单选题 Henry III didn't know much about biology. He went through six wives back in the 1500s, looking for one who could bear him a son. Scientists now know that it's the father's sperm, not the mother's egg, which determines whether a baby is a boy or a girl. And last week researchers at the Genetics and IVF Institute, a private fertility (生育能力) center in Virginia, announced a new technique that will allow parents to choose the sex of their baby-to-be, before it has even been conceived. The scientist used a tiny laser detector to measure the DNA in millions of sperm cells as they pass single file through a narrow tube, like cattle being herded through a corral (牲口栏). In a study published last week, 'girl sperm,' which has more DNA—the genetic material—in each cell, was collected, while 'boy sperm' was discarded. And when purified girl sperm was used to impregnate (使受孕) a group of mothers, 15 of 17 resulting babies turned out to be girls. The researchers say that 'sex selection' can also double a mother's chance of having a son and can be used to avoid genetic diseases that affect only one gender, such as hemophilia (血友病). But some experts, like New York University fertility specialist Dr. Jamie Grifo, worry that sex selection could lead to a kind of in uteri (子宫) discrimination, especially in cultures where sons are considered superior to daughters. 'It's valuing one gender over another,' Grifo says. 'I don't think that's something we should be doing.' So far, patients at the institute have been asking for both boys and girls, in order to 'balance' their families. And some ethics experts say that's free, as long as parents are just looking for a little gender variety. 'If you have three boys, and you want a girl,' says University of Texas reproductive-law professor John Robertson, 'that's not gender bias at all.'

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay on the following topic. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words. Online bookstores such as Amazon and Dangdang are enjoying great popularity in recent years. Some people argue that traditional bookstores will be replaced by those online bookstores since people can always buy cheaper books there. What's your opinion?

单选题 Domestic laws, not a global treaty, are the way to fight global warming. Governments like to cite 29 constraints (限制)—such as meeting the conditions for an international difficulty—when pushing through unpopular policies. But with measures to 30 with climate change, the opposite prevails. Each round of intergovernmental talks on cutting 31 and compensating victims seems to achieve less than the one before. Meanwhile, according to a new study the number of new domestic environment laws rose quickly. And the overall trend is a strong increase in legal activism. Last year Mexico passed an important law to guide all its climate-change 32 . Some people define what counts as a climate law is hard when so much 33 the environment. The number of laws alone is not the 34 measure: some are comprehensive and others specific. Rules set by other layers of government may 35 more than the national kind. And just because a law passes does not mean it will do any good. Yet Sam Fankhauser of the London School of Economics says the rise in national legislation helps stop the skeptics' claim that it is self-defeating for a country to act alone on climate change. He also points out that many big countries still have a way to go. The study 36 the weak link between global action and domestic change. Holding a big climate conference 37 a series of laws a couple of years later. But by and 38 voters appear more willing to accept domestic environmental laws than international ones. A. affects F. external K. matter B. crucial G. internal L. policies C. deal H. large M. promote D. effects I. less N. prompts E. emissions J. literally O. reveals

单选题 交谈话题 在中国，人们见面时喜欢问：“你去哪儿?”或“你吃了吗?”大多数时候，人们并非真正想知道你要去哪里或吃饭了没有。实际上，那只是一种打招呼的方式。与西方的风俗相似，当你与一个陌生人开始交谈时，诸如天气、食物或爱好之类的话题可能是打破坚冰的不错选择。询问私人问题时应当慎重，但是聊些关于家乡、工作方面的话题则通常可以使谈话顺利进行。

单选题 On November 20, 2003, a fire burned Vivienne Palmer's house to the ground and turned her possessions to ash. At the time, she was devastated—but later, a surprising state of happiness set in. 'After getting over the shock, I would remember a certain thing and think, it's gone, and let go of it. It felt amazingly freeing,' Palmer says. Now, ten years later, she looks around her cluttered house and wants to reclaim that freedom. Her plan: Project 3650, a commitment to let go of at least ten things every day for a year (culminating in a total of 3, 650 donated or sold items). A friend warned her: Don't set yourself up for failure; that's a lot of stuff. But Palmer is reveling in the challenge. Everything is fair game—from the practical (the drawerful of plastic forks and knives she's accumulated from take-out orders) to the emotional (the rabbit costumes she made for her young sons for Halloween one year). 'You just get on a roll,' she says. On February 7, it's a Davy Crockett 'un-coonskin' cap for kids. Bags of plastic bags. Four random cloth napkins, six bandannas (大手帕), two tablecloths. Not one but two 'nightmare-inducing' cymbal-clapping toy monkeys. And a toy dog, made of real animal fur. OK, the husband wants to keep that one. He thinks it's cool. Palmer thinks it's disgusting. To keep herself accountable, Palmer posts images of her tossables on her Process of Elimination blog, where she gives away many things free. And it feels good. 'I honestly get a little rush from getting rid of stuff,' she says. 'And that has replaced my desire for a shopper's high. Beyond peace of mind and room to breathe, there's another motivator: By selling some items online, Palmer hopes to raise enough money to fund a family vacation to Southeast Asia.' Everything is swirling around: There's the writing, the trip, me wanting to get rid of stuff, me wanting to make money, me wanting to create a new good habit, 'Palmer says.' It's a huge process, but it's energizing. And I can't think of anything I'd rather do more.'

单选题 Growing up Colored A. You wouldn't know Piedmont anymore—my Piedmont, I mean—the town in West Virginia where I learned to be a colored boy. B. The 1950s in Piedmont was a time to remember, or at least to me. People were always proud to be from Piedmont—lying at the foot of a mountain, on the banks of the mighty Potomac. We knew God gave America no more beautiful location. I never knew colored people anywhere who were crazier about mountains and water, flowers and trees, fishing and hunting. For as long as anyone could remember, we could outhunt, outshoot, and outswim the white boys in the valley. C. The social structure of Piedmont was something we knew like the back of our hands. It was an immigrant town; white Piedmont was Italian and Irish, with a handful of wealthy WASPs(盎格鲁撒克逊裔的白人新教徒) on East Hampshire Street, and 'ethnic' neighborhoods of working-class people everywhere else, colored and white. D. For as long as anyone can remember, Piedmont's character has been completely bound up with the Westvaco paper mill: its prosperous past and doubtful future. At first glance, the town is a typical dying mill center. Many once beautiful buildings stand empty, evidencing a bygone time of spirit and pride. The big houses on East Hampshire Street are no longer proud, as they were when I was a kid. E. Like the Italians and the Irish, most of the colored people migrated to Piedmont at the turn of the 20th century to work at the paper mill, which opened in 1888. All the colored men at the paper mill worked on 'the platform'—loading paper into trucks until the craft unions were finally integrated in 1968. Loading is what Daddy did every working day of his life. That's what almost every colored grown-up I knew did. F. Colored people lived in three neighborhoods that were clearly separated. Welcome to the Colored Zone, a large stretched banner could have said. And it felt good in there, like walking around your house in bare feet and underwear, or snoring right out loud on the couch in front of the TV—enveloped by the comforts of home, the warmth of those you love. G. Of course, the colored world was not so much a neighborhood as a condition of existence. And though our own world was seemingly self-contained, it impacted on the white world of Piedmont in almost every direction. Certainly, the borders of our world seemed to be impacted on when some white man or woman showed up where he or she did not belong, such as at the black Legion Hall. Our space was violated when one of them showed up at a dance or a party. The rhythms would be off. The music would sound not quite right: attempts to pat the beat off just so. Everybody would leave early. H. Before 1955, most white people were just shadowy presences in our world, vague figures of power like remote bosses at the mill or tellers at the bank. There were exceptions, of course, the white people who would come into our world in ritualized, everyday ways we all understood. Mr. Mail Man, Mr. Insurance Man, Mr. White-and-Chocolate Milk Man, Mr. Landlord Man, Mr. Police Man: we called white people by their trade, like characters in a mystery play. Mr. Insurance Man would come by every other week to collect premiums on college or death policies, sometimes 50 cents or less. I. 'It's no disgrace to be colored,' the black entertainer Bert Williams famously observed early in the century 'but it is awfully inconvenient.' For most of my childhood, we couldn't eat in restaurants or sleep in hotels, we couldn't use certain bathrooms or try on clothes in stores. Mama insisted that we dress up when we went to shop. She was carefully dressed when she went to clothing stores, and wore white pads called shields under her arms so her dress or blouse would show no sweat. 'We'd like to try this on,' she'd say carefully, uttering her words precisely and properly. 'We don't buy clothes we can't try on,' she'd say when they declined, and we'd walk out in Mama's dignified(有尊严的) manner. She preferred to shop where we had an account and where everyone knew who she was. J. At the Cut-Rate Drug Store, no one colored was allowed to sit down at the counter or tables, with one exception: my father. I don't know for certain why Carl Dadisman, the owner, wouldn't stop Daddy from sitting down. But I believe it was in part because Daddy was so light-colored, and in part because, during his shift at the phone company, he picked up orders for food and coffee for the operators. Colored people were supposed to stand at the counter, get their food to go, and leave. Even when Young Doc Bess would set up the basketball team with free Cokes after one of many victories, the colored players had to stand around and drink out of paper cups while the white players and cheerleaders sat down in comfortable chairs and drank out of glasses. K. I couldn't have been much older than five or six as I sat with my father at the Cut-Rate one afternoon, enjoying two scoops of caramel ice cream. Mr. Wilson, a stony-faced, brooding Irishman, walked by. 'Hello, Mr. Wilson,' my father said. 'Hello, George'. L. I was genuinely puzzled. Mr. Wilson must have confused my father with somebody else, but who? There weren't any Georges among the colored people in Piedmont. 'Why don't you tell him your name, Daddy?' I asked loudly. 'Your name isn't George'. 'He knows my name, boy,' my father said after a long pause. 'He calls all colored people George.' M. I knew we wouldn't talk about it again; even at that age, I was given to understand that there were some subjects it didn't do to worry to death about. Now that I have children, I realize that what distressed my father wasn't so much the Mr. Wilsons of the world as the painful obligation to explain the racial facts of life to someone who hadn't quite learned them yet. Maybe Mr. Wilson couldn't hurt my father by calling him George; but I hurt him by asking to know why.

单选题Bodybuilding supplements have become quite common to almost everybody. There are varieties of nutritional supplements that many people take to compensate for the 25 of minerals, vitamins and other essential nutrients. These supplements help in gaining weight and building muscle along with many other benefits associated with the bodybuilding regime (养生之道). Time has changed and the 26 of people also have changed. Earlier, people used to consume balanced diets and proper healthy food such as fresh vegetables, fruit, milk, fish, eggs, etc. But 27 , we face the lack of time, and it is not always possible to 28 the healthy eating habits and balanced diets all the time. Therefore, the fitness-concerned people are turning towards the supplements to maintain their bodybuilding nutrition. In fact, 29 the right nutrition supplements for bodybuilding can be quite confusing. On the television, Internet, and hoardings (广告牌) and in various places, we will find ads of 30 bodybuilding supplements and therefore, it can be 31 to decide on the right one. It is always better to 32 a fitness expert and get the appropriate supplements. However, there is an ongoing debate regarding the usefulness of the nutritional supplements for bodybuilding. Many people believe that there cannot be any 33 for right balanced diet, which is very true. But considering the busy life schedule that we keep in the present time, the nutrition bodybuilding supplements provide is of good help. There is no 34 in taking these supplements in small doses, and it also helps to fight many diseases. However, it is important to consult a professional and then get into the supplements program according to his or her suggestions. A. alternative I. habits B. amazing J. harm C. confront K. influence D. confusing L. maintain E. consult M. obviously F. consuming N. presently G. deficiency O. selecting H. different