单选题Studies confirmed that this eye disease was ______ in tropical countries.

单选题In addition, findings reveal that males receive more teacher attention than females, boys receive more specific comments about their academic performance, that there are differences favoring males in task assignment, in teacher's expectation of student's behavior based on gender, as well as in such areas as overall curriculum design, classroom activities, and educational tracking (particularly in math, science, vocational courses, and extracurricular activities). A. that there are differences B. favoring males C. teacher's expectation of student's behavior D. and extracurricular activities

单选题Most people who travel long distance complain of jetlag. Jetlag makes business travelers less productive and more prone (21) making mistakes. It is actually caused by (22) of your "body clock" --a small cluster of brain cells that controls the timing of biological (23) . The body clock is designed for a (24) rhythm of daylight and darkness, so that it is thrown out of balance when it (25) daylight and darkness at the "wrong" times in a new time zone. The (26) of jetlag often persist for days (27) the internal body clock slowly adjusts to the new time zone. Now a new anti-jetlag system is (28) that is based on proven (29) pioneering scientific research. Dr, Martin Mooreede had (30) a practical strategy to adjust the body clock much sooner to the new time zone (31) controlled exposure to bright light. The time zone shift is easy to accomplish and eliminates (32) of the discomfort of jetlag. A successful time zone shift depends on knowing the exact times to either (33) or avoid bright light. Exposure to light at the wrong time can actually make jetlag worse. The proper schedule (34) light exposure depends a great deal on (35) travel plans.

单选题Mary could invite her friends to the house at her own ______ if she told her mother in time.

单选题{{B}}Passage 4{{/B}} When I was still an architecture student, a teacher told me, "We learn more from buildings that fall down than from buildings that stand up." What he meant was that construction is as much the result of experience as of theory. Although structural design follows established formulas, the actual performance of a building is complicated by the passage of time, the behavior of users, the natural elements--and unnatural events. All are difficult to simulate. Buildings, unlike cars, can't be crash-tested. The first important lesson of the World Trade Center collapse is that tall buildings can withstand the impact of a large jetliner. The twin towers were supported by 59 perimeter columns on each side. Although about 30 of these columns, extending from four to six floors, were destroyed in each building by the impact, initially both towers remained standing. Even so, the death toll (代价) was about-2 245 people lost their lives. I was once asked, how tall buildings should be designed given what we'd learned from the World Trade Center collapse. My answer was, "Lower." The question of when a tall building becomes unsafe is easy to answer. Common aerial fire-fighting ladders in use today are 100 feet high and can reach to about the 10th floor; So fires in buildings up to 10 stories high can be fought from the exterior (外部). Fighting fires and evacuating occupants above that height depend on fire stairs. The taller the building, the longer it will take for firefighters to climb to the scene of the fire. So the simple answer to the safety question is "Lower than 10 stories." Then why don't cities impose lower height limits? A 60-story office building does not have six times as much rentable space as a 10-story building. However, all things being equal, such a building will produce four times more revenue and four times more in property taxes. So cutting building heights would mean cutting city budgets. The most important lesson of the World Trade Center collapse is not that we should stop building tall buildings but that we have misjudged their cost. We did the same thing when we underestimated the cost of hurtling along a highway in a steel box at 70 miles per hour. It took many years before seat belts, air hags, radial tires, and antilock brakes became commonplace. At first, cars simply were too slow to warrant concern. Later, manufacturers resisted these expensive devices, arguing that consumers would not pay for safety. Now we do-- willingly.

单选题The country’s highest medal was ____ upon him for heroism.

单选题"You are very selfish. It's high time you ______ that you are not the most important person in the world," Edgar said to his boss angrily. A. realized B. have realized C. realize D. should realize

单选题He came back later, ______ which time they had left. A. after B. by C. from D. for

单选题Today, we have the longest peacetime expansion in our history. After years and years of deficits, we now have budget surpluses for years ahead. More people have a chance to realize the American Dream than ever before. More children have a chance to realize their full potential than ever before. We've laid a foundation to preserve our prosperity for future generations. Now, as the budget deadline rapidly approaches this year, we face many of the same tough choices again. And once again, I think the answer is clear: To build a strong nation in the new century, we must continue to invest in our future. That means we must strengthen social security, secure and modernize medicare, and pay off the national debt in fifteen years, making America debt-free for the first time since 1835. And once again, it means we must invest in education, not sacrifice it. Months ago, I sent Congress a responsible budget to maintain our fiscal discipline and honor our commitment to our Children's education. So far the Republicans in Congress haven't put forth a budget of their own. In fact, they're so busy trying to figure Out how to pay for their irresponsible tax plan that they're in serious danger of not meeting their obligation to finish the budget by the end of the budget year. Even worse, they're preparing to pay for their own pet projects at the expense of our children's education. We know now that the Republicans' risky tax cut would force us to slash vital funding for education by as much as 50 percent over the next ten years. But what many people don't know is that next year alone, the Republican plan would cut the bill that funds education by nearly 20 percent. Now, ff carried out, this plan would lead to some of the worst cuts in education in our history. More than 5,000 teachers could be laid off. Fifty thousand students could be turned away from after-school and summer-school programs. More than 2 million of our poorest students in our poorest communities would have a smaller chance of success in school and in the workplaces of the future. These aren't just numbers on a balance sheet; they're vital investments in our children and our future. In a time when education is our top priority, Republicans in Congress are making it their lowest priority. So let me be clear: ff the Republicans send me a bill that doesn't live up to our national commitment to education, I won't hesitate to veto it. If it undermines our efforts to hire high-quality teachers to reduce class size in our public schools, I will veto it. If it fails to strengthen after-school, and summer-school programs, I'll veto it. If it underfunds college scholarship programs, I will veto it. If it sends me a bill that turns its back on our children and their future, I'll send them back to the drawing board. I won't let Congress push through a budget that's paid for at the expense of our children and our future prosperity.

单选题The index of industrial production ______ last year.

单选题There have been demonstrations on the streets____the recent terrorist attack.

单选题The relationship between husbands and wives is one of the strongest bonds in our society. It is deep, passionate, and often 1 . The exact amount of husband-wife violence is difficult to 2 , but it is one of the most common of all forms of violence. More calls to the police involve family disturbances 3 all other forms of violent behavior 4 . In 1993, New York city police 5 received 300,000 domestic violence calls. But researchers deemed that it was still an 6 . They estimate that it actually occurs in about one of 7 two marriages. In many societies, husbands have traditionally had the legal right to physically punish wives who refuse to accept male 8 . Although this practice is no longer 9 in Western culture, it still occurs. 10 , many victims of spousal abuse find that the police are reluctant to be of much help. Battered women report that abusive husbands are merely given a lecture or spend the night in jail and are soon back to their 11 ways. There appear to be two major reasons for this. First, most police officers are male, and they tend to hold a traditional view of gender roles. Even assaults that do serious physical harm to the 12 are often seen as private matters that should be 13 by the married partners, not the police. Second, 14 other violent crimes, a significant percentage of the victim of spousal abuse drop the charges 15 their attackers, some officers feel that even a vigorous enforcement effort is likely to produce few results.

单选题In most American cities, the rent for a one-bedroom apartment was $ 250 or more per month in recent years. In some smaller cities such as Louisville, Kentucky or Jacksonville, Florida the rent was less, but in larger cities it was more. For example, if you lived in Los Angeles, you had to pay $ 400 or more to rent a one-bedroom apartment, and the same apartment rented for $ 625 and up in Chicago. The most expensive rents in the U. S. were in New York City, where you had to pay at least $ 700 a month to rent a one-bedroom apartment in most parts of the city. Renters and city planners are worried about the high cost of renting apartments. Many cities now have rent-control laws to keep the cost of renting low. These laws help low income families who cannot pay high rents. Rent controls in the United States began in 1943 when the government imposed rent controls on all American cities to help workers and the families of soldiers during World War 1][. After the war, only one city—New York—continued these World War [[ controls. Recently, more and more cities have returned to rent controls. At the beginning of the 1980s, nearly one fifth of the people in the United States lived in cities with rent-control laws. Many cities have rent-control laws, but why are rents so high? Builders and landlords blame rent controls for the high rents. Rents are high because there are not enough apart ments to rent, and they blame rent controls for the shortage of apartments. Builders want more money to build more apartment buildings, and landlords want more money to repair their old apartment buildings. But they cannot increase rents to get this money because of the rent-control laws. As a result, landlords are not repairing their old apartments, and builders are not building new apartment buildings to replace the old apartment build ings. Builders are building apartments for high-income families, not low-income families, so low-income families must live in old apartments that are in disrepair. Builders and land lords claim that rent-control laws really hurt low-income families. Many renters disagree with them. They say that rent control is not the problem. Even without rent controls, builders and landlords will continue to ignore low-income housing because they can make more money from high-income housing. The only answer, they claim, is more rent controls and government help for low-income housing.

单选题From the article we eau infer that we are influenced by customs ______.

单选题Well, no gain without pain, they say. But what about pain without gain? Everywhere you go in America, you hear tales of corporate revival. What is harder to establish is whether the productivity revolution that businessmen assume they are presiding over is for real. The official statistics are mildly discouraging. They show that, if you lump manufacturing and services together, productivity has grown on average by 1.2% since 1987. That is somewhat faster than the average during the previous decade. And since 1991, productivity has increased by about 2% a year, which is more than twice the 1978 - 1987 average. The trouble is that part of the recent acceleration is due to the usual rebound that occurs at this point in a business cycle, and so is not conclusive evidence of a revival in the underlying trend. There is, as Robert Rubin, the treasury secretary, says, a "disjunction" between the mass of business anecdote that points to a leap in productivity and the picture reflected by the statistics. Some of this can be easily explained. New ways of organizing the workplace--all that re-engineering and downsizing--are only one contribution to the overall productivity of an economy, which is driven by many other factors such as joint investment in equipment and machinery, new technology, and investment in education and training. Moreover, most of the changes that companies make are intended to keep them profitable, and this need not always mean increasing productivity: switching to new markets or improving quality can matter just as much. Two other explanations are speculative. First, some of the business restructuring of recent years may have been unsuitably done. Second, even if it was well done, it may have spread much less widely than people suppose. Leonard Schlesinger, a Harvard academic and former chief executive of Au Bon Pain, a rapidly growing chain of bakery cafes, says that much "re-engineering" has been crude. In many cases, he believes, the loss of revenue has been greater than the reductions in cost. His colleague, Michael Beer, says that far too many companies have applied re-engineering in a mechanistic fashion, chopping out costs without giving sufficient thought to long-term profitability. BBDO' s Al Rosen Shine is blunter. He dismisses a lot of the work of re-engineering consultants as mere rubbish—"the worst sort of ambulance-chasing./

单选题The majority of people, about nine out of ten, are right-handed. (71) until recently, people who were left-handed were considered (72) , and once children showed this tendency they were forced to use their right hands. Today left-handedness is generally (73) , but it is still a disadvantage in a world (74) most people are right-handed. For example, most tools and implements are still (75) for right-handed people. In sports (76) contrast, doing things with the left hand or foot is often an advantage. Throwing, kicking, punching or batting from the " (77) " side may result in throwing (78) many opponents who are more accustomed to dealing with the (79) of players who are right-handed. This is why, in many (80) at a professional level, a (81) proportion of players are left-handed than in the population as a whole. The word "right" in many languages means "correct" or is (82) with lawfulness, whereas the words associated (83) "left", such as "sinister", generally have (84) associations. Moreover, among a number of primitive peoples, there is (85) close association between death and the left hand. In the past, in (86) Western societies, children were often forced to use their right hands, especially to write with. In some cases the left hand was (87) behind the child's back so that it could not be used. If, in the future, they are allowed to choose, (88) will certainly be more left-handers, and probably (89) people with minor psychological disturbances as a result of being forced to use their (90) hand.

单选题{{B}}Passage Two{{/B}} Regardless of the source or kind of light, the ability of light to form an image is dependent upon just one thing--a small hole or a lens to bring the rays to a focus. The principle of image formation was discovered in early Greek Times. Later it was realized that the eye itself has a lens and that an image is, in fact, formed on the retina, the rear inside surface of the eyeball. Some man inside a cave or a darkened room noticed that light entering through a small hole in the wall formed an image on the far wall. It was observed that if you enlarge the hole, the image blurred and disappeared. On the other hand, the smaller the hole, the sharper the image-down to a certain diameter after which making the hole smaller makes the image worse again. The function of a pinhole is to screen out all light rays except those coming in a perfectly straight line from the object, thus improving the sharpness of the image. After passing through a point the rays again spread out a little bit, and the size of the image formed will depend upon how far back the wall, screen, or film is from the pinhole. The full exploitation of this phenomenon had to wait for the development of the lens, which gathered in a much larger number of light rays and still brought them to form an image, just as the pinhole did, but with a difference: in a pinhole camera, the light rays form an image that is equally sharp regardless of the distance to the film. When a lens is used, there may be a choice of planes of focus determined by adjusting the lens-to-film distance. Each plane is located some distance behind and relatively parallel to the lens. Actual blown glass was developed early in Egyptian times, and the first lens may have been the bottom of a wine bottle. However, the first deliberate grinding of lenses did not take place until the thirteenth century, and the art did not become established until the sixteenth century. A book on the grinding and polishing of lenses was issued by B. Battista della Porta in 1589, but it was not until 1611 that Kepler compared a lens of glass to the lens in the eye and showed that rays from each point of an object were brought to a focus at each corresponding point of an image on the retina. Then, in 1619, Scheiner demonstrated the actual formation of an inverted image on the retina.