单选题What may be concluded from the talk?

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} The idea of a fish being able to produce electricity strong enough to light lamp bulbs—or even to nm a small electric motor—is almost unbelievable, but several kinds of fish are able to do this. Even more strangely, this curious power has been acquired in different ways by fish belonging to very different families. Perhaps the most known are the electric rays, or torpedoes, of which several kinds live in warm seas. They possess on each side of the head, behind the eyes, a large organ consisting of a number of hexagonal-shaped cells rather like a honeycomb. The cells are filled with a jelly-like substance, and contain a series of flat electric plates. One side, the negative side, of each plate, is supplied with very fine nerves, connected with a main nerve coming form a special part of the brain. Current gets through from the upper, positive side of the organ downward to the negative, lower side. Generally it is necessary to touch the fish in two places, completing the circuit, in order to receive a shock. The strength of this shock depends on the size of fish, but newly-born ones only about 5 centimeters across can be made to light the bulb of a pocket flashlight for a few moments, while a fully grown torpedo gives a shock capable of knocking a man down, and, if suitable wires are connected, will operate a small electric motor for several minutes. Another famous example is the electric eel. This fish gives an even mere powerful shock. The system is different from that of the torpedo in that the electric plates run longitudinally and are supplied with nerves from the spinal cord. Consequently, the current passes along the fish from head to tail. The electric organs of these fish are really altered muscles and like all muscles are apt to tire, so they are not able to generate electricity for very long. People in some parts of South America who value the electric eel as food, take advantage of this fact by driving horses into the water against which the fish discharge their electricity. The horses are less affected than a man would be, and when the electric eels have exhausted themselves, they can be caught without danger. The electric catfish of the Nile and of other African fresh waters has a different system again by which current passes over the whole body from the tail to the head. The shock given by this arrangement is not so strong as the other two, but is none the less unpleasant. The electric catfish is a slow, lazy fish, fond of glooray places and grows to about 1 metre long; it is eaten by the Arabs in some areas. The power of producing electricity may serve these fish both for defence and attack. If a large enemy attacks, the shock will drive it away; but it appears that the catfish and the electric eel use their current most often against smaller fish, stunning them so that they can easily be overpowered.

单选题Questions 1～3 are based on the following passage, listen and choose the best answer.

单选题The man behind this notion, Jack Maple, is a dandy who wears dark glasses, homburgs 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. root out corruption, streamline their bureaucracy, and make more contact with the public. Second, they have to adopt a computer system called Comsat 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, Comsat'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 put 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 anywhere, 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 reason 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 falling. 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 Questions 11 to 13 are based on a TV talk about three basic guidelines to investing. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11 to 13.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Letting computer viruses loose on a quarantined computer and recording their pattern of activity could lead to a better way of spotting them in the "wild". A prototype system developed at the University of Michigan uses the "fingerprint" of virus activity to identify them more effectively than existing anti-virus software. The designers of programs that damage, take over or steal data from computers—called malware—are locked in an arms race with companies that make anti-virus (AV) software to prevent and fix malware damage. Conventional AV software looks for suspicious behavior and then tries to determine what's causing it. It does this by looking for virus "signatures"—chunks of computer code from known viruses. But identifying previously unknown malware is difficult, and keeping track of different variants of existing viruses makes it harder. For example, a virus called Agobot has split into more than 580 variants since its release in 2002. In tests, Michael Bailey and colleagues at the University of Michigan, US, showed that five leading AV programs could identify only between 50 and 80 per cent of a large sample of malware. And the programs struggled to agree on what they had found—the identifications often did not match. Bailey and his team say their approach is superior and have used it to develop a prototype AV system that is significantly better at identifying viruses once they are detected. The team set loose the malicious software on a quarantined computer, recording all the files and strings of instructions (processes) created and modified by the malware. They then created software that uses a database of these "fingerprints" to identify malware. It can also define clusters of malware that operate in similar ways, and generate a kind of family tree showing how superficially different programs have similar modi operandi. In tests on the same malware, the new software could identify at least 10 per cent more of the sample than any of the other AV software. It also always correctly linked different pieces of malware that behave in the same way—the best AV program spotted only 68 per cent of such doubles. "What they're doing here is quite viable," says Richard Overill, a researcher at Kings College London, UK. "In principle this should work very well at identifying different viruses, and grouping those that may appear different but work in the same way." The new approach could reduce the number of updates needed for conventional AV systems, suggests Overill. "Instead of having separate patches for each virus, this could be more efficient and reduce the size of updates that must be downloaded." Grant Malcom researches computer security at Liverpool University, UK. He says that recording activities like files created and modified is a novel approach to the problem and that it would be interesting to see whether this approach to categorizing malware could work without giving false positives.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Watching shiatsu being performed on a friend of mine reminded me of a demonstration of the deep massage technique, "rolfing", in which the patient is kneaded and twisted with knuckles and elbows. Rolling had been likened to torture, so when it was offered to me I made my excuses. Yet the shiatsu treatment, Manning though it looked, with tile patient lying down as the operator prodded pressure points, wets clearly not painful, apart from an occasionally twinge. Indeed, for most of the hour-long session, the patient was patently relaxed and enjoying it. Shiatsu is a spin-off from acupressure, itself a spin-off from acupuncture. The traditional "meridians" (or channels of life energy) are used, as are the traditional points on these channels all over the hody, but a thumb, knuckle, or even an elbow, is used instead of a needle. In Japan, as in China, acupressure has long been a family first-aid affair, with parents teaching children and children in due course treating grandparents. But about 50 years ago, in Japan, shiatsu began to acquire professional status, anti there are now thousands of full-time practitioners. The theory is still basically the same: that all of us have these channels along which ki, the life energy, flows; and that if one of these pressures, on the points indicated-ascertained either by pulse-taking, or by training, experience and hunch--can start the energy moving again; the blockage will be removed and the symptoms will disappear. Not that it is essential to accept the full oriental theory to accept shiatsu. That pain in one part of the body can sometimes be removed by pressure on another part has long been known in orthodox Western circles. So, for that matter, has the ability of acupuncture to relieve pain--though the acupuncture was of a different kind. But with the march of medical science, pressure points and acupuncture, British-style, faded out; and now that they are being restored to popularity, they are for the most part provided by medically unqualified practitioners. To try to describe shiatsu is futile; it has to be experienced. But the aim is to relax mind and body together--in fact they are treated as one. If there is an occasional twinge, it is deemed to be necessary to break down a barrier; and patients often grope for words to express the feeling that the pain has in a way been pleasurable. Although the aim is relaxation, paradoxically the effect may be arousal. Some people may feel in the mood for sleep; but for others, the removal of muscular and emotional tensions actually makes them feel pepped up. And they come back for more--either when they feel the need has arisen, or at regular intervals as a form of preventive therapy.

单选题Questions 11 to 13 are based on the following talk on wireless communications. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11 to 13.

单选题What are some disadvantages of the nuclear family for women?

单选题 Computer microchips could become smaller, faster and cheaper, thanks to scientists in the United States who have developed a speedier method of printing minuscule patterns on silicon chips. The discovery, by Stephen Chou and fellow scientists at Princeton University in New Jersey, could allow electronics manufacturers to increase the density of transistors on silicon chips by 100- fold and streamline production at the same time. Instead of taking 10 or 20 minutes to make a computer chip, the electrical engineers have imprinted features measuring I0 nanometers, or 10 millionths of a millimeter, on a computer chip in a quarter of a millionth of a second. The achievement, which could pave the way for more powerful computers and memory chips, is reported in the science journal Nature. "You just imprint the pattern directly into the silicon. You not only reduce the steps, you can do it in nanoseconds," Chou said in a statement. Silicon chips are minute slices of semiconducting material made to carry out functions in everything from toasters and mobile phones to giant corporate computers. Scientists had been looking for a replacement for silicon because they thought it would be impossible to improve the silicon chip, which would limit advancements in chip size and speed. Chou has done away with etching, the normal way to make small patterns in silicon, and pressed a mould against a piece of silicon and applied a laser pulse for just 20 billionths of a second. It melts and resolidifies around mould. "Here we do not need to use all those steps," Chou said. "Scientifically, people are still trying to understand how it works, because it is amazing that it works at all." He calls the method Laser-Assisted Direct Imprint or LADI. Princeton University is applying for a patent on the technique. In a commentary on the research in Nature, Fabian Pease, of Stanford University, said the achievement will allow electronics manufacturers to continue the pace of miniaturization and keep Moore's laws on track. Moore's Law, observed by Intel Corp, co-founder Gordon Moore in 196.5, posits that the number of transistors on a semiconductor doubles roughly every 18 months. "A new imprinting technology for the production of silicon chips, introduced by Chou et al, could keep us on track," Pease said, adding that the law could hold for possibly another two decades.

单选题We learn from the passage that school authorities in Kalkaska are more concerned about ______.

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

单选题 Questions 17 to 20 are based on the following talk on Generation X. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 17 to 20.

单选题The reason given for our acceptance of a gangster's downfall is our being convinced that ______.

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

单选题According to the passage, what distinguishes many present-day theaters from those built prior to the nineteenth century?

单选题{{I}} Questions 11 to 13 are based on the following dialogue in a wedding anniversary. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11 to 13.{{/I}}

单选题 It is interesting to reflect for a moment upon the differences in the areas of moral feeling and standards in the peoples of Japan and the United States. Americans divide these areas somewhat rigidly into spirit and flesh, the two being in opposition in the life of a human being. Ideally spirit should prevail but all too often it is the flesh that does prevail. The Japanese make no such division, at least between one as good and the other as evil. They believe that a person has two souls, each necessary. One is the "gentle" soul, the other is the "rough" soul. Sometimes the person uses his gentle soul. Sometimes he must use his rough soul. He does not favor his gentle soul, neither does he fight his rough soul. Human nature in itself is good, Japanese philosophers insist, and a human being does not need to fight any part of himself. He has only to learn how to use each soul properly at the appropriate times. Virtue for the Japanese consists in fulfilling one's obligations to others. Happy endings, either in life or in fiction, are neither necessary nor expected, since the fulfillment of duty provides the satisfying end, whatever the tragedy it inflicts. And duty includes a person's obligations to those who have conferred benefits upon him and to himself as an individual of honor. He develops through this double sense of duty a self discipline which is at once permissive and rigid, depending upon the area in which it is functioning. The process of acquiring this self-discipline begins in childhood. Indeed, one may say it begins at birth. Early is the Japanese child given his own identity! If I were to define in a word the attitude of the Japanese toward their children I would put it in one succinct word- "respect". Love? Yes, abundance of love, warmly expressed from the moment he is put to his mother's breast. For mother and child this nursing of her child is important psychologically. Rewards are frequent, a bit of candy bestowed at the right moment, an inexpensive toy. As the time comes to enter school, however, discipline becomes firmer. To bring shame to the family is the greatest shame for the child. What is the secret of the Japanese teaching of self-discipline? It lies, I think, in the fact that the aim or all teaching is the establishment of habit. Rules are repeated over, and continually practiced until obedience becomes instinctive. This repetition is enhanced by the expectation of the elders. They expect a child to obey and to learn through obedience. The demand is gentle at first and tempered to the child's tender age. It is no less gentle as time goes on. but certainly it is increasingly inexorable. Now, far away from that warm Japanese home, I reflect upon what 1 learned there. What, I wonder, will take the place of the web of love and discipline which for so many centuries has surrounded the life and thinking of the people of Japan?

单选题You will hear 3 conversations or talks and you must answer the questions by choosing A, B, C or D. You will hear each recording only once.

单选题______ is the American president during The Great DePression who proposed New Deal. A. Herbert Hoover B. Woodrow Wilson C. Franklin D. Roosevelt D. Abraham Lincoln