单选题{{B}}Passage 4{{/B}} Futurologists have not been very precise about how and how much digital media will change our lives. Most of comments have focused on the expectation that consumers will soon be able to use their TV or PC to shop, bank and order movies from their armchairs. Commentators envisage more dramatic change to everyday life. Nucholas Negroponte, director of MIT's Media Lab, believes that a key development over the next five years will be the "personalization" of the computer, with wearable devices such as a wrist-mounted TV, computer and telephone. Peter Cochrane, head of research at British Telecom, looks further ahead, asking us to "imagine a virtual reality interface, with your visual context flooded by information from spectacle-mounted or contact lenses augmented by directional audio input, tactile gloves and prosthetic arms and fingers that will give you the sensation of touch, resistance and weight". Historically, enthusiasts for new technologies have usually been over-optimistic about the speed of change. Most new technologies take longer to be adopted by the general public than these enthusiast experts, although there have been exceptions: once they had reached critical mass, VCRs and mobile phones took off faster than most experts predicted. Arguably, everyday life in the advanced economies changed more between the 1880s and the 1930s than in the last fifty years or, possibly, the next. Nevertheless, it is valid to talk about a digital "revolution", since the extent of change is dramatic by many standards and digital technology is its biggest single driving force. Even if the enthusiasts overstate how quickly things will change, they may turn out to be right about the scale of that change. At this stage, no one knows how the digital revolution will develop. Although the technology itself is now becoming somewhat more predictable, exactly how, and how fast things will change will depend not Only on technological developments but also on the policies of key commercial and political players, especially in the US, Less predictable is how enthusiastically consumers will take to this technology on an everyday, mass market scale. Least predictable are the sociocultural and geopolitical responses: Will the digital revolution lead to greater international understanding or bitter rivalry? Will it encourage materialism and erode religious belief, or lead to religious backlash? Will it make people happier?

单选题What's the conclusion about global spending on AIDS in this new UN report?

单选题 During the last fifty years, the international economy has experienced a basic change. Improvements in the Internet and other communication tools have had important effects on the world markets. Faster methods of transport from one place to another have made the world seem much smaller to the businessmen. As a result, the world no longer consists of a number of separate and independent economies under the control of different nations. Instead, the nations have been integrated into a single economy, and the integration is becoming more and more complete every year. Now, for the first time in history, we can truly speak of a global economy. The most dramatic example of this integration was the oil crisis of 1973 and 1974. It came as a great surprise to the public in the industrial nations to discover that they depended so heavily on imported oil and each other. However, the best evidence for the growing integration is the rapid expansion in the volume of world trade. It went up by about 7 percent year by year during the decade from 1990 to 2000, and in several quasi-industrial countries the growth was even more rapid. As a result, some imported products have become so common that they are treated as domestic commodity. Some of them are too common for the public to any more realize they are foreign. Production has also become international, which is manifested by the large corporations stepping across national borders and establishing branches and subsidiaries in several different countries. As an example, U.S. companies are building many automobiles in China, Canada, Germany, Britain and Japan. In most cases, many components of an automobile are produced in these countries and then shipped to the United States, where they are finally assembled with other parts. When even the United States has the largest number of such corporations, it is not the only one. Other multinationals, for instance, are based in Japan, France, Germany, the UK and Italy. Labor, too, is much more mobile than in the past. Both skilled and unskilled workers can now readily migrate from one country to another. In Europe, take it for an example, there are large numbers of Turkish workers employed in the German economy. Doctors, lawyers, and other professionals are also finding it easier to work in foreign countries. The labor market has become international, and the number of {{U}}expatriate{{/U}} workers is continuing to grow.

单选题 {{I}}Questions 14-17 are based on the following dialogue:{{/I}}

单选题The author write this passage to______.

单选题Competition for admission to the country"s top private schools has always been tough, but this year Elisabeth realized it had reached a new level. Her wake-up call came when a man called the Dalton School in Manhattan, where Elisabeth is admissions director, and inquired about the age cutoff for their kindergarten program. After providing the information, she asked about the age of his child. The man paused for an uncomfortably long time before answering. "Well, we don"t have a child yet. We"re trying to figure out when to conceive a child so the birthday is not a problem." Worries are spreading from Manhattan to the rest of the country. Precise current data on private schools are unavailable, but interviews with representatives of independent schools all told the same story: an oversupply of applicants, higher rejection rates. "We have people calling us for spots two years down the road," said Marilyn of the Seven Hills School in Cincinnati. "We have grandparents calling for pregnant daughters." Public opinion polls indicate that Americans" No. 1 concern is education. Now that the long economic boom has given parents more disposable income, many are turning to private schools, even at price tags of well over $10,000 a year. "We"re getting applicants from a broader area geographically than we ever have in the past," said Betsy of the Latin School of Chicago, which experienced a 20 percent increase in applications this year. The problem for the applicants is that while demand has increased, supply has not. "Every year, there are a few children who do not find places, but this year, for the first time that I know of, there ale a significant number without places," said Elisabeth. So what can parents do to give their 4-year-old an edge? Schools know there is no easy way to pick a class when children are so young. Many schools give preference to children of their graduates. Some make the choice by drawing lots. But most rely on a mix of subjective and objective measures: tests that at best identify developmental maturity and cognitive potential, interviews with parents and observation of applicants in classroom settings. They also want a diverse mix. Children may end up on a waiting list simply because their birthdays fall at the wrong time of year, or because too many applicants were boys. The worst thing a patent can do is to pressure preschoolers to perform—for example, by pushing them to read or do math exercises before they"re ready. Instead, the experts say, parents should take a breath and look for alternatives. Another year in preschool may be all that"s needed.

单选题When the author says that the success of the gold-exchange standard "depended on the superior position of the United States in world trade" (paragraph 4), she is most probably referring to the idea that

单选题The word "contingencies" underlined here means

单选题The "standard of living" of any country means the average person"s share of the goods and services which the country produces. A country"s standard of living, therefore, depends first and foremost on its capacity to produce wealth. "Wealth" in this sense is not money, for we do not live on money but on things that money can buy: "goods" such as food and clothing, and "services" such as transport and entertainment. A country"s capacity to produce wealth depends upon many factors, most of which have an effect on one another. Wealth depends to a great extent upon a county"s natural resources, such as coal, gold, and other minerals, water supply and so on. Some regions of the world are well supplied with coal and minerals, and have a fertile soil and a favorable climate; other regions possess perhaps only one of these things, and some regions possess none of them. The USA is one of the wealthiest regions of the world because she had vast natural resources within her borders, her soil is fertile, and her climate is varied. The Sahara Desert, on the other hand, is one of the least wealthy. Next to natural resources comes the ability to turn them to use. China is perhaps as well off as the USA in natural resources, but suffered for many years from civil and external wars, and for this and other reasons was unable to develop her resources. Sound political conditions, and freedom from foreign invasion, enable a country to develop its natural resources peacefully and steadily, and to produce more wealth than another country equally well served by nature but less well ordered. Another important factor is the technical efficiency of a country"s people. Old countries that have, through many centuries, trained up numerous skilled craftsmen and technicians are better placed to produce wealth than countries whose workers are largely unskilled. Wealth also produces wealth. As a country becomes wealthier, its people have a large margin for saving, and can put their savings into factories and machines which will help workers to turn out more goods in their working day.

单选题Formal education in modern societies ________.

单选题According to the passage, lack of technological progress in the ancient and medieval worlds was primarily due to the absence of______.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} The telecity is a city whose life, direction, and functioning are largely shaped by telecommunications. In the twenty-first century, cities will be based more and more on an economy that is dependent on services and intellectual property. Telecommunications and information networks will define a city's architecture, shape, and character. Proximity in the telecity will be defined by the speed and bandwidth of networks as much as by geographical propinquity. In the age of the telecity, New York and Singapore may be closer than, say, New York and Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Telecities will supersede megacities for several reasons, including the drive toward clean air, reducing pollution, energy conservation, more jobs based on services, and coping with the high cost of urban property. Now we must add the need to cope with terrorist threats in a high-technology world. Western mindsets were clearly jolted in the wake of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City and attacks in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. But the risks posed by twentieth-century patterns of urbanization and architecture have yet to register fully with political figures and leaders of industry. The Pentagon, for example, has been rebuilt in situation rather than distributed to multiple locations and connected by secure landlines and broadband wireless systems. Likewise, the reconstruction of the World Trade Center complex still represents a massive concentration of humanity and infrastructure. This is a remarkably short-sighted and dangerous vision of the future. The security risks, economic expenses, and environmental hazards of over-centralization are everywhere, and they do not stop with skyscrapers and large governmental structures. There are risks also at seaports and airports, in food and water supplies, at nuclear power plants and hydro-electric turbines at major dams, in transportation systems, and in information and communications systems. This vulnerability applies not only to terrorist threats but also to human error, such as system-wide blackouts in North America in August 2003 and in Italy in September 2003, and natural disasters such as typhoons, hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes. Leaders and planners are only slowly becoming aware that over-centralized facilities are the most vulnerable to attack or catastrophic destruction. There is also growing awareness that new broadband electronic systems now allow governments and corporations to safeguard their key assets and people in new and innovative ways. So far, corporations have been quickest to adjust to these new realities, and some governments have begun to adjust as well.