单选题 In the last ten years, the Internet has opened up incredible amounts of information to ordinary citizens. But using the Internet can he like walking into a library where the books are all lying on the floor in piles. While tools like Google allow some structured search, much of the data from such searches is outdated or of questionable value. Some web enthusiasts have taken up the task of organizing information through a democratic means that only the Internet allows: an encyclopedia of the people, by the people, and completely free to copy and distribute. This ‘people’s encyclopedia’ of the Web — a free site called Wikipedia — has provided a unique solution by inviting individuals to participate in the process of rationalizing and updating web content. At the heart of this movement are wikis, web sites that allow users to directly edit any web page with one click of the mouse. Wikipedia — the largest example of these collaborative efforts — is a functioning, user-contributed online encyclopedia that has become a popular and highly regarded reference in just three years of existence. The goal of Wikipedia was to create an encyclopedia that could he shared and copied freely while encouraging people to change and improve the content. Each and every article has an “Edit this page” button, allowing anyone, even anonymous passersby, to add or delete any content on the page. It seems like a recipe for disaster and chaos, but it has produced surprisingly credible content that has been evaluated and revised by the thousands of international visitors to the site. For many, it finally realizes the original concept of World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee — an online environment where people not only browse content, but freely and actively exchange information. The Wikipedia project was started by Jimmy Wales, head of Internet startup Bomis.com, after his original project for a volunteer, hut strictly controlled, free encyclopedia ran out of money and resources after two years. Editors with PhD degrees were at the helm of the project then, but it produced only a few hundred articles. Not wanting the content to languish, Wales placed the pages on a wiki website in January 2001 and invited any Internet visitors to edit or add to the collection. The site became a runaway success in the first year and gained a loyal following, generating over 20,000 articles and spawning over a dozen language translations. After two years, it had 100,000 articles, and in April 2004, it exceeded 250,000 articles in English and 600,000 articles in 50 other languages. Over 2,000 new articles are added each day across all the various languages. And according to website rankings at Alexa.com, it has become more popular than traditional online encyclopedias such as Britannica.com and is one of the top 600 most heavily visited websites on the internet.

单选题A rare provision in San Francisco"s business tax code that taxes companies when employees cash in their stock options has caused a stir in this hotbed of fledgling tech companies. Remarkably, few companies even knew about the tax, which has been in effect for seven years. But since city officials offered Twitter a payroll-tax break as an incentive for it to remain in San Francisco (the company is considered likely to go public soon), the stock-option provision has suddenly come under intense scrutiny. A number of other booming companies, including Zings, the maker of online games and one of the city"s fastest-growing firms, have threatened to leave the city unless they receive similar payroll-tax exemptions before going public. Unlike most cities, San Francisco generates most of its business tax revenue through a payroll tax. The Twitter exemption bill, which will be considered by the full Board of Supervisors on April 5, would freeze payroll taxes for six years along a strip of Market Street—where Twitter is set to relocate—and several square blocks in the Tenderloin neighborhood. Twitter executives had been concerned because since 2004 the city"s payroll tax code has counted stock options granted to employees as compensation, which is taxed at 1.5 percent. If Twitter goes public in San Francisco and a large number of workers exercise their options, the city would tax the company on its employees" stock gains—a bill likely to amount to tens of millions of dollars. "Twitter could be looking at a significantly larger payroll tax liability if and when it goes public," said Ted Egan, the chief economist in San Francisco"s controller"s office. Because of the dearth of I. P. O. "s inside the city limits in the last decade, the stockoption tax has gone under radar until now. Businesses, city officials and even seasoned tax lawyers are confounded. "Nobody ever talked about this because nobody"s really tested these issues before," said Thomas H. Steele, a partner in Morrison & Foerster"s San Francisco office, specializing in state and local tax. He said that his clients began calling him this week to ask about the tax"s ramifications. "A Pandora"s box has already been opened," said Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, a member of the Board of Supervisors" budget and finance committee, who has expressed concern about tailoring legislation for one company. "We"ve been going about this the wrong way," he said. The recent confusion has added impetus to calls for comprehensive business tax reform by David Chiu, the board president. "The stock option problem is real," Mr. Chiu said. "We have to address it in a fair and responsible way. "

单选题By "Gossip also is a form of social bonding" (Par

单选题Until recently, the main villains of the piece had seemed to be the teachers' unions, who have opposed any sort of reform or accountability. Now they face competition from an unexpectedly destructive force: the court. Fifty years ago, it was the judges who forced the schools to desegregate through Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Now the courts have moved from broad principles to micromanagement, telling schools how much money to spend and where - right down to the correct computer or textbook. Twenty four states are currently Stuck in various court cases to do with financing school systems, and another 21 have only recently settled various suits. Most will start again soon. Only five states have avoided litigation entirely. Nothing exemplifies the power of the courts better than an 11-year-old case that is due to be settled (sort of) in New York City, the home of America's biggest school system with 1. lm students and a budget nearing $13 billion. At the end of this month, three elderly members of the New York bar serving as judicial referees are due to rule in a case brought By the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, a leftish advocacy group, against the state of New York: they will decide how much more must Be spent to provide every New York City pupil with a "sound basic" education. Rare is the politician willing to argue that more money for schools is a bad thing. But are the courts doing any good? Two suspicions arise. First, judges are making a lazy assumption that more money means better schools. As the international results show, the link between "inputs" and "outputs" is vague--something well documented by, among others, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York. Second, the courts are muddling an already muddled system. Over time, they have generally made it harder to get rid of disruptive pupils and bad teachers. The current case could be even worse. The courts have already said that, in order to determine the necessary spending, they may consider everything from class size to the availability of computers, textbooks and even pencils. This degree of intervention is all the more scandalous because the courts have weirdly decided to ignore another set of "inputs"--the archaic work practices of school teachers and janitors. David Schoenbrod and Ross Sandier of New York Law School reckon the demands of the court will simply undermine reform and transform an expensive failure into a more expensive one. And of course, the litigation never ends. Kentucky, for example, is still in court 16 years after the first decision. A lawsuit first filed against New Jersey for its funding of schools in 1981 was "decided" four years later--but it has returned to the court nine times since, including early this year, with each decision pushing the court deeper into the management of the state's schools. Bad iudges are even harder to boot out of school than bad pupils.

单选题Starting with his review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior, Noam Chomsky had led the psycholinguists who argue that man has developed an innate (天生的) capacity for dealing with the linguistic universals common to all languages. Experience and learning then provide only information about the (1) instances of those universal aspects of language which are needed to communicate with other people within a particular language (2) . This linguistic approach (3) the view that language is built upon learned associations between words. What is learned is not strings of words per se (本身), but (4) rules that enable a speaker to (5) an infinite variety of novel sentences. (6) single words are learned as concepts: they do not stand in a one-to-one (7) with the particular thing signified, but (8) all members of a general class. This view of the innate aspect of language learning is at first not readily (9) into existing psychological frameworks and (10) a challenge that has stimulated much thought and new research directions. Chomsky argues that a precondition for language development is the existence of certain principles "intrinsic (原有的) to the mind" that provide invariant structures (11) perceiving, learning and thinking. Language (12) all of these processes; thus its study (13) our theories of knowledge in general. Basic to this model of language is the notion that a child's learning of language is a kind of theory (14) . It's thought to be accomplished (15) explicit instruction, (16) of intelligence level, at an early age when he is not capable of other complex (17) or motor achievements, and with relatively little reliable data to go on. (18) , the child constructs a theory of an ideal language which has broad (19) power. Chomsky argues that all children could not develop the same basic theory (20) it not for the innate existence of properties of mental organization which limit the possible properties of languages.

单选题Optimism is the art of always seeing the glass half full (1) half empty, finding something positive in even the most (2) of situations and last but not least the ability to expect the best even if the chances are (3) . It enables you to try new things, deal with failure as a learning experience (4) a stopping point. In general optimism gives you a reason to live. The world would be a better place if it was full of optimism, (5) unfortunately the trend in today's youth is (6) the opposite way. Today it is (7) to be pessimistic. One could spend hours discussing how we arrived at this point, (8) our youth refuses to smell the roses and instead prefers to (9) themselves on their own pessimistic (10) . Optimism is not an (11) gift but rather a learned behavior (12) . Like most behaviors optimism is best learned by watching examples, (13) you. The first step in creating a generation of people with a positive outlook on life, is to (14) life on the bright side yourself. (15) it would be wrong to (16) your child from all negativity, it is important that you are not the (17) of doubts and worries. Finding something positive in a negative situation needs to be (18) Show how to make the best of things by always (19) the positive, by encouraging your child after a(n) (20) and by explaining over and over that failure is just a part of progress.

单选题"This is a really exciting time—a new era is starting," says Peter Bazalgette, the chief creative officer of Endemol, the television company behind "Big Brother" and other popular shows. He is referring to the upsurge of interest in mobile television, a nascent industry at the intersection of telecoms and media which offers new opportunities to device-makers, content producers and mobile- network operators. And he is far from alone in his enthusiasm. Already, many mobile operators offer a selection of television channels or individual shows, which are " streamed" across their third-generation (3G) networks. In South Korea, television is also sent to mobile phones via satellite and terrestrial broadcast networks, which is far more efficient than sending video across mobile networks; similar broadcasts will begin in Japan in April. In Europe, the Italian arm of 3, a mobile operator, recently acquired Canale 7, a television channel, with a view to launching mobile-TV broadcasts in Italy in the second half of 2006. Similar mobile-TV networks will also be built in Finland and America, and are being tested in many other countries. Meanwhile, Apple Computer, which launched a video-capable version of its iPod portable music-player in October, is striking deals with television networks to expand the range of shows that can be purchased for viewing on the device , including "Lost", "Desperate Housewives" and "Law & Order". TiVo, maker of the pioneering personal video recorder (PVR), says it plans to enable subscribers to download recorded shows on to iPods and other portable devices for viewing on the move. And mobile TV was one of the big trends at the world"s largest technology fair, the Consumer Electronics Show, which took place in Las Vegas this week. Despite all this activity, however, the prospects for mobile TV are unclear. For a start, nobody really knows if consumers will pay for it, though surveys suggest they like the idea. Informa, a consultancy, says there will be 125 million mobile-TV users by 2010. But many other mobile technologies inspired high hopes and then failed to live up to expectations. And even if people do want TV on the move, there is further uncertainty in three areas: technology, business models and the content itself.

单选题Richard Satava, program manager for advanced medical technologies, has been a driving force bringing virtual reality to medicine, where computers create a "virtual" or simulated environment for surgeons and other medical practitioners (从业者). "With virtual reality we'll be able to put a surgeon in every trench," said Satava. He envisaged a time when soldiers who are wounded fighting overseas are put in mobile surgical units equipped with computers. The computers would transmit images of the soldiers to surgeons back in the U. S. The surgeons would look at the soldier through virtual reality helmets (头盔) that contain a small screen displaying the image of the wound. The doctors would guide robotic instruments in the battlefield mobile surgical unit that operate on the soldier. Although Satava's vision may be years away from standard operating procedure, scientists are progressing toward virtual reality surgery. Engineers at an international organization in California are developing a tele-operating device. As surgeons watch a three-dimensional image of the surgery, they move instruments that are connected to a computer, which passes their movements to robotic instruments that perform the surgery. The computer provides feedback to the surgeon on force, textures, and sound. These technological wonders may not yet be part of the community hospital setting but increasingly some of the machinery is finding its way into civilian medicine. At Wayne State University Medical School, surgeon Lucia Zamorano takes images of the brain from computerized scans and uses a computer program to produce a 3-D image. She can then maneuver the 3-D image on the computer screen to map the shortest, least invasive surgical path to the tumor (肿瘤). Zamorano is also using technology that attaches a probe to surgical instruments so that she can track their positions. While cutting away a tumor deep in the brain, she watches the movement of her surgical tools in a computer graphics image of the patient's brain taken before surgery. During these procedures--operations that are done through small cuts in the body in which a miniature camera and surgical tools are maneuvered--surgeons are wearing 3-D glasses for a better view. And they are commanding robot surgeons to cut away tissue more accurately than human surgeons can. Satava says, "We are in the midst of a fundamental change in the field of medicine./

单选题Which of the following is NOT the reason for the decrease of salmon according to Mr. Williams?

单选题The producers of instant coffee found their product strongly resisted in the market places despite their product's manifest advantages. Furthermore, the advertising expenditure for instant coffee was far greater than that for regular coffee. Efforts were made to find the cause of the consumers' seemingly unreasonable resistance to the product. The reason given by most people was dislike for the taste. The producers suspected that there might be deeper reasons, however. This was confirmed by one of motivation research's classic studies, one often cited in the trade. Mason Haire, of the university of California, constructed two shopping lists that were identical except for one item. There were six items common to both lists: hamburger, carrots, bread, baking powder, canned peaches, and potatoes, with the brands or amounts specified. The seventh item, in fifth place on both lists, read "1 lb. Maxwell House Coffee" on one list and "Nestle Instant Coffee" on the other. One list was given to each one in a group of fifty women, and the other list to those in another group of the same size. The women were asked to study their lists and then to describe, as far as they could, the kind of women ("personality and character") who would draw up that shopping list. Nearly half of those who had received the list including instant coffee described a housewife who was lazy and a poor planner. On the other hand, only one woman in the other group described the housewife, who had included regular coffee on her list, as lazy; only six of that group suggested that she was a poor planner. Eight women felt that the instant-coffee user was probably not a good wife! No one in the other group drew such a conclusion about the housewife who intended to buy regular coffee.

单选题Some countries are more populous; some have more crime. But in no other country are crime fighters quite so knowledgeable about citizens as in Britain. On January 4th a boastful Home Office detailed the triumphs of the world's biggest forensic DNA database, which holds samples from more than 5% of the entire population of England and Wales. Recent changes to the rules governing the database mean that it may eventually hold profiles from more than a fifth of all adults. Once a country starts storing DNA samples from criminals it is hard to resist the urge to expand the collection. When the National DNA Database (NDNAD) was set up in 1995, samples could only be taken from those charged with "recordable" offences. If a suspect was not tried, or was freed, the sample had to be destroyed and the profile removed from the database. That law was abandoned in 2001 , after two men who had been convicted of murder and rape had their cases overturned on appeal -the DNA evidence against them related to crimes they had not been convicted of, and so ought to have been removed from the database. The change has led to the retention of around 200,000 samples that would previously have been destroyed. Some 7,591 of these were subsequently matched with samples from crime scenes, including those from 88 murders and 116 rapes. And since April 2004, police have been able to take and keep samples from anyone arrested for a recordable offence, even if charges do not ensue. The main reason the NDNAD is larger than databases in other countries is that Britain was first to start using DNA as an investigative tool. So not only has it had time to collect more DNA samples, but it has also had longer to appreciate the sheer power of a large database. "Every other country that does data basing will get to where Britain is now," says Chris Asplen, a consultant to law enforcement agencies and governments on DNA technology. The increased use of DNA evidence has given rise to intriguing new courtroom defences. DNA tests are now so sensitive that they can detect if a person has sneezed or sweated near an object. John Swain, a barrister with a background in biochemistry, recently defended a man charged with armed robbery. The defendant's DNA was on the gun that was used, but the defences argued that he might just have been near it after he had been to the gym, and that an errant bead of sweat could account for the presence of his DNA on a weapon he had never handled. He was declared not guilty.

单选题It is said in the third paragraph that Abraham Lincoln______

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} It is hard to box against a southpaw, as Apollo Creed found out when he fought Rocky Balboa in the first of an interminable series of movies. While "Rocky" is fiction, the strategic advantage of being left-handed in a fight is very real, simply because most fight-handed people have little experience of fighting left-handers, but not vice versa. The orthodox view of human handedness is that it is connected to the bilateral specialisation of the brain that has concentrated language-processing functions on the left side of that organ. Because, long ago in the evolutionary past, an ancestor of humans underwent a contortion that twisted its head around 180° relative to its body, the left side of the brain controls the fight side of the body, and vice versa. In humans, the left brain is usually dominant. And on average, left-handers are smaller and lighter than right-handers. That should put them at an evolutionary disadvantage. Sporting advantage notwithstanding, therefore, the existence of left-handedness poses a problem for biologists. But Charlotte Faurie thinks he knows the answer. As any schoolboy could tell you, winning fights enhances your status. If, in prehistory, this translated into increased reproductive success, it might have been enough to maintain a certain proportion of left-handers in the population, by balancing the costs of being left-handed with the advantages gained in fighting. If that is tree, then there will be a higher proportion of left-handers in societies with higher levels of violence, since the advantages of being left-handed will be enhanced in such societies. Dr. Faurie set out to test this hypothesis. Fighting in modem societies often involves the use of technology, notably firms, that is unlikely to give any advantage to left-handers. So Dr. Faurie decided to confine his investigation to the proportion of left-handers and the level of violence in traditional societies. By trawling the literature, checking with police departments, and even going out into the field and asking people, Dr. Faurie found that the proportion of left-handers in a traditional society is, in- deed, correlated with its homicide rate. One of the highest proportions of left-handers, for example, was found among the Yanomamo of South America. Raiding and warfare are central to Yanomamo culture. The murder rate is 4 per 1,000 inhabitants per year. And, according to Dr. Faufie, 22.6% of Yanomamo are left-handed. In contrast, Dioula-speaking people of Burkina Faso in West Africa are virtual pacifists. There are only 0. 013 murders per 1,000 inhabitants among them and only 3.4% of the population is left-handed. While there is no suggestion that left-handed people are more violent than the right-handed, it looks as though they are more successfully violent. Perhaps that helps to explain the double meaning of the word "sinister".

单选题What does it mean to say that we live in a world of persuasion?It means that we live (1) competing interests. Your roommate's need to study for an exam may take (2) over pizza. Your instructor may have good reasons not to change your grade. And the (3) of your romantic interest may have other options. In such a world, persuasion is the art of getting others to give fair and (4) consideration to our point of view. When we persuade, we want to influence (5) others believe and behave. We may not always prevail-other points of view may be more persuasive, (6) on the listener, the situation, and the merits of the case. But when we practice the art of persuasion, we try to (7) that our position receives the attention it deserves. Some people, however, (8) to the very idea of persuasion. They may regard it as an unwelcome intrusion (9) their lives or as a manipulation or domination. (10) , we believe that persuasion is (11) -to live is to persuade. Persuasion may be ethical or unethical, selfless or selfish, (12) or degrading. Persuaders may enlighten our minds or (13) on our vulnerability. Ethical persuasion, however, calls (14) sound reasoning and is sensitive to the feelings and needs of listeners. Such persuasion can help us (15) the wisdom of the past to the decisions we now must make. (16) , an essential part of education is learning to (17) the one kind of persuasion and to encourage and practice the other. (18) its personal importance to us, persuasion is essential to society. The (19) to persuade and be persuaded is the foundation of the American political system, guaranteed by the First Amendment (20) the Constitution.

单选题In America and Europe magazine publishers have a common headache: total circulation is either flat or declining slightly as people devote more time to the internet, and an ever greater share of advertising spending is going online. Magazine units are mostly a drag on growth for their parents. Time Inc, the world' s biggest magazine company, has to fend off rum ours that its parent, Time Warner, will sell it. People in the industry expect that Time Warner will soon sell IPC Media, its British magazine subsidiary. The business model for consumer magazines is under pressure from several directions at once, both online and off. Magazines have become more expensive to launch, and the cost of attracting and keeping new subscribers has risen. In America newsstand sales have been worryingly weak, partly because supermarkets dominate distribution and shelf-space is in short supply. The internet's popularity has hit men's titles the hardest. FHM, the flagship "lads" magazine of Emap—a British media firm, for instance, lost a quarter of its circulation in the year to June. Not long ago consumer magazines were Emap's prize asset, but slowing growth from the division contributed to the company's decision to put itself up for sale. Men's magazines are in trouble in most developed-world markets as people have quickly switched from magazines to online services. There are good reasons why magazine owners should not feel pessimistic, however. For readers, many of the pleasing characteristics of magazines—their portability and glossiness, for instance— cannot be matched online. And magazines are not losing younger readers in the way that newspapers are. According to a study by the digital arm of Ogilvy Group, appetite for magazines is largely unchanged between older "baby boomers" and young "millennials". On the advertising side, magazines are faring much better than newspapers, which are losing big chunks of revenue as classified advertising shifts online. Advertisers like the fact that in many genres, such as fashion, readers accept and value magazine ads and even consider them part of the product. Unfortunately, magazine publishers have been slow to get onto the internet. "Eighteen months ago the internet was something they worried about after 4pm on Friday," says Peter Kreisky, a consultant to the media industry, "but now it's at the heart of their business model. " To their credit, however, big magazine firms are doing far more than reproducing their print products online. They offer people useful, fun services online—Lagardere' s Car and Driver website, for instance, offers virtual test drives, and Better Homes and Gardens online has a 3D planning tool to help people redesign their homes.