单选题Despite the doubts, and despite complaints from shop owners, London's congestion charge --introduced in February 2003 -- has managed to ease the gridlock in the city centre. Traffic is down by 18%, jams by 30%. The scheme's biggest weakness is that it is crude: drivers pay ￡ 8 ($14) to enter the zone between 7am and 6:30pm, regardless of how congested the roads are, or how long they stay. So road-pricing fans are watching trials by Transport for London (TfL) of a new detection system, called tag-and-beacon, with interest. Under such a scheme (used in Singapore and on some European roads) cars are fitted with electronic tags that are read by roadside masts. If the trial is successful, TfL says that the city could switch to the system once the contract to run the congestion charge is re-let in 2009. Currently, cameras are used to read license plates and track motorists. They are not always reliable: an individual camera identifies only around 70% of cars. Most driven get photographed more than once, which boosts the system's effectiveness to over 95%, but that still leaves several thousand vehicles per day whose details must be laboriously checked by hand. Tag-and-beacon technology is much more accurate, with an identification rate of over 99%. TfL says the trial is partly designed to see whether the new system could allow drivers to pay charges by direct debit. That would be popular with motorists, who complain that the current payment system is unfriendly: the toll for a day' s travel must be paid manually -- online, by phone or in a shop -- by midnight, with steep fines levied on forgetful drivers. More precise detection also allows for more precision in policy, and road-pricing enthusiasts see radical possibilities ahead. TfL says it is considering using the new technology to charge drivers each time they cross the zone boundary (up to a daily maximum), instead of paying once for an entire day's travel. That would be cheaper for drivers who make few trips into the zone, although drivers who spend a long time trundling around without leaving (thereby causing the most congestion) would get off lightly, too. Further refinements may be possible. The current system has cut traffic most drastically in the middle of the day, when congestion is at its lowest. Demand for road space would better match supply if charges were variable -- high at the busiest times of day and low in quiet periods. Such a time-sensitive, variable-charging scheme using a tag-and-beacon system was endorsed last year by Bob Kiley, the TfL's boss, who also said that he wanted to extend the congestion charge to other parts of London. That would be controversial, and Mr. Kiley's underlings were quick to insist that his musings were not official policy. But the original scheme was controversial too, yet Ken Livingstone, London's mayor and its biggest backer, was re-elected after introducing it. It would be a shame if timidity took hold now.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Let us ask what were the preparation and training Abraham Lincoln had for oratory, whether political or forensic. Born in rude and abject poverty, he never had any education, except what he gave himself, till he was approaching manhood. Not even books wherewith to inform and train his mind were within his reach. No school, no university, no legal faculty had any part in training his powers. When he became a lawyer and a politician, the years most favourable to continuous study had already passed, and the opportunities he found for reading were very scanty. He knew but few authors in general literature, though he knew those few thoroughly. He taught himself a little mathematics, but he could read no language save his own, and can have had only the faintest acquaintance with European history or with any branch of philosophy. The want of regular education was not made up for by the persons among whom his lot was cast. Till he was a grown man, he never moved in any society from which he could learn those things with which the mind of an orator to be stored. Even after he had gained some legal practice, there was for many years no one for him to mix with except the petty practitioners of a petty town, men nearly all of whom knew little more than he did himself. Schools gave him nothing, and society gave him nothing. But he had a powerful intellect and a resolute will. Isolation fostered not only self-reliance but the habit of reflection, and indeed, of prolonged and intense reflection. He made all that he knew a part of himself. His convictions were his own—clear and coherent. He was not positive or opinionated and he did not deny that at certain moments he pondered and hesitated long before he decided on his course. But though he could keep a policy in suspense, waiting for events to guide him, he did not waver. He paused and reconsidered, but it was never his way to go back on a decision once more or to waste time in vain regrets that all he had expected had not been attained. He took advice readily and left many things to his ministers; but he did not lean on his advisers. Without vanity or ostentation, he was always independent, self-contained, prepared to take full responsibility for his acts.

单选题The mass media is a big part of our culture, yet it can also be a helper, adviser and teacher to our young generation. The mass media affects the lives of our young by acting as a (an) (1) for a number of institutions and social contacts. In this way, it (2) a variety of functions in human life. The time spent in front of the television screen is usually at the (3) of leisure: there is less time for games, amusement and rest. (4) by what is happening on the screen, children not only imitate what they see but directly (5) themselves with different characters. Americans have been concerned about the (6) of violence in the media and its (7) harm to children and adolescents for at least forty years. During this period, new media (8) , such as video games, cable television, music videos, and the Internet. As they continue to gain popularity, these media, (9) television, (10) public concern and research attention. Another large societal concern on our young generation (11) by the media, is body image. (12) forces can influence body image positively or negatively. (13) one, societaland cultural norms and mass media marketing (14) our concepts of beauty. In the mass media, the images of (15) beauty fill magazines and newspapers, (16) from our televisions and entertain us (17) the movies. Even in advertising, the mass media (18) on accepted cultural values of thinness and fitness for commercial gain. Young adults are presented with a (19) defined standard of attractiveness, a(n) (20) that carries unrealistic physical expectations.

单选题Why are weather - boarded houses painted white according to the passage?

单选题What do Charles Honts' laboratory studies suggest?______

单选题What is the tone of the passage?

单选题Marketplace or peer-to-peer (P2P) lending matches borrowers and lenders on low-cost online platforms. By skirting banks, P2P lending allows borrower and lender alike to achieve better rates of interest. Essentially, P2P lending is a way of capitalising on the network effect of social media and the volumes of data generated therein to allow cheaper access to capital. According to Liberum, P2P lending in the UK will grow at 98 percent year-on-year in 2015, with ￡3.5 billion presently lent out. Worldwide in 2015, it"s estimated that $ 77 billion will be lent via P2P platforms—$ 60 billion China, $12 billion USA and $ 5 billion UK. Morgan Stanley"s Huw Steenis says, "While marketplace lending is still about 1 percent of unsecured consumer and SME lending in the US, we think it can reach approximately 10 percent by 2020... We forecast the global market to grow to $150-$ 490 billion by 2020." As Liberum"s Cormac Leech says, "We are witnessing the biggest changes to the banking sector for 400 years." P2P lending offers huge opportunities, mainly at the expense of banks, whose biggest margins are traditionally in unsecured lending. Herein is the layer of fat P2P platforms guzzling, picking off the banks" best customers. P2P platforms have also proved superior at harvesting and managing big data, and have lower cost bases than banks. A significant development is that institutional money is now alighting. The institutional P2P lender, P2P Global Investment PLC, floated in London last year. It has raised nearly ￡500m and aims to double that this year. As a reward for lofting "transformational" amounts of cash on to various platforms, P2P Global has been accumulating warrants and options on their equity, notably Ratesetter, Zopa, Direct Money and Lending Works. In a twist to this development, Neil Woodford, Britain"s most famous fund manager, recently upped his stake in P2P Global. Last August Woodford sold out of a bank, fearing "fine inflation". This seems a ringing endorsement of this disruptive but nascent sector. Perhaps most significantly, in May this year, Zopa, the P2P platform, announced its debut in secured (most P2P lending is unsecured) lending by collaborating with Uber. Of course, the sector presents risks. The credit dries up when interest rates rise. A P2P platform may go bust. But some investors, refugees from the banking sector perhaps, will simply like the idea of being on the right side of regulatory and technological upheaval. And when the banks finally twig , how will they react? Who knows. So far, none of them have.

单选题Do your children lie to you and their friends about their activities online? Do they feel empty, depressed and irritable when not at the computer? Do they have problems with school or work, yet they always seem to feel energized again when they are at the computers surfing the internet? If you answered "yes" to one or even more of the above questions, your children are suffering from internet addiction. The amount of time kids spend online is a source of headaches for many parents. At first, parents welcomed the Internet into their homes, believing they were opening up an exciting new world of educational opportunities for their children. But soon, to their disappointment, instead of using the Internet for homework or research, their kids were spending hours instant chatting with friends, playing online games or even talking to strangers in chat rooms, which is posing real dangers to the children. Maintaining a healthy balance between entertainment media and other activities in children's lives has always been a challenge for parents. The Internet has made this challenge even more difficult. The engaging nature of Internet communications and interactive games means many children and teens have trouble controlling the time they spent online. Unfortunately, parents and teachers do not realize that there is a problem until it becomes serious. To make it worse, Internet addiction is not widely recognized by the medical community. (Mental health practitioners continue to debate whether this behavior is an "addiction," with some preferring to identify it as "behavior control problems. Children and young people can easily become "hooked" on online activities such as multi-user games, instant messaging with their pals and chat rooms. The children most easily influenced, according to the Computer-Addiction Services at Harvard Medical School, are those who are "lonely and bored or from families where nobody is at home to relate to after school." Children who are unpopular or shy with peers are often attracted to the opportunities for creating new identities in online communities. Boys, in particular, are frequent users of online role-playing games, where they have new identities and interact with other players. Although playing these games with thousands of other users may appear to be a social activity, for the troubled child or teen, too much playing can further separate them from friends and peers.

单选题What does the author mean by "... has become its flip-flopper" (Par

单选题The second paragraph is meant to demonstrate that______.

单选题As to how to treat the bust businesses, America differs from the European countries in that

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Until recently, mobile radio was to wireless communications what the Yugo was to transportation. With a mixed clientele ranging from truckers using CBs to police armed with walkie-talkies to taxi drivers dispatched by radio, it was viewed as an unglamorous business and a technological backwater. But specialized mobile radio, as it is known, has been rediscovered. It is now considered one of the biggest prizes in the all-out war for the public airwaves. The reason: high-tech companies have figured out how to profitably rebuild the antiquated dispatching system into an advanced cellular-telephone network that can take on the likes of AT & T and the giant Baby Bells. Upstart Nextel Communications sent shock waves through the industry last week when it agreed to buy Motorola's SMR frequencies for $1.8 billion. That could pose a serious threat to cellular hegemony. Although both systems are based on the same basic technology, SMR systems are digital and cover almost 25 times as much area as the average cellular network. SMR handsets won't work on cellular systems and tend to be bulkier than cellular phones, though they provide more features, like a digital pager service. And while cellular growth has tripled to some 13 million subscribers since 2000, the technology has been losing ground. It is running out of channel capacity so fast, in fact, that 40% of cellular calls in high-density areas like Manhattan and Los Angeles fail to be completed. SMRs have capacity to spare, and service could eventually be priced 10% to 15% less than cellular. Dispatchers predict they will have at least 10 million subscribers by the end of the decade. There are now about 1.5 million users of SMRs. The addition of another contender to an already crowded field of telephone systems will surely multiply the confusion. By the year 2010, consumers will be able to choose from at least half a dozen vendors of a dizzying array of wireless-communications services, including pagers, voice mail answering machines and cellular phones. Phone and cable television operators, such as Bell South, MCI and Cox Enterprises, are developing so-called personal communications networks, or PCNs, a highly advanced portable-phone system that is expected to cover a wider area, connect to a greater variety of services and be cheaper to operate than conventional cellular. And many companies that have gambled on the wrong technological standards, and invested billions trying to develop the same markets, will undoubtedly lose a great deal of money before the shakeout is over. "The winners," says Nextel chairman Morgan O'Brien, "will be those who can make the choice for consumers easy." With all the anticipated confusion--mindful of the early years of personal computers--it is likely to be years before anyone calls the purchase of wireless products an "easy" choice.

单选题The Seneca Falls conference on women's right was

单选题OnthegroundflooroftheFederalReservebuildinginWashington,DC,thereisanelectronicgamewhichtestsavisitor'sskillatsettinginterestrates.Youhavetodecidehowtorespondtoeventssuchasrisinginflationorastockmarketcrash.Ifyougetalltheanswersright,themachinedeclaresyouthenextFedchairman.Inreallife,becauseofhugeuncertaintiesaboutdataandhowtheeconomyworks,thereisnoobviouslyrightanswertothequestionofwhentochangeinterestrates.NoristhereanyeasytestofwhowillmakethebestFedchairman.SowhowouldTheEconomistSelectforthejob?AlanGreenspanwillretireasFedchairmanonJanuary31st,afteramere18yearsinthejob.SoGeorgeBushneedstonominateasuccessorsoon.Mr.Bushhasapenchantforpickinghispalstofilltopjobs:lastweekhenominatedhispersonallawyerHarrietMierstotheSupremeCourt.ButhispersonalbankmanagerreallywouldnotcutthemustardasFedchairman.Thisisthemostimportanteconomic-policyjobinAmerica—indeedinthewholeworld.TheFedchairmansetsinterestrateswiththeaimofcontrollinginflation,whichinturnhelpsdeterminethevalueofthedollar,theworld'smainreservecurrency.Itishardlysurprisingthatfinancialmarketsworldwidecanriseorfallonhiseveryword.Financialmarketsaretypicallymorevolatileduringthefirstyearafterthehandovertoanewchairmanthanduringtherestofhistenure.InOctober1987,barelytwomonthsafterMr.Greenspantookoffice,thestockmarketcrashed.Currentconditionsforahandoverarehardlyideal.America'seconomyhasneverlookedsounbalanced,withanegativehouseholdsavingsrate,ahousingbubble,aheftybudgetdeficit,arecordcurrent-accountdeficitandrisinginflation.FiguresdueonOctober14thareexpectedtoshowthatthe12-monthrateofinflationhasrisenabove4%—itshighestsince1991.