单选题Questions 26-30 The case for college has been accepted without question for more than a generation. All high school graduates ought to go, says conventional wisdom and statistical evidence, because college will help them earn more money, become "better" people, and learn to be more responsible citizens than those who don"t go. But college has never been able to work its magic for everyone. And now that close to half our high school graduates are attending, those who don"t fit the pattern are becoming more numerous, and more obvious. College graduates are selling shoes and driving taxis; college students interfere with each other"s experiments and write false letters of recommendation in the intense competition for admission to graduate school. Others find no stimulation in their studies, and drop out often encouraged by college administrators. Some observers say the fault is with the young people themselves--they are spoiled and they are expecting too much. But that is a condemnation of the students as a whole, and doesn"t explain all campus unhappiness. Others blame the state of the world, and they are partly right. We have been told that young people have to go to college because our economy can"t absorb an army of untrained eighteen-year-olds. But disappointed graduates are learning that it can no longer absorb an army of trained twenty-two-year-olds, either. Some adventuresome educators and watchers have openly begun to suggest that college may not be the best, the proper, the only place for every young person after the completion of high school. We may have been looking at all those surveys and statistics upside down, it seems, and through the rosy glow of our own remembered college experiences. Perhaps college doesn"t make people intelligent, ambitious, happy, liberal, or quick to learn things--may be it is just the other way around, and intelligent, ambitious, happy, liberal, quick-learning people are merely the ones who have been attracted to college in the first place. And perhaps all those successful college graduates would have been successful whether they had gone to college or not. This is heresy to those of us who have been brought up to believe that if a little schooling is good, more has to be much better. But contrary evidence is beginning to mount up.

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单选题 Every so often we read of a star trader who lost so much money that he gave back all the profits he made over several years and shook his bank to its foundations. How does this happen? Were the bank's risk managers mistaken about this trader's skill? Maybe. But recent research suggests an alternative explanation—that the winning streak changed the trader. Human biology can help explain what drives traders to acts of folly. When we take on risk, including financial risk, we don't just think about it; we also prepare for it physically. Body and brain fuse as a single functioning unit. Consider what happens on the trading floor when news flashes across the wire. Traders' senses are placed on high alert. Breathing accelerates; a thumping heart gears up for action. Muscles tense, stomachs knot, and sweating begins, a sign of anticipatory cooling. We do not regard information as computers do, dispassionately. We register it physically. My colleagues at the University of Cambridge and I have conducted a series of experiments on London trading floors and found that during a winning streak, our biology can overreact and our risk taking can become pathological. When males enter competition, their testosterone levels surge, increasing their hemoglobin and hence their blood's capacity to carry oxygen, and in the brain increasing their confidence and appetite for risk. The winner emerges with even higher levels of testosterone, and this heightens his chances of winning yet again, leading to a positive feedback loop known in animal behavior as the winner effect. For athletes preparing to compete, traders buying risky assets or even politicians gearing up for an election, this is a moment of transformation, what the French in the Middle Ages called "the hour between dog and wolf". At some point in this upward spiral of testosterone and victory, however, judgment becomes impaired. Effective risk taking morphs into overconfidence, and traders on a winning streak may take on positions of ever increasing size with ever worsening risk-reward trade-offs. What happens to traders' biology if these positions blow up? Their stress response goes into overdrive. The uncertainty people feel during a crisis can raise stress hormones and promote feelings of anxiety, a selective recall of disturbing memories and a tendency to find danger where none exists. The stress response may foster irrational risk aversion, impairing a person's ability to manage positions taken on in more optimistic times. In short, traders' biology may cause them to take too much risk when on a winning streak and then too little when the market needs it most during a crisis. Risk managers at banks need to understand this biology. The statistical tools they rely on cannot catch the subterranean shifts taking place in their traders' risk appetite. Risk managers could, however, learn from sports scientists how to spot and manage exuberance, fatigue and stress. They may have to manage their traders much as coaches manage their athletes. And that means occasionally pulling them off the field until their biology resets.

单选题 The biggest danger facing the global airline industry is not the effects of terrorism, war, SARS and economic downturn. It is that these blows, which have helped ground three national flag carriers and force two American airlines into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, will divert attention from the inherent weaknesses of aviation, which they have exacerbated. As in the crisis that attended the first Gulf war, many airlines hope that traffic will soon bounce back, and a few catastrophic years will be followed by fuller planes, happier passengers and a return to profitability. Yet the industry's problems are deeper—and older—than the trauma of the past two years implies. As the centenary of the first powered flight approaches in December, the industry it launched is still remarkably primitive. The car industry, created not long after the Wright Brothers made history, is now a global industry dominated by a dozen firms, at least half of which make good profits. Yet commercial aviation consists of 267 international carriers and another 500-plus domestic ones. The world's biggest carrier, American Airlines, has barely 7% of the global market, whereas the world's biggest carmaker, General Motors, has (with its associated firms) about a quarter of the world's automobile market. Aviation has been incompletely deregulated, and in only two markets: America and Europe. Everywhere else deals between governments dictate who flies under what rules. These aim to preserve state-owned national flag-carriers, run for prestige rather than profit. And numerous restrictions on foreign ownership impede cross-border airline mergers. In America, the big network carders face barriers to exit, which have kept their route networks too large. Trade unions resisting job cuts and Congressmen opposing route closures in their territory conspire to block change. In Europe, liberalization is limited by bilateral deals that prevent, for instance, British Airways (BA) flying to America from Frankfurt or Paris, or Lufthansa offering transatlantic flights from London's Heathrow. To use the car industry analogy, it is as if only Renaults were allowed to drive on French motorways. In airlines, the optimists are those who think that things are now so bad that the industry has no option but to evolve. Frederick Reid, president of Delta Air Lines. said earlier this year that events since the September llth attacks are the equivalent of a meteor strike, changing the climate, creating a sort of nuclear winter and leading to a "compressed evolutionary cycle". So how. looking on the bright side. might the industry look after five years of accelerated development?

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单选题Questions 27—30

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

单选题 {{B}}Questions 19-22{{/B}}

单选题It is all very well to blame traffic jams, the cost of petrol and the quick pace of modem life, but manners on the roads are becoming horrible. Everybody knows that the nicest men become monsters behind the wheel. It is ail very well, again, to have a tiger in the tank, but to have one in the driver's seat is another matter altogether. You might tolerate the odd road-hog, the rude and inconsiderate driver, but nowadays the well-mannered motorist is the exception to the rule. Perhaps the situation calls for a "Be Kind to Other Drivers" campaign, otherwise it may get completely out of hand. Road politeness is not only good manners, but good sense too, It takes the most coolheaded and good-tempered of drivers to resist the temptation to revenge when subjected to uncivilized behavior. On the other hand, a little politeness goes a long way towards relieving the tensions of motoring. A friendly nod or a wave of acknowledgement in response to an act of politeness helps to create an atmosphere of goodwill and tolerance so necessary in modem traffic conditions. But such acknowledgements of politeness are ail too rare today. Many drivers nowadays don't even seem able to recognize politeness when they see it. However, misplaced politeness can also be dangerous. Typical examples are the driver who brakes violently to allow a car to emerge from a side street at some hazard to following traffic, when a few seconds later the road would be clear anyway; or the man who waves a child across a zebra crossing into the path of oncoming vehicles that may be unable to stop in time. The same goes for encouraging old ladies to cross the road wherever and whenever they care to. It always amazes me that the highways are not covered with the dead bodies of these grannies. A veteran driver, whose manners are faultless, told me it would help if motorists learnt to filter correctly into traffic streams one at a time without causing the total blockages that give rise to bad temper. Unfortunately, modem motorists can't even learn to drive, let alone master the subtler aspects of roadsmanship. Years ago the experts warned us that the car-ownership explosion would demand a lot more give-and-take from all road users. It is high time for all of us to take this message to heart.

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单选题 Questions 11～15 In Barcelona the Catalonians call them Castells, but these aren't stereotypical castles in Spain. These castles are made up of human beings, not stone. The people who perform this agile feat of acrobatics are called castellers, and to see their towers take shape is to observe a marvel of human cooperation. First the castellers form what looks like a gigantic rugby scrummage. They are the foundation blocks of the castle. Behind them, other people press together, forming outward-radiating ramparts of inward-pushing muscle, flying buttresses for the castle. Then sturdy but lighter castellers scramble over the backs of those at the bottom and stand, barefoot, on their shoulders—then still others, each time adding a higher "story". These human towers can rise higher than small apartment buildings, nine "stories", 35 feet into the air. Then, just when it seems this tower of humanity can't defy gravity any longer, a little kid emerges from the crowd and climbs straight up to the top. Arms extended, the child grins while waving to the cheering crowd far below. Dressed in their traditional costumes, the castellers seem to epitomize an easier time, before Barcelona became a world metropolis and the Mediterranean's most dynamic city. But when you observe them up close, in their street clothes, at practice, you see there's nothing easy about what the castellers do—and that they are not merely reenacting an ancient ritual. None of the castellers can give a logical answer as to why they love doing this. But Victor Luna, 16, touches me on the shoulder and says in English: "We do it because it's beautiful. We do it because we are Catalan. " Barcelona's mother tongue is Catalan, and to understand Barcelona, you must understand two words of Catalan: seny and rauxa. Seny pretty much translates as common sense, or the ability to make money, arrange things, and get things done. Rauxa is reminiscent of our words "raucous" and "ruckus". What makes the castellers' revealing of the city is that they embody rauxa and seny. The idea of a human castle is rauxa—it defies common sense—but to watch one going up is to see seny in action. Success is based on everyone working together to achieve a shared goal. The success of Carlos Tusquets' bank, Fibanc, shows seny at work in everyday life. The bank started as a family concern and now employs hundreds. Tusquets said it exemplifies how the economy in Barcelona is different. Entrepreneurial seny demonstrates why Barcelona and Catalonia—the ancient region of which Barcelona is the capital—are distinct from the rest of Spain yet essential to Spain's emergence, after centuries of repression, as a prosperous, democratic European country. Catalonia, with Barcelona as its dynamo, has turned into an economic powerhouse. Making up 6 percent of Spain's territory, with a sixth of its people, it accounts for nearly a quarter of Spain's production—everything from textiles to computers—even though the rest of Spain has been enjoying its own economic miracle. Hand in hand with seny goes rauxa, and there's no better place to see rauxa in action than on the Ramblas, the venerable, tree-shaded boulevard that, in gentle stages, leads you from the centre of Barcelona down to the port. There are two narrow lanes each way for cars and motorbikes, but it's the wide centre walkway that makes the Ramblas a front-row seat for Barcelona's longest running theatrical event. Plastic armchairs are set out on the sidewalk. Sit in one of them, and an attendant will come and charge you a small fee. Performance artists throng the Ramblas—stilt walkers, witches caked in charcoal dust, Elvis impersonators. But the real stars are the old women and happily playing children, millionaires on motorbikes, and pimps and women who, upon closer inspection, prove not to be. Aficionados (Fans) of Barcelona love to compare notes: "Last night there was a man standing on the balcony of his hotel room," Mariana Bertagnolli, an Italian photographer, told me. "The balcony was on the second floor. He was naked, and he was talking into a ceil phone. " There you have it, Barcelona's essence. The man is naked (rauxa), but he is talking into a cell phone (seny).

单选题A.Nuclearenergywasexpectedtosubstituteelectricitytotallybytheendof1999.B.Nuclearenergydidnotproduceasmuchpowerasthegovernmentexpected.C.Nuclearenergywasusedmorethanelectricityinthelasttwodecades.D.Nuclearenergycouldproducealmostthesamepoweraselectricity.

单选题{{B}}Statements{{/B}} Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear several short statements. These statements will be spoken ONLY ONCE, and you will not find them written on the paper; so you must listen carefully. When you hear a statement, read the answer choices and decide which one is closest in meaning to the statement you have heard. Then write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} In this section, you will read several passages. Each passage is followed by several questions based on its content. You are to choose {{B}}ONE{{/B}} best answer to each question. Answer all the questions following each passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage and write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your {{B}}ANSWER BOOKLET.{{/B}} It was a day that Michael Eisner would undoubtedly like to forget. Sitting in a Los Angeles witness box for four hours last week, the usually unflappable chairman of the Walt Disney Co. struggled to maintain his composure. Eisner's protégé turned nemesis. Jeffrey Katzenberg, his former employee, was seeking $ 500 million in his breach-of-contract suit against Disney, and Eisner was trying to defend his—and his company's integrity. At one point Eisner became flustered when Katzenberg's attorney, Bertram Fields, asked if he recalled telling his biographer, Tony Schwartz, "I think I hate the little midget." Later Eisner recalled that the same day, he had received a fax from Katzenberg meant for Fields, thanking the lawyer for "managing" a magazine story that praised Katzenberg at Eisner's expense: "I said to Schwartz, 'Screw that. If he is going to play this disingenuous game … I simply was not going to pay him his money." Last week's revelations were the latest twist in a dispute that has entertained Hollywood and tarnished Disney's corporate image. The dash began five years ago, when Katzenberg quit Disney after a 10-year reign as studio chief, during which he oversaw production of such animated blockbusters as "The Lion King". Disney's attorneys said that Katzenberg forfeited his bonus—2 percent of profits in perpetuity from all Disney movies, TV shows and stage productions from 1984 to 1994, as well as their sequels and tie-ins—when he left. The company ultimately paid Katzenberg a partial settlement of nearly $117 million, sources say. But talks broke down over how much Disney owed, and the dispute landed in court. Industry insiders never expected that Disney would push it this far. The last Hollywood accounting dispute that aired in public was Art Buchwalds’s lawsuit against Paramount for profits he claimed to be owed from the 1988 Eddie Murphy hit "Coming to America". Paramount chose to fight Buchwald in court—only to wind up paying him $1 million after embarrassing revelations about its business practices. After that, studios made a practice of quietly settling such claims. But Disney under Eisner would rather fight that settle. And he and Katzenberg are both proud, combative types whose business disagreement deepened into personal animus. So far, Disney's image—as well as Eisner's—has taken a beating. In his testimony last week Eisner repeatedly responded to questions by saying "I don't recall" or "I don't know". Katzenberg, by contrast, offered a stack of notes and memos that appeared to bolster his claim. (The Disney executive who negotiated Katzenberg's deal, Frank Wells, died in a helicopter crash five years ago.) The trial has also offered a devastating glimpse into the Magic Kingdom~ s business dealings. Internal documents detail sensitive Disney financial information. One Hollywood lawyer calls a memo sent to Katzenberg from a former Disney top accountant "a road map to riches" for writers, directors and producers eager to press cases against Disney. The company declined requests to comment on the case. The next phase of the trial could be even more embarrassing. As Katzenberg's profit participation is calculated, Eisner will have to argue that his animated treasures are far less valuable than Katzenberg claims. No matter how the judge rules, Disney will look like a loser.

单选题Question 15-18

单选题Global average temperatures are set to rise by 1℃ above pre-industrial levels for the first time, as the world"s climate enters "uncharted territory", scientists at the Met Office said. This year is also expected to be the hottest on record, with the temperatures so far in 2015 beating past records "by a country mile", the meteorologists said. The World Meteorological Organization further announced yesterday that 2016 would be the first year in which the average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be above 400 parts per million (ppm), because of the continued burning of fossil fuels. The three landmark indicators were announced three weeks before a crunch UN summit in Paris starting on 30 November where world leaders including Barack Obama, Xi Jinping and David Cameron will try to reach a legally binding and universal deal on cutting emissions. The Met Office"s data from January to September 2015 already shows global average temperatures have risen by 1℃ compared to pre-industrial times, for the first time. The increase is due to the "unequivocal" influence of increasing carbon emissions combined with the El Nino climate phenomenon currently under way. The Met Office expects the full-year temperature for 2015 to remain above the 1℃ level. In contrast, it was below 0.9C in 2014, marking a sharp increase in climate terms. "This is the first time we"re set to reach the 1℃ marker and it"s clear that it is human influence driving climate into uncharted territory," said Prof Stephen Belcher, "We have passed the halfway mark to the 2℃ target." The announcement of symbolic milestones in the runup to the Paris summit will increase pressure on negotiators to deliver a strong deal to avert the catastrophic global warming expected beyond 2℃ of warming. "Mother Nature has been kind to the French, but it should not be that way," said Prof Myles Allen from Oxford, referring to the impetus the milestones should give to the Paris conference. "International negotiations on climate change should not be in hock to what happens...in the preceding nine months." In any case, he said: "The last three months of 2015 would have to be really odd to change [projections of unprecedented warming for 2015] as we are beating the records by a country mile." Amber Rudd, the UK"s energy and climate change secretary, said: "Climate change is one of the most serious threats we face to our economic prosperity, poverty eradication and global security. Pledges to reduce emissions made by countries [are] just the beginning. We need to ensure that as the costs of clean energy fall, countries can be more ambitious with their climate targets." Climate change is clear in the Central England Temperature record, which is the longest in the world and stretches back to 1772, said Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the University of Reading. "We can see the fingerprint of global warming in our own backyard. Central England has warmed 20% more than the global average and we expect that to continue," he said. The impacts of climate change have been analysed in other research presented yesterday by the UK"s Avoid project. It found that, compared with unchecked global warming, keeping the temperature rise below 2℃ would reduce heatwaves by 89%, flooding by 76%, cropland decline by 41% and water stress by 26%. Joanna Haigh, professor of atmospheric physics said the last UN climate summit in Denmark in 2009 failed, making Paris crucial in preventing widespread damage: "Copenhagen was generally considered a complete disaster, so it is very important that countries get together at Paris." Belcher said 4℃ of warming would be much more harmful than simply doubling the impacts expected with 2℃ . He said the European heatwave of 2003 with 70,000 deaths would be "a rather mild summer" in a 4℃ world. The Met Office report also showed that two-thirds of the world"s "carbon budget"—the maximum CO 2 that can be emitted over time to keep below 2℃—had been used up by the end of 2014. But only one-third of the sea-level rise expected from 2℃ of warming—60cm by 2100—has so far occurred, because of the time it takes for large ice sheets to melt. Prof Andrew Shepherd, at the University of Leeds, said a recent NASA study indicating that ice mass grew in Antarctica from 2003-2008 was contradicted by 57 other studies and had just a 5-10% chance of being a correct prediction.

单选题 I came across an old country guide the other day. It listed all the tradesmen in each village in my part of the country, and it was impressive to see the great variety of services which were available on one's own doorstep in the late Victorian countryside. Nowadays a superficial traveler in rural England might conclude that the only village tradesmen still flourishing were either selling frozen food to the inhabitants or selling antiques to visitors. Nevertheless, this would really be a false impression. Admittedly there has been a contraction of village commerce, but its vigor is still remarkable. Our local grocer's shop, for example, is actually expanding in spite of the competition from supermarkets in the nearest town. Women sensibly prefer to go there and exchange the local news while doing their shopping, instead of queueing up anonymously at a supermarket. And the proprietor knows well that personal service has a substantial cash value. His Prices may be a bit higher than those in the town, but he will deliver anything at any time. His assistants think nothing of bicycling down the village street in their lunch hour to-take a piece of cheese to an old-age pensioner who sent her order by word of mouth with a friend who happened to be passing. The more affluent customers telephone their shopping lists and the goods are on their doorsteps within an hour. They have only to hint at a fancy for some commodity outside the usual stock and the grocer, a red-faced figure, instantly obtains it for them. The village gains from this sort of enterprise, of course. But I also find it satisfactory because a village shop offers one of the few ways in which a modest individualist can still get along in the world without attaching himself to the big battalions of industry or commerce. Most of the village shopkeepers I know, at any rate, are decidedly individualist in their ways. For example, our shoemaker is a formidable figure: a thick-set, irritable man whom children treat with marked respect, knowing that an ill-judged word can provoke an angry eruption at any time. He stares with contempt at the pairs of cheap, mass-produced shoes taken to him for repair: has it come to this, he seems to be saying, that he, a craftsman, should have to waste his skills upon such trash? But we all know he will in fact do excellent work upon them. And he makes beautiful shoes for those who can afford such luxury.

单选题Wheredoestheconversationprobablytakeplace?[A]Athome．[B]Atahotel．[C]Atashop．

单选题Need a ride home for the holidays? Hitchhiking may have fallen out of favor, but a new form of ride sharing has emerged to replace it on—where else?—the Web. Today tens of thousands of Americans go online every month to stick a virtual thumb out in cyberspace, especially during holiday travel seasons. Craigslist.org—the largest ride-sharing forum—expects to receive a 50% increase in requests from users hoping to catch a ride home for Thanksgiving dinner. And why not? As a mode of travel, it"s cheap, fuel efficient and relatively safe. Besides, says Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist, "it"s an adventure." Ride sharing on Craigslist is basically an electronic version of the bulletin boards you find on most college campuses. People seeking rides say where they want to go, and drivers with room to spare arrange a place to meet. Craigslist, which requires no membership and charges no fee, fields 20,000 ride-sharing posts in a typical month, a number that swells to 30,000 during peak travel times. To meet the growing demand, more than a dozen major ride-sharing sites have sprung up, many of them quite sophisticated. At Carpoolworld.com you enter your destination, and the site spits out a list of registered users headed your way. Ridester.com, one of the fastest-growing sites with 11,000 unique users since August, will send you a text message when a potential match arises. It will also bit you with a $2 surcharge for each transaction and take 9.5% off the driver"s fee. How much arc those fees? That depends on what kind of deal you can strike. Ride sharing generally affords more companionship than a train or bus trip. A disclaimer on eRideShare, corn reads, "While the American Automobile Association (AAA) encourages carpooling with someone you know, it warns against ride sharing when you don"t know who is behind the wheel. Ride-sharing sites like Ridester have tried to alleviate safety concerns by requiring users to register and instituting a feedback system in which passengers can rate the quality of their driver. The site also offers an escrow account that holds a passenger"s carpooling fee until the transaction is completed. For now the best advice is the one your mother would give: Don"t get into a car with perfect strangers, and if their driving makes you uncomfortable, ask them to drop you at the nearest bus or train station.

单选题Questions 21-25 What we know of prenatal development makes all this attempt made by a mother to mold the character of her unborn child by studying poetry, art, or mathematics during pregnancy seem utterly impossible. How could such extremely complex influences pass from the mother to the child? There is no connection between their nervous systems. Even the blood vessels of mother and child do not join directly. An emotional shock to the mother will affect her child, because it changes the activity of her glands and so the chemistry in her blood. Any chemical change in the mother"s blood will affect the child for better or worse. But we cannot see how a liking for mathematics or poetic genius can be dissolved in blood and produce a similar liking or genius in the child. In our discussion of instincts we saw that there was reason to believe that whatever we inherit must be of some very simple sort rather than any complicated or very definite kind of behavior. It is certain that no one inherits a knowledge of mathematics. It may be, however, that children inherit more or less of a rather general ability that we may call intelligence. If very intelligent children become deeply interested in mathematics, they will probably make a success of that study. As for musical ability, it may be that what is inherited is an especially sensitive ear, a peculiar structure of the hands or the vocal organs connections between nerves and muscles that make it comparatively easy to learn the movements a musician must execute, and particularly vigorous emotions. If these factors are all organized around music, the child may become a musician. The same factors, in other circumstances might be organized about some other center of interest. The rich emotional equipment might find expression in poetry. The capable fingers might develop skill in surgery. It is not the knowledge of music that is inherited then, nor even the love of it, but a certain bodily structure that makes it comparatively easy to acquire musical knowledge and skill. Whether that ability shall be directed toward music or some other undertaking may be decided entirely by forces in the environment in which a child grows up.