单选题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 results 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 10 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 Pontchartrain, 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Machines and foreign competition will replace millions of American jobs. But work will be plentiful for people trained in the occupations of the future. The Labor Department predicts a net increase of 25 million new jobs in the United States in 1995 with service-industry jobs growing three times as rapidly as factory jobs. "Work will shift its emphasis from the fatigue and monotony of the production line and the typing pool to the more interesting challenge of the electronic service center, the design studio, the research laboratory, the education institute and the training school," predicts Canadian economist Calvert. Jobs in high-tech fields will multiply fastest, but from a low base. In terms of actual numbers, more mundane occupations will experience the biggest surge: custodians, cashiers, secretaries, waiters and clerks. Yet much of the drudge work will be taken on by robots. The number of robots performing blue-collar tasks will increase from 3,000 in 1981 to 40,000 in 1990, says John E. Taylor of the Human Resources Research Organization in Alexandria, Va. Robots might also be found on war zones, in space- even in the office, perhaps making coffee, opening mail and delivering messages. One unsolved problem, what to do with workers displaced by high technology and foreign competition. Around the world "the likelihood of growing permanent unemployment is becoming more accepted as a reality among social planners," notes David Macarov, associate professor of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Meantime at the percentage of time people spend on the job is likely to continue to fall. Robert Theobald, author of Avoiding in 1984, fears that joblessness will lead to increasing depression, bitterness and unrest. "The dramatic consequences of such a shift on the Western psyche, which has made the job the way we value human beings, are almost incalculable," he comments. Because of the constantly changing demand for job skills, Ron Kutschner, associate commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, offers this advice for today' s high school students: "Be prepared with a broad education, like the kind pre-college students get--basic math. science and English. Prepare yourself to handle each new technology, as it comes down the road. Then get technology training for your first job. That is the best stepping stone to the second and third jobs./

单选题The phrase "eat into" (Line 4, Paragraph 4) most probably means

单选题Advertising men dress people up in white coat because ______.

单选题A cramped public-school test kitchen might seem an unlikely outpost for a food revolution. But Collazo, executive chef for the New York City public schools, and scores of others across the country -- celebrity chefs and lunch ladies, district superintendents and politicians -- say they're determined to improve what kids eat in school. Nearly everyone agrees something must be done. Most school cafeterias are staffed by poorly trained, badly equipped workers who churn out 4.8 billion hot lunches a year. Often the meals, produced for about $1 each, consist of breaded meat patties, French fries and overcooked vegetables. So the kids buy muffins, cookies and ice cream instead -- or they feast on fast food from McDonald's, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, which is available in more than half the schools in the nation. Vending machines packed with sodas and candy line the hall ways. "We're killing our kids" with the food we serve, says Texas Education Commissioner Susan Combs. As rates of childhood obesity and diabetes skyrocket, public-health officials say schools need to change the way kids eat. It won't be easy. Some kids and their parents don't know better. Home cooking is becoming a forgotten art. And fast-food companies now spend $ 3 billion a year on television ads aimed at children. Along with reading and writing, schools need to teach kids What to eat to stay healthy, says culinary innovator Alice Waters, who is introducing gardening and fresh produce to 16 schools in California. It's a golden opportunity, she says, "to affect the way children eat for the rest of their lives." Last year star English chef Jamie Oliver took over a school cafeteria in a working-class suburb of London. A documentary about his work shamed the British government into spending $ 500 million to revamp the nation's school-food program. Oliver says it's the United States' turn now. "If you can put a man on the moon," he says, "you can give kids the food they need to make them lighter, fitter and live longer." Changing school food will take money. Many schools administrators are hooked on the easy cash- up to $ 75,000 annually -- that soda and candy vending machines can bring in. Three years ago Gary Hirshberg of Concord, N. H., was appalled when his 13-year-old son described his daytime meal -- pizza, chocolate milk and a package of Skittles. "I wasn't aware Skittles was a food group," says Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield Farm, a yogurt company. So he devised a vending machine that stocks healthy snacks: yogurt smoothies, fruit leathers and whole-wheat pretzels. So far 41 schools in California, Illinois and Washington are using his machines -- and a thousand more have requested them. Hirshberg says, "schools have to make good food a priority." Some states are trying. California, New York and Texas have passed new laws that limit junk food sold on school grounds. Districts in California, New Mexico and Washington have begun buying produce from local farms. The soda and candy in the vending machines have been replaced by juice and beef jerky. "It's not perfect," says Jannison. But it's a cause worth fighting for, Even if she has to battle one chip at a time.

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}} 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}}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. When lab rats sleep, their brains revisit the maze they navigated during the day, according to a new study {{U}}(1) {{/U}} yesterday, offering some of the strongest evidence {{U}}(2) {{/U}} that animals do indeed dream. Experiments with sleeping rats found that cells in the animals' brains fire in a distinctive pattern {{U}}(3) {{/U}} the pattern that occurs when they are {{U}}(4) {{/U}} and trying to learn their way around a maze. Based on the results, the researchers concluded the rats were dreaming about the maze, {{U}}(5) {{/U}} reviewing what they had learned while awake to {{U}}(6) {{/U}} the memories. Researchers have long known that animals go {{U}}(7) {{/U}} the same types of sleep phases that people do, including rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, which is when people dream. But {{U}}(8) {{/U}} the occasional twitching, growling or barking that any dog owner has {{U}}(9) {{/U}} in his or her sleeping pet, there's been {{U}}(10) {{/U}} direct evidence that animals {{U}}(11) {{/U}}. If animals dream, it suggests they might have more {{U}}(12) {{/U}} mental functions than had been {{U}}(13) {{/U}}. "We have as humans felt that this {{U}}(14) {{/U}} of memory—our ability to recall sequences of experiences—was something that was {{U}}(15) {{/U}} human," Wilson said. "The fact that we see this in rodents {{U}}(16) {{/U}} suggest they can evaluate their experience in a significant way. Animals may be {{U}}(17) {{/U}} about more than we had previously considered." The findings also provide new support for a leading theory for {{U}}(18) {{/U}} humans sleep—to solidify new learning. "People are now really nailing down the fact that the brain during sleep is {{U}}(19) {{/U}} its activity at least for the time immediately before sleep and almost undoubtedly using that review to {{U}}(20) {{/U}} or integrate those memories into more usable forms," said an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

单选题The text informs us that______.

单选题Binet used a large number of children in his tests because he wanted to find out______

单选题What is the attitude of Rev A Baldwin towards the burning of churches?

单选题For years, researchers have struggled to understand why so many women leave careers inscience and engineering. Theories run the gamut (整个范围), from family-unfriendly work schedules to natural differences between the genders. A new paper by McGill University economist Jennifer Hunt offers another explanation: women leave such jobs when they feel disappointed about pay and the chance of promotion. Her first finding was that women actually don't leave jobs in science at an above average rate. The difference, Hunt found, comes from the engineering sector. That's not simply because women are exiting the workforce to raise families. About 21% of all graduates surveyed were working in a field unrelated to their highest college degree. That proportion held steady for both men and women. Yet in engineering, there was a gap. About 10% of male engineers were working in an unrelated field, while some 13% of female engineers were. Women who became engineers disproportionately left for other sectors. The survey suggests options such as working conditions, pay, promotion-opportunities, job location and family-related reasons. As it turned out, more than 60% of the women leaving engineering did so because of dissatisfaction with pay and promotion opportunities. More women than men left engineering for family-related reasons, but that gender gap was no different than what Hunt found in nonengineering professions. "It doesn't have anything to do with the nature of the work," says Hunt. The question then becomes why women engineers feel so stifled (窒息) when it comes to pay and promotion. Women also left fields such as financial management and economics at higher than expected rates. The commonality, like engineering, those sectors are male-dominated. Some 74% of financial-management degree holders in the survey sample were male. Men made up 73% of economics graduates. And to take one example from engineering, some 83% of mechanical-engineer grads were male. Jennifer Hunt concludes that focusing on making engineering jobs more family-friendly alone—by offering flexible work schedules, say—misses an important part of the mark. If we desire to keep women working as engineers, whether for their sakes or society's, then a better focus may be creating work environments where women feel more able to climb the career ladder.

单选题The text is chiefly concerned with