单选题The United States is widely recognized to have a private economy because privately owned business play (1) roles. The American free enterprise system (2) private ownership more than public sectors. Private businesses produce (3) goods and services, (4) almost two-thirds of the nation's total economic output goes to (5) for personal use. The consumer role is (6) great, in fact, that the nation is sometimes characterized as having a " (7) economy". This emphasis (8) private ownership arises, (9) , from American beliefs about personal freedom. From the time the nation was (10) , Americans have (11) excessive government power, and they have sought to (12) government's authority over individuals—including its role in the economic realm. (13) Americans generally believe that an economy largely with private ownership is likely to operate more (14) than (15) with substantial government ownership. When economic forces are unfettered, Americans believe, supply and demand (16) the prices of goods and services. Prices, in tum, tell businesses what to produce; if people want more of particular goods than the economy is producing, the price of the goods (17) . That catches the attention of new or other companies that, (18) an opportunity to earn profits, start producing more (19) that goods. On the other hand, if people want less of the goods, prices fall and less competitive producers either go out of business or start producing (20) goods.

单选题The fact that tsunamis appear more worrisome results from

单选题Back in the 1870s, Charles Darwin"s cousin Francis Galeton wanted to define the face of a criminal. He assembled photographs of men convicted of heinous crimes and made a composite by lining them up on a single photographic plate. The surprise: everybody liked the villain, including Galton himself. He reasoned that the villainous irregularities he supposed belonged to criminal faces had disappeared in the averaging process. In the next century, scientists began to show reliably that faces combined digitally on computers were likable—more so than the individual faces from which they were composed. Although people clearly admire the long legs of Brazilian model Ana Hickmann or Dolly Parton"s breasts, in general humans like averages. Researchers confirmed that humans judge real faces by their differences or similarities from a norm. But they also found that the norm can change quickly: When researchers showed 164 people sets of 100 computer-generated faces representing a slow transition from male to female—and from Japanese to Caucasian—it turned out that the test subjects" idea of what constitute an "average" face shifted depending on the first face they saw. When they were flashed a super masculine face first, more faces on the spectrum impressed them, by contrast, as female. The masculine face had, in effect, set a standard. From then on, other faces had to be more masculine in order to rate as belonging to the gender. The study noted a similar shift using a scale of faces moving from surprise to disgust. The authors, who published their results in the journal Nature, conclude that in real life we also quickly change ore" perception of the midpoint—what"s normal—depending on what we see. We may not be aware that our judgment has changed; we simply see differently, says Michael Webster, a psychologist at the University of Nevada in Reno and coauthor of the study. One implication is that individual and social attitudes toward what"s acceptable, and what"s beautiful, change over time. "If you look at plastic-surgery trends, in the 1950s and 1960s you saw little upturned noses," notes Harvard psychologist Nancy Etcoff, author of the book Survival of the Prettiest : The Science of Beauty. "Now the noses are broader and the lips are plumper. We"re seeing images from around the globe, and it"s changing our idea of the average. " So if you"re unhappy with some aspect of your face, take comfort: beauty is a moving target.

单选题Occasional self-medication has always been part of normal living. The making and selling of drugs has a long history and is closely linked, like medical practice itself, with the belief in magic. Only during the last hundred years or so has the development of scientific techniques made it possible for some of the causes of symptoms to be understood, so that more accurate diagnosis has become possible. The doctor is now able to follow up the correct diagnosis of many illnesses with specific treatment of their causes. In many other illnesses, of which the causes remain unknown, it is still limited, like the unqualified prescriber, to the treatment of symptoms. The doctor is trained to decide when to treat symptoms only and when to attack the cause—this is the essential difference between medical prescribing and self-medication. The advance of technology has brought about much progress in some fields of medicine, including the development of scientific drug therapy. In many countries public health organization is improving and people's nutritional standards have risen. Parallel with such beneficial trends are two which have an adverse effect. One is the use of high-pressure advertising by the pharmaceutical industry, which has tended to influence both patients and doctors and has led to the overuse of drugs generally. The other is the emergence of the sedentary society with its faulty ways of life: lack of exercise, over-eat-ing, unsuitable eating, insufficient sleep, excessive smoking and drinking. People with disorders arising from faulty habits such as these, as well as from unhappy human relationships, often resort to self-medication and so add the taking of pharmaceuticals to the list. Advertisers go to great lengths to catch this market. Clever advertising, aimed at chronic sufferers who will try anything because doctors have not been able to cure them, can induce such faith in a preparation, particularly if steeply priced, that it will produce—by suggestion—a very real effect in some people. Advertisements are also aimed at people suffering from mild complaints such as simple colds and coughs, which clear up by themselves within a short time. These are the main reasons why laxatives, indigestion remedies, painkillers, tonics, vitamin and iron tablets and many other preparations are found in quantity in many households. It is doubtful whether taking these things ever improves a person's health ; it may even make it worse. Worse because the preparation may contain unsuitable ingredients; worse because the taker may become dependent on them; worse because they might be taken in excess; worse because they may cause poisoning, and worse of all because symptoms of some serious underlying cause may be masked and therefore medical help may not be sought.

单选题When the author mentions the Indian fakir, he suggests that______.

单选题America acted quickly and decisively to the Great Recession, while Europeans seem paralyzed by the distant past. The swift and decisive U.S. response to the financial crisis and deep recession should be a model for other large developed economies. Yet Europe, which is now facing sovereign debt and banking problems and a slowdown in growth, seems reluctant to follow America's lead. The United States emerged from its 2008 economic cataclysm with relative speed because policymakers learned from history. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had famously internalized the charge that the central bank had contributed to the Great Depression. The frenzied response of the Bernanke Fed—guaranteeing all sorts of assets and markets, purchasing mortgage-backed securities, adopting a zero-interest rate policy, and expanding its balance shed to $ 2.3 trillion can be seen as signs of overcompensation. And from Japan's experience in the 1990s, the Fed learned the need for speed. While some critics have charged the U.S. fiscal stimulus was too small, the data suggest that the stimulus package has been a significant contributor to job retention and growth. Increased federal spending was needed in part to combat the declines in government spending by states. In the United States, the federal government helped prop up the states with injections of cash. In Europe, which lacks a powerful overarching federal government with the ability to tax and spend, fiscal policy is all bitter medicine and no spoonfuls of sugar. From the United Kingdom to the Czech Republic, and all points in between, governments are cutting spending and raising taxes. But these contractionary policies will retard economic growth, which will in turn lead to more problems for the banks. The European Central Bank and European governments are embracing fiscal austerity and comparative monetary tightness in these extraordinary times because they remain paralyzed by a terrible fear of inflation. The Federal Reserve has the dual mandate of controlling inflation and promoting employment. The ECB, by contrast, is concerned primarily with inflation. Never mind that the OECD data on inflation shows it is under control. The Europeans remain freaked out by the prospect of inflation at some point in the future. In its outlook, the OECD writes. "On inflation, the issue is not whether it is a risk today—it is not but whether it will be a risk in two years' time. " In the United States, the desire to avoid mistakes made in the distant and recent past has led to perhaps excessively vigorous fiscal and monetary policies. For Europeans, the desire to avoid mistakes made in the distant past has led to an excess of caution. When they look to history for guidance, European policymakers aren't looking at Washington in 2009, or Japan in the 1990s, or the United States in the 1930s. Rather, they look to Europe in the 1920s, a period when hyperinflation ravaged economies, disrupted the social order, destroyed social democracies, and led to the rise of Nazism.

单选题In terms of the future of the property market, Mr. Perry seems

单选题When it comes to suing doctors, Philadelphia is hardly the city of brotherly love. A combination of sprightly lawyers and sympathetic juries has made Philadelphia a hotspot for medical-malpractice lawsuits. Since 1995, Pennsylvania state courts have awarded an average of ＄ 2m in such cases, according to Jury Verdict Research, a survey firm. Some medical specialists have seen their malpractice insurance premiums nearly double over the past year. Obstetricians are now paying up to ＄104,000 a year to protect themselves. The insurance industry is largely to blame. Carol Golin, the Monitor's editor, argues that in the 1990s insurers tried to grab market share by offering artificially low rates (betting that any losses would be covered by gains on their investments). The stock-market correction, coupled with the large legal awards, has eroded the insurers' reserves. Three in Pennsylvania alone have gone bust. A few doctors--particularly older ones--will quit. The rest are adapting. Some are abandoning litigation-prone procedures, such as delivering babies. Others are moving parts of their practice to neighboring states where insurance rates are lower. Some from Pennsylvania have opened offices in New Jersey. New doctors may also be deterred from setting up shop in litigation havens, however prestigious. Despite a Republican president, tort reform has got nowhere at the federal level. Indeed doctors could get clobbered indirectly by a Patients' Bill of Rights, which would further expose managed care companies to lawsuits. This prospect has fuelled interest among doctors in Pennsylvania's new medical malpractice reform bill, which was signed into law on March 20th. It will, among other things, give doctors ＄ 40m of state funds to offset their insurance premiums, spread the payment of awards out over time and prohibit individuals from double2 dipping--that is, suing a doctor for damages that have already been paid by their health insurer. But will it really help? Randall Bovbjerg, a health policy expert at the Urban Institute, argues that the only proper way to slow down the litigation machine would be to limit the compensation for pain and suffering, so-called "non-monetary damages". Needless to say, a fixed cap on such awards is resisted by most trial lawyers. But Mr Bovbjerg reckons a more nuanced approach, with a sliding scale of payments based on well-defined measures of injury, is a better way forward. In the meantime, doctors and insurers are bracing themselves for a couple more rough years before the insurance cycle turns. Nobody disputes that hospital staff make mistakes: a 1999 Institute of Medicine report claimed that errors kill at least 44,000 patients a year. But there is little evidence that malpractice lawsuits on their own will solve the problem.

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}} It may not have generated much interest outside energy and investment circles, but a recent comment by Tidewater, Inc. president Dean Taylor sent earthquakes through the New Orleans business community. In June, Taylor told the Houston Chronicle that the international marine services company—the world's largest operator of ships serving the offshore oil industry—was seriously considering moving its headquarters, along with scores of administrative jobs, from the Crescent City to Houston, "We have a lot of sympathy for the city, " Taylor said. "But our shareholders don't pay us to have sympathy. They pay us to have resuits for them." It was the last thing the hurricane-scarred city needed to hear. Tidewater was founded here a little more than 50 years ago, and kept its main office in New Orleans throughout the oil bust of the-1980s and the following decades of industry consolidation, when dozens of energy firms all but abandoned New Orleans for greener pastures on the Texas coast. In the nearly two years since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city, the pace of exodus has accelerated, complicating New Orleans' halting recovery; according to the local business weekly CityBusiness, the metropolitan area has lost 12 of the 23 publicly traded companies headquartered here, taking white-collar jobs, Corporate community support and sorely needed taxpayers with them—and threatening to leave the city even more dependent on a tourismbased economy than it was before the storm. Making matters worse, some observers say, is the city leadership's apparent indifference to the bloodletting. Just weeks after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, Mayor Ray Nagin, then in the very early stages of a heated reelection bid, dismissed warnings that many companies, like displaced residents, might opt to relocate. Nagin said he hoped they would stay. "But if they don't," he said with typical glibness, "I'll send them a postcard. "The comment might have been written off as one of Nagin's many verbal missteps. But in the months that followed, the warnings turned out in many cases to be true, even as the city's rebuilding effort languished, infrastructure repairs limped along, the state reimbursement program for damaged homes faltered and the New Orleans' infamous crime rate made a sickening comeback. New Orleans "wasn't considered a great city for doing business before the storm. People were always dribbling out," says Peter Ricchiuti, a professor of economics at Tulane University. While many of the companies that made it through the storm could stand to benefit from the city's recovery, he says, Katrina may have hastened the loss of high-paying energy jobs. "We're losing the white-collar jobs and keeping the blue-collar jobs," he says. "We're becoming much more of a blue-collar oil industry." One of the latest examples is Chevron Corp. , which is building new offices in the northern suburbs, 40 miles north of the city across Lake Pontchartraln, and plans to transfer 550 employees from New Orleans to Covington by the end of the year. That would take well-paid people out of downtown New Orleans, a move that will impact the central business district's economy. "We made the decision in May, 2006, when our employees were making important housing decisions," says Qi Wilson, a Chevron spokesperson. The company; like many employees, decided the north shore offered better security should another hurricane strike, along with fewer of the post-Katrina headaches that still plague the city. The move "will make it easier to retain the talent we have, and to attract new talent," Wilson says.

单选题A deal is a deal—except, apparently, when Entergy is involved. The company, a major energy supplier in New England, provoked justified outrage in Vermont last week when it announced it was reneging on a longstanding commitment to abide by the state"s strict nuclear regulations. Instead, the company has done precisely what it would not: challenge the constitutionality of Vermont"s rules in the federal court, as part of a desperate effort to keep its Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant running. It"s a stunning move. The conflict has been surfacing since 2002, when the corporation bought Vermont"s only nuclear power plant, an aging reactor in Vernon. As a condition of receiving state approval for the sale, the company agreed to seek permission from state regulators to operate past 2012. In 2006, the state went a step further, requiring that any extension of the plant"s license be subject to Vermont legislature"s approval. Then, too, the company went along. Either Entergy never really intended to live by those commitments, or it simply didn"t foresee what would happen next. A string of accidents, including the partial collapse of a cooling tower in 2007 and the discovery of an underground pipe system leakage, raised serious questions about both Vermont Yankee"s safety and Entergy"s management—especially after the company made misleading statements about the pipe. Enraged by Entergy"s behavior, the Vermont Senate voted 26 to 4 last year against allowing an extension. Now the company is suddenly claiming that the 2002 agreement is invalid because of the 2006 legislation, and that only the federal government has regulatory power over nuclear issues. The legal issues in the case are obscure: whereas the Supreme Court has ruled that states do have some regulatory authority over nuclear power, legal scholars say that Vermont case will offer a precedent-setting test of how far those powers extend. Certainly, there are valid concerns about the patchwork regulations that could result if every state sets its own rules. But had Entergy kept its word, that debate would be beside the point. The company seems to have concluded that its reputation in Vermont is already so damaged that it has noting left to lose by going to war with the state. But there should be consequences. Permission to run a nuclear plant is a public trust. Entergy runs 11 other reactors in the United States, including Pilgrim Nuclear station in Plymouth. Pledging to run Pilgrim safely, the company has applied for federal permission to keep it open for another 20 years. But as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reviews the company"s application, it should keep in mind what promises from Entergy are worth.

单选题Like street comer prophets proclaiming that tile end is near, scientists who study the earth's atmosphere have been issuing predictions of impending doom for the past few years without offering any concrete proof. So far even the experts have had to admit that no solid evidence has emerged that this is anything but a natural phenomenon. And the uncertainty has given skeptics-especially Gingrichian politicians--plenty of ammunition to argue against taking the difficult, expensive steps required to stave off a largely hypothetical calamity. Until now, A draft report currently circulating on the Internet asserts that the global temperature rise can now be blamed, at least in part, on human activity. Statements like this have been made before by individual researchers-who have been criticized for going too far beyond the scientific consensus. But this report comes from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a respected UN sponsored body made up of more than 1,300 leading climate experts from 40 nations. This shift in scientific consensus is based not so much on new data as on improvements in the complex computer models that climatologists use to test their theories. Unlike chemists or molecular biologists, climate experts have no way to do lab experiments on their specialty. So they simulate them on supercomputers and look at what happens when human generated gases-carbon dioxide from industry and auto exhaust, methane from agriculture, chlorofluoro carbons from leaky refrigerators and spray cans-are pumped into the models virtual atmospheres. Until recently, the computer models weren't working very well. When the scientists tried to simulate what they believe has been happening over the past century or so, the results didn't mesh with reality; the models said the world should now he warmer than it actually is. The reason is that the computer models had been overlooking an important factor affecting global temperatures: sulfur dioxides that are produced along with CO2 when fossil fuels are burned in cars and power plants. Aerosols actually cool the planet by blocking sunlight and mask the effects of global warmning. Once the scientists factored in aerosols, their models began looking more like the real world. The improved performance of the simulations was demonstrated in 1991, when they successfully predicted temperature changes in the aftermath of the massive Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines. A number of studies since have added to the scientists confidence that they finally know what they are talking about-and can predict what may happen if greenhouse gases continue to be pumped into the atmosphere unchecked.

单选题According to the text, tax relief schemes were intended to______.

单选题Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the text?

单选题Generally speaking, a British is widely regarded as a quiet, shy and conservative person who is (1) only among those with whom he is acquainted. When a stranger is at present, he often seems nervous, even (2) . You have to take a commuter train any morning or evening to (3) the truth of this. Serious-looking businessmen and women sit reading their newspapers or dozing in a comer; hardly anybody talks, since to do so would be considered quite (4) . (5) , there is an unwritten but clearly understood code of behavior which, once broken, makes the offender immediately the object of (6) . It has been known as a fact that a British has a (7) for the discussion of their weather and that, if given a chance, he will talk about it (8) . Some people argue that it is because the British weather seldom (9) forecast add hence becomes a source of interest and (10) to everyone. This may be so. (11) a British cannot have much (12) in the weathermen, who, after promising fine, sunny weather for the following day, are often proved wrong (13) a cloud over the Atlantic brings rainy weather to all districts! The man in the street seems to be as accurate -- or as inaccurate as the weathermen in his (14) . Foreigners may be surprised at the number of references (15) weather that the British (16) to each other in the course of a single day. Very often conversational greetings are (17) by comments on the weather. "Nice day, isn't it?" "Beautiful!" may well be heard, instead of "Good morning, how are you?" Although the foreigner may consider this exaggerated and comic, it is (18) pointing out that it could be used to his advantage. If he wants to start a conversation with a British but is at a loss to know (19) to begin, he could do well to mention the state of the weather. It is a safe subject which will (20) an answer from even the most reserved of the British.