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单选题The author cites Alexis de Tocqueville's words at the beginning of the passage to show that ______.

单选题 Every day of our lives we are in danger of instant death from small high-speed missiles from space—the lumps of rocky or metallic debris which continuously bombard the Earth. The chances of anyone actually being hit, however, are very low, although there are recorded instances of "stones from the sky" hurting people, and numerous accounts of damage to buildings and other objects. At night this extraterrestrial material can be seen as "fireballs" or "shooting stars", burning their way through our atmosphere. Most, on reaching our atmosphere, become completely vaporised. The height above ground at which these objects become sufficiently heated to be visible is estimated to be about 60-100 miles. Meteorites that have fallen on buildings have sometimes ended their long lonely space voyage incongruously under beds, inside flower pots or even, in the case of one that landed on a hotel in North Wales, within a chamber pot. Before the era of space exploration it was confidently predicted that neither men nor space vehicles would survive for long outside the protective blanket of the Earth's atmosphere. It was, thought that once in space they would be seriously damaged as a result of the incessant downpour of meteorites falling towards our planet at the rate of many millions every day. Even the first satellites showed that the danger from meteorites had been greatly overestimated by the pessimists, but although it has not happened yet, it is certain that one day a spacecraft will be badly damaged by a meteorite. The greatest single potential danger to life on Earth undoubtedly comes from outside our planet. Collision with another astronomical body of any size or with a "black hole" could completely destroy the Earth almost instantly. Near misses of bodies larger than or comparable in size to our own planet could be equally disastrous to mankind as they might still result in total or partial disruption. If the velocity of impact were high, collision with even quite small extraterrestrial bodies might cause catastrophic damage to the Earth's atmosphere, oceans and outer crust and thus produce results inimical to life as we know it. The probability of collision with a large astronomical body from outside our Solar System is extremely low, possibly less than once in the lifetime of an average star. We know, however, that our galaxy contains great interstellar dust clouds and some astronomers have suggested that there might also be immense streams of meteorite matter in space that the Solar system may occasionally encounter. Even if we disregard this possibility, our own Solar system itself contains a great number of small astronomical bodies, such as the minor planets or asteroids and the comets, some with eccentric orbits that occasionally bring them close to the Earth's path.

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单选题Which conclusion concerning the term "caucus" is most directly supported by the passage?

单选题 {{B}}Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following interview.{{/B}}

单选题 {{B}}Questions 15-18{{/B}}

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单选题Questions 11—14

单选题 Questions 16～20 The law firm Patrick worked for before he died filed for bankruptcy protection a year after his funeral. After his death, the firm's letterhead properly included him- Patrick S. Lanigan, 1954～1992. He was listed up in the right-hand corner, just above the paralegals. Then the rumors got started and wouldn't stop. Before long, everyone believed he had taken the money and disappeared. After three months, no one on the Gulf Coast believed that he was dead. His name came off the letterhead as the debts piled up. The remaining partners in the law firm were still together, attached unwillingly at the hip by the bondage of mortgages and the bank notes, back when they were rolling and on the verge of serious wealth. They had been joint defendants in several unwinnable lawsuits; thus the bankruptcy. Since Patrick's departure, they had tried every possible way to divorce one another, but nothing would work. Two were raging alcoholics who drank at the office behind locked doors, but never together. The other two were in recovery, still teetering on the brink of sobriety. He took their money. Their millions money. They had already spent long before it arrived, as only lawyers can do, money for their richly renovated office building in downtown Biloxi, money for new homes, yachts, condos in the Caribbean. The money was on the way, approved, the papers signed, orders entered; they could see it, almost touch it when their dead partner—Patrick—snatched it at the last possible second. He was dead. They buried him on February 11, 1992. They had consoled the widow and put his rotten name on their handsome letterhead. Yet six weeks later, he somehow stole their money. So Bogan took his share of the blame. At forty-nine, he was the oldest of the four, and, at the moment, the most stable. He was also responsible for hiring Patrick nine years earlier, and they had brawled over who was to blame. Charles Bogan, the firm's senior partner and its iron hand, had insisted the money be wired from its source into a new account offshore, and this made sense after some discussion. It was ninety million bucks, a third of which the firm would keep, and it would be impossible to hide that kind of money in Biloxi, population fifty thousand. Someone at the bank would talk. Soon everyone would know. All four vowed secrecy, even as they made plans to display as much of their new wealth as possible. There had even been talk of a firm jet, a six-seater, and for this he had received no small amount of grief. Doug Vitrano, the litigator, had made the fateful decision to recommend Patrick as the fifth partner. The other three had agreed, and when Patrick Lanigan was added to the firm name, he had access to virtually every file in the office—Bogan, Rapley, Vitrano, Havarac, and Lanigan, Attorneys and Counselors-at-Law. A large ad in the yellow pages claimed "Specialists in Offshore Injuries." Specialists or not, like most firms they would take almost anything if the fees were lucrative. Lots of secretaries and paralegals, big overhead, and the strongest political connections on the Coast, they were all in their mid-to-late forties. Havarac had been raised by his father on a shrimp boat. His hands were still proudly calloused, and he dreamed of choking Patrick until his neck snapped. Rapley was severely depressed and seldom left his home, where he wrote briefs in a dark office in the attic.

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单选题Questions 23—26

单选题To most people the human face is a compelling object fraught with meaning. But for autistic children, who can"t get a read on other people"s emotions, eye contact is terrifying. When they do look at faces, they tend to stare at the mouth. Fortunately, researchers now think that technology can help overcome the barrier that isolates these kinds. Software that enables robots to respond to a child"s feelings a little bit—but not too much—can help train him or her to interact more freely with people. "The beauty of a robot or software is that it"s not human," and therefore not as intimidating, says Stephen Porges, an autism expert at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Computer-generated faces are already having an impact in the classroom. Psychologist Dominic Massaro at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has created Baldi, a lively computer character, as a stand-in for human teachers. For three years, Baldi and his female counterpart, Baldette, have been giving autistic kids in the Bay School in Santa Cruz lessons in vocabulary and in understanding facial expressions. The character has been so successful that he"s spawned imitators—Baldini in Italian, Baldir in Arabic and Bao in Chinese. Porges thinks that the real role of cartoon personas is not so much to teach patients as to calm them. Autistic kids live in a state of hyperalertness, as if they were constantly suffering stage fright. If technology can put them at ease, Porges argues, social skills will develop naturally. In a recent study, Porges exposed 20 autistic people, ranging from 10 to 21 years old, to engineered speech and music. He removed low frequency sounds, which the body tends to interpret as indicating danger, and exaggerated vocal intonations, much as people dramatize emotions when speaking to infants. After 45 minutes, all but one of the subjects began looking at the eyes of a person on a video screen just as a normal viewer would. The improvement persisted at least a week, but had faded after six months. Porges is now developing headphones that reduce low frequencies. He also hopes to test whether ongoing exposure to the engineered sounds can lead to long-term improvement. Other technology may be effective for less severely autistic children. Whereas normal babies learn from caretakers to mirror emotions—smile at a smile, frown at a frown—autistic children often lack this basic skill. Cognitive scientists Javier Movellan and Marian Stewart Bartlett at the University of California, San Diego, have built a robot that can "read" faces. They hope that playing with the robot and watching it interact with others will inspire autistic children to return the smiles of humans. Commercial emotion-reading software about to hit the market could be a boon for some high functioning autistic and Asperger"s patients in dealing with social situations. Affective Media, a firm near Edinburgh, Scotland, has created a prototype phone that "hears" the emotion in voice messages and conveys it explicitly to the owner. A person checking messages would hear something like this: "You have two bored calls, one surprised call, and one angry call." "Three years ago this was science fiction," says Christian Jones, co-founder of Affective Media. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have built a similar voicemail system, called Emotive Alert, that evaluates a caller"s intonation, speed and volume. It identifies whether a call sounds urgent, informal or formal, and whether the speaker was happy or sad. Emotion-reading software might improve the way we all interact with machines. Computers at call centers may soon be able to alert employees to an irate caller who might need special handling. Scientists at Affective Media, Stanford and Toyota are developing a system for cars that responds to cues in the driver"s voice and face, perhaps turning on appropriate music if a driver seems sad. It"s another barrier emotionally adept software might help overcome.

单选题A.I'dliketomakeanappointmentMondaymorning.B.Imustfinishtypingbeforegoingtobed.C.Ihavetoworkovertimethisweekend.D.Idecidetosleepthisweekendaway.

单选题Why did holidays abroad become a common prize after the war?

单选题 Questions 6～10 It's 3 am, pitch dark and you can't sleep. How can you survive the next day after being awake so long the night before? Difficulty in sleeping is a common problem, but there are ways to escape it. "Falling asleep is something passive and not forceable," says Cornelius Kellner, a sleep specialist. "If you offered someone 1 million euros to fall asleep in 10 minutes, he would not win the money," says Kellner. It's normal to he awake at night occasionally. Difficulty in sleeping is not unusual when under stress. "Fears, worries or aggravation are negative emotions that lead to higher body activity," says Martin Muehlensiep of the sleep clinic at the University of Cologne. Six to eight hours of sleep per night is the normal range in terms of the amount of sleep one should get. Hence it achieves nothing to go to bed at 10 pm and expect to sleep through until 8 am, says Kellner. "Also, the ability to perform is barely reduced after a nearly sleepless night. " When that happens, people often take the wrong course of action the next day. They often attempt to take it easy or even to take a nap, says Muehlensiep. "Then obviously they won't be tired the next evening and will lie awake in bed. " Limit your evening activities to a routine pattern, Muehlensiep recommends. First read, then put on pajamas or a nightgown, then brush your teeth, for example. "Each of these activities will become a signal to the body that it's going to go to bed soon," Muehlensiep says. But what should one do when that doesn't help? Constantly looking at the clock puts pressure on the body. "When that happens, it's better to get out of bed and do a simple activity," Kellner says. Put pictures into an album or iron , for example, until fatigue sets in. People who can't sleep often are those who brood or worry a lot. Kellner advises people who have difficulty sleeping to exploit it and to let their thoughts take them on a journey. "Place yourself consciously in a pleasant situation: on a beach or in a meadow. This can replace the worries at hand. " People whose worries persistently spin around in their heads can try writing them down on a sheet of paper. "This doesn't make them go away, but keeps them for the next day," Kellner says. This often provides enough comfort to allow sleep to set in. Food is best avoided two to three hours before going to beck Coffee, nicotine and alcohol also impede falling asleep and therefore should not be consumed before bed. "Alcohol can be good for falling asleep, but poor for staying asleep," says Muehlensiep. Bananas and milk products—the proven milk and honey method, for example—can help people sleep. They promote regular sleep patterns in the brain.

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

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

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