单选题Which of the following is Not true according to the first two paragraphs?

单选题{{B}}Part A{{/B}}{{B}}Text 1{{/B}} It was a little weird at first, Erin Tobin said, seeing Harry Potter right there on the stage without his pants, or indeed any of his clothes. Not actually Harry Potter, of course, since he is fictional, but the next best thing: Daniel Radcliffe. who plays him in the movies. Now 17. Mr. Radcliffe has cast off his wand. his broomstick and everything else to appear in the West End revival of Peter Shaffer's "Equus." He stars as Alan Strang, a disturbed young man who, in a distinctly un-Harry-Potterish moment of frenzied psychosexual madness, blinds six horses with a hoof pick. To make it clear what audiences are in for, at least in part, photographs of Mr. Radcliffe's buff torso, stripped almost to the groin, have been used to advertise the production. It is as jarring as if, say, Anne Hathaway suddenly announced that instead of playing sweet-natured princesses and fashion-world ing6nues, she wanted to appear onstage as a nude. murderous prostitute. To explain how is surprising the change of Radcliffe to the audience, the author mentions Anne "Equus" opened last week, and the consensus so far is that Mr. Radcliffe has successfully extricated himself from his cinematic alter ego. Considering that playing Harry Potter is practically all he has done in his career, this is no small achievement. "I think he's a really good actor, and I sort of forgot about Harry Potter." said Ophelia Oates. 14, who saw the play over the weekend. "Anyway, you can't be Harry Potter forever." In The Daily Telegraph, Charles Spencer said that "Daniel Radcliffe brilliantly succeeds m throwing off the mantle of Harry Potter, announcing himself as a thrilling stage actor of unexpected depth and range." Mr. Radcliffe told The Daily Telegraph that "I thought it would be a bad idea to wait till the Potter films were all finished to do something else." There are still a few to go. The fifth, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," is scheduled for release on July 13. and Mr. Radcliffe has signed on for the final two installments as well. (Meanwhile, the seventh and last book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," will hit stores on July 21.) Harry and Alan could not be more dissimilar as characters, even if both "come from quite weird backgrounds," as 13-year-old Ella Pitt, another recent theatergoer, put it. (And no. she declared, she was not too young for all the nakedness, swearing and sexuality.) Both characters have unresolved issues relating to their parents: Harry, because his are dead, and Alan, because his have driven him insane. But when it comes to romance, for instance, the celluloid Harry has yet to kiss a girl; the big moment comes in the forthcoming film. Meanwhile, Alan in "Equus" not only engages in some serious equi-erotic nuzzling with an actor playing a horse, but is also onstage, fully nude. for 10 minutes, during which he nearly has sex with an equally naked young woman.

单选题When a customer claimed to have found a severed finger in a bowl of chilli served at a Wendy's fast-food franchise in California, the chain's sales fell by half in the San José area where the incident was reported. Wendy's brand and reputation were at risk, until the claim was exposed as a hoax in late April and the company, operator of America's third-biggest hamburger chain, was vindicated. Yet the share price of Wendy's International, the parent company, rose steadily through March and April, despite the finger furore and downgrades from analysts. One reason was heavy buying by hedge funds, led by Pershing Square Capital. This week Pershing made its intentions public, saying that it was worried by market rumours that Wendy's might soon buy more fast-food brands, and arguing that the firm should be selling assets instead. Pershing's approach indicates rising pressure on American restaurant companies to perform, at a time when the industry's growth prospects look increasingly tough. The hit on customers' wallets from higher petrol prices and rising interest rates will probably mean that year-on-year sales growth across the American restaurant industry slows to just 1% by the fourth quarter of 2005, down from a five-year historic average of 5.6%, say UBS, an investment bank, and Global Insight, a forecasting group. Looking further ahead, says UBS's David Palmer, the industry may have to stop relying on most of the long-term trends that were behind much of its recent growth. Three-quarters of Americans already live within three miles of a McDonald's restaurant, leaving little scope for green-field growth. [Obesity is a growing issue in America, and with it come the threat of liability lawsuits against big restaurant chains and, perhaps, legal limits on advertising.] This week America's biggest food trade group, the Grocery Manufacturers' Association, was said to be preparing tougher guidelines on the marketing of food to children, in the hope of staving off statutory controls. Home cooking may also be making a comeback, helped by two factors. The percentage of women joining America's workforce may have peaked, and supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart have been forcing down retail food prices. Expansion overseas is one option for American restaurant chains. Burger King, the privately owned number two hamburger chain, opened its first outlet in China last month, apparently aiming to maintain strong growth ahead of an initial public offering next year. McDonald's has 600 outlets in China and plans 400 more. But at home, the future seems to hold only an ever more competitive and cost-conscious restaurant industry. Fast-food chains are trying to poach customers from "casual dining" chains (such as Applebee's Neighborhood Grill), while those chains are squeezing out independent restaurants unable to compete on cost or in marketing clout. Business conditions, not severed fingers, are the real threat to the weaker firms in the restaurant business.

单选题Many foreigners who have not visited Britain call all the inhabitants English, for they are used to thinking of the British Isles as England. (1) , the British Isles contain a variety of peoples, and only the people of England call themselves English. The others (2) to themselves as Welsh, Scottish, or Irish, (3) the case may be; they are often slightly annoyed (4) being classified as "English". Even in England there are many (5) in regional character and speech. The chief (6) is between southern England and northern England. South of a (7) going from Bristol to London, people speak the type of English usually learnt by foreign students, (8) there are local variations. Further north regional speech is usually " (9) " than that of southern Britain. Northerners are (10) to claim that they work harder than Southerners, and are more (11) . They are open-hearted and hospitable; foreigners often find that they make friends with them (12) . Northerners generally have hearty (13) : the visitor to Lancashire or Yorkshire, for instance, may look forward to receiving generous (14) at meal times. In accent and character the people of the Midlands (15) a gradual change from the southern to the northern type of Englishman. In Scotland the sound (16) by the letter "R" is generally a strong sound, and "R" is often pronounced in words in which it would be (17) in southern English. The Scots are said to be a serious, cautious, thrifty people, (18) inventive and somewhat mystical. All the Celtic peoples of Britain (the Welsh, the Irish, the Scots) are frequently (19) as being more "fiery" than the English. They are (20) a race that is quite distinct from the English.

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

单选题 A new book by a former lawyer at Kirkland unlike tulips and other speculative bubbles in the past, lawyers will always be a necessity not a fad. But then, The Very, Very Challenging Job Market for Lawyers doesn't have the same ring to it.

单选题How do hotels react to the penny-pinching policy?

单选题If you are anything like me, you left the theater after Sex and the City 2 and thought, there ought to be a law against a looks-based culture in which the only way for 40-year-old actresses to be compensated like 40-year-old actors is to have them look and dress like the teenage daughters of 40-year-old actors. Meet Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor who proposes a legal regime in which discrimination on the basis of looks is as serious as discrimination based on gender or race. In a provocative new book, The Beauty Bias , Rhode lays out the case for an America in which appearance discrimination is no longer allowed. That means Hooters can"t fire its servers for being too heavy, as allegedly happened last month to a waitress in Michigan who says she received nothing but excellent reviews but weighed 132 pounds. Rhode is at her most persuasive when arguing that in America, discrimination against unattractive women and short men is as pernicious and widespread as bias based on race, sex, age, ethnicity, religion, and disability. Rhode cites research to prove her point: 11 percent of surveyed couples say they would abort a fetus predisposed toward obesity. College students tell surveyors they"d rather have a spouse who is an embezzler, drug user, or a shoplifter than one who is obese. And all of this is compounded by a virtually unregulated beauty and diet industry and soaring rates of elective cosmetic surgery. Rhode reminds us how Hillary Clinton and Sonia Sotomayor were savaged by the media for their looks, and says it"s no surprise that Sarah Palin paid her makeup artist more than any member of her staff in her run for the vice presidency. And the problem with making appearance discrimination illegal is that Americans just really, really like hot girls. And so long as being a hot girl is deemed a bona fide occupational qualification, there will be cocktail waitresses fired for gaining three pounds. It"s not just American men who like things this way. The truth is that women feel good about competing in beauty pageants. To put it another way, appearance bias is a massive societal problem with tangible economic costs that most of us—perhaps especially women—perpetuate each time we buy a diet pill or sneer at fat women. This doesn"t mean we shouldn"t work toward eradicating discrimination based on appearance. But it may mean recognizing that the law won"t stop us fi"om discriminating against the overweight, the aging, and the imperfect, so long as it"s the quality we all hate most in ourselves.

单选题"Was it a he or a she" (Line 7, Paragraph 2) may be replaced by

单选题By "Miuccia Prada was obviously biting her nails" (Paragraph 1), the author means ______.

单选题All around the world, lawyers generate more hostility than the members of any other profession—with the possible exception of journalism. But there are few places where clients have more grounds for complaint than America. During the decade before the economic crisis, spending on legal services in America grew twice as fast as inflation. The best lawyers made skyscrapers-full of money, tempting ever more students to pile into law schools. But most law graduates never get a big-firm job. Many of them instead become the kind of nuisance-lawsuit filer that makes the tort system a costly nightmare. There are many reasons for this. One is the excessive costs of a legal education. There is just one path for a lawyer in most American states: a four-year undergraduate degree in some unrelated subject, then a three-year law degree at one of 200 law schools authorized by the American Bar Association and an expensive preparation for the bar exam. This leaves today"s average law-school graduate with $100,000 of debt on top of undergraduate debts. Law-school debt means that they have to work fearsomely hard. Reforming the system would help both lawyers and their customers. Sensible ideas have been around for a long time, but the state-level bodies that govern the profession have been too conservative to implement them. One idea is to allow people to study law as an undergraduate degree. Another is to let students sit for the bar after only two years of law school. If the bar exam is truly a stern enough test for a would-be lawyer, those who can sit it earlier should be allowed to do so. Students who do not need the extra training could cut their debt mountain by a third. The other reason why costs are so high is the restrictive guild-like ownership structure of the business. Except in the District of Columbia, non-lawyers may not own any share of a law firm. This keeps fees high and innovation slow. There is pressure for change from within the profession, but opponents of change among the regulators insist that keeping outsiders out of a law firm isolates lawyers from the pressure to make money rather than serve clients ethically. In fact, allowing non-lawyers to own shares in law firms would reduce costs and improve services to customers, by encouraging law firms to use technology and to employ professional managers to focus on improving firms" efficiency. After all, other countries, such as Australia and Britain, have started liberalizing their legal professions. America should follow.

单选题In the end, a degree of sanity prevailed. The militant Hindus who had vowed to breach a police cordon and start the work of building a temple to the god Ram at the disputed site of Ayodhya decided to respect a Supreme Court decision barring them from the area. So charged have Hindu-Muslim relations in India become in recent weeks, as the declared deadline of March 15th neared, that a clash at Ram's supposed birthplace might well have provoked bloodshed on an appalling scale across the nation. It has, unfortunately, happened often enough before. But the threat has not vanished. The court's decision is only an interim one, and the main Hindu groups have not given up on their quest to build their temple. Extreme religious violence, which seemed in recent years to have faded after the Ayodhya-related explosion of 1992--1993, is again a feature of the political landscape. Though faults lie on both sides (it was a Muslim attack On Hindus in a train in Gujarat that started the recent slaughter), the great bulk of victims were, as always, Muslims. Once again, educated Hindus are to be heard inveighing against the "appeasing" of Muslims through such concessions as separate constitutional status for Kashmir or the right to practice Islamic civil law. Once again, the police are being accused of doing little or nothing to help Muslim victims of rampaging Hindu mobs. Once again, India's 130m Muslims feel unequal and unsafe in their own country. Far too many Hindus would refuse to accept that it is "their own country" at all. The wonder of it, perhaps, is that things are not worse. While the world applauds Pakistan for at last locking up the leaders of its extreme religious groups, in India the zealots still support, sustain and to a degree constitute the government. The BJP, which leads the ruling coalition, was founded as a political front for the Hindu movement. It is simply one, and by no means the dominant, member of what is called the Sangh Pariwar, the "family of organizations". Other members of the family are much less savoury. There is the VHP, the World Hindu Organization, which led the movement to build the Ram temple. There is the Bajrang Dal, the brutalist "youth wing" of the VHP. There is substantial evidence that members of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal helped to organize the slaughter of hundreds of Muslims in Gujarat after 58 Hindus were killed on a train as they returned from Ayodhya.