单选题Karl Von Linne (or Linnaeus, as he is widely known) was a Swedish biologist who devised the system of Latinised scientific names for living things that biologists use to this day. When he came to (1) people into his system, he put them into a group called Homo- and Linne ' s hairless fellow humans are still known biologically as Homo sapiens. (2) the group originally had a second member, Homo troglodytes. It lived in Africa, and the pictures show it to be covered (3) hair. Modern (4) are not as generous as Linne in welcoming other species into Man's lofty (5) ,and the chimpanzee is now referred to (6) Pan troglodytes. But Pan or Homo, there is no (7) that chimps are humans' nearest living relatives, and that if the secrets of what makes humanity special are ever to be (8) , understanding why chimps are not people, nor people chimps, is a crucial part of the process. That, in turn, means looking at the DNA of the two species, (9) it is here that the (10) must originate. One half of the puzzle has been (11) for several years: the human genome was published in 2001. The second has now been added, with the announcement in this week's Nature (12) the chimpanzee genome has been sequenced as well. For those expecting (13) answers to age-old questions (14) , the publication of the chimp genome may be something of an (15) . There are no immediately obvious genes-present in one, but not the other-that account for such characteristic human (16) as intelligence or even hairlessness. And (17) there is a gene connected with language, known as FOXP2, it had already been discovered. But although the preliminary comparison of the two genomes (18) by the members of the Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analyssis Consortium, the multinational team that generated the sequence, did not (19) any obvious nuggets of genetic gold, it does at least show where to look for (20) .

单选题 In October 2002, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank{{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}a new electronic market (www. gs. com/econderivs) for economic indices that{{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}}substantial economic risks, such as nonfarm payroll (a measure of job availability) and retail sales. This new market was made possible by a{{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}trading technology, developed by Longitude, a New York company providing software for financial markets,{{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}the Parimutuel Digital Call Auction. This is "digital"{{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}of a digital option: ie, it pays out only if an underlying index lies in a narrow, discrete range. In effect, Longitude has created a horse race, where each "horse" wins if and{{U}} {{U}} 6 {{/U}} {{/U}}the specified index falls in a specified range. By creating horses for every possible{{U}} {{U}} 7 {{/U}} {{/U}}of the index, and allowing people to bet{{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}any number of runners, the company has produced a liquid integrated electronic market for a wide array of options on economic indices. Ten years ago it was{{U}} {{U}} 9 {{/U}} {{/U}}impossible to make use of electronic information about home values. Now, mortgage lenders have online automated valuation models that allow them to estimate values and to{{U}} {{U}} 10 {{/U}} {{/U}}the risk in their portfolios. This has led to a proliferation of types of home loan, some of{{U}} {{U}} 11 {{/U}} {{/U}}have improved risk-management characteristics. We are also beginning to see new kinds of{{U}} {{U}} 12 {{/U}} {{/U}}for homes, which will make it possible to protect the value of{{U}} {{U}} 13 {{/U}} {{/U}}, for most people, is the single most important{{U}} {{U}} 14 {{/U}} {{/U}}of their wealth. The Yale University-Neighbourhood Reinvestment Corporation programme,{{U}} {{U}} 15 {{/U}} {{/U}}last year in the city of Syracuse, in New York State, may be a model for home-equity insurance policies that{{U}} {{U}} 16 {{/U}} {{/U}}sophisticated economic indices of house prices to define the{{U}} {{U}} 17 {{/U}} {{/U}}of the policy. Electronic futures markets that are based on econometric indices of house prices by city, already begun by City Index and IG Index in Britain and now{{U}} {{U}} 18 {{/U}} {{/U}}developed in the United States, will enable home-equity insurers to hedge the risks that they acquire by writing these policies. These examples are not impressive successes yet. But they{{U}} {{U}} 19 {{/U}} {{/U}}as early precursors of a technology that should one day help us to deal with the massive risks of inequality that{{U}} {{U}} 20 {{/U}} {{/U}}will beset us in coming years.

单选题Bernard Bailyn has recently reinterpreted the early history of the United States by applying new social research findings on the experiences of European migrants. In his reinterpretation, migration becomes the organizing principle for rewriting the history of pre-industrial North America. His approach rests on four separate propositions. The first of these asserts that residents of early modern England moved regularly about their countryside.- migrating to the New World was simply a "natural spillover". Although at first the colonies held little positive attraction for the English they would rather have stayed home--by the eighteenth century people increasingly migrated to America because they regarded it as the land of opportunity. Secondly, Bailyn holds that, contrary to the notion that used to flourish in American history textbooks, there was never a typical New World community. For example, the economic and demographic character of early New England towns varied considerably. Bailyn"s third proposition suggests two general patterns prevailing among the many thousands of migrants: one group came as indentured servants, another came to acquire land. Surprisingly, Bailyn suggests that those who recruited indentured servants were driving forces of transatlantic migration, These colonial entrepreneurs helped determine the social character of people who came to pre-industrial North America. At first, thousands of unskilled laborers were recruited: by the 1730"s, however, American employers demanded skilled workers. Finally, Bailyn argues that the colonies were a half-civilized hinterland of the European culture system. He is undoubtedly correct to insist that the colonies were part of the Anglo-American empire. But to divide the empire into English core and colonial periphery, as Bailyn does, devalues the achievements of colonial culture. It is true, as Bailyn claims, that high culture in the colonies never matched that in England. But what of seventeenth-century New England, where the settlers created effective laws, built a distinguished university, and published books? Bailyn might respond that New England was exceptional. However, the ideas and institutions developed by New England Puritans had powerful effects on North American culture. Although Bailyn goes on to apply his approach to some thousands of indentured servants who migrated just prior to the revolution, he fails to link their experience with the political development of the United States. Evidence presented in his work suggests how we might make such a connection. These indentured servants were treated as slaves for the period during which they had sold their time to American employers. It is not surprising that as soon as they served their time they gave up good wages in the cities and headed west to ensure their personal independence by acquiring land. Thus, it is in the west that a peculiarly American political culture began, among colonists who were suspicious of authority and intensely anti-aristocratic.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Wherever people have been, they have left waste behind, which can cause all sorts of problems. Waste often stinks, attracts vermin and creates eyesores. More seriously, it can release harmful chemicals into the soil and water when dumped, or into the air when burned. And then there are some really nasty forms of industrial waste, such as spent nuclear fuel, for which no universally accepted disposal methods’ have thus far been developed. Yet many also see waste as an opportunity. Getting rid of it all has become a huge global business. Rich countries spend some $120 billion a year disposing of their municipal waste alone and another $150 billion on industrial waste. The amount of waste that countries produce tends to grow in tandem with their economies, and especially with the rate of urbanization. So waste firms see a rich future in places such as China, India and Brazil, which at present spend only about $5 billion a year collecting and treating their municipal waste. Waste also presents an opportunity in a grander sense: as a potential resource. Much of it is already burned to generate energy. Clever new technologies to turn it into fertiliser or chemicals or fuel are being developed all the time. Visionaries see a world without waste, with rubbish being routinely recycled. Until last summer such views were spreading quickly. But since then plummeting prices for virgin paper, plastic and fuels, and hence also for the waste that substitutes for them, have put an end to such visions. Many of the recycling firms that had argued rubbish was on the way out now say that unless they are given financial help, they themselves will disappear. Subsidies are a bad idea. Governments have a role to play in the business of waste management, but it is a regulatory and supervisory one. They should oblige people who create waste to clean up after themselves and ideally ensure that the price of any product reflects the cost of disposing of it safely. That would help to signal which items are hardest to get rid of, giving consumers an incentive to buy goods that create less waste in the first place. That may sound simple enough, but governments seldom get the rules right. In poorer countries they often have no rules at all, or if they have them they fail to enforce them. In rich countries they are often inconsistent: too strict about some sorts of waste and worryingly lax about others. They are also prone to imposing arbitrary targets and taxes. California, for example, wants to recycle all its trash not because it necessarily makes environmental or economic sense but because the goal of “zero waste” sounds politically attractive.

单选题John Battelle is Silicon Valley's Bob Woodward. One of the founders of Wired magazine, he has hung around Google for so long that he has come to be as close as any outsider can to actually being an insider. Certainly, Google's founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and its chief executive, Eric Schmidt, believe that it is safer to talk to Mr. Battelle than not to do so. The result is a highly readable account of Google's astonishing rise—the steepest in corporate history—from its origins in Stanford University to its controversial stockmarket debut and its current struggle to become a grown up company while staying true to its youthfully brash motto, "Don't be evil" Mr. Battelle makes the reader warm to Google's ruling triumvirate—their cleverness and their good intentions—and fear for their future as they take on the world. Google is one of the most interesting companies around at the moment. It has a decent shot at displacing Microsoft as the next great near-monopoly of the information age. Its ambition—to organise all the world's information, not just the information on the world wide web--is epic, and its commercial power is frightening. Beyond this, Google is interesting for the same reason that secretive dictatorships and Holly3vood celebrities are interesting—for being opaque, colourful and, simply, itself. The book disappoints only when Mr. Battelle begins trying to explain the wider relevance of internet search and its possible future development. There is a lot to say on this subject, but Mr. Battelle is hurried and overly chatty, producing laundry lists of geeky concepts without really having thought any of them through properly. This is not a fatal flaw. Read only the middle chapters, and you have a great book.

单选题The key factor to reduce society’s vulnerability to natural disasters is

单选题{{B}}Part A{{/B}}{{B}}Directions:{{/B}}Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. {{B}}Text 1{{/B}} Nuclear weapons were first developed in the United States during the Second World War, to be used against Germany. However, by the time the first bombs were ready for use, the war with Germany had ended and, as a result, the decision was made to use the weapons against Japan instead. Hiroshima and Nagasaki have suffered the consequences of this decision to the present day. The real reasons why bombs were dropped on two heavily-populated cities are not altogether clear. A number of people in 1944 and early 1945 argued that the use of nuclear weapons would be unnecessary, since American Intelligence was aware that some of the most powerful and influential people in Japan had already realized that the war was lost, and wanted to negotiate a Japanese surrender. It was also argued that, since Japan has few natural resources, a blockade by the American navy would force it to surrender within a few weeks, and the use of nuclear weapons would thus prove unnecessary. If a demonstration of force was required to end the war, a bomb could be dropped over an unpopulated area like a desert, in front of Japanese observers, or over an area of low population inside Japan, such as a forest. Opting for this course of action might minimize the loss of further lives on all sides, while the power of nuclear weapons would still be adequately demonstrated. All of these arguments were rejected, however, and the general consensus was that the quickest way to end the fighting would be to use nuclear weapons against canters of population inside Japan. In fact, two of the more likely reasons why this decision was reached seem quite shocking to us now. Since the beginning of the Second World War both Germany and Japan had adopted a policy of genocide (i. e. killing as many people as possible, including civilians). Later on, even the US and Britain had used the strategy of fire bombing cities ( Dresden and Tokyo, for example) in order to kill, injure and intimidate as many civilians as possible. Certainly, the general public in the West had become used to hearing about the deaths of large numbers of people, so the deaths of another few thousand Japanese, who were the enemy in any case, would not seem particularly unacceptable--a bit of "justifiable" revenge for the Allies' own losses, perhaps. The second reason is not much easier to comprehend. Some of the leading scientists in the world had collaborated to develop nuclear weapons, and this development had resulted in a number of major advances in technology and scientific knowledge. As a result, a lot of normal, intelligent people wanted to see nuclear weapons used; they wanted to see just how destructive this new invention could be. It no doubt turned out to be even more "effective" than they had imagined.

单选题Narrative crept back into art through a side door marked fashion photography. In April 1967, French Vogue published a spread by Bob Richardson, the American photographer, that soon became a legend. Informally christened "the Greek trip" by Richardson"s admirers, the spread featured Donna Mitchell, a striking brunet model, hanging out on the Aegean island of Rhodes with a male companion. Of course, narrative never disappeared—it just went to the movies, and stayed, and stayed. But what had caused stories to be exiled from high art? The idea of essence, and the equation of essence with goodness. Can you imagine? Visual art is essentially composed of form, color, materials. Anything to do with content is extraneous and therefore to be associated with badness; therefore to be eliminated. Moreover, content, says this line of thought, is controlling. This means that a rose is the Virgin Mary (depending on what the meaning of "is" is). And art, like society, must be liberated from such hierarchically imposed values. What this argument overlooked, of course, is that narrative is a form in itself, not just a vehicle for content. Indeed, the ideology of formalism originated, in Soviet Russia, with the analysis of old folk tales. Narrative form, the analysis went, typically proceeds from an initial state of equilibrium through a series of destabilizing episodes, concluding with a heightened state of equilibrium at the end. Think Indiana Jones. You can plug whatever content you want in there as long as it creates the form. Each episode simply has to do with the work of creating disequilibrium. A narrative does not, in other words, tell a story. A story is told to give listeners the pleasure of the narrative form. If you were to isolate the form of disequilibrium from the specifics of plot, you might arrive at something resembling the collected work of Cindy Sherman. Initially modeled after movie stills, Sherman"s pictures are not, of course, abstract. Over the years, in fact, their content has become increasingly elaborate. I see this as a form of generosity as well as a sign of advanced technical skills. Not since Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593), perhaps, has an artist contrived to turn the human figure into a more bountiful cornucopia for the eye. Yet even the most visually splendid of Sherman"s images are minimalist, in that they reduce the narrative down to the precise moment when the center of gravity shifts. Perhaps some unheard word is spoken. A floorboard squeaks. From upstairs comes a thump. And a tentative state of equilibrium gives way to anxiety or dread. That moment, too, represents essence. What more do you need to know?

单选题Rewards and punishments are used in different ways by different communities to maintain social order and preserve cultural values. In all cultures, parents must teach their children to avoid danger and to observe the community's moral precepts. Adults also condition each other's observance of social norms, using methods ranging from mild forms of censure, such as looking away when someone makes an inappropriate remark, to imprisoning or executing individuals for behavior considered deviant or dangerous. The caning of American teenager Michael Fay in Singapore for vandalism in 1994 brought wide media attention to cultural differences in the application of punishment. Faced with increasing violence at home, many Americans endorsed Singapore's use of corporal punishment to maintain social order. Was Fay's punishment effective? Whether he subsequently avoids vandalism is unknown, but the punishment did apparently lead to his avoidance of Singapore—which he left promptly. The operant techniques societies use to maintain social control vary in part with the dangers and threats that confront them. The Gusii of Kenya, with a history of tribal warfare, face threats not only from outsiders but also from natural forces, including wild animals. Gusii parents tend to rely more on punishment and fear than on rewards in conditioning appropriate social behavior in their children. Caning, food deprivation, and withdrawing shelter and protection are common forms of punishment. In contrast, the Mixtecans of Juxtlahuaca, Mexico, are a highly cohesive community, with little internal conflict, and social norms that encourage cooperation. Their social patterns appear adaptive, for the Mixtecans are dominated by the nearby Spanish Mexicans, who control the official government and many economic resources in their region. The Mixtecans do not generally impose fines or jail sentences or use physical punishment to deter aggression in either adults or children. Rather, they tend to rely on soothing persuasion. Social ostracism is the most feared punishment, and social ties within the community are very strong, so responses that reinforce these ties are effective in maintaining social order. In the United States, fear of social ostracism or stigma was once a more powerful force in maintaining control over antisocial behavior, especially in small communities. Today, even imprisonment does not appear to be an adequate deterrent to many forms of crime, especially violent crime. Although one reason is the inconsistent application of punishment, another may be the fact that imprisonment no longer carries the intense stigma it once had, so that prison is no longer as an effective punishment.

单选题According to the passage, improvisation was most popular______

单选题According to the passage, business travelers used to

单选题Most of the people who appear most often and most gloriously in the history books are great conquerors and generals and soldiers, whereas the people who really helped civilization forward are often never mentioned at all. We do not know who first set a broken leg, or launched a seaworthy boat, or calculated the length of the year, or manured a field; but we know all about the killers and destroyers. People think a great deal of them, so much so that on all the highest pillars in the great cities of the world you will find the figure of a conqueror or a general or a soldier. And I think most people believe that the greatest countries are those that have beaten in battle the greatest number of other countries and ruled over them as conquerors. It is just possible they are, but they are not the most civilized. Animals fight; so do savages; hence to be good at fighting is to be good in the way in which an animal or a savage is good, but it is not to be civilized. Even being good at getting other people to fight for you and telling them how to do it most efficiently--this, after all, is what conquerors and generals have done--is not being civilized. People fight to settle quarrels. Fighting means killing, and civilized peoples ought to be able to find some way of settling their disputes other than by seeing which side can kill off the greater number of the other side, and then saying that that side which has killed most has won. And not only has won, but, because it has won, has been in the right. For that is what going to war means; it means saying that might is right. That is what the story of mankind has on the whole been like. Even our own age has fought the two greatest wars in history, in which millions of people were killed or mutilated. And while today it is true that people do not fight and kill each other in the streets--while, that is to say, we have got to the stage of keeping the rules and behaving properly to each other in daily life--nations and countries have not learnt to do this yet, and still behave like savages. But we must not expect too much. After all, the race of men has only just started. From the point of view of evolution, human beings are very young children indeed, babies, in fact, of a few months old. Scientists reckon that there has been life of some sort on the earth in the form of jellyfish and that kind of creature for about twelve hundred million years; but there have been men for only one million years, and there have been civilized men for about eight thousand years at the outside. These figures are difficult to grasp; so let us scale them down. Suppose that we reckon the whole past of living creatures on the earth as one hundred years; then the whole past of man works out at about one month, and during that month there have been civilizations for between seven and eight hours. So you see there has been little time to learn in, but there will be oceans of time in which to learn better. Taking man's civilized past at about seven or eight hours, we may estimate his future, that is to say, the whole period between now and when the sun grows too cold to maintain life any longer on the earth, at about one hundred thousand years. Thus mankind is only at the beginning of its civilized life, and as I say, we must not expect too much. The past of man has been on the whole a pretty beastly business, a business of fighting and bullying and gorging and grabbing and hurting. We must not expect even civilized peoples not to have done these things. All we can ask is that they will sometimes have done something else.

单选题The best title for this passage could be ______.

单选题The world is undergoing tremendous changes. The rise of globalization, both an economic and cultural trend that has swept throughout the world, has forged new ground as we enter the 21st century. But are the effects of globalization always positive? Some say no. Michael Tenet, head of the International Institute for Foreign Relations in Atlanta, is worried about current resentment throughout the world toward the rise of globalization. "Ever since the 1980s and the economic collapse of the Asian Tigers in the late 1990s, there has been a re-evaluation of the role of globalization as a force for good," he said. "Incomes in many countries have declined and the gap between the most rich and the most poor has been aggravated. Without further intervention by governments, we could see a tragedy expressed in an increased level of poverty throughout the Latin America and Asia." Yet George Frank, an influential economist who works on Wall Street, sees no such danger. "Economic liberalization, increased transparency and market-based reforms have positive effect in the long run, even if market mechanisms can produce short-term destabilization problems," he said. "What is most important is that barriers to trade continue to fall so that active competition for Consumer goods reduces prices and in turn raises the average level of income." Others feel that globalization's cultural impact may be more important than its economic implications. Janice Yawee, a native of Africa, feels strongly that globalization is undermining her local culture and language. "Most of the world's dialects will become extinct under globalization. We're paving the world with McDonald's and English slang. It tears me up inside," she said. Governments of different countries have had mixed responses to the wave of globalization. The United States is generally seen as an active proponent of greater free trade, and it certainly has enormous cultural influence by virtue of its near monopoly on worldwide entertainment. But other countries, most notably in Europe and developing nations, have sought to reduce the impact that globalization has on their domestic affairs. "When I was a boy we had very little to speak of," says one Singaporean resident. "Now our country has developed into a booming hub for international finance." Others, however, are not so optimistic. "Globalization is an evil force that must be halted," a union official at a car plant in Detroit recently commented, "It's sucking away jobs and killing the spirit of our country." (401 words)Notes: slang 俚语。tear up 撕碎，挖开。proponent 支持者，拥护者。hub 轮毂。suck away减少。