单选题{{B}}Passage Three{{/B}} The word science is heard so often in modern times that almost everybody has some notion of its meaning. On the other hand, its definition is difficult for many people. The meaning of the term is confused, but everyone should understand its meaning and objectives. Just to make the explanation as simple as possible, suppose science is defined as classified knowledge (facts). Even in the true sciences distinguishing fact from fiction is not always easy. For this reason great care should be taken to distinguish between beliefs and truths. There is no danger as long as a clear difference is made between temporary and proved explanations. For example, hypotheses and theories are attempts to explain natural phenomena. From these positions the scientist continues to experiment and observe until they are proved or discredited. The exact statue of any explanation should be clearly labeled to avoid confusion. The objectives of science are primarily the discovery and the subsequent understanding of the unknown. Man cannot be satisfied with recognizing that secrets exist in nature or that questions are unanswerable; he must solve them. Toward that end specialists in the field of biology and related fields of interest are directing much of their time and energy. Actually, two basic approaches lead to the discovery of new information. One, aimed at satisfying curiosity, is referred to as pure science. The other is aimed at using knowledge for specific purposes—for instance, improving health, raising standards of living, or creating new consumer products. In this case knowledge is put to economic use. Such an approach is referred to as applied science. Sometimes practical-minded people miss the point of pure science in thinking only of its immediate application for economic rewards. Chemists responsible for many of the discoveries could hardly have anticipated that their findings would one day result in application of such a practical nature as those directly related to life and death. The discoveries of one bit of information opens the door to the discovery of another. Some discoveries seem so simple that one is amazed they were not made years ago; however, one should remember that the 'construction of the microscope had to precede the discovery of the cell. The host of scientists dedicating their lives to pure science are not apologetic about ignoring the practical side of their discoveries; they know from experience that most knowledge is eventually applied.

单选题The Gymnasium was______by April 2014, but now the wall was still nowhere in sight.

单选题One of the real services of the historical novel is not that it can be a substitute for history, but that it can be a(n) extension.

单选题The writer thinks that cloning is wrong ______.

单选题Although the false banknotes fooled many people, they did not ______ close examination.

单选题The author was surprised to hear the calls to prayer because ______.

单选题A stateless young man may have felt______ after having been denied asylum and right of residence by many countries.(2003年中国社会科学院考博试题)

单选题Tom ran from the house in a terrible rage, his arms ______ in the air. A. overriding B. flailing C. overacting D. forsaking

单选题{{B}}Passage Four{{/B}} The study of philosophies should make our own ideas flexible. We are all of us apt to take certain general ideas for granted, and call them common sense. We should learn that other people have held quite different ideas, and that our own have started as very original guesses of philosophers. A scientist is apt to think that all the problems of philosophy will ultimately be solved by science. I think this is true for a great many of the questions on which philosophers still argue. For example, Plato thought that when we saw something, one ray of light came to it from the sun, and another from our eyes and that seeing was something like feeling with a stick. We now know that the light comes from the sun, and is reflected into our eyes. We don't know in much detail how the changes in our eyes give rise to sensation. But there is every reason to think that as we learn more about the physiology of the brain, we shall do so, and that the great philosophical problems about knowledge are going to be pretty fully cleared up. But if our descendants know the answers to these questions and others that perplex us today, there will still be one field of which they do not know, namely the future. However exact our science; we cannot know it as we know the past. Philosophy may be described as argument about things of which we are ignorant. And where science gives us a hope of knowledge it is often reasonable to suspend judgment. That is one reason why Marx and Engels quite rightly wrote to many philosophical problems that interested their contemporaries. But we have got to prepare for the future, and we cannot do so rationally without some philosophy. Some people say we have only got to do the duties revealed in the past and laid down by religion, and god will look after the future. Others say that the world is a machine and the course of future events is certain, whatever efforts we may make. Marxists say that the future depends on ourselves, even though we are part of the historical process. This philosophical view certainly does inspire people to wry great achievements. Whether it is true or not, it is powerful guide to action. We need a philosophy, then, to help us to tackle the future. Agnosticism easily becomes an excuse for laziness and conservatism. Whether we adopt Marxism or any other philosophy, we cannot understand it without knowing something of how it developed. That is why knowledge of the history of philosophy is important to Marxists, even during the present critical days.

单选题In recent years, railroads have been combining with each other, merging into super systems, causing heightened concerns about monopoly. As recently as 1995, the top four railroads accounted for under 70 percent of the total ton-miles moved by rails. Next year, after a series of mergers is completed, just four railroads will control well over 90 percent of all the freight moved by major rail carriers. Supporters of the new super systems argue that these mergers will allow for substantial cost reductions and better coordinated service. Any threat of monopoly, they argue, is removed by fierce competition from trucks. But many shippers complain that for heavy bulk commodities traveling long distances, such as coal, chemicals, and grain, trucking is too costly and the railroads therefore have them by the throat. The vast consolidation within the rail industry means that most shippers are served by only one rail company. Railroads typically charge such "captive" shippers 20 to 30 percent more than they do when another railroad is competing for the business. Shippers who feel they are being overcharged have the right to appeal to the federal government's Surface Transportation Board for rate relief, but the process is expensive, time consuming, and will work only in truly extreme cases. Railroads justify rate discrimination against captive shippers on the grounds that in the long run it reduces everyone's cost. If railroads charged all customers the same average rate, they argue, shippers who have the option of switching to trucks or other forms of transportation would do so, leaving remaining customers to shoulder the cost of keeping up the line. It's theory to which many economists subscribe, but in practice it often leaves railroads in the position of determining which companies will flourish and which will fail. "Do we really want railroads to be the arbiters of who wins and who loses in the marketplace?" asks Martin Bercovici, a Washington lawyer who frequently represents shipper. Many captive shippers also worry they will soon be hit with a round of huge rate increases. The railroad industry as a whole, despite its brightening fortunes, still does not earn enough to cover the cost of the capital it must invest to keep up with its surging traffic. Yet railroads continue to borrow billions to acquire one another, with Wall Street cheering them on. Consider the 1.02 billion bid by Norfolk Southern and CSX to acquire Conrail this year. Conrail's net railway operating income in 1996 was just 427 million, less than half of the carrying costs of the transaction. Who's going to pay for the rest of the bill? Many captive shippers fear that they will, as Norfolk Southern and CSX increase their grip on the market.

单选题The producers of instant coffee found their product strongly resisted in the market places despite their manifest advantages. Furthermore, the advertising expenditure for instant coffee was far greater than that for regular coffee. Efforts were made to find the cause of the consumers" seemingly unreasonable resistance to the product. The reason given by most people was dislike for the taste. The producers suspected that there might be deeper reasons, however. This was confirmed by one of motivation research"s classic studies, one often cited in the trade. Mason Haire, of the University of California, constructed two shopping lists that were identical except for one item. There were six items common to both lists: hamburger, carrots, baking powder, bread, canned peaches and potatoes, with the brands or amounts specified. The seventh item, in the fifth place on both lists, read "I lb. Maxwell House coffee" on one list and "Nescafe instant coffee" on the other. One list was given to each person in a group of fifty women, and the other list to those in another group of the same size. The women were asked to study their lists and then to describe, as far as they could, the kind of woman ("personality and character") who would draw up that shopping list. Nearly half of those who had received the list including instant coffee described a housewife who was lazy and a poor planner. On the other hand, only one woman in the other group described the housewife, who had included regular coffee on her list, as lazy, only six of that group suggested that she was a poor planner. Eight women felt that the instant-coffee user was probably not a good wife! No one in the other group drew such a conclusion about the housewife who intended to buy regular coffee.

单选题The development of the English language falls into three reasonably ______periods: Old English, Middle English, and Modern English.

单选题The new teacher was ______ to the needs of all the children in her care. A. attentive C. earnest C. careful D. observant

单选题3 Psychologist George Spilich and colleagues at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, decided to find out whether, as many smokers say, smoking helps them to "think and concentrate. " Spilich put young non-smokers, active smokers and smokers de prived (被剥夺) of cigarettes through a series of tests. In the first test, each subject (实验对象) sat before a computer screen and pressed a key as soon as he or she recognized a target letter among a grouping of 96. In this simple test, smokers, deprived smokers and nonsmokers performed equally well. The next test was more complex, requiring all to scan sequences of 20 identical letters and respond the instant one of the letters was transformed into a different one. Non-smok ers were faster, but under the stimulation of nicotine (尼古丁), active smokers were fas ter than deprived smokers. In the third test of short-term memory, non-smokers made the fewest errors, but de prived smokers committed fewer errors than active smokers. The fourth test required people to read a passage, then answer questions about it. Non-smokers remembered 19 percent more of the most important information than active smokers, and deprived smokers bested those who had smoked a cigarette just before testing. Active smokers tended not only to have poorer memories but also had trouble separating important information from insignificant details. "As our tests became more complex," sums up Spilich, "non-smokers performed bet ter than smokers by wider and wider margins. " He predicts, "smokers might perform ad equately at many jobs until they got complicated. A smoking airline pilot could fly ade quately if no problems arose, but if something went wrong, smoking might damage his mental capacity. /

单选题Professor Smith has already retired but his teachings still_____a strong influence on his students.

单选题The Charter had been ratified by a majority of the participants who were the ones that asked for its draft.

单选题From Dr. Dustan's study we can infer that______.

单选题There are exceptions to the rule of male insects being smaller than the females, and some of these exceptions are intelligible. Size and strength would be an advantage to the males which fight for the possession of the females, and in these cases, as with the stag-beetle (Lucanus), the males are larger than the females. There are, however, other beetles which are not known to fight together, of which the males exceed the females in size, and the meaning of this fact is not known, but in some of these cases, as with the huge Dynastes and Megasoma, we can at least see that there would be no necessity for the males to be smaller than the females, in order to be matured before them, for these beetles are not short-lived, and there would be ample time for the pairing of the sexes.