s not expertise—it"s choice.
In many cases the sites that people come to trust are built on nontraditional models of expertise. Look at sites like Digg.com, Reddit.com, or Slashdot.com. There, users provide the expertise on which others depend. When many users select a particular story, that story accumulates votes of confidence, which often lead other users to choose that story. The choices of the accumulated community are seen as more trustworthy than the "gatekeeper" model of traditional news and information. Sometimes such sites highlight great reporting from traditional media. But often they bring forward bits of important information that are ignored (or missed) by "experts". It"s sort of the "open source" idea of information—a million eyes looking on the Web for information is better than a few.
Jay Rosen, who writes the PressThink blog, says in an e-mail that he"s seen this kind of story before, calling it a "kind of pathetic" trend reporting. "I said in 2006, when starting NewAssignment. Net, that the strongest editorial combinations will be pro-am. I still think that. Why? Because for most reporters covering a big sprawling beat, it"s still true what Dan Gillmor said: "My readers know more than I do." And it"s still the case that tapping into that knowledge is becoming more practical because of the Internet."
J. D. Lasica, a social-media strategist and former editor, also says he sees no departure from the "wisdom of the crowds" model. "I"ve seen very little evidence that the sweeping cultural shifts we"ve seen in the past half dozen years show any signs of retreating," Mr. Lasica says. "Young people now rely on social networks ... to take cues from their friends on which movies to see, books to read... And didn"t "Lonely Planet Guide" explore this terrain for travel and Zagat"s for dining back in the "90s?"
In many cases, traditional media is still the first choice of online users because the reporters and editors of these media outlets have created a level of trust for many people—but not for everyone. When you combine the idea of expertise with the idea of choice, you discover nontraditional information sites that become some of the Internet"s most trusted places. Take SCOTUSblog.com, written by lawyers about cases in the Supreme Court. It has become the place to go for other lawyers, reporters, and editors to find in-depth information about important cases. The Internet also allows individuals to achieve this level of trust. For instance, the Scobleizer.com blog written by Robert Scoble. Mr. Scoble, a former Microsoft employee and tech expert, is widely seen as one of the most important people to read when you want to learn what"s happening in the world of technology. He built his large audience on the fact that people trust his writing.
To me, it"s the best of all possible information worlds.
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单选题 Questions 19—22
单选题 The city water pipes in Rome were usually of baked clay or
lead; copper was sometimes used and also hollowed stone. For the large supply
conduits leading to the city the Romans used covered channels with free water
surfaces, rather than pipes. Perhaps this choice was a matter of economics, for
apparently they could make lead pipes up to 15 inches in diameter. While pipes
can follow the profile of undulating ground, with the pressure increasing in the
lower areas, channels cannot. They must slope continuously downwards, because
water in channels does not normally flow uphill; and the grade must be flat,
from 1 in 60 in small channels to perhaps 1 in 3,000 in large ones, to keep the
water speed down to a few feet per second. Thus the main supply channels or
aqueducts had long lengths of flat grade and where they crossed depressions or
valleys they were carried on elevated stone bridges in the form of tiered
arches. At the beginning of the Christian era there were over 30 miles of these
raised aqueducts in the 250 miles of channels and tunnels bringing water to
Rome. The channels were up to 6 feet wide and 5 to 8 feet high. Sometimes
channels were later added on the tops of existing ones. The remains of some of
these aqueducts still grace the skyline on the outskirts of Rome and elsewhere
in Europe similar ruins are found. Brick and stone drains were
constructed in various parts of Rome. The oldest existing one is the Cloaca
Maxima which follows the course of an old stream. It dates back at least to the
third century B.C. Later the drains were used for sewage, flushed by water from
the public baths and fountains, as well as street storm run-off.
The truly surprising aspect of the achievements of all the ancient
hydraulic artisans is the lack of theoretical knowledge behind their designs.
Apart from the hydrostatics of Archimedes, there was no sound understanding of
the most elementary principles of fluid behaviour. Sextus Frontinus, Rome's
water commissioner around A.D. 100, did not fully realize that in order to
calculate the volume rate of flow in a channel it is necessary to allow for the
speed of the flow as well as the area of cross-section. The Romans' flow
standard was the rate at which water would flow through a bronze pipe roughly
4/3 inch in diameter and 9 inches long. When this pipe was connected to the side
of a water-supply pipe or channel as a delivery outlet, it was assumed that the
outflow was at the standard rate. In fact, the amount of water delivered
depended not only on the cross-sectional area of the outlet pipe but also on the
speed of water flowing through it and this speed depended on the pressure in the
supply pipe.
单选题I don't think Jill would be a good teacher. She's got ______ patience with children. [A] plenty [B] much [C] less [D] little
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{{B}}Questions 13 to 17 are based on the following
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单选题Which best expresses the change since the seventeenth century in the perception people have of their relationship to their bodies?