单选题{{B}}Passage 2{{/B}}
The human brain contains 10 thousand
million cells and each of these may have a thousand connections. Such enormous
numbers used to discourage us and cause us to dismiss the possibility of making
a machine with humanlike ability, but now that we have grown used to moving
forward at such a pace we can be less sure. Quite soon, in only 10 or 20 years
perhaps, we will be able to assemble a machine as complex as the human brain,
and if we can we will. It may then take us a long time to render it intelligent
by loading in the right software (软件) or by altering the architecture but that
too will happen. I think it certain that in decades, not
centuries, machines of silicon (硅) will arise first to rival and then exceed
their human ancestors. Once they exceed us they will be capable of their own
design. In a real sense they will be able to reproduce themselves. Silicon will
have ended carbon's long control. And we will no longer be able to claim
ourselves to be the finest intelligence in the known universe.
As the intelligence of robots increases to match that of humans and as
their cost declines through economies of scale we may use them to expand our
frontiers, first on earth through their ability to withstand environments,
harmful to ourselves. Thus, deserts may bloom and the ocean beds be mined.
Further ahead, by a combination of the great wealth this new age will bring and
the technology it will provide, the construction of a vast, man-created
world in space, home to thousands or millions of people, will be within our
power.
单选题Undergraduatestudentshaveno____totherarebooksinthelibrary.
单选题The wealth of a country should be measured ______ the health and happiness of its people as well as the material goods it can produce.
单选题The name of Florence Nightingale lives in the memory of the world by virtue of the heroic adventure of the Crimea. Had she died as she nearly did upon her return to England, her reputation would hardly have been different; her legend would have come down to us almost as we know it today that gentle vision of female virtue which first took shape before the adoring eyes of the sick soldiers at Scutari. Yet, as a matter of fact, she lived for more than half a century after the Crimean War; and during the greater part of that long period all the energy and all the devotion of her extraordinary nature were working at their highest pitch. What she accomplished in those years of unknown labor could, indeed, hardly have been more glorious than her Crimean triumphs; but it was certainly more important. The true history was far stranger even than the myth. In Miss Nightingale's own eyes the adventure of the Crimea was a mere incident scarcely more than a useful stepping-stone in her career. It was the fulcrum with which she hoped to move the world; but it was only the fulcrum. For more than a generation she was to sit in secret, working her lever: and her real life began at the very moment when, in popular imagination, it had ended. She arrived in England in a shattered state of health. The hardships and the ceaseless efforts of the last two years had undermined her nervous system; her heart was affected; she suffered constantly from fainting-fits and terrible attacks of utter physical prostration. The doctors declared that one thing alone would save her a complete and prolonged rest. But that was also the one thing with which she would have nothing to do. She had never been in the habit of resting; why should she begin now? Now, when her opportunity had come at last; now, when the iron was hot, and it was time to strike? No, she had worked to do; and, come what might, she would do it. The doctors protested in vain; in vain her family lamented and entreated, in vain her friends pointed out to her the madness of such a course. Madness? Mad — possessed — perhaps she was. A frenzy had seized upon her. As she lay upon her sofa, gasping, she devoured blue-books, dictated letters, and, in the intervals of her palpitations, cracked jokes. For months at a stretch she never left her bed. But she would not rest. At this rate, the doctors assured her, even if she did not die, she would become an invalid for life. She could not help that; there was work to be done; and, as for rest, very likely she might rest ... when she had done it. Wherever she went, to London or in the country, in the hills of Derbyshire, or among the rhododendrons at Embley, she was haunted by a ghost. It was the specter of Scutari — the hideous vision of the organization of a military hospital. She would lay that phantom, or she would perish. The whole system of the Army Medical Department, the education of the Medical Officer, the regulations of hospital procedure ... rest? How could she rest while these things were as they were, while, if the like necessity were to arise again, the like results would follow? And, even in peace and at home, what was the sanitary condition of the Army? The mortality in the barracks, was, she found, nearly double the mortality in civil life. "You might as well take 1,100 men every year out upon Salisbury Plain and shoot them," she said. After inspecting the hospitals at Chatham, she smiled grimly. "Yes, this is one more symptom of the system which, in the Crimea, put to death 16, 000 men. " Scutari had given her knowledge; and it had given her power too: her enormous reputation was at her back an incalculable force. Other work, other duties, might lie before her; but the most urgent, the most obvious, of all was to look to the health of the Army.
单选题The secretary went over the table again very carefully for fear of ______ any important data. A. overlooking B. slipping C. ignoring D. skimming
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单选题The criminal's ______ for leniency was ignored by the jurors.
A. protest
B. demand
C. plea
D. defence
单选题The psychologist Edwin G. Boring preferred "current of belief" as the English expression for the German word Zeitgeist, used by Goethe in 1827 to describe what comes together in the minds of many "neither by agreement nor by self-determined under the multiplicity of climates of opinion." That current runs above the multiple conversations conducted about how to interpret the past, how to assess the present, and how to predict and prepare for the future. For more than a century, social science has participated in all of these conversations, informing the climates of opinion that shape society, culture, and politics. Writing on the relationship between public opinion and 'representative government, the historian Lewis Namier asked, "Where is it to be found? And how is it to be ascertained? How many people hold clear articulate views even about the most important national concerns? And if their views are original and well-grounded, what chance is there of their being representative?" Social-scientific method has improved our numerical understanding of "public opinion," but it is the unique responsibility of social scientists to inform that opinion, whether it is representative or not. Namier understood that public opinion, the currents of belief, the Zeitgeist were capable of humbling the powerful: "There is such a thing as a logic of ideas, and ideas, when looked at from a distance, seem to have an independent life and existence of their own; their 'logic' is the outcome of the slow, hardly conscious thinking of the masses, very primitive, simplified in the process of accumulation, and in its mass advance deprived of all individual features, like the pebbles in a river-bed. And there is such a thing as a mental atmosphere, which at times becomes so all-pervading that hardly anyone can withdraw himself from its influence." For example, political assumptions about the role of government, however different they may be, have a familiar ideological stability about them, even as numerous struggles persist over government's function in maintaining public order and in rectifying injustice. Political liberalism, expressed as a defense of the welfare state, gave welfare policy a popularly good name for more than a half century. Social security, medicare, and mortgage deductions have all contributed to maintaining a middle class according to liberal principles of social welfare. Libertarian sentimentalists may balk at( 回避,畏缩不前)the negative externalities created by such long-term, good intentions as keeping the elderly out of poverty, if not out of nursing homes, but it seems unlikely in the short term, at least, that any substantial social, religious, or political movement of self-respect will emerge among the classes presently benefiting the most from the largesse (赏赐物) they are responsible for creating.Social-scientific understanding is distinct from political conviction, but the two have a long relationship that seems likely to continue, regardless of ideological cross-currents. Such crosscurrents of confidence, as it were, have in recent decades defined the battles over the legacy of the most tragic consequences, however unintended, of social welfare policy: in the case of the poor, the role of government gave "welfare" a bad name. As that welfare policy transfers to individual states, social scientists, whatever their methodologies, have a responsibility to continue informing public understanding about the conditions of entire populations and sub-groups within those populations. They will continue to face the difficulty of how to acknowledge the limits of their knowledge at any moment in time.
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单选题"This light is too ______ for me to read by. Don"t we have a bright bulb somewhere?" said the elderly man.
单选题Why have classified advertisements changed in appearance, according to the writer?
单选题In the bush, the ill (took it to be) only logical (if) the one who could dure an illness (should also possess) the ability of causing it, and (that) even at a distance.
单选题2 For several years, scientists have been testing a substance called interferon (干扰素), a potential wonder drug that is proving to be effective in treating a variety of ailments, in cluding virus infections, bacteria infections, and tumors. To date, the new drug has pro voked no negative reaction of sufficient significance to discourage its use. But in spite of its success, last year only one gram was produced in the entire world. The reason for the scarcity lies in the structure of interferon. A species of specific pro tein, the interferon produced from one animal species cannot be used in treating another animal species. In other words, to treat human beings, only interferon produced by human beings may be used. The drug is produced by infecting white blood cells with a virus. For tunately, it is so powerful that the amount given each patient per injection is very small. Unlike antibiotics, interferon does not attack germs directly. Instead, it makes unaf fected cells resistant to infection, and prevents the multiplication of viruses within cells. As you might conclude, one of the most dramatic uses of interferon has been in the treatment of cancer. Dr. Hans Strander, research physician at Sweden's famous Karolinska Institute, has treated more than one hundred cancer patients with the new drug. Among a group of selected patients who has undergone surgical procedures for advanced cancer, half were given interferon. The survival rate over a three-year period was 70 percent among those who were treated with interferon as compared with only 10 to 30 percent among those who have received the conventional treatments. In the United States, a large-scale project supported by the American Cancer Society is now underway. If the experiment is successful, interferon could become one of the grea test medical discoveries of our time.
单选题Thomas Wolfe portrayed people so that you came to know their yearnings, their impulses, and their warts--this was effective ______.
单选题We all know that in a situation like this a cool head is______.
单选题The closest ______ to English and Welsh grammar schools are called
grammar secondary schools; they can, however, accept some fee-paying pupils.
A. equality
B. equation
C. equivalent
D. equity
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The percentage of immigrants(including
those unlawfully present)in the United States has been creeping upward for
years. At 12. 6 percent, it is now higher than at any point since the mid
1920s. We are not about to go hack to the days when Congress
openly worried about inferior races polluting America's bloodstream. But once
again we are wondering whether we have too many of the wrong sort of newcomers.
Their loudest critics argue that the new wave of immigrants cannot, and indeed
do not want to, fit in as previous generations did. We now know
that these racist views were wrong. In time, Italians, Romanians and members of
other so-called inferior races became exemplary Americans and, contributed
greatly, in ways too numerous to detail, to the building of this magnificent
nation. There is no reason why these new immigrants should not have the same
success. Although children of Mexican immigrants do better, in
terms of educational and professional attainment, than their parents, UCLA
sociologist Edward Telles has found that the gains don't continue. Indeed, the
fourth generation is marginally worse off than the third. James Jackson, of the
University of Michigan, has found a similar trend among black Caribbean
immigrants. Telles fears that Mexican-Americans may be fated to follow in the
footsteps of American blacks--that large parts of the community may become mired
(陷入) in a, seemingly permanent state of poverty and underachievement. Like
African-Americans. Mexican-Americans are increasingly relegated to(降入)
segregated, substandard schools, and their dropout rate is the highest for any
ethnic group in the country. We have learned much about the
foolish idea of excluding people on the presumption of ethnic/racial
inferiority. But what we have not yet learned is how to make the process of
Americanization work for all. I am not talking about requiring people to learn
English or to adopt American ways; those things happen pretty much on their own.
But as arguments about immigration heat up the campaign trail, we also ought to
ask some broader questions about assimilation, about bow to ensure that people,
once outsiders, don't forever remain marginalized within these shores.
That is a much larger question than what should happen with undocumented
workers, or how best to secure the border, and it is one that affects not only
newcomers but groups that have been here for generations. It will have more
impact on our future than where we decide to set the admissions bar for the
latest wave of would be Americans. And it would be nice if we finally got the
answer right.
单选题______ mother-to-be Cherie Blair stunned the party by wearing a sensational violet silk trouser suit which she had specially made for the big night.
单选题Legally, the term refers to "any substance, with intended use, which results or may reasonably be expected to result—directly or indirectly—from its becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristics of any food" . This definition includes any substance used in the production, processing, treatment, packaging, transportation or storage of food. A. intended B. from C. otherwise affecting D. treatment
单选题First launched in April this year, Net My Singapore also includes efforts that training, development, and the exploration of new technologies based on.
