单选题Journalists who write about families as well as social and cultural issues can count on receiving an annual barrage of public relations pitches for Valentine"s Day. The PR blitz begins right after Christmas and continues almost until the big day itself. Daily, sometimes hourly, e-mails pop up on my computer screen, as publicity agents propose stories on a variety of love-rated subjects. Some suggest traditional topics. How about interviewing the author of a new book on how to find the perfect mate? Or what about a story offering ideas on the best gifts to give to your heartthrob? Other suggestions take a thoroughly modern approach to romance. Publicists would be happy to provide information about the newest matchmaking website or the hottest dating coach. There"s even a "psychic medium" who promises to tell radio and television audiences about their "current and future relationships". Individually, these story promotions could be taken for what they are. just another day, another client, another dollar in the life of publicity agents. But collectively, they signal more than simply a desire to capitalize on a holiday that has mushroomed into a $17 billion industry. In their varied forms, these promotions reflect the urgency of the quest for love and companionship in a society where one-quarter of all households now consist of single people. These pitches also serve as a measure of how much Valentine"s Day itself has changed. They can impel long-married observers to look back with a certain nostalgia to a time several decades ago when Feb. 14 didn"t carry such intensity—and when courtship didn"t cost quite so much. That was a time before men were expected to spend two months" worth of their salary for an engagement ring, before men and women decided they would settle for nothing less than a "soul mate", and before it was necessary to seek advice from an army of self-help gurus bearing titles such as "relationship and interpersonal communication expert". That was also an era when many hopeful Prince Charmings could show their love with a card or a heart-shaped box of drugstore chocolates, and when even a single rose could melt a young woman"s heart. What a contrast to today, when anything less than a dozen long-stemmed roses can risk making a sender appear frugal, and when an ardent suitor who wants to make an impression will buy chocolates from Belgium, whatever the cost. This year the average man will spend $120 and the average woman $ 85, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF). Is this love, or obligation? For some men, it might even include a bit of guilt. As Tracy Mullin, CEO of the NRF, notes, presumably with tongue planted firmly in cheek, some men "may be looking at Valentine"s Day as a way to make up for that HDTV they splurged on for the Super Bowl". As one public radio station announcer put it during a Valentine"s Day fundraiser offering long-stemmed roses. "This is a perfect way to fulfill your Valentine"s obligations." Another host making a similar appeal urged listeners to "take care of your Valentine"s Day duties". And if you don"t? One relationship expert quoted in a Valentine"s Day press release offers the stern warning that "if a guy doesn"t come through on Valentine"s Day, it means he doesn"t care about you," so just say goodbye and move on. But assuming he does care, another PR firm suggests a high-tech approach to the day. "This year, think outside the box and send a Video Valentine!" the e-mail pitch begins. "Too shy to say those three little words in person? Profess your love on video! Or use your cellphone to record yourself shopping for the perfect gift." Diamonds, anyone? Whatever the approach, couples might do well to follow the advice of a group of husbands in Japan who say they know the answer to wedded bliss. In an effort to communicate better with their wives, they offer Three Principles of Love: Say "sorry" without fear, say "thank you" without hesitation, and say "I love you" without shame. It"s a trio of sentiments that women could adopt as well. Tomorrow all the unsold Valentines with their declarations of love and affection will disappear from card racks, to be replaced by Easter messages featuring eggs and bunnies. Long stemmed roses will begin to open, boxes of chocolate will be nibbled away, and cards with sentimental messages will be propped on desks and dressers. Whatever hopes and expectations are fulfilled—or not—today, the celebration offers a touching reminder that when it comes to matters of the heart, the approaches might change, but the yearning for love and companionship doesn"t. Above all, it offers this comforting reassurance: Cupid lives.

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单选题It's not much, but it's home. Francis Chan, an engineer, lives in Hampstead, north Lon don, in a flat that's just 4ft wide by 21ft long. He loves it. Tiny though it is, it has got all the comforts. Peter Baynes, Chan's architect(建筑师), has achieved a clever piece of design, according to architectural experts. The Chan mini-house was built on what was once a path down the side of a big Victorian house. Not an inch of space is wasted. When you step in through the front door, you're standing in the shower, on Britain's only self-cleansing doormat(自动清洁门垫). A door opens on to an equally tiny toilet with washbasin. Two steps further in comes the kitchen, complete with full-sized cooker and fridge, and washer/ drier. A worktop folds down from the wall. Another step and you're into the dining/office area. Four people can sit here for dinner, says Chan as he sets the table-top into place. He even has a fold-down drawing-board for when he's working at home. The bed is hidden under a cover board fight at the back. "I don't even have to make the bed," Chan says. "I just put the cover down. " Chan's business suits hang neatly on the wall over the bed. Daylight comes in through the skylight. The house feels like a very small boat and Chan admits he toyed with the idea of naming it the "boat-house". "It cost around ￡ 4,700 to build last year. Now it's been valued at ￡ 30,000. It proves that good design doesn't need to cost more. It just needs a lot of care," says Chan.

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. corn 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.

单选题 {{B}}Questions 15-18{{/B}}

单选题Question 23-26

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

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单选题Christopher Columbus was the son of a weaver. He was very interested in the discovery of new lands. His brother Bartholomew was a chart maker in Lisbon, Portugal. Columbus studied chart making with his brother. He believed that the world was round, and he wanted to travel the seas to prove it. At that time, spice merchants were looking for a new route to Asia. Asia was a large trading area, but it was very difficult to reach by land. Columbus requested support from many people to help him travel the seas. Finally, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain granted his request, and gave him three ships for his voyage. On August 3, 1492, Columbus and ninety men set sail on the Santa Maria along with two other ships, the Nina and the Pinta. The voyage was hard and many men were sick and tired. On October 11, at ten o'clock at night, Columbus saw a light. The Pinta sailed ahead and reported that they had reached land. Since Columbus thought they had reached India, they expected to see people that were Indians. Even when they found out that they were not in Asia, they were happy to have found a new place that they could trade with. Columbus named the area where they landed "San Salvador", and claimed the area for Spain. Today Columbus Day is celebrated in the United States on the second Monday in October. Banks and government offices are closed to honor the man who was the first European to have discovered the New World of the Americas.

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

单选题Questions 23-26

单选题 What is the role of human resources as the world goes through turmoil, and what is its future as so many industries face extreme change? Effendi Ibnoe, Bali, Indonesia Talk about timing. Your question arrived in our in-box the same day that we received a note from an acquaintance who had just been let go from his job in publishing, certainly one of the industries that is facing, as you put it, "extreme change". He described his layoff as a practically Orwellian experience in which he was ushered into a conference room to meet with an outplacement consultant who, after dispensing with logistics, informed him that she would call him at home that evening to make sure everything was all right. "I assured her I had friends and loved ones and a dog," he wrote, "and since my relationship with her could be measured in terms of seconds, they could take care of that end of things." "Memo to HR: Instead of saddling dismissed employees with solicitous outplacement reps," he noted wryly, "put them in a room with some crockery for a few therapeutic minutes of smashing things against a wall." While we enjoy our friend's sense of humor, we'd suggest a different memo to HR. "Layoffs are your moment of truth," it would say, "when your company must show departing employees the same kind of attentiveness and dignity that was showered upon them when they entered. Layoffs are when HR proves its mettle and its worth, demonstrating whether a company really cares about its people." Look, we've written before about HR and the game-changing role we believe it can—and should—play as the engine of an organization's hiring, appraisal, and development processes. We've asserted that too many companies relegate HR to the mundane busy-work of newsletters, picnics, and benefits, and we've made the case that every CEO should elevate his head of HR to the same stature as the CFO. But if there was ever a time to underscore the importance of HR, it has arrived. And, sadly, if there was ever a time to see how few companies get HR right, it has arrived, too, as our acquaintance's experience shows. So, to your question: What is HR's correct role now—especially in terms of layoffs? First, HR has to make sure people are let go by their managers, not strangers. Being fired is dehumanizing in any event, but to get the news from a "hired gun" only makes matters worse. That's why HR must ensure that managers accept their duty, which is to be in on the one conversation at work that must be personal. Pink slips should be delivered face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball. Second, HR's role is to serve as the company's arbiter of equity. Nothing raises hackles more during a layoff than the sense that some people—namely the loudmouths and the litigious—are getting better deals than others. HR can mitigate that dynamic by making sure across units and divisions that severance arrangements, if they exist, are appropriate and evenhanded. You simply don't want people to leave feeling as if they got you-know-what. They need to walk out saying: "At least I know I was treated fairly." Finally, HR's role is to absorb pain. In the hours and days after being let go, people need to vent, and it is HR's job to be completely available to console. At some point, an outplacement consultant can come into the mix to assist with a transition, but HR can never let "the departed" feel as if they've been sent to a leper colony. Someone connected to each let-go employee—either a colleague or HR staffer—should check in regularly. And not just to ask, "Is everything O.K.?" but to listen to the answer with an open heart, and when appropriate, offer to serve as a reference to prospective employers. Three years ago, we wrote a column called, "So Many CEOs Get This Wrong", and while many letters supported our stance that too many companies undervalue HR, a significant minority pooh-poohed HR as irrelevant to the "real work" of business. Given the state of things, we wonder how those same HR-minimalists feel now. If their company is in crisis—or their own career—perhaps at last they've seen the light. HR matters enormously in good times. It defines you in the bad.

单选题A.Thenameofthebird.B.Thenameoftheman.C.Thenameofthetown.D.Thenameofthechicken.

单选题Questions 23-26

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 1 to 5 are based on the following conversation.

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单选题Questions 19—22

单选题Questions 16～20 The cars, SUVs and pickups people will buy in the years ahead are likely to use less fuel, and many will rely on ethanol or household electricity instead of gasoline. The energy legislation pushed through the Senate this week provides a roadmap to the future, demanding higher automobile fuel economy, mandating huge increases in ethanol as a motor fuel and supporting more research into building "plug-in" hybrid-electric vehicles. While Senate Republicans complained that the bill does nothing to increase domestic oil production, Democrats said that's because the nation must move energy policy away from its heavy reliance on oil. The House is preparing its own version. The Senate bill requires automakers to increase fuel economy to 35 miles per gallon, about a 40 percent increase over what cars, SUVs and small trucks are required to achieve now. It would lump all the vehicles under a single regulation, but also give manufacturers flexibility so large SUVs wouldn't have to meet the same requirements as smaller cars. It requires a yearly increase of ethanol production to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, a sevenfold increase from today. By 2015 half of the new vehicles offered to buyers—as many as 10 million—will have to be capable of running on 85 percent ethanol, biodiesel or some other alternative energy source. And for the first time, the president must find ways to cut oil demand by 20 percent of what it is expected to be in 2017—a target President Bush has embraced—and attain further reductions after that. Gasoline demand is expected to grow 13 percent to 261 billion gallons a year by 2017 without some fuel saving measures. But will auto showrooms provide the same selection of vehicles? Will they be as big, as powerful, as safe? "I would expect them to look a lot like they do today, the same size, the same acceleration and the same or even better safety," says David Friedman, director of the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He maintains they will have better technology, better engines, more efficient transmissions and stronger aluminum bodies. They'll cost a little more but use much less gasoline. "The goal is to replace fossil fuels with alternative fuels and use conservation," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. , who was involved in the discussions on many of the auto fuel economy and motor fuel issues that ended up in the bill. What has changed from a few years ago, she said, is there no longer is "a fear factor that you're going to be in itty bitty cars" if the government requires automakers to make more fuel efficient vehicles. In addition to making conventional cars more fuel efficient, the bill seeks to boost research into use of lithium-ion batteries—like those used in laptop computers and cameras—in vehicles. Should ways be found to make them more durable in a vehicle environment, cars could be plugged into an electric socket at home, relying only rarely on gasoline, says Friedman. Some studies have estimated the fuel cost—mostly the cost of electricity and a small amount of gasoline— would be equivalent to about $1 a gallon, said Cantwell. Automakers, lobbying hard against the fuel economy provision in the Senate bill, expressed continued concern Friday about their ability to meet the new requirements without changing the mix of cars they will be able to provide in the showrooms of 2020. "There's no way you can get those numbers without a dramatic shift in consumer choice," insisted Mark LaNeve, General Motors' vice president of North America sales, service and marketing. "We don't know how it's attainable. " Eric Ridenour, chief operating officer at Chrysler Group, where three of every four vehicles are built on truck frames, said the company will have to decide whether to keep selling some of its larger vehicles. "Clearly the larger family-sized vehicles will be the ones that will be most at risk," said Ridenour. "The end result will be lighter, smaller vehicles in general. " He envisioned generally smaller cars and more of them running on diesel. Ford Motor Co. is committed to increasing auto fuel economy, said Alan Mulally, the company's chief executive. "It's what customers want. It's what they value." But is it possible technically to meet the proposed 35 mpg fleet requirements even with a new way of calculating compliance taking into account vehicles size? "That's the only debate," said Mulally on Friday at a Ford assembly plant in Chicago where the company was introducing its new Taurus model, one that travels 28 mpg on the open road.