单选题《复合题被拆开情况》　　1 In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together. Early every morning they would come out from the house where they lived and walk arm in arm down the street to work. The

单选题《复合题被拆开情况》 Have you ever noticed a certain similarity in public parks and back gardens in the cities of the West? A ubiquitous woodland mix of lawn grasses and trees has found its way throughout Europ

单选题. Questions 1 to 5 are based on Part One of the interview.1.

单选题《复合题被拆开情况》 In 2011, many shoppers opted to avoid the frenetic crowds and do their holiday shopping from the comfort of their computer. Sales at online retailers gained by more than 15% , making it the

单选题《复合题被拆开情况》　　1 Like many historical films, Amadeus is far from a faithful account of what is known about the period and the people that it portrays. Events are exaggerated, condensed and simplified, an

单选题《复合题被拆开情况》 My professor brother and I have an argument about head and heart, about whether he overvalues IQ while I lean more toward EQ. We typically have this debate about people—can you be friends w

单选题. SECTION A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS PASSAGE ONE (1)Ask an American schoolchild what he or she is learning in school these days and you might even get a reply, provided you ask it in Spanish. But don't bother, here's the answer: Americans nowadays are not learning any of the things that we learned in our day, like reading and writing. Apparently these are considered antique old subjects, invented by white males to oppress women and minorities. (2)What are they learning? In a Vermont college town I found the answer sitting in a toy store book rack, next to typical kids' books like "Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy Is Dysfunctional". It's a teacher's guide called "Happy To Be Me", subtitled "Building Self Esteem". (3)Self-esteem, as it turns out, is a big subject in American classrooms. Many American schools see building it as important as teaching reading and writing. They call it "whole language" teaching, borrowing terminology from the granola people to compete in the education marketplace. (4)No one ever spent a moment building my self-esteem when I was in school. In fact, from the day I first stepped inside a classroom my serf-esteem was one big demolition site. All that mattered was "the subject," be it geography, history, or mathematics. I was praised when I remembered that "near", "fit", "friendly", "pleasing", "like" and their opposites took the dative case in Latin. I was scolded when I forgot what a cosine was good for. Generally I lived my school years beneath a torrent of criticism so consistent I eventually ceased to hear it, as people who live near the sea eventually stop hearing the waves. (5)Schools have changed. Scolding is out, for one thing. More important, subjects have changed. Whereas I learned English, modem kids learn something called "language skills." Whereas I learned writing, modem kids learn something called "communication". Communication, the book tells us, is seven per cent words, 23 per cent facial expression, 20 per cent tone of voice, and 50 per cent body language. So this column, with its carefully chosen words, would earn me at most a grade of seven per cent. That is, if the school even gave out something as oppressive and demanding as grades. (6)The result is that, in place of English classes, American children are getting a course in How to Win Friends and Influence People. Consider the new attitude toward journal writing: I remember one high school English class when we were required to keep a journal. The idea was to emulate those great writers who confided in diaries, searching their souls and perfecting their critical thinking on paper. (7)"Happy To Be Me" states that journals are a great way for students to get in touch with their feelings. Tell students they can write one sentence or a whole page. Reassure them that no one, not even you, will read what they write. After the unit, hopefully all students will be feeling good about themselves and will want to share some of their entries with the class. (8)There was a time when no self-respecting book for English teachers would use "great" or "hopefully" that way. Moreover, back then the purpose of English courses (an antique term for "Unit") was not to help students "feel good about themselves." Which is good, because all that scolding didn't make me feel particularly good about anything. PASSAGE TWO (1)The American screen has long been a. smoky place, at least since 1942's Now, Voyager, in which Bette Davis and Paul Henreid showed how to make and seal a romantic deal over a pair of cigarettes that were smoldering as much as the stars. Today cigarettes are more common onscreen than at any other time since midcentury: 75% of all Hollywood films—including 36% of those rated G or PG—show tobacco use, according to a recent survey by the University of California, San Francisco. (2)Audiences, especially kids, are taking notice. Two recent studies, published in Lancet and Pediatrics, have found that among children as young as 10, those exposed to the most screen smoking are up to 2.7 times as likely as others to pick up the habit. Worse, it's the ones from nonsmoking homes who are hit the hardest, perhaps because they are spared the dirty ashtrays and moldy drapes that make real-world smoking a lot less appealing than the clean cinematic version. (3)Now the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)—the folks behind the designated-driver campaign—are pushing to get the smokes off the screen. "Some movies show kids up to 14 incidents of smoking per hour," says Barry Bloom, HSPH's dean. "We're in the business of preventing disease, and cigarettes are the No. 1 preventable cause." (4)If there's one thing health experts know, it's that you don't influence behavior by telling people what to do. You do it by exposing them to enough cases of people behaving well that it creates a new norm. What made the designated-driver concept catch on in the 1980s was partly that Harvard and the ad agencies it worked with persuaded TV networks to slip the idea into their shows. There's a reason a designated-driver poster appeared in the bar on Cheers, and it's not because it made the jokes funnier. (5)"The idea appeared in 160 prime-time episodes over four years," says Jay Winsten, HSPH's associate dean. "Drunk-driving fatalities fell 25% over the next three years." (6)Harvard long believed that getting cigarettes out of movies could have as powerful an effect, but it wouldn't be easy. Cigarette makers had a history of striking product-placement deals with Hollywood, and while the 1998 tobacco settlement prevents that, nothing stops directors from incorporating smoking into Scenes on their own. (7)In 1999 Harvard began holding one-on-one meetings with studio executives trying to change that, and last year the Motion Picture Association of America flung the door open, inviting Bloom to make a presentation in February to all the studios. Harvard's advice was direct: Get the butts entirely out, or at least make smoking unappealing. (8)A few films provide a glimpse of what a no-smoking—or low-smoking—Hollywood would be like. Producer Lindsay Doran, who once helped persuade director John Hughes to keep Ferris Bueller smoke-free in the 1980s hit, wanted to do the same for the leads of her 2006 movie Stranger Than Fiction. When a writer convinced her that the character played by Emma Thompson had to smoke, Doran relented, but from the way Thompson hacks her way through the film and snuffs out her cigarettes in a palmful of spit, it's clear the glamour's gone. And remember all the smoking in The Devil Wears Prada? No? That's because the producers of that film kept it out entirely. "No one smoked in that movie," says Doran, "and no one noticed." (9)Such movies are hardly the rule, but the pressure is growing. Like smokers, studios may conclude that quitting the habit is not just a lot healthier but also a lot smarter. PASSAGE THREE (1)Socrates, son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor, was philosopher of Athens, Greece. It is said that in early life he practiced his father's art. In middle life he married Xanthippe, who is legendary as a shrew, although the stories have little basis in ascertainable fact. It is not certain who were Socrates's teachers in philosophy, but he seems to have been acquainted with the doctrines of Parmenides, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and the atomists. He was widely known for his intellectual powers even before he was 40, when, ac- cording to Plato's report of Socrates's speech in the Apology, the oracle at Delphi pronounced him the wisest man in Greece. In that speech Socrates maintained that he was puzzled by this acclaim until he discovered that, while others professed knowledge without realizing their ignorance, he at least was aware of his own ignorance. (2)Socrates became convinced that his calling was to search for wisdom about right conduct by which he might guide the intellectual and moral improvement of the Athenians. Neglecting his own affairs, he spent his time discussing virtue, justice, and piety wherever his fellow citizens congregated. Some felt that he also neglected public duty, for he never sought public office, although he was famous for his courage in the military campaigns in which he served. In his self-appointed task as gadfly—someone annoys other people by criticizing them—to the Athenians, Socrates made numerous enemies. (3)Aristophanes mimicked Socrates in his play The Clouds and attributed to him some of the faults of the Sophists—professional teachers of rhetoric. Although Socrates in fact baited the Sophists, his other critics seem to have held a view similar to that of Aristophanes. In 399 B.C. he was brought to trial for corrupting youth and for religious heresies. Obscure political issues surrounded the trial, but it seems that Socrates was tried also for being the friend and teacher of Alcibiades and Critias, both of whom had betrayed Athens. The trial and death of Socrates, who was given poison to drink, are described with great dramatic power in the Apology, the Crito, and the Phaedo of Plato. (4)Socrates's contributions to philosophy were a new method of approaching knowledge, a conception of the soul as the seat both of normal waking consciousness and of moral character, and a sense of the universe as purposively mind-ordered. His method, called dialectic, consisted in examining statements by pursuing their implications, on the assumption that if a statement were true it could not lead to false consequences. The method may have been suggested by Zeno of Elea, but Socrates refmed it and applied it to ethical problems. (5)His doctrine of the soul led him to the belief that all virtues converge into one, which is the good, or knowledge of one's true self and purposes through the course of a lifetime. Knowledge in turn depends on the nature or essence of things as they really are, for the underlying forms of things are more real than their experienced exemplifications. This conception leads to a teleological view of the world that all the forms participate in and lead to the highest form, the form of the good. Plato later elaborated this doctrine as central to his own philosophy. Socrates's view is often described as holding virtue and knowledge to be identical, so that no man knowingly does wrong. Since virtue is identical with knowledge, it can be taught, but not as a professional specialty as the Sophists had pretended to teach it. However, Socrates himself gave no final answer to how virtue can be learned. PASSAGE FOUR (1)An American survey has shown that each year every employed person loses three to four working days from colds and allied complaints, and every school child loses five to six days of schooling. Colds waste more time than strikes. The conquest of the common cold is therefore a thoroughly worthwhile ambition. (2)In 1961, Sir Christopher Andrewes found that the great killing infections like syphilis or poliomyelitis are each caused by one specific micro-organism, or, at worst, a small group of closely related parasites. By contrast it has slowly become apparent that the common cold is not a disease but a large group of similar diseases, caused possibly, by anything between fifty and one hundred different organisms. (3)Much of Sir Christopher's book is taken up by an account of the struggle to identify, the germs which do cause colds. At first it was thought that bacteria were responsible because certain bacteria are commonly found in the noses and throats of cold victims. But Dr. W. Kruse of the Hygienic Institute of the University of Leipzig in 1914 provided the first evidence that a virus might be concerned by launching experimental infectious. (4)Since that time thousands of volunteers have subjected themselves to similar experimental infections, and for early twenty years most of such work has been done at Salisbury where the guinea pigs are rewarded by a ten-day holiday, all found that this "clumsy, expensive and unreliable" use of human volunteers was necessary because for a long time chimpanzees were the only other animals known to be susceptible to infection by common cold germs, and chimpanzees were far too expensive and unruly for routine use. (5)Growing cold viruses in the laboratory also proved difficult until one of the men involved demonstrated his possession of that most precious scientific faculty-serendipity. (6)Cold viruses were being grown with only moderate success in laboratory cultures of lung tissue from human embryos. The lung tissue cultures were kept alive by a salt solution containing added vitamins and a number of other ingredients. One day at Salisbury Dr. David Tyrrell found that this salt solution was faulty, and in order to keep his tissue cultures going he hastily borrowed a supply from another laboratory. When the imported solution was added to tissue cultures infected with cold viruses the lung tissue cells began to degenerate in a manner typical of tissues parasitized by active viral particles. (7)Dr. Tyrrell soon discovered that the borrowed fluid provided a more acid medium in his culture tubes than that produced by the native Salisbury brew. The nose provides a slightly acid environment, and Dr. Tyrrell realized that a degree of acidity was just what nose-inhabiting viruses needed in order to thrive outside the body. Thus a happy accident enabled a perspicacious scientist to modify the cold virus culture technique and thenceforward the whole exercise proved far easier and more profitable. (8)Much of common cold folklore is demolished. Draughts, chilling and wet feet do not bring colds on, says Sir Christopher, and clean, healthy living with lots of fresh air, plenty of exercise, good, plain food and a cold bath every morning may be good for the soul and the waistline, but does nothing to keep cold viruses at bay. (9)Colds are not very infectious—which will surprise most of us—so there is really no excuse for staying away from work when you have one. All the remedies so far invented have one thing in common—they are useless. In temperate countries, colds are commoner during the winter, but what the "winter factor" is which brings them on remains unknown. Most of us harbour cold viruses in our noses throughout the year, and many colds are probably not "caught" at all, but start because somehow the resident viruses become activated from time to time. (10)To write a book about colds at this stage, says Sir Christopher, is rather like writing a review of a play in the middle of the first act. Since he wrote those words, workers at Salisbury have announced the production of the first cold vaccine which will protect against infection by one particular cold virus. Unfortunately there are very many cold viruses and complete immunity from colds by vaccination would require the administration of a separate vaccine for every virus in the book.1. In Paragraph Three "whole language" teaching is in quotation marks because ______PASSAGE ONE

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单选题. Questions 1 to 5 are based on Part One of the interview.1.

单选题. SECTION A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS In this section there are four passages followed by fourteen multiple choice questions. For each multiple choice question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO. PASSAGE ONE (1)St. Petersburg, the very name brings to mind some of Russia's greatest poets, writers and composers: Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky. The 19th century was a golden age for St. Petersburg's wealthy classes. It was a world of ballets and balls, of art and literature, of tea and caviar. (2)The golden age ended with the advent of World War I. Working people were growing more and more discontented. In 1917, Communism came, promising peace and prosperity. (3)St. Petersburg had become Petrograd in 1914. People wanted a Russian name for their city. Ten years later, the city's name changed again, this time to Leningrad. Then in 1991, Leningraders voted to restore the city's original name. Some people opposed the name change altogether. Others thought it was just too soon. Old, run-down Soviet Leningrad, they said, was not the St. Petersburg of 19th-century literature. (4)What, then, is St. Petersburg? In the confusing post-Communist world, no one really knows. The quiet, if Soviet-style, dignity is gone. The Communist sayings are down and gaudy advertising up. Candy bars and cigarettes are sold from boxy, tasteless kiosks. And clothing? Well, anything goes. Everyone wants to be a little different. But many people do not know the true meaning of freedom. Personal crime has gone up, up, up in the past few years. (5)Yet in spite of this, you can still find some of the city's grand past. Stand at the western tip of Vasilievsky Island. To the right is the elegant Winter Palace, former home of the czars. Its light blue sides and white classical columns make it perhaps St. Petersburg's most graceful building. It houses one of the world's most famous art museums: the Hermitage. Inside, 20km of galleries house thousands of works of art. Look over your right shoulder. The massive golden dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral rises above the sky-line. You'll see, too, why St. Petersburg is called a "floating city." Standing there, nearly surrounded by water, you can see four of the city's 42 islands. (6)Cross the bridge and turn behind the Winter Palace. In the middle of the huge Palace Square stands the Alexander Column. It commemorates Russia's victory over Napoleon. The 650-ton granite column is not attached to the base in any way. Its own weight keeps it upright. Hoisted into place in 1832, it has stood there ever since. (7)Continue to Nevsky Prospekt, the heart of the old city. Let the crowds hurry by while you take your time. Admire the fine carving on bridges and columns, above doorways and windows. Cross over canals and pass by smaller palaces and other classical structures. Let your eyes drink in the light blues, greens, yellows and pinks. (8)Take time to wander among Kazan Cathedral's semi circle of enormous brown columns. Or, if you prefer Russian-style architecture, cross the street and follow the canal a short distance. The Church of the Resurrection occupies the site where Czar Alexander Ⅱ was assassinated in 1881. (9)Travel outside the city to Petrodvorets Palace for a taste of old imperial grandeur. After a visit to France in the late 17th century, Peter the Great decided to build a palace for himself better than Versailles. His dream never came true in his lifetime. It took almost two centuries to complete the palace and park complex. (10) Seldom does any city have the chance to reinvent itself. That chance has now come to St. Petersburg. A few people might hope to return to the glory of the past, but most know that is impossible. They want to preserve, the best of past eras and push ahead. You can bet the city won't be old St. Petersburg, but something altogether different. PASSAGE TWO (1)I was taken by a friend one afternoon to a theatre. When the curtain was raised, the stage was perfectly empty save for tall grey curtains which enclosed it on all sides, and presently through the thick folds of those curtains children came dancing in, singly, or in pairs, till a whole troop of ten or twelve were assembled. They were all girls; none, I think, more than fourteen years old, one or two certainly not more than eight. They wore but little clothing, their legs, feet and arms being quite bare. Their hair, too, was unbound; and their faces, grave and smiling, were so utterly dear and joyful, that in looking on them one felt transported to some Garden of Hesperides, a where self was not, and the spirit floated in pure ether. Some of these children were fair and rounded, others dark and elf-like; but one and all looked entirely happy, and quite unself-conscious, giving no impression of artifice, though they had evidently had the highest and most careful training. Each flight and whirling movement seemed conceived there and then out of the joy of being—dancing had surely never been a labour to them, either in rehearsal or performance. There was no tiptoeing and posturing, no hopeless muscular achievement; all was rhythm, music, light, air, and above all things, happiness. Smiles and love had gone to the fashioning of their performance; and smiles and love shone from every one of their faces and from the clever white turnings of their limbs. (2)Amongst them—though all were delightful—there were two who especially riveted my attention. The first of these two was the tallest of all the children, a dark thin girl, in whose every expression and movement there was a kind of grave, fiery love. (3)During one of the many dances, it fell to her to be the pursuer, of a fair child, whose movements had a very strange soft charm; and this chase, which was like the hovering of a dragonfly round some water lily, or the wooing of a moonbeam by the June night, had in it a most magical sweet passion. That dark, tender huntress, so hill of fire and yearning, had the queerest power of symbolising all longing, and moving one's heart. In her, pursuing her white love with such wistful fervour, and ever arrested at the very moment of conquest, one seemed to see the great secret force that hunts through the world, on and on, tragically unresting, immortally sweet. (4)The other child who particularly enhanced me was the smallest but one, a brown-haired fairy crowned with a half moon of white flowers, who wore a scanty little rose-petal-coloured shift that floated about her in the most delightful fashion. She danced as never child danced. Every inch of her small head and body was full of the sacred fire of motion; and in her little pas seul she seemed to be the very spirit of movement. One felt that Joy had flown down, and was inhabiting there; one heard the rippling of Joy's laughter. And, indeed, through all the theatre had risen a rustling and whispering; and sudden bursts of laughing rapture. (5)I looked at my friend; he was trying stealthily to remove something from his eyes with a finger. And to myself the stage seemed very misty, and all things in the world lovable; as though that dancing fairy had touched them with tender fire, and made them golden. (6)God knows where she got that power of bringing joy to our dry hearts: God knows how long she will keep it! But that little flying Love had in her the quality that lie deep in colour, in music, in the wind, and the sun, and in certain great works of art—the power to see the heart free from every barrier, and flood it with delight. PASSAGE THREE (1)This has been quite a week for literary coups. In an almost entirely unexpected move, the Swedish Academy have this lunchtime announced their decision to award this year's Nobel prize for Literature to the British playwright, author and recent poet, Harold Pinter and not, as was widely anticipated, to Turkish author Orhan Pamuk or the Syrian poet Adonis. (2)The Academy, which has handed out the prize since 1901, described Pinter, whose works include The Birthday Party, The Dumb Waiter and his breakthrough The Caretaker, as someone who restored the art form of theatre, in its citation, the Academy said Pinter was "generally seen as the foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20th century," and declared him to be an author "who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms." (3)Until today's announcement, Pinter was barely thought to be in the running for the prize, one of the most prestigious and lucrative in the world. After Pamuk and Adonis, the writers believed to be under consideration by the Academy included Americans Joyce Carol Oates and Philip Roth, and the Swedish poet Thomas Transtromer, with Margaret Atwood, Milan Kundera and the South Korean poet Ko Un as long-range possibilities. Following on from last year's surprise decision to name the Austrian novelist, playwright and poet Elfriede Jelinek as laureate, however, the secretive Academy has once again confounded the bookies. (4)Pinter's victory means that the prize has been given to a British writer for the second time in under five years; it was awarded to VS Naipaul in 2001. European writers have won the prize in nine out of the last 10 years so it was widely assumed that this year's award would go to a writer from a different continent. (5)The son of immigrant Jewish parents, Pinter was born in Hackney, London on October 10, 1930. He himself has said that his youthful encounters with anti-semitism led him to become a dramatist. Without doubt one of Britain's greatest post-war playwrights, his long association with the theatre began when he worked as an actor, under the stage name David Baron. His first play, The Room, was performed at Bristol University in 1957; but it was in 1960 with his second full-length play, the absurdist masterpiece The Caretaker, that his reputation was established. Known for their menacing pauses, his dark, claustrophobic plays are notorious for their mesmerising ability to strip back the layers of the often banal lives of their characters to reveal the guilt and horror that lie beneath, a feature of his writing which has garnered him the adjective "Pinteresque." He has also written extensively for the cinema: his screenplays include The Servant (1963), and The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981). (6)Pinter's authorial stance, always radical, has become more and more political in recent years. An outspoken critic of the war in Iraq (he famously called President Bush a "mass murderer" and dubbed Tony Blair a "deluded idiot"), in 2003 he turned to poetry to castigate the leaders of the US and the UK for their decision to go to war (his collection, War, was awarded the Wilfred Owen award for poetry). Earlier this year, he announced his decision to retire from playwriting in favour of poetry, declaring on BBC Radio 4 that. "I think I've stopped writing plays now, but I haven't stopped writing poems. I've written 29 plays. Isn't that enough?" (7)In 2002, Pinter was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus and underwent a course of chemotherapy, which he described as a "personal nightmare". "I've been through the valley of the shadow of death," he said afterwards. "While in many respects I have certain characteristics that I had, I'm also a very changed man." Earlier this week it was announced that he is to act in a production of Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the English Stage Company at London's Royal Court Theatre. (8)Horace Engdahl, the Academy's permanent secretary, said that Pinter was overwhelmed when told he had won the prize. "He did not say many words," he said. "He was very happy." PASSAGE FOUR (1)Frederic Chopin was born in Zelazowa Wola, Poland, on February 22, 1810, to a French rather and Polish mother. His father, Nicholas Chopin, was a French tutor to many aristocratic Polish families, later accepting a position as a French teacher at the Warsaw Lyceum. (2)Although Chopin later attended the Lyceum where his father taught, his early training began at home. This included receiving piano lessons from his mother. By the age of six, Chopin was creating original pieces, showing innate prodigious musical ability. His parents arranged for the young Chopin to take piano instruction from Wojciech Zywny. (3)When Chopin was sixteen, he attended the Warsaw Conservatory of Music, directed by composer Joseph Elsner. Eisner, like Zywny, insisted on the traditional training associated with Classical music but allowed his students to investigate the more original imaginations of the Romantic style as well. (4) As often happened with the young musicians of both the Classical and Romantic Periods, Chopin was sent to Vienna, the unquestioned center of music for that day. He gave piano concerts and then arranged to have his pieces published by a Viennese publishing house there. While Chopin was in Austria, Poland and Russia faced off in the apparent beginnings of war. He returned to Warsaw to get his things in preparation of a more permanent move. While there, his friends gave him a silver goblet filled with Polish soil. He kept it always, as he was never able to return to his beloved Poland. (5)French by heritage, and desirous of finding musical acceptance from a less traditional audience than that of Vienna, Chopin ventured to Paris. Interestingly, other young musicians had assembled in the city of fashion with the very same hope. Chopin joined Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, Vincenzo Bellini, all proponents of the "new" Romantic style. (6)Although Chopin did play in the large concert halls on occasion, he felt most at home in private settings, enjoying the social milieu that accompanied concerts for the wealthy. He also enjoyed teaching, as this caused him less stress than performing. Chopin did not feel that his delicate technique and intricate melodies were as suited to the grandiose hall as they were to smaller environments and audiences. (7)News of the war in Poland inspired Chopin to write many sad musical pieces expressing his grief for "his" Poland. Among these was the famous "Revolutionary Etude." Plagued by poor health as well as his homesickness, Chopin found solace in summer visits to the country. Here, his most complex yet harmonic creations found their way to the brilliant composer's hand. The "Fantasia in F Minor," the "Barcarolle," the "Polonaise Fantasia," "Ballade in A Flat Major," "Ballade in F Minor," and "Sonata in B Minor" were all products of the relaxed time Chopin enjoyed in the country. (8)As the war continued in Warsaw and then reached Paris, Chopin retired to Scotland with friends. Although he was far beyond the reach of the revolution, his melancholy attitude did not improve and he sank deeper into a depression. Likewise, his health did not rejuvenate either. A window in the fighting made it possible for Chopin to return to Paris as his health deteriorated further. Surrounded by those that he loved, Frederic Francois Chopin died at the age of 39. He was buried in Paris. (9)Chopin's last request was that the Polish soil in the silver goblet be sprinkled over his grave.1. Which of the following is NOT inside the city, according to the passage? ______(PASSAGE ONE)

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单选题《复合题被拆开情况》 1"Britain’s best export," I was told by the head of the Department of Immigration in Canberra ,"is people. " Close on 100,000 people have applied for assisted passages in the first five mon

单选题. Questions 6 to 10 are based on Part Two of the interview.6.

单选题. Questions 6 to 10 are based on Part Two of the interview.6.

单选题Most West African lorries are not in what one would call the first flush of youth, and I had learnt by bitter experience not to expect anything very much of them. But the lorry that arrived to take me up to the mountains was worse than anything I had seen before: it tottered on the borders of senile decay. It stood there on buckled wheels, wheezing and gasping with exhaustion from having to climb up the gentle slope to the camp, and I consigned myself and my loads to it with some fear. The driver, who was a cheerful fellow, pointed out that he would require my assistance in two very necessary operations: first, I had to keep the hand brake pressed down when travelling downhill, for unless it was held thus almost level with the floor it sullenly refused to function. Secondly, I had to keep a stern eye on the clutch, a willful piece of mechanism that seized every chance to leap out of its socket with a noise like a strangling leopard. As it was obvious that not even a West African lorry-driver could be successful in driving while crouched under the dashboard, I had to take over control of those instruments if I valued my life. So, while I ducked at intervals to put on the brake, amid the rich smell of burning rubber, our noble lorry jerked its way towards the mountains at a steady twenty miles per hour: sometimes, when a downward slope favoured it, it threw caution to the winds and careered(猛冲)along in a reckless fashion at twenty-five. For the first thirty miles the red earth road wound its way through the lowland forest, the giant trees standing in solid ranks alongside and their branches entwined(盘绕)in an archway of leaves above us. Slowly and almost imperceptibly the road.started to climb upwards, looping its way in languid curves round the forested hills. In the back of the lorry the boys lifted up their voices in song: Home again, home again, When shall I see ma home? The driver hummed the refrain(副歌)softly to himself glancing at me to see if I would object. To his surprise I joined in and so while the lorry rolled onwards, the boys in the back maintained the chorus while the driver and I harmonized and sang complicated bits. Breaks in the forest became more frequent the higher we climbed, and presently a new type of undergrowth began to appear: massive tree-ferns standing at the roadside on their thick, squat, hairy trunks. These ferns were the guardians of a new world, for suddenly, as though the hills had shrugged themselves free of a cloak, the forest disappeared. It lay behind us in the valley, while above us the hillside rose majestically, covered in a coat of waist-high grass. The lorry crept higher and higher, the engine gasping and shuddering with this unaccustomed activity. I began to think that we should have to push the wretched thing up the last two or three hundred feet, but to everyone’s surprise we made it, and the lorry crept on to the brow of the hill, trembling with fatigue, spouting steam from its radiator like a dying whale. We crawled to a standstill and the driver switched off the engine. " We must wait small-time, engine get hot," he explained, pointing to the forequarters of the lorry, which were by now completely invisible under a cloud of steam. Thankfully I descended from the red-hot inside of the cab and strolled down to where the road dipped into the next valley. From this vantage point I could see the country we had travelled through and the country we were to enter.

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单选题. Section A In this section there are several passages followed by fourteen multiple-choice questions. For each multiple-choice question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO. Passage One There are around 6,000 languages in the world today. At least there were until January of 2001. Then Carlos Westez died. Westez was the last speaker of the native American language Catawba. With him passed away the language itself. The death of Westez was mourned not just by professional linguists, but more generally by advocates of cultural diversity. Writing in The Independent of London, Peter Popham warned that "when a language dies" we lose "the possibility of a unique way of perceiving and describing the world". What particularly worries people like Popham is that many other languages are likely to follow the fate of Catawba. Aore is a language native to one of the islands of the Pacific state of Vanuatu. When the island's single inhabitant dies, so will the language. Ironically, the status of Gafat, an Ethiopian language spoken by fewer than 30 people, has been made more precarious thanks to the efforts of linguists attempting to preserve it. A language researcher took two speakers out of their native land, whereupon they caught cold and died. Of the 6,000 extant languages in the world, more than 3,000 will disappear over the next century. Linguist Jean Aitcheson believes that "this massive disappearance of so many languages will be an irretrievable loss". Popham compares this loss to the "death of untold species of plants and insects" from rainforest destruction. Warning of the "impact of a homogenizing monoculture upon our way of life," he worries about the "spread of English carried by American culture, delivered by Japanese technology" and the "hegemony of a few great transnational languages. Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Hindi." Yet the whole point of a language is to enable communication. A language spoken by one person is not a language at all. It is a private conceit, like a child's secret code. Carlos Westez might well have had "a unique way of perceiving the world," but it was so unique that only he had access to it. However happy Westez might have been talking to himself, to everyone else in the world he may as well have been talking gibberish. It is, of course, enriching to learn other languages and delve into other cultures. But it is enriching not because different languages and cultures are unique, but because making contact across barriers of language and culture allows us to expand our own horizons and become more universal in our outlook. Cultural homogenization is something to be welcomed, not feared. The more universally we can communicate, the more dynamic our culture will be. It is not being parochial to believe that the more people to speak English—or Spanish, Chinese, or Hindi—the better it would be. The real chauvinists are surely those who worry about the spread of "American culture" and "Japanese technology". The idea that particular languages embody unique visions of the world derives from the romantic concept of cultural difference, a concept that underlies much of contemporary thinking about multiculturalism. "Each nation speaks in the manner it thinks," Johann Gottfried von Herder argued in the 18th century, "and thinks in the manner it speaks." For Herder the nature of a people was expressed through its Volksgeist—the unchanging spirit of a people refined through history. Language was particularly crucial to the delineation of a people, because "in it dwells its entire world of tradition, history, religion, principles of existence; its whole heart and soul." Herder's Volksgeist became transformed into racial makeup, an unchanging substance, the foundation of all physical appearance and mental potential, and the basis for division and difference within humankind. The contemporary argument for the preservation of linguistic diversity, liberally framed though it may be, draws on the same philosophy that gave rise to racial difference. "Nobody can suppose that it is not more beneficial for a Breton or a Basque to be a member of the French nationality, admitted on equal terms to all the privileges of French citizenship…than to sulk on his own rocks, the half-savage relic of past times, revolving in his own little mental orbit, without participation or interest in the general movement of the world." So wrote John Stuart Mill, more than a century ago. "The same applies," he added, "to the Welshman or the Scottish Highlander as members of the British nation." It would have astonished him that, as we approach a new era, there are those who think that sulking on your own rock is a state worth preserving. (此文选自 Time) Passage Two When school starts each year, the most important question on the minds of parents and children is, Who will be my teacher? The concern is well founded. Researchers have discovered that school's deepest influence on learning depends on the quality of the teacher. Students lucky enough to have teachers who know their content and how to teach it well achieve more. And the effects of a very good (or very poor) teacher last beyond a single year, influencing a student's learning for years. Put simply, expert teachers are the most fundamental resource for improving education. This lesson has been well learned by societies that top international rankings in education. The highest-achieving countries—Finland, Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada—have been pouring resources into teacher training and support. These countries routinely prepare their teachers more extensively, pay them well in relation to competing occupations and give them lots of time for professional learning. They also provide well-trained teachers for all students—rather than allowing some to be taught by untrained novices—by offering equitable salaries and adding incentives for harder-to-staff locations. All teacher candidates in Finland, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands, for example, receive two to three years of graduate-level preparation for teaching, at government expense, plus a living stipend. Unlike the U. S. , where teachers either go into debt to prepare for a profession that will pay them poorly or enter with little or no training, these countries made the decision to invest in a uniformly well-prepared teaching force by recruiting top candidates and paying them while they receive extensive training. With its steep climb in the international rankings, Finland has been a poster child for school improvement. Teachers learn how to create programs that engage students in research and inquiry on a regular basis. There, training focuses on how to teach students who learn in different ways—including those with special needs. The Finns reason that if teachers learn to help students who struggle, they will be able to teach their students more effectively. Singapore, top-ranked in math by the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, treats teaching similarly. When I visited Singapore's National Institute of Education, the nation's only teacher-training institution, nearly all the people I spoke with described how they were investing in teachers' abilities to teach a curriculum focused on critical thinking and inquiry—skills needed in a high-tech economy. To get the best teachers, the institute recruits students from the top third of each graduating high school class into a fully paid four-year teacher-education program (or, if they enter later, a one-to-two-year graduate program) and puts them on the government's payroll. When they enter the profession, teachers' salaries are higher than those of beginning doctors. Expert teachers are given time to serve as mentors to help beginners learn their craft. The government pays for 100 hours of professional development each year for all teachers. In addition, they have 20 hours a week to work with other teachers and visit one another's classrooms. And teachers continue to advance throughout their career. With aid from the government, teachers in Singapore can pursue three separate career ladders, which help them become curriculum specialists, mentors for other teachers or school principals. These opportunities bring recognition, extra compensation and new challenges that keep teaching exciting and allow teachers to share their expertise. Most U. S. teachers, on the other hand, have no time to work with colleagues during the school day. They plan by themselves and get a few hit-and-run workshops after school, with little opportunity to share knowledge or improve their practice. In a study of mathematics teaching and learning in Japan, Taiwan and the U. S. , James Stigler and Harold Stevenson noted that "Asian class lessons are so well crafted (because) there is a very systematic effort to pass on the accumulated wisdom of teaching practice to each new generation of teachers and to keep perfecting that practice by providing teachers the opportunities to continually learn from each other." With these kinds of investments, it is possible to ensure that every teacher has access to the knowledge he or she needs to teach effectively and that every child has access to competent teachers. Such a goal is critical for the U. S. if it is indeed to leave no child behind. (此文选自 Time) Passage Three In the competitive model—the economy of many sellers each with a small share of the total market—the restraint on the private exercise of economic power was provided by other firms on the same side of the market. It was the eagerness of competitors to sell, not the complaints of buyers, that saved the latter from spoliation. It was assumed, no doubt accurately, that the nineteenth-century textile manufacturer who overcharged for his product would promptly lose his market to another manufacturer who did not. If all manufacturers found themselves in a position where they could exploit a strong demand, and mark up their prices accordingly, there would soon be an inflow of new competitors. The resulting increase in supply would bring prices and profits back to normal. As with the seller who was tempted to use his economic power against the customer, so with the buyer who was tempted to use it against his labor or suppliers, the man who paid less than the prevailing wage would lose his labor force to those who paid the worker his full (marginal) contribution to the earnings of the firm. In all cases the incentive to socially desirable behavior was provided by the competitor. It was to the same side of the market—the restraint of sellers by other sellers and of buyers by other buyers, in other words to competition—that economists came to look for the self-regulatory mechanisms of the economy. They also came to look to competition exclusively and in formal theory still do. The notion that there might be another regulatory mechanism in the economy had been almost completely excluded from economic thought. Thus, with the widespread disappearance of competition in its classical form and its replacement by the small group of firms if not in overt, at least in conventional or tacit, collusion, it was easy to suppose that since competition had disappeared, all effective restraint on private power had disappeared. Indeed, this conclusion was all but inevitable if no search was made for other restraints, and so complete was the preoccupation with competition that none was made. In fact, new restraints on private power did appear to replace competition. They were nurtured by the same process of concentration which impaired or destroyed competition. But they appeared not on the same side of the market but on the opposite side, not with competitors but with customers or suppliers. It will be convenient to have a name for this counterpart of competition and I shall call it countervailing power. To begin with a broad and somewhat too dogmatically stated proposition, private economic power is held in check by the countervailing power of those who are subject to it. The first begets the second. The long trend toward concentration of industrial enterprise in the hands of a relatively few firms has brought into existence not only strong sellers, as economists have supposed, but also strong buyers, a fact they have failed to see. The two develop together, not in precise step, but in such manner that there can be no doubt that the one is in response to the other. (此文选自 How to Prepare for the LSAT: Law School Admission Test) Passage Four Global warming could actually chill down North America within just a few decades, according to a new study that says a sudden cooling event gripped the region about 8,300 years ago. Analysis of ancient moss from Newfoundland, Canada, links an injection of freshwater from a burst glacial lake to a rapid drop in air temperatures by a few degrees Celsius along North America's East Coast. This event created a colder year-round climate with a much shorter growing season for about 150 years, from northern Canada to what is now Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The results suggest that North America's climate is highly sensitive to meltwater flowing into the ocean, said lead study author Tim Daley of Swansea University in the U. K. The work also means that history could repeat itself: Currently Greenland's ice sheet is melting at a rapid clip, releasing freshwater into the North Atlantic. In a worst-case scenario, the authors say, a sudden melt could trigger another regional cooling event—although other experts say today's extreme, human-driven warming might cancel out any strong cooling effect. Daley and colleagues studied mosses dating back more than 8,700 years that were preserved in a Newfoundland peat bog. The ratios of two different types of oxygen in the mosses allowed the team to trace changes in atmospheric temperature over time. When air temperatures are lower, the mosses contain less oxygen-18, a heavier version of the more common type, oxygen-16. About 8,350 years ago, the amount of oxygen-18 relative to oxygen-16 suddenly dropped, the team reports in the September issue of the journal Geology. Previous research had found that, around the same time, a northern ice dam burst, releasing the contents of a vast glacial lake into the Labrador Sea, between Canada and Denmark. Normally a warm ocean current called the Gulf Stream runs up the east coast of North America, helping to keep the region balmier than it should be, considering how far north it is. But the entire glacial lake drained within less than a year, injecting a huge pulse of freshwater into the North Atlantic Ocean. Daley and colleagues think the lake water diluted the salty ocean current and slowed the Gulf Stream, which in turn led to rapid cooling in North America. "As a result, Canadian summer temperatures would have been similar to those currently experienced in autumn or spring," said team member Nell Loader, also of Swansea University. Climate records from Greenland and Europe also show a sudden cooling during the same time period, but this is the first clear evidence for a North American chill. The moss data show that current climate models "significantly underestimate the impact and duration of the climate perturbation resulting from the megaflood," said Swansea team member Alayne Perrott. This means these same models might not be accurately predicting what might happen in the future if Greenland's ice sheet continues to melt. However, some scientists say that the data showing a prehistoric North American cool down may only indicate a coastal phenomenon. "The study site is very close to the North Atlantic Ocean, and it is very likely that the climate change is primarily an oceanic signal," said Hans Renssen, a climate researcher at Vrije University in Amsterdam, who was not involved in the study. As for whether today's melt in Greenland could trigger another round of cooling, Renssen thinks it's possible, but he doesn't believe the change would be as dramatic as last time. In fact, he said, any future cooling is likely to be overwhelmed by human-caused warming, "resulting in no cooling in North America at all, only less warming than without the event." (此文选自 National Geographic News)1. Peter Popham is afraid that ______.(Passage One)

单选题《复合题被拆开情况》　　1 In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together. Early every morning they would come out from the house where they lived and walk arm in arm down the street to work. The

单选题"Britain’sbestexport,"IwastoldbytheheadoftheDepartmentofImmigrationinCanberra,"ispeople."Closeon100,000peoplehaveappliedforassistedpassagesinthefirstfivemonthsofthatyear,andhalfoftheseareeventuallyexpectedtomigratetoAustralia.(2)TheAustraliansaredelighted.TheyarekeenlyawarethatwithoutastrongflowofimmigrantsintotheworkforcethedevelopmentoftheAustralianeconomyisunlikelytoproceedattheambitiouspacecurrentlyenvisaged.Thenewmineraldiscoveriespromiseasplendidfuture,andtheinjectionofhugeamountsofAmericanandBritishcapitalshouldhelptoensurethattheyareproperlyexploited,butwithunemploymentinAustraliadowntolessthan1.3percent,thegovernmentisunderstandablyanxioustoattractmoreskilledlabor.(3)AustraliaisroughlythesamesizeasthecontinentalUnitedStates,buthasonlytwelvemillioninhabitants.Migrationhasaccountedforhalfthepopulationincreaseinthelastfouryears,andhascontributedgreatlytothecountry’simpressiveeconomicdevelopment.Britainhasalwaysbeentheprincipalsource—ninetypercentofAustraliansareofBritishdescent,andBritainhasprovidedonemillionmigrantssincetheSecondWorldWar.(4)Australiahasalsogivengreatattentiontorecruitingpeopleelsewhere.Australiansdecidedtheyhadanexcellentpotentialsourceofapplicantsamongtheso-called"guestworkers"whohavecrossedtheirownfrontierstoworkinotherpartsofEurope.Therewereestimatedtobemorethanfourmillionofthem,andalargenumberwereofferedsubsidizedpassagesandguaranteedjobsinAustralia.Italyhasforsomeyearsbeenthesecondbiggestsourceofmigrants,andtheAustralianshavealsomanagedtoattractalargenumberofGreeksandGermans.(5)Onedrawbackwiththem,sofarastheAustraliansareconcerned,isthatintegrationtendstobemoredifficult.UnliketheBritish,continentalmigrantshavetostrugglewithanunfamiliarlanguageandnewcustoms.ManynaturallygravitatetowardstheItalianorGreekcommunitieswhichhavegrownupincitiessuchasSydneyandMelbourne.Thesecolonieshavetheirownnewspapers,theirownshops,andtheirownclubs.TheirinhabitantsarenotAustralians,butEuropeans.(6)Thegovernment’savowedaim,however,istomaintain"asubstantiallyhomogeneoussocietyintowhichnewcomers,fromwhateversources,willmergethemselves".Byandlarge,therefore,AustraliastillprefersBritishmigrants,andtendstoberatherlessselectiveintheircasethanitiswithothers.(7)Afarbiggercauseofconcernthanthegrowthofnationalgroups,however,istheincreasingnumberofmigrantswhoreturntotheircountriesoforigin.Onereasonisthatpeoplenowadaystendtobemoremobile,andthatitiseasierthaninthepasttosavethereturnfare,buteconomicconditionsalsohavesomethingtodowithit.Aslowerrateofgrowthinvariablyproducesdiscontent—andifthiscoincideswithgreaterprosperityinEurope,alotofpeopletendtofeelthatperhapstheywerewrongtocomehereafterall.(8)Severalsurveyshavebeenconductedrecentlyintothereasonswhypeoplegohome.Onenotedthat"flies,dirt,andoutsidelavatories"wereonthelistofcomplaintsfromBritishimmigrants,andaddedthatmanypeoplealsocomplainedabout"thecrudity,badmanners,andunfriendlinessoftheAustralians".Anothersurveygaveclimateconditions,homesickness,and"thestarkappearanceoftheAustraliancountryside"asthemainreasonsforleaving.(9)MostBritishmigrantsmisscouncilhousing,theNationalHealthscheme,andtheirrelativesandformerneighbors.Lonelinessisabigfactor,especiallyamonghousewives.Themensoonmakenewfriendsatwork,butwivestendtofinditmuchhardertogetusedtoadifferentwayoflife.Manyarehouseboundbecauseofinadequatepublictransportinmostoutlyingsuburbs,andregularcorrespondencewiththeiroldfriendsathomeonlyservestoincreasetheirdiscontent.Onehousewifewasquotedrecentlyassaying:"IevenfindImissthepeopleIusedtohateathome."(10)Rentsarehigh,andtherearelongwaitinglistsforHousingCommissionhomes.Sicknesscanbeanexpensivebusinessandtheclimatecanbeunexpectedlyrough.ThegapbetweenAustralianandBritishwagepacketsisnolongerbig,andpeoplearegenerallyexpectedtoworkharderherethantheydoathome.Professionalmenoverfortyoftenhavedifficultyinfindingadecentjob.Aboveall,perhaps,skilledimmigrantsoftenfindaconsiderablereluctancetoaccepttheirqualifications.(11)AccordingtothejournalAustralianManufacturer,theattitudeofmanyemployersandfellowworkersisanythingbutfriendly."WeAustralians,"itstatedinarecentissue,"arejusttoofondofpaintingtherosypictureofthebig,warm-heartedAussie.Asamatteroffact,wearesobusyblowingourowntrumpetsthatwehavenotgottimetobewarm-heartedandconsiderate.Godown’heart-breakalley’amongsomeofthemigrantsandfindoutjusthowexpansivetheAussieistohisimmigrants."问：TheAustralianswantastrongflowofimmigrantsbecause______.

单选题. Section A In this section there are several passages followed by fourteen multiple-choice questions. For each multiple-choice question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO. Passage One Distant indeed seem the days when the two great rivals of commercial aviation, Boeing and Airbus, would use big air shows to trumpet hundreds of new orders. This year's Paris Air Show was a much more sombre affair, even if the Boeing-Airbus feud still took centre stage. There were one or two bright spots. Airbus was able to boast of a firm order for ten of its wide-body A350s from AirAsia X. John Leahy, its top salesman, expects deliveries in 2009 to match the record 483 in 2008. Boeing, which was hit by a prolonged strike last year, will probably deliver more aircraft this year than last. Both firms built up huge backlogs in the fat years: each has orders for about 3,500 planes. But many of those may soon evaporate. Giovanni Bisignani, the boss of IATA, the trade body that speaks for most airlines, gave warning earlier this month that his members might defer as many as 30% of aircraft deliveries next year. He also almost doubled his forecast for the industry's cumulative losses in 2009, to $ 9 billion. Both Mr. Leahy and Jim McNerney, the chief executive of Boeing, think that Mr. Bisignani is overdoing the gloom. But they concede that potential customers may find purchases hard to finance. Another issue is the cost of fuel. Mr. McNerney thinks the recent increase in the oil price should encourage carriers to replace elderly gas guzzlers with efficient new planes. But if the price "spikes over $ 100" all bets are off. The two aviation giants agree on one other thing: the industry will not get a successor to its ubiquitous short-haul workhorses, the 737 and the A320, for more than a decade. That is partly because the 15-20% efficiency gain that airlines say they want from the next generation is, says Mr. McNerney, "a bar that keeps moving north" thanks to the continuous improvements of 1-2% a year that the manufacturers are making to existing planes. Moreover, both Boeing and Airbus are conserving cash for a long and bitter scrap to dominate the market for long-haul aircraft with up to 350 seats. Boeing's troubled 787 Dreamliner will at last take to the air this month, two years late. The production problems that stemmed from both the revolutionary use of composites and an extended global supply chain appear to have been overcome. To speed up deliveries of the 787, for which Boeing has received more than 860 orders, Mr. McNerney is planning a second assembly line. The delays to the 787 have been a godsend for Airbus. Its rival, the slightly bigger A350, is on track to fly in early 2012 after a painful gestation. With nearly 500 orders, Airbus claims that the A350 is selling even faster than the record-breaking 787 did at the same stage in its development. The biggest concern for Boeing, however, is not that the A350 will take sales from the 787, but that its largest variant, the A350-1000, will be a strong rival to its successful 777. Mr McNerney says that Boeing can afford to wait and see how great a threat the biggest A350 is. But according to Airbus executives, Boeing will be faced with the dilemma of merely upgrading the 777 or taking the bigger and more costly step of building a replacement. The A350 and the 787 are at the heart of the long-running and acrimonious dispute between Boeing and Airbus at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over state subsidies for large commercial aircraft. This week European governments declared that they were ready to contribute 3.5 billion ($ 4.9 billion) of reimbursable launch aid to the 11 billion cost of developing the A350. The announcement had Boeing executives scurrying to their BlackBerrys to condemn what they saw as a "provocative" move given that the WTO is expected to issue a ruling on Boeing's complaint within weeks (a ruling on a counter-complaint by Airbus is due later in the year). Louis Gallois, the chief executive of EADS, the parent company of Airbus, denied there was anything odd about the timing: "We do not plead guilty," he said. "Our support is much more transparent than Boeing's. We have fully repaid with interest the support we received for the A320 and A330 and we are already paying back on the A380 (super-jumbo)." Tom Enders, the chief executive of Airbus, added that the aid was aimed only at "levelling the playing field" and that the European Union had described the 787 as the most subsidised commercial aircraft in history. (此文选自 The Economist) Passage Two Scientist, engineer, musician and great artist, Leonardo da Vinci is the archetypal Renaissance man. This undisputed genius, who lived to be 67, was also one of history's most accomplished underachievers. He started many projects he did not finish; he accepted commissions he never began; his many planned treatises remained just notes. Only 18 of his paintings survive. Half of them are included in a show that opened on November 9th at London's National Gallery, making this the most important da Vinci display ever. The artist was born near Florence in 1452 and went to Milan at the age of 30. Luke Syson, the show's curator, has come to believe that the freedom da Vinci enjoyed there as court painter to Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, was the key that unlocked his genius. Mr. Syson's contention that Leonardo's great breakthrough came in Milan and not later in Florence, as has generally been accepted until now, has captivated curators, collectors and museum directors who have been generous in loaning works to the show; from the Vatican, Prague, Cracow, Paris and the Royal Collection. All the pictures on show were painted during da Vinci's 18 years in Milan. Never has it been possible to see so many of da Vinci's paintings together. There are also some 50 drawings, including the monumental Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist (sometimes called The Burlington House Cartoon). The one picture missing from this period is The Last Supper, which is painted on a wall. This work, which is badly damaged, is represented here by a large photograph and a near-contemporary (though far inferior) copy. In pages from a notebook da Vinci's slanted "mirror" writing describes the guests at a dinner. With a novelist's interest in detail, he carefully observed the shrug of one man's shoulders, the position of another's hands, the scowl on one face and the frown on yet one more. The exhibition is arranged thematically; in addition to "Beauty and Love", there is also "Character and Emotion" and "Body and Soul". The visitor quickly comes face to face with the portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, also known as The Lady with an Ermine. Although the image is familiar from reproductions, the radiance of the painting is surprising. Further along is an unfinished, yet searing, Saint Jerome. For the first time, both versions of The Virgin of the Rocks, one the National Gallery's own and the other belonging to the Louvre, are shown together. The two versions hang at opposite ends of the long exhibition space. The more one looks at the two pictures, the more visible are the differences between them; the strangely formed rocks in the Louvre's version create a protective atmosphere, whereas in the National Gallery's painting the rocks seem quite eerie, contributing to the overall sepulchral feel of the work. As a philosopher and scientist, da Vinci strove to understand what he observed in his close studies of nature. Art was an expression of his thoughts. The Lady with an Ermine shows the Duke of Milan's teenage mistress in a fashionable red gown, its slit sleeves revealing a pale underdress. Da Vinci, always fascinated by knots, carefully details the way the black ribbons are tied on Cecilia's left sleeve. Her right arm is in shadow. The ties on that sleeve are sketchy. The artist has taken into account his observation that visual acuity declines in the dark. The brain fills in necessary information. The sketchiness of the right sleeve helps bring the portrait to life, creating what Walter Pater, a 19th-century British essayist and art critic, described as a "reality which almost amounts to illusion". Da Vinci would sometimes spend years thinking about a single painting. Mr. Syson hopes visitors to the National Gallery will, in turn, look long and hard at these works. Advance tickets for entry to the end of the year had sold out by the opening day. The show does not close until February 5th 2012, but advance tickets for its final weeks are going fast. Meanwhile, the only way to get in now is to queue for one of the 500 tickets being held back for sale each morning. The security checks are elaborate, but the wait is well worth it. (此文选自 The Economist) Passage Three One of the paradoxes of human biology is that the rich world has fewer children than the poor world. In most species, improved circumstances are expected to increase reproductive effort, not reduce it, yet as economic development gets going, country after country has experienced what is known as the demographic transition: fertility (defined as the number of children borne by a woman over her lifetime) drops from around eight to near one and a half. That number is so small that even with the reduced child mortality which usually accompanies development it cannot possibly sustain the population. This reproductive collapse is particularly worrying because it comes in combination with an increase in life expectancy which suggests that, by the middle of the century, not only will populations in the most developed countries have shrunk (unless they are propped up by historically huge levels of immigration) but also that the number of retired individuals supported by each person of working age will increase significantly. If Mikko Myrskyla of the University of Pennsylvania and his colleagues are correct, though, things might not be quite as bad as that. A study they have just published in Nature suggests that as development continues, the demographic transition goes into reverse. Dr. Myrskyla compared two things. One was the total fertility rate (the number of children that would be born to a woman in a particular country over the course of her life if she experienced the age-specific fertility rates observed in that country during the calendar year in question). The other was the human development index for that country. The HDI, a measure used by the United Nations, has three components: life expectancy; average income per person; and level of education. Its maximum possible value is one. Back in the 1970s, no country got anywhere near one. Of the 107 places the researchers looked at, the best was Canada, with an HDI of 0.89. By 2005, however, things had improved markedly. Two dozen of what were now 240 countries had HDIs above nine—and something else remarkable had happened. Back in 1975, a graph plotting fertility rate against the HDI fell as the HDI rose. By 2005, though, the line had a kink in it. Above an HDI of 0.9 or so, it turned up, producing what is known in the jargon as a "J-shaped" curve (even though it is the mirror image of a letter J). In many countries with really high levels of development (around 0.95) fertility rates are now approaching two children per woman. There are exceptions, notably Canada and Japan, but the trend is clear. Why this change has come about, and why the demographic transition happens in the first place, are matters of debate. There are lots of social explanations of why fertility rates fall as countries become richer. The increasing ability of women in the developed world to control their own reproductive output is one, as is the related phenomenon of women entering the workplace in large numbers. The increasing cost of raising children in a society with more material abundance plays a part. So does the substitution of nationalised social-security systems for the support of offspring in old age. Falling rates of child mortality are also significant. Conversely, Dr. Myrskyla speculates that the introduction of female-friendly employment policies in the most developed countries allows women to have the best of both worlds, and that this may contribute to the uptick. No doubt all these social explanations are true as far as they go, but they do not address the deeper question of why people's psychology should have evolved in a way that makes them want fewer children when they can afford more. There is a possible biological explanation, though. (此文选自 The Economist) Passage Four Detroit seems to be where Wall Street meets Main Street. Tight credit is reckoned to have cost the American carmakers 40,000 sales in August, worth about $ 1 billion in revenue. The impact has been felt most by America's Big Three—General Motors, Ford and Chrysler—which have suffered this year as consumers shunned gas-guzzlers in favour of the smaller cars mostly made by Japanese firms in American factories. Overall light-vehicle sales hit a 15-year low in September, with a fall of 27% compared with a year earlier. The problem is finance. "We have plenty of customers—what we don't have is financing available to meet their needs," Mike Jackson, chief executive of AutoNation, a leading car-dealer chain, told CNBC this week. He reckons that tighter credit and limits on finance for leases have cost his firm a fifth of its sales this year. The Big Three have been hit by petrol prices pushing towards $ 4 a gallon, by more demanding federal fuel-economy rules and by the credit crunch wrecking consumer finance. But the federal government came to their aid this week when George Bush signed an energy bill that includes $ 25 billion in loan guarantees to ease their pain. Supposedly this is to allow the Big Three to retool their factories to produce more economical vehicles. David Cole, director of the Centre for Automotive Research, an industry body, estimates that such retooling could cost at least $ 100 billion. But money is money, so the infusion of cheap credit will help the carmakers pay their bills next year. "Given the market position of the Big Three, things will get sticky by mid-2009, because they have to keep spending on new programmes," says Joe Philippi of Auto Trends, a consultancy. The rules are still being worked out, but the deal means that car companies—blessed with the government guarantee—should get loans with an interest rate of around 5% rather than the 15% they would face on the open market in today's conditions. The stipulation that the loans are only for firms with factories at least 20 years old rules out nearly all the "transplant" factories that foreign carmakers built in America to get around tariff barriers. And even if some Japanese carmakers do qualify for loans, they are not expected to ask for them. So a sum that seemed preposterous only a few months ago has won overwhelming approval from politicians. Compared with the demand for $ 700 billion to underpin the financial system, who can complain about a mere $ 25 billion for carmakers? And using government money to keep honest, hardworking car-industry workers in their jobs is easier for politicians to justify than handouts for greedy Wall Street bankers. The sales-pitch is even more compelling in an election year. Once industrial subsidies like this begin to flow, it is difficult to stop them. A recent study by the Cato Institute, a right-wing think-tank, found that the federal government spent some $ 92 billion subsidising business in 2006 alone. Only $ 21 billion of that went to farmers, much of the rest went to firms such as Boeing, IBM and GE in the form of export-credit support and various research subsidies. The Big Three are already complaining that it will take too long to dish out the money, and they want the process speeded up. They also want a further $ 25 billion, possibly attached to the second version of the Wall Street rescue bill. The logic of bailing out Wall Street is that finance underpins everything. Detroit cannot begin to make that claim. But, given its successful lobbying, can it be long before ailing airlines and failing retailers join the queue? (此文选自 The Economist)1. It can be inferred from Paragraph One that Boeing and Airbus ______.(Passage One)