单选题The car pollutes, but advances in fuel quality and efficiency, and in micropro-cessed engine technology, have radically cut______.

单选题It is predicted that heavy rains are ______ to flood the area in a few days.

单选题If businessmen are taxed too much, they will no longer be motivated to work hard, with the result that incomes from taxation might actually ______.

单选题In the Pacific Northwest, as climate and topography vary, so do the species that prevail in the forests.

单选题Some linguists believe that the ______ age for children learning a foreign language is 5 to 8.

单选题Which of the following questions does the passage seek to answer?

单选题Frederica Von Stade has sung in opera houses throughout the United States and abroad. A. on the radio B. on recordings C. in private home D. in other countries

单选题Perhaps more than anything else, it was {{U}}onerous{{/U}} taxes that led to the Peasants' Revolt in England in 1381.

单选题His trick convinced none but the most ______.

单选题The moon may be considered a world that is complete in itself yet utterly dead, a sterile, mountainous waste on which (during the day) the sun (blazes down) with great heat, but on which during the night the cold is so intense that it (far) surpasses anything ever (experiencing) on the earth.

单选题Maisie had always thought of herself as being shy and______, and was surprised that anyone should ask her opinion.

单选题Most people think of lions as strictly African beasts, but only because they"ve been killed off almost everywhere else. Ten thousand years ago lions spanned vast sections of the globe. Now lions hold only a small fraction of their former habitat, and Asiatic lions, a subspecies that spit from African lions perhaps 100,000 years ago, hang on to an almost impossibly small slice of their former territory. India is the proud steward of these 300 or so lions, which live primarily in a 560-square-mile sanctuary (保护区). It took me a year and a half to get a permit to explore the entire Gir Forest—and no time at all to see why these lions became symbols of royalty and greatness. A tiger will hide in the forest unseen, but a lion stands its ground, curious and unafraid—lionhearted. Though they told me in subtle ways when I got too close, Gir"s lions allowed me unique glimpses into their lives during my three months in the forest. It"s odd to think that they are threatened by extinction; Gir has as many lions as it can hold—too many, in fact. With territory in short supply, lions move about near the boundary of the forest and even leave it altogether, often clashing with people. That"s one reason India is creating a second sanctuary. There are other pressing reasons: outbreaks of disease or natural disasters. In 1994 a serious disease killed more than a third of Africa"s Serengeti lions—a thousand animals—a fate that could easily happen to Gir"s cats. These lions are especially vulnerable to disease because they descend from as few as a dozen individuals. "If you do a DNA test, Asiatic lions actually look like identical twins," says Stephen O"Brien, a geneticist (基因学家) who has studied them. Yet the dangers are hidden, and you wouldn"t suspect them by watching these lords of the forest. The lions display vitality, and no small measure of charm. Though the gentle intimacy of play vanishes when it"s time to eat, meals in Gir are not necessarily frantic affairs. For a mother and her baby lion sharing a deer, or a young male eating an antelope (羚羊). There"s no need to fight for a cut of the kill. The animals they hunt for food are generally smaller in Gir than those in Africa, and hunting groups tend to be smaller as well.

单选题The "work ethic" referred to in the first paragraph can be interpreted as ______.

单选题It was 3:45 in the morning when the vote was finally taken. After six months of arguing and final 16 hours of hot parliamentary debates, Australia's Northern Territory became the first legal authority in the world to allow doctors to take the lives of incurably ill patients who wish to die. The measure passed by the convincing vote of 15 to 10. Almost immediately word flashed on the Internet and was picked up, half a world away, by John Hofsess, executive director of the Right to Die Society of Canada. He sent it on via the group's on line service, Death NET. Says Hofsess: "We posted bulletins all day long, because of course this isn't just something that happened in Australia. It's world history." The full import may take a while to sink in. The NT Rights of the Terminally III law has left physicians and citizens alike trying to deal with its moral and practical implications. Some have breathed sighs of relief, others, including churches, right to life groups and the Australian Medical Association, bitterly attacked the bill and the haste of its passage. But the tide is unlikely to turn back. In Australia — where an aging population, life extending technology and changing community attitudes have all played their part—other states are going to consider making a similar law to deal with euthanasia In the U.S. and Canada, where the right to die movement is gathering strength, observers are waiting for the dominoes to start falling. Under the new Northern Territory law, an adult patient can request death—probably by a deadly injection or pill—to put an end to suffering. The patient must be diagnosed as terminally ill by two doctors. After a "cooling off" period of seven days, the patient can sign a certificate of request. After 48 hours the wish for death can be met. For Lloyd Nickson, a 54 year old Darwin resident suffering from lung cancer, the NT Rights of Terminally III law means he can get on with living without the haunting fear of his suffering: a terrifying death from his breathing condition. "I'm not afraid of dying from a spiritual point of view, but what I was afraid of was how I'd go, because I've watched people die in the hospital fighting for oxygen and clawing at their masks," he says.

单选题Research shows that many voters who haven't yet made up their minds are ______towards the Democrats.

单选题He was a generous friend but as a businessman he______a hard bargain.

单选题With the boss out sick, the bookkeeper is______in charge.

单选题The camps are not usually tent-tupe camps. They are mostly long-established ______ structures, often with strange Indian names.

单选题World Trade Organization Director-general Renato Ruggiero predicted that the WTO would boost global incomes by $ 1 trillion in the next ten years. The pact paves the way for more foreign investment and competition in telecom markets. Many governments are making telecom deregulation a priority and making it easier for outsiders to enter the telecommunication business. The pace varies widely. The U. S. and Britain are well ahead of the pack, while Thailand won't be fully open until 2006. Only 20% of the $ 601 billion world market is currently open to competition. That should jump to about 75% in a couple of years—largely due to the Telecom Act in the U. S. last year that deregulated local markets, the opening up of the European Union's markets from Jan. 1, 1998 and the deregulation in Japan. The WTO deal now provides a forum for the inevitable disputes along the way. It is also symbolic: the first major trade agreement of the post-industrial age. Instead of being obsessed with textile quotas, the WTO pact is proof that governments are realizing that in an information age, telecom is the oil and steel of economies in the future. Businesses around the world are already spending more in total on telecom services than they do on oil. Consumers, meanwhile, can look forward to a future of lower prices—by some estimates, international calling rates should drop 80% over several years—and better service. Thanks in part to the vastly increased call volume carded by the fiber-optic cables that span the globe today, calling half a world away already costs little more than telephoning next door. The monopolies can no longer set high prices for international calls in many countries. In the U. S. , the world's most fiercely competitive long distance market, frequent callers since last year have been paying about 12 cents a minute to call Britain, a price not much more than domestic rates. The new competitive environment on the horizon means more opportunities for companies from the U. S. and U. K. in particular because they have plenty of practice at the rough-and-tumble of free markets. The U. S. lobbied hard for the WTO deal, confident that its firms would be big beneficiaries of more open markets. Britain has been deregulated since 1984 but will see even more competition than before: in December, the government issued 45 new international licenses to join British Telecom so that it will become a strong competitor in the international market. However, the once-cosseted industry will get rougher worldwide. Returns on capital will come down. Risks will go up. That is how free markets work. It will look like any other business.

单选题If I hadn't stood under the ladder to catch you when you fell, you______now.