单选题When it comes to the slowing economy, Ellen Spero isn't biting her nails just yet. But the 47-year-old manicurist isn't cutting, filling or polishing as many nails as she'd like to, either. Most of her clients spend $12 to $ 50 weekly, but last month two longtime customers suddenly stopped showing up. Spero blames the softening economy. "I'm a good economic indicator," She says. "I provide a service that people can do without when they're concerned about saving some dollars. " So Spero is downscaling, shopping at middle-brow Dillard's department store near her suburban Cleveland home, instead of Neiman Marcus. "I don't know if other clients are going to abandon me, too," she says. Even before Alan Greenspan's admission that America's red-hot economy is cooling, lots of working folks had already seen signs of the slowdown themselves. From car dealerships to Gap outlets, sales have been lagging for months as shoppers temper their spending. For retailers, who last year took in 24 percent of their revenue between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the cautious approach is coming at a crucial time. Already, experts say, holiday sales are off 7 percent from last year's pace. But don't sound any alarms just yet. Consumers seem only mildly concerned, not panicked, and many say they remain optimistic about the economy's long-term prospects, even as they do some modest belt-tightening. Consumers say they're not in despair because, despite the dreadful headlines, their own fortunes still feel pretty good. Home prices are holding steady in most regions. In Manhattan, "there's a new gold rush happening in the $4 million to $10 million range, predominantly fed by Wall Street bonuses," says broker Barbara Corcoran. In San Francisco, prices are still rising even as frenzied overbidding quiets. "Instead of 20 to 30 offers, now maybe you only get two or three," says John Tealdi, a Bay Area real-estate broker. And most folks still feel pretty comfortable about their ability to find and keep a job. Many folks see silver linings to this slowdown. Potential home buyers would cheer for lower interest rates. Employers wouldn't mind a little fewer bubbles in the job market. Many consumers seem to have been influenced by stock-market swings, which investors now view as a necessary ingredient to a sustained boom. Diners might see an upside, too. Getting a table at Manhattan's hot new Alain Ducasse restaurant used to be impossible. Not anymore. For that, Greenspan & Co. may still be worth toasting.

单选题He said that very clearly so that nobody was in any______about what was meant

单选题Barry had an advantage over his mother ______ he could speak French.

单选题Though sometimes too lazy to work as hard as her sisters, Linda has a more avid fondness for the limelight.

单选题Some medical conditions can often cure themselves ______, without medical intervention. A. deliberately B. spontaneously C. consciously D. intentionally

单选题This, they say, is proof that the more primitive species was not simply supplanted by an advanced one ______ into one.

单选题Once upon a time, innovation at Procter & Gamble flowed one way: from the United States outward. While the large Cincinnati-based corporation was no stranger to foreign markets, it usually sold them products that were already familiar to most Americans. Many Japanese families, for instance, swaddle their babies in Pampers diapers, and lots of Venezuelans brush their teeth with Crest. And of course(company executives assumed)Americans at home wanted these same familiar, red-white and blue brands. We might buy foreign-made cars, or chocolates, or cameras but household cleaners and detergents? Recently, however, P&G broke with this long-standing tradition. Ariel, a P&G laundry detergent, was born overseas, and is a familiar sight on store shelves in Europe and Latin America. Now bilingual packages of Ariel Ultra, a super-concentrated cleaner, are appearing on supermarket shelves in Los Angeles. Ariel's appearance in the United States reflects demographic changes making Hispan-ics the nation's fastest-growing ethnic group. Ariel is a hit with this population. In fact, many Mexican immigrants living in Southern California have been "importing" Ariel from Tijuana, Mexico. "Hispanics knew this product and wanted it," says P&G spokeswoman Marie Salvado. "We realized that we couldn't convince them to buy(our)other laundry detergents. " P&G hopes that non-Hispanic consumers will give Ariel a try too. Ariel's already strong presence in Europe may provide a springboard for the company to expand into other markets as well. Recently P&G bought Rakona, Czechoslovakia's top detergent maker. Ariel, currently a top seller in Germany, is likely to be one of the first new brands to appear in Czech supermarkets. And Ariel is not the only foreign idea that the company hopes to transplant back to its home territory. Cinch, an all-purpose spray cleaner similar to popular European products, is currently being test-marketed in California and Arizona. Traditionally Americans have used separate cleaners for different types of surfaces, but market research shows that American preferences are becoming more like those in other countries. Insiders note that this new reverse flow of innovation reflects more sweeping changes at Procter & Gamble. The firm has hired many new Japanese, German, and Mexican managers who view P&G's business not as a one-way flow of American ideas, but a two-way exchange with other markets. Says Bonita Austin of the investment firm Wertheim-Schroeder, "When you met with P&G's top managers years ago, you wouldn't have seen a single foreign face. " Today, "they could even be in the majority. " As Procter & Gamble has found, the United States is no longer an isolated market. Americans are more open than ever before to buying foreign-made products and to selling U. S. -made products overseas.

单选题The man who invented Coca-Cola was not a native Atlantan, but on the day of his funeral every drugstore in town testimonially shut up shop. He was John Styth Pemberton, born in 1831 in Knoxville, Georgia, eighty miles away. Sometimes known as Doctor, Pemberton was a pharmacist who, during the Civil War, led a cavalry troop under General Joe Wheeler. He settled in Atlanta in 1869, and soon began brewing such patent medicines as Triplex Liver Pills and Globe of Flower Cough Syrup. In 1885, he registered a trade- mark for something called French Wine Coca Ideal Nerve and Tonic Stimulant; a few months later be formed the Pemberton Chemical Company and recruited the services of a bookkeeper named Frank M. Robinson, who not only had a good head for figures but, attached to it, so exceptional a nose that he could audit the composition of a batch of syrup merely by sniffling it. In 1886--year in which, as contemporary Coca-Cola officials like to point out, Conan Doyle unveiled Sherlock Holmes and France unveiled the Statue of Liberty-Pemberton unveiled a syrup that he called Coca-Cola. It Was a modification of his French Wine Coca. He had taken out the wine and added a pinch of caffeine, and, when the end product tasted awful, had thrown in some extract of cola nut and a few other oils, blending the mixture in a three-legged iron pot in his back yard and swishing it around with an oar. He distributed it to soda fountains in used beer bottles, and Robinson, with his flowing bookkeeper's script, presently devised a label, on which "Coca-Cola" was writ- ten in the fashion that is still employed. Pemberton looked upon his mixture less as a refreshment than as a headache cure, especially for people whose headache could be traced to over-indulgence. On a morning late in 1886, one such victim of the night before dragged himself into an Atlanta drugstore and asked for a dollop of Coca-cola. Druggists customarily stirred a tea- spoonful of syrup into a glass of water, but in this instance the man on duty was too lazy to walk to the fresh-water tap, a couple of feet off. Instead, he mixed the syrup with some soda water, which was closer at hand. The suffering customer perked up almost at once, and word quickly spread that the best Coca-Cola was a fizzy one.

单选题His talent for music remained latent until his wife bought him a guitar.

单选题Many different meanings have been given to the word poetry. It would weary my readers if I were to discuss which of these definitions ought to be selected; I prefer telling them at once that which I have chosen. In my opinion, Poetry is the search after, and the delineation of, the Ideal. The Poet is he who, by suppressing a part of what exists, by adding some imaginary touches to the picture, and by combining certain real circumstances that do not in fact happen together, completes and extends the work of nature. Thus the object of poetry is not to represent what is tree, but to adorn it and to present to the mind some loftier image. Verse, regarded as the ideal beauty of language, may be eminently poetical; but verse does not of itself constitute poetry. I now proceed to inquire whether among the actions, the sentiments, and the opinions of democratic nations there are any which lead to a conception of the ideal, and which may for this reason be considered as natural sources of poetry. It must, in the first place, be acknowledged that the taste for ideal beauty, and the pleasure derived from the expression of it, are never so intense or so diffused among a democratic as among an aristocratic people. In aristocratic nations it sometimes happens that the body acts as it were spontaneously, while the higher faculties are bound and burdened by repose. Among these nations the people will often display poetic tastes, and their fancy sometimes ranges beyond and above what surrounds them. But in democracies the love of physical gratification, the notion of bettering one's condition, the excitement of competition, the charm of anticipated success, are so many spurs to urge men onward in the active professions they have embraced, without allowing them to deviate for an instant from the track. The main stress of the faculties is to this point. The imagination is not extinct, but its chief function is to devise what may be useful and to represent what is real. The principle of equality not only diverts men from the description of ideal beauty; it also diminishes the number of objects to be described. Aristocracy, by maintaining society in a fixed position, is favorable to the solidity and duration of positive religions as well as to the stability of political institutions. Not only does it keep the human mind within a certain sphere of belief, but it predisposes the mind to adopt one faith rather than another. An aristocratic people will always be prone to place intermediate powers between God and man. In this respect it may be said that the aristocratic element is favorable to poetry. When the universe is peopled with supernatural beings, not palpable to sense, but discovered by the mind, the imagination ranges freely; and poets, finding a thousand subjects to delineate, also find a countless audience to take an interest in their productions. In democratic ages it sometimes happens, on the contrary, that men are as much afloat in matters of faith as they am in their laws. Skepticism then draws the imagination of poets back to earth and confines them to the real and visible world. Even when the principle of equality does not disturb religious conviction, it tends to simplify it and to divert attention from secondary agents, to fix it principally on the Supreme Power. Aristocracy naturally leads the human mind to the contemplation of the past and fixes it there. Democracy, on the contrary, gives men a sort of instinctive distaste for what is ancient. In this respect aristocracy is far more favorable to poetry; for things commonly grow larger and more obscure as they are more remote, and for this twofold reason they are better suited to the delineation of the ideal.

单选题Today's college students have ambiguous feelings about the role they should play in the world.

单选题Profit sharing is a good ______ for employees.

单选题Scholars maintain that social development can easily ______ language changes. A. bring up B. bring about C. bring out D. bring forward

单选题She has a beautiful ______ of stamps from all over the world.

单选题Pan of his general thrift is to be Umeticulous/U in verifying monthly expenses.

单选题The money they took with them was considerably in ______ of what they needed.

单选题He is a man of a______ mood; he never finishes what he starts.