单选题The traditional two-parent family is fast giving way in the America of the 1980s to households in which one adult must juggle the often enormous demands of making a living and raising children. For many, single parenthood is synonymous with economic need. More than 3 million single-parent families live in poverty, according to The Census Bureau, and joblessness, plus cuts in public assistance, has helped drive up the number of poor children in such families by about 20 percent in Just three years. The biggest burden falls on households that are headed by single mothers. Nearly half of these families are below the poverty "as" the most compelling social fact "of the last 10 years". This deprivation is not only hard on its victims but expensive for taxpayers since single women and their offspring receives 40 to 80 percent of the benefits in various welfare programs that cost the government a total of 40 billion dollars a year. Despite cuts in benefits averaging 10 percent, rising number of eligible women are likely to keep the overall cost up, according to economist Alice Rivlin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office. Fanning the single-parent spiral are two dramatic offshoots of the sexual revolution: divorce and unwed motherhood. The divorce rate has doubled in the last 15 years, and the number of illegitimate births has more than doubled to 700,000 annually. One tenth of white children and more than one half of black children are now born out of wedlock. What"s more, there is a strong tendency now for women and teenagers who have illegitimate children to keep them rather than put them up for adoption. Typical is Rufina Nera of Los Angles. When she became pregnant at 15, abortion was never mentioned in her home. Instead, her mother encouraged her to have the child, says Nera, adding: "She even gave a baby shower for me." Now, Nera shares a crowded bedroom with her 2-year-old daughter as well as her sister. She holds no hope of help from the father, although she remarked during the only time he saw the child that she was prettier than his other illegitimate baby. Even so, Nera tries to keep her attention on two goals: Moving into her own apartment and getting enough education to become a secretary or a nurse. Her first step along that path is attending Ramona High School, an "opportunity school" where she and 110 other girls study while their babies are cared for in a nursery.

单选题The author of the passage holds that ______.

单选题 {{B}}Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following conversation.{{/B}}

单选题The author's analysis of the impulse toward bodily transformation is most weakened by a failure to explore the ______.

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} In this part of the test, you will hear several short talks and conversations. After each of these, you will hear a few questions. Listen carefully because you will hear the talk or conversation and questions {{B}}ONLY ONCE.{{/B}} When you hear a question, read the four answer choices and choose the best answer to that question. Then write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your {{B}}ANSWER BOOKLET.{{/B}} {{B}}Questions 11—14{{/B}}

单选题Questions 11—14

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单选题Some people believe that international sport creates goodwill between the nations and that if countries play games together they will learn to live together. Others say that the opposite is true: that international contests encourage false national pride and lead to misunderstanding and hatred. There is probably some truth in both arguments, but in recent years the Olympic games have done little to support the view that sports encourages international brotherhood. Not only was there the tragic incident involving the murder of athletes, but the Games were also ruined by lesser incidents caused principally by minor national contests. One country received its second-place medals with visible indignation after the hockey final. There had been noisy scenes at the end of the hockey match, the losers objecting to the final decisions. They were convinced that one of their goals should not have been disallowed and that their opponents' victory was unfair. Their manager was in a rage when he said: "This wasn't hockey. Hockey and the International Hockey Federation are finished." The president of the Federation said later that such behavior could result in the suspension of the team for at least three years. The American basketball team announced that they would not yield first place to Russia, after a disputable end to their contest. The game had ended in disturbance. It was thought at first that the United States had won, by a single point, but it was announced that there were three seconds still to play. A Russian player then threw the ball from one end of the court to the other, and another player popped it into the basket. It was the first time the USA had ever lost an Olympic basketball match. An appeal jury debated the matter for four and a half hours before announcing that the result would stand. The American players then voted not to receive the silver medals. Incidents of this kind will continue as long as sport is played competitively rather than for the love of the game. The suggestion that athletes should compete as individuals, or in non-national teams, might be too much to hope for. But in the present organization of the Olympics there is far too much that encourages aggressive patriotism.

单选题 Questions 15-18

单选题Because of satellite links which now enable broadcast news organizations to originate live programming from any part of the globe, the entire world is becoming one giant sound stage for television news. As a result, Marshall McLean"s reference to the post-television world as being a single "global village" is gaining new acceptance and Shakespeare"s famous line, "all the world"s a stage," has taken on an interesting new twist in meaning. But, beyond the philosophical dimensions of global television communications there are some dramatic, political implications. Even before today"s worldwide satellite links were possible, the growing effect of broadcast news technology on national and international politics was becoming increasingly evident. Because television is a close-up medium and a medium that seems to most readily involve emotions, it is most effective when it is revealing the plights of people. It was probably the appalling footage of the Nazi death camps that first demonstrated the power of motion pictures and television to affect the collective consciousness of a world audience. In the United States during the 50"s and 60"s the power of television to stir the consciousness of large numbers of people was demonstrated in another way. Night after night graphic news footage of the civil rights struggle was brought into U.S. homes. Years later, this role was to take on a new and even more controversial dimension during the Vietnam War. Reading about war was one thing; but war took on a deeper and more unsavory dimension when it was exported directly into U.S. living rooms night after night by television. Public opinion eventually turned against the war and to some measure against President Johnson who was associated with it. As a result of the public opinion backlash during these times, the Pentagon was thereafter much more careful to control what foreign correspondents and TV crews would be allowed to see and report. It was during this time that President Carter brought the issue of human rights to the centre of his foreign policy, and, to some degree, to the centre of international politics. "Human rights are the soul of our foreign policy," Carter said. "Of all human rights the most basic is to be free of arbitrary violence, whether that violence comes from government, from terrorists, from criminals, or from self-appointed messiahs operating under the cover of politics or religion. " Although political viewpoints have changed since then, because of the emotional nature of human rights, this has emerged as the "soul" of television news. The transgression of human rights has been the focus of many, if not most, major international television news stories. The reporting of these stories has created outrage in the world, prompted attempts at censorship by dictators, and in many cases resulted in the elimination of human rights abuses.

单选题Questions 16～20 The miserable fate of Enron"s employees will be a landmark in business history, one of those awful events that everyone agrees must never be allowed to happen again. This urge is understandable and noble: thousands have lost virtually all their retirement savings with the demise of Enron stock. But making sure it never happens again may not be possible, because the sudden impoverishment of those Enron workers represents something even larger than it seems. It"s the latest turn in the unwinding of one of the most audacious promise of the 20th century. The promise was assured economic security—even comfort—for essentially everyone in the developed world. With the explosion of wealth, that began in the 19th century it became possible to think about a possibility no one had dared to dream before. The fear at the center of daily living since caveman days—lack of food, warmth, and shelter—would at last lose its power to terrify. That remarkable promise became reality in many ways. Governments created welfare systems for anyone in need and separate programs for the elderly (Social Security in the U. S.). Labor unions promised not only better pay for workers but also pensions for retirees. Giant corporations came into being and offered the possibility—in some cases the promise—of lifetime employment plus guaranteed pensions. The cumulative effect was a fundamental change in how millions of people approached life itself, a reversal of attitude that most rank as one of the largest in human history. For millennia the average person"s stance toward providing for himself had been. Ultimately I"m on my own. Now it became, ultimately I"ll be taken care of. The early hints that this promise might be broken on a large scale came in the 1980s. U.S. business had become uncompetitive globally and began restructuring massively, with huge layoffs. The trend accelerated in the 1990s as the bastions of corporate welfare faced reality. IBM ended it"s no-layoff policy. AT ＆ T fired thousands, many of whom found such a thing simply incomprehensible, and a few of whom killed themselves. The other supposed guarantors of our economic security were also in decline. Labor-union membership and power fell to their lowest levels in decades. President Clinton signed a historic bill scaling back welfare. Americans realized that Social Security won"t provide social security for any of us. A less visible but equally significant trend affected pensions. To make costs easier to control, companies moved away from defined-benefit pension plans, which obligate them to pay out specified amounts years in the future, to defined contribution plans, which specify only how much goes into the play today. The most common type of defined-contribution plan is the 401(k). The significance of the 401(k) is that it puts most of the responsibility for a person"s economic fate back on the employee. Within limits the employee must decide how much goes into the plan each year and how it gets invested—the two factors that will determine how much it"s worth when the employee retires. Which brings us back to Enron? Those billions of dollars in vaporized retirement savings went in employees" 401(k) accounts. That is, the employees chose how much money to put into those accounts and then chose how to invest it. Enron matched a certain proportion of each employees 401 (k) contribution with company stock, so everyone was going to end up with some Enron in his or her portfolio; but that could be regarded as a freebie, since nothing compels a company to match employee contributions at all. At least two special features complicate the Enron case. First, some shareholders charge top management with illegally covering up the company"s problems, prompting investors to hang on when they should have sold. Second, Enron"s 401(k) accounts were locked while the company changed plan administrators in October, when the stock was falling, so employees could not have closed their accounts if they wanted to. But by far the largest cause of this human tragedy is that thousands of employees were heavily overweighed in Enron stock. Many had placed 100% of their 401(k) assets in the stock rather than in the 18 other investment options they were offered. Of course that wasn"t prudent, but it"s what some of them did. The Enron employees" retirement disaster is part of the larger trend away from guaranteed economic security. That"s why preventing such a thing from ever happening again may be impossible. The huge attitudinal shift to I"ll-be-taken-care-of took at least a generation. The shift back may take just as long. It won"t be complete until a new generation of employees see assured economic comfort as a 20th century quirk, and understand not just intellectually but in their bones that, like most people in most times and places, they"re on their own.

单选题Questions 1-5 I live in the land of Disney, Hollywood and year-round sun, You may think people in such a glamorous, fun-filled place are happier than others. If so, you have some mistaken ideas about the nature of happiness. Many intelligent people still equate happiness with fun. The truth is that fun and happiness have little or nothing in common. Fun is what we experience during an act. Happiness is what we experience after an act. It is a deeper, more abiding emotion. Going to an amusement park or ball game, watching a movie or television, are fun activities that help us relax, temporarily forget our problems and maybe even laugh. But they do not bring happiness, because their positive effects end when the fun ends. I have often thought that if Hollywood stars have a role to play, it is to teach us that happiness has nothing to do with fun. These rich, beautiful individuals have constant access to glamorous parties, fancy cars, expensive homes, everything that spells "happiness". But in memoir after memoir, celebrities reveal the unhappiness hidden beneath all their fun: depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, broken marriages, troubled children and profound loneliness. Ask a bachelor why he resists marriage even though he finds dating to be less and less satisfying. If he"s honest, he will tell you that he is afraid of making a commitment. For commitment is in fact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun, adventure and excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most distinguishing features. Similarly, couples that choose not to have children are deciding in favor of painless fun over painful happiness. They can dine out whenever they want and sleep as late as they want. Couples with infant children are lucky to get a whole night"s sleep or a three-day vacation. I don"t know any parent who would choose the word fun to describe raising children. Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is one of the most liberating realizations we can ever come to. It liberates time. now we can devote more hours to activities that can genuinely increase our happiness. It liberates money, buying that new car or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy: we now understand that all those rich and glamorous people we were so sure are happy because they are always having so much fun actually may not be happy at all.

单选题Questions 27-30

单选题According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true about NNI?

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} In this part of the test, you will hear several short talks and conversations. After each of these, you will hear a few questions. Listen carefully because you will hear the talk or conversation and questions {{B}}ONLY ONCE.{{/B}} When you hear a question, read the four answer choices and choose the best answer to that question. Then write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your {{B}}ANSWER BOOKLET.{{/B}} {{B}}Questions 11—14{{/B}}

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单选题 Questions 16～20 The striving of countries in Central Europe to enter the European Union may offer an unprecedented chance to the continent's Gypsies (or Roman) to be recognized as a nation, albeit one without a defined territory. And if they were to achieve that they might even seek some kind of formal place—at least a total population outnumbers that of many of the Union's present and future countries. Some experts put the figure at 4m-plus; some proponents of Gypsy rights go as high as 15m. Unlike Jews, Gypsies have had no known ancestral land to hark back to. Though their language is related to Hindi, their territorial origins are misty. Romanian peasants held them to be born on the moon Other Europeans (wrongly) thought them migrant Egyptians, hence the derivative Gypsy. Most probably they were itinerant metal workers and entertainers who drifted west from India in the 7th century. However, since communism in Central Europe collapsed a decade ago, the notion of Romanestan as a landless nation founded on Gypsy culture has gained ground. The International Romany Union, which says it stands for 10m Gypsies in more than 30 countries, is fostering the idea of "self-rallying". It is trying to promote a standard and written form of the language; it waves a Gypsy flag (green with a wheel) when it lobbies in such places as the United Nations; and in July it held a congress in Prague, The Czech capital, where President Vaclav Havel said that Gypsies in his own country and elsewhere should have a better deal. At the congress a Slovak-born lawyer, Emil Scuka, was elected president of the International Romany Union. Later this month a group of elected Gypsy politicians, including members of parliament, mayors and local councilors from all over Europe (OSCE), to discuss how to persuade more Gypsies to get involved in politics. The International Romany Union is probably the most representative of the outfits that speak for Gypsies, but that is not saying a lot. Of the several hundred delegates who gathered at its congress, few were democratically elected; oddly, none came from Hungary, whose Gypsies are perhaps the world's best organized, with some 450 Gypsy bodies advising local councils there. The union did, however, announce its ambition to set up a parliament, but 'how it would actually be elected was left undecided. So far, the European Commission is wary of encouraging Gypsies to present themselves as a nation. This might, it is feared, open a Pandora's Box already containing Basques, Corsicans and other awkward peoples. Besides, acknowledging Gypsies as a nation might backfire, just when several countries, particularly Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, are beginning to treat them better, in order to qualify for EU membership. "The EU's whole premise is to overcome differences, not to highlight them," says a nervous Eurocrat. But the idea that the Gypsies should win some kind of special recognition as Europe's largest continent wide minority, and one with a terrible history of persecution, is catching on. Gypsies have suffered many pogroms over the centuries. In Romania, the country that still has the largest number of them (more than 1m), in the 19th century they were actually enslaved. Hitler tried to wipe them out, along with the Jews. "Gypsies deserve some space within European structures," says Jan Marinus Wiersma, a Dutchman in the European Parliament who suggests that one of the current commissioners should be responsible for Gypsy affairs. Some prominent Gypsies say they should be more directly represented, perhaps with a quota in the European Parliament. That, they argue, might give them a boost. There are moves afoot to help them to get money for, among other things, a Gypsy university. One big snag is that Europe's Gypsies are, in fact, extremely heterogeneous. They belong to many different, and often antagonistic, clans and tribes, with no common language or religion, Their self-proclaimed leaders have often proved quarrelsome and corrupt. Still, says, Dimitrina Petrova, head of the European Roma Rights Center in Budapest, Gypsies' shared experience of suffering entitles them to talk of one nation; their potential unity, she says, stems from "being regarded as sub-human by most majorities in Europe. " And they have begun to be a bit more pragmatic. In Slovakia and Bulgaria, for instance, Gypsy political parties are trying to form electoral blocks that could win seats in parliament. In Macedonia, a Gypsy party already has some—and even runs a municipality. Nicholas Gheorge, an expert on Gypsy affairs at the OSCE, reckons that, spread over Central Europe, there are now about 20 Gypsy MPS and mayors, 400-odd local councilors, and a growing number of businessmen and intellectuals. That is far from saying that they have the people or the cash to forge a nation. But, with the Gypsy question on the EU's agenda in Central Europe, they are making ground.

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

单选题The Supreme Court"s decisions on physician-assisted suicide carry important implications for how medicine seeks to relieve dying patients of pain and suffering. Although it ruled that there is no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, the Court in effect supported the medical principle of "double effect", a centuries-old moral principle holding that an action having two effects--a good one that is intended and a harmful one that is foreseen—is permissible if the actor intends only the good effect. Doctors have used that principle in recent years to justify using high doses of morphine to control terminally ill patients" pain, even though increasing dosages will eventually kill the patient. Nancy Dubler, director of Montefiore Medical Center, contends that the principle will shield doctors who "until now have very, very strongly insisted that they could not give patients sufficient medication to control their pain if that might hasten death." George Annas, chair of the health law department at Boston University, maintains that, as long as a doctor prescribes a drug for a legitimate medical purpose, the doctor has done nothing illegal even if the patient uses the drug to hasten death. "It"s like surgery," he says. "We don"t call those deaths homicides because the doctors didn"t intend to kill their patients, although they risked their death. If you"re a physician, you can risk your patient"s suicide as long as you don"t intend their suicide." On another level, many in the medical community acknowledge that the assisted-suicide debate has been fueled in part by the despair of patients for whom modem medicine has prolonged the physical agony of dying. Just three weeks before the Court"s ruling on physician-assisted suicide, the National Academy of Science (NAS) released a two-volume report, Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life. It identifies the undertreatment of pain and the aggressive use of "ineffectual and forced medical procedures that may prolong and even dishonor the period of dying" as the twin problems of end-of-life care. The profession is taking steps to require young doctors to train in hospices, to test knowledge of aggressive pain management therapies, to develop a Medicare billing code for hospital-based care, and to develop new standards for assessing and treating pain at the end of life. Annas says lawyers can play a key role in insisting that these well-meaning medical initiatives translate into better care. "Large numbers of physicians seem unconcerned with the pain their patients are needlessly and predictably suffering," to the extent that it constitutes "systematic patient abuse". He says medical licensing boards "must make it clear... that painful deaths are presumptively ones that are incompetently managed and should result in license suspension."