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单选题 The French word renaissance means rebirth. It was first used in 1855 by the historian Jules Michelet in his History of France, then adopted by historians of culture, by art historians, and eventually by music historians, all of whom applied it to European culture during the 150 years spanning 1450-1600. The concept of rebirth was appropriate to this period of European history because of the renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman culture that began in Italy and then spread throughout Europe. Scholars and artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries wanted to restore the learning and ideals of the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome. To these scholars this meant a return to human—as opposed to spiritual, values. Fulfillment in life—as opposed to concern about an afterlife—became a desirable goal, and expressing the entire range of human emotions and enjoying the pleasures of the senses were no longer frowned on. Artists and writers now turned to secular as well as religious subject matter and sought to make their works understandable and appealing. These changes in outlook deeply affected the musical culture of the Renaissance period— how people thought about music as well as the way music was composed, experienced, discussed, and disseminated. They could see the architectural monuments, sculptures, plays, and poems that were being rediscovered, but they could not actually hear ancient music—although they could read the writings of classical philosophers, poets, essayists, and music theorists that were becoming available in translation. They learned about the power of ancient music to move the listener and wondered why modem music did not have the same effect. For example, the influential religious leader Bernardino Cirillo expressed disappointment with the learned music of his time. He urged musicians to follow the example of the sculptors, painters, architects, and scholars who had rediscovered ancient art and literature. The musical Renaissance in Europe was more a general cultural movement and state of mind than a specific set of musical techniques. Furthermore, music changed so rapidly during this century and a half—though at different rates in different countries—that we cannot define a single Renaissance style.

单选题Questions 11 to 18 are based on the following talk.

单选题 Flats were almost unknown in Britain until the 1850s when they were developed, along with other industrial dwellings, for the laboring classes. These vast blocks were plainly a convenient means of easing social conscience by housing large numbers of the ever-present poor on compact city sites. During the 1880s, however, the idea of living in comfortable residential chambers caught on with the affluent upper and upper middle classes, and controversy as to the advantages and disadvantages of flat life was a topic of conversation around many a respectable dinner-table. In Paris and other major European cities, the custom whereby the better-off lived in apartments, or flats, was well established. Up to the late nineteenth century in England only bachelor barristers had established the tradition of living in rooms near the Law Court: any self-respecting head of household would insist upon a West End town house as his London home, the best that his means could provide. The popularity of flats for the better-off seems to have developed for a number of reasons. First, perhaps, through the introduction of the railways, which had enabled a wide range of people to enjoy a holiday staying in a suite at one of the luxury hotels which had begun to spring up during the previous decade. Hence, no doubt, the fact that many of the early luxury flats were similar to hotel suites, even being provided with communal dining-rooms and central boilers for hot water and heating. Rents tended to be high to cover overheads, but savings were made possible by these communal amenities and by tenants being able to reduce the number of family servants. On of the earliest substantial London developments of flats for the well-to-do was begun soon after Victoria Railway Station was opened in 1860, as the train service provided an efficient link with both the City and the South of England. Victoria Street, adjacent to both the Station and Westminster, had already been formed, and under the direction of the architect, Henry Ashton, was being lined with blocks of residential chambers in the Parisian manner. These flats were commodious indeed, offering between eight and fifteen rooms apiece, including appropriate domestic offices. The idea was an emphatic departure from the tradition of the London house and achieved immediate success. Perhaps the most notable block in the vicinity was Queen Anne's Mansions, partly designed by E. R. Robson in 1884 and recently demolished. For many years, this was London's loftiest building and had strong claims to be the ugliest. The block was begun as a wild speculation, modeled on the American skyscraper, and was nearly 200 feet high. The cliff-like walls of dingy brick completely overshadowed the modest thoroughfare nearby. Although bleak outside, the mansion flats were palatial within, with sumptuously furnished communal entertaining and dining rooms. And lifts to the uppermost floors. The success of these tall blocks of flats could not have been achieved, of course, without the invention of the lift, or "ascending carriage" as it was called when first used in the Strand Law Courts in the 1870s.

单选题 Eight thousand years ago, forests covered more than 23 million square miles, or about 40 percent of Earth's land surface. Today, almost half of those forests have fallen to the ax, the chain saw, the matchstick, or the bulldozer. A map unveiled in March by the Washington-based World Resources Institute not only shows the locations of former forests, but also assesses the condition of today's forests worldwide. Institute researchers developed the map with the help of the World Conservation Monitoring Center, the World Wildlife Fund, and 90 forest experts from a variety of universities, government organizations, and environmental groups. Only one-fifth of the remaining forests are still "frontier forests", defined as a relatively undisturbed natural forests large enough to support all of their native species. Frontier forests offer a number of benefits: They generate and maintain biodiversity, protect watersheds, prevent flooding and soil erosion, and stabilize climate. Many large areas that have traditionally been classified as forest land don't qualify as "frontier" because of human influences such as fire suppression and a patchwork of logging. "There's surprisingly little intact forest left," says research associate Dirk Bryant, the principal author of the report that accompanies the new map. In the report, Bryant, Daniel Nielsen, and Laura Tangley divide the world into four groups: 76 countries that have lost all of their frontier forest; 11 nations that are "on the edge"; 28 countries with "not much time"; and only eight—including Canada, Russia, and Brazil—that still have a "great opportunity" to keep most of their original forest. The United States is among the nations said to be mining out of time: In the lower 48 states, says Bryant, "only 1 percent of the forest that was once there as frontier forest qualifies today." Logging poses the biggest single threat to remaining frontier forests. "Our results suggest that 70 percent of frontier forests under threat are threatened by logging," says Bryant. The practice of cutting timber also creates roads that cause erosion and open the forest to hunting, mining, firewood gathering, and land clearing for farms. What can protect frontier forests? The researchers recommend combining preservation with sustainable land use practices such as tourism and selective timber extraction. It's possible to restore frontiers," says Bryant, "but the cost and time required to do so would suggest that the smart approach is to husband the remaining frontier forest before it's gone.

单选题 Skeptical of advertisers' sales pitches, shoppers are putting more trust in online consumer reviews of products from electronics to pet food. With rising trust, however, has come corruption. On Amazon. com, for instance, a suspiciously high 80 percent of reviews give four stars or higher, says Bing Liu, a computer scientist at the University of Illinois at Chicago who studies the inauthentic-review problem. Since most consumers don't write reviews unless they have criticisms to share, "who on earth are these people who are so happy?" he asks. He estimates that about 30 percent of Web reviews are fraudulent. One example. Staffers at Reverb Communications, a Twain Harte, Calif., public relations firm, posed as consumers and praised clients' products at the iTunes store before settling Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges of deception in 2010. Now, organizations are battling back with new technologies to detect fake reviews. "It's basically an arms race," says Mr. Liu, whose university team is building software to catch fake reviewers. "We have algorithms [to identify false reviews], and then these guys are inventing ways to avoid these things." At stake is the integrity of a 21st century confidant. 70 percent of global consumers trust online consumer reviews, up from 55 percent four years ago, according to a Nielsen survey released earlier this year. Meanwhile, the fraction that says it trusts paid television, radio, and newspaper ads has shrunk to just 47 percent. Spotting fake reviews means discerning signs of a faker. One who's gushed about multiple refrigerator models at various websites probably hasn't bought and tested them all, Liu explains, but is instead being paid to praise. Likewise, when hotel reviews come from guests who received discounts in exchange, their "Love! Love! Love!" should be taken with a grain of salt, salt, salt. But researching each reviewer's background would require more time and patience than most readers have. Even the FTC, with some 60 staffers who police advertising, lacks resources to enforce rules governing online reviews. The agency instead focuses on educating businesses about legal boundaries. "We're never going to be able to stop all false advertising," including false consumer reviews, says Mary Engle, the FTC's associate director for advertising practices. "It would be great if there were some technological innovation that would help solve the problem, or at least put a dent in it." Faced with human limitations, pioneers are betting technology can fix what it helped create (or at least exacerbate). Consider Yelp. com, a site where readers find more than 30 million consumer reviews of everything from restaurants to doctors. Reviewers must register, which helps weed out robots, according to Yelp. It discards apparent shills and malicious attacks on competitors, as well as reviews that seem to have been solicited by business owners. Some legitimate reviews may be tossed out in the process, since the filter isn't perfect, Yelp says. At the University of Illinois at Chicago, researchers are targeting reviewers rather than reviews. Programs in development track a reviewer's Internet Protocol address to see what else he or she has been reviewing. Is that person generating dozens of reviews on various sites every week? Does every review from this particular source crow—or pan? Programs sniff out suspicious patterns by sifting through data so voluminous that only a computer could do it. Until tech solutions arrive, consumers need strategies for finding trustworthy reviews. Try relying on large samples, says Linda Sherry, director of national priorities for Consumer Action, a San Francisco-based nonprofit advocacy group. If dozens or hundreds of reviewers are raving, then the consensus might be more trustworthy than a small handful of glowing options. And don't worry too much, she adds, because the market has ways of weeding out troublemakers. "You can't lie forever" without being found out, Ms. Sherry says. "We're all the cops on the Internet in a way. It's our eyes that really keep it honest—if it can be. "

单选题One thing is clear after the tragic death of Freddie Gray, the young African-American man who was fatally injured while in police custody in Baltimore last month: we cannot fix the problems of economic justice in this country without addressing racial justice. The deck is stacked against low-income Americans—African American and Latinos in particular. As a newly released report from a pair of Harvard academics has found, just being born in a poor part of Baltimore—or Atlanta, Chicago, or any number of other urban areas—virtually ensures that you"ll never make it up the socioeconomic ladder. Boys from low income households who grow up in the kind of beleaguered, mostly minority neighborhoods like the one Gray was from will earn roughly 25% less than peers who moved to better neighborhoods as children. So much for the American Dream. This has big implications. Income inequality is shaping up to be the key economic issue of the 2016 campaign. If you have any doubt, consider that both Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio, who declared their candidacies in the past few weeks, are already staking out positions. Clinton billed herself as the candidate for the "everyday American," calling for higher wages and criticizing bloated CEO salaries. Meanwhile, Rubio said he wants the Republican—which, he said, is portrayed unfairly as "a party that doesn"t care about the lower class"—to remake itself into "the champion of the working class." What neither candidate has done yet is directly connect the recent spate of violence to the fact that the economic ladder no longer works for a growing number of Americans. Raising the federal minimum wage is just a first step. As Thomas Piketty showed in his best-selling book on inequality, Capital in the Twenty-First Century , creating a system of capitalism that more equitably distributes wealth is our biggest challenge now. A few extra dollars an hour will help minimum-wage workers(a group in which minorities are overrepresented), but it won"t address deeper economic inequality. And as a growing body of research from outfits like the Brookings Institution has shown, more inequality means less opportunity. As Brookings senior fellow Isabel Sawhill puts it, "When the rungs on the ladder are farther apart, it"s harder to climb up them." The dirty secret of America in 2015 is that the wealth gap between whites and everyone else is far worse than most people would guess. A 2014 study by Duke University and the Center for Global Policy Solutions, found that the median amount of liquid wealth (assets that can easily be turned into cash) held by African-American households was $200. For Latino households it was $34,0. The median for white households: $23,000. One reason for the difference is that a disproportionate number of nonwhites, along with women and younger workers of all races, have little or no access to formal retirement-savings plans. Another is that they were hit harder in the mortgage crisis, in part because housing is where the majority of Americans, especially nonwhites, keep most of their wealth, In this sense, the government"s policy decision to favor lenders over homeowners in the 2008 bailouts favored whites over people of color. That"s bad news for a country that will be "majority minority" by 2043, according to Maya Rockeymoore, president of the Center for Global Policy Solutions. The U.S. economy continues to be stuck in a slow, volatile recovery. Lack of consumer demand driven by stagnant or falling wages, and decreased opportunity for many Americans, is what many economists believe behind the paltry growth. Given that 70% of the U.S. economy is driven by consumer demand, it"s a problem that will eventually affect everyone"s bottom line, rich and poor. How to fix it? We need to think harder about narrowing the gap between those at the bottom and the top. If most people, especially lower-income individuals and minorities, keep the bulk of their wealth in housing, we should rethink lending practices and allow for a broader range of credit metrics (which tend to be biased toward whites) and lower down payments for good borrowers. Rethinking our retirement policies is crucial too. Retirement incentives work mainly for whites and the rich. Minority and poor households are less likely to have access to workplace retirement plans, in part because many work in less formal sectors like restaurants and child care. Another overdue fix: we should expand Social Security by lifting the cap on payroll taxes so the rich can contribute the same share of their income as everyone else. Doing both would be a good first step. But going forward, economic and racial fairness can no longer be thought of as separate issues.

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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. Black Fiction surveys a wide variety of novels, bringing to our attention in the process some fascinating and little-known works like James Weldon Johnson"s Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man . Its argument is tightly constructed, and its forthright, lucid style exemplifies levelheaded and penetrating criticism.

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单选题 More than ten years ago, Ingmar Bergman announced that the widely acclaimed Fanny and Alexander would mark his last hurrah as a filmmaker. Although some critics had written him off as earnest but ponderous, others were saddened by the departure of an artist who had explored cinematic moods—from high tragedy to low comedy—during his four-decade career. What nobody foresaw was that Bergman would find a variety of ways to circumvent his own retirement—directing television movies, staging theater productions, and writing screenplays for other filmmakers to direct. His latest enterprise as a screenwriter, Sunday's Children, completes a trilogy of family-oriented movies that began with Fanny and Alexander and continued with The Best Intentions written by Bergman and directed by Danish filmmaker Bille August. Besides dealing with members of Bergman's family in bygone times—it begins a few years after The Best Intentions leaves off—the new picture was directed by Daniel Bergman, his youngest son. Although it lacks the urgency and originality of the elder Bergman's greatest achievements, such as The Silence and Persona, it has enough visual and emotional interest to make a worthy addition to his body of work. Set in rural Sweden during the late 1920s, the story centers on a young boy named Pu, dearly modeled on Ingmar Bergman himself. Pu's father is a country clergyman whose duties include traveling to the capital and ministering to the royal family. While this is an enviable position, it doesn't assuage problems in the pastor's marriage. Pu is young enough to be fairly oblivious to such difficulties, but his awareness grows with the passage of time. So do the subtle tensions that mar Pu's own relationship with his father, whose desire to show affection and compassion is hampered by a certain stiffness in his demeanor and chilliness in his emotions. The film's most resonant passages take place when Pu learns to see his father with new clarity while accompanying him on a cross-country trip to another parish. In a remarkable change of tone, this portion of the story is punctuated with flash-forwards to a time 40 years in the future, showing the relationship between parent and child to be dramatically reversed: The father is now cared for by the son, and desires a forgiveness for past shortcomings that the younger man resolutely refuses to grant. Brief and abrupt though they are, these scenes make a pungent contrast with the sunny landscapes and comic interludes in the early part of the movie. Sunday's Children is a film of many levels, and all are skillfully handled by Daniel Bergman in his directional debut. Gentle scenes of domestic contentment are sensitively interwoven with intimations of underlying malaise. While the more nostalgic sequences are photographed with an eye-dazzling beauty that occasionally threatens to become cloying, any such result is foreclosed by the jagged interruptions of the flash-forward sequences—an intrusive device that few filmmakers are agile enough to handle successfully, but that is put to impressive use by the Bergman team. Henrik Linnros gives a smartly turned performance as young Pu, and Thommy Berggren—who starred in the popular Elvira Madigan years ago—is steadily convincing as his father. Top honors go to the screenplay, though, which carries the crowded canvas of Fanny and Alexander and the emotional ambiguity of The Best Intentions into fresh and sometimes fascinating territory.

单选题Which of the following best summarises the main idea of the passage?

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单选题Questions 16～20 In some countries where racial prejudice is acute, violence has so come to be taken for granted as a means of solving differences, that it is not even questioned. There are countries where the white man imposes his rule by brute force; there are countries where the black man protests by setting fire to cities and by looting and pillaging. Important people on both sides, who would in other respects, appear to be reasonable men, get up and calmly argue in favor of violence—as if it were a legitimate solution, like any other. What is really frightening, what really fills you with despair, is the realization that when it comes to the crunch, we have made no actual progress at all. We may wear collars and ties instead of war-paint, but our instincts remain basically unchanged. The whole of the recorded history of the human race, that tedious documentation of violence, has taught us absolutely nothing. We have still not learnt that violence never solves a problem but makes it more acute. The sheer horror, the bloodshed and the suffering mean nothing. No solution ever comes to light the morning after when we dismally contemplate the smoking ruins and wonder what hit us. The truly reasonable men who know where the solutions lie are finding it harder and harder to get a hearing. They are despised, mistrusted and even persecuted by their own kind because they advocate such apparently outrageous things as law enforcement. If half the energy that goes into violent acts were put to good use, if our efforts were directed at cleaning up the slums and ghettos, at improving living standards and providing education and employment for all, we would have gone a long way to arriving at a solution. Our strength is sapped by having to mop up the mess that violence leaves in its wake. In a well-directed effort, it would not be impossible to fulfill the ideals of a stable social programme. The benefits that can be derived from constructive solutions are everywhere apparent in the world around us. Genuine and lasting solutions are always possible, providing we work within the framework of the law. Before we can even begin to contemplate peaceful co-existence between the races, we must appreciate each other's problems. And to do this, we must learn about them: it is a simple exercise in communication, in exchanging information. "Talk, talk, talk," the advocates of violence say, "all you ever do is talk, and we are none the wiser." It's rather like the story of the famous barrister who painstakingly explained his case to the judge. After listening to a lengthy argument the judge complained that after all this talk, he was none the wiser. "Possible, my lord," the barrister replied, "none the wiser, but surely far better informed. " Knowledge is the necessary prerequisite to wisdom: the knowledge that violence creates the evils it pretends to solve.

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单选题Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear several short talks and conversations. After each of these, you will hear a few questions. Listen carefully because you will hear the talk or conversation and questions ONLY ONCE. When you hear a question, read the four answer choices and choose the best answer to that question. Then write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET. Questions 11～14

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

单选题 Questions 11～15 For one brief moment in April, Larry Ellison came within a few dollars of being the richest man in the world. The computer tycoon was holding a global conference call on a Wednesday morning, when the value of his company surged. It was the moment he almost overtook Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, as the wealthiest on the planet. For a few seconds, as share of traders marked Microsoft down and Oracle up, Ellison came within US $ 200,000 of Gates. The self-proclaimed "bad boy" of Silicon Valley found himself worth more than US $ 52 billion, up from a mere US $10 billion this time last year. Then Microsoft's share price, which had plunged in recent weeks, recovered and the moment passed. Once, Ellison, founder of the software company Oracle, would have danced around his desk cursing like a pirate at failing to bring down Gates, a rival he had constantly made fun of in public. But Silicon Valley insiders said he remained calm, and muttered: "One day, one day very, very soon." He knew his moment was close. Unlike Gates, he is not big on charity, preferring to spend his money his way. He has his own private air force, a military-style crew based at San Jose airport near Redwood City, to help him fly his Gulfstream V jet (with two marbled bathrooms), a Marchetti fighter plane imported from Italy, and a handful of other aircraft, including a trainer for his son. He also plans to import a Russian Mig-29 fighter (capable of 1,500 mph). Why does he want one? So that, he joked, he can blast Gates' home near Seattle. Cars are cheap and cheerful by comparison. He has a relatively modest Porsche Boxster, two specially altered Mercedes and a US $ 900,000 silver McLaren. In San Francisco he owns a magnificent house in Pacific Heights, one of Western America's most expensive stretches of real estate. The house is a technical marvel. When he inserts his key, the opaque glass door turns transparent, revealing a Japanese garden in the middle of the house. For reasons he knows best, Ellison is obsessed with Japanese culture. Though he says he once briefly dated the actress Sharon Stone, Ellison is better known for the number than the fame of his wives. It is said he introduced himself with: "Can I buy you a car?" In one year he gave at least four US $ 50,000 cars to young ladies. While Gates comes from a strong family, Ellison still does not know who his father was. He was born to an unmarried mother and adopted by his Russian uncle and aunt. A brilliant but unpredictable self-promoter, he dropped out of college, drove to California in a battered Thunderbird car and ended up working with computer technicians at a bank. "He always had a champagne lifestyle on beer money," his first wife said. He set up Oracle in 1977 as a super-salesman with 3 programmers, creating software for businesses. It almost collapsed when it promised more than it could deliver, but since then its fortunes have soared. Now it employs 43,000 people and has designed data-processing systems used by Britain's M15 spy service as well as big western companies. Oracle's software is more Internet- friendly than Gates' Windows, one factor behind the company's recent share price rise. Since his company got big, Ellison has promised shareholders that he will spend more time in the office. But can he escape being the thrill-seeker he is at heart? As summer approaches, he may find it hard to resist the lure of his yachts, Sakura, one of the longest in the world, and Sayonara (Japanese for "see you later"), which he races furiously. It is dangerous sport, even for guests. Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch once nearly lost a finger when he grabbed a rope during a race onboard the Sayonara. Ellison joked at least he could "still wrote checks". Regardless of distractions, Ellison will not give up in his battle against Gates. He hates to lose. Ellison declares that any such dominance by one man, like Microsoft in computer industry, is unhealthy. He has obviously forgotten his own plan for a global empire, which he wanted to call the Universal Titanic Octopus Corporation.

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