单选题The analogy drawn between the earth and a spaceship is to illustrate the idea of ______ on earth.

单选题How many salmon were there every spring in British Columbia's rivers four years earlier?

单选题The elephants of Thailand used never to be short of work hauling timber. But most of the country's forests have been cut down, and logging is now banned to save the few that are left. The number of domesticated elephants left in the country is now only 2,500 or so. down from about 100,000 a century ago. Though being the national animal of Thailand earns an elephant plenty of respect, this does not put grass on the table. Thai elephants these days take tourists on treks or perform in circuses, and are sometimes to be seen begging for bananas on the streets of Bangkok. Some of the 46 elephants living at the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, a former government logging camp near Lampang, have found a new life in music. The Thai Elephant Orchestra is the creation of two Americans, Richard Lair, who has worked with Asian elephants for 23 years, and David Soldier, a musician and neuroscientist with a taste for the avant-garde. They provided six of the center's elephants, aged 7 to 18, with a variety of percussion and wind instruments. Those familiar with Thai instruments will recognize the slit drums, the gong, the bow bass, the xylophone-like rants, as well as the thunder sheet. The only difference is that the elephant versions are a bit stronger. The elephants are given a cue to start and then they prepare. They clearly have a strong sense of rhythm. They flap their ears to the beat, swish their tails and generally rock back and forth. Some add to the melody with their own trumpeting. Elephant mood-music could have a commercial future, Mr. Soldier believes. He has even produced a CD on the Mulatta label—it is available at www.mulatta. org—with 13 elephant tracks. It is real elephant music, he says, with only the human noises removed by sound engineers. But is it music? Bob Halliday, music critic of the Bangkok Post, says it is. He commends the elephants for being "so communicative". Anyone not knowing that it was elephant music, he says, would assume that humans were playing. Some of the elephants in the band have also tried their hand at painting, tending to favor the abstract over the representational style. Their broad-stroke acrylic paintings last year helped raise some $25,000 at a charity auction at Christie's in New York, and a London gallery has also taken some of their work. These art sales, together with profits from the CD, are helping to keep the centre going. A second CD is on the way. It will be less classical, more pop.

单选题Is athletic expertise attained or innate? Those who have suffered the tongue-lashing of a cruel games master at school might be forgiven for doubting the idea that anyone and everyone is capable of great sporting achievement, if only they would put enough effort into it. Practice may make perfect, but not all are built in ways that make it worth bothering in the first place. The latest evidence of this truth has been gathered by Sabrina Lee of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and Stephen Piazza at Pennsylvania State University. They have looked at the physical structure of short-distance runners and found that their feet are built differently from those of couch potatoes. Dr. Lee and Dr. Piazza already knew that short-distance runners tend to have a higher proportion of fast- contracting muscle fibres in their legs than more sedentary folk can muster. They suspected, though, that they would find differences in the bone structure as well. And they did. They looked at seven university sprinters who specialize in the 100-metre dash and five 200-metre specialists, and compared them with 12 non-athletic university students of the same height. In particular, they looked at the sizes of bones of the toes and heel. They also used ultrasonic scanning to measure the sliding motion of the Achilles tendons of their volunteers as their feet moved up and down. This allowed them to study the length of the lever created by the tendon as it pulls on the back of the heel to make the foot flex and push off the ground. Dr. Lee and Dr. Piazza found that the toes of their short-distance runners averaged 8.2cm in length, while those of common people averaged 7.3cm. The length of the lever of bone that the Achilles tendon pulls on also differed, being a quarter shorter in short-distance runners. These findings suggest short-distance runners get better contact with the ground by having longer toes. That makes sense, as it creates a firmer platform to push against. In a short-distance running race, acceleration off the block is everything. Cheetahs, the champion of short-distance runners of the animal kingdom, have non-flexible claws that give a similar advantage. It is possible—just—that the differences in physical structure are the result of long and rigorous training. But it is unlikely. Far more probable is that the old saying of coaches, that great short-distance runners are born not made, is true. Everyone else, games masters included, should just get used to the idea.

单选题{{B}}Text 1{{/B}} Everybody loathes it, but everybody does it A recent poll showed that 20% of Americans hate the practice. It seems so arbitrary, after all. Why does a barman get a tip, but not a doctor who saves lives? In America alone, tipping is now a $ 16 billion-a-year industry. Consumers acting rationally ought not to pay more than they have to for a given service. Tips should not exist. So why do they? The conventional wisdom is that tips both reward the efforts of good service and reduce uncomfortable feelings of inequality. The better the service, the bigger the tip. Such explanations no doubt explain the purported origin of tipping--in the 16th century, boxes in English taverns carried the phrase "To Insure Promptitude" (later just "TIP") . But according to new research from Cornell University, tipping no longer serves any useful function. The paper analyses data from 2, 327 groups dining at 20 different restaurants. The correlation between larger tips and better service was very weak: only a tiny part of the variability in the size of the tip had anything to do with the quality of service. Customers who rated a meal as "excellent" still tipped anywhere between 8% and 17% of the meal price. Tipping is better explained by culture than by economics. In America, the custom has become institutionalized: it is regarded as part of the accepted cost of a service. In a New York restaurant, failing to tip at least 15% could well mean abuse from the waiter. Hairdressers can expect to get 15-20%, the man who delivers your groceries＄2. In Europe, tipping is less common; in many restaurants, discretionary tipping is being replaced by a standard service charge. In many Asian countries, tipping has never really caught on at all. How to account for these national differences? Look no further than psychology. According to Michael Lynn, the Cornell paper's co-author, countries in which people are more extrovert, sociable or neurotic tend to tip more. Tipping relieves anxiety about being served by strangers. And, says Mr. Lynn, "In America, where people are outgoing and expressive, tipping is about social approval, ff you tip badly, people think less of you. Tipping well is a chance to show off." Icelanders, by contrast, do not usually tip-a measure of their introversion, no doubt. While such explanations may be crude, the hard truth seems to be that tipping does not work. It does not benefit the customer. Nor, in the case of restaurants, does it actually stimulate the waiter, or help the restaurant manager to monitor and assess his staff. Service people should "just be paid a decent wage" which may actually make economic sense.

单选题The writer listed _____ problems that frustrated him during the service.

单选题In the text, the author is primarily concerned with

单选题{{B}}Text 1{{/B}} When Melissa Mahan and her husband visited the Netherlands, they felt imprisoned by their tour bus. It forced them to see the city according to a particular route and specific schedule--but going off on their own meant missing out on the information provided by the guide. On their return home to San Diego, California, they started a new company called Tour Coupes. Now, when tourists in San Diego rent one of their small, brightly coloured three-wheeled vehicles, they are treated to a narration over the stereo system about the places they pass, triggered by Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite technology. This is just one example of how GPS is being used to provide new services to tourists. "What we really have here is a technology that allows people to forget about the technology," says Jim Carrier of IntelliTours, a GPS tourism firm which began offering a similar service over a year ago in Montgomery, Alabama. The city is packed with sites associated with two important chapters in American history, the civil war of the 1860s and the civil-rights movement a century later. Montgomery has a 120-year-old trolley system, called the Lightning Route, which circulates around the downtown area and is mainly used by tourists. On the Lightning Route trolleys, GPS-triggered audio clips point out historical hotspots. Other firms, such as CityShow in New York and GPS Tours Canada in Banff, Canada, offer hand-held GPS receivers that play audio clips for listening to while walking or driving. In South Africa, Europcar, a car-rental firm, offers a device called the Xplorer. As well as providing commentary on 2 000 points of interest, it can also warn drivers if they exceed the local speed limit. If such services prove popular, the use of dedicated audio-guide devices could give way to a different approach. A growing number of mobile phones have built-in GPS or can determine their locations using other technologies. Information for tourists delivered via phones could be updated in real time and could contain advertisements. "Location-based services", such as the ability to call up a list of nearby banks or pizzerias, have been talked about for years but have never taken off. But aiming such services at tourists makes sense--since people are more likely to want information when in an unfamiliar place. It could give mobile roaming a whole new meaning.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} If open-source software is supposed to be free, how does anyone selling it make any money? It's not that different from how other software companies make money. You'd think that a software company would make most of its money from, well, selling software. But you'd be wrong. For one thing, companies don't sell software, strictly speaking; they license it. The profit margin on a software license is nearly 100 percent, which is why Microsoft gushes billions of dollars every quarter. But what's the value of a license to a customer? A license doesn't deliver the code, provide the utilities to get a piece of software running, or answer the phone when something inevitably goes wrong. The value of software, in short, doesn't lie in the software alone. The value is in making sure the soft- ware does its job. Just as a traveler should look at the overall price of a vacation package instead of obsessing over the price of the plane ticket or hotel mom, a smart tech buyer won't focus on how much the license costs and ignore the support contract or the maintenance agreement. Open-source is not that different. If you want the software to work, you have to pay to ensure it will work. The open-source companies have refined the software model by selling subscriptions. They roll together support and maintenance and charge an annual fee, which is a healthy model, though not quite as wonderful as Microsoft's money-raking one. Tellingly, even Microsoft is casting an envious eye at aspects of the open-source business model. The company has been taking halting steps toward a similar subscription scheme for its software sales. Microsoft's subscription program, known as Soft- ware Assurance, provides maintenance and support together with a software license. It lets you up- grade to Microsoft's next version of the software for a predictable sum. But it also contains an implicit threat: If you don't switch to Software Assurance now, who knows how much Microsoft will charge you when you decide to upgrade? Chief information officers hate this kind of *'assurance", since they're often perfectly happy running older versions of software that are proven and stable. Microsoft, on the other hand, rakes in the software-licensing fees only when customers upgrade. Software Assurance is Microsoft's attempt to get those same licensing fees but wrap them together with the service and support needed to keep systems running. That's why Microsoft finds the open-source model so threatening: open-source companies have no vested interest in getting more licensing fees and don't have to pad their service contracts with that extra cost. In the end, the main difference between open-source and proprietary software companies may be the size of the check you have to write.

单选题Noel Heath and Glenroy Matthew are probably

单选题Millions of dollars often depend on the choice of which commercial to use in launching a new product. So you show the commercials to a (1) of typical consumers and ask their opinion. The answers you get can sometimes lead you into a big (2) . Respondents may lie just to be polite. Now some companies and major advertising (3) have been hiring voice detectives who test your normal voice and then record you on tape (4) commenting on a product. A computer analyzes the degree and direction of change (5) normal. One kind of divergence of pitch means the subject (6) Another kind means he was really enthusiastic. In a testing of two commercials (7) children, they were. vocally, about equally (8) of both. but the computer reported their emotional (9) in the two was totally different. Most major commercials are sent for testing to theaters (10) with various electronic measuring devices. People regarded as (11) are brought in off the street. Viewers can push buttons to (12) whether they are interested or bored. Newspaper and magazine groups became intensely interested in testing their ads for a product (13) TV ads for the same product. They were interested because the main (14) of evidence shows that people (15) a lot more mental activity when they read (16) when they sit in front of the TV set. TV began to be (17) "a low-involvement" (18) . It is contended that low involvement means that there is less (19) that the ad message will be (20) . Notes: commercial 广告。pitch 音调。

单选题Banish soft drinks from school vending machines. Cut down on Happy Meals. Load school lunches with fruits and vegetables. Pull the plug on the television and shove kids outdoors. Those are some of the weapons that schools, doctors and parents wield to prevent overweight kids from packing on more pounds. But there's another possibility: Surgically implant an inflatable silicone band around the top of the stomach to restrict food intake. That way, people eat smaller meals. Banding works for many adults. Now Allergan Inc. , a maker of the band, is asking the Food and Drug Administration to approve its device for morbidly obese adolescents as young as 14. You may or may not find this hard to stomach. We suspect your response will depend on your view of the causes of obesity, teen and otherwise. If you think losing weight is only a matter of will power, then you probably will figure this is another stab at a quick-fix that can't work for long. But here's why we can't dismiss it. Chicago is a national epicenter for childhood obesity. From toddlers to teens, Chicago's children far exceed national averages for obesity. An obese teen faces a lifetime of increased health risks. The band surgery wouldn't be for the girl who wants to shed 25 pounds to fit into a dancing party dress. This would be for the morbidly obese—adolescents 100 pounds or more overweight. The surgery is safe and effective for adults. In limited trials, it has helped obese teens. A 2010 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found banding surgery to be far more effective than diet and exercise programs in helping teens shed significant poundage. Of 25 patients who got the surgery, 21 lost more than half their excess weight. By contrast, only three of 25 teens on a supervised dieting and exercise program lost that much weight. The prospect of such surgery on a teen should give pause to parents and doctors. But let's remember that this is envisioned as a last resort for teens who are 100 pounds or more overweight. Before they're cleared for surgery, kids would have to show they diligently tried other weight loss methods. That they could stabilize their weight in preparation for surgery. And that they're ready to follow through with psychological counseling and other after-surgery programs. Parents and kids need to know: There is no quick, pain-free way around diet and exercise as a weight control. Pills, gastric surgery and other shortcuts may help some for a while. But even surgery likely won't be effective for long if you don't change the way you think about food and about controlling portions. Yes, we share concerns that once doctors start ratcheting up the numbers of these surgeries, they won't stop at the small numbers of extremely overweight teens. But that's for doctors and parents to monitor. The FDA should allow the band to be marketed for adolescents, to give them a chance at a normal, healthy life.

单选题The onset of a new generation of computer attacks was marked by ______.