单选题Illiteracy may be considered more as an abstract concept than a condition. When a famous English writer used the (1) over two hundred years ago, he was actually (2) to people who could (3) read Greek or Latin. (4) ,it seems unlikely that university examiners had this sort of (5) in mind when they reported on "creeping illiteracy" in a report on their students' final examination in 1988. (6) the years, university lecturers have been (7) of an increasing tendency towards grammatical sloppiness, poor spelling and general imprecision (8) their students' ways of writing; and sloppy writing is all (9) often a reflection of sloppy thinking. Their (10) was that they had (11) to do teaching their own subject (12) teaching their undergraduates to write. Some lecturers believe that they have a (n) (13) to stress the importance of maintaining standards of clear thinking (14) the written word in a world dominated by (15) communications and images. They (16) on the connection between clear thinking and a form of writing that is not only clear, but also sensitive to (17) of meaning. The same lecturers argue that undergraduates appear to be the victims of a "softening process" that begins (18) the teaching of English in schools, but this point of view has, not (19) , caused a great deal of (20) .

单选题For the moment, mind-reading is still science fiction. But that may not be true for much longer. Several lines of inquiry are converging on the idea that the neurological activity of the brain can be decoded directly, and people"s thoughts revealed without being spoken. Just imagine the potential benefits. Such a development would allow both the fit and the disabled to operate machines merely by choosing what they want those machines to do. It would permit the profoundly handicapped to communicate more easily than is now possible even with the text-based speech engines used by the likes of Stephen Hawking. It might unlock the mental prisons of people apparently in comas, who nevertheless show some signs of neural activity. For the able-bodied, it could allow workers to dictate documents silently to computers simply by thinking about what they want to say. The most profound implication, however, is that it would abolish the ability to lie. Who could object to that? You will not bear false witness. Tell the truth, and shame the Devil. Transparency, which speaks for honesty in management, is put forward as the answer to most of today"s evils. But honestly speaking, the truth of the matter is that this would lead to disaster, for lying is at the heart of civilization. People are not the only creatures who lie. Species from squids to chimpanzees have been caught doing it from time to time. But only human beings have turned lying into an art. Call it diplomacy, public relations or simple good manners: lying is one of the things that make the world go round. The occasional untruth makes domestic life possible, is essential in the office and forms a crucial part of parenting. Politics might be more entertaining without lies—"The prime minister has my full support" would be translated as, "If that half-wit persists in this insane course we"ll all be out on our ears"—but a party system would be hard to sustain without the semblance of loyalty that dishonesty permits. The truly scary prospect, however, is the effect mind-reading would have on relations between the state and the individual. In a world in which the authorities could peep at people"s thoughts, speaking truth to power would no longer be brave: it would be unavoidable. Information technology already means that physical privacy has become a scarce commodity. Websites track your interests and purchases. Mobile phones give away your location. Video cameras record what you are up to. Lose mental privacy as well, and there really will be nowhere.

单选题Where would Miran probably go if he could leave the airport?

单选题American suffers from an overdose of work. (1) who they are or what they do, they spend (2) time at work than at any time since World WarⅡ. In 1950, the US had fewer working hours than any other (3) country. Today, it (4) every country but Japan, where industrial employees log 2,155 hours a year compared (5) 1,951 in the US and 1,603 (6) West employees. Between 1969 and 1989, employed American (7) an average of 138 hours to their yearly work schedules. The work-week (8) at about 40 hours, but people are working more weeks each year. (9) , paid time off — holidays, vacations, sick leave — (10) 15 percent in the 1990s. As Corporations have (11) stiffer competition and slower growth in productivity, they would (12) employees to work longer. Cost-cutting layoffs in the 1980s (13) the professional and managerial ranks, leaving fewer people to get the job done. In lower-paid occupations, (14) wages have been reduced, workers have added hours (15) overtime or extra jobs to (16) their living standard. The Government estimates that more than seven million people hold a second job. For the first time, large (17) of people say they want to cut (18) on working hours, even if it means earning less money. But most employers are (19) to let them do so. The government which has stepped back from its traditional (20) as a regulator of work time, should take steps to make shorter hours possible.

单选题For more than a decade, the prevailing view of innovation has been that little guys had the edge. Innovation bubbled up from the bottom, from upstarts and insurgents. Big companies didn't innovate, and government got in the way. In the dominant innovation narrative, venture-backed start-up companies were cast as the nimble winners and large corporations as the sluggish losers. There was a rich vein of business-school research supporting the notion that innovation comes most naturally from small-scale outsiders. That was the headline point that a generation of business people, venture investors and policy makers took away from Clayton M. Christensen's 1997 classic, The Innovator's Dilemma, which examined the process of disruptive change. But a shift in thinking is under way, driven by altered circumstances. In the United States and abroad, the biggest economic and social challenges—and potential business opportunities—are problems in multifaceted fields like the environment, energy and health care that rely on complex systems. Solutions won't come from the next new gadget or clever software, though such innovations will help. Instead, they must plug into a larger network of change shaped by economics, regulation and policy. Progress, experts say, will depend on people in a wide range of disciplines, and collaboration across the public and private sectors. "These days, more than ever, size matters in the innovation game," said John Kao, a former professor at the Harvard business school and an innovation consultant to governments and corporations. In its economic recovery package, the Obama administration is financing programs to generate innovation with technology in health care and energy. The government will spend billions to accelerate the adoption of electronic patient records to help improve care and curb costs, and billions more to spur the installation of so-called smart grids that use sensors and computerized meters to reduce electricity consumption. In other developed nations, where energy costs are higher than in the United States, government and corporate projects to cut fuel use and reduce carbon emissions are further along. But the Obama administration is pushing environmental and energy conservation policy more in the direction of Europe and Japan. The change will bolster demand for more efficient and more environmentally friendly systems for managing commuter traffic, food distribution, electric grids and waterways. These systems are animated by inexpensive sensors and ever-increasing computing power but also require the skills to analyze, model and optimize complex networks, factoring in things as diverse as weather patterns and human behavior. Big companies like General Electric and IBM that employ scientists in many disciplines typically have the skills and scale to tackle such projects.

单选题Which of the following best defines the word "aggressive" ( Line 3, Paragraph 6) ?

单选题It seems that the write is very critical of

单选题 In the longest-term study of its kind, researchers pitted two popular diets head to head—a low-fat American Heart Association-style diet and a carb-controlled Mediterranean diet, each combined with regular physical activity—in a population of overweight patients who had Type 2 diabetes. Researchers found that over the four-year study, patients who adhered to the Mediterranean-style eating plan maintained lower blood-sugar levels for a longer time than those in the low-fat-diet group. The Mediterranean dieters were also able to maintain slightly more weight loss than the low-fat group and showed small improvements in triglyceride and HDL cholesterol levels, both risk factors for heart disease. On the basis of their finding, the study's authors suggest that some diabetes patients may be able to substitute diet and exercise for blood-sugar-lowering medications. "A Mediterranean-style diet is a very important part in the treatment of diabetes. We knew that, " says Dr. Loren Greene, a New York University Medical Center endocrinologist, who was not involved in the study. "But there just hasn't been a good study to confirm this before." The current study does not make clear, however, whether diet alone can reduce blood sugar enough to eliminate the use of diabetes medication or whether it is even advisable to forgo medication at all. Participants in the new study were kept off drugs when their AIC levels—a measurement that indicates a patient's blood-sugar levels over the previous three months—were below 7%, the standard cutoff for what is considered controlled blood sugar. But "we don't know for sure if people with AIC levels under 7% still need to be on drugs, " says Greene. "The research just hasn't answered that question yet." Recent studies suggest that using blood-sugar-controlling medication even among the 57 million Americans who have pre-diabetes—meaning they have elevated, but not dangerously high blood sugar and are at very high risk of developing diabetes— may prevent the development of heart disease an stroke. While diabetes doctors generally agree that the first line of defense against Type 2 diabetes should always be exercise and diet, many recommend also using drugs. For its part, the American Diabetes Association advises patients with Type 2 diabetes to make appropriate lifestyle changes and to start a drug regimen immediately upon diagnosis. Still, many doctors acknowledge patients' aversion to chronic drug-taking." Almost universally, people don't want to take medicine if they can avoid it, " says Greene. And physicians point out that the direct and indirect costs associated with taking a drug—even one as widely prescribed as the generic diabetes medication metformin(二甲双胍，一种抗糖尿病和降血糖药)—can serve as a barrier for many patients, especially among disadvantaged populations and those without health insurance. Whether avoidance of medication in certain cases proves to be reasonable, for now it can at least be used as an effective incentive to improve lifestyle habits, says Greene: "If you are told, 'If you don't want to go on medicine, stick to this diet, ' then that's a pretty valuable tool at least for patient compliance."

单选题Which of the following can best describe the management of human resources in American companies?

单选题We can draw a conclusion from the text that the overall U. S. economy

单选题Violent criminals with something to hide have more reason than ever to be paranoid about a tap on the shoulder which could send them to jail. Queensland police are working through a backlog of unsolved murders with some dramatic success. Greater cooperation between the public and various law enforcement agencies is playing a role, but new genetic-testing techniques are the real key to providing the vital evidence to mount a prosecution. Evidence left behind at the scene of any murder is guaranteed to outlive the person who left it. A blood, saliva or tissue sample in the size of a pin, kept dry and out of sunlight, will last several thousand years. From it, scientific analysis now can tell accurately the sex of the person who left it. When matched against a sample from a crime suspect, it can indicate with million-to-one certainty whether the samples come from the same source. Only twins share identical DNA. So precise is the technology if the biological parents of a suspect agree to provide a sample, forensic scientists can work out the rest for themselves without cooperation from the suspect. Queensland forensic scientists have been using the DNA testing technology since 1992, and last year they were recognized internationally for their competence in positive individual identification. That is part of the reason 20 of Queensland's most puzzling unsolved murders dating to 1932 are being ac timely investigated. There also have been several recent arrests for unsolved murders. Forensic evidence was instrumental in charges being laid over the bashing death of waitress Tasha Douty on Brampton Island in 1983. Douty's blood-splattered, naked body was found on a nude sunbathing beach at Dinghy Bay on the island. Footprints in the sand indicated that the killer had grappled with the 21-year-old mother who had fled up the beach before being caught and beaten to death. According to Leo Freney, the supervising forensic scientist at the John Tonge Centre at Brisbane's Griffith University, DNA testing has become an invaluable tool for police, its use is in identifying and rejecting suspects. In fact, he says, it eliminates more people than it convicts. " It is easily as good as fingerprints for the purpose of identification, " he says. "In the case of violent crime it is better than fingerprints. You can't innocently explain things like blood and semen at a crime scene where you may be able to innocently explain fingerprints. " In Queensland, a person who has been arrested on suspicion of an offence can be taken before a magistrate and ordered to provide a sample of body fluid by :force if necessary.