单选题The author writes this article primarily in order to ______.

单选题According to the passage, which of the following is NOT wrong?______

单选题 A full-time job doesn't have to destroy all hope of family dinners or afternoon playtime. Women can increase their chances of getting on the new mommy track through successful negotiation both at work and at home. After lawyer Lindsay Androski Kelly, 30, decided she would work only at a firm that allowed flexible hours, she specifically asked about family-friendly policies during job interviews. While Kelly's approach worked for her, Michelle Goodman, warns against asking for flexibility too early, before proving oneself on the job. "You do need to pay your dues a little bit," she says. She recommends researching companies ahead of time to find out whether they're known for family-friendly arrangements. Pat Katepoo, founder of WorkOptions.com, which offers guidance on achieving customized work arrangements, suggests first pitching a trial period. "Even if supervisors are nervous about a nontraditional arrangement, they will feel some sense of control if there's a backdoor option for stopping it." Putting the proposal in writing with clear explanations of how the job will still get done also helps, Katepoo says. In her experience, if employees have worked for a manager for at least one to two years, are reliable performers, and have a trusting relationship with their manager, they have an 80 percent chance of at least getting a trial period. Regardless of the schedule, setting boundaries-such as having a policy against meetings after 5 p.m. -is key, says Mary Ann Mason, co-author of Mothers on the Fast Track: How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers. She also urges women not to wait too long before having children. For some fields, especially those that require extensive training such as academia or medicine, it's easier to have small children earlier, rather than during what Mason calls the "make or break" years between ages 30 and 40. Women working in low-skilled jobs, on the other hand, usually find flexibility only by lucking into employers who accept it, says Leslie Morgan Steiner, editor of Mommy Wars. "Men and women at the lowest income levels don't have any leverage," she says. Women across the economic spectrum benefit from support at home. Leslie Bennetts, author of The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?, encourages women to find a way to continue working throughout motherhood: "Women must insist that their husbands share everything." Many women appear to be doing just that: A University of Maryland study found that the time men spent on housework almost doubled between the 1960s and 1990s, by which time they were doing one third of it.

单选题From the context, the word "baloney" ( Line 3, Paragraph 6) is close in meaning to

单选题Like the look of our website? Whatever the answer, the chances are you made your mind up within the first twentieth of a second. A study by researchers in Canada has shown that the snap decisions Internet users make about the quality of a web page have a lasting impact on their opinions. We all know that first impressions count, but this study shows that the brain can make flash judgments almost as fast as the eye can take in the information. "My colleagues believed it would be impossible to really see anything in less than 500 milliseconds," says Gitte Lindgaard of Carleton University in Ottawa. Instead they found that impressions were made in the first 50 milliseconds of viewing. Lindgaard and her team presented volunteers with the briefest glimpses of web pages previously rated as being either easy on the eye or particularly unpleasant, and asked them to rate the websites on a sliding scale of visual appeal. Even though the images flashed up for just 50 milliseconds, roughly the duration of a single frame of standard television shot, their decisions tallied well with judgments made after a longer period of examination. In the crowded and competitive world of the web, companies hoping to make millions from e-commerce should take notice." Unless the first impression is favorable, visitors will be out of your site before they even know that you might be offering more than your competitors," Lindgaard warns. For a typical commercial website, 60% of traffic comes from search engines such as Google. This makes a user's first impression even more critical. The lasting effect of first impressions is known to psychologists as the "halo effect": if you can snare people with an attractive design, they are more likely to overlook other minor faults with the site, and may rate its actual content more favorably. This is because of "cognitive bias". People enjoy being right, so continuing to use a website that gave a good first impression helps to "prove" to themselves that they made a good initial decision. "It's awfully scary stuff, but the tendency to jump to conclusions is far more widespread than we realize". These days, enlightened web users want to see a "puritan" approach. It's about getting information across in the quickest, simplest way possible. For this reason, many commercial websites now follow a fairly regular set of rules. For example, westerners tend to look at the top-left corner of a page first, so that's where the company logo should go. And most users also expect to see a search function in the top right. Of course, the other golden rule is to make sure that your web pages load quickly, otherwise your customers might not stick around long enough to make that coveted first impression. "That can be the difference between big business and no business".

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} In old days, when a glimpse of stocking was looked upon as something far too shocking to distract the serious work of an office, secretaries were men. Then came the first World War and the male secretaries were replaced by women. A man's secretary became his personal servant, charged with remembering his wife's birthday and buying her presents; taking his suits to the dry cleaners; telling lies on the telephone to keep people he did not wish to speak to at bay and, of course, typing and filing and taking shorthand. Now all this may be changing again. The microchip and high technology is sweeping the British office, taking with it much of the routine clerical work that secretaries did. "Once office technology takes over generally, the status of the job will rise again because it will involve only the high-powered work-and then men will want to do it again." That was said by one of the executives(male) of one of the biggest secretarial agencies in this country. What he has predicted is already under way in the US. One girl described to me a recent temporary job placing men in secretarial jobs in San Francisco. She noted that all the men she dealt with appeared to be gay so possibly that is just a new twist to the old story. Over here, though, there are men coming onto the job market as secretaries. Classically, girls have learned shorthand and typing and gone into a company to seek their fortune from the bottom——and that's what happened to John Bowman. Although he joined a national grocery chain as secretary to its first woman senior manager, he has since been promoted to an administration job. "I filled in the application form and said I could do audio/typing, and in fact I was the only applicant. The girls were reluctant to work for this young, glamorous new woman with all this power in the firm. " "I did typing at school, and then a commercial course. I just thought it would be useful finding a job. I never got any funny treatment from the girls, though I admit I've never met another male secretary. But then I joined the Post Office as a clerk and carelessly played with the typewriter, and wrote letters, and thought that after all secretaries were getting a good ￡1,000 a year more than clerks like me. There was a shortage at that time, you see. " "It was simpler working for a woman than for a man. I found she made decisions, she told everybody what she thought, and there was none of that stuff' ring this number for me dear, which men go in for." "Don't forget, we were a team—that's how I about it—not boss and servant but two people doing different things for the same purpose." Once high technology has made the job of secretary less routine, will there be male takeover? Men should beware of thinking that they can walk right into the better jobs. There are a lot of women secretaries who will do the job as well as they because they are as efficient and well trained to cope with word processors and computers, and men.

单选题In November the European Parliament's culture and education committee is due to move forward on its proposed "audiovisual media services" directive, before sending it to the full parliament in December. The new rules update and relax the "Television Without Frontiers" directive of 1989, which opened Europe's national markets. But critics complain that they also seek to extend fusty regulations from the era of broadcast television to today's very different technologies. Rules on advertising, the protection of children and so on could potentially also apply to all kinds of video streams, including video blogs, online games and mobile-video services. This could have a chilling effect on innovation and risks stifling emerging technologies with rules designed for another age, says Chris Marsden of RAND Europe, a think-tank that has analysed the potential impact of the proposed rules for Ofcom, Britain's media and telecoms regulator. "Regulators have to be thoughtful. They cannot predict the future of television "or the internet—no one can," says Niklas Zennstr. m, a co-founder of Skype, who is now setting up an internet television firm. The proposed rules may be unrealistic as well as onerous. The idea that websites can be regulated like broadcasters, which are required to keep strict records of what they show in order to help watchdogs investigate complaints, is untenable. Firms could simply relocate outside the European Union to escape the new rules. Last week Ruth Hieronymi, a member of parliament, said she would introduce wording that might help to overcome some of the objections. Behind the debate is the question of how best to balance competition and protection. Traditional broadcasters worry that they will be shackled by regulations while brisk start-ups can do as they please—so they like the idea of extending regulation to their new rivals. But even if the rules are approved as they stand, they will not come into force until 2010. Such a long, slow process seems incongruous given the pace of technological change.

单选题"You are not here to tell me what to do. You are here to tell me why I have done what I have already decided to do," Montagu Norman, the Bank of England' s longest- serving governor (1920 -1944), is reputed to have once told his economic adviser. To- day, thankfully, central banks aim to be more transparent in their decision making, as well as more rational. But achieving either of these things is not always easy. With the most laudable of intentions, the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, may be about to take a step that could backfire. Unlike the Fed, many other central banks have long declared explicit inflation tar- gels and then set interest rates to try to meet these. Some economists have argued that the Fed should do the same. With Alan Greenspan, the Fed' s much-respected chairman, due to retire next year—after a mere 18 years in the job—some Fed officials want to adopt a target, presumably to maintain the central bank' s credibility in the scary new post-Greenspan era. The Fed discussed such a target at its February meeting, according to minutes published this week. This sounds encouraging. However, the Fed is considering the idea just when some other central banks are beginning to question whether strict inflation targeting really works. At present central banks focus almost exclusively on consumer-price indices. On this measure Mr. Greenspan can boast that inflation remains under control. But some central bankers now argue that the prices of assets, such as houses and shares, should also some- how be taken into account. A broad price index for America which includes house prices is currently running at 5.5% , its fastest pace since 1982. Inflation has simply taken a different form. Should central banks also try to curb increases in such asset prices? Mr. Greenspan continues to insist that monetary policy should not be used to prick asset-price bubbles. Identifying bubbles is difficult, except in retrospect, he says, and interest rates are a blunt weapon: an increase big enough to halt rising prices could trigger a recession. It is better, he says, to wait for a housing or stockmarket bubble to burst and then to cushion the economy by cutting interest rates—as he did in 2001-2002. And yet the risk is not just that asset prices can go swiftly into reverse. As with traditional inflation, surging asset prices also distort price signals and so can cause a misallocation of resources—encouraging too little saving, for example, or ,too much investment in housing. Surging house prices may therefore argue for higher interest rates than conventional inflation would demand. In other words, strict inflation targeting—the fad of the 1990s—is too crude.

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} What an elegant party! The Press Complaints Commission's glittering bash this week m celebrate its tenth anniversary was the nearest London gets to high society. In a gathering too close m imitate for comfort, the PCC succeeded in bringing together Prince William, the heir to the throne, his father, Prince Charles, the royal mistress. Camilla Parker-Bowles. as well as pop stars, super-models, cabinet ministers, senior civil servants and other admirers. The one thing this different group had in common was that most of them had sought the protection of the PCC over the past decade. Their principal tormentors, the editors of the nation's tabloid newspapers, were there in force to greet their victims, so it was not surprising that a certain tremble swirled around the party. That so many prominent upper circles turned up to devour the PCC's canape5 and rub shoulders with the royals is. no doubt, a triumph for its chairman. Lord Wakeham. He can fairly claim to have restored confidence in self-regulation and saved the press from privacy legislation. A skilled political fixer, he has used his chairmanship m pressure the press barons such as Rupert Murdoch into enclosing their editors. The PCC's code of conduct, drawn up by a panel of editors, is generally observed. Press standards have improved and complaints have fallen by nearly a third over the past five years. The industry, which not so long ago was said to be "{{U}}drinking in the last-chance saloon{{/U}}", with self-regulation in terminal disrepute, is grateful. The party was meant m celebrate this success. The soap stars and the models, judging by the amount of drink going down their throats, certainly 9njoyed themselves, as did the editors. But whether Prince Charles and Prince William were wise to associate themselves with this lot is doubtful. "Never sup with the enemy" is a good motto. At least the royals could tell who to avoid because all the guests had name tabs. Lord Wakeham, who helped get rid of Lady Thatcher without her even knowing, is a skilled operator. But this luxury party has given an opening to those critics who claim he is too close to the industry and too protective of the powerful. "We're here to protect the vulnerable" was the slogan of a big banner that greeted the guests. That was not the main impression the evening made on the minds of those who staggered out of the grandeur of Somerset House, high on champagne and celebrity. The truly vulnerable were nowhere to be seen.

单选题For years, smokers have been exhorted to take the initiative and quit: use a nicotine patch, chew nicotine gum, take a prescription medication that can help, call a help line, just say no. But a new study finds that stopping is seldom an individual decision. Smokers tend to quit in groups, the study finds, which means smoking cessation programs should work best if they focus on groups rather than individuals. It also means that people may help many more than just themselves by quitting: quitting can have a ripple effect prompting an entire social network to break the habit. The study, by Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School and James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, followed thousands of smokers and nonsmokers for 32 years, from 1971 until 2003, studying them as part of a large network of relatives, co-workers, neighbors, friends and friends of friends. It was a time when the percentage of adult smokers in the United States fell to 21 percent from 45 percent. As the investigators watched the smokers and their social networks, they saw what they said was a striking effect—smokers had formed little social clusters and, as the years went by, entire clusters of smokers were stopping en masse. So were clusters of clusters that were only loosely connected. Dr. Christakis described watching the vanishing clusters as like lying on your back in a field, looking up at stars that were burning out. "It's not like one little star turning off at a time," he said,"Whole constellations are blinking off at once. " As cluster after cluster of smokers disappeared, those that remained were pushed to the margins of society, isolated, with fewer friends, fewer social connections. "Smokers used to be the center of the party," Dr. Fowler said, "but now they've become wallflowers." "We've known smoking was bad for your physical health," he said,"But this shows it also is bad for your social health. Smokers are likely to drive friends away. " "There is an essential public health message," said Richard Suzman, director of the office of behavioral and social research at the National Institute on Aging, which financed the study. "Obviously, people have to take responsibility for their behavior," Mr. Suzman said. "But a social environment," he added, "can just overpower free will. " With smoking, that can be a good thing, researchers noted. But there also is a sad side. As Dr. Steven Sehroeder of the University of California, San Francisco, pointed out in an editorial accompanying the paper, "a risk of the marginalization of smoking is that it further isolates the group of people with the highest rate of smoking—persons with mental illness, problems with substance abuse, or both. /

单选题 An "{{U}}epidemic{{/U}}of poverty" in Britain is having a dramatic impact on the survival rates and health chances of children from poor families, an influential coalition will warn this week in a major report that casts doubt on government efforts to close the inequality gap. End Child Poverty, a network of children's charities, church groups, unions and think-tanks, claims that the gap between rich and poor represents a "huge injustice" in British society and has become one of the major factors affecting child mortality rates. Its report, based on a wide-ranging analysis of government data, finds that children from poor families are at 10 times the risk of sudden infant death as children from better-off homes. And it reveals how babies from disadvantaged families are more likely to be born underweight less than children from the richest families. Poorer children are two-and-a-half times more likely to suffer chronic illness when toddlers and twice as likely to have cerebral palsy, according to the report, "Health Consequences of Poverty for Children". "Poverty is now one of the greatest dangers faced by our children, " said Nick Spencer, one of the report's authors and professor of child health at the University of Warwick. "If poverty were an infection, we would be in the midst of a full-scale epidemic." The report is likely to revive the debate on child poverty and focus attention on Labor's record when it comes to tackling social inequalities. In March 1999, the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, promised to eradicate child poverty "within a generation". This was later defined as a commitment to end child poverty by 2020, with a target of halving the number of children living in poverty by 2010/11. But while the current row over social inequality has tended to focus on education and benefits, the implications for health have been largely ignored. Now, however, the End Child Poverty report highlights how socio-economic factors affect the entire life of children born into poverty, from fontal development and early infancy through to teenage years and adulthood. The government claims it is closing the gap between rich and poor, but accepts that more needs to be done. The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said in June: "Although we have already lifted hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty with new tax credits, more people in work and better public services, the latest figures show we have not made enough progress."

单选题The passage mentions all of the following as uses for copper in colonial America EXCEPT ______.

单选题How does the author feel about Mr Alan?

单选题Many people seem to think that science fiction is typified by the covers of some of the old pulp magazines, the Bug-Eyed Monster, embodying every trait and feature that most people find repulsive, is about to grab, and presumably ravish, a sweet, blonde, curvaceous, scantily clad Earth girl. This is unfortunate because it demeans and degrades a worthwhile and even important literary endeavor. In contrast to this unwarranted stereotype, science fiction rarely emphasizes sex, and when it does, it is more discreet than other contemporary fiction. Instead, the basic interest of science fiction lies in the relation between man and his technology and between man and the universe. Science fiction is a literature of change and a literature of the future, and while it would be foolish to claim that science fiction is a major literary genre at this time, the aspects of human life that it considers make it well worth reading and studying for no other literary form does quite the same things. What is science fiction? To begin, the following definition should be helpful: science fiction is a literary subgenre which postulates a change (for human beings) from conditions as we know them and follows the implications of these changes to a conclusion. Although this definition will necessarily be modified and expanded, it covers much of the basic groundwork and provides a point of departure. The first point-that science fiction is a literary subgenre-is a very important one, but one which is often overlooked or ignored in most discussions of science fiction. Specifically, science fiction is either a short story or a novel. There are only a few dramas which could be called science fiction, with Karel Capek's RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots) being the only one that is well known, the body of poetry that might be labeled science fiction is only slightly larger. To say that science fiction is a subgenre of prose fiction is to say that it has all the basic characteristics and serves the same basic functions in much the same way as prose fiction in general, that is, it shares a great deal with all other novels and short stories. Everything that can be said about prose fiction, in general, applies to science fiction. Every piece of science fiction, whether short story or novel, must have a narrator, a story, a plot, a setting, characters, language, and theme. And like any prose, the themes of science fiction are concerned with interpreting man's nature and experience in relation to the world around him. Themes in science fiction are constructed and presented in exactly the same ways that themes are dealt with in any other kind of fiction. They are the result of a particular combination of narrator, story, plot, character, setting, and language. In short, the reasons for reading and enjoying science fiction, and the ways of studying and analyzing it, are basically the same as they would be for any other story or novel.