单选题 {{B}}Questions 15-18{{/B}}

单选题The world seems to be going diet crazy, and yet our nation's obesity rate has shot up year after year. And, it's not only the over 20 population that has to worry about their weight anymore. Children from kindergarten to twelfth grade are also experiencing the problems of an overweight lifestyle. According to the website cosmiverse.com, 11% of adolescents are categorized as being over-weight, and another 16% are in danger of becoming overweight. This is a 60% jump from the 1980's. Some of the blame is being put on schools wanting to fit more academic classes into the children's schedule rather than waste time on physical education. This new take on education has left us with physical activity at an all-time national low, resulting in obesity and poor physical conditioning at an all-time national high. The schools have tried a few solutions; the most recent in the news has been taking soda out of schools and increasing the required time children must be active during school. Will those methods help at all? Education is important at school, but starts at home. I believe students are getting their bad habits from watching their parents and how they eat and exercise. The school system only helps to hinder the child's dietary eating. I know there are studies showing genes that determine how a child will be built. That does not explain however, why the rate continues to increase at such a rapid rate each year. It seems more likely that more and more families have both parents working, leaving their children to their own means for a meal. "Nintendo, TV, Playstation and the like," are what Physical Education teacher, Sue Arostegui, attributes the inactiveness to. "Parents are either gone or too scared with today's society to let them out and play." Classes on health need to become more regular and sports need to be encouraged. At Live Oak High School the staff does a good job of teaching how to eat and exercise to stay healthy. The freshmen study health every Wednesday in RE., and Para James teaches healthy eating and food preparation in Home Economics for the first few weeks of every school year. "Kids have no idea how many calories they are eating," said James of the overweight problems facing students. "Fast food is becoming more popular, it's easier and parents are busy. They are only setting their kids up to gain weight with that diet however." School cafeterias are also getting blamed for the students' eating habits. "Healthy eating should start at home," said L.O.H.S. cafeteria cool Brenda Myers. "Too many kids are being raised on fast food. After eating so much fast food they don't have any tastes for real home cooked food. I always have healthy foods for students, but they are less likely to eat them." Other schools do not even have the type of programs Live Oak offers and are suffering even worse consequences. Sports keep students fit and healthy. There need to be more readily available sports programs for anyone who would like to join. Many students when they feel they do not meet the standards for a team will admit defeat and drop off the team: There needs to be a program that all students will be interested in and continue through for the entire season. Schools can only do and be blamed for so much however, and it will be up to the parents to become more aware of what activities their children are participating in and how healthy they are eating. Until that happens, I foresee the obesity rate continuing on its uphill curve.

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} In this section, you will read several passages. Each passage is followed by several questions based on its content. You are to choose {{B}}ONE{{/B}} best answer to each question. Answer all the questions following each passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage and write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your {{B}}ANSWER BOOKLET.{{/B}} You may take notes while you are listening. 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 playgoing. 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 {{B}}Questions 23—26{{/B}}

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 Family doctors routinely prescribe antidepressants to patients who may not need them, according to an exclusive survey for The Times. GPs are ignoring official guidelines by hastily prescribing pills rather than waiting to see if symptoms improve, the survey suggests. It also provides evidence that it is GPs and psychiatrists who are likely to propose medication as a treatment, rather than patients demanding pills to make them feel better. In addition, the findings raise questions about the efficacy of reviews of medication, required to make sure that patients are still receiving appropriate treatment. Some who took part in the survey claimed that their medication had not been reviewed for years. And there is evidence that GPs are reluctant to discuss options for ending medication, fuelling concerns that too many patients are condemned to take antidepressants for the rest of their lives regardless of improvements. The survey, which was carried out by the mental health charity Mind, does contain positive news, however, with 84 percent of patients saying that their antidepressants were effective. Access to talking therapies appeared to be improving, and most patients said that they were able to taper off their medication without suffering harsh side-effects. Last week The Times revealed that more than one million men and women are addicted to benzodiazepine tranquillisers, drugs that include Valium and which should be prescribed for no more than four weeks for a severely restricted number of conditions. The online survey proved to be one of the most popular ever held by Mind, attracting almost 1,500 responses from people who are on antidepressants or who have stopped taking them within the past two years. Paul Farmer, the charity's chief executive, said: "Many people are being prescribed antidepressants too quickly and taking antidepressants for longer and longer periods without review. We must not demonise drugs and put people off taking something that might help them. But we need also to remember that antidepressants are powerful drugs and as such should be prescribed with caution." More than 46 million prescriptions for antidepressants such as Seroxat and citalopram were written last year, a rise of 9 percent over the previous 12 months. Experts have expressed concern that doctors are prescribing drugs too casually, while GPs claim that patients expect to be given pills to help them through even relatively minor upsets. The Royal College of Psychiatry estimates that between 50 percent and 65 percent of people treated with an antidepressant for depression will benefit. Clare Gerada, a GP and president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said: "I prescribe antidepressants because they work." The length of time people take antidepressants is a key issue. Of those who took part in our survey 37 percent had been on medication for more than five years and 20 percent for more than ten years. Two thirds said that their GP or psychiatrist had prescribed antidepressants straight away rather than waiting to see if the symptoms improved as recommended in guidelines set by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). Four out of five said that it was their GP or psychiatrist who suggested medication in the first place. Of those, 51 percent said that they agreed that it was the right course of action but 42 percent were not in agreement. Forty-five percent of respondents felt that they were not given enough information about the medication they were prescribed, although this fell to 39 percent among those who were prescribed antidepressants more recently. More than half said that they experienced ongoing side-effects. 27 percent said that antidepressants affected their ability to work or study; 24 percent their social lives; 21 percent their relationships with family, friends or partners; and 44 percent their sex lives. Only half of respondents have their drugs monitored every three months, and 72 percent at least every six months. Alarmingly, 6 percent never have their drugs monitored. A total of 25 people who took part in the survey had been taking drugs for more than five years without being monitored, and ten people for more than ten years. GPs and psychiatrists appear reluctant to discuss coming off drugs with their patients: 71 percent said that they had not talked about discontinuing medication. Even those who had been on antidepressants for a significant amount of time had not had a discussion about coming off. More than a quarter said that they expected to be on antidepressants for life. Only 7 percent of respondents who had come off medication within the past two years said this had been at the suggestion of their GP or psychiatrist. Since stopping medication 17 percent believed that they have recovered from their mental health problems, and 44 percent said that they could manage their mental health without drugs.

单选题Questions 15-18

单选题 If books had never been discovered, man would have found some other way of recording his communication. But then, for our consideration, we should include as books everything that is a written record. This would include tablets, papyrus and anything else—including computer diskettes. In the case of music, it would be impossible to think that man can live without it. Looking at primitive cultures, it appears that music is actually a part of the human psyche. When two things are knocked together, music is produced. So for the sake of our discussion, it is intended to restrict the meaning of music to the popularly accepted concept. Music is the pleasing combination of sounds that we like to listen to. Though it is difficult to, we can pretend that these things never existed. In this case we would not miss them today. To compare with recent inventions, let. us look at radio and television. Though we cannot think of life without them today, this is so only from comparatively recent times. There are many of us living today who had seen a time when there was no television. They will tell us that life was not that much different. The same is probably true of radio. But books are a different thing because they, or something akin to them, began thousands of years ago. In the case of music, it goes back even further—perhaps to millions of years. We may be able to imagine a world which never saw books, because books are a human invention. However, in the case' of music this does not seem possible. Pleasing sounds are all around us; like the singing of the birds and the whistling of the wind. Music just seems to be inborn in US and in the world around us. If books did not exist, the world will be a poorer place indeed. Great philosophies like Plato's would become unknown and all the pleasures and lessons we could get from them will be lost forever. Then there is literature like the works of the great masters like Shakespeare, Dickens and Jane Austen. What a somber, miserable world it will be without the pleasures of reading. Since mere are so many other things which depend on reading-like plays, songs and movies—we can expect them to disappear also. It would be a dark and unsatisfying world where knowledge is not propagated; where there ale no books to derive pleasure from. In the case of music: Without it the world will be bleak and cold indeed. It would be a terrible world with no cheery runes, no songs to sing and no great music to lose ourselves in. A world which does not listen to the music of the great masters like Chopin and Beethoven would be a very sorry world. There will not be so many smiles on faces anymore. When we lose music. an expression of a deep part of ourselves—from the soul—is lost. With music, connected activities like dancing will be lost too. A world without music and dancing will bring US back to the Stone Age. Unlike radio, television, telephones and computers, reading and music ale not mere conveniences that we can live without. Reading is crucial for self-expression and for passing on records and knowledge to future generations. Music is part of our very soul. A world without these will not be the world as we know it. In fact. many of us would not want to live in such a world.

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

单选题 Hundreds of thousands of American mothers descended on Washington and about 60 other U.S. cities yesterday to voice their support for stricter gun laws, making one of the country's biggest demonstrations for many years. The Million Morn March was focused on the capital, where a huge crowd of women, along with large numbers of men and children, gathered to mark Mothers' Day on the Mall, the green strip which leads to the Capitol building housing Congress. At the other end, below the Washington Monument, about 2,000 people calling themselves the Armed Informed Mothers staged a counter-protest against gun control. President Clinton threw his weight behind the Million Mom March, holding a morning reception on the lawn of the White House for the rally's leaders and the mothers of children killed by guns. "One of the things your mother teaches you when you grow up is that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," he told the crowd. But he pointed out that a string of gun-control measures had been stalled in congress for more than a year by the opposition of the gun lobby. Violent crime has been falling in the U.S. for eight years, but the impact of firearms remains far higher than in other modern industralised countries. Every year 32,000 Americans—including 12 children and teenagers each day—die from gunfire through murders, accidents and suicides. Among the speakers at the gun-control rally in Washington were three women whose daughters died in the Dunblane massacre. Those murders triggered the Snowdrop Campaign, which eventually led to a ban on handguns in Britain. Before the rally one of the Dunblane mothers, Allison Crozier, said she believed that the Million Morn campaign could ultimately outweigh the entrenched power of the gun lobby. "There are more mums who want something done. We did it in Scotland, they can do it here if they just stand up and do something about it," she told the BBC. The counter-rally may have been tiny by comparison, but the progun demonstrators represent a powerful constituency. According to a survey published yesterday, 45% of U.S. households own a gun, and one in four Americans has been threatened with a gun. The gun-control lobbyists want child-proof trigger locks to be mad compulsory, and a 72-hour "cooling-off periods" for would-be buyers at weekend gun shows. Their opponents say those restrictions are only the first step towards a total ban. One of the Armed Informed Mothers coordinators, Debra Collins, said her life was saved 16 years ago when she used a gun to defend herself against her violent ex-husband. "Thank God, my firearm was unencumbered by a trigger lock," she said. Organisers of the Million Morn March hoped that the turnout nationally would top a million. The final figure was unclear yesterday afternoon, but May Leigh Blek, one of the movement's founders, said enough people had shown up to put gun control on the legislative agenda in congress. She said: "I hope when legislators see so many mothers, it will give them the courage to do the right thing."

单选题Questions 16～20 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Perhaps we could have our children pledge allegiance to a national motto. So thick and fast tumble the ideas about Britishness from the Government that the ridiculous no longer seems impossible. For the very debate about what it means to be a British citizen, long a particular passion of Gordon Brown, brutally illustrates the ever-decreasing circle that new Labour has become. The idea of a national motto has already attracted derision on a glorious scale-and there's nothing more British than the refusal to be defined. Times readers chose as their national motto: No motto please, we' re British. Undaunted, here comes the Government with another one: a review of citizenship, which suggests that schoolchildren be asked to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen. It would be hard to think of something more profoundly undemocratic, less aligned to Mr. Brown's supposed belief in meritocracy and enabling all children to achieve their full potential. Today you will hear the Chancellor profess the Government's continuing commitment to the abolition of child poverty, encapsulating a view of Britain in which the State tweaks the odds and the tax credit system to iron out inherited inequalities. You do not need to ask how this vision of Britain can sit easily alongside a proposal to ask kids to pledge allegiance to the Queen before leaving school: it cannot. The one looks up towards an equal society, everyone rewarded according to merit and not the lottery of birth; the other bends its knee in obeisance to inherited privilege and an undemocratic social and political system. In Mr. Brown's view of the world, as I thought I understood it, an oath of allegiance from children to the Queen ought to be anathema, grotesque, off the scale, not even worth considering. Why then, could No 10 not dismiss it out of hand yesterday? Asked repeatedly at the morning briefing with journalists whether the Prime Minister supported the proposal, his spokesman hedged his bets. Mr. Brown welcomed the publication of the report; he thinks the themes are important; he hopes it will launch a debate; he is very interested in the theme of Britishness. But no view as to the suitability of the oath. It is baffling in the extreme. Does this Prime Minister believe in nothing, then? A number of things need to be unpicked here. First, to give him due credit, the report from the former Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith contains much more than the oath of allegiance. That is but "a possibility that's raised". The oath forms a tiny part of a detailed report about what British citizenship means, what it ought to mean and how to strengthen it. It is a serious debate that Mr. Brown is keen to foster about changing the categories of British citizenship, and defining what they mean. But it is in him that the central problem resides: the Prime Minister himself is uncertain what Britishness is, while insisting we should all be wedded to the concept. No wonder there is a problem over what a motto, or an oath of allegiance, should contain. Britain is a set of laws and ancient institutions— monarchy, Parliament, statutes, arguably today EU law as well. An oath of allegiance naturally tends toward these. It wasn't supposed to be like this. In its younger and bolder days, new Labour used to argue that the traditional version of Britain is outdated. When Labour leaders began debating Britishness in the 1990s, they argued that the institutions in which a sense of Britain is now vested, or should be vested, are those such as the NHS or even the BBC, allied with values of civic participation, all embodying notions of fairness, equality and modernity absent in the traditional institutions. Gordon Brown himself wrote at length about Britishness in The Times in January 2000: "The strong British sense of fair play and duty, together embodied in the ideal of a vibrant civic society, is best expressed today in a uniquely British institution— the institution that for the British people best reflects their Britishness—our National Health Service." An oath of allegiance to the NHS? Ah, those were the days. They really thought they could do it; change the very notion of what it meant to be British. Today, ten years on, they hesitatingly propose an oath of allegiance to the Queen. Could there be a more perfect illustration of the vanquished hopes and aspirations of new Labour? Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair. Ah, but I see there is to be a national day as well, "introduced to coincide with the Olympics and Diamond Jubilee—which would provide an annual focus for our national narrative". A narrative; a national day, glorifying the monarchy and sport? Yuck. I think I might settle for a national motto after all.

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单选题Questions 13 to 17 are based on the following news.

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单选题{{B}}Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following conversation.{{/B}}

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单选题Questions 27～30

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单选题What'sthetimenow?[A]10:10.[B]10:20.[C]10:30.