完形填空Almost all our major problems involve human behavior, and they cannot be solved by physical and biological technology alone. What is needed is a technology of behavior, but we have been slow to develop the science from which such a technology might be drawn. 61)One difficulty is that almost all of what is called behavioral science continues to trace behavior to states of mind, feelings, traits of character, human nature, and so on. Physics and biology once followed similar practices and advanced only when they discarded them. 62)The behavioral sciences have been slow to change partly because the explanatory items often seem to be directly observed and partly because other kinds of explanations have been hard to find. The environment is obviously important, but its role has remained obscure. It does not push or pull, it selects, and this function is difficult to discover and analyze. 63 )The role of natural selection in evolution was formulated only a little more than a hundred years ago, and the selective role of the environment in shaping and maintaining the behavior of the individual is only beginning to be recognized and studied. As the interaction between organism and environment has come to be understood, however, effects once assigned to states of mind, feelings, and traits are beginning to be traced to accessible conditions, and a technology of behavior may therefore become available. It will not solve our problems, however, until it replaces traditional prescientific views, and these are strongly entrenched. Freedom and dignity illustrate the difficulty. 64 )They are the possessions of the autonomous (selfgoveming) man of traditional theory, and they are essential to practices in which a person is held responsible for his conduct and given credit for his achievements. A scientific analysis shifts both the responsibility and the achievement to the environment. It also raises questions concerning" values". Who will use a technology and to what ends? 65 ) Until these issues are resolved, a technology of behavior will continue to be rejected, and with it possibly the only way to solve our problems.

完形填空 Research suggests that British people are becoming increasingly detached from wildlife, the countryside and nature. Most people in the survey admitted they felt they were 1 touch with the natural world, 2 a third said they did not know enough about the subject to teach their own children. One in three people could not 3 an oak tree. This detachment has negative 4 for conservation. People simply won't rally round to save something they are not really 5 of. A major report last year already warned that Britain is among 'the 6 nature-depleted countries in the world'. 7 this is urban alienation at its most literal. Humans have 8 so decisively in the processes that create life on Earth 9 we are increasingly aware only of our own interventions, 10 not of the vast ecosystems that make them possible. Nature reminds us that we are a small part of something vast, 11 , ever-evolving and infinitely precious. It reminds us that, as part of this 12 , we are precious, too. 13 all around us is self-destruction. Senior doctors and health charities warn that 14 drinking will kill 65,000 people over the next five years. They are asking urgently 15 a crackdown on cheap alcohol and 16 restrictions on the advertising of liquor to help to 17 the problem. The problem, however, seems existential to me. Many people are trying to 18 from themselves and their lives. 19 , the measures work, simply making it harder for people to purchase their poison. But it's a strategy that makes a difference only 20 so many other aspects of a life have already gone wrong.

完形填空A. Perhaps our most dangerous bias is that we naturally assume that everyone else is more susceptible to thinking errors, a tendency known as the 'bias blind spot.' This 'meta-bias' is rooted in our ability to spot systematic mistakes in the decisions of others—we excel at noticing the flaws of friends—and inability to spot those same mistakes in ourselves. In each instance, we readily forgive our own minds but look harshly upon the minds of other people. B. When people face an uncertain situation, they don't carefully evaluate the information or look up relevant statistics. Instead, their decisions depend on a long list of mental shortcuts, which often lead them to make foolish decisions. These shortcuts aren't a faster way of doing the math; they're a way of skipping the math altogether. Asked about the bat and the ball, we forget our arithmetic lessons and instead default to the answer that requires the least mental effort. C. What explains this result? One provocative hypothesis is that the bias blind spot arises because of a mismatch between how we evaluate others and how we evaluate ourselves. When considering the irrational choices of a stranger, for instance, we are forced to rely on behavioral information; we see their biases from the outside, which allows us to glimpse their systematic thinking errors. However, when assessing our own bad choices, we tend to engage in elaborate introspection. We scrutinize our motivations and search for relevant reasons; we lament our mistakes to therapists and ruminate on the beliefs that led us astray. D. For more than five decades, Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Laureate and professor of psychology at Princeton, has been asking questions like this and analyzing our answers. His disarmingly simple experiments have profoundly changed the way we think about thinking. While philosophers, economists, and social scientists had assumed for centuries that human beings are rational agents, Kahneman demonstrated that we're not nearly as rational as we like to believe. E. Here's a simple arithmetic question: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? The vast majority of people respond quickly and confidently, insisting the ball costs ten cents. This answer is both obvious and wrong. (The correct answer is five cents for the ball and a dollar and five cents for the bat.) F. The problem with this introspective approach is that the driving forces behind biases—the root causes of our irrationality—are largely unconscious, which means they remain invisible to self-analysis and impermeable to intelligence. In fact, introspection can actually compound the error, blinding us to those primal processes responsible for many of our everyday failings. We spin eloquent stories, but these stories miss the point. The more we attempt to know ourselves, the less we actually understand. G. In many instances, smarter people are more vulnerable to these thinking errors. Although we assume that intelligence is a buffer against bias—that's why those with higher S. A. T. scores think they are less prone to these universal thinking mistakes—it can actually be a subtle curse. Order: 41 →D→ 42 → 43 → 44 →C→ 45

完形填空　Our world of the mid-1990s faces potentially bursting change. The question is in what direction will it take us? 46) Will the change come from worldwide initiatives that reverse the degradation of the planet and restore hope for the future, or will it come from continuing environmental deterioration that leads to economic decline and social instability? 　　There is no precedent for the rapid substantial change we need to make. 47) Building an environmentally sustainable future depends on restructuring the global economy, major shifts in human reproductive behavior, and dramatic changes in values and lifestyles. Doing all this quickly adds up to a revolution that is driven and defined by the need to restore the earth''s environmental systems. If this Environmental Revolution succeeds, it will rank with the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions as one of the great economic and social transformations in human history. 　　Like the Agricultural Revolution, it will dramatically alter population trends. 48) While the former set the stage for enormous increases in human numbers, this revolution will succeed only if it stabilizes human population size, reestablishing a balance between people and natural system on which they depend. In contrast to the Industrial Revolution, which was based on a shift to fossil fuels, this new transformation will be based on a shift away from fossil fuels. 　　49) The two earlier revolutions were driven by technological advances―the first by the discovery of farming and the second by the invention of the steam engine, which converted the energy in coal into mechanical power. The Environmental Revolution, while it will obviously need new technologies, will be driven primarily by the restructuring of the global economy so that it does not destroy its natural support system. 　　The pace of the Environmental Revolution needs to be far faster than that of its predecessors. The Agricultural Revolution began some 10,000 years ago, and the Industrial Revolution has been under way for about two centuries. But if the Environmental Revolution is to succeed, it must be compressed into a few decades. Progress in the Agricultural Revolution was measured almost exclusively in the growth in food output that eventually enabled farmers to produce a surplus that could feed city dwellers. Similarly, industrial progress was gained by success in expanding the output of raw materials and manufactured goods. 50) The Environmental Revolution will be judged by whether it can shift the world economy into an environmentally sustainable development path, one that leads to greater economic security, healthier lifestyles, and a worldwide improvement in the human condition.

完形填空A. The particles examined in this study are known as PM2.5, or particulate matter that's 2.5 micrometers big—30 times smaller than a human hair. They are emitted by various types of industry and fuel burning, but in the United States, the biggest source of PM2.5 is cars, says Ziyad Al-Aly, the study's senior author and an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University at St. Louis. When there's lots of PM2.5 in the air, the air might look smoggy or hazy. In lighter concentrations, the particles are invisible. B. Previous research has found that Latino children living in areas with more air pollution had a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes. But other studies on the association between the two have generated mixed results. C. Scientists are just beginning to understand what exactly makes PM2.5 so harmful, but a major reason is that it's so small and contains toxic metals. Its size allows it to penetrate the lungs and enter the bloodstream. There, it can circulate to different organs and cause inflammation. The inflammation increases insulin resistance. Eventually, this insulin resistance can become so severe the pancreas becomes unable to pump out enough insulin to compensate, and diabetes can set in. D. It's fairly well known that a bad diet, a lack of exercise, and genetics can all contribute to type 2 diabetes. But a new global study points to an additional, surprising culprit: the air pollution emitted by cars and trucks. E. The study, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, linked data from 1.7 million American veterans who had been followed for a median of 8.5 years with air data from the EPA and NASA. It also aggregated past international research on diabetes and air pollution to devise a model to estimate diabetes risk based on the level of pollution, and it used the Global Burden of Disease study to estimate how many years of healthy life were lost due to this air-pollution-induced diabetes. Globally, 8.2 million years of healthy life were lost in 2016 to pollution-linked diabetes, it showed. The study authors controlled for things like obesity and BMI, so it wasn't the case that heavier people simply lived in more polluted neighborhoods and were also more likely to get diabetes. F. Though other research has shown a link between diabetes and air pollution in the past, this study is one of the largest of its kind, and it's unique because it both is longitudinal and includes several types of controls. What's more, it also quantifies exactly how many diabetes cases in the world are attributable to air pollution: 14 percent in 2016 alone. In the United States, it found, air pollution is responsible for 150,000 cases of diabetes. G. This new study makes an even stronger case, suggesting that the current limits on air pollution in the United States might be too high. The EPA's pollution threshold on particulate matter is 12μg/m3, or micrograms per cubic meter of air, but this study says the risk of diabetes starts at about 2.4μg/m3. Among people exposed to between five and 10μg/m3 of particulate matter, about 21 percent developed diabetes. At the threshold of current 'safe' levels, 24 percent do. For each 10μg/m3 increase in particulate matter, the risk of developing diabetes goes up by 15 percent. This risk is present regardless of whether the individual becomes obese or not. D→ 41 → 42 → 43 → 44 →B→ 45

完形填空 Perhaps more than any other profession, science places a premium on being correct. Of course, most scientists make plenty of mistakes 1 the way. Yet not all errors are created equal. Historians have 2 a number of instances in which an incorrect idea proved far more 3 than thousands of others that were trivially mistaken or 4 correct. These are the productive mistakes: errors that 5 on deep, fundamental features of the world around us and 6 further research that leads to major 7 . Mistakes they certainly are. But science would be far worse off without them. Niels Bohr, for example, created a 8 of the atom that was wrong in nearly every way, yet it 9 the quantum-mechanical revolution. 10 enormous skepticism, Alfred Wegener argued 11 centrifugal forces make the continents move (or 'drift') along the surface of the earth. He had the right phenomenon, albeit the wrong 12 . And Enrico Fermi thought that he had created nuclei heavier than uranium, rather than (as we now know) having stumbled 13 nuclear fission. Two other instances of productive mistakes, one from physics in the 1970's and one from biology in the 1940's illustrate this 14 dramatically. The authors of the mistakes were not hapless bumblers who 15 , in retrospect, to get lucky. 16 they steadfastly asked questions that 17 of their colleagues broached and 18 ideas that not many at the time had considered. In the process, they 19 the critical groundwork for today's burgeoning fields of biotechnology and quantum information science. They were 20 , and the world should be thankful for their errors.

完形填空 On April 20, 2000, in Accra, Ghana, the leaders of six West African countries declared their intention to proceed to monetary union among the non-CFA franc countries of the region by January 2003, as first step toward a wider monetary union including all the ECOWAS countries in 2004. The six countries 1 themselves to reducing central bank financing of budget deficits 2 10 percent of the previous years government 3 ; reducing budget deficits to 4 percent of the second phase by 2003; creating a Convergence Council to help 4 macroeconomic policies; and 5 up a common central bank. Their declaration 6 that, 'Member States 7 the need 8 strong political commitment and 9 to 10 all such national policies 11 would facilitate the regional monetary integration process.' The goal of a monetary union in ECOWAS has long been an objective of the organization, going back to its formation in 1975, and is intended to 12 broader integration process that would include enhanced regional trade and 13 institutions. In the colonial period, currency boards linked sets of countries in the region. 14 independence, 15 , these currency boards were 16 , with the 17 of the CFA franc zone, which included the francophone countries of the region. Although there have been attempts to advance the agenda of ECOWAS monetary cooperation, political problems and other economic priorities in several of the region's countries have to 18 inhibited progress. Although some problems remain, the recent initiative has been bolstered by the election in 1999 of a democratic government and a leader who is committed to regional 19 in Nigeria, the largest economy of the region, raising hopes that the long-delayed project can be 20 .

完形填空 In 1924 American National Research Council sent two engineer to supervise a series of experiments at a telephone-parts factory called the Hawthorne Plant near Chicago. It hoped they would learn how stop-floor lighting 1 workers productivity. Instead, the studies ended 2 giving their name to the 'Hawthorne effect', the extremely influential idea that the very 3 of being experimented upon changed subjects' behavior. The idea arose because of the 4 behavior of the women in the plant. According to 5 of the experiments, their hourly output rose when lighting was increased, but also when it was dimmed. It did not 6 what was done in the experiment; 7 something was changed, productivity rose. A(n) 8 that they were being experimented upon seemed to be 9 to alter workers' behavior 10 itself. After several decades, the same data were 11 to econometric the analysis. Hawthorne experiments has another surprise store 12 the descriptions on record, no systematic 13 was found that levels of productivity were related to changes in lighting. It turns out that peculiar way of conducting the experiments may have led to 14 interpretation of what happened. 15 , lighting was always changed on a Sunday. When work started again on Monday, output 16 rose compared with the previous Saturday and 17 to rise for the next couple of days. 18 , a comparison with data for weeks when there was no experimentation showed that output always went up on Monday, workers 19 to be diligent for the first few days of the week in any case, before 20 a plateau and then slackening off. This suggests that the alleged 'Hawthorne effect' is hard to pin down.

完形填空 What do you think of American health care system? Most people would be 1 by the high quality of medicine 2 to most Americans. There is a lot of specialization, a great deal of 3 to the individual, a 4 amount of advanced technical equipment, and 5 effort not to make mistakes because of the financial risk which doctors and hospitals must 6 in the courts if they 7 things badly. But the Americans are in a mess. To the problem is the way in 8 health care is organized and 9 . 10 to pubic belief it is not just a flee competition system. To the private system has been joined a large public system, because private care was simply not 11 the less fortunate and the elderly. But even with this huge public part of the system, 12 this year will eat up 84.5 billion dollars—more than 10 percent of the U.S. Budget—a large number of Americans are left 13 . These include about half the 11 million unemployed and those who fail to meet the strict limits 14 income fixed by a government trying to make savings where it can. The basic problem, however, is that there is no central control 15 the health system. There is no 16 to what doctors and hospitals charge for their services, other than what the public is able to pay. The number of doctors has shot up and prices have climbed. When faced with toothache, a sick child, or a heart attack, all the unfortunate persons concerned can do is to pay 17 . Two thirds of the population are 18 by medical insurance. Doctors charge as much as they want 19 that the insurance company will pay the bill. The rising cost of medicine in the U.S.A. is among the most worrying problems facing the country. In 1981 the country's health bill climbed 15.9 percent—about twice as fast as prices 20 general.

完形填空 MySpace and other Web sites have unleashed a potent new phenomenon of social networking in cyberspace, 1 at the same time, a growing body of evidence is suggesting that traditional social 2 play a surprisingly powerful and under-recognized role in influencing how people behave. The latest research comes from Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, at the Harvard Medical School, and Dr. James H. Fowler, at the University of California at San Diego. The 3 reported last summer that obesity appeared to 4 from one person to another 5 social networks, almost like a virus or a fad. In a follow-up to that provocative research, the team has produced 6 findings about another major health 7 : smoking. In a study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, the team found that a person's decision to 8 the habit is strongly affected by 9 other people in their social network quit—even people they do not know. And, surprisingly, entire networks of smokers appear to quit virtually 10 . For 11 of their studies, they 12 of detailed records kept between 1971 and 2003 about 5,124 people who participated in the landmark Framingham Heart Study. Because many of the subjects had ties to the Boston suburb of Framingham, Mass., many of the participants were 13 somehow-through spouses, neighbors, friends, co-workers—enabling the researchers to study a network that 14 12,067 people. Taken together, these studies are 15 a growing recognition that many behaviors are 16 by social networks in 17 that have not been fully understood. And 18 may be possible, the researchers say, to harness the power of these networks for many 19 , such as encouraging safe sex, getting more people to exercise or even 20 crime.

完形填空 Today, we live in a world where GPS systems, digital maps, and other navigation apps are all available on our smart phones. 1 of us just walk straight into the woods without a phone. But phones 2 on batteries, and batteries can die faster than we realize. 3 you get lost without a phone or a compass, and you 4 can't find north, a few tricks may help you navigate 5 to civilization, one of which is to follow the land. When you find yourself 6 a trail, but not in a completely 7 area of land, you have to answer two questions: Which 8 is downhill, in this particular area? And where is the nearest water source? Humans overwhelmingly live in valleys, and on supplies of fresh water. 9 , if you head downhill, and follow any H20 you find, you should 10 see signs of people. If you've explored the area before, keep an eye out for familiar sights—you may be 11 how quickly identifying a distinctive rock or tree can restore your bearings. Another 12 : Climb high and look for signs of human habitation. 13 , even in dense forest, you should be able to 14 gaps in the tree line due to roads, train tracks, and other paths people carve 15 the woods. Head toward the tree 16 to find a way out. At night, scan the horizon for 17 light sources, such as fires and streetlights, then walk toward the glow of light pollution. 18 , assuming you're lost in an area humans tend to frequent, look for the 19 we leave on the landscape. Trail blazes, tire tracks, and other features can 20 you to civilization.

完形填空Today we live in a world where GPS systems, digital maps, and other navigation apps are available on our smart phones

完形填空 A. In December of 1869, Congress appointed a commission to select a site and prepare plans and cost estimates for a new State Department Building. The commission was also to consider possible arrangements for the War and Navy Departments. To the horror of some who expected a Greek Revival twin of the Treasury Building to be erected on the other side of the White House, the elaborate French Second Empire style design by Alfred Mullett was selected, and construction of a building to house all three departments began in June of 1871. B. Completed in 1875, the State Department's south wing was the first to be occupied, with its elegant four-story library (completed in 1876), Diplomatic Reception Room, and Secretary's office decorated with carved wood, Oriental rugs, and stenciled wall patterns. The Navy Department moved into the east wing in 1879, where elaborate wall and ceiling stenciling and marquetry floors decorated the office of the Secretary. C. The State, War, and Navy Building, as it was originally known, housed the three Executive Branch Departments most intimately associated with formulating and conducting the nation's foreign policy in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century—the period when the United States emerged as an international power. The building has housed some of the nation's most significant diplomats and politicians and has been the scene of many historic events. D. Many of the most celebrated national figures have participated in historical events that have taken place within the EEOB's granite walls. Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, Gerald Ford, and George H. W. Bush all had offices in this building before becoming President. It has housed 16 Secretaries of the Navy, 21 Secretaries of War, and 24 Secretaries of State. Winston Churchill once walked its corridors and Japanese emissaries met here with Secretary of State Cordell Hull after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. E. The Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) commands a unique position in both the national history and the architectural heritage of the United States. Designed by Supervising Architect of the Treasury, Alfred B. Mullett, it was built from 1871 to 1888 to house the growing staffs of the State, War, and Navy Departments, and is considered one of the best examples of French Second Empire architecture in the country. F. Construction took 17 years as the building slowly rose wing by wing. When the EEOB was finished, it was the largest office building in Washington, with nearly 2 miles of black and white tiled corridors. Almost all of the interior detail is of cast iron or plaster; the use of wood was minimized to insure fire safety. Eight monumental curving staircases of granite with over 4,000 individually cast bronze balusters are capped by four skylight domes and two stained glass rotundas. G. The history of the EEOB began long before its foundations were laid. The first executive offices were constructed between 1799 and 1820. A series of fires (including those set by the British in 1814) and overcrowded conditions led to the construction of the existing Treasury Building. In 1866, the construction of the North Wing of the Treasury Building necessitated the demolition of the State Department building. 41 → C → 42 → 43 → F → 44 → 45

完形填空How does your reading proceed? Clearly you try to comprehend, in the sense of identifying meanings for individual words and working out relationships between them, drawing on your implicit knowledge of English grammar. 41 You begin to infer a context for the text, for instance, by making decisions about what kind of speech event is involved. Who is making the utterance, to whom, when and where. The ways of reading indicated here are without doubt kinds of comprehension. But they show comprehension to consist not just of passive assimilation but of active engagement in inference and problem-solving. You infer information you feel the writer has invited you to grasp by presenting you with specific evidence and clues. 42 Conceived in this way, comprehension will not follow exactly the same track for each reader. What is in question is not the retrieval of an absolute, fixed or 'tree' meaning that can be read off and checked for accuracy, or some timeless relation of the text to the world. 43 Such background material inevitably reflects who we are. 44 This doesn't, however, make interpretation merely relative or even pointless. Precisely because readers from different historical periods, places and social experiences produce different but overlapping readings of the same words on the page—including for texts that engage with fundamental human concerns—debates about texts can play an important role in social discussion of beliefs and values. How we read a given text also depends to some extent on our particular interest in reading it. 45 Such dimensions of reading suggest—as others introduced later in the book will also do—that we bring an implicit (often unacknowledged) agenda to any act of reading. It doesn't then necessarily follow that one kind of reading is fuller, more advanced or more worth-while than another. Ideally, different kinds of reading inform each other, and act as useful reference points for and counterbalances to one another. Together, they make up the reading component of your overall literacy, or relationship to your surrounding textual environment. A. Are we studying that text and trying to respond in a way that fulfils the requirement of a given course? Reading it simply for pleasure? Skimming it for information? Ways of reading on a train or in bed are likely to differ considerably from reading in a seminar room. B. Factors such as the place and period in which we are reading, our gender, ethnicity, age and social class will encourage us towards certain interpretations but at the same time obscure or even close off others. C. If you are unfamiliar with words or idioms, you guess at their meaning, using clues presented in the context. On the assumption that they will become relevant later, you make a mental note of discourse entities as well as possible links between them. D. In effect, you try to reconstruct the likely meanings or effects that any given sentence, image or reference might have had: These might be the ones the author intended. E. You make further inferences, for instance, about how the text may be significant to you, or about its validity—inferences that form the basis of a personal response for which the author will inevitably be far less responsible. F. In plays, novels and narrative poems, characters speak as constructs created by the author, not necessarily as mouthpieces for the author's own thoughts. G. Rather, we ascribe meanings to texts on the basis of interaction between what we might call textual and contextual material: between kinds of organization or patterning we perceive in a text's formal structures (so especially its language structures) and various kinds of back-ground, social knowledge, belief and attitude that we bring to the text.

完形填空 The question of parenting has become of increasing interest to economists. At the American Economic Association's annual meeting in Denver this year, for example, there was a 1 on the effect of mothers' employment on their children, as well as household 2 and child development. Economists are 3 increasingly on studies from epigenetics, which demonstrate the way parenting and other 4 factors transform genes. But 5 most debates regarding nature 6 nurture tend to look at what happens to people during childhood, Janet Currie, an economist at Columbia University, has looked at the effects that 7 might have on children even before they are born. In a paper 8 as the Richard T. Ely lecture at the A. E. A. meeting, she reviewed studies looking at 9 better maternal education and government food 10 can help raise birth weights among babies, an indicator that can 11 future health. Stopping smoking or taking drugs, not 12 , also improves birth weights. In examining the effects of pollution on birth weight, she 13 that one of the reasons poor, minority mothers tend to live 14 to polluted areas is that such neighborhoods tend to be viewed as blighted by more 15 and white residents, and that 16 home prices or rents are more 17 for those living on low incomes. She also posited the 18 that 'some groups are less able to process and act on information about hazards.' Ms. Currie 19 that because changes made by mothers or families while a baby is in the womb can affect birth weight, and in 20 , future health, 'we cannot assume that differences that are present at birth reflect unchangeable, genetic factors.'

完形填空Several types of financial risk are encountered in international marketing; the major problems include commercial, political risk and foreign exchange risk. 41 They include solvency, default, or refusal to pay bills. Their major risk, however, is competition which can only be dealt with through consistently effective management and marketing. 42 Such risk is encountered when a controversy arises about the quality of goods delivered, a dispute over contract terms, or any other disagreement over which payment is withheld. One company, for example, shipped several hundred tons of dehydrated potatoes to a distributor in Germany. 43 The alternatives for the exporter were reducing the price, reselling the potatoes, or shipping them home again, each involving considerable cost. Political risk relates to the problems of war or revolution, currency inconvertibility, expropriation or expulsion, and restriction or cancellation of import licenses. 44 Management information systems and effective decision-making processes are the best defenses against political risk. As many companies have discovered, sometimes there is no way to avoid political risk, so marketers must be prepared to assume them or give up doing business in a particular market. Exchange-rate fluctuations inevitably cause problems, but for many years, most firms could take protective action to minimize their unfavorable effects. 45 Before rates were permitted to float, devaluations of major currencies were infrequent and usually could be anticipated, but exchange-rate fluctuations in the float system are daily affairs. A. Political risk is an environmental concern for all businesses. B. One unique risk encountered by the international marketer involves financial adjustments. C. Commercial risks are handled essentially as normal credit risks encountered in day-to-day business. D. The distributor tested the shipment and declared in to be below acceptable taste and texture standards. E. Floating exchange rates of the world's major currencies have forced all marketers to be especially aware of exchange-rate fluctuations and the need to compensate for them in their financial planning. International Business Machine Corporation, for example, reported that exchange losses resulted in a dramatic 21.6 percent drop in their earnings in the third quarter to 1981. F. Many international marketers go bankrupt each year because of exchange-rate fluctuation. G. Anyone who gets into the stock market can not gloss over the risk brought by the political change.

完形填空 Most high school seniors have now heard back about their college applications, a process often cast as a kind of 'Hunger Games,' with young Americans battling it out for a chance to attend one of more than 3,000 four-year degree-granting colleges, seeking help wherever it may come, believing that the result will determine the course of their lives. But despite the crush of advisers proffering their supposed expertise for money, the endeavor is covered in some plausible shifts in what counts most during admission process. 41 In 2014, Time magazine offered a startling notion to frazzled parents and anxious students worried about their college admissions packages: Those finely honed, painstakingly crafted essays 'might not make a difference for your college admission chances.' After all, at some schools, the pool of applicants is much too large for every essay to be read—at the University of Pennsylvania, for instance, only 1 in 7 essays is a factor in an admission decision, according to the university's dean of admissions. 42 Although William Hurst, writing in Inside Higher Ed, called on schools to end the 'extracurricular arms race,' noting that 'many American high schools push their students to excel in as many extracurricular activities as they can, often because they think this helps those students gain admission to top colleges and universities.' When colleges and universities were thought to be seeking 'well-rounded' students, applicants with long lists of curricular and extracurricular activities stood out as great candidates thanks to their broad interests. Students were expected to engage in sports, cooking clubs, debate and, of course, community service. 43 These days eight Ivy League schools are known as some of the most selective colleges in the United States. But these aren't the most selective schools around. Stanford University often takes less than 5 percent, the smallest share of applicants, and it isn't in the Ivy League. MIT, Caltech and the University of Chicago, all with acceptance rates of about 8 percent for the Class of 2020, are more selective than some of the Ivies, too. Plus, many schools may take a higher proportion of applicants but are equally picky about their credentials: A liberal arts school like St. John's would look dubiously at a savant engineer from a technical high school who hadn't taken humanities classes in his final years. 44 'In most cases, taking an AP(Advanced Placement) class and getting a B is a better choice than getting an A in a regular one,' according to the Princeton Review. Kaplan, a test-prep business, agrees. What's more, schools often weight difficult classes more heavily when tabulating GPAs, so these tips seem to make sense. Colleges and universities like to see students take challenging courses in high school. As Peterson's, an admission and test-prep agency, explains, high schools use distinct grading systems and offer courses that have the same name but varying degrees of difficulty. 45 ''Diversity' isn't why colleges need affirmative action,' Bloomberg View's Noah Feldman declared in 2012. The fact that some universities, like Texas AM, have increased diversity while banning affirmative action might suggest that schools don't need such programs to keep their campuses diverse. But affirmative action programs do appear to increase diversity at colleges and universities. Today, affirmative action has lost much judicial support, and public opinion polls on these programs show mixed results. The Supreme Court permits race-conscious admissions policies at colleges and universities only to pursue 'diversity' in student populations, not to compensate African Americans for centuries of racially discriminatory public policy. A. Some admission measures that aroused ambivalent attitudes B. Admissions essays that don't matter C. University selecting criteria causing misunderstanding D. Elite universities where competitions are most fierce E. The more versatile, the better chance to succeed F. University candidates' neglect on admission counselors' advices G. Ordinary results in hard classes superior than excellences in easy ones

完形填空Even if families are less likely to sit down to eat together than was once the case, millions of Britons will none the less have partaken this weekend of one of the nations great traditions: the Sunday roast

完形填空　Anyone who has followed recent historical literature can testify to the revolution that is taking place in historical studies that currently fashionable subjects come directly from the sociology catalog: childhood, work, leisure. The new subjects are accompanied by new methods. Where history once was primarily narrative, it is now entirely analytic. The old questions "What happened?" and "How did it happen?" have given way to the question "Why did it happen?" 46) Prominent among the methods used to answer the question "Why" is psychoanalysis, and its use has given rise to psychohistory. 　　Psychohistory does not merely use psychological explanations in historical contexts. Historians have always used such explanations when they were appropriate and when there was sufficient evidence for them. But this practical use of psychology is not what psychohistorians intend. They are committed, not just to psychology in general, but to Freudian psychoanalysis. This commitment prevents a commitment to history as historians have always understood it. 47) Psychohistory derives its "facts" not from history, the detailed records of events and their sequences, but from psychoanalysis of the individuals who made history, and deduces its theories not from this or that instance in their lives, but from a view of human nature that transcends ( goes beyond) history. It denies the basic criterion of historical evidence: that evidence be publicly accessible to, and therefore assessable by, all historians. And it violates the basic belief of historical method: that historians be alert to the negative instances that would refute their theses. 48) Psychohistorians, convinced of the absolute rightness of their theories, are also convinced that theirs is the "deepest" explanation of any event, that other explanations fall short of truth. 　　Psychohistory is not content to violate the discipline of history; it also violates the past itself. 49) It denies to the past any integrity and will of its own, in which people acted out of a variety of motives and in which events had many causes and effects. It imposes upon the past the same determinism that it imposes upon the present, thus robbing people and events of their individuality and of their complexity. 50) Instead of respecting the particularity of the past, it assimilates all events, past and present, into a single deterministic schema that is presumed to be true at all times and in all circumstances

完形填空The philosophy of education is not a poor relation of general philosophy even though it is often so treated even by philosophers. It is ultimately the most significant phase of philosophy. 46) For it is through the processes of education that knowledge is obtained, while these ducational processes do not terminate in mere acquisition of knowledge and related forms of skill. They attempt to integrate the knowledge gained into enduring dispositions and attitudes. It is not too much to say that education is the outstanding means by which union of knowledge and the values that actually work in actual conduct is brought about. 47) The difference between educational practices that are influenced by a well-thought-out philosophy, and practices that are not so influenced is that between education conducted with some clear idea of the ends in the way of ruling attitudes of desire and purpose that are to be created, and an education that is conducted blindly, under the control of customs and traditions that have not been examined or in response to immediate social pressures. 48) This difference does not come about because of any inherent sacredness in what is called philosophy, but because any effort to clarify the ends to be attained is, as far as it goes, philosophical. 　　The need for such systematic clarification is especially urgent at the present time. Applications of natural science have made an enormous difference in human relations. They have revolutionized the means of production and distribution of commodities and services. They have effected an equally great change in communication and all the means for influencing the public opinion upon which political action depends. 49)These applications decide, more than any other force or set of forces, the conditions under which human beings live together and under which they act, enjoy and suffer. Moreover, they have produced communities that are in a state of rapid change. Wherever the effect of the applications of science has been felt, human relations have ceased to be static. Old forms have been invaded and often undermined, in the family, in politics and even in moral and religious habits as well as in the narrower field of economic arrangements. Almost all current social problems have their source here. 50) Finally, ends and values that were formed in the pre-scientific period and the institutions of great power that were formed in the same period retain their influence. Human life, both individually and collectively, is disturbed, confused and conflicting.