单选题Before a big exam, a sound night's sleep will do you better than poring over textbooks. That, at least, is the folk wisdom. And science, in the form of behavioral psychology, supports that wisdom. But such behavioral studies cannot distinguish between two competing theories of why sleep is good for the memory. One says that sleep is when permanent memories form. The other says that they are actually formed during the day, but then "edited" at night, to flush away what is superfluous. To tell the difference, it is necessary to look into the brain of a sleeping person, and that is hard. But after a decade of painstaking work, a team led by Pierre Maquet at Liege University in Belgium has managed to do it. The particular stage of sleep in which the Belgian group is interested is rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, when brain and body are active, heart rate and blood pressure increase, the eyes move back and forth behind the eyelids as if watching a movie, and brainwave traces resemble those of wakefulness. It is during this period of sleep that people are most likely to relive events of the previous day in dreams. Dr. Maquet used an electronic device called PET to study the brains of people as they practiced a task during the day, and as they slept during the following night. The task required them to press a button as fast as possible, in response to a light coming on in one of six positions. As they learnt how to do this, their response times got faster. What they did not know was that the appearance of the lights sometimes followed a pattern—what is referred to as "artificial grammar" . Yet the reductions in response time showed that they learnt faster when the pattern was present than when there was not. What is more, those with more to learn (i. e. the "grammar", as well as the mechanical task of pushing the button) have more active brains. The "editing" theory would not predict that, since the number of irrelevant stimuli would be the same in each case. And to eliminate any doubts that the experimental subjects were learning as opposed to unlearning, their response times when they woke up were even quicker than when they went to sleep. The team, therefore, concluded that the nerve connections involved in memory are reinforced through reactivation during REM sleep, particularly if the brain detects an inherent structure in the material being learnt. So now, on the eve of that crucial test, maths students can sleep soundly in the knowledge that what they will remember the next day are the basic rules of algebra and not the incoherent talk from the radio next door.

单选题Whatdoesthespeakermainlydiscuss?A.Thedistributionofdifferentspeciesofamphibians.B.Possiblereasonsforreductioninthenumberofamphibians.C.Theeffectsofenvironmentalchangeonthefishindustry.D.Guidelinesfortheresponsibleuseofpesticides.

单选题Questions 11 to 13 are based on the following talk on Mother's Day.

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 list 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. From her vantage point she watched the main doors swing open and the first arrivals pour in. Those who had been at the head of the line paused momentarily on entry, looked around curiously, then quickly moved forward as others behind pressed in. Within moments the central public area of the big branch bank was filled with a chattering, noisy crowd. The building, relatively quiet less than a minute earlier, had become a Babel. Edwina saw a tall heavyset black man wave some dollar bills and announce loudly,"I want to put my money in the bank. " 66.______ It seemed as if the report about everyone having come to open an account had been accurate after all. Edwina could see the big man leaning back expansively, still holding his dollar bills. His voice cut across the noise of other conversations and she heard him proclaim, "I'm in no hurry. There's something I'd like you to explain." Two other desks were quickly manned by other clerks. With equal speed, long wide lines of people formed in front of them. Normally,three members of staff were ample to handle new account business, but obviously inadequate now. Edwina could see Tottenhoe on the far side of the bank and called him on the intercom. She instructed, "Use more desks for new accounts and take all the staff you can spare to man them. " 67.______ Tottenhoe grumbled in reply, "You realize we can't possibly process all these people today, and however many we do will tie us up completely. " "I've got an idea," Edwina said," that's what someone has in mind. Just hurry the processing all you can. " 68.______ First, an application form called for details of residence, employment, social security, and family matters. A specimen signature was obtained. Then proof of identity was needed. After that, the new accounts clerk would take all documents to an officer of the bank for approval and initialing. Finally, a savings passbook was made out or a temporary checkbook issued. Therefore the most new accounts that any bank employee could open in an hour were five, so the three clerks presently working might handle a sum of ninety in one business day,if they kept going at top speed, which was unlikely. 69.______ Still the noise within the bank increased. It had become an uproar. A further problem was that the growing mass of arrivals in the central public area of the bank was preventing access to tellers' counters by other customers. Edwina could see a few of them outside, regarding the milling scene with consternation. While she watched, several gave up and walked away. Inside the bank some of the newcomers were engaging tellers in conversation and the tellers, having nothing else to do because of the melee, chatted back. Two assistant managers had gone to the central floor area and were trying to conduct the flood of people so as to clear some space at counters. They were having small success. 70.______ She decided it was time for her own intervention. Edwina left the platform and a failed-off staff area and, with difficulty, made her way through the milling crowd to the main front door. A. Yet she knew however much they hurried it would still take ten to fifteen minutes to open any single new account. It always did. The paperwork required that time. B. But still no hostility was evident. Everyone in the now jam-packed bank who was spoken to by members of the staff answered politely and with a smile. It seemed, Edwina thought, as if all who were here had been briefed to be on best behavior. C. A security guard directed him, "Over there for new accounts. " The guard pointed to a desk where a clerk—a young girl—sat waiting. She appeared nervous. The big man walked toward her, smiled reassuringly, and sat down. Immediately a press of others moved into a ragged line behind him, waiting for their turn. D. Even leaning closer to the intercom,it was hard to hear above the noise. E. Even tripling the present complement of clerks would permit very few more than two hundred and fifty accounts to be opened in a day, yet already,in the first few minutes of business, the bank was crammed with at least four hundred people, with still more flooding in, and the line outside, which Edwina rose to check, appeared as long as ever. F. Obviously someone had alerted the press in advance, which explained the presence of the TV camera crew outside. Edwina hoped to know who had done it.

单选题

单选题

单选题How many students are now studying at home-schools?

单选题Questions 17 to 20 are based on the following talk about good manner. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 17 to 20.

单选题 Questions 14～16 are based on the following conversation. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14～16.

单选题Conventional wisdom about conflict seems pretty much cut and dried. Too little conflict breeds apathy and stagnation. Too much conflict leads to divisiveness and hostility. Moderate levels of conflict, however, can spark creativity and motivate people in a healthy and competitive way. Recent research by Professor Charles R. Schwenk, however, suggests that the optimal level of conflict may be more complex to determine than these simple generalizations. He studied perceptions of conflict among a sample of executives. Some of the executives worked for profit-seeking organizations and other for not-for-profit organizations. Somewhat surprisingly, Schwenk found that opinions about conflict varied systematically as a function of the type of organization. Specifically, managers in not-for-profit organizations strongly believed that conflict was beneficial to their organizations and that it promoted higher quality decision-making than might be achieved in the absence of conflict. Managers of for-profit organizations saw a different picture. They believed that conflict generally was damaging and usually led to poor-quality decision-making in their organizations. Schwenk interpreted these results in terms of the criteria for effective decision-making suggested by the executives. In the profit-seeking organizations, decision-making effectiveness was most often assessed in financial terms. The executives believed that consensus rather than conflict enhanced financial indicators. In the not-for-profit organizations, decision-making effectiveness was defined from the perspective of satisfying constituents. Given the complexities and ambiguities associated with satisfying many diverse constituents, the executives perceived that conflict led to more considered and acceptable decisions.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Stockbrokers are agents who buy and sell stocks, shares and other securities for their clients. They are paid commission. Jobbers, on the other hand, buy and sell securities in large quantities. They are the wholesalers. The jobbers are always to be found in the same spot in the London Stock Exchange. They congregate according to the type of security they specialize in. So you can find all the jobbers dealing with rubber shares in one place, those interested in shipping another, those concerned with mining in another, and so on. Jobbers make a profit like any other dealer. They usually quote two prices; they are prepared to buy any reasonable quantity of that share at the lower price, and to sell at the higher price. These prices vary, of course, from day to day and even hour to hour, according to the demand. Perhaps a broke wants to sell five hundred shares in XYZ Pharmaceuticals for a client. He looks for the jobbers who deal in pharmaceutical shares. He asks the price of XYZ Pharmaceuticals, without saying whether he wishes to buy or sell. The jobber quotes him two prices—perhaps 75/79. This means that he will buy quantities of that share at 75 pence each, and sell them at 79 pence each. The broker then goes on to other jobbers and asks them the same question. Eventually he chooses the best offer. The two men make a verbal agreement (nothing is written at this stage) and from that moment the broker's client is the owner of those shares. When he goes back to his office, the broker has to write out a "contract note", which he sends to his client. This records the price, his commission, the tax on the transaction, and so on. For payment, both the buyer and the seller must sign transfer forms; these are sent to XYZ Pharmaceuticals for registration. Later, the buyer gets a certificate of the shares. The deal is now complete. The London Stock Exchange has always been famous as a place for men. only, and women used to be strictly forbidden to enter. But the world is changing day by day, and even the Stock Exchange, which seemed to be a man's castle, is gradually opening its doors to the other sex. On 16th November, 1971, a great decision was taken. The Stock Exchange Council (the body of men that administers the Stock Exchange) decided that Women should be allowed on to the new trading floor when it opened in 1973. But the "castle" had not been completely conquered. The first girls to work in "The House" were not brokers or jobbers. They were neither allowed to become partners in stockbroking firms, nor to be authorized dealers in stocks and shares. They were simply junior clerks and telephone operators. Women have been trying to get into the Stock Exchange for many years. Several votes have been taken in "The House" to see whether the members would be willing to allow women to become members, but the answer has always been "NO". There have been three refusals of this kind since 1967. Now women are admitted, although in a very junior capacity. Two firms of jobbers made an application to the Stock Exchange Council to be allowed to employ girl clerks. Permission was finally given. A member of the Stock Exchange explained, after this news had been given, "The new floor is going to be different from the old one. All the jobbers will have their own stands, with space for a telephone and typewriters. Therefore there will have to be typists and telephone operators. So women must be allowed in." This decision did not mean a very great victory in the war for equal rights for women. However, it was a step in the right direction. The Chairman of the Stock Exchange said, "I think that the opening of the new building will eventually lead to women being allowed to have full membership of the Stock Exchange. It is only a matter of time; it must happen".

单选题 Although social changes in the United States were being wrought throughout most of the nineteenth century, public awareness of the changes increased to new levels in the 1890's. The acute, growing public awareness of the social changes that had been taking place for some time was tied to tremendous growth in popular journalism in the late nineteenth century, including growth in quantity and circulation of both magazines and newspapers. These developments, in addition to the continued growth of cities, were significant factors in the transformation of society from one characterized by relatively isolated self-contained communities into an urban, industrial nation. The decade of the 1870's, for example, was a period in which the sheer number of newspapers doubled, and by 1880 the New York Graphic had published the first photographic reproduction in a newspaper, portending a dramatic rise in newspaper readership. Between 1882 and 1886 alone, the price of daily newspapers dropped from four cents a copy, to one cent, made possible in part by a great increase in demand. Furthermore, the introduction in 1890 of the first successful linotype machine promised even further growth. In 1872 only two daily newspapers could claim a circulation of over 100, 000, but by 1892 seven more newspapers exceeded that figure. A world beyond the immediate community was rapidly becoming visible. But it was not newspapers alone that were bringing the new awareness to people in the United States in the late nineteenth century. Magazines as they are known today began publication around 1882, and, in fact, the circulation of weekly magazines exceeded that of newspapers in the period which followed. By 1892, for example, file circulation of the Ladies' Home Journal had reached an astounding 700, 000. An increase in book readership also played a significant part in this general trend. For example, Edward Bellamy's utopian novel, Looking Backward, sold over a million copies in 1888, giving rise to the growth of organizations dedicated to the realization of Bellamy's vision of the future. The printed word, unquestionably, was intruding on the insulation that had characterized United States society in an earlier period.

单选题Years of watching and comparing bright children and those not bright, or less bright, have shown that they are very different kinds of people. The bright child is curious about life and reality, eager to get in touch with it, embrace it, unite himself with it. There is no wall, no barrier between him and life. The dull child is far less curious, far less interested in what goes on and what is real, more inclined to live in worlds of fantasy. The bright child likes to experiment, to try things out. He lives by the maxim that there is more than one way to skin a cat. If he can't do something one way, he'll try another. The dull child is usually afraid to try at all. It takes a good deal of urging to get him to try even once; if that try fails, he is through. The bright child is patient. He can tolerate uncertainty and failure, and will keep trying until he gets an answer. When all his experiments fail, he can even admit to himself and others that for the time being he is not going to get an answer. This may annoy him, but he can wait. Very often, he does not want to be told how to do the problem or solve the puzzle he has struggled with, because he does not want to be cheated out of the chance to figure it out for himself in the future. Not so the dull child. He cannot stand uncertainty or failure. To him, an unanswered question is not a challenge or an opportunity, but a threat. If he can't find the answer quickly, it must be given to him, and quickly; and he must have answers for everything. Such are the children of whom a second-grade teacher once said, "But my children like to have questions for which there is only one answer." They did; and by a mysterious coincidence, so did she. The bright child is willing to go ahead on the basis of incomplete understanding and information. He will take risks, sail uncharted seas, explore when the landscape is dim, the landmarks few, the light poor. To give only one example, he will often read books he does not understand in the hope that after a while enough understanding will emerge to make it worthwhile to go on. In this spirit some of my fifth graders tried to read Moby Dick. But the dull child will go ahead only when he thinks he knows exactly where he stands and exactly what is ahead of him. If he does not feel he knows exactly what an experience will be like, and if it will not be exactly like other experiences he already knows, he wants no part of it. For while the bright child feels that the universe is, on the whole, a sensible, reasonable, and trustworthy place, the dull child feels that it is senseless, unpredictable, and treacherous. He feels that he can never tell what may happen, particularly in a new situation, except that it will probably be bad.

单选题For office innovators, the unrealized dream of the "paperless" office is a classic example of high-tech hubris (傲慢). Today's office drone is drowning in more paper than ever before. But after decades of hype, American offices may finally be losing their paper obsession. The demand for paper used to outstrip the growth of the U. S. economy, but the past two or three years have seen a marked slowdown in sales — despite a healthy economic scene. Analysts attribute the decline to such factors as advances in digital databases and communication systems. Escaping our craving for paper, however, will be anything but an easy affair. "Old habits are hard to break," says Merilyn Dunn, a communications supplies director. "There are some functions that paper serves where a screen display doesn't work. Those functions are both its strength and its weakness. " In the early to mid-'90s, a booming economy and improved desktop printers helped boost paper sales by 6 to 7 percent each year. The convenience of desktop printing allowed office workers to indulge in printing anything and everything at very little effort or cost. But now, the growth rate or paper sales in the United States is flattening by about half a percent each year. Between 2004 and 2005, Ms. Dunn says, plain white office paper will see less than a 4 percent growth rate, despite the strong overall economy. A primary reason for the change, says Dunn, is that for the first time ever, some 47 percent of the workforce entered the job market after computers had already been introduced to offices. "We're finally seeing a reduction in the amount of paper being used per worker in the workplace," says John Maine, vice president of a pulp and paper economic consulting firm. "More information is being transmitted electronically, and more and more people are comfortable with the information residing only in electronic form without printing multiple backups. " In addition, Mr. Maine points to the lackluster employment market for white-collar workers — the primary driver of office paper consumption — for the shift in paper usage. The real paradigm shift may be in the way paper is used. Since the advent of advanced and reliable office-network systems, data storage has moved away from paper archives. The secretarial art of "filing" is disappearing from job descriptions. Much of today's data may never leave its original digital format. The changing attitudes toward paper have finally caught the attention of paper companies, says Richard Harper, a researcher at Microsoft. "All of a sudden, the paper industry has started thinking, 'We need to learn more about the behavioural aspects of paper use, '" he says. "They had never asked, they'd just assumed that 70 million sheets would be bought per year as a literal function of economic growth. " To reduce paper use, some companies are working to combine digital and paper capabilities. For example, Xerox Corp. is developing electronic paper: thin digital displays that respond to a stylus, like a pen on paper. Notations can be erased or saved digitally. Another idea, intelligent paper, comes from Anoto Group. It would allow notations made with a stylus on a page printed with a special magnetic ink to simultaneously appear on a computer screen. Even with such technological advances, the improved capabilities of digital storage continue to act against "paperlessness," argues Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster. In his prophetic and metaphorical 1989 essay, "The Electronic Pinata (彩罐)," he suggests that the increasing amounts of electronic data necessarily require more paper. "The information industry today is like a huge electronic pinata, composed of a thin paper crust surrounding an electronic core," Mr. Saffo wrote. The growing paper crust "is most noticeable, but the hidden electronic core that produces the crust is far larger — and growing more rapidly. The result is that we are becoming paperless, but we hardly notice at all. " In the same way that digital innovations have increased paper consumption, Saffo says, so has video conferencing — with its promise of fewer in-person meetings — boosting business travel. "That's one of the great ironies of the information age ," Saffo says. "It's just common sense that the more you talk to someone by phone or computer, it inevitably leads to a face-to-face meeting. The best thing for the aviation industry was the Internet. /

单选题 {{B}}Questions 11 ～ 13 are based on the following talk. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11 ～ 13.{{/B}}

单选题 A scientist who does research in economic psychology and who wants to predict the way in which consumers will spend their money must study consumer behavior. He must obtain data both on resources of consumers and on the motives that tend to encourage or discourage money spending. If an economist was asked which of three groups borrow most--people with rising incomes, stable incomes or declining incomes--he would probably answer: those with declining incomes. Actually, in the year 1947～1950, the answer was people with rising incomes. People with declining incomes were next and people with stable incomes borrowed the least. This shows us that traditional assumptions about earning and spending are not always reliable. Another traditional assumption is that if people who have money expect prices to go up, they will hasten to buy. If they expect prices to go down, they will postpone buying. But research surveys have shown that this is not always true. The expectations of price increases may not stimulate buying. One typical attitude was expressed by the wife of a mechanic in. an interview at a time of rising prices. "In a few months, "she said, "we will have to pay more for meat and milk, we will have less to spend on other things." Her family had been planning to buy a new car but they postponed this purchase. Furthermore, the rise in prices that has already taken place may be resented and buyer's resistance may be evoked. This is shown by the following typical comment: "I just don't pay these prices, they are too high." The investigations mentioned above were carried out in America. Investigations conducted at the same time in Great Britain, however, yielded results more in agreement with traditional assumptions about saving and spending patterns. The condition most conductive to spending appears to be price stability. If prices have been stable and people consider that they are reasonable, they are likely to buy, thus, it appears that the common business policy of maintaining stable prices is based on a correct understanding of consumer psychology.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} The man behind this notion, Jack Maple, is a dandy who affects dark glasses, homburgs(翘边帽) and two-toe shoes; yet he has become something of a legend in America's police departments. For some years, starting in New York and moving on to high-crime spots such as New Orleans and Philadelphia, he and his business partner, John Linder have marketed a two-tier system for cutting crime. First, police departments have to sort themselves out: mot out corruption, streamline their bureaucracy, and make more contact with the public. Second, they have to adopt a computer system called Comstat which helps them to analyze statistics of all major crimes. These are constantly keyed into the computer, which then displays where and when they have occurred on a color-coded map, enabling the police to monitor crime trends as they happen and to spot high-crime areas. In New York, Comstat's statistical maps are analyzed each week at a meeting of the city's police chief and precinct captains. Messrs Maple and Linder ("specialists in crime-reduction services") have no doubt that their system is a main contributor to the drop in crime. When they introduced it in New Orleans in January 1997, violent crime dropped by 22% in a year; when they merely started working informally with the police department in Newark, New Jersey, violent crime fell by 13%. Police departments are now lining up to pay as much as $50,000 a month for these two men to pot them straight. Probably all these new policies and bits of technical wizardry, added together, have made a big difference to crime. But there remain anomalies that cannot be explained, such as the fact that crime in Washington D.C., has fallen as fast as a where, although the police department has been corrupt and hopeless and, in large stretches of the city, neither police nor residents seem disposed to fight the criminals in their midst. The more important mason for the fall in crime rates, many say, is a much less sophisticated one. It is a fact that crime rates have dropped as the imprisonment rate soared. In 1997 the national incarceration rate, at 645 per 100,000 people was more than double the rate in 1985, and the number of inmates in city and county jails rose by 9.4%, almost double its annual average increase since 1990. Surely some criminologists argue, one set of figures is the cause of the other. It is precise because more people are being sent to prison, they claim that crime rates are failing. A 1993 study by the National Academy of Sciences actually concluded that the tripling of the prison population between 1975 and 1989 had lowered violent crime by 10-15%. Yet cause and effect may not be so obviously linked. To begin with, the sale and possession of drugs are not counted by the FBI in its crime index, which is limited to violent crimes and crimes against property. Yet drug offences account for more than a third of the recent increase in the number of those jailed; since 1980, the incarceration rate for drug arrests has increased by 1000%. And although about three-quarters of those going to prison for drug offences have committed other crimes as well, there is not yet a crystal-clear connection between filling the jails with drug-pushers and a decline in the rate of violent crime. Again, though national figures are suggestive, local ones diverge: the places where crime has dropped most sharply (such as New York City) are not always the places where incarceration has risen fastest.

单选题The word "bound" in line 1 is closest in meaning to______ .

单选题Wheredoestheconversationmostprobablytakeplace?A．AtaLostPropertyOffice.B．Inapolicestation.C．Inahotel,D．Inarestaurant.