单选题A new catastrophe faces Afghanistan. The American bombing campaign is conspiring with years of civil conflict and drought to create an environmental crisis. Humanitarian and political concerns are dominating the headlines. But they are also masking the disappearance of the country's once rich habitat and wildlife, which are quietly being crashed by war. The UN is dispatching a team of investigators to the region next month to evaluate the damage. "A healthy environment is a prerequisite for rehabitation," says Klaus Topfer, head of the UN Environment Programme. Much of south-east Afghanistan was once lush forest watered by monsoon rains. Forests now cover less than two per cent of the country. "The worst deforestation occurred during Taliban role, when its timber mafia denuded forests to sell to Pakistani markets," says Usman Qazi, an environmental consultant based in Quetta, Pakistan. And the intense bombing intended to flush out the last of the Taliban troops is destroying or burning much of what remains. The refugee crisis is also wrecking the environment, and much damage may be irreversible. Forests and vegetation are being cleared for much-needed fanning, but the gains are likely to be only short-term. "Eventually the land will be unfit for even the most basic form of agriculture," warns Hammad Naqi of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Pakistan. Refugees—around 4 million as the last count—are also cutting into forests for firewood. The hail of bombs falling on Afghanistan is making life particularly hard for the country's wildlife. Birds such as the pelican and endangered Siberian crone cross eastern Afghanistan as they follow one of the world's great migratory thoroughfares from Siberia to Pakistan and India. But the number of the birds flying across the region has dropped by a staggering 85 per cent. "Cranes are very sensitive and they do not use the route if they see any danger," says Ashiq Ahgmad, an environmental scientist for the WWF in Peshawar, Pakistan, who has tracked the collapse of the birds, migration this winter. The rugged mountains also usually provide a safe haven for mountain leopards, gazelles, bears and Marco Polo sheep—the world's largest species. "The same terrain that allows fighters to strike and disappear back into the hills has also historically enabled wildlife to survive," says Peter Zahler of the Wildlife Conservation society, based in New York. But he warns they are now under intense pressure from the bombing and invasions of refugees and fighters. For instance, some refugees are hunting rare snow leopards to buy a safe passage across the border. A single fur can fetch $2, 000 on the black market, says Zahlen Only 5,000 or so snow leopards are thought to survive in central Asia, and less than 100 in Afghanistan, their numbers already decimated by extensive hunting and smuggling into Pakistan before the conflict. Timber, falcons and medicinal plants are also being smuggled across the border. The Taliban once controlled much of this trade, but the recent power vacuum could exacerbate the problem. Bombing will also leave its mark beyond the obvious craters. Defence analysts says that while depleted uranium has been used less in Afghanistan that in the Kosovo conflict, conventional explosives will litter the country with pollutants. They contain toxic compounds such as cyclonite, a carcinogen, and rocket propellants contain perchlorates, which damage thyroid glands.

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单选题The biographer has to dance between two shaky positions with respect to the subject. Too close a relation, and the writer may lose objectivity. Not close enough, and the writer may lack the sympathy necessary to any effort to portray a mind, a soul — the quality of life. Who should write the biography of a family, for example? Because of their closeness to the subject, family members may have special information, but by the same token, they may not have the distance that would allow them to be fair. Similarly, a king's servant might not be the best one to write a biography of that king. But a foreigner might not have the knowledge and sympathy necessary to write the king's biography — not for a readership from within the kingdom, at any rate. There is no ideal position for such a task. The biographer has to work with the position he or she in the world, adjusting that position as necessary to deal with the subject. Every position has strengths and weakness to thrive, a writer must try to become aware of these, evaluate them in terms of the subject, and select a position accordingly. When their subjects are heroes or famous figures, biographies often reveal a democratic motive: they attempt to show that their subjects are only human, no better than anyone else. Other biographies are meant to change us, to invite us to become better than we are. The biographies of Jesus found in the Bible are in this class. Biographers may claim that their account is the "authentic" one. In advancing this claim, they are helped if the biography is "authorized" by the subject; this presumably allows the biographer special access to private information. "Unauthorized" biographies also have their appeal, however, since they can suggest an independence of mind in the biographer. In book promotions, the "unauthorized" characterization usually suggests the prospect of juicy gossip that the subject had hoped to suppress. A subject might have several biographies, even several "authentic" ones. We sense intuitively that no one is in a position to tell "the story of life, perhaps not even the subject", and this has been proved by the history of biography.

单选题What he has done is not in ______ with your instructions.

单选题The crowd swelled in the evening until the noise made by the crowd could be heard for miles.

单选题To prevent flooding in winter the water flowing from the dam is constantly ______ by a computer.

单选题Two days later he regained his consciousness, forgetful of what had happened in the______

单选题______, after long pondering, I arrived at the following conjecture. A. To date B. In case C. For sure D. At length

单选题She was standing outside in the snow,______with cold.(2007年中南大学考博试题)

单选题The negotiation______ when no agreement could be reached.

单选题The high school which my daughter studies in is______our university. A. linked by B. relevant to C. mingled with D. affiliated with

单选题Can the Internet help patients jump the line at the doctor's office? The Silicon Valley Employers Forum, a sophisticated group of technology companies, is launching a pilot program to test online "virtual visits" between doctors at three big local medical groups and about 6,000 employees and their families. The six employers taking part in the Silicon Valley initiative, including heavy hitters such as Oracle and Cisco Systems, hope that online visits will mean employees won't have to skip work to tend to minor ailments or to follow up on chronic conditions. "With our long commutes and traffic, driving 40 miles to your doctor in your hometown can be a big chunk of time," says Cindy Conway, benefits director at Cadence Design Systems, one of the participating companies. Doctors aren't clamoring to chat with patients online for free; they spend enough unpaid time on the phone. Only 1 in 5 has ever E-mailed a patient, and just 9 percent are interested in doing so, according to the research firm Cyber Dialogue. "We are not stupid," says Stifling Somers, executive director of the Silicon Valley employers group. "Doctors getting paid is a critical piece in getting this to work. " In the pilot program, physicians will get $ 20 per online consultation, about what they get for a simple office visit. Doctors also fear they'll be swamped by rambling E-mails that tell everything but what's needed to make a diagnosis. So the new program will use technology supplied by Healinx, an Alameda, Calif-based start-up. Healinx's "Smart Symptom Wizard" questions patients and turns answers into a succinct message. The company has online dialogues for 60 common conditions. The doctor can then diagnose the problem and outline a treatment plan, which could include E-mailing a prescription or a face-to-face visit. Can E-mail replace the doctor's office? Many conditions, such as persistent cough, require stethoscope to discover what's wrong and to avoid a malpractice suit. Even Larry Bonham, head of one of the doctor's groups in the pilot, believes the virtual doctor's visits offer a "very narrow" sliver of service between phone calls to an advice nurse and a visit to the clinic. The pilot program, set to end in nine months, also hopes to determine whether online visits will boost worker productivity enough to offset the cost of the service. So far, the Internet's record in the health field has been underwhelming. The experiment is "a huge roll of the dice for Healing", notes Michael Barrett, an analyst at Internet consulting firm Forester Research. If the "Web visits" succeed, expect some HMOs(Health Maintenance Organizations)to pay for online visits. If doctors, employers, and patients aren't satisfied, figure on one more E-health start-up to stand down.

单选题Gentleness has been considered a ______ trait. A. boyish B. delicate C. feminine D. male

单选题The best films are those which ______ national or cultural barriers. A. transcend B. transit C. transcribe D. transect

单选题Vitamins are organic compounds necessary in small amounts in the diet for the normal growth and maintenance of life of animals, including man. They do not provide energy, (21) do they construct or build any part of the body. They are needed for (22) foods into energy and body maintenance. There are thirteen or more of them, and if (23) is missing a deficiency disease becomes (24) Vitamins are similar because they are (25) of the same elements--usually carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and (26) . nitrogen. They are different (27) their elements are arranged (28) , and each vitamin (29) one or more specific (30) in the body. (31) enough vitamins is essential to life, (32) the body has no nutritional use for (33) vitamins. Many people, (34) , believe in being on the "safe side" and thus take extra vitamins. However, a (35) diet will usually meet all the body's vitamin needs.

单选题The police have asked for the ______ of the public in tracing the whereabouts of the missing child. A. award B. so-operation C. position D. helpfulness

单选题The most important consideration for manned space flight is that the rocket be ______.

单选题Tom could hardly ______ his excitement as he knew that he had made a real discovery.(2002年春季上海交通大学考博试题)

单选题In 1984, President Ronald Reagan proposed that the United States construct a launch laboratory for a new era of space Uexploration/U.

单选题Writing about music is like dancing about architecture, or so the saying goes. Sometimes attributed to Frank Zappa, other times to Elvis Costello, this quote is usually intended to convey the futility of such an endeavor, if not the complete silliness of even attempting it. But Glenn Kurtz's graceful memoir, Practicing- A Musician's Return to Music, turns the expression on its head, giving it a different meaning by creating a lovely, unique book. Kurtz picked up the guitar as a kid in a music-loving family, attended the Long Island music school, and went on to play on Merv Griffin's TV show before graduating from Tufts University. Motivating the young Kurtz was the dream of reinventing classical guitar, as if by his great ambition alone he could push it from the margins of popular interest to center stage--something not even accomplished by the late Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia, perhaps the only artist of the form ever to reach anything resembling widespread celebrity. This book reads like a love story of sorts: Boy meets guitar. Boy loves guitar. Guitar breaks boy's heart or, more precisely, the ordinariness of a working musician's life does so. "I'd just imagined the artist's life naively, childishly, with too much longing, too much poetry and innocence and purity," Kurtz writes. "The guitar had been the instrument of my dreams. Now the dream was over." Boy leaves guitar. Were the story to end here, this book would be a tragedy, but after nearly a decade the boy returns to guitar, and although he has lost the enthusiasm he had in his youth, he finds his love of the guitar again in a way he never could have appreciated before. Although Kurtz is writing about a unique musical path, his journey speaks eloquently to the heart of anyone who has ever desperately yearned to achieve something and felt the sting of disappointment. "Everyone who gives up a serious childhood dream--of becoming an artist, a doctor, an engineer, an athlete--lives the rest of their life with a sense of loss, with nagging what ifs, "he writes. "Is that time and effort, that talent and ambition, truly wasted?/