单选题Questions 6～10 Advertisers tend to think big and perhaps this is why they" re always coming in for criticism. Their critics seem to resent them because they have a flair for self-promotion and because they have so much money to throw around. "It"s iniquitous," they say, "that this entirely unproductive industry (if we can call it that) should absorb millions of pounds each year. It only goes to show how much profit the big companies are making. Why don"t they stop advertising and reduce the price of their goods? After all, it"s the consumer who pays. " The poor old consumer! He"d have to pay a great deal more if advertising didn"t create mass markets for products. It is precisely because of the heavy advertising that consumer goods are so cheap. But we get the wrong idea if we think the only purpose of advertising is to sell goods. Another equally important function is to inform. A great deal of the knowledge we have about household goods derives largely from the advertisements we read. Advertisements introduce us to new products or remind us of the existence of ones we already know about. Supposing you wanted to buy a washing machine, it is more than likely you would obtain details regarding performance, price, etc. , from an advertisement. Lots of people pretend that they never read advertisements, but this claim may be seriously doubted. It is hardly possible not to read advertisements these days. And what fun they often are, too! Just think what a railway station or a newspaper would be like without advertisements. Would you enjoy gazing at a blank wall or reading railway byelaws while waiting for a train? Would you like to read only closely printed columns of news in your daily paper? A cheerful, witty advertisement makes such a difference to a drab wall or a newspaper full of the daily ration of calamities. We must not forget, either, that advertising makes a positive contribution to our pockets. Newspapers, commercial radio and television companies could not subsist without this source of revenue. The fact that we pay so little for our daily paper, or can enjoy so many broadcast programmes is due entirely to the money spent by advertisers. Just think what a newspaper would cost if we had to pay its full price! Another thing we mustn"t forget is the "small ads. " which are in virtually every newspaper and magazine. What a tremendously useful service they perform for the community! Just about anything can be accomplished through these columns. For instance, you can find a job, buy or sell a house, announce a birth, marriage or death in what used to be called the "hatch, match and dispatch" column but by far the most fascinating section is the personal or "agony" column. No other item in a newspaper provides such entertaining reading or offers such a deep insight into human nature. It"s the best advertisement for advertising there is!

单选题Which of the following is true about the author's attitude towards "litmus test" in America?

单选题If one of your research staff announced that he had worked out a way to propel a vehicle on a cushion of air, would you tell him to concentrate on something practical, or suggest taking it further? If a member of your development team asked if she could come in late because she had her best ideas at 3 am would you insist that she is in the office at 9 am like everyone else? Current business wisdom is that companies need creative, innovative people to beat competitors. The reality is that companies have always needed new ideas to survive and progress, but in the past they weren"t particularly good at encouraging the people who produced them. Original thinkers don"t always fit easily into the framework of an organisation. However, the advice from managing director, John Serrano is "Get rid of the dull people and encourage the unusual ones". Essentially, he believes that companies need to learn how to manage their original thinkers in order to ensure that the business profits from their contribution. He also says, "Original thinkers often find it difficult to drive change within the organisation, so they resign, feeling angry and disappointed. It is essential to avoid this." "You can"t recognise original thinkers by the way they look", says Ian Freeman. An apparently ordinary exterior can conceal a very creative thinker. "His consultancy, IBT Personnel, has devised a structured way to identify original thinkers. We define employees as champions, free-wheelers, bystanders and weak links, and most original thinkers come into the category of free-wheelers. They may miss deadlines if they become involved in something more interesting. They are passionate and highly motivated but have little or no understanding of business directions and systems." Headhunter George Solomon also thinks original thinkers have their disadvantages. "They may have a bad influence within an organisation, especially given the current management trend for working in teams. The original thinkers themselves may be unaware of any problem, but having them around can be disruptive to colleagues, who have to be allowed to point out when they are being driven crazy by the original thinkers behaviour." Yet, in his opinion, the "dream team" in any creative organisation consists of a balanced mixture of original thinkers and more practical, realistic people. So, having identified your original thinkers, how do you handle them? One well-known computer games company has a very inventive approach. "We encourage our games designers by creating an informal working environment", says director Lorna Marsh. "A company cannot punish risk-takers if it wants to encourage creativity. Management has to provide support, coaching and advice-and take the risk that new ideas may not work. Our people have flexible working hours and often make no clear distinction between their jobs and their home lives." Original thinkers may fit into the culture of 21st century organisations, but more traditional organisations may have to change their approach. Business psychologist Jean Row believes that the first step is to check that original thinkers are worth the effort. "Are the benefits they bring worth the confusion they cause? If so, give them what they want, allow plenty of space, but set clear limits. Give them extremely demanding targets. If they fail to meet them, then the game is up. But if they succeed, your organisation stands only to gain."

单选题The economy may be troubled, but one area is thriving: social media. They begin with Facebook and extend through a dizzying array of companies that barely existed five years ago: Twitter, LinkedIn, Groupon, Yammer, Yelp, Flickr, Ning, Digg--and the list goes on. These companies are mostly private but have attracted the ardent attention of Wall Street and investors, with Facebook now worth a purported $ 75 billion and Groupon valued at close to $ 25 billion. There can be little doubt that these companies enrich their founders as well as some investors. But do they add anything to overall economic activity? While jobs in social media are growing fast, there were only about 21,000 listings last spring, a tiny fraction of the 150 million-member U. S. workforce. So do social-media tools enhance productivity or help us bridge the wealth divide? Or are they simply social--entertaining and diverting us but a wash when it comes to national economic health? The answers are vital, because billions of dollars in investment capital are being spent on these ventures, and if we are to have a productive future economy, that capital needs to grow the economic pie~and not just among the elite of Silicon Valley and Wall Street. The U. S. retains a competitive advantage because of its ability to innovate, but if that innovation creates services that don't turn into jobs, growth and prosperity, then it does us only marginal good. The problem is that these tools are so new that it is extremely difficult to answer the questions definitively. As I was about to write this column, I overheard a ceil-phone conversation at an airport with this snippet.- "The company says they are using social media, but who knows if it is making any difference?" Flash back nearly 20 years and the same question was being asked about the first Internet wave. Were Netscape and the Web enhancing our economy, or were people just spending more time at work checking out ESPN. com? Official statistics weren't designed to capture the benefits, and didn't--until statistics mavens at the Federal Reserve, urged on by Alan Greenspan, refined the way they measured productivity. As a result of these somewhat controversial innovations, the late 1990s became a period of substantial technology-driven gains. It is possible that the same gap exists today, that social-media tools are indeed laying the groundwork for new industries and jobs but aren't yet registering on the statistical radar. Many companies believe social media make them more competitive. Ford and Zappos, for instance, use Twitter to market their products and address consumer complaints. Countless corporations have created internal Face-book pages and Yammer accounts for employees to communicate across divisions and regions. Industry groups for engineers, doctors and human-resources professionals have done the same to share new ideas and solutions on a constant basis rather than episodically at conferences. Staffing companies have been especially keen on social media; a senior executive at Manpower told me we should think of social-media tools as today's version of the telephone. Yes, they are used for frivolity and all sorts of noneconomic activity (chatting with friends, passing the time), but they also help communication happen more efficiently. One big question is what proportion of that benefit will be captured economically by consumers vs. corporations. Sure, social media allow people to compare prices and quality and assess which companies are good to work for and where jobs might be. They also may enhance education and idea sharing, but the caveat is that the people who use these tools are the ones with higher education and income to spend on technology, not the tens of millions whose position in today's world has eroded so sharply. According to a recent Pew Foundation study, only 45% of adults making less than $ 30,000 have access to broadband, which is an essential component of using content-rich social media effectively. And that is the tub. Like so many things these days, social media contribute to economic bifurcation. Dynamic companies are benefiting from these tools, even if the gains are tough to nail down in specific figures. Many individuals are benefiting too, using LinkedIn to find jobs and Groupon to find deals. But for now, the irony is that social media widen the social divide, making it even harder for the have-nots to navigate. They allow those with jobs to do them more effectively and companies that are profiting to profit more. But so far, they have done little to aid those who are being left behind. They are, in short, business as usual.

单选题If La Hontan's writing did, in fact, reflect his "philosophical bias", it can be interred that as a philosopher he was most likely motivated by a desire to ______.

单选题 {{B}}Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following news.{{/B}}

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单选题One of the many upsetting aspects to being in your forties, is hearing people your own age grumbling about "young people" the way we were grumbled about ourselves. Old friends will complain, "Youngsters today have no respect like we did", and I'll think: "Hang on. I remember the night you set a puma loose in the soft furnishings section of Pricerite' s. " There's also a "radicals" version of this attitude, a strand within the middle-aged who lament how today's youngsters, "Don't demonstrate like we did", because "we were always marching against apartheid or for the miners but students these days don't seem bothered". It would seem natural if they went on: "The bloody youth of today; they've no disrespect for authority. In my day you started chanting and if a copper gave you any lip you gave him a clip round the ear, and he didn' t do it again. We've lost those values somehow. " You feel that even if they did come across a mass student protest they'd sneer. "That isn't a proper rebellion, they've used the internet. "You wouldn't have caught Spartacus rounding up his forces by putting a message on Facebook saying 'Hi Cum 2 Rome 4 gr8 rite 2 liber8 slaves lets kill emprer lol' ". It doesn't help that many of the student leaders from the sixties and seventies ended up as ministers or journalists, who try to deny they've reneged on their principles by making statements such as: "It's true I used to run the Campaign to Abolish the British Army, but my recent speech in favour of invading every country in the world in alphabetical order merely places those ideals in a modern setting. " Also it's become a tougher prospect to rebel as a student, as tuition fees force them to work while they' re studying. But over the last two weeks students have organised occupations in 29 universities, creating the biggest student revolt for 20 years. In Edinburgh, for example, the demands were that free scholarships should be provided for Palestinian students, and the university should immediately cancel its investments with arms companies. So the first question to arise from these demands must be: what are universities doing having links with arms companies in the first place? How does that help education? Do the lecturers make an announcement that, "This year, thanks to British Aerospace, the media studies course has possession of not only the latest digital recording equipment and editing facilities, but also three landmines and a Tornado bomber"? The occupations involve students selecting an area of the university, then staying there, day and night, and organising a series of events and worthwhile discussions while the authorities pay security guards to stand outside and scowl. Warwick University, for example, organised an "Alternative Careers Fair", in which, presumabiy, if someone was brilliant at maths, the careers adviser would say to them, "I suggest you become an accountant for a Peruvian guerilla army. They're looking for people who can reliably file their tax returns before the deadline, as they're in enough trouble as it is. " But the extraordinary part about this wave of student protest is that in most universities the authorities, having spent the first week insisting the demands were impossible to meet, have now backed down. So dozens of Palestinians, who these days seem to be minus a university in Gaza for some reason, will have places here. And several are reviewing their connections to the arms trade. University College London, for example, could be severing its link to the arms company Cobham. Presumably this will spark outrage from predictable sources, who'll yell: "We don't pay our taxes so that students can go round selflessly helping people who've been bombed. "We fund their education so they can get a degree in business studies and cock up the global economy. If these layabouts can't buckle down it's time we cut off the funding we're now giving them and send them out to work in a job that no longer exists!" And there's another impact of a modern student revolt, which makes it even more threatening than similar protests in the sixties. Because most students now have to work to fund their course, so a protest like this will not only infuriate their authorities, it will also bring every pizza delivery company and chicken nuggets shop to its knees at the same time.

单选题If you intend using humor in your talk to make people smile, you must know how to identify shared experiences and problems. Your humor must be relevant to the audience and should help to show them that you are one of them or that you understand their situation and are in sympathy with their point of view. Depending on whom you are addressing, the problems will be different. If you are talking to a group of managers, you may refer to the disorganized methods of their secretaries; alternatively if you are addressing secretaries, you may want to comment on their disorganized bosses. Here is an example, which I heard at a nurses" convention, of a story which works well because the audience ail shared the same view of doctors. A man arrives in heaven and is being shown around by St. Peter. He sees wonderful accommodations, beautiful gardens, sunny weather, and so on. Everyone is very peaceful, polite and friendly until, waiting in a line for lunch, the new arrival is suddenly pushed aside by a man in a white coat, who rushes to the head of the line, grabs his food and stomps over to a table by himself. "Who is that?" the new arrival asked St. Peter. "Oh, that"s God," came the reply, "but sometimes he thinks he"s a doctor." If you are part of the group which you are addressing, you will be in a position to know the experiences and problems which are common to all of you and it"ll be appropriate for you to make a passing remark about the inedible canteen food or the chairman"s notorious bad taste in ties. With other audiences you mustn"t attempt to cut in with humor as they will resent an outsider making disparaging remarks about their canteen or their chairman. You will be on safer ground if you stick to scapegoats like the Post Office or the telephone system. If you feel awkward being humorous, you must practice so that it becomes more natural. Include a few casual and apparently off-the-cuff remarks which you can deliver in a relaxed and unforced manner. Often it"s the delivery which causes the audience to smile, so speak slowly and remember that a raised eyebrow or an unbelieving look may help to show that you are making a light-hearted remark. Look for the humor. It often comes from the unexpected. A twist on a familiar quote "If at first you don"t succeed, give up" or a play on words or on a situation. Search for exaggeration and understatements. Look at your talk and pick out a few words or sentences which you can mm about and inject with humor.

单选题It can be concluded from the essay that the author's attitude toward the training game is that of ______.

单选题The Great Barrier Reef is more than worthy of its name. Coral of all shapes, sizes and colors cover more than 130,000 sq. mi. off the coast of Australia, making it the world"s largest reef system and supporting an astounding variety of marine life. But today the Great Barrier Reef is dying. The temporary warming effect of a major El Nino event—combined with ongoing climate change—has heated the waters around the reef to nearly unprecedented levels. That warming has in turn driven a mass bleaching that has sucked the color—and the life—out of the coral. And the Great Barrier Reef isn"t alone. "This is the longest bleaching event ever recorded," says David Kline, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientist. "It"s truly global, and it"s looking very severe." Bleaching occurs when ocean disruptions—warm water, pollution, algae overgrowth-drive away the symbiotic organisms that live on the coral and give it color. Within weeks, the reef could die, leaving behind a forest of lifeless, bone white coral. Scientists believe the bleaching now under way may kill more than 15% of the world"s coral. It"s not just a matter of aquatic aesthetics. Reefs act as natural barriers that protect coastal communities from storms and flooding. Marine life depends on coral reefs as habitats, while coastal towns depend on them as tourist draws. But a bigger worry may be what the bleaching suggests about future climate change. The rapid death of coral reefs demonstrates that climate change is irreversibly affecting the world right now, even as policymakers treat warming as something to be dealt with in the future. "Climate change may be slow-creeping sometimes, but other times it takes great leaps forward," says Steve Palumbi, an ocean scientist at Stanford University. "This is one of those leaps." Local solutions—like reducing fishing and cleaning up pollution-can help slow reef loss, but scientists say a global problem requires a global solution. Nearly 200 countries agreed last year to work to keep global temperatures from rising more than 3.6℉ by 2100, but that goal will be tough to reach. And if governments fail, coral reefs will be only the first victims.

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单选题 {{B}}Questions 15-18{{/B}}

单选题Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following conversation.

单选题 Chinese medicine has a long tradition of natural "ageless ageing", much of which centres on the use of the breath. This is something to which we give little attention in the West. It is strange to think that specific breathing techniques are ignored, given that the body's use of oxygen is the central determinant of the rate at which we age. One of the reasons regular aerobic exercise is so beneficial in slowing the rate at which you age and at warding off degenerative diseases is that it improves your use of oxygen. So can learning to breathe fully. It can also improve your mood, increase your resistance to colds and illness, and improve your sleeping. Full breathing is also an important tool for encouraging waste elimination—a kind of spring-cleaning process that can go on all year round, every day of your life. Few people breathe fully. Most of us, particularly in sedentary jobs, breathe high—that is, we breathe quickly and in a shallow way, concentrating the inhalations in the upper chest area, which is the part of the lungs that holds the smallest quantity of air. Not only does this kind of breathing inhibit oxygen intake, it can also encourage the lungs to atrophy and to lose their elasticity—a common occurrence as people get older. Other people, who allow the air to flow deeper into their lungs, are mid-breathers. But to make the best use of oxygen for ageless ageing, it is important to develop the habit of taking total breaths so that they become a normal way of breathing. In breathing totally, all of your breathing apparatus comes into play. The intercostal muscles expand the ribs outward to create a large space in which your lungs can inflate to their maximum. The diaphragm moves down, pulling the lower ribs outward, which lets even the very bottom of your lungs fill completely with air. Practise it lying down for five minutes a couple of times a day—perhaps on awakening or just before going to sleep—and gradually it will become an automatic way of breathing. Not only will this help with ageless ageing, it will also help to improve your resistance to fatigue and the glow of your skin, It will also have some effect in protecting you from minor illness. Here is the technique: Lying flat on your back with a small pillow beneath your neck, place one hand on your abdomen and rest the other on one side of your ribcage, inhale slowly through your nose, imagining you are sending your breath to a place about two inches below your navel. As the in-breath continues, let it fill your stomach. Then expand your ribcage to the side, as well as the mid-section of your chest. Now let the fresh breath fill the upper part of your chest area. The whole process of inhalation should take about five seconds. Hold your breath for another five seconds to begin with, then gradually increase the time. Now exhale, following the same gradual process: first, contract your lower abdomen gently, then let the lower lungs deflate, followed by the upper chest. This process should also take no more than five seconds to complete. But note, it is important, before beginning the cycle again, to rest for a second or two.

单选题The early retirement of experienced workers is seriously harming the U.S. economy, according to a new report from the Hudson Institute, a public policy research organization. Currently, many older experienced workers retire at an early age. According to the recently issued statistics, 79 percent of qualified workers begin collecting retirement benefits at age 62; if that trend continues, there will be a labor shortage that will hinder the economic growth in the twenty-first century. Older Americans constitute an increasing proportion of the population, according to the US. Census Bureau, and the population of those over age 65 will grow by 60% between 2001 and 2020. During the same period, the group aged 18 to 44 will increase by only 4%. Keeping older skilled workers employed, even part time, would increase U.S. economic output and strengthen the tax base; but without significant policy reforms, massive early retirement among baby boomers seems more likely. Retirement at age 62 is an economically rational decision today. Social Security and Medicaid earnings limits and tax penalties subject our most experienced workers to marginal tax rates as high as 67%. Social Security formulas encourage early retirement. Although incomes usually rise with additional years of work, any pay increases after the 35-year mark result in higher Social Security taxes but only small increases in benefits. Hudson Institute researchers believe that federal tax and benefit policies are at fault and reforms are urgently needed, but they disagree with the popular proposal that much older Americans will have to work because Social Security will not support them and that baby boomers are not saving enough for retirement. According to the increase in 401 (k) and Keogh retirement plans, the ongoing stock market on Wall Street, and the likelihood of large inheritances, them is evidence that baby boomers will reach age 65 with greater financial assets than previous generations. The Hudson institute advocates reforming government policies that now discourage work and savings, especially for older worker. Among the report"s recommendations: tax half of all Social Security benefits, regardless of other income; provide 8% larger benefits for each year beyond 65; and permit workers nearing retirement to negotiate compensation packages that may include a lower salary but with greater healthcare benefits. However, it may take real and fruitful planning to find the right solution to the early retirement of older experienced workers; any measures taken must be allowed to prolong the service ability of older experienced workers.

单选题Questions 11-14

单选题 Questions 6～10 Roger Rosenblatt's book Black Fiction, in attempting to apply literary rather than sociopolitical criteria to its subject, successfully alters the approach taken by most previous studies. As Rosenblatt notes, criticism of Black writing has often served as a pretext for expounding on Black history. Addison Gayle's recent work, for example, judges the value of Black fiction by overtly political standards, rating each work according to the notions of Black identity which it introduces. Although fiction assuredly springs from political circumstances, its authors react to those circumstances in ways other than ideological, and talking about novels and stories primarily as instruments of ideology outwits much of the fictional enterprise. Rosenblatt's literary analysis discloses affinities and connections among works of Black fiction which solely political studies have overlooked or ignored. Writing acceptable criticism of Black fiction, however, presupposes giving satisfactory answers to a number of questions. First of all, is there a sufficient reason, other than the racial identity to the authors, to group together works by Black authors? Second, how does Black fiction make itself distinct from other modem fiction with which it is largely contemporaneous? Rosenblatt shows that Black fiction constitutes a distinct body of writing that has an identifiable, coherent literary tradition. Looking at novels written by Blacks over the last eighty years, he discovers recurring concerns and designs independent of chronology. These structures are related to the themes, and they spring, not surprisingly, from the central fact that the Black characters in these novels exist in a predominantly White culture, whether they try to conform to that culture or rebel against it. Black Fiction does leave some aesthetic questions open. Rosenblatt' s theme-based analysis permits considerable objectivity, he even explicitly states that it is not his intention to judge the merit of the various works, yet his reluctance seems misplaced, especially since an attempt to appraise might have led to interesting results. For instance, some of the novels appear to be structurally diffuse. Is this a defect, or are the authors working out of, or trying to forge, a different kind of aesthetic? In addition, the style of some Black novels, like Jean Tommer's Cane, verges on expressionism or surrealism; does this technique provide a counterpoint to the prevalent theme that portrays the fate against which Black heroes are pitted, a theme usually conveyed by more naturalistic modes of expression? In spite of such omissions, what Rosenblatt does include in his discussion makes for an astute and worthwhile study. {{U}}Black Fiction{{/U}} surveys a wide variety of novels, bringing to our attention in the process some fascinating and little-known works like James Weldon Johnson's {{U}}Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man{{/U}}. Its argument is tightly constructed, and its forthright, lucid style exemplifies levelheaded and penetrating criticism.

单选题Which of the following statements best summarizes the author's attitude towards the souvenir trade ?

单选题 Middle born children will tell you that they usually didn't feel all that special while growing up. The first born had his spot- carrier of the family banner and responsible for everything. The last born had his comfy little role, but the middle born had no distinctive place to call his own.Middle-borns just seem to be easily overlooked, and maybe that's why there are so few pictures of them in the family photo album. There may be hundreds, seemingly thousands, of pictures of the firstborn. For some strange reason, however, which I have confirmed by polling middle-born children around the world, there are seldom many pictures of the middle child, and what photos there are have him included with the others—squeezed again between the older sibling and the younger sibling. Another thing that can be said of many middle-born children is that they typically place great importance on their peer group. The middle child is well known for going outside the home to make friends faster than anybody else in the family. When a child feels like a fifth wheel at home, friends become very important; as a result, many middle children (but not all, of course) tend to be the social lions of the family. While firstborns, typically, have fewer friends, middle children often have many. Middle children have a propensity to leave home first and live farther away from the family than anyone else. I observed a dramatic illustration of this tendency while I was a guest on Oprah Winfrey's show. The subject that day was sibling rivalry. Three charming young women, all sisters, were among the guests, and we quickly learned that the firstborn and the last born were residents of the Eastern state where they had grown up. They had settled down near their parents and other family members. But the middle child had moved to the West Coast. I suppose she could have gotten another two thousand miles farther away by moving to Hawaii, but her point was still well made. Middle children are the ones who will most often physically distance themselves from the rest of the family. It's not necessarily because they're on the outs with everyone else. They simply like to do their own thing, make their own friends, and live their own lives. All of this is not to say that middle children totally ignore their siblings or the rest of the family. One common characteristic of the middle child is that she is a good mediator or negotiator. She comes naturally into this role because she's often right in the middle, between big brother and little sister, whatever the case may be. And because she can't have Mom or Dad all to herself, she learns the fine art of compromise. Obviously, these skills are assets in adult life, and middle children often become the best adjusted adults in the family.