单选题Novel approaches to babymaking seem to be coming at us so fast that we hardly have time to digest one before the next one hits test-tube babies, egg donation, surrogacy, cloning and now sex selection. And just as with earlier methods, the new sperm-separation technique announced last week has triggered plenty of ethical concern. Only a few critics have argued that tampering with nature to avoid a sex-linked genetic disease should be taboo. But plenty have expressed misgivings about using the new technology more casually, to balance families, or simply because parents prefer boys or girls. Such choices, critics say, could lead to an imbalance in the sex ratio, with drastic consequences for society. These arguments are not very persuasive. In some developing countries where boys are more highly valued than girls, sex selection is already standard practice, accomplished by means of infanticide of amniocentesis and abortion. The new sperm-separation technique makes it easier for more people to practice sex selection in these countries. This could skew the already tilting sex radio even further in favor of boys. In the short term, such demographic shifts could cause enormous societal problems as men, for example, find it increasingly difficult to find women to marry. In the long term, however, both evolutionary and economic theories tell us that as girls become more scarce, they will become more highly valued, perhaps to the point at which more people will select for girls than against them. In America and other Western countries there seems to be little chance of the sexes going far out of balance at all. Polls show that a majority of Americans view a perfect family as having one boy and one girl. If everyone used sex selection to achieve perfection, the result would be perfect balance. Of course, some prospective parents do prefer children of one sex or the other. But such preferences would presumably balance out as well. Regarding the argument that choosing gender goes against nature: the same objection was used in earlier times by people horrified by vaccines or heart transplants, which are now completely acceptable. Every time we use medicine to cure a disease or prevent a death, we go against nature willingly. Admittedly, sex selection for family balancing cures no disease. In fact, though, no form of babymaking solves a medical problem. Sex selection, moreover, is medically bengin in comparison with most reproductive technologies. No surgery is involved, and the entire process can theoretically be performed without a physician. Children born through this process can't be distinguished from other children. For these reasons, I suspect that as sex selection and other reproductive technologies become more efficient and less costly, they may be embraced by American families of even modest means who ask themselves, why not? What was once unimaginable could become routine and the link between the sex act and reproduction will no longer be seen as sacred. Ultimately, this may prove to be the real significance of sex selection: by breaching a powerful psychological barrier, it will pave the way for true designer babies, who could really turn society upside down.

单选题It is taken as a great contribution made by ______ that languages in the world are classified into different language families according to their genetic relations. A) modem linguists B) traditional grammarians C) sociolinguists D) historical linguists

单选题John Julius Norwich is the author of more than a dozen books on Norman Sicily, the Sahara, Mount Athos and the Venetian and Byzantine empires. Yet even his immense knowledge is not enough to keep his latest chronicle-of 5,000 years of Mediterranean history-from appearing somewhat lopsided. Lord Norwich's first task, he notes in his introduction to The Middle Sea, was to compensate for an ignorance of Spain. He records that he was fortuitously invited to dinner by "my dear friend" the Spanish ambassador to London and "a few weeks later there came an invitation for my wife and me to spend ten days in Spain". It is hard to believe that was all the effort he made, for he acquits himself well, even in the convoluted diplomacy that ended in the war of the Spanish succession. Lord Norwich's second task was to strike a balance over time. The Middle Sea reaches from ancient Egypt to the First World War. Like many long, chronological narratives, it becomes progressively more detailed, though it is debatable whether this is a good thing. Few people have changed the region as much as the Romans, yet their republic's five centuries get only a page more than the great siege of Gibraltar which began in 1779. Lord Norwich's final, and arguably most important, challenge is the area that is most likely to engage modern readers: the intermittent, but frequently savage, conflict between Muslims and Christians. Impatient with the notion, echoed most recently and disastrously by Pope Benedict, that the Koran sanctions the spreading of Islam by the sword, Lord Norwich is no Islamophobe. He is hostile to the Crusades and fulsome in his praise' of that traditional Western schoolbook villain, Saladi. Yet his account remains disappointingly focused from Christendom outwards. It is true, that Muslims do appear in his book—usually in battle—but they rarely speak. Only two items in the 170- volume biography are by Arab scholars and only one is by a Turk. This is unabashedly history of the old school: Eurocentric (Octavian, the author declares without irony, was the "undisputed master of the known world") and largely uninterested in what other economic, social, and, technological changes may have shaped events. What fires Lord Norwich is recounting the doings of princes and preachers, warriors, courtiers and courtesans. And he does it with consummate skill. He spices his narrative liberally with entertaining anecdotes, deft portraits and brisk judgments. Aristotle, for example, is given short shrift as "one of the most reactionary intellectuals that ever lived". Lord Norwich's control of his vast and complex subject matter is masterly. And the subject matter itself is as colorful as history can get. No sooner have readers bidden farewell to a short, fat, dissolute sultan, Selim the Sot, than they encounter the "piratical Uskoks, a hetero generous, but exceedingly troublesome community". Although few will resist the temptation to keep turning the pages, readers will close this monumental work exhilarated and informed, but with plenty of questions still unanswered.

单选题You stare at waterfall for a minute or two, and then shift your gaze to its surroundings. What you now see appears to drift upward. These optical illusions occur because the brain is constantly matching its model of reality to signals from the body's sensors and interpreting what must be happening—that your brain must have moved, not the other; that downward motions is now normal, so a change from it must now be perceived as upward motion. The sensors that make this magic are of two kinds. Each eye contains about 120 million rods, which provide somewhat blurry black and white vision. These are the windows of night vision once adapted to the dark, they can detect a candle burning ten miles away. Color vision in each eye comes from six to seven million structures called cones. Under ideal conditions, every cone can "see" the entire rainbow spectrum of visible colors, but one type of cone is most sensitive to red, another to green, a third to blue. Rods and cones send their messages pulsing an average 20 to 25 times per second along the optic nerve. We see an image for a fraction of a second longer than it actually appears. In movies, reels of still photographs are projected onto screens at 24 frames per second, tricking our eyes into seeing a continuous moving picture. Like apparent motion, color vision is also subject to unusual effects. When day gives way to night, twilight brings what the poet T. S. Eliot called "the violet hour". A light levels fall, the rods become progressively less responsive. Rods are most sensitive to the shorter wavelengths of blue and green, and they impart a strange vividness to the garden's blue flowers. However, look at a white shirt during the reddish light of sunset, and you'll still see it in its "true" color—white, not red. Our eyes are constantly comparing an object against its surroundings. They therefore observe the effect of a shift in the color of illuminating on both, and adjust accordingly. The eyes can distinguish several million graduations of light and shade of color. Each waking second they flash tens of millions of pieces of information to the brain, which weaves them incessantly into a picture of the world around us. Yet all this is done at the back of each eye by a fabric of sensors, called the retina, about as wide and as thick as a postage ~amp. As the Renaissance inventor and artist Leonardo da Vinci wrote in wonder, "Who would believe that so small a space could contain the images of all the universe?/

单选题WhatdothefamousgoldenOscar'statuettesrepresent?A.Thesurprisewinner.B.Thehottestfavorite.C.Thegreatesthonor.D.Thought-provokingfilms.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Steve Courtney wrote historical novels. Not, he was quick to explain, over-colourful love stories of the kind that made so much money for so many women writers, but novels set, and correctly set, in historical periods. Whatever difference he saw in his own books, his readers did not seem to notice it, and his readers were nearly all women. He had studied in university, but he had been a particularly good student, and he had never afterwards let any academic knowledge he had achieved interfere with his writing. Helen, his wife, who did not have a very high opinion of her husband' s ability as a novelist, had been careful to say when she married him she was not historically minded. Above all, Helen was doubtful whether her relationship with Steve would work at all in the village of Stretton, to which they had just moved. It was Steve who had wanted to move to the country, and she had been glad of the change, in principle, whatever doubts she was now having about Stretton as a choice. But she wondered whether Steve would, before long, want to live in London again, and what she would do if he did. The Stretton house was not a weekend cottage. They had moved into it and given up the London flat altogether, partly at least, she suspected, because that was Steve' s idea of what a successful author ought to do. However, she thought he was not going to feel like a successful author half as much in Stretton as he had in London. On the other hand, she supposed he might just start dashing up to London for the day to see his agent or have dinner with his publisher, leaving her behind in Stretton, and she thought on the whole she would like that.

单选题 Personnel changes at the International Monetary Fund and proposals for changing the fund have been reported lately. After a lengthy public debate, the leading countries settled on another German, Horst Kohler, to replace Michel Camdessus as the IMF's managing director. Unfortunately, the circus-like process began to resemble an affirmative-action procedure when it became clear that a particular nationality--German--was a prerequisite for the job. Calls for changes at the IMF came in the report from Congress' International Financial Institution Advisory Commission, led by Allan H. Meltzer. (I was a witness before the commission on issues related to inequality.) The Meltzer Commission's report surprised me by not advocating abolition of the IMF. The report said: "The commission did not join the council of despair calling for the elimination of one or more of these institutions." The commission came close to recommending abolition, however, by proposing a new IMF that would be limited to short-term-liquidity assistance to solvent economies, collection and publication of data, and provision of economic advice. The short-term-loan facility would represent a reasonable return to the IMF's role under the Bretton Woods regime that prevailed until the early 1970s. However, that role expanded greatly in the 1990s, and it is not clear how such further expansion would be avoided under the new setup. So long as the IMF retains access to lots of money, it will be difficult to say no to large, insolvent countries, such as Mexico in 1995 and Russia in 1998. Past mistakes will probably be repeated, and the elimination of the IMF would have been a better choice. I agree that the IMF's role in the collection and distribution of data has been useful. An advisory role might also be satisfactory (and some of my friends and former students perform these tasks admirably). This function could be served just as well, however, by nongovernmental institutions. In any event, the demand for the IMF's economic advice is likely to be low if it is no longer tied to qualifying for some of its loans. The irony is that the IMF had available the ideal candidate in its deputy managing director, Stanley Fischer. Fischer not only is an outstanding economist but also has a pleasant and effective management style, together with experience at the fund. He also seemed ideal on political grounds because he was born in Africa, previously held a British passport (related to his residencies in the former British colonies of Northern and Southern Rhodesia), and now holds a U. S. passport. Apparently, Fischer's British passport was not enough to make him European, much less German. Anyway, since my opinion of the IMF's social value is unfavorable, I probably ought not to back the most capable candidate as managing director.

单选题Why does the author mention Edward Bellamy's novel Looking Backward?

单选题You read the whole article carefully _________.

单选题 {{I}}Questions 11 to 14 are based on the following talk on manufacturing. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11 to 14.{{/I}}

单选题Questions 17 to 20 are based on a lecture about four categories of music. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 17 to 20.

单选题{{B}}Part B{{/B}} In the following article some paragraphs have been removed For questions 66—70,, choose the most suitable paragraph from the lists A—F to fit into each of the numbered gaps. There is one paragraph which does not fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers' on ANSWER SHEET 1. When Donald Olayer enrolled in nursing school nine years ago, his father took it hard. "Here's my father, a steelworker, hearing about other steelworkers' sons who were becoming welders or getting football scholarships," Mr. Olayer recalls. "The thought of his son becoming a nurse was too much." 66.____________ That's not an unusual turnabout nowadays. Just as women have gained a footing in nearly every occupation once reserved for men, men can be found today working routinely in a wide variety of jobs once held nearly exclusively by women. The men are working as receptionists and flight attendants, servants, and even "Kelly girls." The Urban Institute, a research group in Washington, recently estimated that the number of male secretaries rose 24% to 31,000 in 1978 from 25,000 in 1972. The number of male telephone operators over the same spanrose 38%, and the number of male nurses 94%. Labor experts expect the trend to continue. For one thing, tightness in the job market seems to have given men an additional incentive to take jobs where they can find them. Although female-dominated office and service jobs for the most part rank lower in pay and status, "they're still there," says June O'Neill, director of program and policy research at the institute. Traditionally male blue-collar jobs, meanwhile, "aren't increasing at all." 67.____________ Although views have softened, men who cross the sexual segregation line in the job market may still face discrimination and ridicule. David Anderson, a 36-year-old former high school teacher, says he found secretarial work "a way out of teaching and into the business world". He had applied for work at 23 employment agencies for "management training jobs that didn't exist", and he discovered that "the best skill I have was being able to type 70 words a minute". 68.____________ He took a job as a secretary to the marketing director of a New York publishing company. But he says he could feel "a lot of people wondering what I was doing there and if something was wrong with me". Males sometimes find themselves mistaken for higher-status professionals. Anthony Shee, a flight attendant with US Air Inc., has been mistaken for a pilot. Mr. Anderson, the secretary, says he found himself being "treated in executive tones whenever I wore a suit". In fact the men in traditional female jobs often move up the ladder fast. Mr. Anderson actually worked only seven months as a secretary. Then he got a higher-level, better-paying job as a placement counselor at an employment agency. "I got a lot of encouragement to advance," he says, "including job tips from male executives who couldn't quite see me staying a secretary." Experts say, for example, that while men make up only a small fraction of elementary school teachers, a disproportionate number of elementary principals are men. Barbara Bergmann, an economist at the University of Maryland who has studied sex segregation at work believes that's partly because of "sexism in the occupational structure" and partly because men have been raised to assert themselves and to assume responsibility. Men may also feel more compelled than women to advance, she suspects. 69.____________ "Men are more likely than women to see nursing as a full-time career." Mr. 0layer says. He also says the men are more assertive. "Men don't buy the Florence Nightingale garbage they teach in nursing school — that the doctor is everything, and the nurse is there just to take orders," he says. "Men will ask questions more and think for themselves." 70.____________ [A] Mr. Anderson's boss was a woman. When she asked him to fetch coffee, the other secretaries' eyebrows went up. Sales executives came in to see his boss, he says, "couldn't quite believe that I could and would type, take dictation, and answer the phones." [B] But in asserting themselves, the males in female-dominated fields may be making life easier for the women, too. "Guys get together and organize and are willing to fight for more," Mr. Olayer says. "Once we get a 30% to 40% ratio of men in nursing, you'll see salaries and the whole status of the job improve." [C] Today, Mr. 0layer, a registered nurse trained as an anesthetist, earns about $ 30,000 a year at Jameson Memorial Hospital in New Castle, Pennsylvania. His father, he says, has "done an about face." Now he tells the guys he works with that their sons, who can't find jobs even after four years of college, should have become nurses. [D] Donald Olayer, the nurse, is typical. Almost as soon as he graduated from nursing school, he says he decided "not to stay just a regular floor nurse earning only $12,000 a year". Now he can look forward to earning three times that much. " Enough to support a family on." he says, and he also has "much more responsibility". [E] Beginning in the 1960s, American women started entering jobs and professions that had been dominated almost completely by men. In the 1970s, another pattern emerged in employment: Men began entering jobs and professions previously dominated by women. [F] At the same time, she says, "The outlooks of young people are different." Younger men with less rigid views on what constitutes male or female work "may not feel there's such a stigma to working in a female-dominated field".

单选题By observing the behaviour of animals, scientists may be able to ______.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} In the past, young married couples often had children right after getting married. They didn't ask themselves if they had the desire to stay up at night with babies, to spend a good part of their time with children, to give up going out at night whenever they wanted to. Now, many young couples feel that not having children will allow them to have a freer, more enjoyable life style. Never has the question of family size attracted as much attention in this country as it is getting now. In this time of "{{U}}the pill{{/U}}", women's liberation, and high prices, young couples are giving serious thought to the number of children they want, can afford, or can raise successfully. What are the emotional or financial problems of raising a big family? Does raising children become incompatible with wife's working career in the out side world? Can a childless couple achieve lasting satisfaction on their own? Michael Shandrik, 29, and his wife Pamela, 31, for example, have joined the growing number of young couples who don't have, and don't want children. Many of their close friends are childless and plan to remain that way. Michael says the decision not to have children developed over four years of marriage. He explains, "We never decided to become childless. It more or less became an understanding after we got married." Pamela adds, "If I had married before 23, I probably would have had children. But as the years went by, I got used to the idea of working and not having children It's too late to change now." For both of them, the desire for a free-style played a big part in the decision. Michael, who wants to build a career in communications, makes the point honestly: "We are just too selfish to have children at the point. We would rather buy the things we really want than go without things for the sake of children. If we had a kid, we would have to start thinking about its education and health. We like the independence of getting up and going somewhere whenever we want. I want to go ahead." Pamela, too, is concerned about her career. But she also speaks about the need to prevent over-population. She says she is a supporter of Zero Population Growth, and adds, "I am doing my part to keep the world from being over-crowded with human beings in another 100 years. Furthermore, from woman's point of view, if you have children when you are young, there is a 50-50 chance you will be raising them alone. I know a lot of divorced women with children. It's hard for them to raise their children alone." Thus tile decision has been made to remain childless.

单选题Questions 14 to 16 are based on the talk about the innocent victims of AIDS.

单选题Whywasitnotagooddaytolaunchtheshuttle?A.Becausethereissomethingwrongwiththeshuttle.B.Becausethunderstormswascoming.C.BecauseNASAwantedtochoosealuckydate.D.Becausecrewmemberschangedtheirplans.

单选题Questions 14 to 16 are based on the following interview with Mike Owen, a former research fellow at Cancer Research UK, who is now a senior vice-president at a biopharmaceutical company. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 16.

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单选题What basic problems are we told most trade unions face?