单选题
单选题
单选题
Questions
6-10 It was the worst tragedy in maritime history, six
times more deadly than the Titanic. When the German cruise ship
Wilhelm Gustloff was hit by torpedoes fired from a Russian submarine in the
final winter of World War Ⅱ, more than 10,000 people--mostly women, children and
old people fleeing the final Red Army push into Nazi Germany--were packed
aboard. An ice storm had turned the decks into frozen sheets that sent hundreds
of families sliding into the sea as the ship tilted and began to go down. Others
desperately tried to put lifeboats down. Some who succeeded fought off those in
the water who had the strength to try to claw their way aboard. Most people
froze immediately. "I'll never forget the screams," says Christa Ntitzmann, 87,
one of the 1,200 survivors. She recalls watching the ship, brightly lit,
slipping into its dark grave—and into seeming nothingness, rarely mentioned for
more than half a century. Now Germany's Nobel Prize-winning
author Guenter Grass has revived the memory of the 9,000 dead, including more
than 4,000 children--with his latest novel Crab Walk, published last month. The
book, which will be out in English next year, doesn't dwell on the sinking; its
heroine is a pregnant young woman who survives the catastrophe only to say
later. "Nobody wanted to hear about it, not here in the West (of Germany) and
not at all in the East. " The reason was obvious. As Grass put it in a recent
interview with the weekly Die Woche: "Because the crimes we Germans are
responsible for were and are so dominant, we didn't have the energy left to tell
of our own sufferings. " The long silence about the sinking of
the Wilhelm Gustloff was probably unavoidable--and necessary. By unreservedly
owning up to their country's monstrous crimes in the Second World War, Germans
have managed to win acceptance abroad, marginalize the neo-Nazis at home and
make peace with their neighbors. Today's unified Germany is more prosperous and
stable than at any time in its long, troubled history. For that, a half century
of willful forgetting about painful memories like the German Titanic was perhaps
a reasonable price to pay. But even the most politically correct Germans believe
that they've now earned the right to discuss the full historical record. Not to
equate German suffering with that of its victims, but simply to acknowledge a
terrible tragedy.
单选题
{{B}}Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following
interview.{{/B}}
单选题
单选题
{{B}}Questions
27-30{{/B}}
单选题{{B}}Statements{{/B}}{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} In this part of the test, you will
hear several short statements. These statements will be spoken{{B}} ONLY ONCE{{/B}},
and you will not find them written on the paper; so you must listen carefully.
When you hear a statement, read the answer choices and decide which one is
closest in meaning to the statement you have heard. Then write the letter of the
answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your {{B}}ANSWER
BOOKLET.{{/B}}
单选题Questions 6~10
Steven Spielherg has taken Hollywood"s depiction of war to a new level. He does it right at the start of
Saving Private Ryan
, in a 25 minute sequence depicting the landing of American forces on Omaha Beach in 1944. This is not the triumphant version of D-Day we"re used to seeing, but an inferno of severed arms, spilling intestines, flying corpses and blood-red tides. To those of us who have never fought in a war, this reenactment—newsreel-like in its verisimilitude, hallucinatory in its impact—leaves you convinced that Spielberg has taken you closer to the chaotic, terrifying sights and sounds of combat than any filmmaker before him.
This prelude is so strong, so unnerving, that I feared it would overwhelm the rest of the film When the narrative proper begins, there"s an initial feeling of diminishment, it"s just a movie, after all, with the usual banal music cues and actors going through their paces. Fortunately, the feeling passes.
Saving Private Ryan
reasserts its grip on you and, for most of its 2 hour and 40 minute running time, holds you in thrall.
Our heroes are a squad of eight soldiers lucky enough to survived Omaha Beach. Now they are sent, under the command of Captain Miller (Tom Hanks), to find and safely return from combat a Private Ryan (Matt Damon), whose three brothers have already died in action. Why should they risk their lives to save one man? The question haunts them, and the movie.
The squad is a familiar melting-pot assortment of World War Two grunts—the cynical New Yorker (Edward Burns) who doesn"t want to risk his neck; the Jew (Adam Goldberg); the Italian (Vin Diesel); the Bible-quoting sniper from Tennessee (Barry Pepper); the medic (Giovanni Ribisi). The most terrified is an inexperienced corporal (Jeremy Davies) brought along as a translator. Davies seems to express every possible variety of fear on his eloquently scrawny face. Tom Sizemore is also impressive as Miller"s loyal second in command. As written by Robert Rodat, they could be any squad in any war movie. But Spielberg and his actors make us care deeply about their fate. Part of the movie"s power comes from Hank"s quietly mysterious performance as their decent, reticent leader (the men have a pool going speculating about what he did in civilian life). There"s an unhistrionic fatalism in Captain Miller; he just wants to get the job done and get home alive, but his eyes tell you he doesn"t like the odds.
The level of work in
Saving Private Ryan
—from the acting to Janusz Kaminski"s brilliantly bleached-out color cinematography to the extraordinary sound design by Gary Rydstorm—is state of the art. For most of
Saving Private Ryan
, Spielberg is working at the top of his form, with the movie culminating in a spectacularly staged climactic battle in a French village. The good stuff is so shattering that it overwhelms the lapses, but you can"t help noticing a few Hollywood moments. Sometimes Spielberg doesn"t seem to trust how powerful the material is, and crosses the line into sentimentality. There"s a prelude and a coda, set in a military cemetery, which is written and directed with a too-heavy hand. But the truth is, this movie so wiped me out that I have little taste for quibbling. When you emerges from Spielberg"s cauldron, the world doesn"t look quite the same.
单选题The passage suggests that issues of a free press ______.
单选题
单选题The study of management is at a turning point. What began as the study of "best practice" among large manufacturing firms has grown to encompass specialized fields ranging from finance to government. As the subject matter has changed, so has the role played by its masters. Business schools and management consultants used to spend most of their time training the inexperienced, bringing them up to speed on case studies of "excellent" companies. Now they also create their own theories to challenge the wisdom of businessmen. And those theories have the power to change the ways in which even the best companies do business.
The new scope and power of management theories have created an identity crisis. Are teachers of management like historians, distilling the wisdom of the world into a form that others can absorb and imitate? Or are they innovators, changing the world with their new theories and ideas? And, if they are to be innovators, what are to be the doctrine and dogma from which their theories spring? Bright management ideas abound, but two factors make it hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. One is the "Hawthorne effect". Early in the twentieth century, managers at General Electric"s Hawthorne plant began a study of how better lighting might increase productivity. They turned up the lights. Productivity went up. For exactitude, they also turned down the lights, expecting productivity to fall. It didn"t; it went again. In fact, just about anything done to the Hawthorne workers increased productivity. They liked the attention.
Given workers" ability to respond positively to extra attention—however abjectly lunatic and misguided—a fallback criterion for measuring the success of a management theory is profits. But here the past seven years of steady economic growth, combined with roaring bull markets, have shown virtually all business ideas in their kindest light. For the time being, professors themselves are left with great leeway to decide which ideas are worth teaching and which are best forgotten. But the perspectives from which they make such decisions are changing fast.
Management schools first started cropping up in America at the tuna of the century. Their role was to mould a new type of top manager to run a new type of corporation: the diversified manufacturer. Paragon of the new breed of company was General Motors—as redesigned by Alfred Sloan, who also founded the Sloan School of Management at MIT. To tap economies of scale and scope GM was one of the first firms to organize management by function, creating a finance department, a marketing department, an engineering department and so on. This new organization, in turn, required a new breed of manager at the top—where the functional divisions came together—who could get the most out of the vast and specialized resources spread out beneath him.
The new breed of magnate had to understand the various skills he commanded, from finance to manufacturing. Few had time to gain all that knowledge on shop—and trading-room-floors. The new managers also had to be able to translate their knowledge into a common language, which often meant the rows and columns of management accounting. And, because of the complexity of their empires, they had to be more conscious of the theory and practice of organization.
In many ways, the logical culmination of this management philosophy was Harlod Geneen of ITT (MBA, Harvard). He created a vast conglomerate based on "management by numbers"—the idea that if one could read management accounts right, one could manage just about anything. But neither conglomerateers nor big manufacturers have had an easy time of late. Not only have economies shifted towards service industries, but the turbulence of recent years has encouraged the break-up of big firms into smaller chunks.
Though the required "core" curriculum of most business schools still prepares graduates for life in a firm like GM, only a minority of MBAs now go into big manufacturing companies. Some of the best-publicized successors to Harold Geneen"s manage-by-numbers philosophy have drifted into the mergers and acquisitions departments of investment banks. Others have scattered across the world of business. If today"s MBA can be said to have a typical career, he would begin in finance or consulting and end up founding a business.
Business schools, meanwhile, encourage diversity by expanding the number of subjects which they teach. Though programs vary greatly, most MBA curricula can be divided roughly into three parts: a core curriculum of required subjects; a specialized subject that the MBA studies in greater depth; and the educational process itself, which emphasizes the sort of teamwork that MBAs will have to adopt in the real world.
The core curriculum includes the facts and skills which every MBA must master. At most business schools it includes marketing (how to discover who might want to buy your product and why), finance (how to get and use capital), management accounting (how to keep financiers abreast of how you are doing), organization (how to create teams that work), manufacturing (how to tell people who make things what to do), and information technology (what computers can do).
By the standards of any other graduate program, much of the core MBA is remarkably rudimentary. Business-school students are not expected to know what a bond is, or a share. Accounting courses do not take for granted even the basic principles of double-entry bookkeeping, let alone the basics of reading a balance sheet. Though the level of these courses is a humbling reminder of the lack of business education elsewhere—the average 18-year-old in America or Britain probably knows more about nuclear physics than about business—it can hardly justify MBAs high salaries and high-flying reputations. For that, MBAs must rely on their specialized studies and the sheer process of MBA instruction.
Mr. David Norburn, head of the MBA program of London"s Imperial College, is fond of ribbing his students and staff with the argument that his school might as usefully offer a "Masters of Advanced Plumbing" as an MBA. Much of the real value of an MBA, he argues, lies in recreating in MBA studies the feeling of working in business. Problems are structured so that they can be solved only by teams. Pressure is kept high. There is never enough time or information to reach definite conclusions, encouraging inspired guessing and "quality bluffing". And, at the end of the day, there is no pretence of sharing rewards equally among the team—an individual takes the best prizes.
For employers, the best part of an MBA often lies in his specialized training. Given inflation into the technicalities of, say, bond trading or market analysis, an MBA can often go straight to work at a level which untrained colleagues may take a year or more to reach on the job. Better, he can bring new ideas to an organization; most home-grown experts cannot.
So it is no surprise that some of the most frantic innovation in business schools is the fine- tuning of specialized curricula, and the introduction of new special subjects. The dean of the Stanford School of Business, Mr. Robert Jaedicke, has compiled a list of the new features proposed for tomorrow"s MBAs. It includes:
Globalization. As competition increasingly ignores national boundaries, so too must managers. That means that managers must be able to build teams which include various nationalities working side by side.
Regulation. Governments and regulatory agencies from GATT to America"s Food and Drug Administration—play a growing role in defining how businesses compete. Managers must be increasingly good at working with (or around) them.
Ethics and social responsibility. Businesses have gradually assumed a broad social and political role. They are patrons of the arts. They have become embroiled in social and political change—e. g., in the controversy over apartheid in South Africa and, at home, in "affirmative action programmes" to promote minorities. That means that managers must become sophisticated about balancing their duties to shareholders with their social roles.
How will business schools get all this new knowledge? Mr. Jaedicke, for one, plans to borrow it from other parts of his university. He is now trying to get political scientists interested in the problems of business and regulation. He wonders whether, in a few years, he might be recruiting moral philosophers to help businessmen sort out their ethics. Borrowing, he argues, is how management theory grows most healthily—witness the transformation that economists recruited by business schools in the 1960s have wrought on financial markets.
单选题Questions 27-30
单选题Questions 19-22
单选题
Research into self-awareness
consistently shows that most people think and speak highly of themselves. Time
and again, subjects see positive traits as more self-descriptive than negative
ones, they rate themselves more highly than they rate others, they rate
themselves more highly than they are rated by others, they overestimate their
contribution to team efforts, and they exaggerate their control over life
events. It's not that we consciously flatter ourselves, either. The response is
more like a mindless reflex. In fact, when subjects are busy or distracted as
they make self-ratings, the judgments they come up with are quicker and even
more favorable. Most people also exhibit "unrealistic optimism",
a tendency to predict a uniquely bright and rosy future for themselves. College
students asked to predict their own future compared to that of their classmates
believed, on average, that they were more likely to graduate higher in their
class, get a better job, earn a higher salary, have a happier marriage, and bear
a gifted child. They also believed that they were less likely to get fired,
become depressed, become involved in a car accident, or suffer from a heart
attack. Many other examples illustrate this point—as when voters predict
that their favored candidate will prevail and sports fans bet on their favorite
teams to win. Psychologists used to agree that an accurate
perception of reality is vital to mental health. More and more, however, this
view is being challenged by research on positive illusions. Are these illusions
a sign of well-being or symptoms of disorder? In 1988 two
psychologists reviewed the relevant research and noticed that people who are
mildly depressed or low in self-esteem have less inflated and sometimes more
realistic views of themselves than do others who are better adjusted. Their
self-appraisals are more likely to match appraisals of them made by neutral
others, they are less likely to exaggerate their control over uncontrollable
events, and they make more balanced predictions about the future. Based on
these results, psychologists arrived at the provocative conclusion that when it
comes to the self, positive illusions—not accurate perceptions of
reality—promote health and well-being. In their words, "these illusions help
make each individual's world a warmer and more active and beneficent place in
which to live." In fact, research involving people under stress—such as people
with serious illnesses—shows that perceived control, optimism, and other
positive beliefs are "health protective" psychological resources that help
people cope with adversity. Others are not so sure that eternal
optimists are better off than hard realists. They argue that positive illusions
can give rise to chronic patterns of self-destruction—as when people escape from
self-awareness through the use of drugs and deny health-related problems until
it s too late for treatment. In studies of interpersonal relations, people with
inflated rather than realistic views of themselves were rated less favorably on
certain dimensions by their own friends. In these studies, self-enhancing men
were seen as assertive and ambitious, which are OK, but also as boastful,
condescending, hostile, and inconsiderate. Self-enhancing women were seen as
more hostile, more defensive and sensitive to criticism, more likely to
overreact to minor setbacks, and less well liked by others. Consistent with
these findings, other research shows that people filled with high self-esteem
are more likely to lash out angrily in response to criticism, rejection, and
other bruises to the ego. The result. People with inflated self-images may make
a good first impression on others but they are liked less and less as time wears
on.
单选题Miguel knocked on one of the doors. When no one answered, he pushed the door open. He immediately realized his mistake. He'd blundered into another dressing room. Miguel knew he should leave the room immediately, but he couldn't help staring at the guy in the room. He seemed to be taking to himself. No one in the room was talking back. Yet there was someone else there. A girl. Most of her was hidden behind the speaker's broad-shouldered body. Miguel saw a flash of slender hands reaching up, fussing with the front of the guy's light brown hair. "Glenn, hold still!" the girl's voice suddenly cut through the speaker's monologue, "If you don't stop wriggling. I might burn you with this curling iron!" Miguel's blood turned to boiling acid. Leanna! She hadn't wasted any time getting a new boyfriend. Miguel had to see what this loser looked like. "Excuse me," Miguel said, walking toward the couple. "Can you tell me the supply closet?" "This isn't the supply closet," Glenn said arrogantly, "Get lost. " "But I'm already lost," Miguel said cheerfully. He was ignoring Glenn now and watching Leanna for some sort of reaction. Her face was totally drained of color, and her almond eyes were so wide, they almost seemed round. "What are you doing here?" Leanna gasped. "Looking for an extension cord," Miguel replied. He pointed to the white cord connecting the curling iron to the outlet. "How about that one?" "No! That's mine," Glenn said, "Leanna, you only put one wave in my hair. " "Hey, Leanna, you never did my hair when we were dating," Miguel said. He leaned against the wall, almost in Leanna's face, and ruffled his bangs with his fingers. Miguel wasn't sure what he was trying to prove. He couldn't stand seeing Leanna so close to Glenn, touching his hair. If he could goad Leanna into losing her temper, Miguel hoped he'd be able to hate her again, instead of wanting her back. "Get out of here," Leanna said coldly. "You used to go out with this janitor?" Glenn asked Leanna. "I'm not a janitor," Miguel said, "I'm helping Scott with the lights. " "Yeah?" Glenn turned to Miguel, "Make sure you keep that spotlight on me, boy. I'm the star of this show. " "You may be the star," Miguel said, his voice low, "but I'm not your boy. " "I can say whatever I want," Glenn shot back, "My parents pay taxes, but you immigrants sneak into this country illegally and take jobs away from Americans. Do you want me to call Immigration?" Leanna suddenly stepped between them. "I can't believe you, Glenn. Miguel's not an immigrant. His family came here from the Philippines, and—" Glenn's nostrils flared, "These foreigners are taking over the country. It makes me sick!" "I'm a Filipino and I'm proud of it !" Leanna, hands on her hips, was shouting in Glenn's face, "Do I make you sick, Glenn?" "Of course not !" Glenn looked shocked, "You were born here. I'm talking about people who come from other countries. Most of them go on welfare and they run down the neighborhoods and commit crimes. Why should they have the same rights as American citizens ?" "Because we're human beings," Leanna said. Miguel noticed that Leanna had put herself in the same category. She wasn't trying to impress him. She was speaking from the heart. "It's not where you come from that matters," Leanna told Glenn, "It's what kind of person you are inside. Miguel's honest and hardworking, but you're a conceited jerk!" "What's going on in here?" a new voice demanded. The agent, Tyrone Ashby, appeared in the doorway. "Five minutes to curtain time! Glenn, get out there!" "I'm outta here, all right," Glenn said, "You can have your crummy show without me! " Miguel barely noticed Glenn or the agent. All his attention was on Leanna. She turned to him, tears glistening in her eyes. "Miguel, I'm sorry I lied to you," she said, "I know you'll never forgive me. But I wanted to say thank you. Because of you, I've learned to love my Philippine heritage. I hope someday we can be friends. " A lump rose in Migucl's throat, and he knew, suddenly, that friendship would never be enough. "Leanna," he began. But then he felt his body slam into the wall as Glenn pushed roughly past on his way out the door. Miguel had barely caught his breath when Tyrone grabbed his arm. "You've got to take Glenn's place!" Tyrone cried, "You've got the right build, the same shoulders—" "Miguel hates modeling," Leanna said, "He won't do it... will you, Miguel?" Suddenly Miguel knew he'd do whatever it took to make Leanna smile. Beside, it was partly his fault that Glenn had walked out of the fashion show in the first place. If Miguel refused to fill in, lots of people would be disappointed. "Okay," he said, "But no makeup. " "No time for makeup." Tyrone dragged Miguel toward a rack of clothes. "Leanna, go tell them to delay the curtain. " "Leanna !" Miguel called, "Wait a second !" "What?" she asked, looking hopefully. "You can talk to her later!" Tyrone almost shrieked, "Put on this suit!" Miguel pointed to the curling iron. "The extension cord—give it to Scott!" When the show ended, Leanna hurried backstage. She found Miguel talking to Tyrone. But then Miguel looked directly at her. Rescue me, his eyes seemed to say. "There you are!" Miguel said, "Excuse us, Tyrone. We're late for—uh— something. " "What was that all about?" Leanna asked as she followed Miguel down the hallway. "Tyrone keeps saying I have The look. He wants me to enroll at Bayside. But that's not important right now." Miguel yanked open the first door he came to and stepped inside. "Come here, I need to talk to you. " "In a broom closet?" Leanna asked, stepping into a small room filled with brooms. "I guess it's not the most romantic spot," Miguel said, "But this isn't the worst mistake I've made. My worst mistake was breaking up with you. " Leanna caught her breath. "You—you forgive me?" "I was wrong, too." Miguel swallowed hard, "When you said those things to Glenn, I realized I was just as prejudiced as he was. I wanted you to be part of my world, but I wasn't ready to accept yours. I didn't respect the things that were important to you." "I didn't give you the chance to know what was important to me. " Miguel's face turned crimson. "I felt pretty good out on that runway," he admitted, "I see why you like it. Not that I'm ready to enroll at Bayside. " "But you have The look," Leanna teased. She took a step closer. She couldn't keep her hand from trembling as she reached out and brushed Miguel's silky bangs back from his forehead, "All you need are some curls here.., and here. " Leanna felt Miguel's arms tighten around her waist. "Leanna," Miguel began, "can we give it another try?" "I'm willing if you are," Leanna said, "I'm a Filipino, but I'm an American, too. I'd like us to explore both cultures. Together. " Leanna took a deep breath and hoped she'd get her pronunciation right. "Mahal kita, Miguel. " Surprise and pleasure lit Miguel's dark eyes. "I love you, too. " He said. And he sealed it with a kiss.
单选题
单选题
单选题
单选题Questions 16~20
Stratford-on-Avon, as we all know, has only one industry—William Shakespeare—but there are two distinctly separate and increasingly hostile branches. There is the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), which presents superb productions of the plays at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre on the Avon. And there are the townsfolk who largely live off the tourists who come, not to see the plays, but to look at Anne Hathaway"s Cottage, Shakespeare"s birthplace and the other sights. The worthy residents of Stratford doubt that the theatre adds a penny to their revenue. They frankly dislike the RSC"s actors, them with their long hair and beards and sandals and noisiness. It"s all deliciously ironic when you consider that Shakespeare, who earns their living, was himself an actor (with a beard) and did his share of noise-making.
The tourist streams are not entirely separate. The sightseers who come by bus—and often take in Warwick Castle and Blenheim Palace on the side—don"t usually see the plays, and some of them are even surprised to find a theatre in Stratford. However, the playgoers do manage a little sight- seeing along with their play going. It is the playgoers, the RSC contends, who bring in much of the town"s revenue because they spend the night (some of them four or five nights) pouring cash into the hotels and restaurants. The sightseers can take in everything and get out of town by nightfall. The townsfolk don"t see it this way and local council does not contribute directly to the subsidy of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Stratford cries poor traditionally. Nevertheless every hotel in town seems to be adding a new wing or cocktail lounge. Hilton is building its own hotel there, which you may be sure will be decorated with Hamlet Hamburger Bars, the Lear Lounge, the Banquo Banqueting Room, and so forth, and will be very expensive.
Anyway, the townsfolk can"t understand why the Royal Shakespeare Company needs a subsidy. (The theatre has broken attendance records for three years in a row. Last year its 1,431 seats were 94 percent occupied all year long and this year they"ll do better.) The reason, of course, is that costs have rocketed and ticket prices have stayed low.
It would be a shame to raise prices too much because it would drive away the young people who are Stratford"s most attractive clientele. They come entirely for the plays, not the sights. They all seem to look alike (though they come from all over)—lean, pointed, dedicated faces, wearing jeans and sandals, eating their buns and bedding down for the night on the flagstones outside the theatre to buy the 20 seats and 80 standing-room tickets held for the sleepers and sold to them when the box office opens at 10:30 a. m.
单选题
Question
15-18
