单选题When the author mentions the Indian fakir, he suggests that______.

单选题America acted quickly and decisively to the Great Recession, while Europeans seem paralyzed by the distant past. The swift and decisive U.S. response to the financial crisis and deep recession should be a model for other large developed economies. Yet Europe, which is now facing sovereign debt and banking problems and a slowdown in growth, seems reluctant to follow America's lead. The United States emerged from its 2008 economic cataclysm with relative speed because policymakers learned from history. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had famously internalized the charge that the central bank had contributed to the Great Depression. The frenzied response of the Bernanke Fed—guaranteeing all sorts of assets and markets, purchasing mortgage-backed securities, adopting a zero-interest rate policy, and expanding its balance shed to $ 2.3 trillion can be seen as signs of overcompensation. And from Japan's experience in the 1990s, the Fed learned the need for speed. While some critics have charged the U.S. fiscal stimulus was too small, the data suggest that the stimulus package has been a significant contributor to job retention and growth. Increased federal spending was needed in part to combat the declines in government spending by states. In the United States, the federal government helped prop up the states with injections of cash. In Europe, which lacks a powerful overarching federal government with the ability to tax and spend, fiscal policy is all bitter medicine and no spoonfuls of sugar. From the United Kingdom to the Czech Republic, and all points in between, governments are cutting spending and raising taxes. But these contractionary policies will retard economic growth, which will in turn lead to more problems for the banks. The European Central Bank and European governments are embracing fiscal austerity and comparative monetary tightness in these extraordinary times because they remain paralyzed by a terrible fear of inflation. The Federal Reserve has the dual mandate of controlling inflation and promoting employment. The ECB, by contrast, is concerned primarily with inflation. Never mind that the OECD data on inflation shows it is under control. The Europeans remain freaked out by the prospect of inflation at some point in the future. In its outlook, the OECD writes. "On inflation, the issue is not whether it is a risk today—it is not but whether it will be a risk in two years' time. " In the United States, the desire to avoid mistakes made in the distant and recent past has led to perhaps excessively vigorous fiscal and monetary policies. For Europeans, the desire to avoid mistakes made in the distant past has led to an excess of caution. When they look to history for guidance, European policymakers aren't looking at Washington in 2009, or Japan in the 1990s, or the United States in the 1930s. Rather, they look to Europe in the 1920s, a period when hyperinflation ravaged economies, disrupted the social order, destroyed social democracies, and led to the rise of Nazism.

单选题In terms of the future of the property market, Mr. Perry seems

单选题When it comes to suing doctors, Philadelphia is hardly the city of brotherly love. A combination of sprightly lawyers and sympathetic juries has made Philadelphia a hotspot for medical-malpractice lawsuits. Since 1995, Pennsylvania state courts have awarded an average of ＄ 2m in such cases, according to Jury Verdict Research, a survey firm. Some medical specialists have seen their malpractice insurance premiums nearly double over the past year. Obstetricians are now paying up to ＄104,000 a year to protect themselves. The insurance industry is largely to blame. Carol Golin, the Monitor's editor, argues that in the 1990s insurers tried to grab market share by offering artificially low rates (betting that any losses would be covered by gains on their investments). The stock-market correction, coupled with the large legal awards, has eroded the insurers' reserves. Three in Pennsylvania alone have gone bust. A few doctors--particularly older ones--will quit. The rest are adapting. Some are abandoning litigation-prone procedures, such as delivering babies. Others are moving parts of their practice to neighboring states where insurance rates are lower. Some from Pennsylvania have opened offices in New Jersey. New doctors may also be deterred from setting up shop in litigation havens, however prestigious. Despite a Republican president, tort reform has got nowhere at the federal level. Indeed doctors could get clobbered indirectly by a Patients' Bill of Rights, which would further expose managed care companies to lawsuits. This prospect has fuelled interest among doctors in Pennsylvania's new medical malpractice reform bill, which was signed into law on March 20th. It will, among other things, give doctors ＄ 40m of state funds to offset their insurance premiums, spread the payment of awards out over time and prohibit individuals from double2 dipping--that is, suing a doctor for damages that have already been paid by their health insurer. But will it really help? Randall Bovbjerg, a health policy expert at the Urban Institute, argues that the only proper way to slow down the litigation machine would be to limit the compensation for pain and suffering, so-called "non-monetary damages". Needless to say, a fixed cap on such awards is resisted by most trial lawyers. But Mr Bovbjerg reckons a more nuanced approach, with a sliding scale of payments based on well-defined measures of injury, is a better way forward. In the meantime, doctors and insurers are bracing themselves for a couple more rough years before the insurance cycle turns. Nobody disputes that hospital staff make mistakes: a 1999 Institute of Medicine report claimed that errors kill at least 44,000 patients a year. But there is little evidence that malpractice lawsuits on their own will solve the problem.

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}} It may not have generated much interest outside energy and investment circles, but a recent comment by Tidewater, Inc. president Dean Taylor sent earthquakes through the New Orleans business community. In June, Taylor told the Houston Chronicle that the international marine services company—the world's largest operator of ships serving the offshore oil industry—was seriously considering moving its headquarters, along with scores of administrative jobs, from the Crescent City to Houston, "We have a lot of sympathy for the city, " Taylor said. "But our shareholders don't pay us to have sympathy. They pay us to have resuits for them." It was the last thing the hurricane-scarred city needed to hear. Tidewater was founded here a little more than 50 years ago, and kept its main office in New Orleans throughout the oil bust of the-1980s and the following decades of industry consolidation, when dozens of energy firms all but abandoned New Orleans for greener pastures on the Texas coast. In the nearly two years since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city, the pace of exodus has accelerated, complicating New Orleans' halting recovery; according to the local business weekly CityBusiness, the metropolitan area has lost 12 of the 23 publicly traded companies headquartered here, taking white-collar jobs, Corporate community support and sorely needed taxpayers with them—and threatening to leave the city even more dependent on a tourismbased economy than it was before the storm. Making matters worse, some observers say, is the city leadership's apparent indifference to the bloodletting. Just weeks after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, Mayor Ray Nagin, then in the very early stages of a heated reelection bid, dismissed warnings that many companies, like displaced residents, might opt to relocate. Nagin said he hoped they would stay. "But if they don't," he said with typical glibness, "I'll send them a postcard. "The comment might have been written off as one of Nagin's many verbal missteps. But in the months that followed, the warnings turned out in many cases to be true, even as the city's rebuilding effort languished, infrastructure repairs limped along, the state reimbursement program for damaged homes faltered and the New Orleans' infamous crime rate made a sickening comeback. New Orleans "wasn't considered a great city for doing business before the storm. People were always dribbling out," says Peter Ricchiuti, a professor of economics at Tulane University. While many of the companies that made it through the storm could stand to benefit from the city's recovery, he says, Katrina may have hastened the loss of high-paying energy jobs. "We're losing the white-collar jobs and keeping the blue-collar jobs," he says. "We're becoming much more of a blue-collar oil industry." One of the latest examples is Chevron Corp. , which is building new offices in the northern suburbs, 40 miles north of the city across Lake Pontchartraln, and plans to transfer 550 employees from New Orleans to Covington by the end of the year. That would take well-paid people out of downtown New Orleans, a move that will impact the central business district's economy. "We made the decision in May, 2006, when our employees were making important housing decisions," says Qi Wilson, a Chevron spokesperson. The company; like many employees, decided the north shore offered better security should another hurricane strike, along with fewer of the post-Katrina headaches that still plague the city. The move "will make it easier to retain the talent we have, and to attract new talent," Wilson says.

单选题A deal is a deal—except, apparently, when Entergy is involved. The company, a major energy supplier in New England, provoked justified outrage in Vermont last week when it announced it was reneging on a longstanding commitment to abide by the state"s strict nuclear regulations. Instead, the company has done precisely what it would not: challenge the constitutionality of Vermont"s rules in the federal court, as part of a desperate effort to keep its Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant running. It"s a stunning move. The conflict has been surfacing since 2002, when the corporation bought Vermont"s only nuclear power plant, an aging reactor in Vernon. As a condition of receiving state approval for the sale, the company agreed to seek permission from state regulators to operate past 2012. In 2006, the state went a step further, requiring that any extension of the plant"s license be subject to Vermont legislature"s approval. Then, too, the company went along. Either Entergy never really intended to live by those commitments, or it simply didn"t foresee what would happen next. A string of accidents, including the partial collapse of a cooling tower in 2007 and the discovery of an underground pipe system leakage, raised serious questions about both Vermont Yankee"s safety and Entergy"s management—especially after the company made misleading statements about the pipe. Enraged by Entergy"s behavior, the Vermont Senate voted 26 to 4 last year against allowing an extension. Now the company is suddenly claiming that the 2002 agreement is invalid because of the 2006 legislation, and that only the federal government has regulatory power over nuclear issues. The legal issues in the case are obscure: whereas the Supreme Court has ruled that states do have some regulatory authority over nuclear power, legal scholars say that Vermont case will offer a precedent-setting test of how far those powers extend. Certainly, there are valid concerns about the patchwork regulations that could result if every state sets its own rules. But had Entergy kept its word, that debate would be beside the point. The company seems to have concluded that its reputation in Vermont is already so damaged that it has noting left to lose by going to war with the state. But there should be consequences. Permission to run a nuclear plant is a public trust. Entergy runs 11 other reactors in the United States, including Pilgrim Nuclear station in Plymouth. Pledging to run Pilgrim safely, the company has applied for federal permission to keep it open for another 20 years. But as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reviews the company"s application, it should keep in mind what promises from Entergy are worth.

单选题Like street comer prophets proclaiming that tile end is near, scientists who study the earth's atmosphere have been issuing predictions of impending doom for the past few years without offering any concrete proof. So far even the experts have had to admit that no solid evidence has emerged that this is anything but a natural phenomenon. And the uncertainty has given skeptics-especially Gingrichian politicians--plenty of ammunition to argue against taking the difficult, expensive steps required to stave off a largely hypothetical calamity. Until now, A draft report currently circulating on the Internet asserts that the global temperature rise can now be blamed, at least in part, on human activity. Statements like this have been made before by individual researchers-who have been criticized for going too far beyond the scientific consensus. But this report comes from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a respected UN sponsored body made up of more than 1,300 leading climate experts from 40 nations. This shift in scientific consensus is based not so much on new data as on improvements in the complex computer models that climatologists use to test their theories. Unlike chemists or molecular biologists, climate experts have no way to do lab experiments on their specialty. So they simulate them on supercomputers and look at what happens when human generated gases-carbon dioxide from industry and auto exhaust, methane from agriculture, chlorofluoro carbons from leaky refrigerators and spray cans-are pumped into the models virtual atmospheres. Until recently, the computer models weren't working very well. When the scientists tried to simulate what they believe has been happening over the past century or so, the results didn't mesh with reality; the models said the world should now he warmer than it actually is. The reason is that the computer models had been overlooking an important factor affecting global temperatures: sulfur dioxides that are produced along with CO2 when fossil fuels are burned in cars and power plants. Aerosols actually cool the planet by blocking sunlight and mask the effects of global warmning. Once the scientists factored in aerosols, their models began looking more like the real world. The improved performance of the simulations was demonstrated in 1991, when they successfully predicted temperature changes in the aftermath of the massive Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines. A number of studies since have added to the scientists confidence that they finally know what they are talking about-and can predict what may happen if greenhouse gases continue to be pumped into the atmosphere unchecked.

单选题According to the text, tax relief schemes were intended to______.

单选题Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the text?

单选题Generally speaking, a British is widely regarded as a quiet, shy and conservative person who is (1) only among those with whom he is acquainted. When a stranger is at present, he often seems nervous, even (2) . You have to take a commuter train any morning or evening to (3) the truth of this. Serious-looking businessmen and women sit reading their newspapers or dozing in a comer; hardly anybody talks, since to do so would be considered quite (4) . (5) , there is an unwritten but clearly understood code of behavior which, once broken, makes the offender immediately the object of (6) . It has been known as a fact that a British has a (7) for the discussion of their weather and that, if given a chance, he will talk about it (8) . Some people argue that it is because the British weather seldom (9) forecast add hence becomes a source of interest and (10) to everyone. This may be so. (11) a British cannot have much (12) in the weathermen, who, after promising fine, sunny weather for the following day, are often proved wrong (13) a cloud over the Atlantic brings rainy weather to all districts! The man in the street seems to be as accurate -- or as inaccurate as the weathermen in his (14) . Foreigners may be surprised at the number of references (15) weather that the British (16) to each other in the course of a single day. Very often conversational greetings are (17) by comments on the weather. "Nice day, isn't it?" "Beautiful!" may well be heard, instead of "Good morning, how are you?" Although the foreigner may consider this exaggerated and comic, it is (18) pointing out that it could be used to his advantage. If he wants to start a conversation with a British but is at a loss to know (19) to begin, he could do well to mention the state of the weather. It is a safe subject which will (20) an answer from even the most reserved of the British.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Some drug makers pay key leaders in a field of medicine, such as chairs of departments in medical schools, tens of thousands of dollars if they are saying the right things about their product. They manipulate medical education sessions, lectures, articles in medical journals, research studies, even personal conversations between physicians to get their product message across. Now a huge collection of drug company internal documents--revealed as part of a lawsuit—offers a wealth of detail. In 1996, Dr. David Franklin, an employee of the drug company Parke-Davis, filed the lawsuit under federal whistleblower statutes alleging that the company was illegally promoting a drug called Neurontin for so called "off-label' uses. Under federal law, once the FDA approves a drug, a doctor can prescribe it for anything. But the law specifically prohibits the drug company from promoting the drug for any unapproved uses. In 2004, the company, by then a division of Pfizer admitted guilt and agreed to pay $ 430 million in criminal and civil liability related to promoting the drug for off-label use. Spokespeople for Pfizer say that any wrong doing occurred before Pfizer acquired the company. But Pfizer fought hard to keep all the papers related to the suit under seal. A judge denied the request and they are now part of the Drug Industry Document Archive at the University of California, San Francisco. What is most interesting is not the illegal actions they reveal, but the details of activities that are perfectly legal. And according to people familiar with the industry, the methods detailed in these company memos are routine. One tactic identifies certain doctors as "thought leaders, "—those whose opinions influence the prescribing pattern of other doctors. Those whose views converge with the company goals are then showered with rewards, research and educational grants. In the Parke-Davis case 14 such big shots got between $10,250 and $158,250 between 1993 and 1997. "Medical education drives this market," wrote the author of one Parke-Davis business plan in the files. Many state licensing boards require physicians to attend sessions in what is called continuing medical education (CME) to keep current in their field. At one time, medical schools ran most CME courses. Now, an industry of medical education and communications committees (MECCs) run most of the courses. These companies with innocent sounding names like Medical Education Systems set up courses, sometimes in conjunction with medical meetings, at other times often in fancy restaurants and resorts. The drug companies foot the bill, with the program usually noting it was financed by an." unrestricted educational grant" from the company. Using MECCs, Parke-Davis set up conference calls so that doctors could talk to one another about the drugs. The moderators of the calls, often thought leaders or their younger assistants, received $250 to $500 a call. Drug company reps were on the line, instructed to stay in a "listen only" mode, but monitoring to be sure the pitch met their expectations. Clearly, 'many of the physicians in these schemes are not innocent bystanders. Whether it is ghost writing, making telephone calls to colleagues or leading a CME session, many of the doctors got paid well. Others received a free meal or transportation to a resort to listen to an "educational session." Physicians often claim they are not influenced by payments from the pharmaceutical industry. But with the methods so thoroughly detailed in these papers, drug companies clearly believe they are getting their money's worth.

单选题If a child starts to speak later than others, he will______ in future.

单选题According to the text, the reason for cosmetic surgery is

单选题It can be inferred from the last paragraph of the text that

单选题Few beyond California's technology crowd recognise the name Larry Sonsini; none within its circle could fail to. For four decades he has been lawyer, adviser and friend to many prominent companies and investors. Some consider him the most powerful person in Silicon Valley. Companies beg for his law firm to represent them. The 65-year-old chairman of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and more recently, as outside counsel to Hewlett-Packard (HP), for initially defending the board's dubious investigative practices. WSG&R boasts 600 lawyers and represents around half of Silicon Valley's public companies, including Apple, Sun Microsystems and Google. Last year it ranked first in private-equity and venture-capital deals, with nearly twice as many as its closest rival. Over the past five years WSG&R has worked on over 1,000 mergers and acquisitions, collectively worth over $ 260 billion. The recent troubles cast a shadow over WSG&R's reputation. Although Mr. Sonsini is not accused of wrongdoing himself, many of his firm's clients are on the ropes. Former executives at Brocade Communications suffered criminal charges in July. Mr. Sonsini served on Brocade's board until last year and his firm was its outside counsel. He also was on the boards of Pixar, Echelon, Lattice Semiconductor, LSI Logic and Novell--all firms at which the issuing of stock options is being called into question. WSG&R dismisses the idea that Mr. Sonsini faced a conflict of interest by acting as both director and legal adviser to so many firms and says he did not advise HP in its investigation of board members. Mr. Sonsini initially said it was "well done and within legal limits". It now seems it was neither.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} During its formative years, the inner solar system was a rough-and-tumble place. There were a couple of hundred large objects flying around. Moon-size or bigger, and for millions of years they collided with one another. Out of these impacts grew the terrestrial planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth with its Moon, and Mars—and the asteroids. Scientists have thought of these collisions as mergers: a smaller object (the impactor) hits a larger one (the target) and sticks to it. But new computer modeling by Erik Asphaug and Craig B. Agnor of the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows that things weren't that simple. "Most of the time, the impactor and the target go off on their merry ways," Dr. Asphaug said. About half the collisions are these hit-and-nm affairs. Now the two researchers and a colleague, Quentin Williams. have done simulations to study the effects of these collisions on the impactors. They are not pretty. "The impactors suffer all kinds of fates," Dr. Asphaug said. They undergo tremendous shearing and gravitational forces that can cause them to fracture into smaller pieces or melt, causing chemical changes in the material and loss of water or other volatile compounds. Or the crust and cover can be stripped off. leaving just an embryonic iron core. The researchers, whose findings are published in Nature, discovered that two objects did not even have to collide to create an effect on the smaller one. from the gravitational forces of a near-collision. During the simulations. Dr. Asphaug said, "We'd look and say, 'Gosh, we just got rid of the whole atmosphere of that planetoid: it didn't even hit and it sucked the whole atmosphere off.'" The researchers suggest that the remains of these beaten-up, fractured and melted objects can be found in the asteroid belt. Dr. Asphaug said that could explain the prevalence of "iron relics" in the belt. Some of these planetoid remnants also eventually hit Earth: that would help explain why certain meteorites lack water and other volatile elements. The hit-and-run collision model also provides an explanation for Vesta. a large asteroid with an intact crust and cover. How did Vesta keep its cover while so many other objects were losing theirs? Dr. Asphang said it could be that Vesta was always the target, never the impactor, and was thus less affected. "It just had to avoid being the hitter," he said, "until bigger objects left the system."