单选题

单选题Questions 15-18

单选题If books had never been discovered, man would have found some other way of recording his communication. But then, for our consideration, we should include as books everything that is a written record. This would include tablets, papyrus and anything else—including computer diskettes. In the case of music, it would be impossible to think that man can live without it. Looking at primitive cultures, it appears that music is actually a part of the human psyche. When two things are knocked together, music is produced. So for the sake of our discussion, it is intended to restrict the meaning of music to the popularly accepted concept. Music is the pleasing combination of sounds that we like to listen to. Though it is difficult to, we can pretend that these things never existed. In this case we would not miss them today. To compare with recent inventions, let. us look at radio and television. Though we cannot think of life without them today, this is so only from comparatively recent times. There are many of us living today who had seen a time when there was no television. They will tell us that life was not that much different. The same is probably true of radio. But books are a different thing because they, or something akin to them, began thousands of years ago. In the case of music, it goes back even further—perhaps to millions of years. We may be able to imagine a world which never saw books, because books are a human invention. However, in the case' of music this does not seem possible. Pleasing sounds are all around us; like the singing of the birds and the whistling of the wind. Music just seems to be inborn in US and in the world around us. If books did not exist, the world will be a poorer place indeed. Great philosophies like Plato's would become unknown and all the pleasures and lessons we could get from them will be lost forever. Then there is literature like the works of the great masters like Shakespeare, Dickens and Jane Austen. What a somber, miserable world it will be without the pleasures of reading. Since mere are so many other things which depend on reading-like plays, songs and movies—we can expect them to disappear also. It would be a dark and unsatisfying world where knowledge is not propagated; where there ale no books to derive pleasure from. In the case of music: Without it the world will be bleak and cold indeed. It would be a terrible world with no cheery runes, no songs to sing and no great music to lose ourselves in. A world which does not listen to the music of the great masters like Chopin and Beethoven would be a very sorry world. There will not be so many smiles on faces anymore. When we lose music. an expression of a deep part of ourselves—from the soul—is lost. With music, connected activities like dancing will be lost too. A world without music and dancing will bring US back to the Stone Age. Unlike radio, television, telephones and computers, reading and music ale not mere conveniences that we can live without. Reading is crucial for self-expression and for passing on records and knowledge to future generations. Music is part of our very soul. A world without these will not be the world as we know it. In fact. many of us would not want to live in such a world.

单选题What is the best rifle of the passage?

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单选题 Over the years, Allan Rechtschaffen has killed a lot of rats just by keeping them awake. In his sleep laboratory at the University of Chicago, Rechtschaffen places each rat on an enclosed turntable contraption that begins spinning whenever the rodent's brain waves suggest it is beginning to nod off-forcing the rodent to keep moving so that it doesn't bump into a wall. After about a week of enforced consciousness, the rat begins showing some signs of strain. Odd lesions break out on its tail and paws. It becomes irritable. Its body temperature drops even as it attempts to make itself warmer than usual. It eats twice as much food as normal but loses 10 to 15 percent of its body weight. After about 17 days of sleeplessness, the rat dies. What kills it? "We don't know," says Rechtschaffen. Thus it goes in the science of sleep. Rats can last about 16 days without eating, suggesting that sleep is nearly as vital to life as is food. Yet scientists are far from answering the seemingly simple question of what, exactly, sleep is good for. Of course, there's no shortage of hypotheses; insomniacs hoping for some shut-eye might do well to count sleep theories instead of sheep. Many of the most popular theories are extensions of common-sense propositions from human experience. Since we feel rested after sleep, some researchers argue-that sleep must be for rest. Harold Zepelin, professor emeritus in psychology at Michigan's Oakland University, regards sleep as a period of mandatory energy conservation. "We can't afford to be active 24 hours per day," syas Zepelin, so evolution dictated this daily period of hibernation. (Some even argue that one reason sleep evolved in humans was to keep us unconscious and out of harm's way during the night, when we are not exactly the king of beasts.) Smaller animals such as rodents, which have high metabolisms and expend proportionately more energy to make up for the rapid loss of heat that is a geometric consequence of smallness, do tend to sleep more. Larger animals such as giraffes sleep less than five hours each day. But the energy savings from sleep in large animals are so small it is hard to see why they would sleep at all by this theory. Humans save merely 120 kilocalories a night (about the equivalent of an apple) by sleeping rather than staying awake. Moreover, even hibernating animals arouse themselves from torpor to enter sleep and then fall back into hibernation, suggesting that there is a deeper need for sleep than a mere recharging of the body's batteries. Dennis McGinty believes part of the function of sleep is to cool off the brain. The chief of neurophysiology research at Los Angeles's Sepulveda Veterans Hospital, McQmty points to a feedback loop in the brain that seems to trigger sleep when the brain gets too hot. When provided with a bar to increase cage temperature, rats that are kept awake jack up the heat about 10 degrees Celsius. By attempting to get warmer than usual, the rats may be hoping to trigger sleep-inducing neurons. The phenomenon also occurs in humans. "If you exercise in the extreme heat, it practically knocks you out," McGinty notes. Well-trained athletes who are able to increase their body temperature during exercise—unlike us weekend workout warriors—sleep about one hour longer than normal. In essence, a jump in body temperature activates heat-sensitive neurons to slow down the body's metabolism—preferably by sleep—and thus cool down the brain. The body's minimum temperature comes during the deepest sleep, typically at around 5 a.m.

单选题Once it was possible to define male and female roles easily by the division of labor. Men worked outside the home and earned the income to support their families, while women cooked the meals and took care of the home and the children. These roles were firmly fixed for most people, and there was not much opportunity for women to exchange their roles. But by the middle of this century, men"s and women"s roles were becoming less firmly fixed. In the 1950s, economic and social success was the goal of the typical American. But in the 1960s a new force developed called the counterculture. The people involved in this movement did not value the middle-class American goals. The counterculture presented men and women with new role choices. Taking more interest in childcare, men began to share child-raising tasks with their wives. In fact, some young men and women moved to communal homes or farms where the economic and childcare responsibilities were shared equally by both sexes. In addition, many Americans did not value the traditional male role of soldier. Some young men refused to be drafted as soldiers to fight in the war in Vietnam. In terms of numbers, the counterculture was not a very large group of people. But its influence spread to many parts of American society. Working men of all classes began to change their economic and social patterns. Industrial workers and business executives alike cut down on "overtime" work so that they could spend more leisure time with their families. Some doctors, lawyers, and teachers turned away from high paying situations to practice their professions in poorer neighborhoods. In the 1970s, the feminist movement, or women"s liberation, produced additional economic and social changes. Women of all ages and at all levels of society were entering the work force in greater numbers. Most of them still took traditional women"s jobs as public school teaching, nursing, and secretarial work. But some women began to enter traditionally male occupations: police work, banking, dentistry, and construction work. Women were asking for equal work, and equal opportunities for promotion. Today the experts generally agree that important changes are taking place in the roles of men and women. Naturally, there are difficulties in adjusting to these transformations.

单选题 However attractive the figures may look on paper, in the long run the success or failure of a merger depends on the human factor. When the agreement has been signed and the accountants have departed, the real problems may only just be beginning. If there is a culture clash between the two companies in the way their people work, then all the efforts of the financiers and lawyers to strike a deal may have been in vain. According to Chris Bolton of KS Management Consultants, 70% of mergers fail to live up to their promise of shareholder value, not through any failure in economic terms but because the integration of people is unsuccessful. Corporates, he explains, concentrate their efforts before a merger on legal, technical and financial matters. They employ a range of experts to obtain the most favourable contract possible. But even at these early stages, people issues must be taken into consideration. The strengths and weaknesses of both organisations should be assessed and, if it is a merger of equals, then careful thought should be given to which personnel, from which side, should take on the key roles. This was the issue in 2001 when the proposed merger between two pharmaceutical companies promised to create one of the largest players in the industry. For both companies the merger was intended to reverse falling market share and shareholder value. However, although the companies' skill bases were compatible, the chief executives of the two companies could not agree which of them was to head up the new organisation. This illustrates the need to compromise if a merger is to take place. But even in mergers that do go ahead, there can be culture clashes. One way to avoid this is to work with focus groups to see how employees view the existing culture of their organisation. In one example, where two global organisations in the food sector were planning to merge, focus groups discovered that the companies displayed very different profiles. One was sales-focused, knew exactly what it wanted to achieve and pushed initiatives through. The other got involved in lengthy discussions, trying out options methodically and making contingency plans. The first responded quickly to changes in the marketplace; the second took longer, but the option it eventually chose was usually the correct one. Neither company's approach would have worked for the other. The answer is not to adopt one company's approach, or even to try to incorporate every aspect of both organisations, but to create a totally new culture. This means taking the best from both sides and making a new organisation that everyone can accept. Or almost everyone. Inevitably there will be those who cannot adapt to a different culture. Research into the impact of mergers has found that companies with differing management styles are the ones that need to work hardest at creating a new culture. Another tool that can help to get the right cultural mix is intercultural analysis. This involves carrying out research that looks at the culture of a company and the business culture of the country in which it is based. It identifies how people, money and time are managed in a company, and investigates the business customs of the country and how its politics, economics and history impact on the way business is done.

单选题A.Smallcarsareeasytoparkquickly.B.Smallcarsarecheaperthanbigcars.C.Smallcarsareconvenientonlongtrips.D.Smallcarsneedsmallerparkingspaces.

单选题 The purpose of the American court system is to protect the rights of the people. According to American law, if someone is accused of a crime, he or she is considered innocent until the court proves that the person is guilty. In other words, it is the responsibility of the court to prove that a person is guilty. It is not the responsibility of the person to prove that he or she is innocent. In order to arrest a person, the police have to be reasonably sure that a crime has been committed. The police must give the suspect the reasons why they are arresting him and tell him his rights under the law. Then the police take the suspect to the police station to "book" him. "Booking" means that the name of the person and the charges against him are formally listed at the police station. The next step is for the suspect to go before a judge. The judge decides whether the suspect should be kept in jail or released. If the suspect has no previous criminal record and the judge feels that he will return to court rather than run away — for example, because he owns a house and has a family — he can go free. Otherwise, the suspect must put up bail. At this time, too, the judge will appoint a court layer to defend the suspect if he can't afford one. The suspect returns to court a week or two later. A lawyer from the district attorney's office presents a case against the suspect. This is called a hearing. The attorney may present evidence as well as witnesses. The judge at the hearing then decides whether there is enough reason to hold a trial. If the judge decides that there is sufficient evidence to call for a trial, he or she sets a date for the suspect to appear in court to formally plead guilty or not guilty. At the trial, a jury of 12 people listens to the evidence from both attorneys and hears the testimony of the witnesses. Then the jury goes into a private room to consider the evidence and decide whether the defendant is guilty of the crime. If the jury decides that the defendant is innocent, he goes free. However, if he is convicted, the judge sets a dale for the defendant to appear in court again for sentencing. At this time, the judge tells the convicted person what his punishment will be. The judge may sentence him to prison, order him to pay a fine, or place him on probation. The American justice system is very complex and sometimes operates slowly. However, every step is designed to protect the rights of the people. These individual rights are the basis, or foundation, of the American government.

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单选题A.Wewentswimming.B.Hewentswimming.C.Wedidn'tgoswimming.D.Hedidn'tgoswimming.

单选题The author cites Lord Rutherford' s accomplishment in order to show that ______.

单选题Questions 15-18

单选题Questions 27-30

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单选题The passage as a whole suggests that "career mobility" means the ______.

单选题A.ProfessorJohnsonspoketousagainonWednesday.B.ProfessorJohnsontalkedaboutweedsonWednesday.C.ProfessorJohnsonwantedustobeinquisitive.D.ProfessorJohnsonscheduledashorttestforWednesday.

单选题 Questions 15-18