单选题Could money cure sick health-care systems in Britain, which will be the place to look for proof in 2003. The National Health Service (NHS), which offers free health care financed by taxes, is receiving an emergency no-expense-spared injection of cash. By 2007, total health spending in Britain will reach over 9% of GDP--the same share France had when it was rated the world's best health service by the World Health Organization in 2000. The Labor government's response was not to conduct a fundamental review about how best to reform health care for the 21st century. Rather, it concluded that shortage of money, not the form of financing or provision, was the main problem. In 2002, Gordon Brown, the powerful chancellor of the exchequer, used a review of the NHS's future financing requirements to reject alternative funding models that would allow patients to sign up with competing insurers and so exercise greater control over their own health care. Alan Milburn, the health minister, has made some tentative steps back towards the internal market introduced by the Conservative government. It means that a dozen top-ranking hospitals will also have been given greater freedom to run their own affairs. However, these reforms will not deliver real consumer power to patients. As a result, the return on the money pouring into the NHS looks set to be disappointingly meager. Already there are worrying signs that much of the cash cascade will be soaked up in higher pay and shorter hours for staff and bear little relation to extra effort, productivity and quality. Some improvements will occur but far less than might be expected from such a financial windfall. Health-care systems in the developed world share a common history, argues David Cutler at Harvard University. First governments founded generous universal systems after the second world war. With few controls over the demand for medical care or its supply, costs then spiraled up. Starting in the 1980s there was a drive to contain expenditure, often through crude constraints on medical budgets which ran counter to rising patient expectations Now this strategy has run its course: a third wave of reforms is under way to increase efficiency and restrain demand through cost-sharing between insurers and patients. Viewed from this perspective, the government's plan to shower cash on a largely unreformed NHS looks anomalous. But before more fundamental change can be contemplated in Britain, the old system must be shown to be incapable of cure through money. This harsh lesson is likely to be learnt as early as 2003.

单选题{{B}}Text 1{{/B}} As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "Universal human rights begin in small places, close to home." And Tolerance. org, a Web site from the Southern Poverty Law Center, is helping parents across the country create homes in which tolerance and understanding are guiding themes. "The goal of nurturing open-minded, empathetic children is a challenging one," says Jennifer Holladay, director of Tolerance. org. "To cultivate tolerance, parents have to instill in children a sense of empathy, respect and responsibility—to oneself and to others—as well as the recognition that every person on earth is a treasure." Holladay offers several ways parents can promote tolerance: Talk about tolerance. Tolerance education is an ongoing process; it cannot be captured in a single moment. Establish a high comfort level for open dialogue about social issues. Let children know that no subject is {{U}}taboo{{/U}}. Identify intolerance when children are exposed to it. Point out stereotypes and cultural misinformation depicted in movies, TV shows, computer games and other media. Challenge bias when it comes from friends and family members. Do not let the moment pass. Begin with a qualified statement: "Andrew just called people of XYZ faith 'lunatics. ' What do you think about that, Zoe?" Let children do most of the talking. Challenge intolerance when it comes from your children. When a child says or does something that reflects biases or embraces stereotypes, confront the child: "What makes that joke funny, Jerome?" Guide the conversation toward internalization of empathy and respect—"Mimi uses a walker, honey. How do you think she would feel about that joke?" or "How did you feel when Robbie made fun of your glasses last week?" Support your children when they are the victims of intolerance. Respect children's troubles by acknowledging when they become targets of bias. Don't minimize the experience. Provide emotional support and then brainstorm constructive responses. For example, develop a set of comebacks to use when children are the victims of name-calling. Create opportunities for children to interact with people who are different from them. Look critically at how a child defines "normal." Expand the definition. Visit playgrounds where a variety of children are present—people of different races, socioeconomic backgrounds, family structures, etc. Encourage a child to spend time with elders—grandparents, for example. Encourage children to call upon community resources. A child who is concerned about world hunger can volunteer at a local soup kitchen or homeless shelter. The earlier children interact with the community, the better. This will help convey the lesson that we are not islands unto ourselves. Model the behavior you would like to see. As a parent and as your child's primary role model, be consistent in how you treat others. Remember, you may say, "Do as I say, not as I do," but actions really do speak louder than words.

单选题In 1880, Sir Joshua Waddilove, a Victorian philanthropist, founded Provident Financial to provide affordable loans to working-class families in and around Bradford, in northern England. This month his company, now one of Britain's leading providers of "home credit"— small, short-term, unsecured loans—began the nationwide rollout of Vanquis, a credit card aimed at people that mainstream lenders shun. The card offers up to ￡ 200 ($ 380) of credit, at a price: for the riskiest customers, the annual interest rate will be 69%. Provident says that the typical interest rate is closer to 50% and that it charges no fees for late payments or breaching credit limits. Still, that is triple the rate on regular credit cards and far above the 30% charged by store cards. And the Vanquis card is being launched just when Britain's politicians and media are full of worry about soaring consumer debt. Last month, a man took his own life after running up debts of ￡ 130000 on 22 different credit cards. Credit cards for "sub-prime" borrowers, as the industry delicately calls those with poor credit records, are new in Britain but have been common in America for a while. Lenders began issuing them when the prime market became saturated, prompting them to look for new sources of profit. Even in America, the sub-prime market has plenty of room for growth. David Robertson of the Nilson Report, a trade magazine, reckons that outstanding sub-prime credit-card debt accounts for only 3% of the $ 597 billion that Americans owe on plastic. The sub-prime sector grew by 7.9% last year, compared with only 2.6% for the industry as a whole. You might wonder, though, how companies can make money from lending to customers they know to be bad risks—or at any rate, how they can do it legitimately. Whereas delinquencies in the credit-card industry as a whole are around 4%-5% , those in the sub-prime market are almost twice as high, and can reach 15% in hard times. Obviously, issuers charge higher interest rates to compensate them for the higher risk of not being repaid. And all across the credit-card industry, the assessment and pricing of risks has been getting more and more refined, thanks largely to advances in technology and data processing. Companies also use sophisticated computer programs to track slower payment or other signs of increased risk. Sub-prime issuers pay as much attention to collecting debt as to managing risk; they impose extra charges, such as application fees; and they cap their potential losses by lending only small amounts ($ 500 is a typical credit limit). All this is easier to describe than to do, especially when the economy slows. After the bursting of the technology bubble in 2000, several sub-prime credit-card providers failed. Now there are only around 100, of which nine issue credit cards. Survivors such as Metris and Providian, two of the bigger sub-prime card companies, have become choosier about their customers' credit histories. As the economy recovered, so did lenders' fortunes. Fitch, a rating agency, says that the proportion of sub-prime credit-card borrowers who are more than 60 days in arrears (a good predictor of eventual default) is the lowest since November 2001. But with American interest rates rising again, some worry about another squeeze. As Fitch's Michael Dean points out, sub-prime borrowers tend to have not just higher-rate credit cards, but dearer auto loans and variable-rate mortgages as well. That makes a risky business even riskier.

单选题Although many factors affect human health during periods in space, weightlessness is the dominant and single most important one. The direct and indirect effects of weightlessness lead to a series of related responses. Ultimately, the whole body, from bones to brain, kidneys to bowels, reacts. When space travelers grasp the wall of their spacecraft and jerk their bodies back and forth, they say it feels as though they are stationary and the spacecraft is moving. The reason is based in our reliance on gravity to perceive our surroundings. The continuous and universal nature of gravity removes it from our daily notice, but our bodies never forget. Whether we realize it or not, we have evolved a large number of silent, automatic reactions to cope with the constant stress of living in a downward-pulling world. Only when we decrease or increase the effective force of gravity on our bodies do our minds perceive it. Our senses provide accurate information about the location of our center of mass and the relative positions of our body parts. Our brains integrate signals from our eyes and ears with other information from the organs in our inner ear, from our muscles and joints, and from our senses of touch and pressure. The apparatus of the inner ear is partitioned into two distinct components: circular, fluid-filled tubes that sense the angle of the head, and two bags filled with calcium crystals embedded in a thick fluid, which respond to linear movement. The movement of the calcium crystals sends a signal to the brain to tell us the direction of gravity. This is not the only cue the brain receives. Nerves in the muscles, joints, and skin—particularly the slain on the bottom of the feet—respond to the weight of limb segments and other body parts. Removing gravity transforms these signals. The inner ear no longer perceives a downward tendency when the head moves. The limbs no longer have weight, so muscles are no longer required to contract and relax in the usual way to maintain posture and bring about movement. Nerves that respond to touch and pressure in the feet and ankles no longer signal the direction of down. These and other changes contribute to orientation illusions, such as a feeling that the body or the spacecraft spontaneously changes direction. In 1961 a Russian astronaut reported vivid sensations of being upside down; one space shuttle specialist in astronomy said, "When the main engines cut off, I immediately felt as though we had inverted 180 degrees." Such illusions can recur even after some time in space.

单选题The mythology of a culture can provide some vital insights into the beliefs and values of that culture. By using fantastic and sometimes incredible stories to create an oral tradition by which to explain the wonders of the natural world and teach lessons to younger generations, a society exposes those ideas and concepts held most important. Just as important as the final lesson to be gathered from the stories, however, are the characters and the roles they play in conveying that message. Perhaps the epitome of mythology and its use as a tool to pass on cultural values can be found in Aesop"s Fables, told and retold during the era of the Greek Empire. Aesop, a slave who won the favor of the court through his imaginative and descriptive tales, almost exclusively used animals to fill the roles in his short stories. Humans, when at all present, almost always played the part of bumbling fools struggling to learn the lesson being presented. This choice of characterization allows us to see that the Greeks placed wisdom on a level slightly beyond humans, implying that deep wisdom and understanding is a universal quality sought by, rather than stealing from, human beings. Aesop"s fables illustrated the central themes of humility and self-reliance, reflecting the importance of those traits in early Greek society. The folly of humans was used to contrast against the ultimate goal of attaining a higher level of understanding and awareness of truths about nature and humanity. For example, one notable fable features a fox repeatedly trying to reach a bunch of grapes on a very high vine. After failing at several attempts, the fox gives up, making up its mind that the grapes were probably sour anyway. The fable"s lesson, that we often play down that which we can"t achieve so as to make ourselves feel better, teaches the reader or listener in an entertaining way about one of the weaknesses of the human psyche. The mythology of other cultures and societies reveal the underlying traits of their respective cultures just as Aesop"s fables did. The stories of Roman gods, Aztec ghosts and European elves all served to train ancient generations those lessons considered most important to their community, and today they offer a powerful looking glass by which to evaluate and consider the contextual environment in which those culture existed.

单选题We know from the author's suggestions that

单选题Many young animators pursue the career because they want to

单选题What is/was people's attitude towords death?

单选题Odd even pricing method ______.

单选题Times are tough for the hundreds of English-language colleges that cluster along the south coast of England. Reforms to the student-visa system that are (1) to help cut immigration are limiting the inflow of foreigners (2) in them. But language entrepreneurs are finding (3) ways to meet the rising demand for tuition. Students who visit English City, a language-teaching program, can chat to passers by (4) they wander through the streets, meet their tutors in virtual cafes and order snacks. Shiv Rajendran, who founded LanguageLab, a London-based start-up that (5) English City, says business is booming, though from a (6) base. Online language instructors are benefiting from recent changes to the immigration regime. Schools that (7) students from outside the European Union must now demonstrate their trustworthiness to the borders agency. (8) , students can no longer obtain a general visa that (9) their time at both language school and university. (10) , Tony Millns of English UK, a lobby group, (11) that 40,000 fewer language students will come this year, leaving Britain ￡600m (12) off. Another response to this (13) among some adventurous English-language colleges has been to set up shop abroad. The London School of English has established campuses in Georgia and Qatar and is (14) elsewhere. Still, some students who might have come to Britain will probably (15) instead for a conventional course in America or Australia. And reforms among English-language teachers in Britain won't (16) the impact of the visa changes on the broader economy. Colleges that are opening international branches will charge fees, but most of the income will remain (17) . Online educators are recruiting tutors in other time (18) so that classes can be taught (19) the clock. English is more popular than (20) , but the country of its birth is ill-placed to profit.

单选题Corals are approaching a brink. Warming oceans, acidification and a constellation of other man-made stressors mean coral reefs may face extinction within the century. And with around 25 percent of all sea life, dependent on the health of coral reefs, if the corals go down, they"re taking a huge swath of marine biodiversity with them. But in a paper published in the journal Science, a team of scientists made a hopeful discovery: Heat tolerance in corals can be inherited, and at a remarkably high rate of success too; 87 percent of all differences in survival rates among the heat-stressed coral they studied was explained by how heat-tolerant the corals" parents were. "This implies that heat tolerance could not only evolve, but evolve fast," explained Mikhail Matz, an associate professor of integrative biology and an author on the paper. In other words, some corals are already capable of genetically adapting to warmer oceans. If heat-tolerant coral parents can have heat-tolerant coral babies, then interbreeding between more and less heat-tolerant corals has the potential to help genetically rescue the next generation of a colony. Humans, the authors posit, could potentially harness the natural genetic variation among corals to help save them. More resilient coral could be born out of "something as simple as exchange of coral immigrants across latitudes," said Line Bay, an evolutionary ecologist and another author on the paper. If humans strategically move heat-tolerant, reproductively active corals to vulnerable reefs, the process of "genetic rescue" might be jump-started. "This is occasion for hope and optimism about coral reefs and the marine life that thrive there," Matz said. Meanwhile, a multitude of other problems face coral reefs. For example, as the paper notes, corals live a long time; from decades to centuries. With climate change poised to measurably warm and acidified oceans within the next several decades, and pollution causing oxygen depletion and "dead zones" in some areas, "it has been argued that in such long-lived organisms acclimatization rather than genetic adaptation will play the leading role in their response to climate change," the paper reads. In other words, to save reefs, something needs to be done for the coral that already exist. "Existing genetic variation is by no means a magic bullet that will solve the problem once and for all," Matz said. "The good news is that genetic variation will buy us some time; but it will eventually "run out" when the warming progresses beyond the high levels seen now in natural populations. So if we want to save corals (as well as the rest of biodiversity) we will still need to come up with a solution to curb global warming as a global problem."

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} 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During the past generation, the American middle-class family that once could count on hard work and fair play to keep itself financially secure has been transformed by economic risk and new realities. Now a pink slip, a bad diagnosis, or a disappearing spouse can reduce a family from solidly middle class to newly poor in a few months. In just one generation, millions of mothers have gone to work, transforming basic family economics. Scholars, policymakers, and critics of all stripes have debated the social implications of these changes, but few have looked at the side effect: family risk has risen as well. Today"s families have budgeted to the limits of their new two-paycheck status. As a result, they have lost the parachute they once had in times of financial setback—a back-up earner (usually Mom) who could go into the workforce if the primary earner got laid off or fell sick. This "added-worker effect" could support the safety net offered by unemployment insurance or disability insurance to help families weather bad times. But today, a disruption to family fortunes can no longer be made up with extra income from an otherwise-stay-at-home partner. During the same period, families have been asked to absorb much more risk in their retirement income. Steelworkers, airline employees, and now those in the auto industry are joining millions of families who must worry about interest rates, stock market fluctuation, and the harsh reality that they may outlive their retirement money. For much of the past year, President Bush campaigned to move Social Security to a saving-account model, with retirees trading much or all of their guaranteed payments for payments depending on investment returns. For younger families, the picture is not any better. Both the absolute cost of healthcare and the share of it borne by families have risen—and newly fashionable health-savings plans are spreading from legislative halls to Wal-Mart workers, with much higher deductibles and a large new dose of investment risk for families" future healthcare. Even demographics are working against the middle class family, as the odds of having a weak elderly parent—and all the attendant need for physical and financial assistance—have jumped eightfold in just one generation. From the middle-class family perspective, much of this, understandably, looks far less like an opportunity to exercise more financial responsibility, and a good deal more like a frightening acceleration of the wholesale shift of financial risk onto their already overburdened shoulders. The financial fallout has begun, and the political fallout may not be far behind.

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单选题Between 1900 and 1912, the nations of Europe were at peace. But there were hostilities, rivalries, and conflicts brewing that would soon tear the whole continent apart. The great conflict was World War Ⅰ. (1) just prior to that war, there were two (2) conflicts in the Balkan Peninsula. These two short wars took place in 1912 and 1913. Their (3) result was to end the (4) of the Turkish Ottoman Empire in Europe. The more tragic (5) of the Balkan Wars was to heighten the already fierce international tensions that were (6) the nations of Europe toward World War Ⅰ.In 1912 the Balkan nations (7) of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece. The Macedonian region in northern Greece was under the (8) of the Turks. The Balkan lands were also peopled by many intensely nationalistic ethnic groups. Among these were Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bulgars and Macedonians. These peoples had long been fierce rivals for territory and political (9) . Religious (10) between Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians within these groups further added to their disputes. These rivalries still (11) . Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro formed the Balkan League in 1912. In October 1912 the Balkan League (12) war (13) the Ottoman Turks. The Balkan (14) were quickly victorious. They won battles (15) Skopje, Monastir and other cities. The war ended in December. In May 1913 a treaty signed in London formally (16) the conflict. The Turks lost most of their European (17) . (18) , the peace did not last. In June 1913 Bulgaria attacked Serbia and Greece. This (19) conflict was ended by a (20) signed in Bucharest in August 1913.