单选题What does the sentence "The air helps purify the water" illustrate?

单选题Successful businesses tend to continue implementing the ideas that made them successful. But in a rapidly changing world, ideas often become obsolete overnight. What worked in the past won't necessarily work in the future. In order to thrive in the future, you must constantly create new ideas for every aspect of your business. In fact, you must continually generate new ideas just to keep your head above water. Businesses that aren't creative about their future may not survive. Although Bill Gates is the richest, most successful man on the planet, he did not anticipate the Internet. Now he's scrambling to catch up. If Bill Gates can miss a major aspect of his industry, it can happen to you in your industry. Your business needs to continually innovate and create its future. Gates is now constantly worried about the future of Microsoft. Here's what he said in a recent interview in U. S. News World Report: "Will we be replaced tomorrow? No. In a very short time frame, Microsoft is an incredibly strong company. But when you look to the two-to three-year time frame, I don't think anyone can say with a straight face that any technology company has a guaranteed position. Not Intel, not Microsoft, not Compaq, not Dell, take any of your favorites. And that's totally honest." You may remember that in 1985 the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls were the beat-selling toy on the market But after Coleco Industries introduced their sensational line of dolls they became complacent and didn't create any new toys worth mentioning. As a result, Coleco went bankrupt in 1988. The most successful businesses survive in the long term because they constantly reassess their situations and reinvent themselves accordingly. The 3M Company has a 15% rule: Employees are encouraged to spend 15% of their time developing new ideas on any project they desire. It's no surprise, then, that 3M has been around since 1902. Most businesses are not willing to tear apart last year's model of success and build a new one. Here's a familiar analogy to explain why they are lulled into complacency. Imagine that your business is like a pet of lobsters. To cook lobsters, you put them into a pot of warm water and gradually turn up the heat. The lobsters don't realize they're being cooked because the process is se gradual. As a result, they become complacent and die without a struggle. However, if you throw a lobster into the pot when the water is boiling, it will desperately try to escape. This lobster is not lulled by a slowly changing environment. It realizes instantly that it's in a bad environment and takes immediate action to change its status.

单选题After Los Angeles, Atlanta may be America's most car-dependent city. Atlantans sentimentally give their cars names, compare speeding tickets and jealously guard any side-street where it is possible to park. The city's roads are so well worn that the first act of the new mayor, Shirley Franklin, was to start repairing potholes. In 1998, 13 metro counties lost federal highway funds because their air-pollution levels violated the Clean Air Act. The American Highway Users Alliance ranked three Atlanta interchanges among the 18 worst bottlenecks in the country. Other cities in the same fix have reorganized their highways, imposed commuter and car taxes, or expanded their public-transport systems. Atlanta does not like any of these things. Public transport is a vexed subject, too. Atlanta's metropolitan region is divided into numerous county and smaller city governments, which find it hard to work together. Railways now serve the city center and the airport, but not much else; bus stops are often near-invisible poles, offering no indication of which bus might stop there, or when. Georgia's Democratic governor, Roy Barnes, who hopes for reelection in November, has other plans. To win back the federal highway money lost under the Clean Air Act, he created the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA), a 15 member board with the power to make the county governments, the city and the ten-county Atlanta Regional Commission cooperate on transport plans, whether they like it or not. Now GRTA has issued its own preliminary plan, allocating ＄ 4.5 billion over the next three years for a variety of schemes. The plan earmarks money to widen roads; to have an electric shuttle bus shuttle tourists among the elegant villas of Buckhead; and to create a commuter rail link between Atlanta and Macon, two hours to the south. Counties will be encouraged, with generous ten-to-one matching funds, to start express bus services. Public goodwill, however, may not stretch as far as the next plan, which is to build the Northern Arc highway for 65 miles across three counties north of the city limits. GRTA has allotted ＄270m for this. Supporters say it would ease the congestion on local roads; opponents think it would worsen over-development and traffic. The counties affected, and even GRTA's own board, are divided. The governor is in favor, however; and since he can appoint and fire GRTA'S members, that is probably the end of the story. Mr Barnes has a tendency to do as he wants, regardless. His arrogance on traffic matters could also lose him votes. But Mr Barnes think that Atlanta's slowing economy could do him more harm than the anti-sprawl movement.

单选题In the author's view, the best remedy for coping with the hard conditions in travel in cities would be to

单选题It's all annual back-to-school routine. One morning you wave goodbye, and that (1) evening you're burning the late-night oil in sympathy. In the race to improve educational standards, (2) are throwing the books at kids. (3) elementary school students are complaining of homework (4) What's a well-meaning parent to do? As hard as (5) may he, sit back and chill, experts advise. Though you've got to get them to do it, (6) helping too much, or even examining (7) too carefully, you may keep them (8) doing it by themselves. "I wouldn't advise a parent to check every (9) assignment," says psychologist John Rosemond, author of Ending the Tough Homework. "There's a (10) of appreciation for trial and error. Let your children (11) the grade they deserve. " Many experts believe parents should gently look over the work of younger children and ask them to rethink their (12) . But "you don't want them to feel it has to be (13) ," she says. That's not to say parents should (14) homework-first, they should monitor how much homework their kids (15) . Thirty minutes a day in the early elementary years and an hour in (16) four, five, and six is standard, says Rosemond. For junior-high students it should be " (17) more than an hour and a half," and two for high school students. If your child (18) has more homework than this, you may want to check (19) other parents and then talk to the teacher about (20) assignments.

单选题Attempts to understand the relationship between social behavior and health have their origin in history. Dubos (1969) suggested that primitive humans were closer to the animals (1) they, too, relied'upon their instincts to stay healthy. Yet some primitive humans (2) a cause and effect relationship between doing certain things and alleviating (3) of a disease or (4) the condition of a wound. (5) there was so much that primitive humans did not (6) the functioning of the body, magic became an integral component ofthe beliefs about the causes and cures of heath (7) Therefore it is not (8) that early humans thought that illness was caused (9) evil spirit. Primitive medicines made from vegetables or animals were invariably used in combination with some form of ritual to (10) harmful spirit from a diseased body. One of the. earliest (11) in the Western world to formulate principles of health care based upon rational thought and (12) of supernatural phenomena is found in the work of the Greek physician Hippocrates. The writing (13) to him has provided a number of principles underiying modern medical practice. One of his most famous (14) , the Hippocratic Oath, is the foundation of contemporary medical ethics. Hippocrates also argued that medical knowledge should be derived from a (15) of the natural science and the logic of cause and effect relationships. In this (16) thesis, On Air, Water, and Places, Hippocrates pointed out that human well-being is (17) by the totality of environmental (18) : living habits or lifestyle, climate, geography of the land, and the quality of air, and food. (19) enough, concerns about our health and the quality of air, water, and places are (20) very much written in twentieth century.

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} It is hard to box against a southpaw, as Apollo Creed found out when he fought Rocky Balboa in the first of an interminable series of movies. While "Rocky" is fiction, the strategic advantage of being left-handed in a fight is very real, simply because most right-handed people have little experience of fighting left-handers, but not vice versa. And the same competitive advantage is enjoyed by left-handers in other sports, such as tennis and cricket. The orthodox view of human handedness is that it is connected to the bilateral specialization of the brain that has concentrated language-processing functions on the left side of that organ. Because, long ago in the evolutionary past, an ancestor of humans (and all other vertebrate animals) underwent a contortion that twisted its head around 180° relative to its body, the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and vice versa. In humans, the left brain (and thus the right body) is usually dominant. And on average, lefthanders are smaller and lighter than right-handers. That should put them at an evolutionary disadvantage. Sporting advantage notwithstanding, therefore, the existence of left-handed-ness poses a problem for biologists. But Charlotte Faurie and Michel Raymond, of the University of Montpellier Ⅱ , in France, think they know the answer. As they report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, there is a clue in the advantage seen in boxing. As any schoolboy could tell you, winning fights enhances your status. If, in prehistory, this translated into increased reproductive success, it might have been enough to maintain a certain proportion of left-handers in the population, by balancing the costs of being left-hand-ed with the advantages gained in fighting. If that is true, then there will be a higher proportion of left-handers in societies with higher levels of violence, since the advantages of being left-handed will be enhanced in such societies. Dr Faurie and Dr Raymond set out to test this hypothesis. Fighting in modern societies often involves the use of technology, notably firearms, that is unlikely to give any advantage to left-handers. So Dr Faurie and Dr Raymond decided to confine their investigation to the proportion of left-handers and the level of violence (by number of homicides) in traditional societies. By trawling the literature, checking with police departments, and even going out into the field and asking people, the two researchers found that the proportion of left-handers in a traditional society is, indeed, correlated with its homicide rate. One of the highest proportions of left-handers, for example, was found among the Yanomamo of South America. Rai-ding and warfare are central to Yanomamo culture. The murder rate is 4 per 1000 inhabitants per year (compared with, for example, 0.068 in New York). And, according to Dr Faurie and Dr Raymond, 22.6% of Yanomamo are left-handed. In contrast, Dioula-speaking people of Burkina Faso in West Africa are virtual pacifists. There are only 0.013 murders per 1000 inhabitants among them and only 3.4% of the population is left-handed. While there is no suggestion that left-handed people are more violent than the right-hand-ed, it looks as though they are more successfully violent. Perhaps that helps to explain the double meaning of the word "sinister".

单选题{{B}}Part A{{/B}}{{B}}Directions:{{/B}}Reading 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}} The history of responses to the work of the artist Sandro Botticelli (1444 ～ 1510) suggests that widespread appreciation by critics is a relatively recent phenomenon. Writing in 1550, Vasari expressed an unease with Botticelli's work, admitting that the artist fitted awkwardly into his evolutionary scheme of the history of art. Over the next two centuries, academic art historians defamed Botticelli in favor of his fellows Florentine, Michelangelo. Even when anti-academic art historians of the early nineteenth century rejected many of the standards of evaluation adopted by their predecessors, Botticelli's work remained outside of accepted taste, pleasing neither amateur observers nor {{U}}connoisseurs{{/U}}. (Many of his best paintings, however, remained hidden away in obscure churches and private homes. ) The primary reason for Botticelli's unpopularity is not difficult to understand: most observers, up until the midnineteenth century, did not consider him to be noteworthy, because his work, for the most part, did not seem to these observers to exhibit the traditional characteristics of fifteenth-century Florentine art. For example, Botticelli rarely employed the technique of strict perspective and, unlike Michelangelo, never used chiaroscuro. Another reason for Botticelli's unpopularity may have been that his attitude toward the style of classical art was very different from that of his contemporaries. Although he was thoroughly exposed to classical art, he showed little interest in borrowing from the classical style. Indeed, it is paradoxical that a painter of large-scale classical subjects adopted a style that was only slightly similar to that of classical art. In any case, when viewers began to examine more closely the relationship of Botticelli's work to the tradition of fifteenth-century Florentine art, his 'reputation began to grow. Analyses and assessments of Botticelli made between 1850 and 1870 by the artists of the Pre Raphaelite movement, as well as by the writer Pater (although he, unfortunately, based his assessment on an incorrect analysis of Botticelli's personality), inspired a new appreciation of Botticelli throughout the English-speaking world. Yet Botticelli's work, especially the Sistine frescoes, did not generate worldwide attention until it was finally subjected to a comprehensive and scrupulous analysis by Home in 1908. Home rightly demonstrated that the frescoes shared important features with paintings by other fifteenth-century Florentines features such as skillful representation of anatomical proportions, and of the human figure in motion. However, Home argued that Botticelli did not treat these qualities as ends in themselves--rather, that he emphasized clear depletion of a story, a unique achievement and one that made the traditional Florentine qualities less central. Because of Home's emphasis crucial to any study of art, the twentieth century has come to appreciate Bottieelli's achievements.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} On Mar. 14, when Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced its first foray into Japan, the Bentonville (Ark.) retailing giant placed a big bet that it could succeed where countless other foreign companies have failed. In the past five years, a number of famous Western brands have been forced to close up shop after failing to Catch on in Japan, one of the world's largest—but most variable—consumer markets. May Wal-Mart {{U}}make a go of{{/U}} it where others have stumbled? One good sign is that the mass marketer is not rushing in blindly. It has taken an initial 6.1% stake in ailing food-and-clothing chain Seiyu Ltd., which it can raise to a controlling 33.4% by yearend and to 66.7% by 2007. That gives Wal-Mart time to revise its strategy—or run for the exits. The question is whether Wal-Mart can apply the lessons it has learned in other parts of Asia to Japan. This, after all, is a nation of notoriously finicky consumers—who have become even more so since Japan slipped into a decade long slump. How will Wal-Mart bring to bear its legendary cost-cutting savvy in a market already affected by falling prices? Analysts are understandably skeptical. "It is uncertain whether Wal-Mart's business models will be effective in Japan," Standard & Poor's said in a Mar. 18 report. Much depends on whether Seiyu turns out to be a good partner. The 39-year-old retailer is a member of the reputed Seibu Saison retail group that fell on hard times in the early '90s. It also has deep ties to trading house Sumitomo Corp. , which will take a 15% stake in the venture with Wal-Mart. Perhaps the best thing that can be said of Seiyu's 400-odd stores is that they're not as deeply troubled as other local retailers. Still, there's a gaping chasm between the two corporate cultures. "We've never been known for cheap everyday pricing," says a Seiyu spokesman. Another potential problem is Sumitomo, which may not want to lean on suppliers to the extent that Wal-Mart routinely does. The clock is ticking. Wal-Mart executives say they need several months to "study" the deal with Seiyu before acting on it, but in the meantime a new wave of hyper-competitive Japanese and foreign rivals are carving up the market. If Wal-Mart succeeds, it will reduce its reliance on its home market even further and—who knows?—it may even revolutionize Japanese retailing in the same way it has in the U. S.