单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Scientists have long warned that some level of global warming is a done deal—due in large part to heat-trapping greenhouse gases humans already have pumped skyward. Now, however, researchers are fleshing out how much future warming and sea-level rise the world has triggered. The implicit message: "We can't stop this, so how do we live with it?" says Thomas Wigley, a climate researcher at NCAR. One group, led by Gerald Meehl at NCAR, used two state-of-the-art climate models to explore what could happen if the world had held atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases steady since 2000. The results: Even if the world had slammed on the brakes five years ago, global average temperatures would rise by about 1 degree Fahrenheit by the end of the 21st century. Sea levels would rise by another 4 inches over 20th-century increases. Rising sea-levels would continue well beyond 2100, even without adding water from melting glaciers and ice sheets. The rise highlights the oceans' enormous capacity to absorb heat and its slow reaction to changes in atmospheric conditions. The team ran each model several times with a range of "what if" concentrations, as well as observed concentrations, for comparison. Temperatures eventually level out, Dr. Meehl says in reviewing his team's results. "But sea-level increases keep ongoing. The relentless nature of sea-level rise is pretty daunting." Dr. Wigley took a slightly different approach with a simpler model. He ran simulations that capped concentrations, at 2000 levels. If concentrations are held constant, warming could exceed 1.8 degrees F. by 2400. The two researchers add that far from holding steady, concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to rise. Thus, at best, the results point to the least change people can expect, they say. The idea that some level of global climate change from human activities is inevitable is not new. But the word has been slow to make its way into the broader debate. "Many people don't realize we are committed right now to a significant amount of global warming and sea-level rise. The longer we wait, the more climate change we are committed to in the future," Meehl says. While the concept of climate-change commitment isn't new, these fresh results "tell us what's possible and what's realistic" and that for the immediate future, "prevention is not on the table," says Roger Pielke Jr., director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. To Pielke and others, this means adaptation should be given a much higher priority that it's received to date. "There's a cultural bias in favor of prevention," he says. But any sound policy includes preparation as well, he adds. "We have the scientific and technological knowledge we need to improve adaptation and apply that knowledge globally."

单选题Ask any employee at an level in any company what they dislike about their job and somewhere on the list you will find a complaint about the system of performance appraisals. It does seem strange that an idea which was supposed to benefit both individuals and the company should be so universally disliked, but the staff appraisal is now one of the biggest causes of dissatisfaction at work. In the United States there have even been cases of unhappy workers taking their employers to court over appraisal interviews. It is in a company's interest to combat this situation, but, before reversing the appraisal's negative associations, an organization needs to pinpoint the underlying reasons which have contributed to them. Problems with appraisals can fall into two main areas--those arising from the scheme itself and those arising from the implementation and understanding of that scheme. Naturally it is easier to tackle those in the former category; indeed, some companies have developed schemes following legal guidelines. These guidelines suggest that a successful scheme should have a clear appeal process, that any negative feedback should be accompanied by "evidence" such as dates, times and outcomes and that, most importantly, ratings should reflect specific measurable elements of the job requirements. It is not always necessary to resort to legal advice however. Some changes to current schemes are simply a matter of logic. For instance, if employees are constantly encouraged to work in teams and to assume joint responsibility for their successes and failures, it makes little sense for the appraisals to focus on individuals, as this may lead to resentments and create divisions within the group. It is possible, and in some cases more suitable, to arrange appraisals where performance is rated for the group. Staff also need to be educated about the best way to approach appraisals. Managers often find that they are uncomfortable being asked to take on a more supportive role than they are used to without having had any training. Those being appraised may see it as a chance to air their grievances and highlight the company's failings rather than consider their own role. Both parties view the process as a necessary evil, to be gone through once or twice a year, and then forgotten about. The importance given to the appraisal stems from the fact that, despite all the talk of the interview being a chance for management and employees to come together and exchange ideas, set joint targets and improve the way decisions are reached, the reality is that they are often nothing more than the pretext on which pay rises are given, or not given. Pay is, of course, a subject that always leads to problems. Given the problems associated with staff appraisals, why is it that, with no legal requirement, companies continue to run them? The answer is simple, it is impossible to manage something you know nothing about. As any Human Resources manager can tell you, the best way to learn about someone is to talk to them. Effective people management relies on knowledge and appraisals are still the best way to build up that bank of knowledge.

单选题Why does globalization will lead some countries to be under the control of other countries?

单选题In a three-month period last year, two Brooklynites had to be cut out of their apartments and carried to hospital on stretchers designed for transporting small whales. The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) argues that it was not their combined 900kg bulk that made them ill. Obesity, according to NAAFA, is not bad for you. And, even if it was, there is nothing to be done about it, because genes dictate weight. Attempting to eat less merely slows metabolism, having people as chubby as ever. This is the fatlash movement that causes America's slimming industry so much pain. In his book Bin Fat Lies (Ballantine, 1996), Glenn Gaesser says that no study yet has convincingly shown that weight is an independent cause of health problems. Fatness does not kill people; things like hypertension, coronary heart diseases and cancer do. Michael Fumento, author of The Fat of the Land (Viking, 1997), an anti-fatlash diatribe, compares Dr Gaesser's logic with saying that the guillotine did not kill Louis XVI: Rather, it was the severing of his vertebrae, the cutting of all the blood vessels in his neck, and.., the trauma caused by his head dropping several feet into a wicker basket. Being fat kills in several ways. It makes people far more likely to suffer from heart disease or high blood pressure. Even moderate obesity increases the chance of contracting diabetes. Being 40% overweight makes people 30%-50% more likely to die of cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Extreme fatness makes patients so much less likely to survive surgery that many doctors refuse to operate until they slim. The idea that being overweight is caused by obesity genes is not wholly false: researchers have found a number of genes that appear to make some people bum off energy at a slower rate. But genes are not destiny. The difference between someone with a genetic predisposition to gain weight and someone without appears to be roughly 40 calories—or a spoonful of mayonnaise—a day. An alternative fatlash argument, advanced in books such as Dean Onrush's Eat More, Weight Less (Harper Collies, 1993) and Date Atrens's Don't Diet (William Morrow, 1978), is that fatness is not a matter of eating too much. They note that as Americans' weight has ballooned over the last few decades, their reported caloric intake has plunged. This simply explains people's own recollection of how much they eat is extremely unreliable. And as they grow fatter, people feel guilty and are more likely to fib about how much they eat. All reputable studies show that eating less and exercising reduce weight. Certainly, the body's metabolism slows a little when you lose weight, because it takes less energy to carry less bulk around, and because dieting can make the body fear it is about to starve. But a sensible low-fat diet makes weight loss possible. The fatlash movement is dangerous, because slimmers will often find any excuse to give up. To tell people that it is healthy to be obese is to encourage them to live sick and die young.

单选题One method of preventing or alleviating depression Not mentioned by the author is the use of ______

单选题The US $ 3-million Fundamental Physics Prize is indeed an interesting experiment, as Alexander Polyakov said when he accepted this year"s award in March. And it is far from the only one of its type. As a News Feature article in Nature discusses, a string of lucrative awards for researchers have joined the Nobel Prizes in recent years. Many, like the Fundamental Physics Prize, are funded from the telephone-number-sized bank accounts of Internet entrepreneurs. These benefactors have succeeded in their chosen fields, they say, and they want to use their wealth to draw attention to those who have succeeded in science. What"s not to like? Quite a lot, according to a handful of scientists quoted in the News Feature. You cannot buy class, as the old saying goes, and these upstart entrepreneurs cannot buy their prizes the prestige of the Nobels. The new awards are an exercise in self-promotion for those behind them, say scientists. They could distort the achievement-based system of peer-review-led research. They could cement the status quo of peer-reviewed research. They do not fund peer-reviewed research. They perpetuate the myth of the lone genius. The goals of the prize-givers seem as scattered as the criticism. Some want to shock, others to draw people into science, or to better reward those who have made their careers in research. As Nature has pointed out before, there are some legitimate concerns about how science prizes—both new and old—are distributed. The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, launched this year, takes an unrepresentative view of what the life sciences include. But the Nobel Foundation"s limit of three recipients per prize, each of whom must still be living, has long been outgrown by the collaborative nature of modern research—as will be demonstrated by the inevitable row over who is ignored when it comes to acknowledging the discovery of the Higgs boson. The Nobels were, of course, themselves set up by a very rich individual who had decided what he wanted to do with his own money. Time, rather than intention, has given them legitimacy. As much as some scientists may complain about the new awards, two things seem clear. First, most researchers would accept such a prize if they were offered one. Second, it is surely a good thing that the money and attention come to science rather than go elsewhere. It is fair to criticize and question the mechanism—that is the culture of research, after all—but it is the prize-givers" money to do with as they please. It is wise to take such gifts with gratitude and grace.

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. Most of us would like to be both {{U}}(1) {{/U}} and creative. Why was Thomas Edison able to invent so many things? Was he simply more intelligent than most people? Did he spend long hours toiling away in private? Surprisingly, when Edison was a young boy, his teacher told him he was too {{U}}(2) {{/U}} to learn anything. Other famous people whose creative genius went {{U}}(3) {{/U}} when they were young include Walt Disney, who was fired from a newspaper job because he did not have any good ideas and Enrico Caruso, whose music teacher told him that his {{U}}(4) {{/U}} was terrible. Disney, Edison and Caruso were intelligent and creative men; {{U}}(5) {{/U}}, experts on creativity believe that intelligence is not the same as creativity. Creativity is the ability to think about something in new and unusual ways, and to {{U}}(6) {{/U}} out unique solutions to problems. When creative people are asked what enables them to solve problems in new ways, they say that the ability to find affinities between {{U}}(7) {{/U}} unrelated elements plays a key role. They also say that they have the time and independence in a(an) {{U}}(8) {{/U}} setting to {{U}}(9) {{/U}} a wide range of possible solutions to a problem. How strongly is creativity {{U}}(10) {{/U}} to intelligence? {{U}}(11) {{/U}} most creative people are quite intelligent, the {{U}}(12) {{/U}} is not necessarily true. Many highly intelligent people ({{U}} (13) {{/U}} measured by IQ tests) are not very creative. Some experts remain skeptical that we will ever fully understand the creative process. Others believe that a psychology of creativity is within reach. Most experts agree, {{U}}(14) {{/U}}, that the concept of creativity as {{U}}(15) {{/U}} bubbling up from a magical {{U}}(16) {{/U}} is a myth. Momentary {{U}}(17) {{/U}} of insight, {{U}}(18) {{/U}} by images, make up a {{U}}(19) {{/U}} part of the creative process. At the heart of the creative process are ability and experience that {{U}}(20) {{/U}} an individual's effort, often over the course of a lifetime.

单选题Which of the following best states the main point of the passage?______

单选题The experiences of Optimation indicate that

单选题Trying to get Americans to eat a healthy diet is a frustrating business. Even the best- designed public-health campaigns cannot seem to compete with the tempting flavors of the snack-food and fast-food industries and their fat-and sugar-laden products. The results are apparent on a walk down any American street--more than 60% of Americans are overweight, and a full quarter of them are overweight to the point of obesity. Now, health advocates say, an ill-conceived redesign has taken one of the more successful public-health campaigns--the Food Guide Pyramid--and rendered it confusing to the point of uselessness. Some of these critics worry that America' s Department of Agriculture caved in to pressure from parts of the food industry anxious to protect their products. The Food Guide Pyramid was a graphic which emphasizes that a healthy diet is built on a base of grains, vegetables and fruits, followed by ever-decreasing amounts of dairy products, meat, sweets and oils. The agriculture department launched the pyramid in 1992 to replace its previous program, which was centered on the idea of four basic food groups. The" Basic Four" campaign showed a plate divided into quarters, and seemed to imply that meat and dairy products should make up half of a healthy diet, with grains ,fruits and vegetables making up the other half. It was replaced only over the strenuous objections of the meat and dairy industries. The old pyramid was undoubtedly imperfect. It failed to distinguish between a doughnut and a whole-grain roll, or a hamburger and a skinless chicken breast, and it did not make clear exactly how much of each foodstuff to eat. It did, however, manage to convey the basic idea of proper proportions in an easily understandable way. The new pyramid, called" My Pyramid", abandons the effort to provide this information. Instead, it has been simplified to a mere logo. The food groups are replaced with unlabelled, multi-colored vertical stripes which, in some versions, rise out of a cartoon jumble of foods that look like the aftermath of a riot at a grocery store. Anyone who wants to see how this translates into a healthy diet is invited to go to a website, put in their age, sex and activity level, and get a custom-designed pyramid, complete with healthy food choices and suggested portion sizes. This is fine for those who are motivated, but might prove too much effort for those who most need such information. Admittedly, the designers of the new pyramid had a tough job to do. They were supposed to condense the advice in the 84-page United States' Dietary Guidelines into a simple, meaningful graphic suitable for printing on the back of a cereal box. And they had to do this in the face of pressure from dozens of special interest groups--from the country' s Potato Board, which thought potatoes would look nice in the picture, to the Mmond Board of California, which felt the same way about almonds. Even the National Watermelon Promotion Board and the California Avocado Commission were eager to see their products recognized. Nevertheless ,many health advocates believe the new graphic is a missed opportunity. Mthough officials insist industry pressure had nothing to do with the eventual design, some critics suspect that political influence was at work. On the other hand, it is not clear how much good even the best graphic could do. Surveys found that 80% of Americans recognized the old Food Guide Pyramid--a big success in the world of public-health campaigns. Yet only 16% followed its advice.

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. The majority of people, about nine out of ten, are right-handed.{{U}} (1) {{/U}} until recently, people who were left-handed were considered {{U}}(2) {{/U}}, and once children showed this tendency they were forced to use their right hands. Today left-handedness is generally {{U}}(3) {{/U}}, but it is still a disadvantage in a world {{U}}(4) {{/U}} most people are right-handed. For example, most tools and implements are still {{U}}(5) {{/U}} for right-handed people. In sports {{U}}(6) {{/U}} contrast, doing things with the left hand or foot, .is often an advantage. Throwing, kicking, punching or batting from the"{{U}} (7) {{/U}} "side may result in throwing{{U}} (8) {{/U}} many opponents who are more accustomed to dealing with the{{U}} (9) {{/U}} of players who are right-handed. This is why, in many{{U}} (10) {{/U}} at a professional level, a{{U}} (11) {{/U}} proportion of players are left-handed than in the population as a whole. The word "right" in many languages means "correct" or is{{U}} (12) {{/U}} with lawfulness, whereas the words associated{{U}} (13) {{/U}} "left", such as "sinister", generally have{{U}} (14) {{/U}} associations. Moreover, among a number of primitive peoples, there is{{U}} (15) {{/U}} close association between death and the left hand. In the past, in{{U}} (16) {{/U}} western societies, children were often forced to use their right hands, especially to write with. In some cases the left hand was{{U}} (17) {{/U}} behind the child's back so that it could not be used. If, in the future, they are allowed to choose, {{U}}(18) {{/U}} will certainly be more left-handers, and probably{{U}} (19) {{/U}} people with minor psychological disturbances as a result of being forced to use their{{U}} (20) {{/U}} hand.

单选题The author would most likely agree with the following sentence______

单选题Which of the following is NOT true if you want to get out of the habit of sleeping during the evening?