填空题The US Congress A. The US congress is the legislative branch of the federal government. It is a bicameral (两院制的) law-making body of more than 500 members. Its two chambers are respectively called the House of Representatives and the Senate. The American two-house legislature, a product of the compromise between big states and small ones, embodies the American principle of balances and checks. All bills must carry both houses before becoming laws. B. The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Congress. The membership of the House is distributed among the states according to their different populations. Since 1910, the House has had a permanent membership of 435, with each Representative representing about half a million Americans. Under the principle that each state is guaranteed at least one representative, Nevada, a state with a small population, sends only one Representative to the House. California has more than 40 Representatives in the House because of its large population. C. The election of Representatives is organized by the state legislature which divides the state into a number of districts known as Congressional districts. Each district, with a population of nearly half a million, elects one Representative to the House. A Representative"s term of office is set at two years, but there is no limit to the number of his terms. A new Representative can hardly feel easy about his position. Hardly has he begun his work in the Congress when he finds it"s time for him to seek re-election. D. The Senate is the upper house of the US Congress. Representation in the Senate is based on the principle of state equality. The Senate is comprised of 100 Senators, two from each of the states. Senators have been directly elected by voters of their respective states since 1913. Their term of office is six years. With one-third of the Senate seats up for election every two years. A Senator must be at least thirty years old and a citizen for nine years. E. Generally speaking, Senators are accorded greater prestige than their colleagues in the lower house. Many Representatives aspire to win the election to the Senate. Senators derive their prestige from the following facts. They are less numerous, for there are fewer than one fourth as many Senators as Representatives, or Congressmen. Elected by the whole state instead of a single congressional district, most Senators represent more constituents (选民) than do House members. They are less worried by the problem of seeking re-electives. What"s more, the Senate has special powers which it does not share with the House. It has the power to approve or deny proposed treaties, nominations proposed by the President. In line with the tradition of "senatorial courtesy (礼貌)", the Senate always rejects a nominee who is objected to by a Senator of the state from which he comes. F. It won"t do to neglect the importance of the Senate in foreign affairs. Without its cooperation and support, the President can hardly take any significant action in foreign relations. A Secretary of State on good terms with the Senators is always important for the President. Foreign countries must try to establish good relations with the US Senate if they intend to make a bargain with the United States. G. The presiding (主持的) officer of the Senate is the Vice President who functions as a kind chairman when the Senate is in session (开会). The chief spokesman of the House is known as the Speaker who is the leader of the majority party in the House. The Speaker is the most influential figure in the House because he directs his party"s forces in legislative battles. H. The Congress is a legislative body, but it relies on its various committees to do preparatory work. The Senate and the House have several dozen standing and special committees to deal with problems of different natures. The seats of the committees are divided between the two parties in proportion to their respective membership in the Congress. But the committee chairman is always a member of the majority party who has been in the Senate or the House without interruption for longer than anybody else on the committee. The custom is known as "seniority rule". I. Most proposed laws in the Congress are known as bills. All bills introduced during a two-year congressional term are designated "HR" in the House and "S" in the Senate, with consecutive (连续的) numbers assigned in order in which they are introduced in each house. After this, the bills are referred to the relevant committees for further study. J. To assess the bill at its true worth, the relevant committee usually organizes its sub-committee to conduct detailed study. There is no doubt that the sub-committee will study the literal sense of the bill. But it also holds meetings with the citizens who want to state their opinions about the bill. These meetings are commonly known as hearings. The purpose of the sub-committee in holding these hearings is to obtain information on the bill before it. The sub-committee may summon people to appear at the hearings and to testify. After finishing study of the bill, the sub-committee will report the result to the full committee. The committee chairman then has a choice between two things. He can send the bill to the house for further consideration. He can also postpone, or kill it by putting it aside and not reporting it. For this reason, a committee chairman is regarded as an important person in the Congress. It won"t do to neglect them.

填空题Recycling goes so smoothly in Japan that most of its household trash, such as paper, glass and metal can be reused in one way or another.

填空题The Magician The revolution that Steve Jobs led is only just beginning A．When it came to putting on a show, nobody else in the computer industry, or any other industry for that matter, could match Steve Jobs. His product launches, at which he would stand alone on a black stage and produce as if by magic an "incredible" new electronic gadget (小器具) in front of an amazed crowd, were the performances of a master showman. All computers do is fetch and work with numbers, he once explained, but do it fast enough and "the results appear to be magic". Mr. Jobs, who died recently aged 56, spent his life packaging that magic into elegantly designed, easy-to-use products. B．The reaction to his death, with people leaving candles and flowers outside Apple stores and politicians singing praises on the internet, is proof that Mr. Jobs had become something much more significant than just a clever money-maker. He stood out in three ways—as a technologist, as a corporate (公司的) leader and as somebody who was able to make people love what had previously been impersonal, functional gadgets. Strangely, it is this last quality that may have the deepest effect on the way people live. The era of personal technology is in many ways just beginning. C．As a technologist, Mr. Jobs was different because he was not an engineer—and that was his great strength. Instead he was keenly interested in product design and aesthetics (美学), and in making advanced technology simple to use. He repeatedly took an existing but half-formed idea—the mouse-driven computer, the digital music player, the smartphone, the tablet computer (平板电脑)—and showed the rest of the industry how to do it properly. Rival firms competed with each other to follow where he led. In the process he brought about great changes in computing, music, telecoms and the news business that were painful for existing firms but welcomed by millions of consumers. D．Within the wider business world, a man who liked to see himself as a hippy (嬉皮士), permanently in revolt against big companies, ended up being hailed by many of those corporate giants as one of the greatest chief executives of his time. That was partly due to his talents: showmanship, strategic vision, an astonishing attention to detail and a dictatorial management style which many bosses must have envied. But most of all it was the extraordinary trajectory (轨迹) of his life. His fall from grace in the 1980s, followed by his return to Apple in 1996 after a period in the wilderness, is an inspiration to any businessperson whose career has taken a turn for the worse. The way in which Mr. Jobs revived the failing company he had co-founded and turned it into the world's biggest tech firm (bigger even than Bill Gates's Microsoft, the company that had outsmarted Apple so dramatically in the 1980s), sounds like something from a Hollywood movie. E．But what was perhaps most astonishing about Mr. Jobs was the absolute loyalty he managed to inspire in customers. Many Apple users feel themselves to be part of a community, with Mr. Jobs as its leader. And there was indeed a personal link. Apple's products were designed to accord with the boss's tastes and to meet his extremely high standards. Every iPhone or MacBook has his fingerprints all over it. His great achievement was to combine an emotional spark with computer technology, and make the resulting product feel personal. And that is what put Mr. Jobs on the right side of history, as technological innovation (创新) has moved into consumer electronics over the past decade. F．As our special report in this issue (printed before Mr. Jobs's death) explains, innovation used to spill over from military and corporate laboratories to the consumer market, but lately this process has gone into reverse. Many people's homes now have more powerful, and more flexible, devices than their offices do; consumer gadgets and online services are smarter and easier to use than most companies' systems. Familiar consumer products are being adopted by businesses, government and the armed forces. Companies are employing in-house versions of Facebook and creating their own "app stores" to deliver software to employees. Doctors use tablet computers for their work in hospitals. Meanwhile, the number of consumers hungry for such gadgets continues to swell. Apple's products are now being snapped up in Delhi and Dalian just as in Dublin and Dallas. G．Mr. Jobs had a reputation as a control freak (怪人), and his critics complained that the products and systems he designed were closed and inflexible, in the name of greater ease of use. Yet he also empowered millions of people by giving them access to cutting-edge technology. His insistence on putting users first, and focusing on elegance and simplicity, has become deep-rooted in his own company, and is spreading to rival firms too. It is no longer just at Apple that designers ask: "What would Steve Jobs do?" H．The gap between Apple and other tech firms is now likely to narrow. This week's announcement of a new iPhone by a management team led by Tim Cook, who replaced Mr. Jobs as chief executive in August, was generally regarded as competent but uninspiring. Without Mr. Jobs to shower his star dust on the event, it felt like just another product launch from just another technology firm. At the recent unveiling of a tablet computer by Jeff Bezos of Amazon, whose company is doing the best job of following Apple's lead in combining hardware, software, content and services in an easy-to-use bundle, there were several attacks at Apple. But by doing his best to imitate Mr. Jobs, Mr. Bezos also flattered (抬举) him. With Mr. Jobs gone, Apple is just one of many technology firms trying to arouse his uncontrollable spirit in new products. I．Mr. Jobs was said by an engineer in the early years of Apple to emit a "reality distortion (扭曲) field", such were his powers of persuasion. But in the end he created a reality of his own, channeling the magic of computing into products that reshaped entire industries. The man who said in his youth that he wanted to "put a ding in the universe" did just that.

填空题Failing memory ______ (使人很难回想起) all the basic kinds of information we take for granted.

填空题Frankly speaking, I'd rather you______(别为这做任何事) for thetime being.

填空题The evidence shows that Jim _________________ (与这起谋杀案有关).

填空题I ______ (不知道) of what lay in store for me the first time I stepped into Mr. Zhang's advanced math class.

填空题______ (我们会不遗余力) to beautify our environment.

填空题So far, the liability limitations have been the most important breakthroughs in brownfields.

填空题Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once. One in six. Believe it or not, that's the number of Americans who struggle with hunger. To make tomorrow a little better, Feeding America, the nation's largest {{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}hunger-relief organization, has chosen September as Hunger Action Month. As part of its 30 Ways in 30 Days program, it's asking {{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}}across the country to help the more than 200 food banks and 61,000 agencies in its network provide low-income individuals and families with the fuel they need to {{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}. It's the kind of work that's done every day at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in San Antonio. People who {{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}at its front door on the first and third Thursdays of each month aren't looking for God—they're there for something to eat. St. Andrew's runs a food pantry (食品室) that {{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}the city and several of the {{U}} {{U}} 6 {{/U}} {{/U}}towns. Janet Drane is its manager. In the wake of the {{U}} {{U}} 7 {{/U}} {{/U}}, the number of families in need of food assistance began to grow. It is {{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}that 49 million Americans are unsure of where they will find their next meal. What's most surprising is that 36% of them live in {{U}} {{U}} 9 {{/U}} {{/U}}where at least one adult is working. "It used to be that one job was all you needed," says St. Andrew's Drane, "The people we see now have three or four part-time jobs and they're still right on the edge {{U}} {{U}} 10 {{/U}} {{/U}}." A. accumulate B. circling C. communities D. competition E. domestic F. financially G. formally H. gather I. households J. recession K. reported L. reviewed M. serves N. surrounding O. survive

填空题 {{B}}Gulf Wracked By Katrina's Latest Legacy--Disease, Poisons, Mold{{/B}} A month after Hurricane Katrina tore through the U.S. Gulf Coast, medical experts are now struggling with the latest crisis in the region: contamination( 污染 ). Katrina left New Orleans and other communities tainted with oil, sewage, and possibly poisons leached from federal toxic waste sites, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says. The pollution, combined with the lack of regular medical services in the region, has raised serious questions about the safety of New Orleans and other coastal towns as people longing for home begin to go back. "I don't think New Orleans is safe for people to return to, from a public health and environmental health standpoint, "said Miriam Aschkenasy, an environmental health expert working with Oxfam America in the region. Much of the contamination rests in the brown, filmy sediment( 沉淀物 ) left behind by Katrina's polluted floodwaters. Recent EPA tests of the sediment confirmed high levels of E. coli bacteria, oil and gas chemicals, and lead, as well as varying quantities of arsenic. The health risks posed by the sediment are immediate, experts say, because the sludge (淤泥) is nearly impossible for returning residents to avoid. In New Orleans, it covers every surface that was flooded, from cars and now-dead lawns to the entire contents of flooded homes, stores, hospitals, and schools. "When people come back, they are exposed to the sediment," said Wilma Subra, a chemist from New Iberia, Louisiana, who is analyzing the sediment. "It's in their yards and houses."{{B}}Old Pollution Resurfacing{{/B}} Plaquemines Parish, a rural county on the peninsula south of New Orleans, is now covered with even more toxic sediment than it was two weeks ago, thanks to Hurricane Rita. "Six inches up to one foot ( 15 to 30 centimeters ) of sludge," Subra reported. Much of the sludge in Plaquemines is the product of nearby bayous and bay bottoms, where, sediment was lifted up by Katrina's and Rita's storm surges. The sediment has been polluted over the years with industrial chemicals and heavy metals, said Suhra, who tested the sediment for the Southern Mutual Help Association, a nonprofit organization in New Iberia, Louisiana. "These water bodies have received industrial wastes for decades," she said. "This material has toxic chemicals, metals, and organic petrochemicals ( 石化产品 )." Matters have only been made worse by multiple oil spills caused by Katrina and Rita. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, 11 oil spills have occurred in southern Louisiana, totaling 7.4 million gallons (28 million liters) of oil, most of which has been contained. Bacteria levels arc also especially high in the Plaquemines sludge, said Rodney Mallett, spokesperson for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. "The sewage treatment plants were underwater," he explained. "Between the animal waste and the human waste, you've got a lot of bacteria."{{B}}Protection Kits{{/B}} Health and environmental agencies are advising people to avoid contact with the sludge. They recommend that people wear gloves, goggles, and dust masks, and that they wash promptly if exposure occurs. EPA officials are directing people to its Web site (www.epa.gov) to inform themselves of the contamination risks. But most people returning to the area don't have computers to get that information, said Erik Olson, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. "If you [do] read the Web site," he added, "you practically have to have a degree in chemistry to understand it." To better inform people of health risks, the Southern Mutual Help Association and Oxfam America are developing a program to give every returning resident a protective kit. Each kit would contain waterproof suits, goggles (风镜), shoe covers, and masks, along with information about potential hazards. Volunteers would give out the kits at the security checkpoints that now stand at the major entrances to affected cities. The groups have made a hundred demonstration kits, which cost about ＄100 (U.S.) each to produce, and have shown them to state leaders in Louisiana. "The governor is really in favor of this," Subra said. "We just have to determine how we're going to fund them."{{B}}Toxic Mold Blooms{{/B}} In addition to the toxic sediment, sprawling blooms of mold have now taken hold in many flooded homes. "The mold is growing everywhere--homes are just coated with it," Subra said. The problem has become so widespread that federal health officials warned Wednesday of allergic reactions and toxic responses to the mold. Professionals should be hired to clean mold that covers more than ten square feet (one square meter), they urged. "Those [surfaces] that can't be cleaned need to be removed," said Steven Redd, chief of the Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The effects of the mold are already surfacing in Mississippi, where respiratory ( 呼吸的 ) problems are among the illnesses doctors there are reporting. "We're seeing a lot of asthma from inhaling the mold," said Richard Paat, team leader of a temporary East Biloxi clinic."And month sores from the bad water." Due to contact with unclean water, 33 people in the flood zone have contracted Vibrio infections, according to the CDC. The infections are caused by a family of bacteria that live in contaminated salt water. They can cause serious illness, especially in people with compromised immune systems. To date, six people have died from Vibrio infections. "People had open wounds and walked through floodwater with sewage in it," CDC spokesperson Von Roebuck said. "And these folks were having these wounds infected with Vibrio."{{B}}Disaster Response Care{{/B}} "This is a highly contaminated area," said Susan- Briggs, the physician overseeing FEMA's disaster-response medical teams in Louisiana and Alabama. Her teams have been inoculating residents for tetanus and Hepatitis A and B. Hepatitis is a danger when people are exposed to sewage, through water or food, Briggs explained. Tetanus can occur when people cut themselves on unclean materials, as may happen when cleaning debris. The rudimentary (根本的) living conditions in many Katrina-struck areas make it more likely that people will get sick and injured, Briggs said. "They have no electricity, no clean water, no air conditioning," she said. "There are collapsed structures and stray animals. There are huge amounts of stray dogs, and people have been bitten." Briggs and other doctors in the area have been treating many cases of diarrhea, rashes, and upper-respiratory illnesses. All of these conditions are to be expected after natural disasters, according to the CDC. But it's too soon to know if these ailments are related to contamination, the CDC's Roebuck said. "We're looking at that question," he said. "We'd like to know the answer."

填空题The construction of massive dams and irrigation projects do more good than harm.

填空题One of the Olympic spirits is to educate young people through sport in a spirit of better understanding each other, and friendship, thereby ______.

填空题Speeding is a motoring offence a driver commits when he ____________.

填空题Only if both sides accept the agreement______(才能在 这个地区建立持久的和平).

填空题The giant trees above the dense canopy layer(树冠层) cannot enjoy sunlight.