单选题Between the invention of agriculture and the commercial revolution that marked the end of the Middle Ages, wealth and technology developed slowly indeed. Medieval historians tell of the centuries it took for key inventions like the watermill or the heavy plow to diffuse across the landscape. During this period, increases in technology led to increases in the population, with little if any appearing as an improvement in the median standard of living. Even the first century of the industrial revolution produced more "improvements" than "revolutions" in standards of living. With the railroad and the spinning and weaving of textiles as important exceptions, most innovations of that period were innovations in how goods were produced and transported, and in new kinds of capital, but not in consumer goods. Standards of living improved but styles of life remained much the same. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw a faster and different kind of change. For the first time, technological capability outran population growth and natural resource scarcity. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the typical inhabitant of the leading economies—a British, a Belgian, an American, or an Australian had perhaps three times the standard of living of someone in a pre-industrial economy. Still, so slow was the pace of change that people, or at least aristocratic intellectuals, could think of their predecessors of some two thousand years before as effectively their contemporaries. Marcus Tullius Cicero, a Roman aristocrat and politician, might have felt more or less at home in the company of Thomas Jefferson. The plows were better in Jefferson's time. Sailing ships were much improved. However, these might have been insufficient to create a sense of a qualitative change in the order of life for the elite. Moreover, being a slave of Jefferson was probably a lot like being a slave of Cicero. So slow was the pace of change that intellectuals in the early nineteenth century debated whether the industrial revolution was worthwhile, whether it was an improvement or a degeneration in the standard of living. Opinions were genuinely divided, with as optimistic a liberal as John Stuart Mill coming down on the "pessimist" side as late as the end of the 1840s. In the twentieth century, however, standards of living exploded. In the twentieth century, the magnitude of the growth in material wealth has been so great as to make it nearly impossible to measure. Consider a sample of consumer goods available through Montgomery Ward in 1895 when a one-speed bicycle cost $65. Since then, the price of a bicycle measured in "nominal" dollars has more than doubled (as a result of inflation). Today, the bicycle is much less expensive in terms of the measure that truly counts, its "real" price: the work and sweat needed to earn its east. In 1895, it took perhaps 260 hours' worth of the average American worker's production to amass enough money to buy a one-speed bicycle. Today an average American worker can buy one—and of higher quality—for less than 8 hours worth of production. On the bicycle standard (measuring wealth by counting up how many bicycles the labor can buy) the average American worker today is 36 times richer than his or her counterpart was in 1895. Other commodities would tell a different story. An office chair has become 12.5 times cheaper in terms of the time it takes the average worker to produce enough to pay for it. A Steinway piano or an accordion is only twice as cheap. A silver teaspoon is 25 percent more expensive. Thus the answer to the question "How much wealthier are we today than our counterparts of a century ago?" depends on which commodities you view as important. For many personal services—having a butler to answer the door and polish your silver spoons—you would find little difference in average wealth between 1895 and 1990: an hour of a butler's time costs about the same then as now. For mass-produced manufactured goods—like bicycles—we are wealthier by as much as 36 times.

单选题According to the passage, the risk of infection from airborne microorganisms would likely be greater during a ______.

单选题It is rather______that we still do not know how many species there are in the world today.

单选题I would have gone to the lecture with you ______ I was so busy.

单选题Countries within the European Economic Community grant certain commercial ______ to each other.

单选题All cultures have some system of measuring duration, or keeping time, but in Western industrialized societies, we keep track of time in what seems to other peoples almost an obsessive fashion. We view time as motion on a space, a kind of linear progression measured by the clock and the calendar. This perception contributes to our sense of history and the keeping of records, which are typical aspects of Western cultures. Although our perceptions of time seem natural to us, we must not assume that other cultures operate on the same time system. For instance, why should we assume that a Hopi raised in the Hopi culture would have the same intuitions about time that we have? In Hopi history, if records had been written, we would find a different set of cultural and environmental influences working together. The Hopi people are a peaceful agricultural society isolated by geographic feature and nomad enemies in a land of little rainfall. Their agriculture is successful only by the greatest perseverance. Extensive preparations are needed to ensure crop growth. Thus the Hopi value persistence and repetition in activity. They have a sense of the cumulative value of numerous, small, repeated movements, for to them such movements are not wasted but are stored up to make changes in later events. The Hopi have no intuition of time as motion, as a smooth flowing line on which everything in the universe proceeds at an equal rate away from a past, through a present, into a foreseeable future. Long and careful study of the Hopi language has revealed that it contains no words, grammatical forms, constructions, or expressions that refer to what we call time-the past, present, or future-or to the duration or lasting aspect of time. To the Hopi, "time" is a "getting later" of everything that has been done, so that past and present merge together. The Hopi do not speak, as we do in English, of a "new day" or "another day" coming every twenty-four hours; among the Hopi, the return of the day is like the return of a person, a little older but with all the characteristics of yesterday. This Hopi conception, with its emphasis on the repetitive aspect of time rather than its onward flow, may be clearly seen in their ritual dances for rain and good crops, in which the basic step is a short, quick stamping of the foot repeated thousands of times, hour after hour. Of course, the American conception of time is significantly different from that of the Hopi. Americans" understanding of time is typical of Western cultures in general and industrialized societies in particular. Americans view time as a commodity, as a "thing" that can be saved, spent, or wasted. We budget our time as we budget our money. We even say, "Time is money", We are concerned in America with being "on time"; We don"t like to "waste" time by waiting for someone who is late or by repeating information; and we like to "spend" time wisely by keeping busy. These statements all sound natural to a North American. In fact, we think, how could it be otherwise? It is difficult for us not to be irritated by the apparent carelessness about time in other cultures. For example, individuals in other countries frequently turn up an hour or more late for an appointment-although "being late" is at least within our cultural framework. For instance, how can we begin to enter the cultural world of the Sioux, in which there is no word for "late" or "waiting". Of course, the fact is that we have not had to enter the Sioux culture; the Sioux have had to enter ours. It is only when we participate in other cultures on their terms that we can begin to see the cultural patterning of time.

单选题Modern artists often need financial support but they have difficulty in finding wealthy______.

单选题Most patients respond to the awareness that they have a terminal illness with the statement, "Oh no, this can"t happen to me." After the first shock, numbness, and need to deny the reality of the situation, the patient begins to send out cues that he is ready to "talk about it". If we, at that point, need to deny the reality of the situation, the patient will often feel deserted, isolated, and lonely and unable to communicate with another human being what he needs so desperately to share. Most patients who have passed the stage will become angry as they ask the question, "Why me?" Many look at others in their environment and express envy, jealousy, anger, and rage toward those who are young, healthy, and full of life. These are the patients who make life difficult for nurses, physicians, social workers, clergymen, and members of their families. Without justification they criticize everyone. What we have to learn is that the stage in terminal illness is a blessing, not a cure. These patients are not angry at their families or at the members of the helping professions. Rather, they are angry at what these people represent: health and energy. Without being judgmental, we must allow these patients to express their anger and dismay. We must try to understand that the patients have to ask, "Why me?" and that there is no need on our part to answer this question concretely. Once a patient has ventilated his rage and his envy, then he can arrive at the bargaining stage. During this time, he"s usually able to say, "Yes, it is happening to me—but". The "but" usually includes a prayer to God: "If you give me one more year to live, I will be a good Christian."

单选题Although the end of the term was close______, Jim had not completed all of the projects he had hoped to finish. A. on hand B.b.y hand C. at hand D. in hand

单选题Dr. White, who is ______ to be one of the best surgeons in London, performed the operation and successfully removed the tumor in her lungs.

单选题By the end of the nineteenth century, cities were reimbursing private hospitals for their care of ______ patients and the public hospitals remained dependent on the tax dollars.

单选题 It is all very well to blame traffic jams, the cost of petrol and the quick pace of modern life, but manners on the roads are becoming horrible. You might tolerate the rude and{{U}} (21) {{/U}}driver, but nowadays the well-mannered motorist is the{{U}} (22) {{/U}}to the rule. Perhaps the situation{{U}} (23) {{/U}}a "Be Kind to Other Drivers" campaign,{{U}} (24) {{/U}}, it may get completely out of hand. Road politeness is not only good manners, but good{{U}} (25) {{/U}}too. It takes the most cool-headed and good-tempered drivers to resist the temptation to revenge when{{U}} (26) {{/U}}uncivilized behaviors.On the other hand, a little politeness goes a long way towards{{U}} (27) {{/U}}the tensions of motoring. A friendly nod or a wave of acknowledgement{{U}} (28) {{/U}}an act of politeness helps to create an atmosphere of goodwill and tolerance so{{U}} (29) {{/U}}in modern traffic conditions. But such acknowledgements of politeness are{{U}} (30) {{/U}}rare today. Many drivers nowadays aren't even able to recognize politeness when they see it. However, improper politeness can also be{{U}} (31) {{/U}}A typical example is the driver who waves a child across a crossing into the path of oncoming vehicles{{U}} (32) {{/U}}may be unable to stop in time. The same{{U}} (33) {{/U}}encouraging old ladies to cross the road wherever and{{U}} (34) {{/U}}they care to. Years ago the experts warned us that the car-ownership explosion would demand a lot more give-and-take from all road users. It is high time that we{{U}} (35) {{/U}}this message to heart.

单选题Bystanders,______,______as they walked past lines of ambulances.(北京大学2006年试题)

单选题The truly incompetent may never know the depths of their own incompetence, a pair of social psychologists said on Thursday. "We found again and again that people who perform poorly relative to their peers tended to think that they did rather well," Justin Kruger, co-author of a study on the subject, said in a telephone interview. Kruger and co-author David Dunning found that when it came to a variety of skills—logical reasoning, grammar, even sense of humor—people who essentially were inept never realized it, while those who had some ability were self-critical. "It had little to do with innate modesty," Kruger said, "but rather with a central paradox: Incompetents lack the basic skills to evaluate their performance realistically. Once they get those skills, they know where they stand，even if that is at the bottom." "Americans and Western Europeans especially had an unrealistically sunny assessment of their own capabilities," Dunning said by telephone in a separate interview, "while Japanese and Koreans tended to give a reasonable assessment of their performance. In certain areas, such as athletic performance, which can be easily quantified, there is less self-delusion, the researchers said. But even in some cases in which the failure should seem obvious, the perpetrator is blithely unaware of the problem." This was especially true in the areas of logical reasoning, where research subjects—students at Cornell University, where the two researchers were based—often rated themselves highly even when they flubbed all questions in a reasoning test. Later, when the students were instructed in logical reasoning, they scored better on a test but rate themselves lower, having learned what constituted competence in this area. Grammar was another area in which objective knowledge was helpful in determining competence, but the more subjective area of humor posed different challenges, the researchers said. Participants were asked to rate how funny certain jokes were, and compare their responses with what an expert panel of comedians thought. On average, participants overestimated their sense of humor by about 16 percentage points. This might be thought of as the "above-average effect", the notion that most Americans would rate themselves as above average, a statistical impossibility. The researchers also conducted pilot studies of doctors and gun enthusiasts. The doctors overestimated how well they had performed on a test of medical diagnoses and the gun fanciers thought they knew more than they actually did about gun safety. So who should be trusted: The person who admits incompetence or the one who shows confidence? Neither, according to Dunning. "You can"t take them at their word. You"ve got to take a look at their performance," Dunning added.

单选题Fromthelastparagraph,weknowthat

单选题Scholarships are too few to ______ the high-school graduates who deserve a college education.

单选题We have at present not any______of the furniture as you required. A. mark B. inventory C. stock D. account