填空题The weeds and tall grass in that yard makes the house look as if it had been vacant for quite some time. A. weeds B. makes C. look D. had been vacant

填空题Since I went to senior high school, ______ (我们的生活有了一重要的变化).

填空题S1. An educated man should use his{{U}} {{/U}}correctly and precisely.

填空题Many countries exist in this world. How to deal with the problems among them? So comes with the international communities. A major global (36) group on Sunday called for member countries of the World Trade Organization to work for an end to all subsidies to fishing (37) and help depleted fishing stocks recover. At a news conference on the (38) of a key WTO meeting, the World Wide Fund for Nature also argued that the expected new round of trade liberalization negotiations must take environmental needs into (39) . "In Seattle, ministers must come out with more than just (40) and promises on fishing subsidies," said David Schorr, WWF-US (that is, the World Wide fund) (41) for sustainable (42) . Talk on new binding rules barring fishing (43) "must start now", he added. Some of these accuse the WTO of bowing to multinational companies who have no concern for the planet's ecology in the drive for profits. WWF declared:" (44) . "WWF- International trade and investment director Charles Arden, Clarke said during the news conference:" (45) . We are trying to work to reform the system rather than tearing it down. Developing countries know they need it to restrain the raw economic power of the bigger states. " " (46) ," Schorr declared.

填空题______ (几家烟草公司将要合并的消息) has been confirmed by the mayor.

填空题Climate Change Scientists predict increasing droughts, floods and extreme weather and say there is growing evidence that human activities are to blame. What Is Climate Change? The planet"s climate is constantly changing. The global average temperature is currently in the region of 15℃. Geological and other evidence suggests that, in the past, this average may have been as high as 27℃ and as low as 7℃. But scientists are concerned that the natural fluctuation (波动) has been overtaken by a rapid human-induced warming that has serious implications for the stability of the climate on which much life on the planet depends. What Is the "Greenhouse Effect"? The greenhouse effect refers to the role played by gases which effectively trap energy from the Sun in the Earth"s atmosphere. Without them, the planet would be too cold to sustain life as we know it. The most important of these gases in the natural greenhouse effect is water vapor, but concentrations of that are changing little and it plays almost no role in modern human-induced greenhouse warming. Other greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane (甲烷) and nitrous (含氮的) oxide, which arc released by modern industry, agriculture and the burning of fossil fuels. Their concentration in the atmosphere is increasing-the concentration of carbon dioxide has risen by more than 30% since 1800. The majority of climate scientists accept the theory that an increase in these gases will cause a rise in the Earth"s temperature. What Is the Evidence of Warming? Temperature records go back to the late 19th century and show that the global average temperature increased by about 0.6℃ in the 20th century. Sea levels have risen 10～20 cm-thought to be caused mainly by the expansion of warming oceans. Most glaciers in temperate regions of the world and along the Antarctic Peninsula are in retreat, and records show Arctic sea-ice has thinned by 40% in recent decades in summer and autumn. There are anomalies (异常) however-parts of the Antarctic appear to be getting colder, and there are discrepancies between trends in surface temperatures and those in the troposphere(对流层) (the lower portion of the atmosphere). How Much Will Temperatures Rise? If nothing is done to reduce emissions, current climate models predict a global temperature increase of 1.4～5.8℃ by 2100. Even if we cut greenhouse gas emissions dramatically now, scientists say the effects would continue because parts of the climate system, particularly large bodies of water and ice, can take hundreds of years to respond to changes in temperature. It also takes greenhouse gases in the atmosphere decades to break down. It is possible that we have already irrevocably(不可撤回地) committed the Greenland ice sheet to melting, which would cause an estimated 7m rise in sea level. There are also indications that the west Antarctic ice sheet may have begun to melt, though scientists caution further research is necessary. How Will the Weather Change? Globally, we can expect more extreme weather events, with heat waves becoming hotter and more frequent. Scientists predict more rainfall overall, but say the risk of drought in inland areas during hot summers will increase. More flooding is expected from storms and rising sea levels. There are, however, likely to be very strong regional variations in these patterns, and these are difficult to predict. What Will the Effects Be? The potential impact is huge, with predicted freshwater shortages, sweeping changes in food production conditions, and increases in deaths from floods, storms, heat waves and droughts. Poorer countries, which are least equipped to deal with rapid change, will suffer most. Plant and animal extinctions are predicted as habitats change faster than species can adapt, and the World Health Organization has warned that the health of millions could be threatened by increases in malaria, water-borne disease and malnutrition. What Don"t We Know? We don"t know exactly what proportion of the observed warming is caused by human activities or what the knock-on effects of the warming will be. The precise relationship between concentrations of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) and temperature rise is not known, which is one reason why there is such uncertainty in projections Of temperature increase. Global warming will cause some changes which will speed up further warming, such as the release of large quantities of the greenhouse gas methane as permafrost(永久冻结带) melts. Other factors may mitigate(减轻) warming. It is possible that plants may take more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as their growth speeds up in warmer conditions, though this remains in doubt. Scientists are not sure how the complex balance between these positive and negative feedback effects will play out. What about the Skeptics? Global warming "skeptics" fall into three broad camps: · those who maintain temperatures are not rising; · those who accept the climate is changing but suspect it is largely down to natural variation; · those who accept the theory of human-induced warming but say it is not worth tackling as other global problems are more pressing. Nevertheless, there is a growing scientific consensus (舆论) that, even on top of the natural variability of the climate, something out of the ordinary is happening and humans are to blame. A scientific report commissioned by the U.S. government has concluded there is "clear evidence" of climate change caused by human activities. The report, from the federal Climate Change Science Program, said trends seen over the last 50 years "cannot be explained by natural processes alone". It found that temperatures have increased in the lower atmosphere as well as at the Earth"s surface. However, scientists involved in the report say better data is badly needed. Observations down the years have suggested that the troposphere, the lower atmosphere, is not warming up, despite evidence that temperatures at the Earth"s surface are rising. This goes against generally accepted tenets (原则) of atmospheric physics, and has been used by "climate skeptics" as proof that there is no real warming. The new report, Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere, re-analyses the atmospheric data and concludes that tropospheric temperatures are rising. This means, it says, that the impact of human activities upon the global climate is clear. "The observed patterns of change over the past 50 years cannot be explained by natural processes alone, nor by the effect of short-lived atmospheric constituents (such as aerosols and tropospheric ozone ) alone," it says. Holes in the Data But there are some big uncertainties which still need resolving. Globally, the report concludes, tropospheric temperatures have risen by 0.10 and 0.20℃ per decade since 1979, when satellite data became generally available. The wide gap between the two figures means, says the report, that "...it is not clear whether the troposphere has warmed more or less than the surface." Peter Thorne, of the U.K. Meteorological Office, who contributed to the report, ascribes this uncertainty to poor data "Basically, we"ve not been observing the atmosphere with climate in mind," he told the BBC News website. "We"re looking for very small signals in data that are very noisy. From one day to the next, the temperature can change by 10℃, but we"re looking for a signal in the order of 0.1℃ per decade." The report shows up a particular discrepancy concerning the tropics, where it concludes that temperatures are rising by between 0.02 and 0.19℃ per decade, a big margin of error. Additionally, the majority of the available datasets show more warming at the surface than in the troposphere, whereas most models predict the opposite. For Fred Singer, of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a prominent climate skeptic, this suggests that the report"s support for the concept of human-induced climate change is spin rather than substance. "The basic data in the report is quite OK," he said, "but the interpretation that"s been given is different from what the data says." No Inconsistency Measuring tropospheric temperatures is far from a simple business. Satellites sense the "average" temperature of the air between themselves and the Earth, largely blind to what is happening at different altitudes. To compound matters, instruments on board satellites degrade over time, orbits subtly drift, and calibration (校准) between different satellites may be poor. Weather balloons (or radiosondes) take real-time measurements as they ascend, but scientists can never assess instruments afterwards; they are "fire-and-forget" equipment. Correcting for all these potential sources of error is a sensitive and time-consuming process. The report makes clear recommendations for the kind of infrastructure needed to produce higher-quality data and resolve remaining uncertainties. Key recommendations include: · establishing reference sites for radiosonde measurements which would increase consistency between datasets; · making sure the operating periods of satellites overlap so instruments can be cross-calibrated; · observing factors such as wind, clouds, and humidity in the troposphere to make sure they are consistent with temperature data. Such observations could produce an unambiguous picture of tropospheric warming, removing discrepancies over the scientific picture and providing better data which can be used to improve computer models.

填空题Contrast may make something appear more beautiful ______(比单独看的时候).

填空题Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Recession Fuels Shift from Private to Public Schools A. When the family budget started feeling the recession's pinch last year, Angela Allyn and her photographer husband, Matt Dinnerstein, pulled their three kids out of Chicago-area private schools and enroled them in Evanston, Ill., public schools. It has been a challenging transition: Maya, 16, now a high school sophomore, "doesn't like crowds—and her high school is as big as a small college," her mother says. Though Maya is learning a lot in the "amazing" science program, she's also hoping to leave the crowds behind by doubling up on coursework, graduating by the end of junior year "and then going and doing interesting things", Allyn says. Her younger children face their own challenges, from bullying (恃强凌弱) to sheer boredom. B. The transition also has been an education for Maya's parents, who say they had "no choice" in the struggling economy but to switch to public schools. They're saving about $20,000 a year in tuition, but like many former private-school families, they're coming face-to-face with larger class sizes and the public school bureaucracy as they push to get services for their children. "We ask a lot of questions—we follow up on things," says Allyn, a former professional dancer who's the cultural arts coordinator for the city of Evanston. "We contact the school board...We'll challenge teachers, we'll challenge coordinators. My kids are mortified (使受辱) because they don't want to be singled out." C. It's too early to tell whether the recession has had a profound effect on public schools' educational mission. But parents and educators across the nation say it's already bringing subtle changes to the culture of many public schools as some families seek the personal attention they received from private schools. D. Private-school parents typically find that the structure of public schools takes some getting used to. In most states, funding for public schools is calculated on a per-student basis, based on average student counts during the first few weeks of the school year. If a student drops out after 40 days, the funding that student generated stays with the school—even if he or she does not return to that campus. Private schools, on the other hand, risk losing tuition payments once a student leaves. "Private schools tend to treat you more like a customer than the public schools," Allyn says. Public schools are "going to get their tax dollars whether or not you as a parent are upset. If you're in a private school and you yank your kid out, that's a lot of money walking out the (private school's) door." E. Enrolment figures for the current school year won't be available until next year, but the US Department of Education's latest estimate finds that in the last three years, public school enrolment grew by nearly a half-million students, or about 1%, while private school enrolment dropped by about 146,000, or 2.5%. Government projections find that private schools could lose an additional 28,000 students this year, while public schools should gain 246,000. A boost for public schools? F. Stories about how the troubled economy is hurting public schools are plentiful these days: Many schools are cutting teaching positions and programs. The Los Angeles Unified School District, the USA's second-largest, laid off 2,000 teachers last spring and may need to lay off 5,000 more employees—including 1,500 teachers—next fall. G. But could the recession benefit public schools in the end by bringing in new clients? "In a way, it's a good thing for public schools," says New York University education professor Pedro Noguera. "I would say it's a good time for public schools to pitch the value they bring to middle-c/ass parents." He's starting to see the effects on the public system in New York City as affluent (富裕的) parents in parts of Brooklyn switch their children from private to public schools and in the process push the public schools to improve. "College-educated parents are not going to subject their kids to second-class education," he says. So their influx (大量涌入) "absolutely has a huge impact," whether it's by volunteering in classrooms or campaigning for more funding. H. Most years, public schools rarely see more than a few new students as families come and go. Last fall at Thomas Johnson Elementary-Middle School in Baltimore, 60 new students showed up—about half of those from private schools, including a nearby Catholic school that closed in the spring because of shrinking enrolment. Among the new students: first-grader Miles Donovan, who attended preschool at the recently shuttered Catholic Community school. At first, Miles' mother, jazz pianist Sandy Asirvatham, says she and her husband were stunned by the difference. Knowing the front office I. Several parents at Johnson and surrounding schools in the Federal Hill section of Baltimore—once a blue-collar community that now attracts young professional families—say they sense a "critical mass" of families that's beginning to change the character of neighbourhood schools. J. Miles Donovan attended kindergarten at another area public school, which invited students to take entrance exams for a gifted programme. It accepted only 15 students per grade. Parents complained when their kids didn't get a slot, so the programme was expanded to accommodate more kids—and other parents complained because it got too big. A few families stuck with the programme, others pulled out—and a few left the school altogether, Asirvatham says. K. "You come with a certain sense of, 'This is my school, it should be working for me,'" she says of parents whose kids have been in private schools. "I've heard parents say, 'That principal is my employee. I pay her salary.'" It's only natural that private-school parents would think that way, says Jeanne Allen, president of the Washington, DC-based Centre for Education Reform, which advocates for parental choice in education. "In a private school, you don't want to lose customers." L. Allen has a few friends and colleagues who have moved their kids to public schools—and like conscientious (尽责的) private-school parents, they "know everything about the curriculum and what's expected of their child," she says. "They investigated how the teachers grade and how you best approach them, whether they like parents or are a little bit scared. They go out of their way to understand all of the offerings in a way that your public-school parent traditionally doesn't." M. Allyn, in Evanston, Ili., agrees. "Those of us who have seen other options are not as likely to accept the PR," she says. "They'll tell me, 'It can't be done, it can't be done,' and I don't understand why it can't be done, because the private schools managed to do it." She says friends are still talking about how to get their kids into public schools with programs that suit their kids' needs and interests—much as they talked about private schools in years past. A few have gotten "so frustrated with their public school experience"—dealing with standardised testing and school bureaucracies—that they're considering home schooling. N. Noguera says schools must take the opportunity to keep these families in the fold. O. "Public schools play such an important role for our democracy as the only institution that serves all children," he says. "If you lose the people who have the power of choice because they have the resources and the information and the time to make a difference, it becomes a system that only serves people who have no other option. And that's a problem."

填空题If you are not satisfied with custody and access, you can solve it by ______.

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. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on, Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.In most cultures throughout the world, there is an expectation that when a person reaches adulthood, marriage should soon follow. In the United States alone, each month upwards of 168,000 couples wed, {{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}to love, honor, and respect their chosen life mates until death parts them. The expectation is deep-rooted. However, the social functions, purposes, and relevance of marriage are rapidly changing in {{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}}society, making them less clear-cut than they have been throughout history. For instance, in a Pew Research Center random polling of over 2000 {{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}, fewer than half of all of the adults polled indicated that if a man and a woman plan to spend the rest of their lives together as a couple, it was important that they {{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}marry. Those of us who choose to marry have {{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}reasons why we decide to marry the person we do. There is a {{U}} {{U}} 6 {{/U}} {{/U}}, however, in our Western, individualistic culture: We tend to marry for reasons that benefit ourselves, rather than for reasons that benefit the society at large, such as found in collectivist cultures. Research in Western cultures has found, for example, that the number-one {{U}} {{U}} 7 {{/U}} {{/U}}people cite for marrying is to signify a lifelong commitment to someone they love. However, this reason is not the only {{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}to why people wed—today, people get married for reasons of commitment, security, and personal belief systems. The Pew Research Center's recent findings suggest that the main reasons people get married are for {{U}} {{U}} 9 {{/U}} {{/U}}happiness and commitment, and bearing and raising children. As the data from this survey show us, there are racial, age, and religious differences in what people {{U}} {{U}} 10 {{/U}} {{/U}}to be the main purposes of getting married. A．vowing B．mutual C．individuals D．consider E．tendency F．contemporary G．response H．specific I．legally J．reason K．visual L．pretending M．substitute N．equally O．suggesting

填空题The failure of developing acceptable ________ may result in inaccurate stereotypes and foster negative feelings of hostility.

填空题______became the first parliament in the world to suspend private profit making in the use of water.

填空题The sun gives off light and warmth, ______ (这使用权植物生长变为可能).