单选题What is the narrator' s feeling about their present living?

单选题In Paragraph 2, the word "shackled" means ______.

单选题When Ted Kennedy gazes from the windows of his office in Boston, he can see the harbor's "Golden Stairs", where all eight of his great-grandparents first set foot in America. It reminds him, he told his Senate colleagues this week, that reforming America's immigration laws is an "awesome responsibility". Mr. Kennedy is the Democrat most prominently pushing a bipartisan bill to secure the border, ease the national skills shortage and offer a path to citizenship for the estimated 12m illegal aliens already in the country. He has a steep climb ahead of him. As drafted, the bill seeks to mend America's broken immigration system in several ways. First, and before its other main provisions come into effect, it would tighten border security. It provides for 200 miles (320km) of vehicle barriers, 370 miles of fencing and 18000 new border patrol agents. It calls for an electronic identification system to ensure employers verify that all their employees are legally allowed to work. And it stiffens punishments for those who knowingly hire illegals. As soon as the bill was unveiled, it was stoned from all sides. Christans, mostly Republicans, denounced it as an "amnesty" that would encourage further waves of illegal immigration. Tom Tancredo, a Republican congressman running for president (without hope of success ) on an anti-illegal-immigration platform, demanded that all but the border-security clauses be scrapped. Even these he derided as "so limited it's almost a joke". Conservative talk-radio echoed his call. No one is seriously proposing mass deportation, but Mr. Tancredo says the illegals will all go home if the laws against hiring them are vigorously enforced. Most labor unions are skeptical, too. The AFL-CIO denounced the guest-worker program, which it said would give employers "a ready pool of labor that they can exploit to drive down wages, benefits, health and safety protections" for everyone else. Two Democratic senators tried to gut the program. One failed to abolish it entirely; another succeeded in slashing it from 400000 to 200000 people a year. Employers like the idea of more legal migrants but worry that the new system will be cumbersome. Many object to the idea that they will have to check the immigration status of all their employees. The proposed federal computer system to sort legal from illegal workers is bound to make mistakes. Even if only one employee in a hundred is falsely labelled illegal, that will cause a lot of headaches. And the points system has drawbacks, too. Employers are better placed than bureaucrats to judge which skills are in short supply. That is why the current mess has advantages—illegal immigrants nearly always go where their labor is in demand. Other groups have complaints, too. Immigrant-rights groups say that the path to citizenship would be too long and arduous and too few Hispanics would qualify. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House, fretted that the new stress on skills would hurt families, adding that her party is "about families and family values". Some people worry that House Democrats will kill it to prevent Mr. Bush from enjoying a domestic success. Despite the indignation, public opinion favors the underlying principles. At least 60% of Americans want to give illegals a chance to become citizens if they work hard and behave.

单选题The protection of cultural diversity from a political and economic point of view in fact became pressing with globalization, which is characterized by the liberalization on a large scale of economic and commercial exchange, and thus, what has been called the commodification of culture. It has been noted, for instance, that over the past 20 years, trade in cultural goods has quadrupled and the new international rules (WTO, OECD) on trade are increasingly removing State support and protection measures in favour of national goods and services in the name of market freedom and free trade. For those in favour of the promotion of cultural diversity, which includes Canada, France and the Group of 77 (group of developing countries), the aim is above all to obtain from the United States the guarantee that the “Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions”, signed by UNESCO in November 2005, would not be subordinated to international trade instruments. Indeed, for the United States and other supporters of free trade, the convention is a had idea and the measures referred to above stem quite simply from an interventionist conception of the State which is not likely to favour the market. Subsidies to cultural enterprises, the imposition of broadcast quotas and restrictions on foreign ownership of the media would, for them, interfere with the natural development of the market. In addition, even though it is not official, the convention on cultural diversity is for many Americans an attempt to undermine the global supremacy of their audiovisual industries. If the general understanding of cultural diversity is based mainly on binary distinctions such as modern culture/local culture, the reality of cultural diversity is not binary, but stems from respect for and acceptance of differences, dialogue, and the quest for shared values, in order to leave behind the monologism that is a feature of the information society. In this setting, diversity is consequently a way of approaching the structure of how we live together, based on the acceptance of a plural vision of the world. We can see then that cultural diversity is perceived here as the integration, rather than the superposition or juxtaposition of cultures and that the information society in which it is expressed is above all a society of shared knowledge.

单选题Standard & Poor's maintains a cautious stance on cable-TV operators in the wake of Verizon's (VZ) announcement in early May of aggressive price cuts for its digital subscriber line (DSL) Internet-access service. Our overall outlook for the S & P Cable & Broadcasting index, which also includes shares of over-the-air TV and radio broadcasters, is neutral to modestly positive. Cable operators have so far ruled out an overt price war on broadband services. However, expect to see near-term responses like increased bundling of services, extended free months, more aggressive marketing and promotions, even modest price cuts from cable outfits that offer multiple services such as broadband as they defend their high- growth Internet-access Business. Continued rapid growth in digital cable and high-speed data services helped support the industry's ongoing revenue growth. We at S & P are wary of price pressures on the long-term and short-term economics of cable's broadband business. That's especially true as another Baby Bell, SBC Communications (SBC), is also undercutting cable-service providers in many core markets. In their traditional business segment, U.S. cable operators continue to benefit from a modest rebound in advertising spending, following a significant downturn during the economic slump that started in 2001. The industry has actually increased its share of total U. S. ad spending. The cable sector posted uninterrupted revenue growth during the recent downturn, as its greater reliance on subscriber revenues gives it a more defensive posture than broadcasters. Subscriptions remain the industry's primary revenue source, accounting for roughly 65% of the total, with advertising makes up the rest. Our near-term outlook for cable remains tempered by heightened levels of geopolitical anxieties, though the Iraq war's end has alleviated their impact on advertising demand. Meanwhile, core subscription growth continues to be driven by robust rates of high-speed data sign-ups and by improved prospects for digital-video ancillary offerings like video-on-demand and high-definition TV. We believe that successful media operators will continue to anticipate, rather than react to, the ever changing dynamics of an increasingly competitive media environment. Even with increased regulatory surveillance, vertically and horizontally integrated media operators should begin to wield increasing competitive advantages as they leverage operating efficiencies and realize synergies across multiple delivery platforms.

单选题It is the world's fourth-most-important food crop, after maize, wheat and rice. It provides more calories, more quickly, using less land and in a wider range of climates than any Other plant. It is, of Course, the potato. The United Nations has declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato. It hopes that greater awareness of the merits of potatoes will contribute to the achievement of its Millennium Development Goals, by helping to alleviate poverty, improve food security and promote economic development. It is always the international year of this or month of that. But the potato's unusual history means it is well worth celebrating by readers of The Economist because the potato is intertwined with economic development, trade liberalisation and globalisation. Unlikely though it seems, the potato promoted economic development by underpinning the industrial revolution in England in the 19th century. It provided a cheap source of calories and was easy to cultivate, so it liberated workers from the land. Potatoes became popular in the north of England, as people there specialised in livestock farming and domestic industry, while farmers in the south (where the soil was more suitable ) concentrated on wheat production. By a happy accident, this concentrated industrial activity in the regions where coal was readily available, and a potato-driven population boom provided ample workers for the new factories. Friedrich Engels even declared that the potato was the equal of iron for its "historically revolutionary role". The potato promoted free trade by contributing to the abolition of Britain's Corn Laws-the cause which prompted the founding of The Economist in 1843. The Corn Laws restricted imports of grain into the United Kingdom in order to protect domestic wheat producers. Landowners supported the laws, since cheap imported grain would reduce their income, but industrialists opposed them because imports would drive down the cost of food, allowing people to spend more on manufactured goods. Ultimately it was not the eloquence of the arguments against the Corn Laws that led to their abolition-and more's the pity. It was the tragedy of the Irish potato famine of 1845, in which 1million Irish perished when the potato crop on which they subsisted succumbed to blight. The need to import grain to relieve the situation in Ireland forced the government, which was dominated by landowners who backed the Corn Laws, to reverse its position. This paved the way for liberalisation in other areas, and free trade became British policy. As the Duke of Wellington complained at the time, "rotten potatoes have done it all. " In the form of French fries, served alongside burgers and Coca-Cola, potatoes are now an icon of globalisation. This is quite a turnaround given the scepticism which first greeted them on their arrival in the Old World in the 16th century. Spuds were variously thought to cause leprosy, to be fit only for animals, to be associated with the devil or to be poisonous. They took hold in 18th century Europe only when war and famine meant there was nothing else to eat; people then realised just how versatile and reliable they were. As Adam Smith, one of the potato's many admirers, observed at the time, "The very general use which is made of potatoes in these kingdoms as food for man is a convincing proof that the prejudices of a nation, with regard to diet, however deeply rooted, are by no means unconquerable. " Mashed, fried, boiled and roast, a humble tuber changed the world, and free-trading globalisers everywhere should celebrate it.

单选题Culture is the sum total of all the traditions, customs, belief and ways of life of a given group of human beings. In this sense, every group has a culture, however savage, undeveloped, or uncivilized it may seem to us. To the professional anthropologist, there is no intrinsic superiority of one culture over another, just as to the professional linguist there is no intrinsic hierarchy among languages. People once thought of the languages of backward groups as savage, undeveloped form of speech, consisting largely of grunts and groans. While it is possible that language in general began as a series of grunts and groans, it is a fact established by the study of "backward" languages that no spoken tongue answers that description today. Most languages of uncivilized groups are, by our most severe standards, extremely complex, delicate, and ingenious pieces of machinery for the transfer of ideas. They fall behind the western languages not in their sound patterns or grammatical structures, which usually are fully adequate for all language needs, but only in their vocabularies, which reflect the objects and activities known to their speakers. Even in this department, however, two things are to he noted: 1. All languages seem to possess the machinery for vocabulary expansion; either by putting together words already in existence or by borrowing them from other languages and adapting them to their own system. 2. The objects and activities requiring names and distinctions in "backward" languages, while different from ours; are often surprisingly numerous and complicated. A western language distinguishes merely between two degrees of remoteness ("this" and "that"); some languages of the American Indians distinguish between what is close to the speaker, or the person addressed, or remote from both, or out of sight, or in the past, or in the future. This study of language, in turn, casts a new light upon the claim of the anthropologists that all cultures are to viewed independently, and without ideas of rank or hierarchy.

单选题The word "haywire" ( Line 5, Paragraph 3) most probably means

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. Many people invest in the stock market hoping to find the next Microsoft and Dell. However, I know{{U}} (1) {{/U}}personal experience how difficult this really is. For more than a year, I waw{{U}} (2) {{/U}}hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars a day investing in the market. It seemed so easy, I dreamed of{{U}} (3) {{/U}}my job at the end of the year, of buying a small apartment in Paris, of traveling around the world. But these dreams{{U}} (4) {{/U}}to a sudden and dramatic end when a stock I{{U}} (5) {{/U}}, Texas cellular pone wholesaler, fell by more than 75 percent{{U}} (6) {{/U}}a one year period. On the{{U}} (7) {{/U}}day, it plunged by more than $ 15 a share. There was a rumor the company was{{U}} (8) {{/U}}sales figures. That was when I leamed how quickly Wall street{{U}} (9) {{/U}}companies that misrepresent the{{U}} (10) {{/U}}. In a{{U}} (11) {{/U}}, I sold all my stock in the company, paying{{U}} (12) {{/U}}margin debt with cash advances from my{{U}} (13) {{/U}}card. Because I owned so many shares, I{{U}} (14) {{/U}}a small fortune, half of it from money I borrowed from the brokerage company. One month, I am a{{U}} (15) {{/U}}, the next, a loser. This one big loss was my first lesson in the market. My father was a stockbroker, as way my grandfather{{U}} (16) {{/U}}him. (In fact, he founded one of Chicago's earliest brokerage firms. ) But like so many things in life, we don't learn anything until we{{U}} (17) {{/U}}it for ourselves. The only way to really understand the inner{{U}} (18) {{/U}}of the stock market is to invest your own hard-earned money. When all your stocks are doing{{U}} (19) {{/U}}and you feel like a winner, you learn very little. It's when all your stocks are losing and everyone is questioning your stock-picking{{U}} (20) {{/U}}that you find out if you have what it takes to invest in the market.

单选题By the mid-sixties, blue jeans were an essential part of the wardrobe of those with a commitment to social struggle. In the American Deep South, black farmers and grandchildren of slaves still segregated from whites, continued to wear jeans in their mid-nineteenth-century sense; but now they were joined by college students-black and white-in a battle to overturn deeply embedded race hatred. The clothes of the workers became a sacred bond between them. The clothing of toil came to signify the dignity of struggle. In the student rebellion and the antiwar movement that followed, blue jeans and work shirts provided a contrast to the uniforms of the dominant culture. Jeans were the opposite of high fashion, the opposite of the suit or military uniform. With the rise of the women's movement in the late 1960s, the political significance of dress became increasingly explicit; Rejecting orthodox sex roles, blue jeans were a woman's weapon against uncomfortable popular fashions and the view that women should be passive. This was the cloth of action; the cloth of labor became the badge of freedom. If blue jeans were for rebels in the 1960s and early 1970s, by the 1980s they had become a foundation of fashion-available in a variety of colors, textures, fabrics, and fit. These simple pants have made the long journey "from workers' clothes to cultural revolt to status symbol." On television, in magazine advertising, on the sides of buildings and buses, jeans call out to us. Their humble past is obscured; practical roots arc incorporated into a new aesthetic. Jeans are now the universal symbol of the individual and Western democracy. They are the costume of liberated women, with a fit tight enough to restrict like the harness of old-but with the look of freedom and motion. In blue jeans, fashion reveals itself as a complex world of history and change. Yet looking at fashions, in and of themselves, reveals situations that often defy understanding. Our ability to understand a specific fashion-the current one of jeans, for example-shows us that as we try to make sense of it, our confusion intensifies. It is a fashion whose very essence is contradiction and confusion. To pursue the goal of understanding is to move beyond the actual cloth itself, toward the more general phenomenon of fashion and the world in which it has risen to importance. Exploring the role of fashion within the social and political history of industrial America helps to reveal the parameters and possibilities of American society. The ultimate question is whether the development of images of rebellion into mass-produced fashions has actually resulted in social change.

单选题Current Group, a Germantown-based technology firm, has taken over an ordinary looking house in Bethesda and turned it into a laboratory for smart-grid technology, the system the company believes will bring the nation"s electricity grids into the digital age. In the front yard stands a utility pole hooked up to a special transformer that connects the power lines to high-speed Internet. Hundreds of sensors attached to the lines monitor how power flows through the home. That information is then sent back to the utility company. The process lets a utility more efficiently manage the distribution of electricity by allowing two-way communication between consumers and energy suppliers via the broadband network on the power lines. Based on data they receive from hundreds of homes, utilities can monitor usage and adjust output and pricing response to demand. Consumers can be rewarded with reduced rates by cutting back on consumption during peak periods. And computerized substations can talk to each other so overloaded circuits hand off electricity to those that axe not fully loaded, helping to prevent blackouts. Some utility companies have launched initiatives to give consumers data about their energy consumption habits in an effort to lower energy bills. Smart-grid technology takes such programs further by automating electricity distribution, which would make grids more reliable and efficient. By partnering with utilities, the company hopes to tap into $4.5 billion in stimulus grants intended to encourage smart-grid development. When he announced the funding, President Obama pointed to a project in Boulder, Colo., as an example of a successful smart-grid experiment. Current is one of the companies working on the project. Current"s chief executive Tom Casey believes the technology will help utility companies better distribute electricity produced by renewable resources, such as solar panels or wind farms. "A smart grid"s system can be paired up with the renewable resources so that when the renewable source is varying, the overall load can be varied as well," Casey told the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. "This will reduce or eliminate the need for backup coal or gas based power generation plants."

单选题According to the passage, Niall FitzGerald

单选题What can be inferred from the sentence "it’s the account holder who may get burned" ( Line 2, Paragraph 1 ) ?