单选题In 1998 consumers could purchase virtually anything over the Internet. Books, compact discs, and even stocks were available from World Wide Web Sites that seemed to spring up almost daily. A few years earlier, some people had predicted that consumers accustomed to shopping in stores would be reluctant to buy things that they could not see or touch in person. For a growing number of time-starved consumers, however, shopping from their home computer was proving to be a convenient alternative to driving to the store. A research estimated that in 1998 US consumers would purchase $ 7.3 billion of goods over the Internet, double the 1997 total. Finding a bargain was getting easier, owing to the rise of online auctions and Web sites that did comparison shopping on the Internet for the best deal. For all the consumer interest, retailing in cyberspace was still a largely unprofitable business, however. Internet pioneer Amazon. com, which began selling books in 1995 and later branched into recorded music and videos, posted revenue of $153.7 million in the third quarter, up from $37.9 minion in the same period of 1997. Overall, however, the company's loss widened to $45.2 million from $9.6 million, and analysts did not expect the company to turn a profit until 2001. Despite the great loss, Amazon. com had a stock market value of many billions, reflecting investors' optimism about the future of the industry. Internet retailing appealed to investors because it provided an efficient means for reaching millions of consumers without having the cost of operating conventional stores with their armies of salespeople. Selling online carried its own risks, however. With so many companies competing for consumers' attention, price competition was intense and profit margins thin or nonexistent. One video retailer sold the hit movie Titanic for $9.99, undercutting the $19.99 suggested retail price and losing about $6 on each copy sold. With Internet retailing still in its initial stage; companies seemed willing to absorb such losses in an attempt to establish a dominant market position.

单选题According to the passage, uranium ore is very dangerous because______

单选题 Science and its practical applications in the form of technology, or the "science" of the industrial arts, as Webster defines the term, have had an enormous impact on modem society and culture. For generations it was believed that science and technology would provide the solutions to the problem of human suffering disease, famine, war, and poverty. But today these problems remain; in fact, many argue that they are expanding. Some even conclude that science and technology as presently constituted are not capable of meeting the collective needs of mankind. A more radical position is that modem scientific methods and institutions, because of their very nature and structure, thwart basic human needs and emotions; the catastrophes of today's world, and the greatest threat to its future, some claim, are the direct consequences of science and technology. A major paradox has been created: scientific rationality taken as the supreme form of the application of the rational faculties of human beings and which, along with its practical applications in the form of technological development, have liberated man from ignorance, from the whims and oppressions of a relentless nature and while having subordinated the earth to man, has become the potential instrument of the self-destruction of the human species. War, pollution, and economic oppression are seen as the inevitable results of scientific advance by large sections of the public. The atomic disaster of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings are seen as the products of an uninterested scientific rationality. In recent decades in the West there has emerged a wave of anti-scientific, antirational moods, especially among the young people, which threatens a complete rejection not simply of the technological fruits of science, but of scientific rationalism as well, in favor of one or another version of mysticism, irrationalism, and primitivism-or as one philosopher of science has called it, of blood and soil philosophy. Wartovsky has described the argument of the anti-science people as one in which we are warned to "listen to the blood, get back to our roots, and cast out the evil demons of a blind and inhuman rationality, and thereby we will save ourselves". The only "reasonable thing" to do, according to the oppositionist, is to reject reason itself-at least in its scientific form. The very rejection of that reason, in "reasonable" terms, is in itself a paradox.

单选题The first technological revolution in modem biology started when James Watson and Francis Crick described the structure of DNA half a century ago. That established the fields of molecular and cell biology, the basis of the biotechnology industry. The sequencing of the human genome nearly a decade ago set off a second revolution which has started to illuminate the origins of diseases. Now the industry is convinced that a third revolution is under way: the convergence of biology and engineering. A recent report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says that physical sciences have already been transformed by their adoption of information technology, advanced materials, imaging, nanotechnology and sophisticated modeling and simulation. Phillip Sharp, a Nobel prize-winner at that university, believes that those tools are about to be brought to bear on biology too. But the chances are that this will take time, and turn out to be more of a reformation than a revolution. The conventional health-care systems of the rich world may resist new technologies even as poor countries leapfrog ahead. There is already a backlash against genomics, which has been oversold to consumers as a deterministic science. And given soaring health-care costs, insurers and health systems may not want to adopt new technologies unless inventors can show conclusively that they will produce better outcomes and offer value for money. If these obstacles can be overcome, then the biggest winner will be the patient. In the past medicine has taken a paternalistic stance, with the all-knowing physician dispensing wisdom from on high, but that is becoming increasingly untenable. Digitisation promises to connect doctors not only to everything they need to know about their patients but also to other doctors who have treated similar disorders. That essential reform will enable many other big technological changes to be introduced. Just as important, it can make that information available to the patients too, empowering them to play a bigger part in managing their own health affairs. This is controversial, and with good reason. Many doctors, and some patients, reckon they lack the knowledge to make informed decisions. But patients actually know a great deal about many diseases, especially chronic ones like diabetes and heart problems with which they often live for many years. The best way to deal with those is for individuals to take more responsibility for their own health and prevent problems before they require costly hospital visits. That means putting electronic health records directly into patients" hands.

单选题In Darrah's opinion, people should

单选题John Snow's remarks are mentioned in the text to show______.

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1. In recent years a new farming revolution has begun, one that involves the{{U}} (1) {{/U}}of life at a fundamental level-the gene. The study of genetics has{{U}} (2) {{/U}}a new industry called biotechnology. As the name suggests, it{{U}} (3) {{/U}}biology and modern technology through such techniques as genetic engineering. Some of the new biotech companies specialize in agriculture and are working feverishly to{{U}} (4) {{/U}}seeds that give a high yield, that{{U}} (5) {{/U}}disease, drought and frost, and that reduce the need for{{U}} (6) {{/U}}chemicals. If such goals could be achieved, it would be most{{U}} (7) {{/U}}. But some have raised concerns about genetically engineered crops. In nature, genetic diversity is created within certain{{U}} (8) {{/U}}. A rose can be crossed with a different kind of rose, but a rose will never cross with a potato. Genetic engineering{{U}} (9) {{/U}}usually involves taking genes from one species and inserting them into another{{U}} (10) {{/U}}to transfer a desired characteristic. This could mean, for example, selecting a gene which leads to the production of a chemical with anti-freeze{{U}} (11) {{/U}}from an arctic fish, and inserting it into a potato or strawberry to make it frost-resistant.{{U}} (12) {{/U}}, then, biotechnology allows humans to{{U}} (13) {{/U}}the genetic walls that separate species.Like the green revolution,{{U}} (14) {{/U}}some call the gene revolution contributes to the problem of genetic uniformity-some say even more{{U}} (15) {{/U}}geneticists can employ techniques such as cloning and{{U}} (16) {{/U}}culture, processes that produce perfectly{{U}} (17) {{/U}}copies. Concerns about the erosion of biodiversity, therefore, remain. Genetically altered plants, however, raise new{{U}} (18) {{/U}}, such as the effect they may have on us and environment. ".We are flying blindly into a new{{U}} (19) {{/U}}of agricultural biotechnology with high hopes, few constraints and little idea of the potential{{U}} (20) {{/U}}," said science writer Jemery Rifkin.

单选题What would happen to the U. S. economy if all its commercial banks suddenly closed their doors? Throughout most of American history, the answer would have been a disaster of epic proportions, akin to the Depression wrought by the chain-reaction bank failures in the early 1930s. But in 1993 the startling answer is that a shutdown by banks might be far from cataclysmic. Consider this: though the economic recovery is now 27 months old, not a single net new dollar has been lent to business by banks in all that time. Last week the Federal Reserve reported that the amount of loans the nation's largest banks have made to businesses fell an additional ＄2. 4 billion in the week ending June 9, to ＄274.8 billion. Fearful that the scarcity of bank credit might sabotage the fragile economy, the White House and federal agencies are working feverishly to encourage banks to open their lending windows. In the past two weeks, government regulators have introduced steps to make it easier for banks to lend. Is the government's concern fully justified? Who really needs banks these days? Hardly anyone, it turns out. While banks once dominated business lending, today nearly 80% of all such loans come from nonbank lenders like life insurers, brokerage firms and finance companies. Banks used to be the only source of money in town. Now businesses and individuals can write checks on their insurance companies, get a loan from a pension fund, and deposit paychecks in a money-market account with a brokerage firm. "It is possible for banks to die and still have a vibrant economy," says Edward Furash, a Washington bank consultant. The irony is that the accelerating slide into irrelevance comes just as the banks racked up record profits of ＄43 billion over the past 15 months, creating the illusion that the industry is staging a comeback. But that income was not the result of smart lending decisions. Instead of earning money by financing America's recovery, the banks mainly invested their funds--on which they were paying a bargain-basement 2% or so--in risk-free Treasury bonds that yielded 7%. That left bank officers with little to do except put their feet on their desks and watch the interest roll in. Those profits may have come at a price. Not only did bankers lose many loyal customers by withholding credit, they also inadvertently opened the door to a herd of nonbank competitors, who stampeded into the lending market. "The banking industry didn't see this threat," says Furash. "They are being fat, dumb and happy. They didn't realize that banking is essential to a modern economy, but banks are not./

单选题{{B}}Part B{{/B}}{{B}}Directions: {{/B}}{{I}}In the following articles, some sentence have been removed. For Questions 41 -45, choose the most suitable one from the list A-G to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers on ANSWTR SHEET 1.{{/I}} A significant portion of industry and transportation burns fossil fuels, such as gasoline. When these fuels burn, chemicals and particulate matter are released into the atmosphere. Although a vast number of substances contribute to air pollution, the most common air pollutants contain carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen. 41 __________. Acid rain forms when sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide transform into sulfuric acid and nitric acid in the atmosphere and come back to Earth in precipitation. Acid rain has made numerous lakes so acidic that they no longer support fish populations. 42 __________. Estimates suggest that nearly 1.5 billion people worldwide lack safe drinking water and that at least 5 million deaths per year can be attributed to waterborne diseases. Water pollution may come from point sources or nonpoint sources. Point sources discharge pollutants from specific locations, such as factories, sewage treatment plants, and oil tankers. The technology exists to monitor and regulate point sources of pollution, although in some areas this occurs only sporadically. Pollution from nonpoint sources occurs when rainfall or snowmelt moves over and through the ground. 43 __________. With almost 80 percent of the planet covered by oceans, people have long acted as if those bodies of water could serve as a limitless dumping ground for wastes. However, raw sewage, garbage, and oil spills have begun to overwhelm the diluting capabilities of tile oceans, and most coastal waters are now polluted, threatening marine wildlife. 44 __________. Water that collects beneath the ground is called groundwater. Worldwide, groundwater is 40 times more abundant than fresh water in streams and lakes. In the United States, approximately half the drinking water comes from groundwater. Although groundwater is a renewable resource, reserves replenish relatively slowly. Presently, groundwater in the United States is withdrawn approximately 4 times faster than it is naturally replaced. 45 __________. A. Beaches around the world close regularly, often because the surrounding waters contain high levels of bacteria from sewage disposal. B. These chemicals interact with one another and with ultraviolet radiation in sunlight in dangerous ways. Smog, usually found in urban areas with large numbers of automobiles, forms when nitrogen oxides react with hydrocarbons in the air to produce aldehydes and ketones. Smog can cause serious health problems. C. Acid rain is also responsible for the decline of many forest ecosystems worldwide, including Germany's Black Forest and forests throughout the eastern United States. D. In addition to groundwater depletion, scientists worry about groundwater contamination, which arises from leaking underground storage tanks, poorly designed industrial waste ponds, and seepage from the deep-well injection of hazardous wastes into underground geologic formations. E. The Ogallala Aquifer, a huge underground reservoir stretching under eight states of the Great Plains, is drawn down at rates exceeding 100 times the replacement rate. Agricultural practices depending on this source of water need to change within a generation in order to save this groundwater source. F. As the runoff moves, it picks up and carries away pollutants, such as pesticides and fertilizers, depositing the pollutants into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters, and even underground sources of drinking water. Pollution arising from nonpoint sources accounts for a majority of the contaminants in streams and lakes. G. By some estimates, on average, 25 percent of usable groundwater is contaminated, and in some areas as much as 75 percent is contaminated.

单选题 Some time between digesting Christmas dinner and putting your head back down to work, spare a thought or two for the cranberry. It is, of course, a{{U}} (1) {{/U}}of Christmas: merry bright red, bittersweetly delicious with turkey and the very devil to get out of the tablecloth{{U}} (2) {{/U}}spilled. But the cranberry is also a symbol of the modern food industry-and in the tale of its{{U}} (3) {{/U}}from colonial curiosity to business-school case study{{U}} (4) {{/U}}a deeper understanding of the opportunities and{{U}} (5) {{/U}}of modern eating. The fastest growing part of today's cranberry market is for cranberries that do not taste like cranberries. Ocean Spray's "flavoured fruit pieces" (FFPS, to the trade) taste like orange, cherry, raspberry or any {{U}}(6) {{/U}}of other fruits. They are in fact cranberries. Why make a cranberry taste like an orange? Mostly because it is a{{U}} (7) {{/U}}little fruit: FFPS have a shelf-life of two years. Better{{U}} (8) {{/U}}, they keep a chewy texture{{U}} (9) {{/U}}baked, unlike the fruits whose flavours they mimic, which turn to{{U}} (10) {{/U}}. The dynamic that has brought the cranberry to this point is{{U}} (11) {{/U}}to the dynamic behind most mass-produced goods. Growing{{U}} (12) {{/U}}provided the{{U}} (13) {{/U}}to create cheaper and more reliable supply. Cheaper and more reliable supply,{{U}} (14) {{/U}}, created incentives to find new markets, which increased demand. Thus was the{{U}} (15) {{/U}}kept churning. The cranberry is one of only three fruits native{{U}} (16) {{/U}}North America, growing wild from Maine to North Carolina. (The others are the Concord grape and the blueberry). The American Indians had several names for cranberries, many{{U}} (17) {{/U}}the words for "bitter" or, more{{U}} (18) {{/U}}, "noisy". They ate the berries mostly{{U}} (19) {{/U}}pemmican, but also used them for dye and medicine. And they introduced them to the white settlers--at the first Thanksgiving dinner in 1621, it is said. The settlers promptly renamed this delicacy the "crane berry",{{U}} (20) {{/U}}the pointy pink blossoms of tile cranberry look a bit like the head of the Sandhill crane.

单选题Will fatherhood make me happy? That is a question many men have found themselves asking, and the scientific evidence is equivocal. A lot of studies have linked parenthood—particularly fatherhood—with lower levels of marital satisfaction and higher rates of depression than are found among non-parents. To investigate the matter further, psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky decided both to study the existing literature, and to conduct some experiments of her own. The results suggest parenthood in general, and fatherhood in particular, really are blessings, even though the parent in question might sometimes feel they are in disguise. Dr. Lyubomirsky"s first port of call was the World Values Survey. This is a project which gathers huge amounts of data about the lives of people all around the planet. For the purposes of her research, Dr. Lyubomirsky looked at the answers 6,906 Americans had given, in four different years, to four particular questions. These were: how many children the responder had; how satisfied he (or she) was with life; how happy he was; and how often he thought about the meaning and purpose of life. She found that parents had higher happiness, satisfaction and meaning-of-life scores than non-parents. The differences were not huge, but they were statistically significant. Moreover, a closer look showed that the differences in happiness and satisfaction were the result of men"s scores alone going up with parenthood. Those of women did not change. Armed with this result, Dr. Lyubomirsky conducted her own experiment. The problem with projects like the World Values Survey is that, because participants are asked to recall their feelings rather than stating what they are experiencing in the here and now, this might lead them into thinking more fondly in hindsight about their parenting duties. Dr. Lyubomirsky therefore gave pagers to 329 North American volunteers aged between 18 and 94, having first recorded, among other things, their sex, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, marital status and number of children. She told them they would be paged at random, five times a day. When they were so paged, they were asked to complete a brief response sheet about how they felt, then and there. She did not, however, tell them why she was asking these questions. The upshot was the same as her findings from the World Values Survey. Parents claimed more positive emotions and more meaning in their lives than non-parents, and a closer look revealed that it was lathers who most enjoyed these benefits. It looks, then, as if evolution has bolted into men a psychological mechanism to keep them in the family. At first sight, it is strange that women do not share this mechanism, but perhaps they do not need to. They know, after all, that the children are theirs, and that a man"s potential to father an indefinite number of offspring if he can find willing volunteers, might encourage him to stray from the bosom of his family. Enjoying fatherhood, by contrast, will help keep him in the porch.

单选题The underlined word "patronized" in the last paragraph means

单选题It has been justly said that while" we speak with our vocal organs we (1) with our whole bodies." All of us communicate with one another (2) , as well as with words. Sometimes we know what we're doing, as with the use of gestures such as the thumbs-up sign to indicate that, we (3) . But most of the time we're not aware that we're doing it. We gesture with eyebrows or a hand, meet someone else's eyes and (4) . These actions we (5) are random and incidental. But researchers (6) that there is a system of them almost as consistent and comprehensible as language, and they conclude that there is a whole (7) of body language, (8) the way we move, the gestures we employ, the posture we adopt, the facial expression we (9) , the extent to which we touch and the distance we stand (10) each other. The body language serves a variety of purposes. Firstly it can replace verbal communication, (11) with the use of gesture. Secondly it can modify verbal communication, loudness and (12) of voice is an example here. Thirdly it regulates social interaction: turn taking is largely governed by non-verbal (13) . Finally it conveys our emotions and attitudes. This is (14) important for successful cross-culture communication. Every culture has its own" body language", and children absorb its nuances (15) with spoken language. The way an Englishmen crosses his legs is (16) like the way a mate American does it. When we communicate with people from other, cultures, the body language sometimes help make the communication easy and (17) , such as shaking hand is such a (18) gesture that people all over the world know that it is a signal for greeting. But sometimes--the body language can cause certain misunderstanding (19) people of different cultures often have different forms behavior for sending the same message or have different (20) towards the same body signals.

单选题The American economy is growing, according to the most recent statistics, at the sizzling rate of 7%, and is in the middle of the largest peacetime expansion in American history. We read in the newspapers that practically everyone who wants a job can get one. Microsoft is running advertisements in the New York Times practically begging Congress to issue more visas for foreign computer and information technology workers. In this environment, it is shocking that one group of Americans, people with disabilities, have such a high level of unemployment: 30% are not employed the same percentage as when the Americans with Disabilities Act became law. Not only did their employment and labor earnings fall during the recession of the early 1990s, but employment and earnings continued to fall during the long economic expansion that followed. Many of these people are skilled professionals who are highly marketable in today's economy. Part of the problem is discrimination, and part recent court rulings favoring employers in ADA lawsuits. Discrimination against people with disabilities is, unfortunately, alive and well, despite the legal prohibitions against discrimination in hiring people with disabilities. 79% of disabled people who are unemployed cite discrimination in the workplace and lack of transportation as major factors that prevent them from working. Studies have also shown that people with disabilities who find jobs earn less than their co-workers, and are less likely to be promoted. Unfavorable court rulings have not been helpful, either. Research by law professor Ruth Colker of Ohio State University has shown that in the eight years after the ADA went into effect, employer-defendants prevailed in more than 93% of the eases decided by trial. Of the cases appealed, employers prevailed 84% of the time. Robert Burgdorf, Ir., who helped draft the ADA, has written, "legal analysis has proceeded quite a way down the wrong road." Disability activists and other legal scholars point out that Congress intended the ADA as a national mandate for the ending of discrimination against people-with disabilities. Instead, what has occurred, in the words of one writer, is that the courts "have narrowed the scope of the law, redefined 'disability,' raised the price of access to justice and generally deemed disability discrimination as not worthy of serious remedy." But perhaps the greatest single problem is the federal government itself, where laws and regulations designed to help disabled people actually provide an economic disincentive to work. As Sen. Edward Kennedy wrote, "the high unemployment rate among people receiving federal disability benefits is not because their federal benefits programs have 'front doors that are too big', but because they have 'back doors that are too small'./

单选题 Foreign financiers complaining about the legal wars they will launch to recover bad debts in Russia rarely mean much. The expense of a lawsuit{{U}} (1) {{/U}}the satisfaction; the chances of getting any money are{{U}} (2) {{/U}}. Yet Noga, a company owned by Nessim Gaon, a 78-year-old businessman{{U}} (3) {{/U}}in Geneva, has been suing the Russian government since 1993, attempting to{{U}} (4) {{/U}}Russian assets abroad. At Mr. Gaon's request, bailiffs last week very nearly{{U}} (5) {{/U}}two of Russia's most advanced warplanes at the Paris air{{U}} (6) {{/U}}. The organisers{{U}} (7) {{/U}}off the Russian authorities, and the planes flew home, just{{U}} (8) {{/U}}time.{{U}} (9) {{/U}}near-misses include a sail-training ship, the Sedov, nuclear-waste shipments, and the president's plane. Mr. Gaon. whose previous business partners include regimes in Nigeria and Sudan, put an{{U}} (10) {{/U}}clause in his original export deals: Russia must abandon its sovereign immunity. An arbitration court in Stockholm has found in his{{U}} (11) {{/U}}, so far, to the{{U}} (12) {{/U}}of $110 million, out of a total{{U}} (13) {{/U}}of $420 million. Other courts{{U}} (14) {{/U}}the world have let him have a{{U}} (15) {{/U}}at any Russian assets{{U}} (16) {{/U}}reach. The odd thing is{{U}} (17) {{/U}}Russia. now awash with cash, does not simply pay up. Mr. Gaon says he was told at one point that a 10%{{U}} (18) {{/U}}on the debt to someone high up in the finance ministry would solve things.{{U}} (19) {{/U}}off Mr. Gaon costs much in legal fees. Not accepting international judgments sits ill with the current Kremlin line{{U}} (20) {{/U}}the rule of law. Mr. Gaon says his next move will be to seize Russia's embassy in Paris.