单选题______ is regarded as the most English of all games. A. football B. rugby C. basketball D. cricket

单选题During the Middle Ages, productivity of labour______.

单选题You can use several ways to communicate with others except ______.

单选题It can be inferred from the passage that the author would______.

单选题{{B}}Passage 2{{/B}} Signs of deafness bad given him great anxiety as early as 1778. For a long time he successfully concealed it from all but his mast intimate friends. The touching document addressed to his brothers in 1802, and known as his "Will" should be read in its entirety. He reproached men for their injustice in thinking and calling him pugnacious, stubborn, and misanthropical when they did not know that for six years he had suffered from an incurable condition aggravated by incompetent doctors. He dwelled upon his delight in human society from which he had had so early to isolate himself, but the thought of which now filled him with dread as it made 14ira realize his loss, not in music — but in all finer interchange of ideas. He requested that after his death his present doctor shall be asked to describe his illness and to {{U}}append{{/U}} it to his document in order that at least then the world might be as far as possible reconciled with him. He left his brothers property, such as it was, if more conventional than the rest of the document. During the last twelve years of his life, his nephew was the cause of most of his anxiety and distress. His brother, Kaspar Karl died in 1815, leaving a widow and a son The boy turned out utterly unworthy of his uncle's persistent devotion and gave him every cause for anxiety. He failed in all his examinations, including an attempt to learn some trade in the polytechnic school, whereupon he fell into the hands of the police for at- tempting suicide, and after being expelled from Vienna, joined the army. Beethoven's utterly simple nature could neither educate nor understand a human being who was not possessed by the wish to do his best. His nature was passionately affectionate, and he has suffered all his life from the want of a natural outlet for it. He had often been deeply in love and made no secret of it; there was no one that was not honorable and respected by society as showing the truthfulness and self-control of a great man. Beethoven's orthodoxy in such matters has provoked the smiles of Philistines, especially when it showed itself in his objections to Mozart, Don Giovanni and the grounds for selecting the subject of Fidelio for his own opera. The last thing that Philistines will never understand is that {{U}}genius is far too independent of convention to abuse it{{/U}}; and Beethoven's life, with all its mistakes, its grotesqueness, and its pathos, is as far beyond the shafts of Philistine wit as his art.

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单选题The notion Signified vs. Signified is ______contribution. A. Chomsky's B. Saussure's C. Bloomfield's D. Halliday's

单选题 Biologically, there is only one quality which distinguishes us from animals: the ability to laugh. In a universe which appears to be utterly devoid of humor, we enjoy this supreme luxury. And it is a luxury, for unlike any other bodily process, laughter does not seem to serve a biologically useful purpose. In a divided world, laughter is a unifying force. Human beings oppose each other on a great many issues. Nations may disagree about systems of government and human relations may be plagued by ideological factions and political camps, but we all share the ability to laugh. And laughter, in turn, depends on that most complex and subtle of all human qualities: a sense of humor. Certain comic stereotypes have a universal appeal. This can best be seen from the world-wide popularity of Charlie Chaplin's early films. The little man at odds with society never fails to amuse no matter which country we come from. As that great commentator on human affairs, Dr. Samuel Johnson, once remarked, "Men have been wise in very different modes; but they have always laughed in the same way." A sense of humor may take various forms and laughter may be anything from a relined tinkle to an earth quaking roar, but the effect is always the same. Humor helps us to maintain a correct sense of values. It is the one quality which political fanatics appear to lack. If we can see the funny side, we never make the mistake of taking ourselves too seriously. We are always reminded that tragedy is not really far removed from comedy, so we never get a lopsided view of things. This is one of the chief functions of satire and irony. Human pain and suffering are so grim; we hover so often on the brink of war; political realities are usually enough to plunge us into total despair. In such circumstances, cartoons and satirical accounts of somber political e vents redress the balance. They take the wind out of pompous and arrogant politicians who have lost their sense of proportion. They enable us to see that many of our most profound actions are merely comic or absurd. We laugh when a great satirist like Swift writes about war in Gulliver's Travels. The Lilliputians and their neighbors attack each other because they can't agree which end to break an egg. We laugh because we are meant to laugh; but we are meant to weep too. It is no wonder that in totalitarian regimes any satire against the establishment is wholly banned. It is too powerful a weapon to be allowed to flourish in totalitarian regimes. The sense of humor must be singled out as man's most important quality because it is associated with laughter. And laughter, in turn, is associated with happiness. Courage, determination, initiative--these are qualities we share with other forms of life. But the sense of humor is uniquely human. If happiness is one of the great goals of life, then it is the sense of humor that provides the key.

单选题Questions 14—16 are based on the following dialogue. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14—16.

单选题 Questions 14--16 are based on the following dialogue. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14--16.

单选题In the 21st century there's no doubt that frightening new infectious diseases will appear. Today new viruses are coming out of nature and "discovering" the human species. Just since 1994, at least 30 new viruses have appeared. Viruses are moving into the human species because there are more of us all the time. From a virus' point of view, we look like a free lunch that's getting bigger. In nature viral diseases tend to break out when populations increase rapidly and become densely packed. Then many deaths occur and the population drops. This is nature's population-control mechanism. There is no reason to think the human race is free from the laws of nature. Giving these laws an extra push will be the rise of megacities—huge densely packed cities in less developed nations. A United Nations study predicts that by the year 2015, there will be 26 extremely big cities on the planet. By then, some megacities could have 30 million or more people. That is approximately the total population of California. Imagine all the people in California crowded together tightly into one vast city. Then remove most doctors and medical care, take away basic sanitation and hygiene, and you have a biological "time bomb". Now make eight or ten such "bombs" and plant them around the world. Also consider the biological weapons the world will be capable of producing in the future. The 20th century saw the creation of great and terrible weapons based on the principles of nuclear physics. The 21st century will see great and terrible weapons based on the knowledge of DNA and the genetic code. As biotechnology becomes more sophisticated and powerful, biologists will learn how to mix genes of different microbes to create unnatural strains that can be turned into deadly, effective weapons. Biological weapons are a disgrace to biology. Most biologists haven't wanted to talk or even think about them. The physicists lost their innocence when the first nuclear bomb went off in 1945. The biologists will lose their innocence when the first biological weapon spreads through the human species. Yet the 20th century survived despite the existence of the nuclear bomb. There was great economic and scientific progress and much human happiness. The same can be true in the next century. We may not completely win the 21st century microbe war, but I am confident that we won't lose it.

单选题According to the author, social and behavioral sciences are losing federal financial support chiefly because some people ______.

单选题By saying "the BBC is the worst traitor"( Line 1 ,Paragraph 4) ,the author means that

单选题How do the professional timekeepers of the world determine, to the precise nanosecond, when a new year begins? They simply consult an atomic clock. At the end of last month, just in time to ring in the new year, the Hewlett-Packard company, of Palo Alto, California, unveiled the latest of these meticulous time- pieces. For nearly 30 years, the firm has been supplying military and scientific clients with atomic clocks; the most advanced models neither gain nor lose more than a second every 800,000 years. But the newest version, a $54,000 device the size of desktop computer, is accurate to one second in 1.6 million years — far longer than all of human history to date. It is natural to wonder who could possibly need such precision. The answer: practically everyone, at least indirectly. Telephone and computer networks rely on atomic clocks to synchronize the flow of trillions of bits of information around the nation and the world, thus avoiding mammoth electronic logjams. Television and radio stations use the clocks to time their broadcasts. Satellite- based navigation systems depend on the devices to measure the arrival time of radio signals to within a tiny fraction of a second, allowing users to gauge their location to within a few feet. The armed forces use atomic clocks to help steer smart missiles and time secret calls to nuclear submarines around the world. And scientists depend on atomic clocks to help track the almost imperceptible motions of continents across the surface of the earth and galaxies and stars across the sky. Even the people who dropped the ball in New York City's Times Square to signal the start of 1992 relied on a timekeeping source that was pegged ultimately to an atomic clock. The principle that lies behind all this precision comes out of quantum physics. When an atom is bombarded with electromagnetic radiation — in this case, microwaves — its electrons shift into a new energy state. Each type of atom responds most readily to a particular frequency of radiation. That means that when a microwave beam inside the clock is set exactly to that frequency, the maximum number of atoms will undergo the energy shift. This signals the clock's internal computer that the device is correctly tuned. And in fact, it is the vibrating microwaves that keep time; the atoms are used just to keep them on track. Theoretically, an atomic clock could keep perfect time, but the actual performance depends on engineering details — exactly how the microwaves hit the cesium atoms, how sophisticated the electronics are and so on. It was by improving factors like these that Hewlett-Packard boosted its clocks' performance from incredibly good to even better. The next generation of clocks should do better still, but no one is sure when that generation will come along. For now, a second every million and a half years will have to do.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} People in business can use foresight to identify new products and services, as well as markets for those products and services. An increase in minority populations in a neighborhood would prompt a grocer with foresight to stock more foods linked to ethnic tastes. An art museum director with foresight might follow trends in computer graphics to make exhibits more appealing to younger visitors. Foresight may reveal potential threats that we can prepare to deal with before they become crises. For instance, a corporate manager with foresight might see an alarming rise in local housing prices that could affect the availability of skilled workers in the region. The public's changing values and priorities, as well as emerging technologies, demographic shifts, economic constraints (or opportunities), and environmental and resource concerns are all parts of the increasingly complex world system in which leaders must lead. People in government also need foresight to keep systems running smoothly, to plan budgets, and to prevent wars. Government leaders today must deal with a host of new problems emerging from rapid advances in technology. Even at the community level, foresight is critical: School officials, for example, need foresight to assess numbers of students to accommodate, numbers of teachers to hire, new educational technologies to deploy, and new skills for students (and their teachers) to develop. Many of the best-known techniques for foresight were developed by government planners, especially in the military, when the post-World War Ⅱ atomic age made it critical to "think about the unthinkable" and prepare for it. Pioneering futurists at the RAND Corporation (the first "think tank") began seriously considering what new technologies might emerge in the future and how these might affect U.S. security. These pioneering futurists at RAND, along with others elsewhere, refined a variety of new ways for thinking about the future. The futurists recognized that the future world is continuous with the present world, so we can learn a great deal about what may happen in the future by looking systematically at what is happening now. The key thing to watch is not events (sudden developments or one-day occurrences) but trends (long-term ongoing shifts in such things as population. land use, technology, and governmental systems). Using these techniques and many others, futurists now can tell us many things that may happen in the future. Some are nearly certain to happen, such as the continuing expansion in the world's population. Other events are viewed as far less likely, but could be extremely important if they do occur, such as an asteroid colliding with the planet.