单选题By way of explanation the man produced all the following proofs EXCEPT______

单选题The discovery of life beyond Earth would transform not only our science but also our religions, our belief systems and our entire world-view. For in a sense, the search for extraterrestrial life is really a search for ourselves--who we are and what our place is in the grand sweep of the cosmos. Contrary to popular belief, speculation that we are not alone in the universe is as old as philosophy itself. The essential steps in the reasoning were based on the atomic theory of the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus. Yet philosophy is one thing, filling in the physical details is another. Although astronomers increasingly suspect that biofriendly planets may be abundant in the universe, the chemical steps leading to life remain largely mysterious. Traditionally, biologists believed that life is a freak--the result of a zillion-to-one accidental concatenation of molecules. It follows that the likelihood of its happening again elsewhere in the cosmos is infinitesimal. This viewpoint derives from the second law of thermodynamics, which predicts that the universe is dying--slowly and inexorably degenerating toward a state of total chaos. And similar reasoning applies to evolution. According to the orthodox view, Darwinian selection is utterly blind. Any impression that the transition from microbes to man represents progress is pure chauvinism of our part. The path of evolution is merely a random walk through the realm of possibilities. If this is right, there can be no directionality, no innate drive forward; in particular, no push toward consciousness and intelligence. Should Earth be struck by an asteroid, destroying all higher life-forms, intelligent beings would almost certainly not arise next time around. There is, however, a contrary view--one that is gaining strength and directly challenges orthodox biology. It is that complexity can emerge spontaneously through a process of self- organization. If matter and energy have an inbuilt tendency to amplify and channel organized complexity, the odds against the formation of life and the subsequent evolution of intelligence could be drastically shortened. Historically, Bertrand Russell argued that a universe under a death sentence from the second law of thermodynamics rendered human life ultimately futile. All our achievements, all our struggles, "all the noonday brightness of human genius," as he put it, would, in the final analysis, count for nothing if the very cosmos itself is doomed. But what if, in spite of the second law of thermodynamics, there can be systematic progress alongside decay? For those who hope for a deeper meaning or purpose beneath physical existence, the presence of extraterrestrial life-forms would provide a spectacular boost, implying that we live in a universe that is in some sense getting better and better rather than worse and worse.

单选题According to the author, a healthy family should be based on ______.

单选题We learn from the last paragraph that______.

单选题According to the author, we should reverse our classification of the physical sciences as "hard" and the social sciences as "soft" because ______.

单选题On September 30th students at the University of Massachusetts threw a toga (a ceremonial gown) party. The cops showed up, uninvited. They charged the host, James Connolly, with underage drinking, making too much noise, and having a keg without a licence. For punishment, he had to put on his toga again and stand in front of the police station for an hour. Dan Markel of Florida State University reckons that such "shaming punishments" are on the rise. In 2003 a couple of teenagers who defaced a nativity scene in Ohio had to parade through town with a donkey. "The punishment must fit the crime," explained the judge, Michael Cicconetti. Several cities have aired the names of men caught soliciting prostitutes on "John TV". In 2004, a federal appeals court agreed that a mail thief could be made to stand outside a California post office wearing a sandwich board. "I stole mail," it read. "This is my punishment." In Virginia, if you fail to pay child support, you may find your car wheel-clamped: pink if you are neglecting a girl, blue for a boy. Many support shaming punishments. Amitai Etzioni of George Washington University has argued that they are a good way to express communal values. Fines, in contrast, imply that you can buy a clear conscience. And shame seems to be a powerful deterrent. Mr Cicconetti says he sees few repeat offenders. Cheerful Hobbesian types want everyone to know who the bad guys are, so that decent citizens can avoid them. Others are doubtful. According to Mr Markel, shaming punishments undermine human dignity. He suggests alternative punishments that omit the public-humiliation factor. A landlord who flouts the health code, for example, could be made to stay in one of his own slums. And it is true that there is something unpleasant about the desire to see other people humiliated. Remember the matron who objects to Hester Prynne's scarlet letter: "Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or suchlike heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!" But voters appear to be comfortable on the high horse. Ted Poe, a former district judge from Texas, made his reputation by issuing a string of embarrassing sentences. He called this "Poetic justice." Once, he sentenced a man who stole pistols from the Lone Ranger to shovel manure in the Houston police stables. In 2004 Mr Poe was elected to the House of Representatives at his first attempt.

单选题Schools have banned cupcakes, issued obesity report cards and cleared space in cafeterias for salad bars. Just last month, Michelle Obama's campaign to end childhood obesity promised to get young people moving more and improve school lunch, and beverage makers said they had cut the sheer number of liquid calories shipped to schools by almost 90 percent in the past five years. But new research suggests that interventions aimed at school-aged children may be, if not too little, too late. More and more evidence points to crucial events very early in life—during the toddler years, infancy and even before birth—that can set young children on an obesity track that is hard to alter by the time they're in kindergarten. The evidence is not invulnerable, but it suggests that prevention efforts should start very early. Among the findings are these: The chubby angelic baby who is growing so nicely may be growing too much for his or her own good, research suggests. Babies whose mothers smoked during pregnancy are at risk of becoming obese, even though the babies are usually small at birth Babies who sleep less than 12 hours are at increased risk for obesity later. If they don't sleep enough and also watch two hours or more of TV a day, they are at even greater risk. Some early interventions are already widely practiced. Doctors recommend that overweight women lose weight before pregnancy rather than after, to cut the risk of obesity and diabetes in their children; breast-feeding is also recommended to lower the obesity risk. But weight or diet restrictions on young children have been avoided. " It used to be kind of taboo to label a child under 5 as overweight or obese, even if the child was—the thinking was that it was too disgraceful, " said Dr. Elsie M. Taveras of Harvard Medical School, lead author of a recent paper on racial difference in early risk factors. Scientists worry about what are called epigenetic changes. The genes inherited from mother and father may be turned on and off and the strength of their effects changed by environmental conditions in early development. Many doctors are concerned about women being obese and unhealthy before pregnancy because, as they point out, the womb is the baby's first environment. Experts say change may require abandoning some cherished cultural attitudes. " The idea that a big baby is a healthy baby, and a crying baby is probably a hungry baby who should be fed, are things we really need to rethink, " Dr. Birch said.

单选题You feel tired all day probably because ______.

单选题How did the company come to produce a record glorifying the murder of police, which is entitled Cop Killer by the rapper Ice-T on the album Boby Count? The album is released by Warner Bros. Records, part of the Time Warner media and entertainment conglomerate. In a Wall Street Journal oped piece laying out the company's position? Time Warner co- CEO Gerald Levin makes two defenses. First, Ice-T's Cop Killer is misunderstood. "It doesn't induce or glorify violence... It's his fictionalized attempt to get inside a character's head ... Cop Killer is no more a call for gunning down the police than Frankie and Johnny is a summons for jilted lovers to shoot one another." Instead of "finding ways to silence the messenger," we should be "heeding the anguished cry contained in his message." This defense is self-contradictory. Frankie and Johnny does not pretend to have a political "message" that must be "heeded." If Cop Killer has a message, it is that the murder of policemen is a justified response to police brutality. And not in self-defense, but in premeditated acts of revenge against random cops. Killing policemen is a good thing--that is the plain meaning of the song, and no "larger understanding" of black culture, the rage of the streets or anything else can explain it away. As in much of today's popular music, the line between performer and performance is purposely blurred. These are political sermonettes clearly intended to support the sentiments being expressed. Traey Marrow (Ice-T) himself has said, "I scared the police, and they need to be scared." That seems clear. The company's second defense of Cop Killer is the classic one of free expression: "We stand for creative freedom. We believe that the worth of what an artist or journalist has to say does not depend on preapproval from a government official or a corporate censor." Of course Ice-T has the right to say whatever he wants. But that doesn't require any company to provide him an outlet. And it doesn't relieve a company of responsibility for the messages it chooses to promote. Judgment is not "censorship." Many an "anguished cry" goes unrecorded. This one was recorded, and promoted, because a successful artist under contract wanted to record it. Nothing wrong with making money, but a company cannot take the money and run from the responsibility. The founder of Time, Henry Luce, would have scorned the notion that his company provided a value-free forum for the exchange of ideas. In Luce's system, editors were supposed to make value judgments and promote the truth as they saw it.

单选题 America's Federal Reserve cut interest rates by another quarter-point, to 3.75%. Wall Street, which had been{{U}} (1) {{/U}}for a sixth half-point cut, was disappointed. The Dow fell by 2%{{U}} (2) {{/U}}the week. The past week's economic statistics gave mixed signals. Exports dropped by 2% in both March and April, largely{{U}} (3) {{/U}}a decline in high-tech investment{{U}} (4) {{/U}}; the merchandise-trade{{U}} (5) {{/U}}widened to $458 billion in the 12 months{{U}} (6) {{/U}}April.{{U}} (7) {{/U}}, the Conference Board's index of consumer confidence was higher than{{U}} (8) {{/U}}in June. Concerns{{U}} (9) {{/U}}inflation in the euro area{{U}} (10) {{/U}}. Preliminary data{{U}} (11) {{/U}}that German consumer- price inflation fell to 3.1% in the year to June, from 3.5% in May; wage growth{{U}} (12) {{/U}}to 1.4% in April, a real pay cut of 1.5%. Some economists fear that Germany is on the{{U}} (13) {{/U}}of recession. The IFO index of business confidence dropped more{{U}} (14) {{/U}}than expected in May, and the institute has cut its forecast of GDP{{U}} (15) {{/U}}this year to only 1.2%, well{{U}} (16) {{/U}}the German government's forecast of 2%. The euro area's current-account deficit narrowed to $30 billion in the 12 months to April. Britain's deficit in the first quarter was its smallest{{U}} (17) {{/U}}1998,{{U}} (18) {{/U}}record investment income. There was more bad news from Japan,{{U}} (19) {{/U}}retail sales in large stores fell by 3.2% in May, the 37th consecutive monthly fall. The yen fell{{U}} (20) {{/U}}the dollar, touching almost Yen 125 on one point.

单选题When there is blood in the water, it is only natural that dorsal fins swirl around excitedly. Now that America's housing market is ailing, predators have their sights on the country's credit-card market. Analysts at Goldman Sachs reckon that credit-card losses could reach $ 99 billion if contagion spreads from subprime mortgages to other forms of consumer credit. Signs of strain are clearly visible. There are rises in both the charge-off and delinquency rates, which measure the share of balances that are uncollectable or more than 30 days late respectively. HSBC announced last month that it had taken a $1.4 billion charge in its American consumer-finance business, partly because of weakness among card borrowers. It is too early to panic, though. Charge-offs and delinquencies are still low. According to Moody's, a rating agency, the third-quarter delinquency rate of 3.89% was almost a full percentage point below the historical average. The deterioration in rates can be partly explained by technical factors. A change in America's personal-bankruptcy laws in 2005 led to an abrupt fall in bankruptcy filings, which in turn account for a big chunk of credit-card losses ; the number of filings (and thus charge-off rates) would be rising again, whether or not overall conditions for borrowers were getting worse. The industry also reports solid payment rates, which show how much of their debt consumers pay off each month. And confidence in credit-card asset-backed securities is pretty firm despite paralysis in other corners of structured finance. Dennis Moroney of Tower Group, a research firm, predicts that issuance volumes for 2007 will end up being 25% higher than last year. Direct channels of infection between the subprime-mortgage crisis and the credit-card market certainly exist: consumers are likelier to load up on credit-card debt now that home- equity loans are drying up. But card issuers look at cash flow rather than asset values, so falling house prices do not necessarily trigger a change in borrowers' creditworthiness. They may even work to issuers' advantage. The incentives for consumers to keep paying the mortgage decrease if properties are worth less than the value of the loan; card debt rises higher up the list of repayment priorities as a result. Card issuers are also able to respond much more swiftly and flexibly to stormier conditions than mortgage lenders are, by changing interest rates or altering credit limits. That should in theory reduce the risk of a rapid repricing of assets. "We are not going to wake up one day and totally revalue the loans," says Gary Perlin, Capital One' s chief financial officer. If a sudden subprime-style meltdown in the credit-card market is improbable, the risks of a sustained downturn are much more real. If lower house prices and a contraction in credit push America into recession, the industry will undoubtedly face a grimmer future. Keep watching for those dorsal fins.

单选题Rarely has there been as neat a fit between a book’s subject and its author’s biography as in "Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers, and Warriors Shaped Globalization" by Nayan Chanda. It's easy to see why the subject fascinates Chanda; he's a self-proclaimed Francophile(崇拜法国的人) of South Asian origin, who studied French in Calcutta, then took courses on China in Paris, ran a magazine in Hong Kong and ended up launching an online journal devoted to globalization at a venerable Ivy League institution. And in this engaging analysis, he answers such intriguing questions as" How did the coffee bean, first grown only in Ethiopia, end up in our coffee cups after a journey through Java and Colombia?" In examining these specific questions -- and larger ones about how the world is interconnected m Chanda does not emphasize his own experiences. But when appropriate, he effectively uses small, personal details to cut very big social, economic, cultural and sometimes biological processes down to size. He shows how close scrutiny of the iPod he gave his son as a birthday present can reveal much about the multinational origins of such objects. It was officially touted as" designed" by an American company and "assembled in China"; he found that it actually contained component parts and software with ties to India, Japan, South Korea and Scotland. And he marvels at the speed with which it traveled from Shanghai to New haven via Alaska and Indiana, as well as at his ability to track its progress thanks to bar codes. The debate over globalization has grown so polarized that many readers are probably itching to know whether Chanda belongs in the" pro" or" anti" camp. One theme of "Bound Together" is that thinking in these terms doesn't make sense. Those who gather at what are somewhat misleadingly called" anti- globalization" rallies, after all, don't oppose all the ways the world is shrinking. And their campaigns make use of many technologies (notably the Internet) that are crucial to 21st-century-style globalization. Indeed, Chanda's stand on the subject might be called that of a cautiously optimistic fatalist. He asserts that the only reasonable response to globalization is twofold: accept that the world is not going to stop shrinking and figure out ways to maximize the positive and minimize the negative effects. He acknowledges the downsides of globalization (social inequities, the spread of new diseases and so on), yet argues that in many ways being "bound together" ever more tightly can ultimately be a good thing, benefiting more and more individuals and groups. This is a book filled with fascinating information. Even readers who disagree with his claims will come away with a host of new facts to draw upon. They will also learn a lot about the history and deployment of the term globalization, to which Chanda devotes an excellent chapter. In addition, many will never look at an iPod in quite the same way again.

单选题What can be the best title for the text?

单选题What our society suffers from most today is the absence of consensus about what it and life in it ought to be; such consensus cannot be gained from society's present stage, or from fantasies about what it ought to be. For that the present is too close and too diversified, and the future too uncertain, to make believable claims about it. A consensus in the present hence can be achieved only through a shared understanding of the past, as Homer's epics informed those who lived centuries later what it meant to be Greek, and by what images and ideals they were to live their lives and organize their societies. Most societies derive consensus from a long history, a language all their own, a common religion, common ancestry. The myths by which they live are based on all of these. But the United States is a country of immigrants, coming from a great variety of nations. Lately, it has been emphasized that an asocial, narcissistic personality has become characteristic of Americans, and that it is this type of personality that makes for the lack of well-being, because it prevents us from achieving consensus that would counteract a tendency to withdraw into private worlds. In this study of narcissism, Christopher Lash says that modern man, "tortured by self-consciousness, turns to new therapies not to free himself of his personal worries but to find meaning and purpose in life, to find something to live for". There is widespread distress because national morale has declined, and we have lost an earlier sense of national vision and purpose. Contrary to rigid religions or political beliefs, as are found in totalitarian societies, our culture is one of the great individual differences, at least in principle and in theory; but this leads to disunity, even chaos. Americans believe in the value of diversity, but just because ours is a society based on individual diversity, it needs consensus about some dominating ideas more than societies based on uniform origin of their citizens. Hence, if we are to have consensus, it must be based on a myth--a vision about a common experience, a conquest that made us Americans, as the myth about the conquest of Troy formed the Greeks. Only a common myth can offer relief from the fear that life is without meaning or purpose. Myths permit us to examine our place in the world by comparing it to a shared idea. Myths are shared fantasies that form the tie. that binds the individual to other members of his group. Such myths help to ward off feelings of isolations, guilt, anxiety, and purposelessness--in short, they combat isolation and the breakdown of social standards and values.

单选题Over the past few decades, the common interest shown in applied mathematics is ______.

单选题College sports in the United States are a huge deal. Almost all major American universities have football, baseball, basketball and hockey programs, and (1) millions of dollars each year to sports. Most of them earn millions (2) as well, in television revenues, sponsorships. They also benefit (3) from the added publicity they get via their teams. Big-name universities (4) each other in the most popular sports. Football games at Michigan regularly (5) crowds of over 20, 000. Basketball’s national collegiate championship game is a TV (6) on a par with any other sporting event in the United States, (7) perhaps the Super Bowl itself. At any given time during fall or winter one can (8) one’s TV set and see the top athletic programs — from schools like Michigan, UCLA, Duke and Stanford — (9) in front of packed houses and national TV audiences. The athletes themselves are (10) and provided with scholarships. College coaches identify (11) teenagers and then go into high schools to (12) the country’s best players to attend their universities. There are strict rules about (13) coaches can recruit — no recruiting calls after 9 p. m., only one official visit to a campus — but they are often bent and sometimes (14) . Top college football programs (15) scholarships to 20 or 30 players each year, and those student-athletes, when they arrive (16) campus, receive free housing, tuition, meals, books, etc. In return, the players (17) the program in their sport. Football players at top colleges (18) two hours a day, four days a week from January to April. In summer, it’s back to strength and agility training four days a week until mid-August, when camp (19) and preparation for the opening of the September-to-December season begins (20) . During the season, practices last two or three hours a day from Tuesday to Friday. Saturday is game day. Mondays are an officially mandated day of rest.

单选题What does the word "Which" in line 3 of the third paragraph refer to?

单选题She knew how to make an entrance. Her dark hair cut in a severe pageboy, Ayn Rand would sweep into a room with a long black cape, a dollar-sign pin on her lapel and an ever present cigarette in an ivory holder. Melodramatic, yes, but Rand didn't have time to be subtle. She had millions of people to convert to objectivism, her philosophy of radical individualism, limited government and avoidance of altruism and religion. Her adoring followers--some called them a cult--revered her as the high priestess of laissez-faire capitalism until her death in 1982 at age 77. The bad economy has been good news for Rand's legacy. Her fierce denunciations of government regulation have sent sales of her two best-known novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, soaring. Yet her me-first brand of capitalism has been exccoriated (严厉批评) for fomenting (引发) the recent financial crisis. And her most famous former acolyte-onetime Fed chairman Alan Greenspan--has been blamed for inflating the housing bubble by refusing to intervene in the market. In the midst of the newly rekindled debate, two excellent biographies have just been published: Ayn Rand and the World She Made, by Anne C. Heller (Doubleday; 592 pages), is a comprehensive study, in novelistic detail, of Rand's personal life, and Goddess of the Market : Ayn Rand and the American Right, by Jenniter Burns (Oxford; 369 pages), leans more heavily on Rand's theories and politics. From her earliest years, Rand was a woman on a mission. Born in 1905 to a bourgeois Jewish family in St. Petersburg, Rand was 12 when the Bolshevik Revolution took place. Her family, suddenly poor, was forced to flee, and Rand's hatred of communism and any sort of collectivism would guide her life. Arriving in the US in 1926 with a new name, Ayn (rhymes with fine) made her way to Hollywood, where she had modest success as a screenwriter and married an aspiring actor, Frank O'Connor. Her politicization came when she and her husband worked on Republican Wendell Willkie's losing presidential campaign in 1940. According to Burns, "Before Willkie she had been pro-capitalist yet pessimistic, writing 'The capitalist world is low, unprincipled, and corrupt. ' Now she celebrated capitalism as the 'noblest, cleanest and most idealistic system of all'. " The Fountainhead, an epic novel chronicling the struggles of an architect named Howard Roark against conventional values, was her breakout work. In her race to get the sprawling 700-page book to press, she began taking the amphetamine Benzedrine (一种兴奋剂的名称) to fuel her efforts. "Rand used it to power her last months of work on the novel, including several 24-hour sessions correcting page proofs," writes Burns. The book brought Rand financial security and fame.