单选题It can be inferred from the text that the achievements by Verdi

单选题 White people tend to be nervous of raising the subject of race and education, but are often voluble on the issue if a black person brings it up. So when Trevor Phillips, chair man of Britain' s Commission for Racial Equality, said that there was a particular problem with black boys' performance at school, and that it might be a good idea to educate them apart from other pupils, there was a torrent of comment. Some of it commended his proposal, and some criticized it, but none of it questioned its premise. Everybody accepts that black boys are a problem. On the face of it, it looks as though Mr Phillips is right. Only 27% of Afro-Caribbean boys get five A-C grades at GCSE, the exams taken by 16-year-olds, compared with 47% of boys as a Whole and 44% of Afro-Caribbean girls. Since, in some subjects, candidates who score less than 50% get Cs, those who don' t reach this threshold have picked up pretty little at school. Mr Phillips' s suggestion that black boys should be taught separately implies that ethnicity and gender explain their underachievement. Certainly, maleness seems to be a disadvantage at school. That' s true for all ethnic groups: 57% of girls as a whole get five A-Cs, compared with 47% of boys. But it' s not so clear that blackness is at the root of the problem. Among children as a whole, Afro-Caribbeans do indeed perform badly. But Afro Caribbeans tend to be poor. So to get a better idea of whether race, rather than poverty, is the problem, one must control for economic status. The only way to do that, given the limits of British educational statistics, is to separate out the exam results of children who get free school meals: only the poor get free grub. Poor children' s results tell a rather different story. Afro-Caribbeans still do remark ably badly, but whites are at the bottom of the pile. All ethnic minority groups do better than them. Even Bangladeshis, a pretty deprived lot, do twice as well as the natives in their exams; Indians do better still. And absolute numbers of underperforming whites dwarf those of underperforming Afro-Caribbeans: last year, 131,393 of white boys failed to hit the government's benchmark, compared with 3,151 Afro-Caribbean boys. These figures suggest that, at school at least, black people' s problem is not so much race as poverty. And they undermine the idea of teaching black boys separately, for if poor whites are doing worse than poor blacks, there' s not much argument for singling out blacks for special measures: whites need help just as badly.

单选题The author's primary criticism of the restorationists is that______.

单选题On his fifty-fifth birthday the president decided to (1) some prisoners of the (2) age as a gesture of good will Not too many, but one, say, from each of the twenty of thirty (3) prisons in the small state. They would have to be carefully selected (4) not to give trouble once they were out. Men perhaps had been so (5) in prison that they had ceased to have and real contact with the outside world. None of them was to be told a (6) of his (7) liberty. Marlo was therefore (8) when he was called to the Governor's office one morning and told he was to be set (9) next day. He had spent almost three quarters of. his life in (10) working out a life sentence (11) stabbing a policeman to death. He was a dull-witted man with no relations (12) and no friends except his prison mates. The following morning was clear and bright. Marlo (13) no opportunity to say goodbye to (14) but a guard (15) him to the prison gates and wished him g6dspeed. Alone, he set off up the long white road leading to the town. The traffic, the incessant noise, the absence (16) the secure prison walls terrified him. Presently he 'sat down by the side of the road to think (17) . After he had thought for a long time, for his brain worked slowly, he (18) a decision. He remained he was, waiting patiently until at last he saw a police car (19) When it was near enough, he darted out into the road, obliging it to stop with a squeal of brakes. He had with him a little knife. When the young police officer got out of the car demanding (20) what was wrong, Marlo stabbed him very neatly just behind the right ear.

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} Want a glimpse of the future of health care? Take a look at the way the various networks of people involved in patient care are being connected to one another, and how this new connectivity is being exploited to deliver medicine to the patient—no matter where he or she may be. Online doctors offering advice based on standardized symptoms are the most obvious example. Increasingly, however, remote diagnosis (telemedicine) will be based on real physiological data from the actual patient. A group from the University of Kentucky has shown that by using an off-the-shelf PDA(personal data assistance) such as a Palm Pilot plus a mobile phone, it is perfectly feasible to transmit a patient's vital signs over the telephone. With this kind of equipment in a first-aid kit, the cry asking whether there was a doctor in the house could well be a thing of the past. Other medical technology groups are working on applying telemedicine to rural care. And at least one team wants to use telemedicine as a tool for disaster response—especially after earthquakes. Overall, the trend is towards providing global access to medical data and expertise. But there is one problem. Bandwidth is the limiting factor for transmitting complex medical images around the world—CT scans being one of the biggest bandwidth consumers. Communications satellites may be able to cope with the short-term needs during disasters such as earthquakes, wars or famines. But medicine is looking towards both the second-generation Internet and third-generation mobile phones for the future of distributed medical intelligence. Doctors have met to discuss computer-based tools for medical diagnosis, training and telemedicine. With the falling price of broadband communications, the new technologies should usher in an era when telemedicine and the sharing of medical information, expert opinion and diagnosis are common.

单选题Social-networking sites offer users easy ways to present idealized images of themselves, even if those ideals don"t always square with their real-world personalities. Psychology researcher Soraya Mehdizadeh has discovered a way to poke through the offline-online curtain: she has used Faeebook to predict a person"s level of narcissism and self-esteem. Mehdizadeh, who conducted the study as an undergraduate at Toronto"s York University, gained access to the Faeebook accounts of 100 college students and measured activities like photo sharing, wall postings and status updates; she also studied how frequently users logged on and how often they remained online during each session. Her findings were published recently in Cyberpsyehology, Behavior and Social Networking. After measuring each subject using the Narcissism Personality Inventory and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Mehdizadeh, who graduated from York this past spring, discovered narcissists and people with lower self-esteem were more likely to spend more than an hour a day on Facebook and were more prone to post self-promo-tional photos ( striking a pose or using Photoshop, for example). Narcissists were also more likely to showcase themselves through status updates (using phrases like "I"m so glamorous I bleed glitter") and wall activity (posting self-serving links like " My Celebrity Look-alikes" ). Self-esteem and narcissism are often interrelated but don"t always go hand in hand. Some psychologists believe that narcissists--those who have a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, a need for admiration, as well as a lack of sympathy--unconsciously inflate their sense of self-importance as a defense against feeling inadequate. Not enough empirical research has been produced to confirm that link, although Mehdizadeh"s study seems to support it. Because narcissists have less capacity to sustain intimate or long-term relationships, Mehdizadeh thinks that they would be more drawn to the online world of virtual friends and emotionally detached communication. Although it seems that Facebook can be used by narcissists to fuel their inflated egos, Mehdizadeh stops short of proclaiming that excessive time spent on Faeebook can turn regular users into narcissists. She also notes that social-networking sites might ultimately be found to have positive effects when used by people with low self-esteem or depression. "If individuals with lower self-esteem are more prone to using Facebook," she says, "the question becomes, " Can Facebook help raise self- esteem by allowing patients to talk to each other and help each other in a socially interactive environment?" I don"t think it"s necessarily a bad thing that people with low self-esteem use Facebook. "

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} After World War Ⅱ the glorification of an ever-larger GNP formed the basis of a new materialism, which became a sacred obligation for all Japanese governments, businesses and trade unions. Anyone who mentioned the undesirable by-products of rapid economic growth was treated as a heretic. Consequently, everything possible was done to make conditions easy for the manufacturers. Few dared question the wisdom of discharging untreated waste into the nearest water body or untreated smoke into the atmosphere. This silence was maintained by union leaders as well as by most of the country's radicals; except for a few isolated voices, no one protested. An insistence on treatment of the various effluents would have necessitated expenditures on treatment equipment that in turn would have given rise to higher operating costs. Obviously, this would have meant higher prices for Japanese goods, and ultimately fewer sales and lower industrial growth and GNP. The pursuit of nothing but economic growth is illustrated by the response of the Japanese government to the American educational mission that visited Japan in 1947. After surveying Japan's educational program, the Americans suggested that the Japanese fill in their curriculum gap by creating departments in chemical and sanitary engineering. Immediately, chemical engineering departments were established in all the country's universities and technical institutions. In contrast, the recommendation to form sanitary engineering departments was more or less ignored, because they could bring no profit. By 1960, only two second-rate universities, Kyoto and Hokkaido, were interested enough to open such departments. The reluctance to divert funds from production to conservation is explanation enough for a certain degree of pollution, but the situation was made worse by the type of technology the Japanese chose to adopt for their industrial expansion. For the most part, they simply copied American industrial methods. This meant that methods originally designed for use in a country that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific with lots of air and water to use as sewage receptacles were adopted for an area a fraction of the size. Moreover, the Japanese diet was much more dependent on water as a source of fish and as an input in the irrigation of rice; consequently discharged wastes built up much more rapidly, in the food chain. (373 words){{B}}Notes:{{/B}} heretic 异教徒。sanitary 卫生的。for the most part 基本上。receptacle 储存地。

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 an invention is made, the inventor has three possible{{U}} (1) {{/U}}of action open to him: he can give the invention to the world by publishing it, keep the idea{{U}} (2) {{/U}}, or patent it. A{{U}} (3) {{/U}}patent is the result of a bargain{{U}} (4) {{/U}}between an inventor and the state, hut the inventor gets a limited period of monopoly and publishes full details of his invention to the public after that period{{U}} (5) {{/U}}. Only in the most exceptional circumstances{{U}} (6) {{/U}}the lifespan of a patent{{U}} (7) {{/U}}to alter this normal process of events. The longest extension ever{{U}} (8) {{/U}}was to Georges Valensi; his 1939 patent for color TV receiver circuit was extended until 1971 because for most of the patent's normal life there was no color TV to{{U}} (9) {{/U}}and thus no hope for reward for the invention. Because a patent remains permanently{{U}} (10) {{/U}}after it has terminated, the shelves of the library attached to the{{U}} (11) {{/U}}office contain details of literally millions of ideas that are free for anyone to use and, if{{U}} (12) {{/U}}than half a century, sometimes even repatent. Indeed, patent experts often advise anyone{{U}} (13) {{/U}}to avoid the high cost of conducting a search through{{U}} (14) {{/U}}patents that the one sure way of violation of any other inventor's right is to plagiarize a dead patent. Likewise, because publication of an idea in any other form{{U}} (15) {{/U}}invalidates further patents on that idea, it is traditionally{{U}} (16) {{/U}}to take ideas from other areas of print. Much modern technological advance is{{U}} (17) {{/U}}on these presumptions of legal security. Anyone closely{{U}} (8) {{/U}}in patents and inventions soon learns that most "new" ideas are, in fact, as old as the hills. It is theft reduction to commercial practice, either through necessity or dedication, or through the availability of new technology,{{U}} (19) {{/U}}makes news and money. The basic patent for the theory for magnetic recording dates back to 1886. Many of the original ideas behind television originate{{U}} (20) {{/U}}the late 19th and early 20th century. Even the Volkswagen rear engine ear was anticipated by a 1904 patent for a cart with the horse at the rear.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} If you smoke, you' d better hurry. From July 1st pubs all over England will, by law, be no-smoking areas. So will restaurants, offices and even company cars, if more than one person uses them. England' s smokers are following a well-trodden path. The other three bits of the United Kingdom have already banned smoking in almost all enclosed public spaces, and there are anti-smoking laws of varying strictness over most of Western Europe. The smoker' s journey from glamour through toleration to suspicion is finally reaching its end in pariah status. But behind this public-health success story lies a darker tale. Poorer people are much more likely to smoke than richer ones—a change from the 1950s, when professionals and laborers were equally keen. Today only 15% of men in the highest professional classes smoke, but 42% of unskined workers do. Despite punitive taxation—20 cigarettes cost around ￡ 5.00 ( $10.00), three-quarters of which is tax—55% of single mothers on benefits smoke. The figure for homeless men is even higher; for hard-drug users it is practically 100%. The message that smoking kills has been heard, it seems, but not by all. Having defeated the big killers of the past—want, exposure, poor sanitation—governments all over the developed world are turning their attention to diseases that stem mostly from how individuals choose to live their lives. But the same deafness afflicts the same people when they are strongly encouraged to give up other sorts of unhealthy behavior. The lower down they are on practically any pecking order--job prestige, income, education, background-the more likely people are to be fat and unfit, and to drink too much. That tempts governments to shout ever louder in an attempt to get the public to listenand nowhere do they do so more aggressively than in Britain. One reason is that pecking orders matter more than in most other rich countries: income distribution is very unequal and the unemployed, disaffected, ill-educated rump is comparatively large. Another reason is the frustration of a government addicted to targets, which often aim not only to improve something but to lessen inequality in the process. A third is that the National Health Service is free to patients, and paying for those who have arguably brought their ill-health on themselves grows alarmingly costly. Britain's aggressiveness, however, may be pointless, even counter-productive. There is no reason to believe that those who ignore measured voices will listen to shouting. It irritates the majority who are already behaving responsibly, and it may also undermine all government pronouncements on health by convincing people that they have an ultra-cautious margin of error built in. Such hectoring may also be missing the root cause of the problem. According to Mr. Marmot, who cites research on groups as diverse as baboons in captivity, British civil servants and Oscar nominees, the higher rates of iii health among those in more modest walks of life can be attributed to what he calls the "status syndrome". People in privileged positions think they are worth the effort of behaving healthily, and find the will-power to do so. The implication is that it is easier to improve a person' s health by weakening the connection between social position and health than by targeting behavior directly. Same public-health experts speak of social cohesion, support for families and better education for all. These are bigger undertakings than a bossy campaign; but more effective, and quieter.