单选题England and Wales ______ .

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单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Managers spend a great deal of their time in meetings. According to Henry Mintzberg, in his book, The Nature of Managerial Work, managers in large organizations spend only 22 per cent of their time on meetings. So what are the managers doing in those meetings? There have conventionally been two answers. The first is the academic version: Managers are co-ordinating and controlling, making decisions, solving problems and planning. This interpretation has been largely discredited because it ignores the social and political forces at work in meetings. The second version claims that meetings provide little more than strategic sites for corporate gladiators to perform before the organizational emperors. This perspective is far more attractive, and has given rise to a large, and often humorous, body of literature on gamesmanship and posturing in meetings. It is, of course, true that meeting rooms serve as shop windows for managerial talent, but this is far from the truth as a whole. The suggestion that meetings are actually battle grounds is misleading since the raison d'etre of meetings has far more to do with comfort than conflict. Meetings are actually vital props, both for the participants and the organization as a whole. For the organization, meetings represent recording devices. The minutes of meetings catalogue the change of the organization, at all levels, in a mere systematic way than do the assorted memos and directives which are scattered about the company. They enshrine the minutes of corporate history, they itemize proposed actions and outcomes in a way which makes one look like the natural culmination of the other. The whole tenor of the minutes is one of total premeditation and implied continuity. They are a sanitized version of reality which suggests a reassuring level of control over events. What is more, the minutes record the debating of certain issues in an official and democratic forum, so that those not involved in the process can be assured that the decision was not taken lightly. As Dong Bennett, an administrative and financial manager with Allied Breweries, explains: "Time and effort are seen to have been invested in scrutinizing a certain course of action." Key individuals are also seen to have put their names behind that particular course of action. The decision can therefore proceed with the full weight of the organization behind it, even if it actually went through "on the nod". At the same time, the burden of responsibility is spread, so that no individual takes the blame. Thus, the public nature of formal meetings confers a degree of legitimacy on what happens in them. Having a view pass unchallenged at a meeting can be taken to indicate consensus. However, meetings also serve as an alibi for action, as demonstrated by one manager who explained to his subordinates: "I did what I could to prevent it—I had our objections minutes in two meetings." The proof of conspicuous effort was there in black and white. By merely attending meetings, managers buttress their status, while non-attendance can carry with it a certain stigma. Whether individual managers intend to make a contribution or not, it is satisfying to be considered one of those whose views matter. Ostracism, for senior managers, is not being invited to meetings. As one cynic observed, meetings are comfortingly tangible: "Who on the shop floor really believes that managers are working when they tour the works? But assemble them behind closed doors and call it a meeting and everyone will take it for granted that they are hard at work. "Managers are being seen to earn their corn. Meetings provide managers with another form of comfort too—that of formality. Meetings follow a fixed format: Exchanges are ritualized, the participants are probably known in advance, there is often a written agenda, and there is a chance to prepare. Little wonder then, that they come as welcome relief from the upheaval and uncertainty of life outside the meeting room. Managers can draw further comfort from the realization that their peers are every bit as bemused and fallible as themselves. Meetings provide constant reminders that they share the same problems, preoccupations and anxieties, that they are all in the same boat. Paid for those who may be slightly adrift, meetings are ideal occasions for gently pulling them round. As Steve Styles, the process control manager (life services) at Legal & General, puts it: "The mere presence of others in meetings adds weight to teasing or censure and helps you to 'round up the strays'." Such gatherings therefore provide solace and direction for the management team—a security blanket for managers. Meetings do serve a multitude of means as well as ends. They relieve managerial stress and facilitate consensus. For the organization, they have a safety-net-cum-robber-stamping function without which decisions could not proceed, much less gather momentum. In short, meetings am fundamental to the well-being of managers and organizations alike.

单选题Which of the following statements is not the reason why the painting of houses has never been recognized as an art form?

单选题Beowulf was written in ______. A. Old English B. Middle English C. Early Modern English D. French

单选题A new study on birds' sleep has revealed that ______.

单选题How do we measure the economic return to higher education? Typically it is calculated as the difference between average wages of college graduates and those who have not graduated from college. In 1997, for example, college graduates earned an average of $ 40, 508 versus just $ 23, 970 for non-college graduates. Based on these income levels, the economic return to a college education is approximately 69 percent, the difference between the two income levels. But this simple calculation ignores the fact that college graduates tend to come from higher socioeconomic levels, are more highly motivated, and probably have higher IQs than nongraduates. Although these factors influence incomes, they are not the result of college attendance. Therefore the result of the study is an overstatement of the returns to higher education. More sophisticated analyses adjust for these extraneous influences. For instance economists Orley Ashenfelter and Alan Krueger, estimate that each year of post-high school education results in a wage premium of between 15 and 16 percent. Their study is particularly relevant because they examined the earnings differences for identical twins with different education levels, allowing them to control for genetic and socioeconomic factors. Other research puts the wage premium for college graduates at nearly 50 per cent. Unfortunately, you can't spend a college wage premium. Income levels for the average college graduate have stagnated. After adjusting for inflation, the average income of college graduates holding full-time jobs rose by only 4.4 per cent between 1979 and 1997, or at a minuscule annual rate of 0.2 percent. At the same time, workers with only high-school degrees saw their real income plummet by 15 percent. Bottom line: the much-ballyhooed college wage "premium" is due primarily to the fall in inflation-adjusted salaries of workers who haven't been to college. In fact, if you don't go on to graduate school or are not among the top graduates at one of the nation's elite colleges, chances are your sky-high tuition is buying you no economic advantage whatsoever. In recent decades the flood of graduates has been so great that an increasing proportion have found themselves, within a few years, working as sales clerks, cab drivers, and in other jobs that do not require a college degree. In 1995, approximately 40 percent of people with some college education and 10 percent of those with a college degree---worked at jobs requiring only high-school skills. That's up from 30 percent and 6 percent, respectively, in 1971.

单选题Questions 14 to 16 are based on a monologue about stages of sleep. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 16.

单选题Wheredidclassicalmusicoriginate?A.InAsia.B.InAfrica.C.InEurope.D.InAustralia.

单选题For some educators, there is nothing wrong with fun and games. A group called the Education Arcade recently held a conference in Los Angeles to discuss the future of educational games. The Education Arcade brings together international game designers, publishers, teachers and policymakers. They say they want to lead change in the way the world learns through computer and video games.　　The conference was part of E-three, the Electronic Entertainment Exposition. This is a yearly trade show where companies show off new games and educational products.　　The Education Arcade started at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, near Boston. Professors worked with the Microsoft Company to create what they called the Games-to-Teach Project. The group began to explore ways to use technology in teaching and learning. They worked with game designers to develop ideas about how mathematics and science could mix with game playing. The Education Arcade is the research part of this Games-to-Teach Project.　　The group recently announced that a "Games for Learning" statement will be placed on some products. This should begin to appear in American stores in about six months. The goal is to help people find games that are fun but will also teach. The Education Arcade says it also wants to get businesses to produce more games that teach.　　The Entertainment Software Association says fifty percent of all Americans age six and older play computer and video games. Sales of such games in the United States grew eight percent last year, to seven-thousand-million dollars. The industry group says the average age of a game player is twenty-nine years old. And it says thirty-nine percent are women.　　Experts say developing a successful computer game can take millions of dollars and years of work. They say many companies are not willing to invest that much money and time in educational games when other kinds sell better.　　Still, companies have been creating systems like hand-held educational devices made by LeapFrog. And new educational role-playing games are being developed. M. I. T. and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Virginia are developing a game called "Revolution." Players will get to experience the American Revolution online.

单选题Whatisthemaintopicofthislecture?A.Bicyclesandcars.B.Buildingcodes.C.Energyconservation.D.Newhousingconstruction.

单选题Whenwilloverseasstudentsenroll?

单选题Throughout history there have been many unusual taxes levied on such things as hats, Beds, Baths, marriages, and funerals. At one time England levied a tax on sunlight by collection from every household with six or more windows. And according to legend, there was a Turkish ruler who collected a tax each time he dined with one of his subjects. Why? To pay for the wear and tear on his teeth! Different kinds of taxes help to spread the tax burden. Anyone who pays a tax is said to "bear the burden" of the tax. The burden of a tax may fall more heavily on some persons than on others. That is why the three levels of government in this country use several kinds of taxes. This spreads the burden of taxes among more people. From the standpoint of their use, the most important taxes are income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and estate, inheritance, and gift taxes. Some are used by only one level of government; others by two or even all three levels. Together these different taxes make up what is called our tax system. Income taxes are the main source of federal revenues. The federal government gets more than three-fourths of its revenue from income taxes. As its name indicated, an income tax is a tax on earnings. Both individuals and business corporations pay a federal income tax. The oldest tax in the United States today is the property tax. It provides most of the income for local governments. It provides at least a part of the income for all but a few states. It is not used by the federal government. A sales tax is a tax levied on purchases. Most people living in the United States know about sales taxes since they are used in all but four states. Actually there are several kinds of sales taxes. But only three of them are important. They are general sales taxes, excise taxes, and import taxes. Other three closely related taxes are estate, inheritance, and gift taxes. Everything a person owns, including both real and personal property, makes up his or her estate. When someone dies, ownership of his or her property or estate passes on to one or more individuals or organizations. Before the property is transferred, however, it is subject to an estate tax if its value exceeds a certain amount.

单选题 {{I}}Questions 14 - 16 are based on the following conversation. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 - 16.{{/I}}

单选题 Travel is at its best a solitary enterprise: to see, to examine, to assess, you have to be alone and unencumbered. Other people can mislead you; they crowd your meandering impressions with their own; if they are companionable they obstruct your view, and if they are boring they corrupt the silence with nonsequiturs, shattering your concentration with "Oh, look, it's raining," and "You see a lot of trees here". Travelling on your own can be terribly lonely (and it is not understood by Japanese who, coming across you smiling wistfully at an acre of Mexican butter cups tend to say things like "Where is the rest of your team?"). I think of evening in the hotel room in the strange city. My diary has been brought up to date; I hanker for company; what do I do? I don' t know anyone here, so I go out and walk and discover the three streets of the town and rather envy the strolling couples and the people with children. The museums and churches are closed, and toward midnight the streets are empty. If I am mugged, I will have to apologize as politely as possible:" I am sorry, sir, but I have nothing valuable on my person. " Is there a surer way of enraging a thief and driving him to violence? It is hard to see clearly or to think straight in the company of other people. Not only do I feel selfconscious, but the perceptions that are necessary to writing are difficult to manage when someone close by is thinking out loud. I am diverted, but it is discovery, not diversion, that I seek. What is required is the lucidity of loneliness to capture that vision, which, however banal, seems in my private mood to be special and worthy of interest. There is something in feeling object that quickens my mind and makes it intensely receptive to" fugitive might also be verified and refined; and in any case I had the satisfaction of finishing the business alone. Travel is not a vacation, .and it is often the opposite of a rest. "Have a nice time," people said to me at my send-off at South Station, Medford. It was not precisely what I had hoped for. I craved a little risk, some danger, an untoward event, a vivid discomfort, an experience of my own company, and in a modest way the romance of solitude. This I thought might be mine on that train to Limon.

单选题A System of Guaranteed Subsistence Minimum A hundred years ago it was assumed and scientifically "proved" by economists that the laws of society made it necessary to have a vast army of poor and jobless people in order to keep the economy going. Today, hardly anybody would dare to voice this principle. It is generally accepted that nobody should be excluded from the wealth of the nation, either by the laws of nature or by those of society. The opinions, which were current a hundred years ago, that the poor owed their conditions to their ignorance, lack of responsibility, are outdated. In all Western industrialized countries, a system of insurance has been introduced which guarantees everyone a minimum of subsistence in case of unemployment, sickness and old age. I would go one step further and argue that, even if these conditions are not present, everyone has the right to receive the means to subsist, in other words, he can claim this subsistence minimum without having to have any "reason". I would suggest, however, that it should be limited to a definite period of time, let's say two years, so as to avoid the encouraging of an abnormal attitude, which refuses any kind of social obligation. This may sound like a fantastic proposal, but so, I think, our insurance system would have sounded to people a hundred years ago. The main objection to such a scheme would be that if each person were entitled to receive minimum support, people would not work. This assumption rests on the fallacy of the inherent laziness in human nature, actually, aside from abnormally lazy people, there would be very few who would not want to earn more than the minimum, and who would prefer to do nothing rather than work. However, the suspicions against a system of guaranteed subsistence minimum are not groundless from the standpoint of those who want to use ownership of capital for the purpose of forcing others to accept the work conditions they offer. If nobody were forced to accept work in order not to starve, work would have to be sufficiently interesting and attractive to induce one to accept it. Freedom of contract is possible only if both parties are free to accept and reject it; in the present capitalist system this is not the case. But such a system would not only be the beginning of real freedom of contract between employers and employees, its principal advantage would be the improvement of freedom in interpersonal relationships in every sphere of daily life.

单选题Today TV audiences all over the world are accustomed to the sight of American astronauts in tip-top condition, with fair hair, crew-cuts, good teeth, an uncomplicated sense of humour and a severely limited non-technical vocabulary. What marks out an astronaut from his earthbound fellow human beings is something of a difficult problem. Should you wish to interview him, you must apply beforehand, and you must be prepared for a longish wait, even if your application meets with success. It is, in any case, out of the question to interview an astronaut about his family life or personal activities. Because all the astronauts have contracts with an American magazine under conditions for-bidding any unauthorized disclosures about their private lives. Certain obvious qualities are needed. Anyone who would be a spaceman must be in perfect health, must have powers of concentration (since work inside a spacecraft is exceptionally demanding) and must have considerable courage. Again, space-work calls for dedication. Courage and dedication are particularly essential. In the well-known case of the Challenger seven crew members lost their lives in space because of the faulty equipment in the shuttle. Another must be outstanding scientific expertise. It goes without saying that they all have to have professional aero-nautical qualifications and experience. A striking feature of the astronauts is their ages. For the younger man, in his twenties, say, space is out. Only one of the fifty men working for NASA in 1970 was under 30. The oldest astronaut to date is Alan Shepard, America"s first man in space, who, at nearly fifty, was also the man who captained Apollo 13. The average age is the late thirties. The crew members of Apollo 11 were all born well before the Second World War. In 1986 the Challenger astronauts had an average age of 39. The range was from 35 to 46. In a society where marital continuity is not always exhibited, the astronauts" record in this respect hits you in the eye. Of all the married men in NASA group, only two or three are divorced from their wives. Mind you, it is hard to tell whether something in the basic character of an astronaut encourages fidelity or whether the selection process demands that a candidate should be happily married. The NASA astronauts live in unattractive small communities dotted here and there around the base in Texas. You would expect them to find their friends from among their professional associates. But this is not the case. Rather, they prefer to make friends with the normal folk in their districts. Astronauts, like everybody else, must get fed up with talking shop all the time, and whereas they are indeed an elite, their daily life outside work should be as normal as possible, if only for the sake of their families. As for the astronauts" political leanings, they seem to be towards the right. This may be due to the fact that a large proportion of the astronauts have a military background. On the other hand, it could be just coincidence.

单选题World leaders met recently at United Nations headquarters in New York City to discuss the environmental issues raised at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. The heads of state were supposed to decide what further steps should be taken to halt the decline of Earth"s life-support systems. In fact, this meeting had much the flavour of the original Earth Summit. To wit: empty promises, hollow rhetoric, Bickering between rich and poor, and irrelevant initiatives. Think U.S. Congress in slow motion. Almost obscured by this torpor is the fact that there has been some remarkable progress over the past five years-real changes in the attitude of ordinary people in the Third World toward family size and a dawning realisation that environmental degradation and their own well-being are intimately, and inversely, linked. Almost none of this, however, has anything to do with what the bureaucrats accomplished in Rio. Or it didn"t accomplish. One item on the agenda at Rio, for example, was a renewed effort to save tropical forests. (A previous UN-sponsored initiative had fallen apart when it became clear that it actually hastened deforestation.) After Rio, a UN working group came up with more than 100 recommendations that have so far gone no-where. One proposed forestry pact would do little more than immunizing wood-exporting nations against trade sanctions. An effort to draft an agreement on what to do about the climate changes caused by CO2 and other greenhouse gases has fared even worse. Blocked by the Bush Administration from setting mandatory limits, the UN in 1992called on nations to voluntarily reduce emissions to 1990 levels. Several years later, it"s as if Rio had never happened. A new climate treaty is scheduled to be signed this December in Kyoto, Japan. But governments still cannot agree on these limits. Meanwhile, the U. S. produces 7% more CO2 than it did in 1990, and emissions in the developing world have risen even more sharply. No one would confuse the "Rio process" with progress. While governments have dithered at a pace that could make drifting continents impatient, people have acted. Birth-rates are dropping faster than expected, not because of Rio but because poor people are deciding on their own to reduce family size. Another positive development has been a growing environmental consciousness among the poor. From slum dwellers in Karachi, Pakistan, to colonists in Rondonia, Brazil, urban poor and rural peasants a-like seem to realize that they pay the biggest price for pollution and deforestation. There is cause for hope as well in the growing recognition among business people that it is not in their long-term interest to fight environmental reforms. John Browne, chief executive of British Petroleum, Boldly asserted in a major speech in May that the threat of climate change could no longer be ignored.

单选题{{I}}Questions 14 ～ 16 are based on the following talk. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 ～ 16.{{/I}}