单选题Extraordinary creative activity has been characterized as revolutionary, flying in the face of what is established and producing not what is acceptable but what will become accepted. According to this formulation, highly creative activity transcends the limits of an existing form and establishes a new principle of organization. However, the idea that extraordinary creativity transcends established limits is misleading when it is applied to the arts, even though it may be valid for the sciences. Differences between highly creative art and highly creative science arise in part from a difference in their goals. For the sciences, a new theory is the goal and end result of the creative act. Innovative science produces new propositions in terms of which diverse phenomena can be related to one another in more coherent ways. Such phenomena as a brilliant diamond or a nesting bird are relegated to the role of data, serving as the means for formulating or testing a new theory. The goal of highly creative art is very different: the phenomenon itself becomes the direct product of the creative act. Shakespeare' s Hamlet is not a tract about the behavior of indecisive princes or the uses of political power, nor is Picasso' s painting Guernica primarily a propositional statement about the Spanish Civil War or the evils of fascism. What highly creative artistic activity produces is not a new generalization that transcends established limits, but rather an aesthetic particular. Aesthetic particulars produced by the highly creative artist extend or exploit, in an innovative way, the limits of an existing form, rather than transcend that form. This is not to deny that a highly creative artist sometimes establishes a new principle of organization in the history of an artistic field; the composer Monteverdi, who created music of the highest aesthetic value, comes to mind. More generally, however, whether or not a composition establishes a new principle in the history of music has little bearing on its aesthetic worth. Because they embody a new principle of organization, some musical works, such as the operas of Florentine Cnmerata, are of signal historical importance, but few listeners or musicologists would include these among the great works of music. On the other hand, Mozart' s The Marriage of Figaro is surely among the masterpieces of music even though its modest innovations are confined to extending means. It bas been said of Beethoven that he toppled the rules and freed music from the stifling confines of convention. But a close study of his compositions reveals that Beethoven overturned no fundamental rules. Rather, he was an incomparable strategist who exploited limits— the rules, forms, and conventions that he inherited from predecessors such as taydn and Mozart, Handel and Bach—in strikingly original ways.

单选题When we listen to music, we are easily ______ of events in the past.

单选题{{B}}Passage 3{{/B}} The Greek's lofty attitude toward scientific research—and the scientists' contempt of utility—was a long time dying. For a millennium after Archimedes, this separation of mechanics from geometry inhibited fundamental technological progress and in some areas repressed it altogether. But there was a still greater obstacle to change until the very end of the middle ages: the organization of society. The social system of fixed class relationships that prevailed through the Middle Ages (and in some areas much longer) itself hampered improvement. Under this system, the laboring masses, in exchange for the bare necessities of life, did all the productive work, while the privileged few—priests, nobles, and kings—concerned themselves only with ownership and maintenance of their own position. In the interest of their privileges they did achieve considerable progress in defense, in warmaking, in government, in trader in the arts of leisure, and in the extraction of labor from their dependents, but they had no familiarity with the process of production. On the other hand, the laborers, who were familiar with manufacturing techniques, had no incentive to improve or increase production to the advantage of their masters. Thus, with one class possessing the requisite knowledge and experience, but lacking incentive and leisure, and the other class lacking the knowledge and experience, there was no means by which technical progress could be achieved. The whole ancient world was built upon this relationship—a relationship as sterile as it was inhuman. The availability of slaves nullified the need for more efficient machinery. In many of the conmonplace fields of human endeavor, actual stagnation prevailed for thousands of years. Not all the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome could develop the windmill or contrive so simple an instrument as the wheelbarrow—products of the tenth and thirteenth centuries respectively. For about twenty-five centuries, two-thirds of the power of the horse was lost because he wasn't shod, and much of the strength of the ox was wasted because his harness wasn't modified to fit his shoulders. For more than five thousand years, sailors were confined to rivers and coasts by a primitive steering mechanism which required remarkably little alteration (in the thirteenth century) to become a rudder. With any ingenuity at all, the ancient plough could have been put on wheels and the ploughshare shaped to bite and turn the sod instead of merely scratching it—but the ingenuity wasn't forthcoming. And the villager of the Middle Ages, like the men who first had fire, had a smoke hole in the center of the straw and reed thatched roof of his one-room dwelling (which he shared with his animals), while the medieval charcoal burner (like his Stone Age ancestor) made himself a hut of small branches.

单选题The term "New Australians" came into vogue in the 50s and 60s, which implied that the goal of immigration was assimilation and that migrants would place their new-found Australian identity ahead of the ______ context from which they had come.

单选题For companies, the threat of drive-by hacking seems set to grow as software programs assisting hackers proliferate on the Internet.

单选题Some of the concerns surrounding Turkey's application to join the European Union, to be voted on by the EU's Council of Ministers on December 17th, are economic — in particular, the country's relative poverty. Its GDP per head is less than a third of the average for the 15 pre-2004 members of the EU. But it is not far off that of one of the ten new members which joined on May 1st 2004(Latvia), and it is much the same as those of two countries, Bulgaria and Romania, which this week concluded accession talks with the EU that could make them full members on January 1st 2007. Furthermore, the country's recent economic progress has been, according to Donald Johnston, the secretary-general of the OECD, " stunning". GDP in the second quarter of the year was 13. 4% higher than a year earlier, a rate of growth that no EU country comes close to matching. Turkey's inflation rate has just fallen into single figures for the first time since 1972, and this week the country reached agreement with the IMF on a new three-year, $ 10 billion economic programme that will, according to the IMF's managing director, Rodrigo Rato, "help Turkey... reduce inflation toward European levels, and enhance the economy's resilience". Resilience has not historically been the country's economic strong point. As recently as 2001, GDP fell by over 7% . It fell by more than 5% in 1994, and by just under 5% in 1999. Indeed, throughout the 1990s growth oscillated like an electrocardiogram recording a violent heart attack. This irregularity has been one of the main reasons(along with red tape and corruption)why the country has failed dismally to attract much-needed foreign direct investment. Its stock of such investment(as a percentage of GDP)is lower now than it was in the 1980s, and annual inflows have scarcely ever reached $ 1 billion(whereas Ireland attracted over $ 25 billion in 2003, as did Brazil in every year from 1998 to 2000). One deterrent to foreign investors is due to disappear on January 1st 2005. On that day, Turkey will take away the right of virtually every one of its citizens to call themselves a millionaire. Six noughts will be removed from the face value of the lira; one unit of the local currency will henceforth be worth what lm are now—ie, about 0. 53euro($ 0. 70). Goods will have to be priced in both the new and old lira for the whole of the year, but foreign bankers and investors can begin to look forward to a time in Turkey when they will no longer have to juggle mentally with indeterminate strings of zeros.

单选题The consumer______in recent years has led to an explosion of shopping center development in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Canton.(厦门大学2012年试题)

单选题The ______ of his profession do not permit him to do that.

单选题Statuses are marvelous human inventions that enable us to get along with one another and to determine where we "fit" in society. As we go about our everyday lives, we mentally attempt to place people in terms of their statuses. For example, we must judge whether the person in the library is a reader or a librarian, whether the telephone caller is a friend or a salesman, whether the unfamiliar person on our property is thief or a meter reader, and so on. The statuses we assume often vary with the people we encounter, and change throughout life. Most of us can, at very high speed, assume the statuses that various situations require. Much of social interaction consists of identifying and selecting among appropriate statuses and allowing other people to assume their statuses in relation to us. This means that we fit our actions to those of other people based on a constant mental process of appraisal and interpretation. Although some of us find the task more difficult than others, most of us perform it rather effortlessly. A status has been compared to ready-made clothes. Within certain limits, the buyer can choose style and fabric. But an American is not free to choose the costume of a Chinese peasant or that of a Hindu prince. We must choose from among the clothing presented by our society. Furthermore, our choice is limited to a size that will fit, as well as by our pocketbook. Having made a choice within these limits we can have certain alterations made, but apart from minor adjustments, we tend to be limited to what the stores have on their racks. Statuses too come ready made, and the range of choice among them is limited.

单选题People of all countries are expected to ______ the principles of the United Nations and defend the peace in the world.

单选题How about a glass of orange juice to______your thirst?

单选题During the construction of skyscrapers, cranes are used to______ building materials to the upper floors.(2011年四川大学考博试题)

单选题Language, culture, and personality may be considered ______ of each other in thought, but they are inseparable in fact.(2010年厦门大学考博试题)

单选题The role of American women______significantly from the time the nation was born, to the modern era of the 1950s and 1960s.

单选题The book gives a brief______off the course of his research up till now.

单选题According to the old-timers, on two occasions ______.

单选题The new law allows you to ______ payment if you think a bill is incorrect.

单选题Typically, these children of Democrats switched ______ and joined the Republican Party during the 1980s.