单选题Frederic Chopin was born in Zelazowa Wola, Poland, on February 22, 1810, to a French father and Polish mother. His father, Nicholas Chopin, was a French tutor to many aristocratic Polish families, later accepting a position as a French teacher at the Warsaw Lyceum. Although Chopin later attended the Lyceum where his father taught, his early training began at home. This included receiving piano lessons from his mother. By the age of six, Chopin was creating original pieces, showing innate prodigious musical ability. His parents arranged for the young Chopin to take piano instruction from Wojciech Zywny. When Chopin was sixteen, he attended the Warsaw Conservatory of Music, directed by composer Joseph Elsner. Elsner, like Zywny, insisted on the traditional training associated with Classical music but allowed his students to investigate the more original imaginations of the Romantic style as well. As often happened with the young musicians of both the Classical and Romantic Periods, Chopin was sent to Vienna, the unquestioned center of music for that day. He gave piano concerts and then arranged to have his pieces published by a Viennese publishing house there. While Chopin was in Austria, Poland and Russia faced off in the apparent beginnings of war. He returned to Warsaw to get his things in preparation of a more permanent move. while there, his friends gave him a silver goblet filled with Polish soil. He kept it always, as he was never able to return to his beloved Poland. French by heritage, and desirous of finding musical acceptance from a less traditional audience than that of Vienna, Chopin ventured to Paris. Interestingly, other young musicians had assembled in the city of fashion with the very same hope. Chopin joined Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, Vincenzo Bellini, all proponents of the "new" Romantic style. Although Chopin did play in the large concert halls on occasion, he felt most at home in private settings, enjoying the social milieu that accompanied concerts for the wealthy. He also enjoyed teaching, as this caused him less stress than performing. Chopin did not feel that his delicate technique and intricate melodies were as suited to the grandiose hall as they were to smaller environments and audiences. News of the war in Poland inspired Chopin to write many sad musical pieces expressing his grief for "his" Poland. Among these was the famous "Revolutionary Etude." Plagued by poor health as well as his homesickness, Chop in found solace in summer visits to the country. Here, his most complex yet harmonic creations found their way to the brilliant composer's hand. The "Fantasia in F Minor," the "Barcarolle," the "Polonaise Fantasia," "Ballade in A Flat Major," "Ballade in F Minor," and "Sonata in B Minor" were all products of the relaxed time Chopin enjoyed in the country. As the war continued in Warsaw and then reached Paris, Chopin retired to Scotland with friends. Although he was far beyond the reach of the revolution, his melancholy attitude did not improve and he sank deeper into a depression. Likewise, his health did not rejuvenate either. A window in the fighting made it possible for Chopin to return to Paris as his health deteriorated further. Surrounded by those that he loved, Frederic Francois Chopin died at the age of 39. He was buried in Paris. Chopin's last request was that the Polish soil in the silver goblet be sprinkled over his grave.

单选题Whoisthespeaker?A.Apoet.B.Ateacher.C.Astudent.D.Anartist.

单选题According to the passage, home-schoolers are those who ______.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Large, multinational corporations may be the companies whose ups and downs seize headlines. But to a far greater extent than most Americans realize, the economy's vitality depends on the fortunes of tiny shops and restaurants, neighborhood services and factories. Small businesses, defined as those with fewer than 100 workers, now employ nearly 60 percent of the work force and are expected to generate half of all new jobs between now and the year 2000. Some 1.2 million small firms have opened their doors over the past six years of economic growth, and 1989 will see an additional 200 000 entrepreneurs striking off on their own. Too many of these pioneers, however, will blaze ahead unprepared. Idealists will overestimate the clamor for their products or fail to factor in the competition. Nearly everyone will underestimate, often fatally, the capital that success requires. Mid-career executives, forced by a takeover or a restructuring to quit the corporation and find another way to support also, at least for a while, be bookkeeper and receptionist, too. According to Small Business Administration data, 24 of every 100 businesses starting out today are likely to have disappeared in two years, and 27 more will have shut their doors four years from now. By 1995, more than 60 of those 100 start ups will have folded. A new study of 3 000 small businesses, sponsored by American Express and the National Federation of Independent Business, suggests slightly better odds: Three years after start up, 77 percent of the companies surveyed were still alive. Most credited their success in large part to having picked a business they already were comfortable in. Eighty percent had worked with the same product or service in their last jobs. Thinking through an enterprise before the launch is obviously critical. But many entrepreneurs forget that a firm's health in its infancy may be little indication of how well it will age. You must tenderly monitor its pulse. In their zeal to expand, small-business owners often ignore early warning signs of a stagnant market or of decaying profitability. They hopefully pour more and more money into the enterprise, preferring not to acknowledge eroding profit margins that mean the market for their ingenious service or product has evaporated, or that they must cut the payroll or vacate their lavish offices. {{U}}Only when the financial well runs dry do they see the seriousness of the illness, and by then the patient is usually too far gone to save. {{/U}} Frequent checks of your firm's vital signs will also guide you to a sensible rate of growth. To snatch opportunity, you must spot the signals that it is time to conquer new markets, add products or perhaps franchise your hot idea.

单选题Hunting cooperatively, lions would try to catch their prey by______ .

单选题Imagine eating everything delicious you want with none of the fat. That would be great, wouldn't it? New "fake fat" products appeared on store shelves in the United States recently, but not everyone is happy about it. Makers of the products, which contain a compound called olestra, say food manufacturers can now eliminate fat from certain foods. Critics, however, say the new compound can rob the body of essential vitamins and nutrients and also cause unpleasant side effects in some people. So it's up to consumers to decide whether the new fat-free products taste good enough to keep eating. Chemists discovered olestra in the late 1960s, when they were searching for a fat that could be digested by infants more easily. Instead of finding the desired fat, the researchers created a fat that can't be digested at all. Normally, special chemicals in the intestines (肠道) "grab" molecules of regular fat and break them down so they can be used by the body. A molecule of regular fat is made up of three molecules of substances called fatty acids. The fatty acids are absorbed by the intestines and bring with them the essential vitamins A, D, E and K. When fat molecules are present in the intestines with any of those vitamins, the vitamins attach to the molecules and are carried into the bloodstream. Olestra, which is made from six to eight molecules of fatty acids, is too large for the intestines to absorb. It just slides through the intestines without being broken down. Manufacturers say it's that ability to slide unchanged through the intestines that makes olestra so valuable as a fit substitute. It provides consumers with the taste of regular fat without any bad effects on the body. But critics say olestra can prevent vitamins A, D, E and K from being absorbed. It can also prevent the absorption of carotenoids (类胡萝卜素), compounds that may reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease, etc. Manufacturers are adding vitamins A, D, E and K as well as carotenoids to their products now. Even so, some nutritionists are still concerned that people might eat unlimited amounts of food made with the fat substitute without worrying about how many calories they are consuming.

单选题Questions 14 to 16 are based on a report on the world changing climate. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 16.

单选题Whatisthemainproblemcausedbytheusualwayofplowing?A．Thecrop'sbloomingperiodisdelayed.B．Therootsofcropsarecutoff.C．Thetopsoilisseriouslydamaged.D．Thegrowthofweedsisaccelerated.

单选题{{B}}TEXT 1{{/B}} Today, some critics argue that progress on environmental problems has been elusive. There is some truth in that. In the last decade, environmental problems have mounted across the world. Yet over the same 10 years, society had marshaled its resources to address these challenges. The original response was slow. But it is gathering speed, with technological breakthroughs and a growing awareness that a clean environment is essential for development. Of course, we should greatly intensify efforts to tackle poverty and environmental degradation. They endanger our health, security and the innumerable benefits that come to us from nature. But we should also remember our real accomplishments. We have slashed emissions of chemicals that deplete the ozone layer and threaten human health. Industrialized nations largely eliminated chlorofluoro-carbon and halons, the major ozone-threatening gases, by the end of 1995. Fourteen countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia have reduced their consumption of ozone-depleting substances by more than 90 percent. And many developing countries are ahead of the timetable that gives them until 2010 to phase out those gases. We are relying less on dirty fuels. Five million energy-efficient lights have been installed in poor countries and those with transitional economies. Wind power generation capacity has increased from near zero to l, 700 megawatts. Virtually unknown in 1992, solar borne systems using photovoltaic technology now provide power to more than a million rural households. At least 30 major companies have committed to investing $10 to $15 billion in renewable energy over the next five years. The private sector is playing an increasingly constructive role. This is an acknowledgment that preserving the environment is both good business and a moral obligation. Companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, Dupont and BP Amoco are working to reduce their negative impact on climate change and increase the options for cleaner energy. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has helped to launch the global alliance for improved nutrition, an innovative public-private partnership that seeks to fortify food in a cost-effective way to improve the health, cognitive development and productivity of people in poor countries. One of the linchpins of these innovative, cooperative efforts is the Global Environment Facility. As the official financing "engine" for the international agreements on biodiversity, climate change, and persistent organic pollutants, the agency earmarks funds for projects with global environmental benefits in 160 countries. It had provided $ 4.2 billion in grants and lever- aged $12 billion in additional financing. The agency has also given 3,000 small grants of up to $ 50,000 each directly to non-governmental organizations and community groups in 60 countries for projects that reconcile global environmental benefits with sustainable livelihoods for local people. We can build on the strengths we have developed over the past 10 years and move ahead with confidence that sustainable development goals are indeed achievable.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Until men invented ways of staying underwater for more than a few minutes, the wonders of the world below the surface of the sea were almost unknown. The main problem, of course, lies in air. How could air be provided to swimmers below the surface' of the sea? Pictures made about 2,900 years ago in Asia show men swimming under the surface with air bags tied to their bodies. A pipe from the bag carried air into the swimmer's mouth. But little progress was achieved in the invention of diving devices until about 1490, when the famous Italian painter, Leonardo da Vinci, designed a complete diving suit. In 1680, an Italian professor invented a large air bag with a glass window to be worn over the diver's head. To "clean" the air a breathing pipe went from. the air bag, through another bag to remove moisture, and then again to the large air bag. The plan did not work, but it gave later inventors the idea of moving air around in diving devices. In 1819, a German, Augustus Siebe, developed a way of forcing air into the head-cover-ing by a machine operated above the water. At last in 1837, he invented the "hard-hat suit" which was to be used for nearly a century. It had a metal covering for the head an air pipe attached to a machine above the water. It also had small openings to remove unwanted air. But there were two dangers to the diver inside the "hard-hat suit". One was the sudden rise to the surface, caused by a too great supply of air. The other was the crushing of the body, caused by a sudden diving into deep water. The sudden rise to the surface could kill the diver; a sudden dive could force his body up into the helmet, which could also result in death. Gradually the "hard-hat suit" was improved so that the diver could be given a constant supply of air. The diver could then move around under the ocean without worrying about the air supply. During the 1940s diving underwater without a special suit became popular. Instead, divers used a breathing device and a small covering made of rubber and glass over parts of the face. To improve the swimmer's speed another new invention was used: a piece of rubber beathing pipes made it possible for divers to float on the water, observing the marine life underneath them. A special rubber suit enabled them to be in cold water for long periods, collecting specimens of animal and vegetable life that had never been obtained in the past. The most important advance, however, was the invention of a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, which is called a "scuba". Invented by two Frenchmen, Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagngn, the scuba consists of a mouthpiece joined to one or two tanks of compressed air which are attached to the diver's back. The scuba makes it possible for a diver-scientist to work 200 feet underwater or even deeper for several hours. As a result, scientists can now move around freely at great depths, learning a- bout the wonders of the sea.

单选题{{B}}Text 1{{/B}} Immigrants to New York used to be greeted with signs like "Help Wanted: No Irish Need Apply." But these days, newcomers from Dublin are more likely to be mobbed by luxury property developers trying to hawk them ＄1 million condos (a handful of new buildings in the city are marketed mainly to rich Irish). Manhattan, like other posh areas of America, is now full of homes meant for foreigners. One in five American real estate agents sold a house to an expatriate last year. The reason is obvious: From Rio to Riyad, dollar assets are a bargain. The shift, which has been coming for several years now and will be much discussed at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, is seismic. Since the end of World War Ⅱ, the dollar's unique role as the international currency has afforded Americans a tremendously privileged place in the world. We filled most of the seats on transatlantic flights, and bought second homes abroad. Our currency was prized by central banks. Countries pegged their monies to the dollar. Commodities were priced in dollars. The strength of the greenback, and of the economy, underpinned US global hegemony in politics and culture. Big American banks like Citibank used to fund Third World governments--now those governments are buying Citibank on the cheap. Clearly, times have changed. The dollar--along with America's economic place in the world-- has been on a well-documented downward spiral since 2002. Back then, a euro was worth 86 cents. Today, it buys ＄1.46. Of course, the euro's relative youth makes talk of "historic lows" easy to dismiss. More telling is that the US Dollar Index, a futures contract reflecting the dollar's strength against six other major trading currencies, hit the lowest mark in its 35-year history just before Christmas. The shift will of course have major ramifications. Countries are beginning to de-link their currencies from the dollar, as inflationary pressures make it difficult to implement effective local monetary policy. Large global creditors like the Chinese have announced their intent to scale back on dollar reserves. European Central Bank head Jean-Claude Trichet is grousing about "brutal" movements in the dollar-euro exchange rate slashing profits at Europe's biggest firms. Just last week, Airbus CEO Tom Enders warned that a weak dollar threatened the long-term existence of the Continental aerospace giant. Japan's new Prime Minister Yasuo Fukada worries that the plunging greenback will bring back deflation. And OPEC is studying the possibility of pricing oil in euros-- a move that would not only amount to a vote of no confidence from some of America's largest creditors, but would also make energy much more expensive for the United States, compounding the economic troubles which led to a weak dollar in the first place. Venuezuelan president and Bush-basher Hugo Chavez recently gloated, "The empire of the dollar is crumbling." But that's not quite right. The majority of the world's financial assets and central bank reserves are still held in dollars. It will take years for the euro to become a real rival; the renminbi will rise over decades. Still, what's clear is that we have entered a new era. The United States can no longer rule the world on credit. A rebalancing has begun.

单选题 Questions 17 to 20 are based on the following conversation among a travel agent and two customers. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 17 to 20.

单选题Accordingtothepassage,AmericanscanaccepteverythingEXCEPTthat______.

单选题 In their darker moments, climatologists talk about their own "nightmare scenario". This is one where global warming has caused such significant climatic changes that ocean currents change direction. One scene from tile nightmare has the Gulf Stream moving south or even going into reverse, making winter in London look and feel like a St Petersburg January. The ocean is a great moderating influence on the planet, soaking up heat around the tropics and depositing it in the cooler polar regions. Yet scientists know surprisingly little about how the sea does this— they estimate that the North Atlantic alone moves energy equivalent to the output of several hundred million power stations. Last year oceanographers began their biggest international research initiative to learn more about ocean circulation. The first results from the World Ocean Circulation Experiment demonstrate just how complex the movement of sea-water can be. They have also given scientists a glance of the amount of heat being exchanged between the oceans and the atmosphere. As part of the experiment, researchers are monitoring the speed and direction of ocean currents, water temperature and salinity. Research ships taking part will gather detailed measurements at 24,000 points or "stations" along carefully designated trans-ocean routes. This undertaking dwarfs the 8,000 hydrographic stations created in the past hundred years of ocean surveying, A fleet of ships, buoys, seabed sensors and satellites will collect so much data that Britain, one of the 40 countries taking part, has opened a research institute, the James Rennell Centre for Ocean Circulation in Southampton, to process them. One of the justifications for the experiment, says John Woods, director of marine and atmospheric sciences at the Natural Environment Research Council, is that the oceans hold the key to understanding long-term changes in the global climate. The Earth has two "envelopes"—the ocean, consisting of slowly circulating water, and the atmosphere, made of fast-moving air. Far from being independent, they interact, one modifying the other until a balance is reached between them. The present balance came about at the end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago. Scientists hope that knowing more about the ocean's "weather patterns" will help them to predict climate changes further ahead. Knowing how heat is moving around the ocean is decisive to such long-term forecasting. The top three metres of the ocean store more heat than all of the atmosphere. Some of the heat can be transported downward between 30 metres and several thousand metres. The deeper it goes, the longer it stays out of the atmosphere. Water heated in the equatorial region flows in shallow currents north or south towards the poles, where it releases its heat to the air and, as it becomes colder and denser, sinks to the sea floor, where it forms deep, cold currents that back to the equator. John Gould, one of the British scientists taking part in the ocean circulation experiment, is discovering just how this occurs in the Noah Atlantic. Shallow currents, less than 500m deep, of warm water at about 8℃ flow from the Atlantic into the Norwegian Sea, mainly along a path that follows the point where the continental shelf ends and the deep mid-ocean valleys begin. Meanwhile, at depth down to 5,000m, deep currents of cold water at about minus 1℃ flow south into the Atlantic along the deep ocean valley. (Salt water at this depth does not freeze at 0℃) Sensors positioned on the seabed have given Dr Could and his researchers an accurate assessment of just how much cold water is flowing back into the North Atlantic and have given up its heat to the atmosphere over north-west Europe. In total, he estimates, about 5 million cubic metres of water per second flows in these deep currents between Greenland and the British Isles. This means the warm water of the North Atlantic must be giving up about 200 million megawatts of energy to the atmosphere over north-west Europe. Research at the other end of the world, in the seas around Antarctica, is also finding that sea-floor topography plays a crucial role in determining the direction of ocean currents. In the past, oceanographers have assumed, for instance, that surface currents such as the Gulf Stream do not extend much beyond a kilometre in depth. But an analysis of currents in Antarctic waters has shown that currents are. not concentrated in the top kilometre, but reach down to the submerged mountain ranges. Dr Woods believes such research will help to save lives. "More deaths can be prevented by ocean forecasting, than by weather forecasting and our economic and social well-being are more vulnerable to change in the ocean than in the atmosphere."

单选题The author uses the expression "those babies" in the second paragraph to refer to high heels ______.

单选题Whyisthewomandoubtfulabouttheholiday?A．Theyneedanewcar.B．Theyhaven'tgottime.C．Theyneed￡500extra.D．Theyareshortofmoney.

单选题Researchers investigating brain size and mental ability say their work offers evidence that education protects the mind from the brain's physical deterioration. It is known that the brain shrinks as the body ages, but the effects on mental ability are different from person to person. Interestingly, in a study of elderly men and women, those who had more education actually had more brain shrinkage. "That may seem like bad news," said study author Dr. Edward Coffey, a professor of psychiatry and of neurology at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit. However, he explained, the finding suggests that education allows people to withstand more brain-tissue loss before their mental functioning begins to break down. The study, published in the July issue of Neurology, is the first to provide biological evidence to support a concept called the "reserve" hypothesis, according to the researchers. In recent years, investigators have developed the idea that people who are more educated have greater cognitive reserves to draw upon as the brain tissue to spare. Examining brain scans of 320 healthy men and women ages 66 to 90, researchers found that for each year of education the subjects had, there was greater shrinkage of the outer layer of the brain known as the cortex. Yet on tests of cognition and memory, all participants scored in the range indicating normal. "Everyone has some degree of brain shrinkage," Coffey said. "People lose (on average) 2.5 percent per decade starting at adulthood." There is, however, a "remarkable range" of shrinkage among people who show no signs no mental decline, Coffey noted. Overall health, he said, accounts for some differences in brain size. Alcohol or drug use, as well as medical conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, contribute to brain-tissue loss throughout adulthood. In the absence of such medical conditions, Coffey said, education level helps explain the range of brain shrinkage exhibited among the mentally-fit elderly. The more-educated can withstand greater loss. Coffey and colleagues gauged shrinkage of the cortex by measuring the cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the brain. The greater the amount of fluid, the greater the cortical shrinkage. Controlling for the health factors that contribute to brain injury, the researchers found that education was related to the severity of brain shrinkage. For each year of education from first grade on, subjects had an average of 1.77 milliliters more cerebrospinal fluid around the brain. For example, Coffey's team reported, among subjects of the same sex and similar age and skull size, those with 16 years of education had 8 percent to 10 percent more cerebrospinal fluid compared with those who had four years of schooling. Of course, achieving a particular education level is not the definitive measure of someone's mental capacity. And, said Coffey, education can be "a proxy. for many things". More-educated people, he noted, are often less likely to have habits, such as smoking, that harm overall health. But Coffey said that his team's findings suggest that like the body, the brain benefits from exercise. "The question is whether by continuing to exercise the brain we can forestall the effects of (brain shrinkage)," he said. "My hunch is that we can." According to Coffey, people should strive throughout life to keep their brains alert by exposing themselves to new experiences. Travelling is one way to stimulate the brain, he said; a less adventuresome way is to do crossword puzzles. "A hot topic down the road," Coffey said, will be whether education even late in life has a protective effect against mental decline. Just how education might affect brain cells is unknown. In their report, the researchers speculated that in people with more education, certain brain structures deeper than the cortex may stay intact to compensate for cortical shrinkage.

单选题The first paragraph points out that one of the advantages of a family with both parents is

单选题A very important world problem--in fact, I think it may be most important of all the great world problems which face us at the present time--is the rapidly increasing pressure of population on the land. The population of the world today is about 4, 000, 000, 000. That is an enormous number, yet it is known quite accurately, because there are very few parts of the world which have not carried out a modern census. The important thing is not so much the actual population of twenty million--about six months' increase in world population. Take Australia. There are ten million people in Australia. So it takes the world about three months to add to itself a population which peoples that vast country. Let us take our own crowded country, England and Wales--forty-five to fifty million people. This is just about a year's supply. By this time tomorrow, and every day, there will be added to the earth about 120. 000 extra people--just about the population of the city of York. I am not talking about birth rate. This is net increase. To give you some idea of birth rate, look at the second hand of your watch. Every second, three babies are born somewhere in the world. Another baby! Another baby! You cannot speak quickly enough to keep up with the birth rate. This enormous increase of population will create immense problems. Unless something terrible happens, there will be as many as 7, 000, 000, 000 people on the surface of the earth! So this is a problem which you are going to see in your lifetime.