单选题He raised his glass and ______ her with his last mouthful.
单选题Firefighters were not attacking the major fires in Virginia directly but were putting out hot spots that could prove dangerous if winds______.
单选题Glass-fiber cables can carry hundreds of telephone conversations ______.
A. spontaneously B: simultaneously C. immediately D. immiscibly
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单选题Generally speaking, after 4 000 years, on the average, the percentage of the 200 original words which remained in use was ______.
单选题Humanity uses a little less than half the water available worldwide. Yet occurrences of shortages and droughts are causing famine and distress in some areas, and industrial and agricultural by-products are polluting water supplies. Since the world's population is expected to double in the next 50 years, many experts think we are on the edge of a widespread water crisis. But that doesn't have to be the outcome. Water shortages do not have to trouble the world—if we start valuing water more than we have in the past. Just as we began to appreciate petroleum more after the 1970s oil crises, today we must start looking at water from a fresh economic perspective. We can no longer afford to consider water a virtually free resource of which we can use as much as we like in any way we want. Instead, for all used except the domestic demand of the poor, governments should price water to reflect its actual value. This means charging a fee for the water itself as well as for the supply costs. Governments should also protect this resource by providing water in more economically and environmentally sound ways. For example, often the cheapest way to provide irrigation water in the dry tropics is through small-scale projects, such as gathering rainfall in depressions and pumping it to nearby cropland. No matter what steps governments take to provide water more efficiently, they must change their institutional and legal approaches to water use. Rather than spread control among hundreds or even thousands of local, regional, and national agencies that watch various aspects of water use, countries should set up central authorities to coordinate water policy.
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单选题{{B}}Passage 5{{/B}}
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Every ______of a motion picture is the responsibility of the director. A. section B. facet C. character D. footage
单选题"Candour" means ______.
单选题Her spirits ______ at the thought of all the work she had to do that morning.
单选题______there was an epidemic approaching, Mr. Smith ______ the invitation to visit that are
单选题Our country was founded on the lofty principles of freedom and justice
for all. Our lofty principles ought to be______.
A. faced up to
B. looked up to
C. lived up to
D. made up to
单选题{{B}}Passage 5{{/B}}
Much of the American anxiety about old
age is a flight from the reality of death. One of the striking qualities of the
American character is the unwillingness to face either the fact or meaning of
death. In the more somber tradition of American literature - from Hawthorne and
Melville and Poe to Faulkner and Hemingway - one finds a tragic depth that
belies the surface thinness of the ordinary American death attitudes. By an
effort of the imagination, the great writers faced problems which the culture in
action is reluctant to face - the fact of death, its mystery, and its place in
the back-and- forth shuttling of the eternal recurrence. The unblinking
confrontation of death in Greek times, the elaborate theological patterns woven
around it in the Middle Ages, tile ritual celebration of it in the rich, peasant
cultures of Latin and Slavic Europe and in primitive cultures; these are
difficult to find in American life. Whether through fear of the
emotional depths, or because of a drying up of the sluices of religious
intensity, the American avoids dwelling on death or even coming to terms with
it; he finds it morbid and recoils from it, surrounding it with word avoidance
(Americans never die; they "pass away" ) and various taboos of speech and
practice. In some of the primitive cultures, there is difficulty
in understanding the causes of death; it seems puzzling and even unintelligible.
Living in a scientific culture, Americans have a ready enough explanation
of how it comes, yet they show little capacity to come to terms with the fact of
death itself and with the grief that accompanies it. "We jubilate over birth and
dance at weddings," writes Maragaret Mead, "but more and more hustle the dead
off the scene without ceremony, without an opportunity for young and old to
realize that death is as much a fact of life as is birth. ' And, one may add,
even in its hurry and brevity, the last stage of an American's life - the last
occasion of his relation to his society -is as standardized as the
rest.
单选题She does not believe that he is ______ the honor accorded him.
单选题In a stark _________ of fortunes, the Philippines – once Asia’s second richest country – recently had to beg Vietnam to sell its rice for its hungry millions.
单选题The new curriculum intends to strengthen children’s practice of basic social __________ .
单选题We need one hundred more signatures before we take the ______ to the governor. A. panel B. kernel C. petition D. paragraph
