单选题

单选题The largest city in Canada is [A] Vancouver. [B] Montreal. [C] Toronto. [D] Ottawa.

单选题We welcome rain, but a(an) ______ large amount of rainfall will cause floods.

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

单选题It has been assumed by Japanese that he ______.

单选题"Junk science" is how Elliot Morley, Britain"s minister responsible for genetically modified farming, describes studies that claim GM crops would be hazardous to Britain"s wildlife and consumers. This week the government granted permission for a strain of GM maize to be grown commercially as cattle feed. That has incensed environmentalists and organic farmers, who say GM is unpopular (probably correct) and based on bad science (probably not). Three years of field testing have shown the herbicide-resistant maize, Bayer"s Chardon LL, to be safe and even kinder to the environment than non-GM maize. Two other crops on trial—a GM sugar-beet and a GM oilseed rape—will not be grown because they were worse for biodiversity (weeds) than conventional strains. The trials have not made the worries about introducing even a safe GM crop go away, though. Opponents say GM will stealthily take over the country by cross-pollination, will damage wildlife and introduce something nasty into the human food chain. How solid is all this? Evidence from America, which planted 105.7m acres of biotech crops in 2003, suggests concerns are overblown. In practice it is easy to separate crops and prevent them from cross-pollinating. Even oilseed rape, which is particularly promiscuous, can be kept over 99% pure if it is a hundred metres away from another plantation. Cross-pollination probably will happen, but so far it has caused no problems, genetic material in plants changes all the time through sexual reproduction anyway. Damage to wildlife is difficult to measure, but there is evidence that GM has had a positive effect, with birds and insects returning to GM cotton plantations in America. Certainly, GM crops tend to need fewer chemicals to protect them. Monsanto says its sugarbeet, which was on trial along with the Chardon maize, requires 46% less herbicide than a conventional strain. Supposed threats to consumers, whether human or animal, are the most flaky. One recent study appeared to show that Chardon maize could be fatal to cattle, but the heifer in question in fact died from botulism. The British Medical Association now says there is "very little potential for GM foods to cause harmful health effects" in people either. People have been eating the stuff in America for years, with no ill effects so far. The messing around with genetic material that makes some people dislike GM crops has gone on for years in conventional plant breeding, where crops are exposed to radiation and chemicals to encourage them to mutate. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, over 2,000 types of crop have been bombarded with gamma rays to produce mutants, many of which are grown by organic farmers. "All food is frankenfood," according to Professor Howard Dalton, chief scientific adviser to the Department for Food and Rural Affairs, "but everybody"s got used to it." Maybe everybody will get used to GM soon, too.

单选题About30000to40000yearsago,specimensofNeanderthalmandisappearabruptlyfromthefossilrecordandarereplacedbywhatisknownasCro-Magonman,orsometimesasUpperPleistoceneman,whoisphysicallyindistinguishablefrommodernHomoSapiens.WedonotknowwhatbecameoftheNean-derthals.Perhapstheywereexterminatedinwarfare,althoughthereisnoevidenceofthis.Perhapstheyweresimplyunabletocompeteforfoodandlivingspacewiththebetter-equippedCro-Magnontype.Perhapstheyinterbred,althoughtherearenocleartracesofintermediateforms.SomehavesuggestedthatCro-MagnonmenbroughtwiththemsomediseasetowhichtheythemselveswereresistantandtheNeanderthalswerenot.Inanycase,soonaftertheappearanceofCro-Magnonman,therewerenootherhominidsinEurope,andwithinthecourseof10000to20000years,thisnewvarietyofprimatehadspreadthefaceoftheplanet.Cro-Magnonman,whenhefirstappearedinEurope,camebearinganew,quitedifferent,andfarbettertoolkit.Thestonetoolswereessentiallyflakeswhich,ofcourse,hadbeeninuseformorethanmillionyears—buttheywerestruckfromacarefullypreparedcorewiththeaidofapunch(atoolmadetomakeanothertool).Theseflakes,usuallyreferredtoasblades,weresmaller,flatter,andnarrower,and,mostimportant,theycouldbeandwereshapedinalargevarietyofways.Fromthebeginningtheyincludedvariousscrapingandpiecingtools.Usingthesetoolstoworkothermaterials,especiallyboneandivory,Cro-Magnonmanmadeavarietyofprojectilespoints,barbedpointsforspearsandharpoons,fishinghooks,andneedles.Thus,althoughCro-Magnonmanlivedmuchthesamesortofexistenceasthatofhisforebears,heapparentlyliveditwithmorepossessions,morecomfort,andmorestyle.PerhapsourclosestemotionallinkstothismostimmediateancestorarethecavepaintingsofwesternSpainandsouthernFrance.Theexamplesthatremaintous,manysurprisinglyuntouchedbytime,clearlyformapartofarichartistictraditionthatenduredforatleast10000years.Thecavedrawingsarealmostentirelyofanimals,nearlyallgameanimals,andtheyaredeepwithinthecaves,sotheymusthavebeenviewedbythelightofcrudelampsortorches.Themeaningofthesedrawingsandpaintingshaslongbeenamatterofdebate.Someoftheanimalsaremarkedwithdartsorwounds(althoughveryfewappeartobeseriouslyinjuredordying).Suchmarkingshaveledtothesuggestionthatthefiguresareexamplesofsympatheticmagic,inwhichthereisthenotionthatonecandoharmtoone'senemybystickingneedlesinhisimage.Thefactthatmanyoftheanimalsappeartobepregnantsuggeststhattheymaysymbolizefertility.Manyappearalsotobeinmotion.Perhapstheseanimals,sovitaltothehunters'welfare,weremigratoryintheseareas,andtheymayhaveseemedtovanishatcertaintimesintheyear,mysteriouslyreturning,heavywithyoung,inthespringtime.ThisreturnoftheanimalsmighthavebeenaneventtobesolicitedorcelebratedinmuchthesamespiritastheritesofspringofmorerecentpeoplesorEasterarecelebrated.

单选题 Questions 14 to 16 are based on a report on childhood and careers. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 16.

单选题During the reign of Augustus the Rome army became a professional one. Its core of legionaires was composed of Roman citizens who served for a minimum of twenty five years. Augustus in his reign tried to eliminate the loyalty of the legions to the generals who commanded them, forcing them to take an oath of allegiance directly to him. While the legions remained relatively loyal to Augustus during his reign, under others, especially the more corrupt emperors or those who unwisely treated the military poorly, the legions often took power into their own hands. Legions continued to move farther and farther to the outskirts of society, especially in the later periods of the empire as the majority of legionaires no longer came from Italy, and were instead born in the provinces. The loyalty the legions felt to their emperor only degraded more with time, and lead in the 2nd Centry and 3rd Century to a large number of military usurpers and civil wars. By the time of the military officer emperors that characterized the period following the Crisis of the Third Century the Roman army was just as likely to be attacking itself as an outside invader. Both the pre- and post-Marian armies were greatly assisted by auxiliary troops. A typical Roman legion was accompanied by a matching auxiliary legion. In the pre-Marian army these auxiliary troops were Italians, and often Latins, from cities near Rome. The post-Marian army incorporated these Italian soldiers into its standard legions (as all Italians were Roman citizens after the Social War). Its auxiliary troops were made up of foreigners from provinces distant to Rome, who gained Roman citizenship after completing their twenty five years of service. This system of foreign auxiliaries allowed the post-Marian army to strengthen traditional weak points of the Roman system, such as light missile troops and cavalry, with foreign specialists, especially as the richer classes took less and less part of military affairs and the Roman army lost much of its domestic calvary. At the beginning of the Imperial period the number of legions was 60, which Augustus more than halved to 28, numbering at approximately 160,000 men. As more territory was conquered throughout the Imperial period, this fluctuated into the mid-thirties. At the same time, at the beginning of the Imperial period the foreign auxiliaries made up a rather small portion of the military, but continued to rise, so that by the end of the period of the Five Good Emperors they probably equalled the legionaires in number, giving a combined total of between 300,000 and 400,000 men in the Army. The last major reform of the Imperial Army came under the reign of Diocletian in the late 3rd Century. During the instability that had marked most of that century, the army had fallen in number and lost much of its ability to effectively police and defend the empire. He quickly recruited a large number of men, increasing the number of legionaires from between 150,000-200,000 to 350,000-400,000, effectively doubling the number in a case of quantity over quality.

单选题Forecasters sensed the 2004 hurricane season would be very active, but even storm veterans have been surprised by the past 30 days. Last month marked the first time since the beginning of postwar hurricane reconnaissance flights that August generated three major hurricanes in the Atlantic. If the current forecast track for hurricane Ivan holds, it will be the third hurricane to strike Florida in a month. Yet for all its fury, this season's burst of activity falls well within the bounds of past experience. What's surprising, say experts, is that the US and Florida haven't seen more major storms make landfall over the past few decades. Despite the damage wrought by Charley and Frances, "we've been very fortunate," says William Gray, a tropical-meteorology specialist at Colorado State University who pioneered seasonal hurricane forecasting. He notes that since 1995, only 1 out of 7 major hurricanes spawned in the Atlantic have made landfall in the US, compared with the 100-year average of 1 in 3. The Florida peninsula alone saw 14 major hurricanes between 1926 and 1965. Since 1966, only three major storms have struck-Andrew, Charley, and Frances. Now forecasters have their eyes on Ivan, which has devastated Grenada and Jamaica and at press time was bearing down on the Cayman Islands and Cuba with sustained winds near 155 miles an hour. Ivan has been blamed for 56 deaths in the Caribbean basin and, according to Red Cross estimates, 60,000 people on Grenada-two-thirds of the island's population-are homeless and 34 people have died. On Jamaica, where an estimated 500,000 people ignored warnings to evacuate, at least 11 were killed. Several factors have converged to make this hurricane season one for the record books, researchers say. For one thing, long-term cycles affecting the ocean and atmosphere are at play. Known as the Atlantic multidecadal signal, "these atmospheric conditions and warmer ocean temperatures can turn up for decades at a time," says Gerald Bell, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md. Currently, long-term patterns favor hurricane seasons that yield more tropical storms and hurricanes than normal. Conditions are similar to those that held sway from the mid-1920s to the mid-1960s, another period of above-normal tropical cyclone activity. Within those periods, he adds, storm activity season to season is affected by features such as El Nino episodes. Their long-range reach can generate wind patterns over the Atlantic that suppress the formation of hurricanes. Forecasters see a weak E1 Nino beginning to build in the eastern tropical Pacific. But they add that it's unlikely to have much of an effect on this year's hurricane season. And if it remains weak, it could have little effect on next year's season. In forecasting monthly activity for August, Dr. Gray says he and his colleagues missed unusually warm sea-surface temperatures in the eastern Atlantic, where hurricanes and tropical storms are born. The team forecast above-average activity for the month, "but we could not have anticipated the unusually high amount of storm activity that occurred," he notes. August yielded eight named storms. With the Atlantic basin in the midst of a long-term active phase for hurricanes, "undoubtedly [over] the next 20 years, we're likely to see much more damage than during the last 20 years," Gray says. The reason: While hurricane activity is more or less readjusting to its long-term averages after a period of relative quiet, more people are placing themselves, their houses, yachts, and office high-rises in storm paths when they move to hurricane- prone states and their geologically fragile shorelines. In 1926, a hurricane struck Florida that-if it were to happen today-would cause $100 billion in damage, notes Roger Pielke Jr., with the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder. While no one advocates preventing people from moving to Florida or the Carolinas, the prospect of more growth in hurricane-prone areas puts the onus on residents to become familiar with preparing for hurricanes, on communities for enforcing building codes aimed at reducing damage, and on federal researchers to continue improvements in forecasting.

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

单选题Comets are the most oddly behaved objects in the sky. No two of them act exactly alike. Most appear without warning, seemingly out of nowhere, too faint at first to be detected except as fuzzy dots of light on the photographic plates of automatic cameras attached to telescope lenses; most of the members of the comet family move in elliptical paths, remain visible to earthly observers for a few weeks or months, then disappear into the depths of space. There are a few comets that return periodically, on predictable timetables following almost the same track they were on originally. But even those few have little in common. The tracks traveled by some of them must extend very far away from the sun, for decades pass between their appearances. Other comets come back at intervals as short as three to four years. Halley"s comet (named after the British astronomer Edmund Halley, who predicted its return in 1758) was seen, with a single exception, every seventy-seven year from 240 BC to 1910 and is expected to return again in 1987. It should be noted that one of the few, characteristics shared by all of the 1700 comets observed since 2316 Be is the common focal point of their elliptical orbits—the sun. Though most comets are too small to be measured accurately, some are enormous. The great comet of 1843 had a tail twice as long as the distance from the earth to the sun. The head of the comet of 1811 was alone bigger than the sun. The heads of some comets are composed of a bright nucleus shrouded by a nebulous coma; in the heads of other comets, no nucleus can be seen. The coma may or may not have a tail. Again, one of the few similarities among comets must be remarked on. Where a nucleus is present, discharges of some kind usually stream from it into the coma and the tail. Planet earth passed through the tail of Halley"s comet in 1910, while the comet head was 15,000,000 miles away. Despite its giant size, the comet did not contain enough mass to exert any noticeable gravitational pull on earth. Brooks comet in 1866 passed between the satellites of planet Jupiter and Jupiter itself without causing the slightest perturbation in the orbits of the satellites, although the comet"s own orbit was shortened from twenty-seven years to seven. By contrasting these experiences, it is seen that comets are by earthly measure insubstantial stuff. It is no surprise then that spectrographic examination of the light they emit shows comets to be molecular mixtures of frozen gases—principally hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon—and cosmic dust. As recently as the first half of the twentieth century, it was believed that the luminosity of comets rose solely from the reflected light of the sun. Subsequently, astronomers have determined that comets also shine with intrinsic light, perhaps triggered somehow by the sun. In searching for a possible triggering mechanism, it is first desirable to draw together, from the scientific literature on comets, descriptions of erratic fluctuations in comet light.

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

单选题{{B}}TEXT 3{{/B}} Jan Hendrik Schon's success seemed too good to be true, and it was. In only four years as a physicist at Bell Laboratories, Schon, 32, had co-anthored 90 scientific papers--one every 16 days--detailing new discoveries in superconductivity, lasers, nanotechnology and quantum physics. This output astonished his colleagues, and made them suspicious. When one co-worker noticed that the same table of data appeared in two separate papers--which also happened to appear in the two separate papers--which also happened to appear in the two most prestigious scientific journals in the world, Science and Nature--the jig was up. In October 2002, a Bell Labs investigation found that Schon had falsified and fabricated data. His career as a scientist was finished. If it sounds a lot like the fall of Hwang Woo Suk--the South Korean researcher who fabricated his evidence about cloning human cells--it is. Scientific scandals, which are as old as science itself, tend to follow similar patterns of hubris and comeuppance. Afterwards, colleagues wring their hands and wonder how such malfeasance can be avoided in the future. But it never is entirely. Science is built on the honor system; the method of peer-review, in which manuscripts are evaluated by experts in the field, is not meant to catch cheats. In recent years, of course, the pressure on scientists to publish in the top journals has increased, making the journals that much more crucial to career success. The questions raised anew by Hwang's fall are whether Nature and Science reaches the public, and whether the journals are up to their task as gatekeepers. Scientists are also trying to reach other scientists through Science and Nature, not just the public. Being often-cited will increase a scientist's "Impact Factor", a measure of how often papers are cited by peers. Funding agencies use the Impact Factor as a rough measure of the influence of scientists they're considering supporting. It also no doubt reflects the increasing and sometimes excessive emphasis amongst funding agencies and governments on publication measures, such as the typical rates of citation of journals. Whether the clamor to appear in these journals has any bearing on their ability to catch fraud is another matter. The fact is, fraud is terrifically hard to spot. The panel found that Hwang had fabricated all of the evidence for research that claimed to have cloned human cells, but that he had successfully cloned the dog Snuppy. After this, Science sent the paper to three stem-cell experts, who had a week to look it over. Their comments were favorable. How were they to know that the data was fraudulent? With the financial and deadline pressures of the publishing industry, it's unlikely that the journals are going to take markedly stronger measures to vet manuscripts. Beyond replicating the experiments themselves, which would be impractical, it's difficult to see what they could do to take science beyond the honor system.

单选题Questions 14 to 16 are based on a talk on the Central College library. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 16.

单选题{{B}}Part B{{/B}} In the following article some paragraphs have been removed. For Questions 66～70, choose the most suitable paragraphfrom the list A～F to fit into each ofthe numbered gaps. There is one paragraph which does not fit in any of the gaps. A．There are different formulas for the exchange of glances depending on where the meeting takes place. B．In the subway or bus where long rides in very close circumstances are a necessity, we may be hard put to find some way of not staring. We sneak glances, but look away before our eyes can lock. If we look with an unfocused glance that misses the eyes and settles on the head．the mouth, the body for any place but the eyes is an acceptable looking spot for the unfocused glance. C．Actually in this way we are saying, in body language, “I know you are there, ”and a moment later we add, “But I would not dream of intruding on your privacy. ” D．It is the technique we use for any unusual situation where too long a stare would be embarrassing. When we see an interracial couple, we also use this technique. We might use it when we see a man with an unusual beard, with extra longhair, with outlandish clothes, or a girl with a minimal miniskirt may attract this look-and-away． E．For this passing encounter Dr. Erving Goffman in behavior in public places says that the quick look and the lowering ofthe eyes is body language for, “I trust you. I am not afraid of you. ” F．Sometimes the rules are hard to follow, particularly if one of the two people wears dark glasses. With unfamiliar human beings, when we acknowledge their humanness, we must avoid staring at them, and yet we must also avoid ignoring them. To make them into people rather than objects, we use a deliberate and polite inattention. We look at them long enough to, make it quite clear that we see them, and then we immediately look away. 66．______ The important thing in such an exchange is that we do not catch the eye of one whom we are recognizing as a person. We look at him without locking glances, and then we immediately look away. Recognition is not permitted. 67．______ If you pass someone in the street, you may eye the oncoming person until you are about eight feet apart, then you must look away as you pass. Before the eight-foot distance is reached, each will signal in which direction he will pass. This is done with a brief look in that direction. Each will veer slightly and the passing is done smoothly. 68．______ To strengthen this signal, you look directly at the other's face before looking away. 69．______ It becomes impossible to discover just what they are doing. Are they looking at you too long, too intently? Are they looking at you at all? The person wearing the glasses feels protected and assumes that he can stare without being noticed in his staring. However, this is a self-deception. To the other person, dark glasses seem to indicate that the wearer is always staring at him. We often use this look-away technique when we meet famous people. We want to assure them we are respecting their privacy and that we would not dream of staring at them. The same is true of the crippled or physically handicapped. We look brief and then look away before the stare can be said to be a stare. 70．______ Of course, the opposite is also true. If we wish to put a person down, we may do so by staring longer than is acceptably polite. Instead of dropping our gazes when we lock glances, we continue to stare. The person who disapproves of interracial marriages or dating will stare rudely at the interracial couple. If he dislikes long hair, short dresses, or beards, he may show it with a longer-than-acceptable stare.

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

单选题Questions 4--8 Answer the following questions by using NO MORE THAN three words.

单选题At dawn one morning in early May, Sean Cosgrove is stashing piles of maps, notes and photocopied documents in his gym bag before heading for West Milford High, a rural school in northernmost New Jersey. On his 30-minute commute, the young former investment banker tries to dream up new ways of lifting the monumentally forgettable Mexican War off the textbook page and into his students' imaginations. Can he invoke the storied memories of Robert E. Lee, who cut his first military exploits on the plains of Veracuz—or will he be met with thundering responses of "Who's Lee"? Should he raise James K. Polk out of the mystic chords of memory, and hope, for a nanosecond, that the kids will care about the first U. S. president who stepped aside because he'd accomplished everything he wanted? Let's think some more. Well, there's always the Alamo. And hey, isn't that the teachers' parking lot up ahead? It's never an easy task. These big kids in big jeans and ball caps, come to his history classes believing that history is about as useful as Latin. Most are either unaware or unimpressed that the area's iron forges once produced artillery cannon for George Washington's army. Their sense of history orbits more narrowly around last month's adventures on "Shop Rite Strip", the students' nickname for downtown West Milford, once a factory town, now a Magnet for middle-class vacationers. Cosgrove looks uncommonly glum as he thumbs through a stack of exams in the teachers' lounge. "I can't believe anyone in my class could think John Brown was the governor of Massachusetts," moans Cosgrove, 28, pointing to one student's test paper. He had to be sleeping for days on end. The same morning, students in his college bound class could name only one U. S. Supreme Court justice—Clarence Thomas. All his wit, energy and beyond-the-textbook research can't completely reverse the students' poor preparation in history, their lack of general knowledge, their numbness to the outside world. It's the bane of history teachers at every level. When University of Vermont professor James Loewen asked his senior social-science majors who fought in the Vietnam War, 22 percent answered North and South Korea. Don't these kids even go to the movies?

单选题Concern with money, and then more money, in order to buy the conveniences and luxuries of modem life, has brought great changes to the lives of most Frenchmen. More people are working than ever before in France. In the cities the traditional leisurely midday meal is disappearing. Offices, shops, and factories are discovering the greater efficiency of a short lunch hour in company lunchrooms. In almost all lines of work emphasis now falls on ever-increasing output. Thus the "typical" Frenchman produces more, earns more, and buys more consumer goods than his counterpart of only a generation ago. He gains in creature comforts and ease of life. What he loses to some extent is his sense of personal uniqueness, or individuality. Some say that France has been Americanized. This is because the United States is a world symbol of the technological society and its consumer products. The so-called Americanization of France has its critics. They fear that "assembly-line life" will lead to the disappearance of the pleasures of the more graceful and leisurely (but less productive) old French style. What will happen, they ask, to taste, elegance, rind the cultivation of the good things in life—to joy in the smell of a freshly picked apple, a stroll by the river, or just happy hours of conversation in a local cafe? Since the late 1950"s life in France has indeed taken on qualities of rush, tension, and the pursuit of material gain. Some of the strongest critics of the new way of life are the young, especially university students. They are concerned with the future, and they fear that France is threatened by the triumph of this competitive, goods-oriented culture. Occasionally, they have reacted against the trend with considerable violence. In spite of the critics, however, countless Frenchmen are committed to keeping France in the forefront of the modern economic world. They find that the present life brings more rewards, conveniences, and pleasures than that of the past. They believe that a modern, industrial France is preferable to the old.