单选题To which of the following statements would the author most likely agree?

单选题 Generally speaking, a British is widely regarded as a quiet, shy and conservative person who is{{U}} (1) {{/U}}only among those with whom he is acquainted. When a stranger is at present, he often seems nervous, even{{U}} (2) {{/U}}. You have to take a commuter train any morning or evening to (3) the truth of this. Serious-looking businessmen and women sit reading their newspapers or dozing in a comer; hardly anybody talks, since to do so would be considered quite{{U}} (4) {{/U}}. {{U}} (5) {{/U}}, there is an unwritten but clearly understood code of behavior which, once broken, makes the offender immediately the object of{{U}} (6) {{/U}}. It has been known as a fact that a British has a{{U}} (7) {{/U}}for the discussion of their weather and that, if given a chance, he will talk about it{{U}} (8) {{/U}}. Some people argue that it is because the British weather seldom{{U}} (9) {{/U}}forecast add hence becomes a source of interest and{{U}} (10) {{/U}}to everyone. This may be so.{{U}} (11) {{/U}}a British cannot have much{{U}} (12) {{/U}}in the weathermen, who, after promising fine, sunny weather for the following day, are often proved wrong{{U}} (13) {{/U}}a cloud over the Atlantic brings rainy weather to all districts! The man in the street seems to be as accurate -- or as inaccurate as the weathermen in his{{U}} (14) {{/U}}. Foreigners may be surprised at the number of references{{U}} (15) {{/U}}weather that the British{{U}} (16) {{/U}}to each other in the course of a single day. Very often conversational greetings are{{U}} (17) {{/U}}by comments on the weather. "Nice day, isn't it?" "Beautiful!" may well be heard, instead of "Good morning, how are you?" Although the foreigner may consider this exaggerated and comic, it is{{U}} (18) {{/U}}pointing out that it could be used to his advantage. If he wants to start a conversation with a British but is at a loss to know{{U}} (19) {{/U}}to begin, he could do well to mention the state of the weather. It is a safe subject which will{{U}} (20) {{/U}}an answer from even the most reserved of the British.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Those of us hurrying to finish our taxes by tomorrow's deadline will probably be subjected to thoughts of the I.R.S. (Internal Revenue Service) as an all-powerful bully. But the truth is, the government is not always a match for the tax advisors of wealthy people, so a lot of taxes will go unpaid at the top of the income scale. Lawyers who represent high-income taxpayers earn more than 10 times what senior government lawyers do—an obvious disadvantage for the government agencies in attracting and retaining top talent. The lawyers who write our tax rules are overworked and sometimes inexperienced, so that they leave loopholes that are exploited by more experienced private lawyers. And the government always loses cases which it should win, and provides private lawyers with precedents. As this vicious cycle shows, skimping (节约) on tax administration is a false economy. Instead, if we substantially increase government salaries and staffing levels, we can raise more revenue, with lower tax rates and less waste. Four reforms should be adopted immediately. First, the government should focus on hiring talented young lawyers, since the pay disparity with the private sector is narrower for them. These efforts will be more effective if Congress helps new graduates repay student loans, which often are more than $100,000. A loan repayment program would be a powerful recruiting device. Second, the government should tap another promising talent pool—recent retirees from private practice—to mentor young lawyers. The salary gap is less of an issue for retirees, and the opportunity to give back to the tax system can be quite appealing. Third, the government should retain a small team of a dozen top tax lawyers at salaries closer to the market rate. They can serve as a rapid reaction force, deciding whether to shut down a new aggressive strategy immediately or to let it be evaluated through usual government channels. Fourth, the government should retain private lawyers to help with high-priority projects. An important constraint is that lawyers who represent private clients may view it as a conflict to help the government. But this is not always true. Through bar associations, private lawyers already volunteer to review proposed changes in the tax law and offer ways to improve them. Tax academics can also be a valuable and conflict-free source of expertise, since they ordinarily do not represent clients. And some tax litigators (诉讼律师) may view it as a prestigious opportunity and a patriotic service to represent the government in a tax case that could set an important precedent. The tax system can be only as strong as the people who run it, so the government has to recruit and retain the most promising talent. A tax system can be fair and efficient only when it is administered soundly.

单选题What do you suppose was the attitude of Dr. Samuel Johnson towards ladies preaching?______

单选题Making good coffee is not a simple business. Coffee bushes must be grown in shade. A hillside is best--but it mustn't be too (1) . After three years, the bushes will start to (2) bright-red coffee "cherries", which are picked, processed to (3) the inner part, and spread out to dry for days, (4) on concrete. They are (5) again to separate the bean, which needs to rest, preferably for a few months. Only then can it be roasted, ground and brewed (6) the stuff that dreams are suppressed with. In Mexico and parts of Central America, (7) in Colombia, most coffee farmers are smallholders. They found it especially hard to (8) the recent fall in the coffee price. The (9) of their income makes it hard for farmers to invest to (10) their crop, says Fernando Celis. The fall forced many small farmers to (11) other crops, or migrate to cities. For farmers, one way out of this (12) is to separate the price they are paid (13) the international commodities markets. This is the (14) of Fair-trade, an organization which certifies products as "responsibly" sourced. Fair-trade determines at what price farmers make what it considers a (15) profit. Its current (16) is that the appropriate figure is 10% above the market price. (17) , sales of Fair-trade-certified coffee have increased from $ 22. 5m per year to $ 87m per year since 1998. This is still a tiny fraction of the overall world coffee trade, worth $10 billion (18) But there are plenty of other markets for high-quality coffee. Some small producers can (19) more by marketing their coffee as organic or "bird-friendly" because, unlike large, mechanized plantations, they have (20) shade trees.

单选题Could a simple memory workout make you smarter? An intriguing new study by researchers at the University of Michigan suggests it can—a finding that adds a wrinkle to the prevailing notion that IQ is largely fixed by genes. The study involved 62 elementary-and middle-school children from southeast Michigan who were randomly assigned to train on one of two video game-like computer tasks. One group performed a mental training exercise aimed at improving working memory, the ability to hold and retrieve information in the short term. The other group practiced general knowledge and vocabulary skills. Both groups trained for one month, five times a week for 15 minutes per session. At the end of the intervention, many of the kids who had engaged in the working-memory task had boosted a key attribute of their intelligence—by some five points. Specifically, they improved their performance on tests of so-called fluid intelligence, the ability t9 solve new problems and reason abstractly. Researchers have long debated whether fluid intelligence—considered a significant predictor of educational success—could be reliably improved by training. Fluid intelligence is thought to be independent of learning, experience or education and, therefore, mainly governed by genes. By contrast, the other component of overall intelligence, crystallized intelligence, which involves the acquisition of discrete bits of knowledge, improves with learning. The Michigan researchers found that kids had not only enhanced their fluid intelligence after training on the working-memory tasks, but that they also maintained the gains for three months after training ended. There were several limitations to the findings, however. To start, the size of children's improvements was inconsistent. It's possible that kids who saw greater gains in fluid intelligence were those who started out at lower ability levels and simply had more room to improve. Further, not every child improved. The authors suggested that students who failed to benefit from the working-memory training found the task too difficult or boring, and became frustrated and disengaged. Indeed, the training task is a chore, even when dressed up in a video game. The job of the child is to press the space bar whenever the character returns to a spot where it has previously been, and to ignore the other irrelevant locations. As the children advance in the task, these locations move further back in time, forcing them to sort through an increasing amount of information. Perhaps more importantly, it's not clear whether higher scores on tests of fluid intelligence have any real-world significance: whether they naturally translate to better grades or improvements in other abilities-or for that matter whether they predict better jobs or more life success down the line. For now, the Michigan researchers are planning to investigate whether the same training task could benefit children with deficits in working memory and attention. Lead author Susanne Jaeggi and her team are also working on an intervention that can be easily implemented in schools and other educational settings.

单选题According to the author, British businesses ______.

单选题According to the text, the most important thing for the futurists to grasp is

单选题Of all the truths that this generation of Americans hold self-evident, few are more deeply embedded in the national psyche than the maxim "It pays to go to collage." Since the Gl Bill transformed higher education in the aftermath of W. W. II, a college diploma, once a birthright of the leisured few, has become a lodestone for the upwardly mobile, as integral to the American dream as the pursuit of happiness itself. The numbers tell the story: In 1950s, 43% of high-school graduates went on to pursue some form of higher education; at the same time, only 6% of Americans were college graduates. But by 1992, almost 2 to out of 3 secondary-school graduates were opting for higher education—and 21% of a much larger U.S. population had college diplomas. As Prof. Herbert London of New York University told a commencement audience last June: "The college experience has gone from a rite passage to a right of passage." However, as the class of 1993 is so painfully discovering, while a college diploma remains a requisite credential for ascending the economic ladder, it no longer guarantees the good life. Rarely since the end of the Great Depression has the job outlook for college graduates appeared so bleak: of the 1.1 million students who received their baccalaureate degrees last spring, fewer than 20% had lined up full-time employment by commencement. Indeed, an uncertain job market has precipitated a wave of economic fear and trembling among the young. "Many of my classmates are absolutely terrified," says one of the fortunate few who did manage to land a permanent position. "They wonder if they'll ever find a job." Some of this recession-induced anxiety will dissipate if a recovery finally begins to generate jobs at what economists consider a normal rate. But the sad fact is that for the foreseeable future, college graduates will be in considerable surplus, enabling employers to require a degree even for jobs for which a college education is really unnecessary. According to Kristina Shelley of the Bureau of Labor Statistics—who bases her estimate on a "moderate projection" of current trends—30 percent of college graduates entering the labor force between now and the year 2005 will be unemployed or will find employment in jobs for which they will be overqualified, joining what economists call the "educationally underutilized". Indeed, it may be quite a while—if ever—before those working temporarily as cocktail waitresses or taxi drivers will be able to pursue their primary career paths. Of course waiting on tables and bustling cab fares are respectable ways to earn a living. But they are not quite what so many young Americans—and their parents—had in mind as the end product of four expensive years in college.

单选题As Dr. Samuel Johnson said in a different era about ladies preaching the surprising thing about computers is not that they think less well than a man, but that they think at all. The early electronic computer did not have much going for it except a marvelous memory and some good math skills. But today the best models can be wired up to learn by experience, follow an argument, ask proper questions and write poetry and music. They can also carry on somewhat puzzling conversations. Computers imitate life. As computers get more complex, the imitation gets better. Finally, the line between the original and the copy becomes unclear. In another 15 years or so, we will see the computer as a new form of life. The opinion seems ridiculous because, for one thing, computers lack the drives and emotions of living creatures. But drives can be programmed into the computer's brain just as a new form of life. Computers match people in some roles, and when fast decisions are needed in a crisis, they often surpass them. Having evolved when the pace of life was slower, the human brain has an inherent defect that prevents it from absorbing several streams of information simultaneously and acting on them quickly. Throw too many things at the brain at one time and it freezes up. We are still in control, but the capabilities of computers are increasing at a fantastic rate, while raw human intelligence is changing slowly, if at all. Computer power has increased ten times every eight years since 1846. In the 1990s, when the sixth generation appears, the reasoning power of an intelligence built out of silicon will begin to match that of the human brain. That does not mean the evolution of intelligence has ended on the earth. Judging by the past, we can expect that a new species will arise out of man, surpassing his achievements as he has surpassed those of his predecessor. Only a carbon chemistry enthusiast would assume that the new species must be man's flesh-and-blood descendants. The new kind of intelligent life is more likely to be made of silicon.

单选题The purpose of the economists' research at the University of Iowa is to

单选题A study of art history might be a good way to learn more about a culture than that is possible to learn in general history classes. Most (1) history courses concentrate on politics, economics, and war. (2) , art history (3) on much more than this because art reflects not only the political values of a people, but also religious (4) , emotions, and psychology. (5) , information about the daily activities of our own can be provided by art. In short, art expresses the (6) qualities of a time and a place, and a study of it clearly offers us a deeper understanding than what can be found in most history books. In history books, objective information about the political life of a country is (7) ; that is, facts about political are given, but (8) are not expressed. Art, on the other hand, is (9) : it reflects emotions and impressions. The great Spanish painter Francisco Goya severely criticized the Spanish government for its (10) of power over people. Over a hundred years later, symbolic (11) were used in Pablo Picasso's Guemica to express the (12) of war. (13) , on another continent, the powerful paintings of Diego Rivera depicted these Mexican artists' concealed 14 and sadness about social problems. In the same way, art can (15) a culture's religious beliefs. For hundreds of years in Europe, religious art was (16) the only type of art that existed. Churches and other religious buildings were filled with paintings that depicted people and stories from the Bible. (17) most people couldn't read, they could still understand biblical stories in the pictures on church walls. (18) , one of the main characteristics of art in the Middle East was (and still is) its (19) of human and animal images. This reflects the Islamic belief that statues are (20) .

单选题One of the many pleasures of watching Mad Men , a television drama about the advertising industry in the early 1960s, is examining the ways in which office life has changed over the years. One obvious change makes people feel good about themselves: they no longer treat women as second-class citizens. But the other obvious change makes them feel a bit more uneasy : they have lost the art of enjoying themselves at work. The ad-men in those days enjoyed simple pleasures. They puffed away at their desks. They drank throughout the day. They had affairs with their colleagues. They socialised not in order to bond , but in order to get drunk. Nowadays many companies are obsessed with fun. Software firms in Silicon Valley have installed rock-climbing walls in their reception areas and put inflatable animals in their offices. Wal-Mart orders its cashiers to smile at all and sundry. The cult of fun has spread like some disgusting haemorrhagic disease. This cult of fun is driven by three of the most popular management fads of the moment: empowerment, engagement and creativity. Many companies pride themselves on devolving power to front-line workers. But surveys show that only 20% of workers are" fully engaged with their job ". Even fewer are creative. Managers hope that " fun" will magically make workers more engaged and creative. But the problem is that as soon as fun becomes part of a corporate strategy it ceases to be fun and becomes its opposite—at best an empty shell and at worst a tiresome imposition. The most unpleasant thing about the fashion for fun is that it is mixed with a large dose of pressure. Boston Pizza encourages workers to send" golden bananas" to colleagues who are "having fun while being the best". Behind the" fun" there often lurks some crude management thinking: a desire to brand the company as better than its rivals, or a plan to boost productivity through team-building. Twitter even boasts that it has" worked hard to create an environment that spawns productivity and happiness". While imposing fake fun on their employees, companies are battling against the real thing. Many force smokers to huddle outside like furtive criminals. Few allow their employees to drink at lunch time, let alone earlier in the day. A regiment of busybodies— from lawyers to human resources functionaries—is waging war on office romance, particularly between people of different ranks. The merchants of fake fun have met some resistance. When Wal-Mart tried to impose alien rules on its German staff—such as compulsory smiling and a ban on affairs with coworkers—it touched off a guerrilla war that ended only when the supermarket chain announced it was pulling out of Germany in 2006. But such victories are rare. For most wage slaves forced to pretend they are having fun at work, the only relief is to poke fun at their tormentors . Mad Men reminds people of a world they have lost—a world where bosses did not tbink that"fun" was a management tool and where employees could happily quaff Scotch at noon. Cheers to that.

单选题Energy will be one of the defining issues of this century. One thing is clear: the era of (1) Oil is over. What we all do next will determine how well we meet the energy needs of the entire world in this century and (2) .Demand is soaring like (3) before. As populations grow and economies (4) , millions in the developing world are enjoying the benefits of a lifestyle that (5) increasing amounts of energy. In fact, some say that in 20 years the world will (6) 40% more oil than it does today. At the same time, many of the world's oil and gas fields are (7) . And new energy discoveries are mainly occurring in places where resources are difficult to (8) , physically, economically and even politically. When growing demand meets (9) supplies, the result is more (10) for the same resources. We can wait until a crisis forces us to do something. (11) we can (12) to working together, and start by asking the (13) questions: How do we meet the energy needs of the developing world and those of industrialized nations? What role will renewables and (14) energies play? What is the best way to protect our environment? How do we accelerate our conservation efforts? (15) actions we take, we must look not just to next year, (16) to the next 50 years. At Chevron, we believe that innovation, collaboration and conservation are the (17) on which to build this new world. We cannot do this alone. Corporations, governments and every citizen of this planet must be part of the solution as (18) as they are part of the problem. We (19) scientists and educators, politicians and policy-makers, environmentalists, leaders of industry and each one of you to be part of (20) the next era of energy.