单选题 Illiteracy may be considered more as an abstract concept than a condition. When a famous English writer used the {{U}}(1) {{/U}} over two hundred years ago, he was actually {{U}}(2) {{/U}} to people who could {{U}}(3) {{/U}} read Greek or Latin. {{U}}(4) {{/U}},it seems unlikely that university examiners had this sort of {{U}}(5) {{/U}} in mind when they reported on "creeping illiteracy" in a report on their students' final examination in 1988. {{U}}(6) {{/U}} the years, university lecturers have been {{U}}(7) {{/U}} of an increasing tendency towards grammatical sloppiness, poor spelling and general imprecision {{U}}(8) {{/U}} their students' ways of writing; and sloppy writing is all {{U}}(9) {{/U}} often a reflection of sloppy thinking. Their {{U}}(10) {{/U}} was that they had {{U}}(11) {{/U}} to do teaching their own subject {{U}}(12) {{/U}} teaching their undergraduates to write. Some lecturers believe that they have a (n) {{U}}(13) {{/U}} to stress the importance of maintaining standards of clear thinking {{U}}(14) {{/U}} the written word in a world dominated by {{U}}(15) {{/U}} communications and images. They {{U}}(16) {{/U}} on the connection between clear thinking and a form of writing that is not only clear, but also sensitive to {{U}}(17) {{/U}} of meaning. The same lecturers argue that undergraduates appear to be the victims of a "softening process" that begins {{U}}(18) {{/U}} the teaching of English in schools, but this point of view has, not {{U}}(19) {{/U}}, caused a great deal of {{U}}(20) {{/U}}.

单选题{{B}}Part A{{/B}}{{B}}Directions:{{/B}}Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (40 points){{B}}Text 1{{/B}} If soldiering was for the money, the Special Air Service (SAS) and the Special Boat Service (SBS) would have disintegrated in recent years. Such has been the explosion in private military companies (PMCs) that they employ an estimated 30 000 in Iraq alone -- and no government can match their fat salaries. A young SAS trooper earns about￡ 2,000($3 500) a month; on the "circuit", as soldiers call the private world, he could get ￡15 000. Why would he not? For reasons both warm-hearted and cool-headed. First, for love of regiment and comrades, bonds that tend to be tightest in the most select units. Second, for the operational support, notably field medicine, and the security, including life assurance and pension, that come with the queen's paltry shilling. Although there has been no haemorrhaging of special force (SF) fighters to the private sector, there has been enough of a trickle to cause official unease. A memo recently circulated in the Ministry of Defence detailed the loss of 24 SF senior non-commissioned officers to private companies in the past year. All had completed 22 years of service, and so were eligible for a full pension, and near the end of their careers. Yet there is now a shortage of hard-bitten veterans to fill training and other jobs earmarked for them, under a system for retaining them known as "continuance." America has responded to the problem by throwing cash at it, offering incentives of up to $150 000 to sign new contracts. The Ministry of Defence has found a cheaper ploy. It has spread the story of two British PMC employees, recently killed in Iraq, whose bodies were left rotting in the sun;

单选题It can be seen from the passage that______.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Lateral thinking, first described by Edward de Bono in 1967, is just a few years older than Edward's son. You might imagine that Caspar was raised to be an adventurous thinker, but the de Bono name was so famous, Caspar's parents worried that any time he would say something bright at school, his teachers might snap, "Where do you get that idea from?" "We had to be careful and not overdo it," Edward admits. Now Caspar is at Oxford—which once looked unlikely because he is also slightly dyslexic. In fact, when he was applying to Oxford, none of his school teachers thought he had a chance. "So then we did several thinking sessions," his father says, "using my techniques and, when he went up for the exam, he did extremely well." Soon after, Edward de Bono decided to write his latest book, "Teach Your Child How to Think", in which he transforms the thinking skills he developed for brain-storming businessmen into informal exercises for parents and children to share. Thinking is traditionally regarded as something executed in a logical sequence, and everybody knows that children aren't very logical. So isn't it an uphill battle, trying to teach them to think? "You know," Edward de Bono says, "if you examine people's thinking, it is quite unusual to find faults of logic. But the faults of perception are huge! Often we think ineffectively because we take too limited a view." "Teach Your Child How to Think" offers lessons in perception improvement, of clearly seeing the implications of something you are saying and of exploring the alternatives.

单选题The description of the National Health Service helps to show

单选题I don't know if there's something in the water, but my town has exploded with tons of single people! Just last year, practically the only eligibles I knew were my divorced friend Patti, my bud Fulgencio, hubby Rick's barfly pat Craig, and Jimmy the pizza delivery guy. But now, I find-out that my cousin Michelle is leaving her second husband, and a recent chit-chat with my building's manager Sandy revealed that she hasn't had a serious relationship in almost five years! Besides that, at least five suspected singletons have moved into my building since June. Five! For an incurable romantic like me, this is heartbreaking. People are meant to have sweeties! I feel so sorry for single people. How can they bear going through life alone? I know a lot of them put up. that "independent" front, or use that "I'm just waiting for the right person" defense, but they're kidding themselves. Why would anyone turn up her nose at the prospect of a beautiful wedding, a gorgeous bridal gown, and a stunning rock on her finger? She wouldn't. Why would anyone shake a stick at a warm dinner every night, a comfortable home, and a beautiful bride? It just isn’t rational. And I don't like to be harsh, but frankly, it's depressing to see singles out in public. When I see a girl shopping for groceries by herself, or a solitary guy reading while he waits for a bus, I can't help but sense the hollowness that single person feels inside. I'm partially psychic, so I'm aware of other people's inner feelings. Well, this Valentine's Day, I'm not going to be selfish. People like me, people in successful, lasting relationships, are duty-bound to share their romantic wisdom with the less fortunate. Granted, it's been a while since I've been on the dating Scene, so my chops are a bit rusty. In fact, hubby Rick is just about the only guy I've ever dated (Unless you count my pick for the Sadie Hawkins dance in seventh grade, Jordy DeVoe, who ditched me after about 15 minutes. Or this Oriental kid named Thant who wrapped love notes around lunchroom cookies and slipped them into my locker in ninth grade.) But Rick and I have been married nearly 20 years, so I must be doing something right. Dry those tears, Singletons! Pull your-selves together and listen to Wifey Jean. If you follow my advice, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that you'll find your Prince Charming, or Princess Enchanting, in no time!

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Over the years, as the musical "Rent" has reached milestone after milestone—playing around 'the world in more than 200 productions from Boise to Little Rock to Reykjavik—the thousands of people who have been affected by this vibrant, gritty and compassionate work may well wonder what its creator, Jonathan Larson, would have thought of it all. Another milestone came on Monday .night. The original Broadway production of "Rent" opened at the Nederlander Theater l0 years ago this Saturday. That production, directed by Michael Greif, was an almost-intact transfer of the initial production at the New York Theater Workshop, which had opened three months earlier. To celebrate the anniversary the original cast members reassembled, rehearsed for two days and performed the show in a semi-staged version at the Nederlander on Monday. The event was a benefit for the New York Theater Workshop, for Friends in Deed (a support organization that gave comfort to several of Mr. Larson's friends dealing with H.I.V. infections.). and for the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation, which was set up by his family after the enormous success of "Rent". Before the performance, the co-chairmen of the benefit told the star-studded audience that more than $2 million' had been raised. Also addressing the crowd were Senator Charles E. Schumer and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who praised "Rent" as a timeless work exemplifying "culture, community and creativity," in the mayor's words, and saluted the show's vast contributions to New York's theatrical life. Once again you could only think, "Would Jonathan ever have imagined all this?" Mr. Larson, who wrote the music, lyrics and books for his stage works, struggled for more than 10 years to get a producer to take a shot at one of his shows. Now he was being posthumously thanked for giving Broadway a creative and economic boost. "Rent" is the seventh longest running show in Broadway history. I count myself among those who were personally affected by Mr. Larson's work. because of the inadvertent role I played in the last hours of his life. In 1996 an editor at The Times tipped me off to the opening of a rock musical, inspired by. "La Boheme", which transplanted Puccini's struggling bohemians from Paris in the 1830's to the ‘East Village in 1990's. So on Jan. 24 I went to the New York Theater Workshop m see the dress rehearsal of "Rent", which was scheduled to open in February. That performance was pretty ragged, with technical glitches and a misbehaving sound system. But I was swept away by the sophistication and exuberance of Mr. Larson's music and the mix of tenderness and cleverness in his lyrics. After the show Mr. Larson and I sat down for an interview in the tiny ticket booth of the theater, the only quiet space we could find amid the post-rehearsal confusion. For almost an hour, this sad-eyed and boyish. creator talked about his approach to songwriting, his determination to bring the American musical tradition to the MTV generation, and about friends snuggling with H:I.V. infection who had inspired the show.

单选题The word "gizmos" (Line 7, Paragraph 1 ) most probably means

单选题Surprisingly enough, modern historians have rarely interested themselves in the history of the American South in the period before the South began to become self-consciously and distinctively " Southern"—the decades after 1815. Consequently, the cultural history of Britain's North American empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been written almost as if the Southern colonies had never existed. The American culture that emerged during the Colonial and Revolutionary eras has been depicted as having been simply an extension of New England Puritan culture. However, Professor Davis has recently argued that the South stood apart from the rest of American society during this early period, following its own unique pattern of cultural development. The case for Southern distinctiveness rests_ upon two related premises: first, that the cultural similarities among the five Southern colonies were far more impressive than the differences, and second, that what made those colonies alike also made them different from the other colonies. The first, for which Davis offers an enormous amount of evidence, can be accepted without major recitations, the second is far more problematic. What makes the second premise problematic is the use of the Puritan colonies as a basis for comparison. Quite properly,Davis decries the excessive influence ascribed by historians to the Puritans in the formation of American culture. Yet Davis inadvertently adds weight to such ascriptions by using the Puritans as the standard against which to assess the achievements and contributions of Southern colonials. Throughout, Davis focuses on the important and undeniable differences between the Southern and Puritan colonies in motives for and patterns of early settlement, in attitudes toward nature and Native Americans, and in the degree of receptivity to metropolitan cultural influences. However, recent scholarship has strongly suggested that those aspects of early New England culture that seem to have been most distinctly Puritan, such as the strong religious orientation and the communal impulse, were not even typical of New England as a whole, but were largely confined to the two colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Thus, what in contrast to the Puritan colonies appears to Davis to be peculiarly Southern-acquisitiveness. A strong interest in polities and the law, and a tendency to cultivate metropolitan cultural models were not only more typically English than the cultural patterns exhibited by Puritan Massachusetts and Connecticut, but also almost certainly characteristic of most other early modern British colonies from Barbados north to Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Within the larger framework of American colonial life, then, not the Southern but the Puritan colonies appear to have been distinctive, and even they seem to have been rapidly assimilating to the dominant cultural patterns by the last Colonial period.

单选题It was a fixing sight: there, in the Capitol itself, a U.S. Senator often mocked for his halting, inarticulate speaking, reached deep into his Midwestern roots and spoke eloquently, even poetically, about who he was and what he believed, stunning politicians and journalists alike. I refer, of course, to Senator Jefferson Smith. In Frank Capra's classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Jimmy Stewart plays this simple, idealistic small-town American, mocked and scorned by the big-moneyed, oh-so-sophisticated power elite--only to triumph over a corrupt Establishment with his rock-solid goodness. At root, it is this role that soon-to-be-ex-Senator Bob Dole most aspires to play., the self- effacing, quietly powerful small-town man from Main Street who outwits the cosmopolitan, slick-talking snob from the fleshpots. And why not? There is, after all, no more enduring American icon. How enduring? Before Americans had a Constitution, Thomas Jefferson was arguing that the new nation's future would depend on a base of agrarian yeomen free from the vices inherent in big cities. In 1840 one of the classic, image-driven presidential campaigns featured William Henry Harrison as the embodiment of rural virtues, the candidate of the log cabin and hard cider, defeating the incumbent Martin Van Buren, who was accused of dandified dress and manners. There is, of course, a huge disconnect between this professed love of the simple, unspoiled life and the way Americans actually live. As a people, Americans have spent the better part of the 20th century deserting the farms and the small towns for the cities and the suburbs; and are torn between vacationing in Disney World and Las Vegas. U.S. politicians too haven't exactly shunned the temptations of the cosmopolitan life. The town of Russell, Kansas, often seems to be Dole's running mate, but the candidate spends his leisure time in a luxury condominium in Bal Harbor, Florida. Bill Clinton still believes in a place called Hope, but the spiffy, celebrity-dense resorts of Martha's Vineyard 'and Jackson Hole are where he kicks back. Ronald Reagan embodied the faith-and-family pieties of the front porch and Main Street, but he fled Iowa for a career and a life in Hollywood. Still, the hunger for the way Americans believe they are supposed to live is strong, and the distrust of the intellectual hustler with his airs and his high flown language runs deep. It makes sense for the Dole campaign to make this a contest between Dole as the laconic, quiet man whose words Can be trusted and Bill Clinton as the traveling salesman with a line of smooth patter but a suitcase full of damaged goods. It makes sense for Dole to make his campaign song Thank God I'm a Country Boy--even if he is humming it 9,200 m up in a corporate jet on his way to a Florida condo.

单选题Hank Paulson's name is mentioned to show that