单选题If you are rich and interested in new devices, you would

单选题Every second, 1 hectare of the world's rainforest is destroyed. That's equivalent to two football fields. An area the size of New York City is lost every day. In a year, that adds up to 31 million hectares—more than the land area of Poland. This alarming rate of destruction has serious consequences for the environment; scientists estimate, for example, that 137 species of plant, insect or animal become extinct every day due to logging. In British Columbia, where, since 1990, thirteen rainforest valleys have been clearcut, 142 species of salmon have already become extinct, and the habitats of grizzly bears, wolves and many other creatures are threatened. Logging, however, provides jobs, profits, taxes for the government and cheap products of all kinds for consumers, so the government is reluctant to restrict or control it. Much of Canada's forestry production goes towards making pulp and paper. According to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, Canada supplies 34% of the world's wood pulp and 49% of its newsprint paper. If these paper products could be produced in some other way, Canadian forests could be preserved. Recently, a possible alternative way of producing paper has been suggested by agriculturalists and environmentalists: a plant called hemp. Hemp has been cultivated by many cultures for thousands of years. It produces fiber which can be made into paper, fuel, oils, textiles, food, and rope. For many centuries, it was essential to the economies of many countries because it was used to make the ropes and cables used on sailing ships; colonial expansion and the establishment of a world wide trading network would not have been possible without hemp. Nowadays, ships' cables are usually made from wire or synthetic fibres, but scientists are now suggesting that the cultivation of hemp should be revived for the production of paper and pulp. According to its proponents, four times as much paper can be produced from land using hemp rather than trees, and many environmentalists believe that the large-scale cultivation of hemp could reduce the pressure on Canada's forests. However, there is a problem: hemp is illegal in many countries of the world, This plant, so useful for fiber, rope, oil, fuel and textiles, is a species of cannabis, related to the plant from which marijuana is produced. In the late 1930s, a movement to ban the drug marijuana began to gather force, resulting in the eventual banning of the cultivation not only of the plant used to produce the drug, but also of the commercial fiber-producing hemp plant. Although both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp in large quantities on their own land, any American growing the plant today would soon find himself in prison—despite the fact that marijuana cannot be produced from the hemp plant, since it contains almost no THC (the active ingredient in the drug). In recent years, two major movements for legalization have been gathering strength. One group of activists believes that ALL cannabis should be legal—both the hemp plant and the marijuana plant—and that the use of the drug marijuana should not be an offense. They argue that marijuana is not dangerous or addictive, and that it is used by large numbers of people who are not criminals but productive members of society. They also point out that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol or tobacco. The other legalization movement is concerned only with the hemp plant used to produce fiber; this group wants to make it legal to cultivate the plant and sell the fiber for paper and pulp production. This second group has had a major triumph recently: in 1997, Canada legalized the farming of hemp for fiber. For the first time since 1938, hundreds of farmers are planting this crop, and soon we can expect to see pulp and paper produced from this new source.

单选题Nearly three-quarter of the Earth is covered with water. The (1) of the continents, especially in the temperate zones, is very much (2) by the oceans around them. The areas (3) the sea have a " (4) climate", with rather cool summers and warm winters. The interiors, far from the sea, have a climate with extremely hot summers and cold winters. Rain comes from the evaporation of rivers, seas and lakes. (5) after heavy rain, the pavements in a city do not take (6) to dry because the rainwater evaporates into the air. On a warm dry day it evaporates very rapidly, as warm air can absorb more (7) than cold air. (8) at any particular temperature, the atmosphere can hold only a certain (9) amount of water vapor. The air is then saturated, (10) a sponge that cannot hold any more water. The lower the temperature, the (11) water vapour is required to saturate the air. All over the surface of the Earth, millions of tons of water are evaporating every second, (12) in the air into drops so small that it (13) thousands of them to make a single raindrop. It is these (14) droplets that make clouds. When clouds roll in from the sea over the warmer land, they are forced to (15) and become cooler in the colder upper atmosphere. As the air (16) it may pass through its (17) point and then some of its water vapor turns to rain. Day in, day out, the (18) water circulates between the air and the land: rivers evaporate to make clouds, clouds make rain, rain makes rivers which (19) run into the sea. This is called the rain (20) .

单选题The effects of "several acts of the Maryland and Virginia legislatures" passed during and after the 1660's were that they

单选题Turner became extremely angry because ______.

单选题About three-quarters of Americans, according to surveys, think the country is on the wrong track. About two-thirds of the public disapprove of the job performance of President Bush, and an even higher number disdain Congress. The media are excited about the prospect of a wealthy businessman running for President as an independent who could tap into broad public disgruntlement with the partisan politicians in Washington. 2007? Yes. But also 1992. The main difference between the two situations is that Michael Bloomberg is richer--and saner--than Ross Perot. But one similarity might be this: the American people were wrong then and may be wrong now. The widespread pessimism in the early 1990s about the course of the country turned out to be unwarranted. The rest of the decade featured impressive economic growth, a falling crime rate, successful reform of the welfare system and a reasonably peaceful world. Perhaps the problems weren't so bad in the first place, or perhaps the political system produced politicians, like Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich, who were able to deal with the problems. But, in any case, the country got back on course. That's not to say all was well in the 1990s, especially in foreign policy. Responsibilities in places ranging from Bosnia to Rwanda to Afghanistan were shirked, and gathering dangers weren't dealt with. Still, the sour complaints and dire predictions of 1992--oh, my God, the budget deficit will do us in! --were quickly overtaken by events. What's more, the fear of many conservatives that we might be at the mercy of unstoppable forces of social disintegration turned out to be wrong. Indeed, the dire predictions were rendered obsolete so quickly that one wonders whether we were, in 1992, really just indulging in some kind of post-cold-war victory. Sometimes the public mood is ... well, moody. Today we' re moody again. We are obviously fighting a difficult and, until recently, badly managed war in Iraq, whose outcome is uncertain. This accounts for much of the pessimism. It also doesn't help that the political system seems incapable of dealing with big problems like immigration, an energy policy and health care. Still, is the general feeling that everything is going to the dogs any more justified today than it was 15 years ago? Not really. Think of it this way: Have events in general gone better or worse than most people would have predicted on Sept. 12, 20017 There's been no successful second attack here in the U. S.--and very limited terrorist successes in Europe or even in the Middle East. We've had 5 1/2 years of robust economic growth, low unemployment and a stock-market recovery. Social indicators in the U. S.. are mostly stable or improving--abortions, teenage births and teenage drug use are down and education scores are up a bit. As for American foreign policy since 9/11, it has not produced the results some of us hoped for, and there are many legitimate criticisms of the Bush Administration's performance. But, in fact, despite the gloom and doom from critics left and right (including, occasionally, me), the world seems to present the usual mixed bag of difficult problems and heartening developments. The key question, of course, is the fate of Iraq. A decent outcome--the defeat of al-Qaeda in what it has made the central front in the war on terrorism and enough security so there can be peaceful rule by a representative regime--seems to me achievable, if we don't lose our nerve here at home. With success in Iraq, progress elsewhere in the Middle East will be easier. The balance sheet is uncertain. But it is by no means necessarily grim.

单选题My dictionary defines subtle as "not immediately obvious; characterized by skill or ingenuity; clever; elusive; [even] insidious." Let us look at some concrete instances of this. (The very word itself is an example, as the letter" b" is silent in pronunciation.)" Language can be straight-forward and directly to the point, but sometimes that takes the fun out of it. On occasion, at least, one appreciates subtleties—often as the mark of a quick wit. This particularly is true of jokes that generally have a double meaning. For example: Awaitress received only three pennies for a tip. Nonplussed, she told the customer that those three pennies told a lot about him. He took the bait and asked what they revealed. "The first penny," she said, "tells me you are thrifty." The patron agreed. "what does the second penny say?" asked the customer. "It tells me you're a bachelor." "Right again," he replied, "And what does the third penny tell you?" "The third penny," responded the waitress, "tells me your daddy was a bachelor, too." How's that for a subtle punishment? Subtleties also can be used on occasion for a good putdown. For instance, one can say a certain man was a big gun of industry. "Yes," is the counter, "he was fired several times." In this category was Mark Twain' s caustic time bomb: "He was a good man—in the worst sense of the term." In our day of political correctness (sometimes called the tyranny of the minority), police seldom talk about suspects, but only about" persons of interest." I guess law enforcement does not want another lawsuit on its hands. Then, too, with the campaign against fat and fried foods, Kentucky Fried Chicken calls itself KFC, figuring that few will think of "fried" that way. The meaning of a word or phrase seems to change more rapidly today and unless one is "with it", a faux pas (失礼) can be committed. Such is the case with the term, "an exceptional child." Way back when, one would think that referred to an especially bright youngster, whereas today it indicates a handicapped youth. So, too, the word "primitive" virtually has been erased from our language and replaced with "earlier culture" and Indians are known as Native Americans. The world of advertising is a master at subtleties with which it hopes to bamboozle (欺骗) the customer. For instance, when asked how much a gallon of gasoline costs, the reply might be something like $2.25. Yet, one must add a penny to that as a 9/10 follows the price, making it, in effect, $2.26. Cereal prices have skyrocketed over the years, but some companies claim to have held the line by keeping the price the same. What many do, however, is reduce the number of ounces in the package. I leave the reader with the truism that subtlety, not brevity, is the soul of wit. Use it to win friends and influence people.

单选题It might seem odd to think of pre-kindergarten toddlers as students in need of teachers, but the latest research suggests that some form of instruction may help children to better prepare for school. Nina Chien, a post doctoral researcher in pediatrics at the University of California San Diego found that children who were left to engage in free play in pre-kindergarten centers showed the least improvement in reading and math skills after one year compared with the children who benefited from some form of teacher instruction. The free play groups were provided with educational toys designed to stimulate their creative and cognitive processes, but they still learned up to two fewer alphabet letters and three fewer numbers than those who worked with teachers. Overall, when the children reached kindergarten, their teachers rated them up to 96% lower on language and literacy skills compared to their classmates. Chien based her study on 701 state-funded pre-kindergarten programs in 11 states, was surprised by the findings since more than 50% of children were enrolled in free-play based centers, an indication of their popularity. "It's very popular to give kids rich educational materials, let them chose which ones they want to play with, and let them play, "she says. "It was surprising that this very popular model turned out not to be that beneficial. " The children who showed the most gains over the year in terms of learning the alphabet and numbers, as well as achieving basic reading and math skills, were those who had more individual interaction with teachers. Some teacher-based programs emphasized group instruction, while others involved more one-on-one guidance, in which teachers would encourage students to think more broadly or creatively. If a child drew a sun, for example, an instructor might ask how he could depict the brightness of sun, and guide the child to coming up with a way to draw the sun's rays. Such encouragement, known as scaffolding, resulted in the most academic gains among the children. Based on her findings, Chien believes that there is still a role for free play, as the children in these programs exhibited greater creativity over the year. She also notes that the study involved public programs in which many of the students came from lower income households. Previous studies have shown that such children benefit more from individualized ins/ruction since they may not be receiving much guidance or support at home. But overall, she says, greater teacher interaction, combined with free play, might enhance children's learning ability and better prepare them for school. Given the dwindling resources in public education, however, that may be harder and harder to achieve.

单选题The last-minute victory of the Texas Longhorns in this year's Rose Bowl--America's college football championship--was the kind of thing that stays with fans forever. Just as well, because many had paid vast sums to see the game. Rose Bowl tickets officially sold for＄175 each. On the internet, resellers were hawking them for as much as ＄ 3,000 a pop. "Nobody knows how to control [this]," observed Mitch Dorger, the tournament's chief executive. Re-selling tickets for a profit, known less politely as scalping in America or touting in Britain, is booming. In America alone, the "secondary market" for tickets to sought-after events is worth over ＄10 billion, reckons Jeffrey Fluhr, the boss of StubHub, an online ticket market. Scalping used to be about burly men lurking outside stadiums with fistfuls of tickets. Cries of "Tickets here, tickets here" still ring out before kick off. But the internet has created a larger and more efficient market. Some internet-based ticket agencies, such as tickco, com and dynamiteticketz, com act as traditional scalpers, buying up tickets and selling them on for a substantial mark-up. But others like StubHub have a new business mode — bring together buyers and sellers, and then take a cut. For each transaction, StubHub takes a juicy 25%. Despite its substantial commission—far higher than those charged by other online intermediaries including eBay or Craigslist—StubHub is flourishing. The firm was set up in 2000 and this year's Rose Bowl was its biggest event ever. The Super Bowl in early February will bring another nice haul, as have U2 and Rolling Stones concerts. Unlike eBay, which is the largest online trader in tickets, StubHub guarantees each transaction, so buyers need not worry about fraud. The company's revenues, now around ＄ 200m, are tripling annually (despite its start in the dotcom bust). And there is plenty more room to grow. Mr. Fluhr notes that the market remains "highly fragmented", with tiny operations still flourishing and newspaper classifieds not yet dead. But there are risks. Some events are boosting prices to cut the resale margins; others are using special measures to crack down. This summer, tickets to the soccer World Cup in Germany will include the name and passport number of the original purchaser and embedded chips that match the buyer to the tickets. Then there are legal worries. In America, more than a dozen states have anti-scalping laws of various kinds. New Mexico forbids the reselling of tickets for college games; Mississippi does so for all events on government-owned property. Such laws are often ignored, but can still bite. In Massachusetts, where reselling a ticket for more than ＄ 2 above face value is unlawful, one fan brought a lawsuit last autumn against 16 companies (including StubHub) over his pricey Red Sox tickets.