单选题The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions ever witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive America to Europe and reaches the emerging countries with unsurpassed might. Many in these countries are looking at this process and worrying: "Won't the wave of business concentration turn into an uncontrollable anti competitive force?" There's no question that the big are getting bigger and more powerful. Multinational corporations accounted for less than 20% of international trade in 1982. Today the figure is more than 25% and growing rapidly. International affiliates account for a fast growing segment of production in economies that open up and welcome foreign investment. In Argentina, for instance, after the reforms of the early 1990s, multinationals went from 43% to almost 70% of the industrial production of the 200 largest firms. This phenomenon has created serious concerns over the role of smaller economic firms, of national businessmen and over the ultimate stability of the world economy. I believe that the most important forces behind the massive M&A wave are the same that underlie the globalization process: falling transportation and communication costs, lower trade and investment barriers and enlarged markets that require enlarged operations capable of meeting customers' demands. All these are beneficial, not detrimental, to consumers. As productivity grows, the world's wealth increases. Examples of benefits or costs of the current concentration wave are scanty. Yet it is hard to imagine that the merger of a few oil firms today could recreate the same threats to competition that were feared nearly a century ago in the U.S. , when the Standard Oil trust was broken up. The mergers of telecom companies, such as World Com, hardly seem to bring higher prices for consumers or a reduction in the pace of technical progress. On the contrary, the price of communications is coming down fast. In ears, too, concentration is increasing (witness Daimler and Chrysler, Renault and Nissan) but it does not appear that consumers are being hurt. Yet the fact remains that the merger movement must be watched. A few weeks ago, Alan Greenspan warned against the megamergers in the banking industry. Who is going to supervise, regulate and operate as lender of last resort with the gigantic banks that are being created? Won't multinationals shift production from one place to another when a nation gets too strict about infringements to fair competition? And should one country take upon itself the role of "defending competition" on issues that affect many other nations, as in the U. S. vs. Microsoft case?

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单选题When prehistoric man arrived in new parts of the world, something strange happened to the large animals. They suddenly became extinct. Smaller species survived. The large, slow-growing animals were easy game, and were quickly hunted to extinction. Now something similar could be happening in the oceans. That the seas are being over fished has been known for years. What researchers such as Ransom Myers and Boris Worm have shown is just how fast things are changing. They have looked at half a century of data from fisheries around the world. Their methods do not attempt to estimate the actual biomass (the amount of living biological matter) of fish species in particular parts of the ocean, but rather changes in that biomass over time. According to their latest paper published in Nature, the biomass of large predators (animals that kill and eat other animals) in a new fishery is reduced on average by 80% within 15 years of the start of exploitation. In some long-fished areas, it has halved again since then. Dr. Worm acknowledges that these figures are conservative. One reason for this is that fishing technology has improved. Today's vessels can find their prey using satellites and sonar, which were not available 50 years ago. That means a higher proportion of what is in the sea is being caught, so the real difference between present and past is likely to be worse than the one recorded by changes in catch sizes. In the early days, too, longlines would have been more saturated with fish. Some individuals would therefore not have been caught, since no baited hooks would have been available to trap them, leading to an underestimate of fish stocks in the past. Furthermore, in the early days of longline fishing, a lot of fish were lost to sharks after they had been hooked. That is no longer a problem, because there are fewer sharks around now. Dr. Myers and Dr. Worm argue that their work gives a correct baseline, which future management efforts must take into account. They believe the data support an idea current among marine biologists, that of the "shifting baseline. " The notion is that people have failed to detect the massive changes which have happened in the ocean because they have been looking back only a relatively short time into the past. That matters because theory suggests that the maximum sustainable yield that can be cropped from a fishery comes when the biomass of a target species is about 50% of its original levels. Most fisheries are well below that, which is a bad way to do business.

单选题The gold-exchange standard differs from the gold standard in that

单选题Questions 14—16 are based on the following talk on a dialogue between a man and a woman. You now have 15 seconds to read questions 14—16.

单选题During the second half of 1776, the British had driven Washington's armies from their strongholds in and near New York City. Washington retreated, moving southeast across New Jersey. Before his army reached the shores of the Delaware, he sent soldiers ahead to bring together all the boats they could find. When the British arrived at the east bank early in December, the Colonials were safely across. And the British could find only two small boats on a pond. For the time being, the British gave up the chase. They set up camp at Trenton and at other strongholds along the Delaware. Washington had the boats on the Pennsylvania side, but that was about all he had. Food was short, and many soldiers were too iii to march. And any day now, the river might freeze, making it possible for the British force to cross into Pennsylvania. If the struggle for freedom was to continue, Washington had to have a victory. Finally he decided to re-cross the Delaware at Mckonkey's Ferry. That was nine miles up river from Trenton. Washington's plan was to cross under cover of darkness on Christmas night and attack the 2,000 to 3,000 British soldiers in Trenton. The general expected that the enemy force would still be celebrating the holiday. On the evening of December 25, Washington gave the orders to cross. It was sleeting snowing, and the river was filled with floating ice. Finally, his force of more than 2,000 men was on the Jersey side. It was after 2 a.m.. In a battle that lasted less than two hours, they defeated the enemy force. Washington had the victory he needed.

单选题What will probably be the result of greater debt caused by financial illiteracy?

单选题What does "the grammar of any culture" refer to in the first paragraph?

单选题 Questions 14-16 are based on the following monologue introducing the development of vaccines. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14-16.

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单选题 Zoos are among mankind's oldest institutions, dating back at least 4,500 years, and probably more. Across the world they have brought together and displayed live wild animals for people to look at and over the years {{B}}{{U}}hundreds of millions{{/B}}{{/U}} have. Any institution with so long a history and so universally attended must reach something in people deeper than idle curiosity. Since it is fashionable to speak of roots today, it might be suggested that zoos allow us to stay in touch with our most primitive roots in a primeval world where human survival depended on knowing the shapes and habits of wild animals. So important were wild creatures to our distant ancestors that they were the most frequent subjects of paintings on cave walls, formed the basis for virtually all early religions, and were in numerous instances worshipped as gods. Now our survival is threatened more by what we ourselves have worked, and by the stresses of living among these creations, than it is by wild animals to whom we relegate less and less living space with each passing year. In this world the need for good zoological gardens is urgent. The exponential growth of human population and the ever-increasing sprawl of cities does more than rob land from wildlife: it pushes the animals farther away from city dwellers. People live in brick, concrete, and glass environments where they lose all touch with wilderness; children grow up who have never tried to catch a frog, never seen a hawk soar or a deer step daintily into a forest clearing--let alone watched a herd of elephants ambles across the river or a pride of lions stalk prey. People who have the time and money can take an occasional trip to the remaining wilderness and find, in places where wild animals still live, the renewal of spirit that comes from prolonged visits to wild country. For millions of others who are unable to leave the cities or can't afford to, good zoos laid out among plants and trees can bring what conservationist Lan Player calls "a taste of wilderness". Perhaps more important in the long run, zoos can help give deprived people an awareness that we share the world with many other animals and should have a decent regard for their worth and right to live. If zoos did no more than accomplish these two ends, they would serve a noble purpose. As it happens, however, today's zoos can do far more. They can become breeding centers for those wild species whose continued existence has become precarious. The term "captive breeding" has been used to describe this new role of zoos, and this book describes the effort--the most important task that zoos have yet undertaken.

单选题It is better to have ______ alcohol for a complete night sleep.

单选题The author suggests that Brando's success as an actor is due, in part, to ______.

单选题According to the passage, U.S. leadership in public relations is being threatened because of ______.

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} In the 1920s demand for American farm products fell, as European countries began to recover from World War I and instituted austerity (紧缩) programs to reduce their imports. The result was a sharp drop in farm prices. This period was more disastrous for farmers than earlier times had been, because farmers were no longer self-sufficient. They were paying for machinery, see, and fertilizer, and they were also buying consumer goods. The prices of the items farmers bought remained constant, while prices they received for their products fell. These developments were made worse by the Great Depression which began in 1929 and extended throughout the 1930s. In 1929, under President Herbert Hoover, the Federal Farm Board was organized. It established the principle of direct interference with supply and demand, and it represented the first national commitment to provide greater economic stability for farmers. President Hoover's successor attached even more importance to this problem. One of the first measures proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he took office in 1933 was the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which was subsequently passed by Congress. This law gave the Secretary of Agriculture the power to reduce production through voluntary agreements with famers who were paid to take their land out of use. A deliberate scarcity of farm products was planned in an effort to raise prices. This law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on the grounds that general taxes were being collected to pay one special group of people. However, new laws were passed immediately that achieved the same result of resting soil and providing flood-control measures, but which were based on the principle of soil conservation. The Roosevelt Administration believed that rebuilding the nation's soil was in the national interest and was not simply a plan to help farmers at the expense of other citizens. Later the government guaranteed loans to farmers so that they could buy farm machinery, hybrid (杂交) grain, and fertilizers.