单选题Artificial rainmaking has been most successful in the ______.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Judging from recent surveys, most experts in sleep behavior agree that there is virtually an epidemic of sleepiness in the nation. "I can't think of a single study that hasn't found Americans getting less sleep than they ought to," says Dr David. Even people who think they are sleeping enough would probably be better off with more rest. The beginning of our sleep-deficit crisis can be traced to the invention of the light bulb a century ago. From diary entries and other personal accounts from the 18th and 19th centuries, sleep scientists have reached the conclusion that the average person used to sleep about 9. 5 hours a night. "The best sleep habits once were forced on us, when we had nothing to do in the evening down on the farm, and it was dark." By the 1950s and 1960s, that sleep schedule had been reduced dramatically, to between 7.5 and 8 hours, and most people had to wake to an alarm clock. "People cheat on their sleep, and they don't even realize they're doing it," says Dr David. "They think they're okay because they can get by on 6.5 hours, when they really need 7.5, 8 hours or even more to feel ideally vigorous." Perhaps the most merciless rubber of sleep, researchers say, is the complexity of the day. When ever pressures from work, family, friends and community mount, many people consider sleep the least expensive item on his programme. "In our society, you're considered dynamic if you say you only need 5.5 hours' sleep. If you've got to get 8.5 hours, people think you lack drive and ambition." To determine the consequences of sleep deficit, researchers have put {{U}}subjects{{/U}} through a set of psychological and performance tests requiring them, for instance, to add columns of numbers or recall a passage read to them only minutes earlier. "We've found that if you're in sleep deficit, performance suffers," says Dr David. "Short-term memory is weakened, as are abilities to make decisions and to concentrate."

单选题Is Alice Smith good at drawing her students into ______ discussion? [A] lovely [B] seriously [C] warmly [D] lively

单选题It's Saturday night. Accountants and bank tellers are at school learning a new business skill. "Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey," they chant together, pulling their mouths into a grin at the end of each word. They're practising smiling. Instructors say it's the hardest part of the curriculum at Korean Air Service Academy, a school that aims to make South Korean business more globally competitive by teaching "international manners." "South Koreans have difficulty in smiling," said Y. D. Lee, the academy's general manager. "Our ancestors had the philosophy that the serious person — stern or strict — is better than the smiling one. That's why our students are chanting." The academy not only teaches service with a smile, but also proper greetings, Korean bowing, posture, the importance of a polite refusal and so on. And it's not just for business. Officials at the academy say their fastest-growing group of students comes from the government. That's partly because businesses have been tightening their belts during the economic crisis of the past two years and partly because citizens are demanding better treatment from the government. Tax collectors, prosecutors and others are being sent to school to polish their service manners. Then, citizens who have to show deference to rulers come to the school. "It's a symbol of a democratic conscience for a government official to express kindness and sincerity," said H. D. Cho, assistant general manager at the Korean Air School. Since the airline started the academy in late 1992, its competitor, Asiana Airlines, also started a course. Asiana Airlines travels the country to train people at their workplaces. Prices and length of courses vary, but a client would pay about US ＄1,600 to send 25 employees to an eight-hour course over two days at Korean Air. "Before, the main factor in competing was the product," said Lee. "Now our product, price and quality are on the same level, but the difference is service — the way of delivery, way of speaking, way of negotiating./

单选题Why is the woman concerned about the changes of the math requirements for graduation?

单选题 Earthquakes may rightly be ranked as one of the most destructive forces known to man. Since records began to be written down, it has been estimated that earthquake-related fatalities have numbered in the millions, and that earthquake-related destruction has been beyond calculation. The greater part of such damage and loss of life has been due to collapse of buildings and the effects of rockslides, floods, fire, disease, tsunamis (gigantic sea waves), and other observable events resulting from earthquakes, rather than from the quakes themselves. The great majority of all earthquakes occur in two specific geographic areas. One such area covers the Pacific Ocean and its bordering landmasses. The other extends from the East Indies to the Atlas Mountains, including the Himalayas, Iran, Turkey, and the Alpine regions. It is in these two great belts or zones that ninety percent of all earthquakes take place; they may, however, happen anywhere at any time. This element of the unknown has for centuries added greatly to the dread and horror surrounding earthquakes, but in recent times there have been indications that earthquake forecast may be possible. By analyzing changes in animal behavior, patterns of movements in the earth's shell, variations in the earth's force of attraction, and the frequency with which minor earth shakes are observed, scientists have shown increasing success in expecting when and where earthquakes will strike. As a result, a worldwide earthquake warning network is already in operation and has helped to prepare for (and thus lessen) the vast destruction that might otherwise have been totally unexpected. It is doubtful that man will ever be able to control earthquakes and get rid of their destructiveness altogether, but as how and why earthquakes happen become better understood, man will become more and more able to deal with their possible damage before they occur.

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单选题Rowena and Billy Wrangler are model high school students. They study hard and do extremely well on achievement tests. And next year, Rowena will be attending Harvard University. Billy, her younger brother, hopes to go to Cornell. What makes Rowena and Billy different from most students is that they don't go to school. In fact, they've never been to school. Since kindergarten, they've studied at home. Neither Rowena nor Billy feels as if they've missed out on anything by being taught at home. Like many of more than one million people who receive home schooling in the United States, they feel as if they've gotten a good education. The home-schooling trend began in the U. S. in the 1980s with parents keeping their children out of public schools so they could provide religious education at home. Today, as the home-schooling trend continues to grow, parents are more likely to consider home schooling as an option because they believe schools don't do a very good job of teaching and are occasionally dangerous places. But can parents really do a better job? The answer in many cases is yes. In many studies, students taught at home ranked average or above average when compared to students who went to public schools. More importantly, these students were often more self-directed and have a greater depth of knowledge. "They are very well prepared for academic challenges, " says Patricia Riordan, the dean of admissions at George Mason University. One such student, Robert Conrad, now a sophomore at university, claims he really learned how to study and schedule his time during his eight years of home schooling. Still, not every student is as successful as Robert. "For every home-schooling success story, there are an equal number of failures, " states Henry Lipscomb, an educational researcher. "There are just so many disadvantages that students taught at home have to overcome. " For example, they have fewer chances to interact with others of their own age. Consequently, they sometimes lack the usual social skills. "No matter what, though," states Lipscomb, "home-schooling is a growing trend. I think we'll be seeing more and more of this. /

单选题 Directions This section is designed to test your ability to understand spoken English. You wilt hear a selection of recorded materials and you must answer the questions that accompany them. There are two parts in this section, Part A and Part B. Remember, while you are doing the test, you should first put down your answer in your test booklet. At the end of the listening comprehension section. If you have any questions, you may raise your hand NOW as you will not be allowed to speak once the test is started.{{B}}Part A{{/B}} You will hear 10 short dialogues. For each dialogue, there is one question and four possible answers. Choose the correct answer A, B, C or D, and mark it in your test booklet.

单选题To get a chocolate out of a box requires a considerable amount of unpacking: the box has to be taken out of the paper bag in which it arrived, the cellophane wrapper has to be torn off, the lid opened and the paper removed, the chocolate itself then has to be unwrapped from its own piece of paper. But this overuse of wrapping is not confined to luxuries. It is now becoming increasingly difficult to buy anything that is not done up in beautiful wrapping. The package itself is of no interest to the shopper, who usually throws it away immediately. Useless wrapping accounts for much of the refuse put out by the average London household each week. So why is it done? Some of it, like the cellophane on meat, is necessary, but most of the rest is simply competitive selling. This is absurd. Packaging is using up scarce energy and resources and messing up the environment. Recycling is already happening with milk bottles which are returned to the dairies, washed out, and refilled. But both glass and paper are being threatened by the growing use of plastic. More dairies are experimenting with plastic bottles. The trouble with plastic is that it does not rot. Some environmentalists argue that the only solution to the problem of ever increasing plastic containers is to do away with plastic altogether in the shops, a suggestion unacceptable to many manufactures who say there is no alternative to their handy plastic packs. It is evident that more research is needed into the recovery and re-use of various materials and into the cost of collecting and recycling containers as opposed to producing new ones. Unnecessary packaging, intended to be used just once, and make things look better so more people will buy them, is clearly becoming increasingly absurd. But it is not so much a question of doing away with packaging as using it sensibly. What is needed now is a more advanced approach to using scarce resources for what is, after all, a relatively unimportant function.

单选题Americans are getting ready for the biggest soccer event in the world. For the first time the world cup soccer competition will be held in the United States. While millions play the game around the world, soccer or football has only recently become popular here. It is only in the last 30 years that large numbers of young Americans became interested in soccer. Now it is the fastest growing sport in the country. A recent study found that almost 18 million young boys and girls play soccer in the United States. The study also found that soccer is beginning to replace more traditional games like American football as the most popular sport among students. And so, when the world cup begins next week, more than one million Americans are expected to go and see the teams play. Organizers say this year's world cup will be the biggest ever. All the seats at most of the 52 games have already been sold. Soccer has been played in the United States for a little more than one hundred years. But how did the sport come to this country? And how long has it existed in other parts of the world? No one knows exactly where the idea for soccer came from, or when people began playing the game. Some scientists say there is evidence that ball games using the feet were played thousands of years ago. There is evidence that ancient Greeks and Romans and native American Indians all played games similar to soccer. Most experts agree that Britain is the birthplace of modem soccer. They also agree that the British spread the game around the world. Unlike the game today, which uses balls of man-made material or leather, early soccer balls were often made of animal stomachs. The rules of early soccer games also differed from those we have today.

单选题They have visited many places ______last month. [A] since [B] when [C] until