单选题Which of the following, according to the author, should play the leading role in the solution of environmental problems?

单选题Which of the following does the author mention as describing negative conditions in the meat- packing industry?

单选题PeopleSoft claims that the oracle's takeover of PeopleSoft

单选题{{B}}Part A{{/B}}{{B}}Directions:{{/B}}Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. {{B}}Text 1{{/B}} The Japanese government wants women like Taeko Mizuguchi to get married and start doing something about the nation's plunging birthrate. But she's not interested. At least, not if her prospective husband is Japanese. A growing number of Japanese women are giving up on their male counterparts, and taking a gamble that looking abroad for love will bring them the qualities in a partner that seem rare at home. "They treat you like equals, and they don't hesitate to express mutual feelings of respect -- I think Western men are more adept at such things than Japanese men," says the 36-year-old Ms. Miznguchi, who works at a top trading firm. "They don't act like women are maids -- I think they view women as individuals." Underscoring that Japanese women are losing hope with the local boys, dating agencies to help snag a Western husband have sprung up in Tokyo, some with branches in the US and Europe. Such companies rigorously vet their clients, screening for education, family background, occupation, and life goals. The kind of women who sign up for such services include doctors, lawyers, and other professionals -- women who have delayed marriage to concentrate on careers and who aren't keen to give up hard won gains to become a housewife, as many Japanese men expect. A generation of women who are now entering their 30s don't want to give up single life unless prospective partners are willing to break from traditional gender roles. Government polls conducted to find out why women have put off marriage until well after 25 years of age -- known as a woman's "'best before' date" -- show that economic independence is key to the change. As most Japanese women have their own income, marriage is no longer a financial necessity and women want to find companionship in a husband. Having ruled out an old-fashioned Japanese husband, many women here think the solution is a Western man. Indeed, some seem so enthralled with the idea that they are willing to spend thousands of dollars to inspect the wares personally. To be fair, not all the blame for female angst here can be laid on Japanese men. The government has been slow to enforce equal opportunity laws, and both pay and the glass ceiling in most Japanese corporations remain low for women. Recession has hampered longer maternity leave and other family-friendly policies. As Japan's fertility rate drops to new lows, the government is anxiously drawing up plans to make it easier for young couples to raise children, through such measures as the provision of cheap public housing.

单选题Capital City and Smithsville are two fairly large towns in the midwest near Chicago. Neither is as well known as Chicago. (1) the inhabitants of both are equally proud of their (2) hometown. People in Capital City love its quiet narrow (3) streets and its many small neighborhood parks, the boast (4) their hometown has no ugly slums, a low rate (5) crime, and very little heavy traffic. Because it is the seat of the state legislature, Capital City has many stately old buildings— (6) the lawyer's club in the park by the lake, and the country museum (7) its pioneer farm exhibits. Smithsville, (8) ,is a bustling, thriving, industrial center. It too has a lake, but (9) that of Capital City, its lake is the center of the city's industrial development. (10) trees and park benches, Smithsville's lake is surrounded by factories and smoking chimneys. Smithsville is also (11) its quieter neighbour in its style of (12) . The tall modern office buildings downtown, the new shopping center in the suburbs, and the wide crowded streets seem (13) to Smithsville's residents than the old-fashioned neighbourhoods (14) . When people from the more rural city (15) from a visit to Smithsville, they always say, "I'm glad to be home again. That lake makes me (16) . It's a fine place to visit, (17) I wouldn't want to live (18) ." (19) a visit to Capital City, citizens of Smithsville say (20) the same.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} 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In general, our society is becoming one of the giant enterprises directed by a bureaucratic management in which man becomes a small well-oiled cog in the machinery. The oiling is done with higher wages, well-ventilated factories and piped music, and by psychologists and "human relations" experts; yet all this oiling does not aver the fact that man has become powerless, that he is bored with it. In fact, the blue-collar and the white-collar workers have become economic puppets who dance to the tune of automated machines and bureaucratic management. The. worker and employee are anxious not only because they might find themselves out of a job, they are anxious also because they are unable to acquire any real satisfaction of interest in life. They live and die without ever having confronted the fundamental realities of human existence as emotionally and intellectually independent and productive human beings. Those higher up on the social ladder are no less anxious. Their lives are no less empty than those of their subordinates. They are even more insecure in some respects. They are in a highly competitive race. To be promoted or to fall behind is not a matter of salary but even more a matter of self-respect. When they apply for their first job, they are tested for intelligence as well as for the right mixture of submissiveness and independence. From that moment on then are tested again and again by the psychologists, for whom testing is a big business, and by their superiors, who judge their behavior,soeia bitity, capacity to get along, etc. This constant need to prove that one is as good as or better than one's fellow competitor ereates constant anxiety and stress, the very causes of unhappiness and illness. Am I suggesting that we should return to the pre-industrial mode of production or to nineteenth century "free enterprise" capitalism? Certainly not. Problems are never solved by returning to a stage which one has already outgrown. I suggest transforming our social system from a bureaucratically-man-aged industrialism in which maximal production and eonsumption are ends in themselves into a humanist industrialism in which man and full development of his potentialities—those of all love and of reason-are the aims of social arrangements. Production and consumption should serve only as means to this end, and should be prevented from ruling man.

单选题Fortunately there are still a few tasty things for us gourmands to enjoy in relative security. Their numbers, however, are depleted almost daily. It seems, by ruthless proclamations from the ever-vigilant Food and Drug Administration and its allies, our doctors. The latest felon to face prosecution is the salt of life, sodium chloride. Ostensibly, overuse of salt muses high blood pressure and hypertension, the cause of half the deaths in the United States every year. A few years ago the anti-salt campaigners raised such a rumpus that salt was banned from baby food. Currently pressure is being applied to food manufacturers to oblige them to label their products to show sodium content. Bemuse doing so would cost mercenary manufacturers money, they argue that they have no idea how much salt remains on such things as potato chips and how much sticks to the bag. Furthermore, salt isn't the only harmful ingredient in food. If the manufacturer has to provide sodium content, why not require him to list every ingredient and specify which are detrimental to our health? Cigarettes have a warning printed on them. Shouldn't the same type of warning appear on canned foods that are notoriously over-salted? There are endless ifs and buts in the controversy, but the most telling of these is the questionable proof of salt' s diabolic effect upon blood pressure. True, people who cut their salt intake lowered their blood pressure, but where is the scientific proof that something other than salt didn't do the trick? The most common means of providing dubious proof that salt causes hyper tension is to compare societies that use little salt with those that use mountains of salt in their daily diets. Which group has the higher rate of hypertension? Whose blood pressure is lower? What happens when salt is introduced into a group where salt is a novelty? Does the blood pressure rise significantly? Studies of the Japanese indicate that as the world's greatest salters, they suffer the most from hypertension. On the other hand, the simple, salt-free cuisine of several tribes in the Solomon Islands has kept older tribesmen and women from developing hypertension and high blood pressure, ailments traditionally killing their peers in America. No account is taken of the effects of inflation, recession, pollution, crime, and sundry other ills to which Americans unlike people on primitive islands, are exposed. To salt or not to salt? That is the question. Now that the question has arisen, it must not be treated with levity but, rather, with searching scientific investigation so that those of us who are preoccupied with both savory food and longevity may decide which of the two is worth its salt.

单选题The world religion is derived from the Latin noun religion, which denotes both (1) observance of ritual obligations and an inward spirit of reverence. In modern usage, religion covers a wide spectrum of (2) that reflects the enormous variety of ways the term can be (3) . At one extreme, many committed believers (4) only their own tradition as a religion, understanding expressions such as worship and prayer to refer (5) to the practices of their tradition. They may (6) use vague or idealizing terms in defining religion, (7) , true love of God, or the path of enlightenment. At the other extreme, religion may be equated with (8) , fanaticism, or wishful thinking. By defining religion as a sacred engagement with what is taken to be a spiritual reality, it is possible to consider the importance of religion in human life without making (9) about what is really is or ought to be. Religion is not an object with a single, fixed meaning, or (10) a zone with clear boundaries. It is an aspect of human (11) that may intersect, incorporate, or transcend other aspects of life and society. Such a definition avoid the drawbacks of (12) the investigation of religion to Western or biblical categories (13) monotheism or church structure, which are not (14) . Religion in this understanding includes a complex of activities that cannot be (15) to any single aspect of human experience. It is a part of individual life but also of (16) dynamics. Religion includes not only patterns of language and thought. It is sometimes an (17) part of a culture. Religious experience may be expressed (18) visual symbols, dance and performance, elaborate philosophical systems, legendary and imaginative stories, formal (19) , and detailed rules of some ways. There are as many forms of religious expression as there are human cultural (20) .

单选题Roadside billboards, posters on buses and subway escalators, ads in airport terminals—a type of publicity known as out-of-home advertising—used to be the dull end of the industry. No more. The falling price and improving quality of flat-screen displays mean that static posters printed on paper are being replaced by stylish digital commercials with moving pictures, sound and sometimes interactive features. William Eccleshare, who runs the international operations of Clear Channel, an American firm which is one of the largest out-of-home ad companies, thinks that in some countries more than 90% of its business will be digital by the decade"s end. His arch-rival, Jean-Charles Decaux, the boss of France"s JCDecaux, agrees that there will be a significant switch to digital, but mainly inside airports, railway stations, shopping malls and other controlled environments. Ads in bus shelters and other outdoor spots at risk of vandalism will take a lot longer to move away from paper, Mr. Decaux thinks. Digital displays already account for about one-quarter of his company"s sales in transport hubs, but for less than 5% in street furniture and billboards. Clear Channel is so optimistic about digital posters because it believes they offer enormous potential for making advertisements more effective. McDonald"s can advertise its sausage and egg McMuffin at breakfast time, change to its regular Big Mac fare at lunch and follow that with ads for apple pie and ice cream during teatime. When Spain won the football World Cup last year, digital billboards in Madrid, sponsored by Nike, showed the result within seconds. Advertisers constantly talk about wanting to "engage" with consumers, so they are taking great interest in the potential for interactivity that digital technology will bring. JCDecaux, for example, is offering a free iPhone application called U snap: when a consumer sees a poster (paper or digital) for something that attracts his interest and takes a photo of it on his phone, the app recognises it, gives him product information and discount vouchers and directs him to the nearest retailer. Then there is "gladvertising" and "sadvertising", an idea in which billboards with embedded cameras, linked to face-tracking software, detect the mood of each consumer who passes by, and change the advertising on display to suit it. Such Big Brotherish software would no doubt detect a satisfied grin on the faces of out-of-home advertising bosses as they contemplate the next 18 months, in which a string of big events will boost their business: the Rugby World Cup, the American presidential election, the Euro 2012 football championship and the London Olympics. Wherever you go, there will be no escape from ads linked to these events, and the out-of-home advertising firms will be raking it in.

单选题It is claimed here that word processor create ______.

单选题For months the Japanese searched fitfully for the right word to describe what was happening. At the Bank of Japan, the nation's central bank, officials spoke of "an adjustment phase." Prime Minister admitted only to "a difficult situation." The Economic Planning Agency, the government's record keeper, referred delicately to a "retreat." Then two weeks ago, for the first time since 1997, the agency dropped its boilerplate reference to the "expansion, from its closely watched Monthly Economic Report, and the word game was over. Japan's economy, the world's second largest, conceded the experts, was in recession. That admission confirmed the had news businessmen had been reading in their spreadsheets for several months. "In 2001 one market after another turned bad," says Yoshihiko Wakamoto, senior vice president of Toshiba Corp. , which now admits that its pretax profits for fiscal 2001, ending March 31, may be down a whopping 42%. In April, when many Japanese companies announce their results for 2001 fiscal Year, most will report declining profits. Blue chips like Sony, NEC and Matsushita have all experienced drops of over 40% in pretax profits. Japan's security houses, hit by declining commissions from a falling stock market, will announce even more dramatic drops. Nomura Securities, once Japan's most profitable company, is talking about an 80% decline in profits. Auto manufacturers, banks, airlines, steel companies, department stores —all are in a slump. Technically, what is happening to the Japanese economy does not meet American criteria for a recession, normally defined as at least two consecutive quarters of negative growth. While economic growth has slowed in Japan, it has not ceased. Government economists are predicting a 3.5% increase in GNP for 2002. Outside experts are not so optimistic. But nearly everyone agrees that GNP growth in Japan is unlikely to slip into negative numbers, as it did last year in the U. S. and Britain. "There's no question that we are in a recession," pronounces Kunio Miyamoto, chief economist of the Sumitomo-Life Research Institute. "But it is a recession, Japanese-style." During the last half of the 1990s, Japanese companies based much of their expansion around the world on the wildly inflated values of the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Japan's frenzied real estate market. Now both those markets have collapsed. And with long-term interest rates up from 5% to 7%, Japanese companies are less able to sell vast quantities of high-quality goods at razor-thin profit margins. Added to this are pressures from shareholders for a greater return on investments, from Japan's trading partners for restraints on its aggressive trade practices, and from its own citizens for a reduction in their working hours so they can enjoy the fruits of 40 years of relentless toil.