单选题According to the passage, which organizations raised the proposal to stop the practice of lie detection evidence in military court?______

单选题It can be seen from the passage that the problem of resource conservation in agriculture______

单选题Europe has long prided itself on the notion that, even if its cousin across the At- lantic had surpassed it in matters geopolitical and military, its cultural cachet remained unrivaled. Europe was the capital of great literature, haute couture, the nouvelle vague. American culture may have spread to even the most remote reaches of the globe, but it was lowbrow. Superman and Hollywood blockbusters versus Picasso and Cannes. But, as it turns out, America is actually winning the culture race for global audiences and leaving Europe in the dust, says French journalist Frtdtric Martel in his book, Mainstream. Martel spent five years traveling to 30 countries to conduct his research, and his conclusions are striking, especially coming from a Frenchman. American businesses are far smarter than their European counterparts at using new digital materials to distribute movies, music, television shows, and books all around the globe. Most of all, they excel in producing a "culture that everyone likes," says Martel. But mainstream doesn't only mean Americanized. The strength of the U.S. is to be able to create universal content that caters to different interests. Yet the U.S. is now getting some stiff competition from other countries that thrive in exporting their own cultural content. India, Brazil, China, and South Korea are fast becoming regional cultural powers, symbolized by the rising fame of Bollywood, telenovelas, and K-pop. In Latin America, in particular, Brazil is much more of a threat in the regional marketplace than the U.S. And in the Arab world," big multimedia groups are trying to unify a very diverse population by offering an alternative to the Western model. This developing-world surge means Europe lags behind even more. In part, it's because Europe's default definition of "high culture" finds few fans abroad. European films and literature are increasingly seen as too ob-scure, arrogant, and self-referential to appeal to mass audiences. In part, it's because each nation has its own cultural industry and little, if any, cohesion across EU borders. And Europe could learn a few things from the U.S. For example, American producers have figured out how to go for the margins as well as the middle-- which is to say, to diversify and market to a whole range of tastes and groups. The result: even though the U.S. may be losing financial and political clout, it's gaining soft power through its cultural, media, and technological exports. Europe can regain this soft-power edge only if it embraces some new notions: that mass culture is not necessarily "bad culture," and that diversity, including contributions from immigrants and new arrivals, could make its films, books, and art more accessible to audiences abroad. That is, if Europe really wants to be part of the mainstream.

单选题Many countries have a tradition of inviting foreigners to rule them. The English called in William of Orange in 1688, and, depending on your interpretation of history, William of Normandy in 1066. Both did rather a good job. Returning the compliment, Albania asked a well-bred Englishman called Aubgrey Herbert to be their king in the 1920s. He refused—and they ended up with several coves called Zog. America, the country of immigrants, has no truck with imported foreign talent. Article two of the constitution says that "no person except a natural-born citizen.., shall be eligible to the office of the president". This is now being challenged by a particularly irresistible immigrant: Arnold Schwarzcnegger. Barely a year has passed since the erstwhile cyborg swept to victory in California's recall election, yet there is already an Amend-for-Arnold campaign collecting signatures to let the Austrian-born governor have a go at the White House. George Bush senior has weighed in on his behalf. There are several "Arnold amendments" in Congress: one al- lows foreigners who have been naturalized citizens for 20 years to become president. (The Austrian became American in 1983. ) It is easy to dismiss the hoopla as another regrettable example of loopy celebrity politics. Mr. Schwarzenegger has made a decent start as governor, but he bas done little, as yet, to change the structure of his dysfunctional state. Indeed, even if the law were changed, he could well be elbowed aside by another incomer, this time from Canada: the Democratic governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, who appears to have fewer skeletons in her closet than the hedonistic actor. Moreover, changing the American constitution is no doddle. It has happened only 17 times since 1791 (when the first ten amendments were codified as the bill of rights). To change the constitution, an amendment has to be approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, and then to be ratified by three-quarters of the 50 states. The Arnold amendment is hardly in the same category as abolishing slavery or giving women the vote. And, as some wags point out, Austrian imports have a pretty dodgy record of running mil- itary superpowers.

单选题The best title for the article is______

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}} "I've never met a human worth cloning," says cloning expert Mark Westhusin from the cramped confines of his lab at Texas A & M University. "It's a stupid endeavor.' That's an interesting choice of adjective, coming from a man who has spent millions of dollars trying to clone a 13-year-old dog named Missy. So far, he and his team have not succeeded, though they have cloned two calves and expect to clone a cat soon. They just might succeed in cloning Missy later this year--or perhaps not for another five years. It seems the reproductive system of man's best friend is one of the mysteries of modem science. Westhusin's experience with cloning animals leaves him vexed by all this talk of human cloning. In three years of work on the Missyplicity project, using hundreds upon hundreds of canine eggs, the A&M team has produced only a dozen or so embryos carrying Missy's DNA. None have survived the transfer to a surrogate mother. The wastage of eggs and the many spontaneously aborted fetuses may be acceptable when you're dealing with cats or bulls, he argues, but not with humans. "Cloning is incredibly inefficient, and also dangerous," he says. Even so, dog cloning is a commercial opportunity, with a nice research payoff. Ever since Dolly, the sheep, was cloned in 1997, Westhusin's phone at A&M College of Veterinary Medicine has been ringing busily. Cost is no obstacle for customers like Missy's mysterious owner, who wishes him remain unknown to protect his privacy. He's plopped down $ 3. 7 million so far to fund the research because he wants a twin to carry on Missy's fine qualities after she dies. But he knows her clone may not have her temperament. In a statement of purpose, Missy's owner and the A&M team say they are "both looking forward to studying the ways that her clone differs from Missy." The fate of the dog samples will depend on Westhusin's work. He knows that even if he gets a dog viably pregnant, the offspring, should they survive, will face the problems shown at birth by other cloned animals: abnormalities like immature lungs and heart and weight problems. "Why would you ever want to clone humans," Westhusin asks, "when we're not even close to getting it worked out in animals yet?"

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Without an oversized calendar tacked to their kitchen wall, Fern Reiss and her family could never keep track of all the meetings, appointments, home-schooling lessons, and activities that fill their busy days. "I'm not sure they make a calendar large enough for us," says Ms. Reiss of Newton, Mass. , explaining that her life revolves around "two companies, three children, a spouse, a lot of community involvement, a social life, the kids' social life, and volunteering in a soup kitchen every week." "Everybody we know is leading a frenetic life," she adds. "Ours is frenetic, too, but we're spending the bulk of our time with our kids. Even though we're having a crazy life, we're having it in the right way." Although extreme busyness is hardly a new phenomenon, the subject is getting renewed attention from researchers. "A good life has to do with life having a direction, life having a narrative with the stories we tel1 ourselves," Chuck Darrah, an anthropologist, says. "Busyness fragments all that. We're absolutely focused on getting through the next hour, the next day, the next week. It does raise questions: If not busyness, what? If we weren't so Busy, what would we be doing? If people weren't so busy, would they be a poet, a painter?" For the Reisses, part of living a good life, however busy, means including the couple's children in volunteer work and community activities. "We want the kids to see that that's a priority," she says, Between working full time as a publicist, caring for her home, spending time with her husband and extended family, and helping her grandmother three times a week, a woman .says, "I am exhaust- ed all the time." Like others, she concedes that she sets "somewhat unrealistic expectations" for what she can accomplish in a day, Being realistic is a goal Darrah encourages, saying, "We can do everything, but we can't do everything well and at the same time." He cautions that busyness can result in "poor decisions, sloppy quality, and neglect of the things and people that matter most in the long run." He advises: "Stop taking on so much, and keep in perspective what's most important to you." Darrah's own schedule re- mains full, but he insists he does not feel busy. His secret? Confining activities to things he must do and those he wants to do. He and his wife do not overschedule their children. To those with one eye on the calendar and the other on the deck, Darrah offers this advice: "Before you take anything on, ask yourself: Do you have to do this? Do you want to do this? Live with a kind of mindfulness so you don't wake up and discover that your life is a whirl of transportation and communication, and you've hollowed yourself out."

单选题 Since the Nov.4 election, investors have been abandoning stocks in a kind of slow-motion crash that experts say underlines just how anxious they are about what is likely to be a long and deep recession. Even after a late-day rally on Friday, the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index has plunged 20 percent since the election. That more than wiped out the index's 18 percent gain in the six trading days ahead of the balloting as optimism grew that Barack Obama would be elected president. Analysts aren't blaming Obama specifically for the post-election hangover. Rather, they peg it to growing fears that the Bush Administration and Congress are fumbling the $ 700 billion bailout plan and the weakened economy's impact on financial stocks—highlighted by the plunge in shares of Citigroup Inc. to below $ 4 a share. "You can almost hear people yelling, 'Get me out at any price, ' " said Al Goodman, chief market strategist at Wachovia Securities. "It's the highest level of fear and depression in my 45 years as a student of the market." Market experts define a crash as a decline of 20 percent over a single day or several days. Over seven trading days that ended Oct.9, the Dow lost 22 percent. This month, the S&P 500 skidded more than 25 percent in the 12 trading days after the election before a bounceback on Friday narrowed the loss to 20 percent. All told, stocks have lost a stunning $ 2.6 trillion since Nov.4, as measured by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index, which reflects the value of nearly all U.S. stocks. The Friday afternoon news that Obama is likely to choose Timothy Geithner, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, to be the next Treasury secretary helped spark a rally that sent the Dow Jones industrial average surging almost 500 points. Geithner has worked closely with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke this year as the government seized control of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and insurer American International Group Inc. But analysts say it would be a mistake to say Friday's market reversal marks an end to the carnage that has wiped out 45.8 percent of the value of the S&P 500 index since the start of the year. "I don't think anyone can say we've reached the bottom yet, " said Chuck Gabriel, managing director of Capital Alpha Partners in Washington. "It's going to be a very gloomy Christmas." Kim Caughey, equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh, said that "for investors to get more confidence, we need to know details" of the new administration's plans to handle the crisis." There's been a vacuum of leadership" she added, " and when that happens, you get fear and rumors, and then people sell."

单选题Almost exactly a year ago, in a small village in Northern India, Andrea Milliner was bitten on the leg by a dog. "It must have (1) your nice white flesh", joked the doctor (2) he dressed the wound. Andrea and her husband Nigel were determined not to let it (3) their holiday, and thought no more (4) the dog, which had meanwhile quietly disappeared (5) the village. "We didn't realize there was (6) 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 anti-rabies 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 ambulance, hallucinating, recoiling in (13) at the sight of water, she was directed (14) the nearest mental hospital. But if her symptoms (15) little attention in life, in death (16) achieved a publicity close to hysteria. Cases like Andrea are (17) , but rabies is still one of the most feared diseases known to man. The disease is (18) by a bite of a lick from an (19) animal. It can, in very exceptional circumstances, be inhaled--two scientists died of it after (20) bat dung in a cave in Texas.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Concrete is probably used more widely than any other substance except water, yet it remains largely unappreciated. “Some people view the 20th century as the atomic age, the space age, the computer age — but an argument can be made that it was the concrete age,” says cement specialist Hendrik Van Oss. “It’s a miracle material.” Indeed, more than a ton of concrete is produced each year for every man, woman and child on Earth. Yet concrete is generally ignored outside the engineering world, a victim of its own ubiquity and the industry’s conservative pace of development. Now, thanks to environmental pressures and entrepreneurial innovation, a new generation of concretes is emerging. This high-tech assortment of concrete confections promises to be stronger, lighter, and more environmentally friendly than ever before. Concrete is also a climate-change villain. It is made by mixing water with an aggregate, such as sand or gravel, and cement. Cement is usually made by heating limestone and clay to over 2,500 degrees F. The resulting chemical reaction, along with fuel burned to heat the kiln, produces between 7% and 10% of global carbon-dioxide emissions. “When we have to repeatedly regenerate these materials because they’re not durable, we release more emissions,” says Victor Li who has created a concrete suffused by synthetic fibers that make it stronger, more durable, and able to bend like a metal. Li’s creation does not require reinforcement, a property shared by other concretes that use chemical additives. Using less water makes concrete stronger, but until the development of plasticizers, it also made concrete sticky, dry, and hard to handle, says Christian Meyer, a civil engineering professor at Columbia University. Making stronger concretes, says Li, allows less to be used, reducing waste and giving architects more freedom. “You can have such futuristic designs if you don’t have to put rebar in there, or structural beams,” says Van Oss. A more directly “green” c6nerete has been developed by the Australian company TecEeo. They add magnesium to their cement, forming a porous concrete that actually scrubs carbon dioxide from the air. While experts agree that these new concrete will someday be widely used, the timetable is uncertain. Concrete companies are responsive to environmental concerns and are always looking to stretch the utility of their product, but the construction industry is slow to change. “When you start monkeying around with materials, the governing bodies, the building departments, are very cautious before they let you use an unproven material,” Meyer says. In the next few decades, says Van Oss, building codes will change, opening the way for innovative materials. But while new concretes may be stronger and more durable, they are also more expensive — and whether the tendency of developers and the public to focus on short-term rather than long-term costs will also change is another matter.

单选题Many countries have a tradition of inviting foreigners to rule them. The English called in William of Orange in 1688, and, depending on your interpretation of history, William of Normandy in 1066. Both did rather a good job. Returning the compliment, Albania asked a well-bred Englishman called Aubgrey Herbert to be their king in the 1920s. He refused-and they ended up with several coves called Zog. America, the country of immigrants, has no truck with imported foreign talent. Article two of the constitution says that "no person except a natural-born citizen.., shall be eligible to the office of the president". This is now being challenged by a particularly irresistible immigrant: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Barely a year has passed since the erstwhile cyborg swept to victory in California's recall election, yet there is already an Amend-for-Arnold campaign collecting signatures to let the Austrian-born governor have a go at the White House. George Bush senior has weighed in on his behalf. There are several "Arnold amendments" in Congress. one allows foreigners who have been naturalized citizens for 20 years to become president. (The Austrian became American in 1983.) It is easy to dismiss the hoopla as another regrettable example of loopy celebrity politics. Mr. Schwarzenegger has made a decent start as governor, but he has done little, as yet, to change the structure of his dysfunctional state. Indeed, even if the law were changed, he could well be elbowed aside by another incomer, this time from Canada. the Democratic governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, who appears to have fewer skeletons in her closet than the hedonistic actor. Moreover, changing the American constitution is no doddle. It has happened only 17 times since 1791 (when the first ten amendments were codified as the bill of rights). To change the constitution, an amendment has to be approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, and then to be ratified by three-quarters of the 50 states. The Arnold amendment is hardly in the same category as abolishing slavery or giving women the vote. And, as some wags point out, Austrian imports have a pretty dodgy record of running military superpowers.

单选题What do you think ordinary citizens may do faster reading the different arguments?______.

单选题Which of the following may best describe the tone of the speech by the former U.S. President Carter?

单选题"It is an evil influence on the youth of our country. " A politician condemning video gaming? Actually, a clergyman denouncing rock and roll 50 years ago. But the sentiment could just as easily have been voiced by Hillary Clinton in the past few weeks, as she blamed video games for "a silent epidemic of media desensitisation" and "stealing the innocence of our children". The gaming furore centers on "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas", a popular and notoriously violent cops and robbers game that turned out to contain hidden sex scenes that could be unlocked using a patch downloaded from the internet. The resulting outcry (mostly from Democratic politicians playing to the centre) caused the game's rating in America to be changed from "mature", which means you have to be 17 to buy it, to "adults only", which means you have to be 18, but also means that big retailers such as Wal-Mart will not stock it. As a result the game has been banned in Australia; and, this autumn, America's Federal Trade Commission will investigate the complaints. That will give gaming's opponents an opportunity to vent their wrath on the industry. Skepticism of new media is a tradition with deep roots, going back at least as far as Socrates' objections to written texts, outlined in Plato's Phaedrus. Socrates worried that relying on written texts, rather than the oral tradition, would "create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves." (He also objected that a written version of a speech was no substitute for the ability to interrogate the speaker, since, when questioned, the text "always gives one unvarying answer". His objection, in short, was that books were not interactive. Perhaps Socrates would have thought more highly of video games.) Novels were once considered too low-brow for university literature courses, but eventually the disapproving professors retired. Waltz music and dancing were condemned in the 19th century; all that twirling was thought to be "intoxicating" and "depraved", and the music was outlawed in some places. Today it is hard to imagine what the fuss was about. And rock and roll was thought to encourage violence, promiscuity and Satanism; but today even grannies buy Coldplay albums.

单选题Which of the following is NOT the reason that breakfast is essential?