单选题According to those who welcomed the railway, the railway itself should include all the following except that ______.

单选题The mythology of a culture can provide some vital insights into the beliefs and values of that culture. By using fantastic and sometimes incredible stories to create an oral tradition by which to explain the wonders of the natural world and teach lessons to younger generations, a society exposes those ideas and concepts held most important. Just as important as the final lesson to be gathered from the stories, however, are the characters and the roles they play in conveying that message. Perhaps the epitome of mythology and its use as a tool to pass on cultural values can be found in Aesop's Fables, told and retold during the era of the Greek Empire. Aesop, a slave who won the favor of the court through his imaginative and descriptive tales, almost exclusively used animals to fill the roles in his short stories. Humans, when at all present, almost always played the part of bumbling fools struggling to learn the lesson being presented. This choice of characterization allows us to see that the Greeks placed wisdom on a level slightly beyond humans, implying that deep wisdom and understanding is a universal quality sought by, rather than steanning from, human beings. Aesop's fables illustrated the central themes of humility and self-reliance, reflecting the importance of those traits in early Greek society. The folly of humans was used to contrast against the ultimate goal of attaining a higher level of understanding and awareness of truths about nature and humanity. For example, one notable fable features a fox repeatedly trying to reach a bunch of grapes on a very high vine. After failing at several attempts, the fox gives up, making up its mind that the grapes were probably sour anyway. The fable's lesson, that we often play down that which we can't achieve so as to make ourselves feel better, teaches the reader or listener in an entertaining way about one of the weaknesses of the human psyche. The mythology of other cultures and societies reveal the underlying traits of their respective cultures just as Aesop's fables did. The stories of Roman gods, Aztec ghosts and European elves all served to train ancient generations those lessons considered most important to their community, and today they offer a powerful looking glass by which to evaluate and consider the contextual environment in which those culture existed.

单选题One characteristic of the El Nifio is

单选题All of the following are mentioned to suggest that the Bermuda Triangle is really a mysterious area EXCEPT______.

单选题Millennials were (1) to be the next golden ticket for retailers. A 70 million consumers (2) between the ages of 18 and 34, this was the first generation of Americans to grow up with cell phones and the Web. Marketers could (3) them in numerous ways—tweets, Facebook pages—that were (4) when their boomer parents started out. " Marketers thought, 'Here come the Millennials, we're going to have an awesome time selling to them, '" says Max Lenderman, a director at ad agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky. "They were waiting for a (5) . Then comes the financial crisis, and all of a sudden the door has almost (6) in their face. " No group was hit harder by the Great Recession than the Millennials. Their careers are (7) . They hold record levels of education debt. And an estimated 24 percent have had to move back home with parents at least once. That's bad news for the movie studios, clothing retailers, and home improvement chains that had hoped for better. Williams-Sonoma and Home Depot thrive on household formation— economist (8) for marrying, having kids, and buying a home—but many cash-strapped Gen Yers have put those modern rites of passage (9) hold. Twenty percent of 18-to 34-year-old respondents in a recent Pew survey said they had (10) marriage for financial reasons, while 22 percent put (11) having a baby for similar reasons. (12) this generation was always going to be a challenge. (13) into the Web's endless information and choices, Millennials are pickier and (14) brand loyal than their parents. (15) before the recession they craved authentic products—for example, buying shoes from Toms Shoes, which donates a pair to poor children for every one it sells. The Millennial (16) is "buy less and do more, " says David Maddocks. "Boomers were about (17) , whereas this generation is about having enough. " The (18) of the recession could make Gen Y even less acquisitive. Gen Y's (19) could eventually hurt the luxury market, too, says Pam Danziger, president of research firm Unity Marketing. She says a 25-year-old who shops at Gap typically trades up to Nordstrom (JWN), Saks (SKS), and perhaps Tiffany (TIF) decades later. But today, Danziger says, "We have a group of people who are seeking only to live within their (20) /

单选题How can an organization's sales operation be improved? One of the keys to becoming more effective is to first determine the type of "selling process" which needs to be used. In other words, the role the salesperson must play has to be identified. There are three different processes sales staff can adopt: narrative, suggestive and consultative. The narrative approach depends on the salesperson moving quickly into a standardized presentation. Every buyer receives the same presentation. Emphasis is on highlighting benefits and how the product or service can help the buyer. This is an effective approach if the buying motive for all customers is basically the same. This process is well suited where there are a great number of prospects to be called on. The suggestive approach depends on the seller being in a position to offer alternative recommendations. This is quite different from the narrative approach as the presentation is tailored to the individual customer. Here, the salesperson must initiate some discussion in order to get the buyer in a positive flame of mind. An example of this process would be a restaurant wine steward who has checked with the waiter what food the customer has ordered and then opens by saying that either "this or that" particular wine would go best with the food ordered. This is an excellent approach where one doesn't have much time with the customer but is able to acquire some basic information and then offer a particular recommendation. This process is well suited for products and services. However, it does require the salesperson to acquire basic information from the customer before moving on to the presentation. The consultative approach requires the salesperson to have a thorough understanding of the customer and what the customer is trying to achieve. The role of the salesperson is to become an adviser or consultant and he must acquire a great deal of information from the customer. With this information the salesperson can plan what to offer the customer. In this case, the salesperson must tailor the presentation to highlight how the salesperson's product or service can be of help. This approach will usually require a number of sales calls as the buying process may be complex. The consultative approach requires a wide variety of skills, including probing, listening, analysis, creativity and persuasiveness. The other two approaches typically require fewer skills. Hiring, training, motivating and rewarding salespeople need to be linked to the type of sales process being used and this is where the problem starts. Many organizations which should be using a consultative approach use a narrative approach. They use standardized methods and do not tailor presentations to individual customers. You see this in many industries. When this is the case, price becomes a key criterion for the customer. A key issue in developing a professional sales organization is in first establishing the sales process. When that decision has been made, all other sales decisions, including hiring, training and rewards can be linked to it.

单选题Which of the following is good for the economy according to Eliot Spitzer?

单选题The housing market has been for two years propping up consumers' spirits while the rest of the economy lies exhausted on the floor, still trying to struggle to its feet. According to the National Association of Realtors, the national median existing-home price ended the year at $164,000, up 7.1 percent from 2001. That's the strongest annual increase since 1980. Although residential real estate activity makes up less than 8% of total U. S. GDP, a housing market like this one can make the difference between positive and negative growth. Most significantly, consumer spending is 66% of GDP, and the purchase of a new home tends to have an "umbrella effect" on the homeowner's spending as he has to stock it with a washer/ dryer, a new big-screen TV, and maybe a swing set for the yard. The main factor in housing's continued strength is a classic economic example of zero-sum boom: the persistent weakness everywhere else. As the 2003 recovery continues to be more forecast than reality. Falling stock prices raised investor appeal for U. S. Treasury Bonds, which in turn, allowed most interest rates to drift even lower. But there are not many signs that there's a bubble ready to burst. December's new record in housing starts, for example, was nicely matched by the new record in new home sales. If you build it, they will buy and even if an economic pickup starts to reduce housing's relative attractiveness, there's no reason why modest economic growth and improved consumer mood can't help sustaining housing's strength. "The momentum gained from low mortgage interest rates will carry strong home sales into 2003, with an improving economy offsetting modestly higher mortgage interest rates as the year progresses," said David Lereah, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. Just as housing has taken up much of the economic slack for the past two years, both as a comforting investment for fretting consumers and a driver of consumer spending itself, a big bump elsewhere in the economy in 2003 could be housing's downfall. If stocks roar back this spring, capital inflows could steal from the bond market, pushing up long-term interest rates. Or Alan Greenspan and the Fed could do the same to short-term rates, as a way to hit the brakes on a recovery that is heating up too fast. In other words, if everything possible goes wrong for housing, homeowners should have plenty to compensate them in terms bf job security and income hikes.

单选题 Louis Armstrong sang,"When you're smiling, the whole world smiles with you."Romanticseverywhere may besurprised tolearn that psychological research has proven this sentiment to be true-merely seeing a smile(or a frown, for that matter) will activate the muscles in our face that make that expression, even if we are unaware of it. Now, according to a new study in Psychological Science, simply reading certain words may also have the same effect. PsychologistsFrancescoForonifrom VU University Amsterdamand Gila R. Seminfromthe University of Utrecht conducted two experiments to see if emotion language has an influence on facial muscle activity. In the first experiment, a group of students read a series of emotion verbs(e.g., "to smile,""to cry") and adjectives(e.g.,"funny,""frustrating") on a monitor, while the activity of their zygomatic major(the muscle responsible for smiles) and corrugator supercilii(which causes frowns) muscles were measured.The results showed that reading action verbs activated the corresponding muscles. For example, "to laugh" resulted in activation of the zygomatic major muscle, but did not cause any response in the muscles responsible for frowning. Interestingly, when presented with the emotion adjectives like "funny" or"frustrating" the volunteers demonstrated much lower muscle activation compared to their reactions to emotion verbs. The researchers note that muscle activity is "induced in the reader when reading verbs representing facial expressions of emotion." Can this natural bodily reaction affect our judgments? In another experiment, volunteers watched a series of cartoons and were unconsciously shown emotion verbs and adjectives after each one. They were then asked to rate how funny they thought the cartoons were. Half of the participants held a pen with their lips, to prevent them from smiling, while the remaining participants did not have their muscle movement blocked. The results reveal that even when emotion verbs are presented unconsciously, they are able to influence judgment-volunteers found cartoons to be funnier when they were preceded by smiling verbs than if they were preceded by frowning-related verbs. However, this effect only occurred in the vohmteers who were able to smile-volunteers who had muscle movement blocked did not show this relationship between emotion verbs and how funny they judged the cartoons as being. The results of these experiments reveal that simply reading emotion verbs activates specific facial muscles and can influence judgments we make. The researchers note these findings suggest that "language is not merely symbolic, but also somatic," and they conclude that"these experiments provide an important bridge between research on the neurobiological basis of language and related behavioral research."

单选题Education is one of the key words of our time. A man, without an education, many of us believe, is an unfortunate victim of unfortunate circumstances deprived of one of the greatest twentieth-century opportunities. Convinced of the importance of education, modern states "invest" in institutions of learning to get back "interest" in the form of a large group of enlightened young men and women who are potential leaders. Education, with its cycles of instruction so carefully worked out, is punctuated by textbooks--those purchasable wells of wisdom--what would civilization be like without its benefits? So much is certain: that we would have doctors and preachers, lawyers and defendants, marriages and births; but our spiritual outlook would be different. We would lay less stress on "facts and figures" and more on a good memory, on applied psychology, and on the capacity of a man to get along with his fellow-citizens. If our educational system were fashioned after its bookless past we would have the most democratic form of "college" imaginable. Among the people whom we like to call savages all knowledge inherited by tradition is shared by all; it is taught to every member of the tribe so that in this respect everybody is equally equipped for life. It is the ideal condition of the "equal start" which only our most progressive forms of modern education try to reach again. In primitive cultures the obligation to seek and to receive the traditional instruction is binding on all. There are no "illiterates"--if the term can be applied to peoples without a script--while our own compulsory school attendance became law in Germany in 1642, in France in 1806, and in England 1976, and is still non-existent in a number of "civilized" nations. This shows how long it was before we considered it necessary to make sure that all our children could share in the knowledge accumulated by the "happy few" during the past centuries. Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means. All are entitled to an equal start. There is none of the hurry that, in our society, often hampers the full development of a growing personality. There, a child grows up under the ever-present attention of his parents; therefore the jungles and the savages know of no "juvenile delinquency". No necessity of making a living away from home results in neglect of children, and no father is confronted with his inability to "buy" an education for his child.Notes: juvenile delinquency 青少年犯罪。

单选题The employees might think, if airline delay is to be avoided, the key factor is

单选题George Bernard Shaw(1856—1950)was born in Dublin, Ireland. At the age of 14, after graduating from middle school, Shaw was put into a job as clerk in a land agent's office. At 20 he went to London where he remained jobless for 9 years, devoting much time to self-education. Meantime, Shaw took an active part in the socialist movement. A contemporary of Shaw's thus wrote of him: "I used to be a daily frequenter of the British Museum Reading Room. Even more assiduous in his attendance was a young man. ...My curiosity was piqued by the odd conjunction of his subjects of research. Day after day for weeks he had before him two books—Karl Marx's 'Das Kapital' (in French), and an orchestral score(管弦乐乐谱) of 'Tristan and Isolde'." Though Shaw admitted Marx's great influence on him, he failed to grasp the necessity of a revolutionary reconstruction of the world. A strong influence was exercised on Shaw by the Fabian society, the English reformist organization. In the early period of his literary career, Shaw wrote some novels, "An Unsocial Socialist" and others, in which he developed the traditions of critical realism, bitterly criticizing the stupidity, snobbishness and petty tyranny of the middle class. In the nineties Shaw turned to the theatre, first working as a dramatic critic, then writing plays for the stage. His role in the development of dramaturgy is very great. Shaw was an enemy of "art for art's sake". He wrote, "for art's sake I will not face the toil of writing a sentence." He used the stage to criticize the evils of capitalism. He wrote 51 plays in total, the important ones including "Widower's Houses", "Saint Joan" and "The Apple Cart". In his plays Shaw laid bare the gross injustice and utter inhumanity of the bourgeois society. This he achieved not so much by the structures of plots in his plays as by the brilliant dialogues between the characters. His exposure of capitalist society is very significant and it places Shaw among the most important representatives of critical realism in modern English literature.

单选题Ideally, a capitalist economy is constantly becoming more efficient. The benefits of that newly gained efficiency, however, are not always uniformly distributed. Sometimes it goes to business owners in the form of higher prices, sometimes to consumers in the form of lower prices, and other times to labor as increased wages. You don"t have to be an economist to know that for the past generation, workers have gotten the short end of this particular stick. Corporate profits have gone steadily up, consumers have been offered an increasingly wide selection of affordable products, but wages for most of us have stagnated. The reasons for this trend are familiar: Globalization has flooded the world labor market with cheap workers from China, India and elsewhere. Good paying manufacturing jobs have migrated overseas, while the U. S. has been left with low-wage, low-skill service jobs like that of a sales associate in the nation"s many retail outlets. Meanwhile, an era of global corporate competition has forced companies to ruthlessly seek to cut expenses wherever they can, keeping wages and benefits in these sorts of jobs depressingly low. But what if the logic behind viewing retail labor as an expense to be cut, rather than as an asset to be invested in, is unsound? Zeynep Ton, a Professor of Operations Management at MIT"s Sloan School of Management, argues just that. Her research has shown that by underinvesting in their employees, retailers are actually making their operations much more inefficient, and therefore much less profitable." This is an area that Ton has been studying for ten years, and what she has consistently found is that companies that buck the status quo and invest heavily in their workforce actually are able to not only compete with their competitors on service but on price too. In a paper she published in the Harvard Business Review earlier this year, she writes: "Highly successful retail chains—such as QuickTrip convenience stores, Mercadona and Trader Joe"s supermarkets, and Costco wholesale clubs—not only invest heavily in store employees, but also have the lowest prices in their industries, solid financial performance, and better customer service than their competitors." While investing in human resources may have always been a good strategy, it is one that is more important now than ever for brick-and-mortar retailers. And with interest rates at historic lows, now is a great time to invest in the long-term health of your labor force. So will high executives pour their recently gained efficiencies into their labor force, ushering in a new era where stores compete on service rather than just on price?

单选题It is implied in the third paragraph that

单选题The author's attitude toward Goldman Sachs's opinion is one of