单选题If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in 2006's World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this strange phenomenon to be even more pronounced. What might account for this strange phenomenon? Here are a few guesses: a) certain astrological signs confer superior soccer skills; b) winter-born babies tend to have higher oxygen capacity, which increases soccer stamina; c) soccer-mad parents are more likely to conceive children in springtime, at the annual peak of soccer mania; d) none of the above. Anders Ericsson, a 58-year-old psychology professor at Florida State University, says he believes strongly in "none of the above." Ericsson grew up in Sweden, and studied nuclear engineering until he realized he would have more opportunity to conduct his own research if he switched to psychology. His first experiment, nearly 30 years ago, involved memory: training a person to hear and then repeat a random series of numbers. "With the first subject, after about 20 hours of training, his digit span had risen from 7 to 20," Ericsson recalls. "He kept improving, and after about 200 hours of training he had risen to over 80 numbers." This success, coupled with later research showing that memory itself is not genetically determined, led Ericsson to conclude that the act of memorizing is more of a cognitive exercise than an intuitive one. In other words, whatever inborn differences two people may exhibit in their abilities to memorize, those differences are swamped by how well each person "encodes" the information. And the best way to learn how to encode information meaningfully, Ericsson determined, was a process known as deliberate practice. Deliberate practice entails more than simply repeating a task, Rather: it involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome. Ericsson and his colleagues have thus taken to studying expert performers in a wide range of pursuits, including soccer. They gather all the data they can, not just performance statistics and biographical details but also the results of their own laboratory experiments with high achievers. Their work makes a rather startling assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers--whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming-- are nearly always made, not born.

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}}Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1. Advances in computers and data networks inspire visions of a future "information economy" in which everyone will have{{U}} (1) {{/U}}to gigabytes of all kinds of information anywhere and anytime,{{U}} (2) {{/U}}information has always been a{{U}} (3) {{/U}}difficult commodity to deal with, and, in some ways, computers and high-speed networks make the problems of buying,{{U}} (4) {{/U}}, and distributing information goods worse{{U}} (5) {{/U}}better. The evolution of the Internet itself{{U}} (6) {{/U}} serious problems.{{U}} (7) {{/U}}the Intemet has been privatized, several companies are{{U}} (8) {{/U}}to provide the backbones that will carry traffic{{U}} (9) {{/U}}local networks, but{{U}} (10) {{/U}}business models for intereonnectinn—who pays how much for each packet{{U}} (11) {{/U}}, for example—have{{U}} (12) {{/U}}to be developed.{{U}} (13) {{/U}}intereonnection standards are developed that make{{U}} (14) {{/U}}cheap and easy to transmit information across independent networks, competition will{{U}} (15) {{/U}}. If technical or economic{{U}} (16) {{/U}}make interconnection difficult,{{U}} (17) {{/U}}transmitting data across multiple networks is expensive or too slow, the{{U}} (18) {{/U}}suppliers can offer a signfficant performance{{U}} (19) {{/U}}; they may be able to use this edge to drive out competitors and{{U}} (20) {{/U}}the market.

单选题Directions:Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on the ANSWER SHEET. As Philadelphia grew from a small town into a city in the first half of the eighteenth century, it became an increasingly important marketing center for a vast agricultural hinterland. Market days {{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}the crowded city even more crowded, as farmers from within a {{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}}of 24 or more kilometers brought their sheep, vegetables, cider and other products for direct sale to the {{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}. The High Street Market was continuously {{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}throughout the period until 1736, {{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}it {{U}} {{U}} 6 {{/U}} {{/U}}from Front Street to Second. By 1745 New Market was opened on Third Street. The next year the Callow Hill Market began {{U}} {{U}} 7 {{/U}} {{/U}}. Along with market days, the {{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}of twice-yearly fairs persisted in Philadelphia {{U}} {{U}} 9 {{/U}} {{/U}}after similar trading days had been discontinued in other colonial cities. The {{U}} {{U}} 10 {{/U}} {{/U}}provided a means of bringing handmade goods from {{U}} {{U}} 11 {{/U}} {{/U}}places to would-be buyers in the city. Linens and stockings from Germantown, {{U}} {{U}} 12 {{/U}} {{/U}}, were popular items. Auctions were another popular {{U}} {{U}} 13 {{/U}} {{/U}}of trade. Because of the competition, retail {{U}} {{U}} 14 {{/U}} {{/U}}opposed these as well as the fairs. {{U}} {{U}} 15 {{/U}} {{/U}}governmental attempts to eradicate fairs and auctions were less than successful, the ordinary {{U}} {{U}} 16 {{/U}} {{/U}}of economic development was on the merchants' side, as increasing business specialization became the {{U}} {{U}} 17 {{/U}} {{/U}}of the day. Export merchants became differentiated from their importing counterparts, and specialty shops began to appear {{U}} {{U}} 18 {{/U}} {{/U}}general stores selling a variety of goods. One of the reasons Philadelphia's merchants prospered was because the surrounding area was undergoing tremendous economic and demographic growth. They did their business, {{U}} {{U}} 19 {{/U}} {{/U}}, in the capital city of the province, {{U}} {{U}} 20 {{/U}} {{/U}}to not only the governor and his circle, but citizens from all over the colony.

单选题Imagine a world in which there was suddenly no emotion--a world in which human beings could feel no love or happiness, no terror or hate. Try to imagine the consequences of such a transformation. People might not be able to stay alive: knowing neither joy nor pleasure, neither anxiety nor fear, they would be as likely to repeat acts that hurt them as acts that were beneficial. They could not learn: they could not benefit from experience because this emotionless world would lack rewards and punishments. Society would soon disappear: people would be as likely to harm one another as to provide help and support. Human relationships would not exist: in a world without friends or enemies, there could be no marriage, affection among companions, or bonds among members of groups. Society's economic underpinnings would be destroyed: since earning $10 million would be no more pleasant than earning $10, there would be no incentive to work. In fact, there would be no incentives of any kind. For as we will see, incentives imply a capacity to enjoy them. In such a world, the chances that the human species would survive are next to zero, because emotions are the basic instrument of our survival and adaptation. Emotions structure the world for us in important ways. As individuals, we categorize objects on the basis of our emotions. True we consider the length, shape, size, or texture, but an object's physical aspects are less important than what it has done or can do to us--hurt us, surprise us, anger us or make us joyful. We also use categorizations coloured by emotions in our families, communities, and overall society. Out of our emotional experiences with objects and events comes a social feeling of agreement that certain things and actions arc "good" and others are "bad", and we apply these categories to every aspect of our social life--from what foods we eat and what clothes we wear to how we keep promises and which people our group will accept. In fact, society exploits our emotional reactions and attitudes, such as loyalty, morality, pride, shame, guilt, fear and greed, in order to maintain itself. It gives high rewards to individuals when perform important tasks such as surgery, makes heroes out of individuals for unusual or dangerous achievements such flying fighter planes in a war, and Uses the legal and penal system to make people afraid to engage in antisocial acts.

单选题Several years ago, at the height of the dotcom boom, it was widely assumed that a publishing revolution, in which the printed word would be supplanted by the computer screen, was just around the corner. It wasn't: for many, there is still little to match the joy of reading a printed book and settling down for one hour. But recently some big technology companies, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo, contend that the dream of bringing books online is still very much alive. The digitizing of thousands of volumes of print is not without controversy. On Thursday, Google, the world' s most popular search engine, posted a first installment of books on Google Print. This collaborative effort between Google and several world's leading research libraries aims to make books available to be searched and read online free of charge. Although the books included so far are not covered by copyright, the plan has attracted the rage of publishers. Five large book firms are suing Google for violating copyright on material that it has scanned and, although out of print, is still protected by law. Google has said that it will only publish short extracts from material under copyright unless given express permission to publish more, but publishers are unconvinced. Ironically, many publishers are collaborating with Google Print Publisher, which aims to give readers an online taste of books that are commercially available. The searchable collection of extracts and book information is intended to tempt readers to buy the complete books online or in print form. Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, has made plans to enter the mass e-book market by selling a vast array of goods. Given that Google should impinge upon its central territory, Amazon revealed that it would introduce two new services. Amazon Pages will allow customers to search for key terms in selected books and then buy and read online whatever part they wish. Amazon Upgrade will give customers online access to books they have already purchased as hard copies. Customers are likely to have to pay five cents a page, with the bulk going to the publisher. Microsoft has also joined the online-book trend. In October, the software giant said it would spend around $ 200 million to digitize texts, starting with I50,000 that are in the public domain, to avoid legal problems. It will do so in collaboration with the Open Content Alliance. And on Thursday, coincidentally the same day as Google and Amazon announced their initiatives, Microsoft released details of a deal with the British Library, the country's main reference library, to digitize some 25 million pages ; these will be made available through MSN Book Search, which will be launched next year.

单选题Car makers have long used sex to sell their products. Recently, however, both BMW and Renault have based their latest European marketing campaigns around the icon of modern biology. BMW's campaign, which launches its new 3-series sports saloon in Britain and Ireland, shows the new creation and four of its earlier versions zigzagging around a landscape made up of giant DNA sequences, with a brief explanation that DNA is the molecule responsible for the inheritance of such features as strength, power and intelligence. The Renault offering, which promotes its existing Laguna model, employs evolutionary theory even more explicitly. The company's television commercials intersperse clips of the car with scenes from a lecture by Steve Jones, a professor of genetics at University of London. BMW's campaign is intended to convey the idea of development allied to heritage. The latest product, in other words, should be viewed as the new and improved scion of a long line of good cars. Renault's message is more subtle. It is that evolution works by gradual improvements rather than sudden leaps (in this, Renault is aligning itself with biological orthodoxy). So, although the new car in the advertisement may look like the old one, the external form conceals a number of significant changes to the engine. While these alterations are almost invisible to the average driver, Renault hopes they will improve the car's performance, and ultimately its survival in the marketplace. Whether they actually do so will depend, in part, on whether marketers have read the public mood correctly. For, even if genetics really does offer a useful metaphor for automobiles, employing it in advertising is not without its dangers. That is because DNA's public image is ambiguous. In one context, people may see it as the cornerstone of modern medical progress. In another, it will bring to mind such controversial issues as abortion, genetically modified foodstuffs, and the sinister subject of eugenics. Car makers are probably standing on safer ground than biologists. But even they call make mistakes. Though it would not be obvious to the casual observer, some of the DNA which features in BMW's ads for its nice, new car once belonged to a woolly mammoth—a beast that has been extinct for 10,000 years. Not, presumably, quite the message that the marketing department was trying to convey.

单选题During its formative years, the inner solar system was a rough-and-tumble place. There were a couple of hundred large objects flying around. Moon-size or bigger, and for millions of years they collided with one another. Out of these impacts grew the terrestrial planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth with its Moon, and Mars—and the asteroids. Scientists have thought of these collisions as mergers: a smaller object (the impactor) hits a larger one (the target) and sticks to it. But new computer modeling by Erik Asphaug and Craig B. Agnor of the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows that things weren't that simple. "Most of the time, the impactor and the target go off on their merry ways," Dr. Asphaug said. About half the collisions are these hit-and-nm affairs. Now the two researchers and a colleague, Quentin Williams. have done simulations to study the effects of these collisions on the impactors. They are not pretty. "The impactors suffer all kinds of fates," Dr. Asphaug said. They undergo tremendous shearing and gravitational forces that can cause them to fracture into smaller pieces or melt, causing chemical changes in the material and loss of water or other volatile compounds. Or the crust and cover can be stripped off. leaving just an embryonic iron core. The researchers, whose findings are published in Nature, discovered that two objects did not even have to collide to create an effect on the smaller one. from the gravitational forces of a near-collision. During the simulations. Dr. Asphaug said, "We'd look and say, 'Gosh, we just got rid of the whole atmosphere of that planetoid: it didn't even hit and it sucked the whole atmosphere off.'" The researchers suggest that the remains of these beaten-up, fractured and melted objects can be found in the asteroid belt. Dr. Asphaug said that could explain the prevalence of "iron relics" in the belt. Some of these planetoid remnants also eventually hit Earth: that would help explain why certain meteorites lack water and other volatile elements. The hit-and-run collision model also provides an explanation for Vesta. a large asteroid with an intact crust and cover. How did Vesta keep its cover while so many other objects were losing theirs? Dr. Asphang said it could be that Vesta was always the target, never the impactor, and was thus less affected. "It just had to avoid being the hitter," he said, "until bigger objects left the system./

单选题Freedom is one of the most difficult things to define, yet wars are fought to secure it. Pres. George W. Bush wants freedom for the entire world, but the question remains whether some might not want it and, if they do, cannot handle it. Many desire to be "free of their freedom," for the latter requires assuming responsibility for one's actions. It is easier to have others choose for us. Freedom has many meanings arid applications. There is political freedom, involving the ability to choose one's own form of government, hold elections, etc. Professors are concerned with academic freedom, namely to teach and publish in accord with their scholarly findings. These, though, are secondary meanings and presumably are grounded in something fundamental to the nature of humans. This is called moral freedom—but there's the rub of it. Is such freedom an illusion? One cannot ignore Sigmund Freud's massive unconscious as a factor in why we act the way we do. Moreover, psychological literature suggests" obsessive-compulsive" acts as more commonplace than we realize. Alcoholics and drug addicts are told they cannot help themselves; instead, they need others to help them break their habit. Let's face it, we seem to be evolving into a "no fault" society in which freedom is an empty term. It certainly is easy to rationalize that this or that action really was not free, as one can say we are the product of our genes, passions, and culture. But Jean-Paul Sartre disagreed that freedom is an illusion, claiming instead that it is the very essence of man. Freedom is a human's distinguishing mark. Essentially, a human is no-thing, and therein lies his freedom. Although freedom may not be an illusion, in many cases it is illusory. Is it true to say piously (虔诚地) that the cure for any ills in democracy is more democracy, i.e. freedom? The Patriot Act certainly raises many hackles as an infringement (侵犯) on freedom; trading civil liberties for security—part of a seemingly continuing trend in society. How strong is the argument that if we are not free, then laws and prohibitions make no sense? Does knowledge, a seemingly necessary component involved in free acts, restrict or enlarge our freedom? The Socratic position is that, if one really knew what was right, one would do what was right. Moslems maintain that it is the "will of Allah" that governs all things and we only can hope to conform to it. This is not entirely foreign to Christian theology. The problem of predestination is a formidable one challenging freedom, maintaining as it does that, even before creation. Like most dilemmas posed by philosophy, perhaps it should be taken with reserve: "All arguments," concluded 19th-century philosopher and psychologist William James, "are against freedom; all experience is for it./

单选题Deep-fried beer may sound scrumptious, but is it patentable? Mark Zable, an inventive Texan, thinks it is. To protect his novel production process, which involves encasing the alcohol in batter and dunking it in a fryer, he recently applied for a patent. He wants to profit if others exploit his beery brainwave. Without patents to protect their creations, inventors would have little incentive to invent. But some Americans fret that patent protection has grown too strong. The system breeds so many lawsuits, they worry, that it throttles the innovation it is supposed to promote. Consider a suit filed on August 27th by Interval Licensing, a firm owned by Paul Allen, a cofounder of Microsoft. It targets everyone who is anyone in Silicon Valley, including Google, Apple, eBay, Yahoo! and Facebook. (But not Microsoft. ) It involves four patents covering inventions that improve an internet user's online experience, such as suggestions for further reading related to a news article and pop-up features that display share prices. Interval claims these were pioneered at Mr. Allen's now defunct Silicon Valley research laboratory and then patented between 2000 and 2004. It accuses each of its targets of violating one or more of the patents. Their response has been swift. Facebook called the suit "completely without merit" while Google harrumphed about "people trying to compete in the courtroom instead of the marketplace". In private, some executives accuse Mr. Allen of behaving like a "patent troll"—a name given to firms that buy up patents solely in order to squeeze money out of companies that allegedly infringe them. Tech firms like trolls about as much as the Billy Goats Gruff did. An aggressive troll can hold up a billion-dollar product over a patent worth a fraction of that. By that strict definition, Mr. Allen is not a troll. The suit involves advances that Interval says were made in Mr. Allen's own lab, not someone else's. But the case does have some trollish features, say Mr. Allen's critics. Why, they ask, did Interval wait so long to assert its rights? Was it tempted by the large piles of cash that so many tech firms built up during the downturn? "Successful tech companies undoubtedly face a problem with out-of-the-blue patent suits," says Michael Jacobs of Morrison & Foerster, a law firm, who notes that the vast majority of cases end up producing formal licensing deals of some kind or other. According to PatentFreedom, a body that tracks the activity of what it calls "non-practising entities", or outfits such as Acacia Research that collect patents without intending to use the underlying technology in products, the number of court cases brought by them has risen sharply, from 109 in 2001 to 470 last year. Efforts to address this problem through the courts have so far failed. Legislation designed to improve matters is still stuck in Congress. So companies are looking for other ways to protect themselves. RPX, a firm that specialises in "defensive buying" of potentially problematic tech patents, has seen its client base more than double this year to almost 60 companies, including Dell and HewlettPackard. The firm licenses its entire portfolio of 1,500 or so patents and rights to its members in return for an annual fee based on their operating income. John Amster, RPX's boss, says that although the firm can't eliminate patent risk, it offers a cost-effective way to reduce it. That is worth celebrating—perhaps with a deep-fried beer.

单选题Policies in the social sciences target to

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} An industrial society, especially one as centralized and concentrated as that of Britain, is heavily dependent on certain essential services: for instance, electricity supply, water, rail and road transport, and harbors. The area of dependency has widened to include removing rubbish, hospital and ambulance services, and, as the economy develops, central computer and information services as well. If any of these services ceases to operate, the whole economic system is in danger. It is this economic interdependency of the economic system which makes the power of trade unions such an important issue. Single trade unions have the ability to cut off many countries' economic blood supply. This can happen more easily in Britain than in some other countries, in part because the labor force is highly organized. About 55 percent of British workers belong to unions, compared to under a quarter in the United States. For historical reasons, Britain's unions have tended to develop along trade and occupational lines, rather than on an industry-by-industry basis, which makes a wages policy, democracy in industry and the improvement of procedure for fixing wage levels difficult to achieve. There are considerable strains and tensions in the trade union movement, some of them arising from their outdated and inefficient structure. Some unions have lost many members because of their industrial changes. Others are involved in arguments about who should represent workers in new trades. Unions for skilled trades are separate from general unions, which mean that different levels of wages for certain jobs are often a source of bad feeling between unions. In traditional trades which are being pushed out of existence by advancing technologies, unions can fight for their members' disappointing jobs to the point where the jobs of other union members are threatened or destroyed. The printing of newspapers both in the United States and in Britain has frequently been halted by the efforts of printers to hold on to their traditional highly-paid jobs. Trade unions have problems of internal communication just as managers in companies do, problems which multiply in very large unions or in those which bring workers in very different industries together into a single general union. Some trade union officials have to be re-elected regularly; others are elected, or even appointed, for life. Trade union officials have to work with a system of "shop stewards" in many unions, "shop stewards" being workers elected by other workers as their representatives at factory or works level. (411 words)

单选题 (1) exactly a year ago, in a small village in Northern India, Andrea Milliner was bitten on the leg by a dog. "It must have (2) your nice white flesh", joked the doctor (3) he dressed the wound. Andrea and her husband Nigel were determined not to let it (4) their holiday, and thought no more about the dog, which had meanwhile (5) disappeared from the village. "We didn't (6) there was anything wrong with it," says Nigel. "It was such a small, (7) dog that rabies didn't (8) my mind". But, six weeks later, 23-year-old Andrea was dead. The dog had been rabid. No one had thought it necessary to (9) her antirabies treatment. When, back home in England, she began to show the classic (10) unable to drink, catching her breath her own doctor put it (11) to hysteria. Even when she was (12) into an (13) , hallucinating, recoiling in terror at the sight of water, she was directed (14) the nearest mental hospital. But if her symptoms (15) little attention in life, in death they achieved a publicity close to hysteria. Cases like Andrea are (16) , but rabies is still one of the most feared diseases known to man. The disease is (17) by a bite of a lick from an (18) animal. It can, in very (19) circumstances, be inhaled-- two scientists died of it after (20) bat dung in a cave in Texas.