单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Attacks on Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, have intensified before the European election held between June 4th and 7th, and ahead of a European Union summit when national leaders will discuss his reappointment to a second five- year term. On the left, the Party of European Socialists (PES) calls Mr. Barroso a conservative who "puts markets before people". Should the PES emerge as the largest group in the European Parliament, it will try to block him. But prominent federalists are also unimpressed. Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister, speaks for many in Brussels when he denounces Mr. Barroso for a lack of ambition for Europe. Mr. Verhofstadt invokes the memory of Jacques Delors, the pugnacious Frenchman who ran the commission from 1985 to 1995．Mr. Delors proposed many ambitious plans, he says, and got 30% of them: that 30% then became the European internal market. Mr. Verhofstadt thinks that last autumn Mr. Barroso should have proposed such things as a single EU financial regulator, a single European bad bank, or a multi-trillion issue of "Eurobonds". That would have triggered a " big fight" with national governments, he concedes. But "maybe the outcome would have been 10%, 20% or 30% of his plan. " The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has endorsed a second tenn for Mr. Barroso, a former centre-right prime minister of Portugal. Yet he seems keen to make him sweat. French officials have briefed that the decision on Mr. Barroso's future taken at the June 18th-19th summit should be only political, leaving a legally binding nomination for later. Yet the attacks on Mr. Barroso are unlikely to block him. No opinion poll shows the PES overtaking the centre-right European People's Party in the European Parliament. The centre- right leaders who hold power in most of Europe have endorsed Mr. Barroso, as have the (nominally) centre-left leaders of Britain, Spain and Portugal. This helps to explain why the PES, for all its bluster, has not fielded a candidate against Mr. Barroso. It is equally wrong to pretend that Europe was ready for a federalist big bang last autumn. Officials say Mr. Barroso spent the first weeks of the economic crisis bridging differences between Britain and France on such issues as accounting standards and the regulation of rating agencies. Later, he kept the peace between Mr. Sarkozy and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, after the French president pushed for summits of EU leaders from euro-area countries (Ms Merkel thought that sounded like a two-speed Europe). In any case France has no veto over Mr. Barroso's reappointment: the decision is now taken by majority vote. Some diplomats suggest that France's stalling tactics are meant to extract such concessions as a plum portfolio for its commissioner. Those calling for "European" action often talk as if they are describing an elegant mechanism, needed to make the union work properly. They argue that only a single financial regulator can police Europe's single market, or complain that 27 national bail-out plans lack "coherence". In fact, these apparently structural calls for "more Europe" are pitches for specific ideological programmes. Thus, in a joint statement on May 30th Mr. Sarkozy and Ms Merkel announced that "Liberalism without rules has failed. " They called for a European economic model in which capital serves "entrepreneurs and workers" rather than "speculators", and hedge funds and bankers' pay are tightly regulated. They added that competition policies should be used to favour the "emergence of world-class European companies", and gave warning against a "bureaucratic Europe" that blindly applies "pernickety rules". If all this sounds like Europe as a giant Rhineland economy, that is no accident. Mr. Verhofstadt, a continental liberal, means something different by "Europe" He agrees that the crisis "represents the crash of the Anglo-American model". But he is not keen on heavy regulation. When he calls for economic policies to reflect Europe's " way of thinking", he means things like raising savings. Above all, he considers the nation-state to be incapable of managing today's "globalised" economy, so Europe must take over. This is fighting talk. Britain, notably, does not accept that everything about the Anglo-Saxon model has failed, nor is it about to cede more power to Brussels. And it has allies, notably in eastern Europe.

单选题 For 10 years I have been teaching animal behavior and conservation biology at the Boulder County Jail in Colorado. The course-part of the Jane Goodall Institute's Roots & Shoots program-is one of the most popular in the jail. Prisoners have to earn the right to enroll and they work hard to get in. One reason the course is so popular is that many prisoners find it easier to connect with animals than with people, because animals don't judge them. Many of the prisoners had lived with dogs, cats and other companion animals who were their best friends. They trust and empathize with animals in ways they don't with humans. Nonetheless, they retain a distorted view of how animals treat one another. The prisoners have often had enough of "nature red in tooth and claw": many lament that their own "animal behavior" is what got them into trouble in the first place. I teach that though there is competition and aggression in the animal kingdom, there is also a lot of cooperation, empathy, compassion and reciprocity. I explain that these behaviors are examples of "wild justice", and this idea makes them rethink what it means to be an animal. Many of the students yearn to build healthy relationships, and they find that the class helps them. I use examples of the social behavior of group-living animals such as wolves as a model for developing and mainraining friendships among individuals who must work together for their own good and also for the good of the group. It's clear that science inspires the students: our exchanges rival those that I've had in university classes. It also gives them hope. I know some students have gone back into education after their release while others have gone to work for humane societies or contributed time and money to conservation organizations. One went on to receive a master's degree in literature. Science and humane education help the prisoners connect with values that they otherwise would not have done. It opens the door to understanding, trust, cooperation, community and hope. There's a large untapped population of individuals to whom science could mean a lot, if only they could get exposure to it. The class helps me, too. I get as much out of it as the students and it has made me a better teacher on the outside.

单选题The word "gleaned" (Line 2, Paragraph 3) could be probably replaced by

单选题If good intentions and good ideas were all it took to save the deteriorating atmosphere, the planet's fragile layer of air would be as good as fixed. The two great dangers threatening the blanket of gases that nurtures and protects life on earth--global warming and the thinning ozone layer--have been identified. Better yet, scientists and policymakers have come up with effective though expensive countermeasures. But that doesn't mean these problems are anywhere close to being solved. The stratospheric ozone layer, for example, is still getting thinner, despite the 1987 international agreement known as the Montreal Protocol, which calls for a phaseout of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other ozone-depleting chemicals by the year 2006. CFCs--first fingered as dangerous in the 1970s by Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina, two of this year's Nobel--prizewinning chemists--have been widely used for refrigeration and other purposes. If uncontrolled, the CFC assault on the ozone layer could increase the amount of hazardous solar ultraviolet light that reaches the earth's surface, which would, among other things, damage crops and cause cancer in humans. Thanks to a sense of urgency triggered by the 1085 detection of what has turned out to be an annual "hole" in the especially vulnerable ozone over Antarctica, the Montreal accords have spurred industry to replace CFCs with safer substances. Yet the CFCs already in the air are still doing their dirty work. The Antarctic ozone hole is more severe this year than ever before, and ozone levels over temperate regions are dipping as well. If the CFC phaseout proceeds on schedule, the atmosphere should start repairing itself by the year 2000, say scientists. Nonetheless, observes British Antarctic Survey meteorologist Jonathan Shanklin: "It will be the middle of the next century before things are back to where they were in the 1970s." Developing countries were given more time to comply with the Montreal Protocol and were promised that they would receive $ 250 million from richer nations to pay for the CFC phaseout. At the moment, though, only 60% 'of those funds has been forthcoming. Says Nelson Sabogal of the U.'N. Environment Program: "If developed countries don't come up with the money, the ozone layer will not recuperate. This is a crucial time." It is also a critical time for warding off potentially catastrophic climate change. Waste gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and the same CFCs that wreck the ozone layer all tend to trap sunlight and warm the earth. The predicted results: an eventual melting of polar ice caps, rises in sea levels and shifts in climate patterns.

单选题NASA launched the first space mission to Pluto yesterday as a powerful rocket hurled the New Horizons spacecraft on a nine-year, three-billion-mile journey to the edge of the solar system As it soared toward a 2007 meeting with Jupiter, whose powerful gravitational field will shoot it on its way to Pluto. mission managers said radio communications confirmed that the 1,054-pound craft was in good health. The $700 million mission began when a Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 rocket rose from a launching pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 2 p.m., almost an hour later than planned because of low clouds that obscured a clear view of the flight path by tracking cameras. Less than an hour later, all three stages of the booster rocket worked as planned, and the spacecraft separated from them and sprinted away toward deep space. The robot ship sped away at about 36,000 miles per hour, the fastest flight of any spacecraft sent from Earth. allowing it to pass the Moon in about nine hours. "This is a historic day," said Alan Stem of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo, the mission's principal scientist and team leader. Speaking at a news conference at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Dr. Stern said the timing assured that the New Horizons would arrive for its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015—the 50th anniversary of the first flyby of Mars by the Mariner 4. the mission that began the exploration of the planets. The New Horizons is powered by a small plutonium-fired electric generator. Its instruments include three cameras, for visible-light, infrared and ultraviolet images, and three spectrometers to study the composition and temperatures of Pluto's thin atmosphere and surface features. It also carries a University of Colorado dust counter, the first experiment to fly on a planetary mission that is entirely designed and operated by students. This is the only experiment that will not hibernate during the mission. Yesterday's liftoff also paid regard to Pluto's discoverer, the astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh. who in 1930 became the only American to find a planet in the solar system.(He died at 90. in 1997.) His widow, Patricia Tombaugh. 93. and other family members were present at the cape, and some of his remains were among the commemorative items aboard the spacecraft. "Some of Clyde's ashes are on their way to Pluto today," Dr. Stem said. The New Horizons is to reach Jupiter's gravitational field in 13 months. The trip to Pluto will take eight more years, most of which the craft will spend in electronic "hibernation" to save power and wear on the equipment needed for its seven experiments. In addition to the two-hour delay, the launching was postponed twice in two days—on Tuesday by strong winds at the cape and on Wednesday by a storm that caused a power; failure at the spacecraft's control center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel. Md. Mission planners had until Feb. 14 to launch the mission this year, but only until the end of this month to use the gravity boost from Jupiter, which will shorten the trip to Pluto by five years.

单选题Which of the following statements is TRUE accorching to the text?

单选题Sadness isn't manly—this Eric Weaver knew. When depression engulfed this New York police sergeant, it took a different guise: a near-constant state of anger. "One minute I'd be okay and the next minute I'd be screaming at my kids and punching the wall," he recalls. "My kids would ask, 'What's wrong with Daddy? Why's he so mad all the time?'" For years, Weaver didn't know what was wrong. Weaver's confusion about what tortured him was not unusual. Roughly a third of the 18 million or more Americans who suffer depression each year are men. Yet all too often, experts say, men fail to recognize the symptoms and get the treatment they need. For years, experts suspected that gender makes a big difference in depression. Studies from New York to New Zealand have repeatedly found the same startling statistic: About twice as many women as men suffer from depression. That finding was considered one of the bedrock facts of modern mental health. Yet it has recently come under attack from critics who are concerned about underreporting of male depression. William Pollack, Director of the Center for Men at McLean Hospital, is leading the charge against the well-entrenched depression gender gap. He argues that men's rate of depression may be nearly equal to women's. Just look at suicide rates, he says: Male suicides outnumber females four to one. That ratio "is way too high to say that men's depression numbers are so low," he notes. Pollack and others contend that male depression goes unrecognized because, unlike the female version, it often doesn't fit the textbook signs—at least in the early stages. Clinical depression at later stages looks much the same in both sexes. But in the prelude to a breakdown, that deepening despair is often expressed in very different ways. Instead of being weepy, men are more apt to be irritable and angry—moods that aren't included in the classic diagnostic tests. "Their sadness and helplessness are hidden behind a mask of anger," says Pollack. "Men tend to act out" to avoid dealing with uncomfortable feelings, adds Fredric Rabinowitz, a psychologist who works primarily with men. If they feel bad, they're apt to get into fights on the job or at home, withdraw from family and friends, become obsessed with work or hobbies. Most significantly, men often turn to drinking or drugs. Men have two to four times the rate of substance abuse problems as women, and Pollack contends that if this was recognized as a sign of depression, the gender gap would substantially narrow.

单选题Some media sources utilize catchy but misleading headlines in order to______.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} On Mar. 14, when Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced its first foray into Japan, the Bentonville (Ark.) retailing giant placed a big bet that it could succeed where countless other foreign companies have failed. In the past five years, a number of famous Western brands have been forced to close up shop after failing to catch on in Japan, one of the world's largest--but most variable--consumer markets. May Wal-Mart {{U}}make a go of{{/U}} it where others have stumbled? One good sign is that the mass marketer is not rushing in blindly. It has taken an initial 6.1% stake in ailing food-and-clothing chain Seiyu Ltd. , which it can raise to a controlling 33.4% by yearend and to 66.7% by 2007. That gives Wal-Mart time to revise its strategy--or run for the exits. The question is whether Wal-Mart can apply the lessons it has learned in other parts of Asia to Japan. This, after all, is a nation of notoriously finicky consumers--who have become even more so since Japan slipped into a decade-long slump. How will Wal-Mart bring to bear its legendary cost-cutting savvy in a market already affected by falling prices? Analysts are understandably skeptical. "It is uncertain whether Wal-Mart's business models will be effective in Japan," Standard & Poor's said in a Mar. 18 report. Much depends on whether Seiyu turns out to be a good partner. The 39-year-old retailer is a member of the reputed Seibu Saison retail group that fell on hard times in the early '90s. It also has deep ties to trading house Sumitomo Corp. , which will take a 15% stake in the venture with Wal-Mart. Perhaps the best thing that can be said of Seiyu's 400-odd stores is that they're not as deeply troubled as other local retailers. Still, there's a gaping chasm between the two corporate cultures. "We've never been known for cheap everyday pricing," says a Seiyu spokesman. Another potential problem is Sumitomo, which may not want to lean on suppliers to the extent that Wal-Mart routinely does. The clock is ticking. Wal-Mart executives say they need several months to "study" the deal with Seiyu before acting on it, but in the meantime a new wave of hyper-competitive Japanese and foreign rivals are carving up the market. If Wal-Mart succeeds, it will reduce its reliance on its home market even further and--who knows? --it may even revolutionize Japanese retailing in the same way it has in the U. S.

单选题By "...is there a lack of creative talent on a par with Miyazaki... "(Line 3, Paragraph 2) the author means

单选题On the afternoon of April 19th, 1587, Sir Francis Dr. ake led his convoy of 31 ships into the port of Cadiz, (1) the Spanish navy was being prepared to (2) England. The Spanish were (3) completely by surprise, and Dr. ake's men quickly looted, sank or burnt every ship in sight. After clearing the harhour of stores and (4) off a Spanish attack,Dr, aka and his ships (5) without the loss of a single man. Back in England, Dr. aka became a national hero, and his daring attack became known as the "singeing of the King of Spain's beard". As well as (6) back the Spanish plan to invade England by several months, Dr. ake's daring attack (7) the success of a popular new drink. For among the stores that he (8) from Cadiz were 2,900 large barrels of sack, a wine made in the Jerez region of Spain, and the (9) of today's sherry. The wine makers of Jerez looked for overseas markets, and sack started to take off in England. In 1587, the celebratory drinking of the sack brought back from Cadiz by Dr. ake gave it a further (10) and made it hugely fashionable, (11) its Spanish origin. For (12) chemical reasons, sack was an unusually long-lasting and (13) wine. This made it ideal for taking on long sea voyages, (14) which alcoholic drinks acted as a vital social lubricant that (15) the hardship of spending weeks packed into a (16) ship. Columbus took sack with him to the new world in the 1490s, making it the first wine to be (17) into the Americas. In 1604, sack was (18) official recognition of (19) when James I (20) an ordinance limiting its consumption at court. By this time sack was popularly known as sherris-sack (sherris being a corruption of Jerez), which eventually became the modern word sherry.

单选题The horror stories are based on ______.