单选题Which of the statements is NOT true?

单选题Whatarethespeakerstryingtodo?A.Visitthenewrestaurant.B.Watchaparade.C.Haveapicnic.D.Gotothebeach.

单选题{{B}}Text 1{{/B}} Cloning shakes us all to our very souls. For humans to consider the cloning of one another forces them all to question the very concepts of right and wrong that make them all human. The cloning of any species, whether they are human or non-human, is wrong. Scientists and ethicists alike have debated the implications of human and non-human cloning extensively since 1997 when scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland produced Dolly. No direct conclusions have been drawn, but compelling arguments state that cloning of both human and non human species results in harmful physical and psychological effects on both groups. The possible physical damage that could be done if human cloning became a reality is obvious when one looks at the sheer loss of life that occurred before the birth of Dolly. Less than ten percent of the initial transfers survive to be healthy creatures. There were 277 trial implants of nuclei. Nineteen of those 277 were deemed healthy while the others were discarded. Five of those nineteen survived, but four of them died within ten days of birth of severe abnormalities. Dolly was the only one to survive. Even Ian Wilmut, one of the scientists accredited with the cloning phenomenon at the Roslin Institute agrees, "the more you interfere with re production, the more danger there is of things going wrong." The psychological effects of cloning are less obvious, but nonetheless, very plausible. In addition to physical harms, there are worries about the psychological harms to cloned human children. One of those harms is that cloning creates serious issues of identity and individuality. Human cloning is obviously damaging to both the family and the cloned child. It is harder to convince that non-human cloning is wrong and unethical, but it is just the same. Western culture and tradition has long held the belief that the treatment of animals should be guided by different ethical standards than the treatment of humans. Animals have been seen as non-feeling and savage beasts since time began. Humans in general have no problem with seeing animals as objects to be used whenever it becomes necessary. But what would happen if humans started to use animals as body for growing human organs? What if we were to learn how to clone functioning brains and have them grow inside of chimps? Would non-human primates, such as a chimpanzee, who carried one or more human genes via transgenic technology, be defined as still a chimp, a human, a subhuman, or something else? If defined as human, would we have to give it rights of citizenship? And if humans were to carry non-human transgenic genes, would that alter our definitions and treatment of them? Also, if the technology were to be so that scientists could transfer human genes into animals and vice versa, it could create a worldwide catastrophe that no one would be able to stop.

单选题Shortages of flu vaccine are nothing new in America, but this year" s is a whopper. Until last week, it appeared that 100 million Americans would have access to flu shots this fall. Then British authorities, concerned about quality-control problems at a production plant in Liverpool, barred all further shipments by the Chiron Corp. Overnight, the U.S. vaccine supply dwindled by nearly half and federal health officials found themselves making an unusual plea. Instead of beseeching us all to get vaccinated, they" re now urging most healthy people between the ages of 2 and 64 not to. "This reemphasizes the fragility of our vaccine supply," says Dr. Martin Myers of the National Network for Immunization Information, "and the lack of redundancy in our system." Why is such a basic health service so easily knocked out? Mainly because private companies have had little incentive to pursue it. To create a single dose of flu vaccine, a manufacturer has to grow live virus in a 2-week-old fertilized chicken egg, then crack the egg, harvest the virus and extract the proteins used to provoke an immune response. Profit margins are narrow, demand is fickle and, because each year"s flu virus is different, any leftover vaccine goes to waste. As a result, the United States now has only two major suppliers ( Chiron and Aventis Pasteur)--and when one of them runs into trouble, there isn" t much the other can do about it. "A vaccine maker can"t just call up and order 40 million more fertilized eggs," says Manon Cox, of Connecticut-based Protein Sciences Corp. "There"s a whole industry that"s scheduled to produce a certain number of eggs at a certain time. " Sleeker technologies are now in the works, and experts are hoping that this year"s fiasco will speed the pace of innovation. The main challenge is to shift production from eggs into cell cultures--a medium already used to make most other vaccines. Flu vaccines are harder than most to produce this way, but several biotech companies are now pursuing this strategy, and one culture-based product (Solvay Pharmaceuticals" Invivac) has been cleared for marketing in Europe. For Americans, the immediate challenge is to make the most of a limited supply. The government estimates that 95 million people still qualify for shots under the voluntary restrictions announced last week. That" s nearly twice the number of doses that clinics will have on hand, but only 60 million Americans seek out shots in a normal year. In fact, many experts are hoping the shortage will serve as an awareness campaign--encouraging the people who really need a flu shot to get one.

单选题Navigation computers, now sold by most car-makers, cost $2,000 and up. No surprise, then, that they are most often found in luxury cars, like Lexus, BMW and Audi. But it is a developing technology — meaning prices should eventually drop — and the market does seem to be growing. Even at current prices, a navigation computer is impressive. It can guide you from point to point in most major cities with precise turn-by-turn directions — spoken by a clear human-sounding voice, and written on a screen in front of the driver. The computer works with an antenna that takes signals from no fewer than three of the 24 global positioning system (GPS) satellites. By measuring the time required for a signal to travel between the satellites and the antenna, the car''s location can be pinned down within 100 meters. The satellite signals, along with inputs on speed from a wheel-speed sensor and direction from a meter, determine the car''s position even as it moves. This information is combined with a map database. Streets, landmarks and points of interest are included. Most systems are basically identical. The differences come in hardware — the way the computer accepts the driver''s request for directions and the way it presents the driving instructions. On most systems, a driver enters a desired address, motorway junction or point of interest via a touch screen or disc. But the Lexus screen goes a step further: you can point to any spot on the map screen and get directions to it. BMW''s system offers a set of cross hairs that can be moved across the map ( you have several choices of map scale) to pick a point you'' d like to get to. Audi''s screen can be switched to TV reception. Even the voices that recite the directions can differ, with better systems like BMW''s and Lexus''s having a wider vocabulary. The instructions are available in French, German, Spanish, Dutch and Italian, as well as English. The driver can also choose parameters for determining the route: fastest, shortest or no freeways, for example.

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 1992 called 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, Broil, urban poor and rural peasants alike 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 Questions 14 to 16 are based on a talk on the world's air pollution. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 16.

单选题{{I}} Questions 14 to 16 are based on an interview about planning to picnic. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 16.{{/I}}

单选题Which of the following can be the title of this passage?

单选题WhichofthefollowingstatementsaboutthetelephoneofthefutureisNOTtrue?A.Itwillbemuchmorecomplexthanthetelephoneweusetoday.B.Itwillbemoreconvenienttousethantoday'stelephone.C.Youwillbeabletodialgreatdistances.D.Therewillbenobusylines.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} When investors get twitchy, developing countries are usually the first to pay the price. The current sell-off may be even more dangerous because it follows a recent bout of exuberance. It is possible that some emerging markets could be among the worst casualties of the latest wave of risk aversion. In particular, it is time to worry about some of the beneficiaries of the "carry trade". The trade assumes that markets are irrational. Investors who succumb to its lure borrow in low-yielding currencies and invest in higher-yielding assets. In theory, the long-term expected return from a currency carry trade should be zero, since the assets should only be offering a higher yield because of their higher risk. In practice, however, investors have been making money from the carry trade for years. This may well be due to the "Great Moderation" in the world economy. In many countries both growth and inflation have been more stable than expected. Economies with a poor inflation record have thus tended to overcompensate investors for the risk they have taken. But the carry trade has also allowed some countries to get away with economic policies that they might never have dreamed of in the 1980s. Latvia and Iceland have been running current- account deficits of 25-30% of GDP without suffering a currency crisis. Turkey has been another beneficiary. Its current-account deficit has not hit the Icelandic extreme hut, at around 7.5% of GDP, it is still a gaping hole. However, short-term interest rates of 18.7% have encouraged investors to take the risk of buying the currency; the lira has risen 18% against the dollar in the past year. A strong currency has encouraged Turkish companies to borrow abroad. Were the lira to collapse, the cost of repaying dollar-denominated debts would be, a big burden for Turkish companies. Currency strength is also the "wrong" response to Turkey's current-account deficit because it will make the country's exports less competitive. As a result, some economists reckon the deficit may head towards 10% of GDP during the second half of this year. Until recently, markets have been reluctant to punish Turkey for its dodgy economic fundamentals, perhaps hoping it will be a long-term winner if it manages to pull off greater integration with Europe's economies. Neil Shearing, an emerging-Europe economist, reckons that Turkish bonds ought to trade at a premium of nearly three percentage points to Treasury bonds, rather than their current two-point spread. However, investors may at last be opening their eyes to the risks in Turkey. Turkey may have been helped by the perception that, because many emerging markets have improved their economic positions, all of them are less risky. Emerging-market bond spreads reached a record low of around one-and-a-half percentage points in June. When investors were only getting 6% for lending money to investment backwaters such as Peru, a 6.7% yield from Turkey must have looked like a bargain. But it is in the nature of emerging markets that, every so often, they kick investors in the teeth. This looks like being one of those moments. Of course, within 12 months, investors are bound to be back, their smiles expensively restored, Fast economic growth and high yields are just too alluring.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Many things make people think artists are weird. But the weirdest may be this: artists' only job is to explore emotions, and yet they choose to focus on the ones that feel bad. This wasn't always so. The earliest forms of art, like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy. But somewhere in the 19th century onward, more artists began seeing happiness as meaningless, phony or, worst of all, boring, as we went from Wordsworth's daffodils to Baudelaire's flowers of evil. You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness because modem times have seen so much misery. But it's not as if earlier times didn't know perpetual war, disaster and the massacre of innocents. The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today. After all, what is the one modem form of expression almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? Advertising. The rise of anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media, and with it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just all ideal but an ideology. People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery. They worked until exhausted, lived with few protections and died young. In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were in danger and that they would someday be meat for worms. Given all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a {{U}}bummer{{/U}} too. Today the messages the average Westerner is bombarded with are not religious but commercial, and for ever happy Fast-food eaters, news anchors, text messengers, all smiling, smiling, smiling. Our magazines feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes. And since these messages have an agenda -- to lure us to open our wallets -- they make the very idea of happiness seem unreliable. "Celebrate!" commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attacks. But what we forget -- what our economy depends on us forgetting -- is that happiness is more than pleasure without pain. The things that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and disappointment. Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need art to tell us, as religion once did, Me mento mori: remember that you will die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it. It's a message even more bitter than a clove cigarette, yet, somehow, a breath of fresh air.

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单选题In the third paragraph, Dr. Laragh implies that

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

单选题In the immediate post-war years, the city of Birmingham scheduled some 50,000 small working class cottage as slums due for demolition. Today that process is nearly complete. Yet it is clear that, quite apart from any question of race, an environmental problem remains. The expectation built into the planning policies of 1945 was that in the foreseeable future the city would be a better place to live in. But now that slum clearance has run its course, there seems to be universal agreement that the total environment where the slums once stood is more depressing than ever. For the past ten years the slum clearance areas have looked like bomb sites. The buildings and places survived on islands in a sea of rubble and ash. When the slums were there they supported an organic community life and each building, each activity, fitted in as part of the whole. But now that they have been destroyed, nothing meaningful appears to remain, or rather those activities which do go on do not seem to have any meaningful relation to the place. They happen there because it is an empty stage which no one is using any more. Typical of the inner-city in this sense is the Birmingham City Football Ground. Standing in unsplendid isolation on what is now wasteland on the edge of Small Heath, it brings into the area a stage army on twenty or so Saturdays a year who come and cheer and then go away again with little concern any more for the place where they have done their cheering. Even they, however, have revolted recently. "The ground," says the leader of the revolt, "is a slum", thus putting his finger on the fact that the demolition of houses creats rather than solves problems of the inner-city. A new element has now come upon the scene in the inner-city in the form of the tower block. Somehow it doesn''t seem to be what Le Corbusier and the planners who wrote those post-war Pelicans intended. The public spaces either haven''t yet been developed or are more meanly conceived, and the corridors and lifts are places of horror. In fact these places were always suspected. They had no legitimacy in the minds of the public as suburban family housing had, and those who were placed there felt that they had been cheated. Along with the decaying elements, therefore, that which had been conceived as part of the brave new world was part of the problem.

单选题Questions 8--12 Complete the following sentences with NO MORE THAN three words for each blank.

单选题According to this article the trend toward early marriages

单选题{{I}} Questions 14 to 17 are based on the radio news. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 17.{{/I}}