单选题Ten thousand years ago, as the last ice age drew to a close, sea levels around the world were far lower than they are today. Much of the land under the North Sea and the English Channel was part of a huge region of forests and grassy plains, where herds of horses and reindeer roamed free and people lived in villages by the lakes and rivers. Then the climate gradually became warmer and the water trapped in glaciers and ice caps was released. This ancient land was submerged in the resulting deluge and all that remains to tell us that it was once lush and verdant—and inhabited—is the occasional stone tool, harpoon or mammoth tusk brought up from the sea bed by fishing boats. Now the development of advanced sonar technology, known as bathymetry, is making it possible to study this flooded landscape in extraordinary detail. A special echo sounder is fixed to the bottom of a survey vessel, and it makes wide sweeps across the sea bed. While previous devices have only been able to produce two-dimensional images, bathymetry makes use of computers, satellite positioning devices and special software to create accurate and remarkably detailed maps. For the first time an ancient river bed leaps out of the three-dimensional image, complete with rocky ledges rising up from the bottom of the valley. The sites of pre-historic settlements can now be pinpointed, and it is also possible to see in stunning detail the sunken shipwrecks that litter this part of the sea bed. According to archaeologist Dr Linda Andrews, this technological development is of huge significance. "We now have the ability to map the sea bed of the Channel and the North Sea as accurately as we can map dry land," she says. She is, however, scathing about the scale of government funding for such projects. "We have better images of Mars and Venus than of two-thirds of our own planet! In view of the fact that Britain is a maritime nation, and the sea has had such a massive influence on us, it"s an absolute scandal that we know so little about the area just off our shores!" Once bathymetric techniques have identified sites where people might have built their homes and villages, such as sheltered bays, cliffs with caves and the shores of freshwater lakes, divers could be sent down to investigate further. Robot submarines could also be used, and researchers hope they will find stone tools and wood from houses (which survives far longer in water than on dry land) as proof of human activity. The idea of Britain as a natural island kingdom will be challenged by these findings: Britain has been inhabited for about 500,000 years, and for much of this time it has been linked on and off to continental Europe. It remains to be seen how far this new awareness is taken on board among our "island" people. In fact, the use of bathymetry scanners will not be limited to the study of lost landscapes and ancient settlements. It will also be vital in finding shipwrecks. Records show that there are about 44,000 shipwrecks off the shores of Britain, but there is good reason to believe that the real figure is much higher. In addition, commercial applications are a real possibility. Aggregates for the construction industry are becoming increasingly expensive, and bathymetry scanners could be used to identify suitable sites for quarrying this material. However, mapping the sea bed will also identify places where rare plants and shellfish have their homes. Government legislation may prevent digging at such sites, either to extract material for a profit or to make the water deeper: there are plans to dredge parts of the English Channel to provide deeper waterways for massive container ships.

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

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单选题The basic story is very old indeed and familiar to most of us. The heroine, Cinderella, is treated cruelly by her stepmother and mocked by her two ugly stepsisters. And even though her father loves her, she can"t tell him how unhappy she is because her stepmother has bewitched him. One day Cinderella"s stepmother and stepsisters are invited to a ball at the royal palace. Cinderella is told she cannot go and is understandably very unhappy. However, her fairy godmother comes to the rescue and, waving her magic wand, produces some beautiful clothes for Cinderella as well as a carriage to convey her to the ball. There, she dances with the handsome prince, who falls in love with her… Just a sweet, pretty tale? Not in the view of Ellen Macintosh, who has written extensively about fairy tales. "This story features the stock, two-dimensional characters of most fairy tales, and little character development is attempted," she says. Indeed, although her comment does make one wonder why simplicity of this sort should be out of place in a story for children. Be that as it may, Ellen"s main problem is with what the story implies. "Instead of standing up to her cruel stepmother and absurd stepsisters, Cinderella just waits for a fairy godmother to appear and solve her problem. But wouldn"t you want a daughter of yours to show more spirit?" The story is enduring, whatever its shortcomings, and it doesn"t take much in the way of analytical skills to see its influence on a number of recent Hollywood productions, all aimed at girls aged five to fifteen. In these versions for the silver screen, the Cinderella character no longer has to clean the house and has no siblings to make her life a misery, though she persists in not showing much backbone. The character of the rich and handsome stranger, however, is retained, and in some cases really is a prince. The role of the fairy godmother is often played by coincidence or sheer luck; we live in an enlightened age when even very young children might reject the notion of fairies. The wicked stepmother may be transformed into a villain of some sort. In the majority of film versions, the heroine has a profession and is even permitted to continue working after marrying her prince — this is the twenty — first century, after all. Doesn"t the success of these films indicate that the story has relevance to children even today? "Yes," admits Ellen, who sees its message as being rooted in a fundamental childhood desire for love and attention. "Most children experience a sense of inner loneliness as they are growing up and empathies with the protagonist who faces some sort of test or challenge. This can be seen in the original story of Cinderella, where the fairy godmother tells the heroine that she must learn to be gracious and confident if she is to go to the ball. She has to grow spiritually, and by maturing, she becomes attractive to the prince, thus ensuring that the ending of the story will be happy." "In the later versions, this element is missing," says Ellen, "and the theme of the story is simply that a girl"s role in life is to be more beautiful than other little girls so that she can carry off the prize: the handsome prince. Is this really what we want girls to grow up believing?"

单选题 {{B}}Questions 23—26{{/B}}

单选题 Questions 26～30 Extract 1 Henri-Lloyd, the UK sailing clothes brand, is launching a new women's fashion footwear collection. Spanning eight styles in a multitude of clearways, the collection is deemed to be modern and sporty, a bit like the brand itself. According to the company's commercial director, Graham Allen, the women's line is very much a response to consumer and retailer demand. "It is a really exciting move for us and is a natural extension of our existing men's footwear business," he says. Hailed as "essential staples in the wardrobe of any actively minded woman", the new collection is designed to encapsulate Henri-Lloyd's spirit of adventure, but with a feminine twist. The collection is designed to target a certain mindset rather than a particular demographic, and pinning the Henri-Lloyd team down to a particular age group can be tricky. The company prides itself on its pioneering styles, aiming to produce the highest quality products with strong functionality and design. Ongoing involvement with the BMW ORACLE racing team has helped cement its technical marine roots with fashion. Outside the UK, Henri-Lloyd's biggest export markets are Italy, Sweden and the USA. The brand can be found in 2,006 stores in 23 countries worldwide. Extract 2 Two important considerations when designing historical, or "period", costumes are shape and colour. Whereas it is possible to eliminate the colour aspect by designing in black, white and grey— as in the early days of television—it is impossible to create a costume which has no shape. Costumes with bad or weak shapes are all too common and it is necessary to train the eye to select what is telling and pertinent and to incorporate these elements into the design. This chapter sketches the changing shape of period clothes; but it should not be thought that the consideration of shape applies only to historical dress—it is just as important when designing a comedy horse or a spaceman's costume, neither of which are in any way related to the historical scene. The drawings I have made show people from the early medieval period to the 1930s. It must be understood that I have tried to select figures which will show fairly clearly the progression of costume style. Transitional styles—often very interesting. I fully acknowledge-have necessarily had to be left out. Change of shape is affected by the social history of the period, the availability and discovery of fabrics and the human desire for change. The period covered is indeed a large one, but it must be appreciated that in the early days fashion, and therefore shape, changed very slowly this has accelerated until today fashion changes almost yearly. Extract 3 According to UK prediction consultant Tim Harvey, "The emerging shopping culture is one that values individuality. We want things that look more distinctive and less mass-produced, that have content and meaning specific to us. " At present we can see large chain stores struggling to create an intimate space within their vast warehouse-like shopping emporiums and win back disgruntled customers. Even Clothes4U are developing a boutique-style environment, with a designer range sold in selected stores from a screened-off area. Unfortunately, a huge disparity has emerged in the levels of service. And service is where retailers can add value to the experience of shopping for clothes, because, where matters of image are concerned, buying clothes requires a certain amount of emotional involvement. More than the mere removal of garments in a cramped changing room, most of us invest the new clothes we try on with the ability to augment confidence or bolster self-esteem. Clever retailers know how potentially-therapeutic any shopping trip is and can train staff to understand the anxieties we bring to the dressing room mirror.

单选题Whatarethetwospeakersdoing?[A]Watchingamovie.[B]Havingdinner.[C]Makingsoup.

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单选题 Directions: In this section you will read several passages. Each one is followed by several questions about it. You are to choose ONE best answer, (A), (B), (C) or (D), 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 ANSWER BOOKLET. Questions 1～5 We had been wanting to expand our children's horizons by taking them to a place that was unlike anything we'd been exposed to during our travels in Europe and the United States. In thinking about what was possible from Geneva, where we are based, we decided on a trip to Istanbul, a two-hour plane ride from Zurich. We envisioned the trip as a prelude to more exotic ones, perhaps to New Delhi or Bangkok later this year, but thought our 11-and 13-year-olds needed a first step away from manicured boulevards and pristine monuments. What we didn't foresee was the reaction of friends, who warned that we were putting our children "in danger," referring vaguely, and most incorrectly, to disease, terrorism or just the unknown. To help us get acquainted with the peculiarities of Istanbul and to give our children a chance to choose what they were particularly interested in seeing, we bought an excellent guidebook and read it thoroughly before leaving. Friendly warnings didn't change our planning, although we might have more prudently checked with the U. S. State Department's list of trouble spots. We didn't see a lot of children among the foreign visitors during our six-day stay in Istanbul, but we found the tourist areas quite safe, very interesting and varied enough even to suit our son, whose oft-repeated request is that we not see "every single" church and museum in a given city. Vaccinations weren't needed for the city, but we were concerned about adapting to the water for a short stay. So we used bottled water for drinking and brushing our teeth, a precaution that may seem excessive, but we all stayed healthy. Taking the advice of a friend, we booked a hotel a 20-minute walk from most of Istanbul's major tourist sites. This not only got us some morning exercise, strolling over the Karakoy Bridge, but took us past a colorful assortment of fishermen, vendors and shoe shiners. From a teenager and pre-teen's view, Istanbul street life is fascinating since almost everything can be bought outdoors. They were at a good age to spend time wandering the labyrinth of the Spice Bazaar, where shops display mounds of pungent herbs in sacks. Doing this with younger children would be harder simply because the streets are so packed with people; it would be easy to get lost. For our two, whose buying experience consisted of department stores and shopping mall boutiques, it was amazing to discover that you could bargain over price and perhaps end up with two of something for the price of one. They also learned to figure out the relative value of the Turkish lira, not a small matter with its many zeros. Being exposed to Islam was an important part of our trip. Visiting the mosques, especially the enormous Blue Mosque, was our first glimpse into how this major religion is practiced. Our children's curiosity already had been piqued by the five daily calls to prayer over loudspeakers in every corner of the city, and the scarves covering the heads of many women. Navigating meals can be troublesome with children, but a kebab, bought on the street or in restaurants, was unfailingly popular. Since we had decided this trip was not for gourmets, kebabs spared us the agony of trying to find a restaurant each day that would suit the adults' desire to try something new amid children's insistence that the food be served immediately. Gradually, we branched out to try some other Turkish specialties. Although our son had studied Islam briefly, it is impossible to be prepared for every awkward question that might come up, such as during our visits to the Topkapi Sarayi, the Ottoman Sultans' palace. No guides were available so it was do-it-yourself, using our guidebook, which cheated us of a lot of interesting history and anecdotes that a professional guide could provide. Next time, we resolved to make such arrangements in advance. On his trip, we wandered through the magnificent complex, with its imperial treasures, its courtyards and its harem. The last required a bit of explanation that we would have happily left to a learned third party.

单选题Questions 6-10 In the 1950s, the pioneers of artificial intelligence (AI) predicted that, by the end of this century, computers would be conversing with us at work and robots would be performing our housework. But as useful as computers are, they"re nowhere close to achieving anything remotely resembling these early aspirations for humanlike behavior. Never mind something as complex as conversation: the most powerful computers struggle to reliably recognize the shape of an object, the most elementary of tasks for a ten-month-old kid. A growing group of AI researchers think they know where the field went wrong. The problem, the scientists say, is that AI has been trying to separate the highest, most abstract levels of thought, like language and mathematics, and to duplicate them with logical, step-by-step programs. A new movement in AI, on the other hand, takes a closer look at the more roundabout way in which nature came up with intelligence. Many of these researchers study evolution and natural adaptation instead of formal logic and conventional computer programs. Rather than digital computers and transistors, some want to work with brain cells and proteins. The results of these early efforts are as promising as they are peculiar, and the new nature-based AI movement is slowly but surely moving to the forefront of the field. Imitating the brain"s neural network is a huge step in the right direction, says computer scientist and biophysicist Michael Conrad, but it still misses an important aspect of natural intelligence. "People tend to treat the brain as if it were made up of color-coded transistors", he explains, "but it"s not simply a clever network of switches. There are lots of important things going on inside the brain cells themselves. " Specifically, Conrad believes that many of the brain"s capabilities stem from the pattern recognition proficiency of the individual molecules that make up each brain cell. The best way to build an artificially intelligent device, he claims, would be to build it around the same sort of molecular skills. Right now, the option that conventional computers and software are fundamentally incapable of matching the processes that take place in the brain remains controversial. But if it proves true, then the efforts of Conrad and his fellow AI rebels could turn out to be the only game in town.

单选题Questions 27—30

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单选题 One of the most disturbing statistics I've read for a long time was published this week. The Work Foundation claims that job satisfaction in this country has fallen alarmingly. Women's satisfaction level has fallen from 51 percent in 1992 to 29 percent today; men's has fallen from 35 percent to 20. The reason — the long-hours culture and job insecurity. For my father's generation, work was something that had to be endured so that real life could be maintained. But my generation has been gulled into thinking that work is real life, Most work is not satisfying. Most work stinks. Most work, however well paid, is meaningless and dull. But somehow we've been convinced that work provides self-fulfillment. Before Mrs Thatcher, we had a famous British attitude to work — the less we did the better. Thatcher introduced the idea that, in a world where identity was so fragile, you could become real through work, through long hours and assiduous consumption, in the small amount of time you had been left after clocking off. Now Blair carries on the crusade, I've got one of the best jobs in the world — sitting in an office by myself all day trying to make up something that someone somewhere will be interested in. But I'd rather be stretched out in front of the TV, or in bed, or playing tennis, or doing just about anything else. Much of feminist thought has been about getting what men have traditionally had without examining the underlying assumption of whether it was worth having. Feminism never ended up with a life built around creative leisure, instead, women of talent and drive threw themselves into the labour pool, believing that work and its attendant income and power would affect the change of life and consciousness that would liberate them. Can anything be done? Only if we're willing to change the way we've been tricked into thinking. Most people now measure their lives primarily in units of currency — money saved and spent. I have a friend who'll travel halfway across London for a shoe sale, without factoring in how much of her precious time has been spent travelling. The most important truth I know is that all we ever own is the time we were given on this earth. We need to seize it back. Now the future has arrived, and we have the means to do it — we just don't have the imagination.

单选题There is severe classic tragedy within major-league baseball, tragedy which catches and manipulates the fife of every athlete as surely as forces beyond the heaths manipulated Hardy"s simple Wes-sex folks into creatures of imposing stature. Major-league baseball is an insecure society; it pays a lavish salary to an athlete and then, when he reaches thirty-five or so, it abruptly stops paying him anything. But the tragedy goes considerably deeper than that. Briefly, it is the tragedy of fulfillment. Each major leaguer, like his childhood friends, always wanted desperately to become a major leaguer. Whenever there was trouble at home, in school, or with a girl, there was the sure escape of baseball; not the stumbling, ungainly escape of an ordinary ballplayer, but a sudden, wondrous metamorphosis into the role of a hero. For each major leaguer was first a star in his neighborhood or in his town, and each rived with the unending solace that there was one thing he could always do with grace and skill and poise. Somehow, he once believed with the most profound faith he possessed, that if he ever did make the major leagues, everything would then become ideal. A major-league baseball team is comprised of twenty-five youngish men who have made the major leagues and discovered that, in spite of it, life remains distressingly short of ideal. In retrospect, they were better off during the years when their adolescent dream was happily simple and vague. Among the twenty-five youngish men of a ball club, who individually held the common dream which came to be fulfilled, cynicism and disillusion are common as grass. So Willie Mays angrily announces that he will henceforth charge six hundred dollars to be interviewed, and Duke Snider shifts his dream-site from a ball park to an avocado farm overlooking the Pacific, and Peewee Reese tries to fight off a momentary depression by saying, "Sure I dreamt about baseball when I was a kid, but not the night games. No, sir. I did not dream about the fights. " For most men, the business of shifting and reworking dreams comes late in life, when there are older children upon whose unwilling shoulders the tired dreams may be deposited. It is a harsh, jarring thing to have to shift dreams at thirty, and if there is ever to be a major novel written about baseball, it will have to come to grips with this theme.

单选题 Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following news.

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