填空题 It's not just an American phenomenon: Across the globe, single-parent homes are on the rise. Numbers for one-parent families increased from England to Australia during the 1990s, mirroring demographic shifts reflected in the U.S. census. Just as in America, those shifts raised new questions about how involved government should be in helping single-parent families, which often are less well-off financially than those led by a married mom and dad.41. _______________ Annie Oliver, a 32-year-old single mother from Bristol, England, thinks so. "You wouldn't believe how becoming a single parent suddenly made me a second-class citizen," said Oliver, who struggles to keep a full-time job and give the extra care her disabled son needs.42. _______________ By comparison, 9.8 million house-holds, or 9 percent of all U. S. households were headed by an adult raising a child alone or without a spouse. The 1990 census showed 26 percent of homes were led by a married mother and father, and 8 percent of homes were led by a single parent. Similar increases occurred in other countries, though data from those countries are not directly comparable to U. S. census figures because of methodology differences.43. _______________ Single parent households in Australia rose from 5,8 percent in 1990 to 7.6 percent in 1999. Other countries that saw large increases, according to the Organization: —Belgium, 1.8 percent of households in 1990 to 2.7 percent in 1999; —Ireland, 1.8 percent to 2.8 percent; —Luxembourg, 1.3 percent to 2.2pereent.44. ______________ Those countries tend to have greater acceptance of single parenting because there are fewer nearby family members to disapprove, Riche said. Lone-parent family households in Japan increased from 5.1 percent in 1990 to just 5.2 percent in 1999.45. ______________ "The position of one-parent families in any given country is very much a gender issue—women's opportunities, especially working-class women on low income," said Sue Cohen, coordinator of the Single Action Parents Network in England.[A] In the United States, the 2000 census showed 24.8 million, or nearly 24 percent of the nation's 105:5 million house-holds, were traditional two-parent homes.[B] Should single parents be afforded tax breaks to help pay for child care? Should employers be monitored to make sure flexible work-hours are offered?[C] Countries with increases in single-parent homes are often those where the nuclear family structure—just Mom, Dad and the kids—is more common than an extended, multigenerational family living under one roof, said demographer Martha Farnsworth Riche, a former Census Bureau director.[D] In the United Kingdom, lone-parent family homes increased from 3.3 percent of all households in 1990 to 5.5 percent in 1999, according to data compiled by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It did not specify whether children in those homes were younger than 18.[E] Some research suggests children raised in two-parent families are better off than those who rely on one.[F] Rates were relatively unchanged during the same period in Greece, Italy and Portugal. These countries tend to think more conservatively about family makeup, and there is more pressure to avoid divorce or unmarried parenthood, Riche said.[G] "Most of the research linking single-parenthood to children's school performance has been done with single nations," says Dr. Suet-ling Pong, associate professor of education and sociology and demography. "We do not know much about the impact of single parenthood across cultures and countries."

填空题A. No disciplines have seized on professionalism with as much enthusiasm as the humanities. You can, Mr Menand points out, became a lawyer in three years and a medical doctor in four. But the regular time it takes to get a doctoral degree in the humanities is nine years. Not surprisingly, up to half of all doctoral students in English drop out before getting their degrees. B. His concern is mainly with the humanities: literature, languages, philosophy and so on. These are disciplines that are going out of style: 22% of American college graduates now major in business compared with only 2% in history and 4% in English. However, many leading American universities want their undergraduates to have a grounding in the basic canon of ideas that every educated person should possess. But most find it difficult to agree on what a "general education" should look like. At Harvard, Mr Menand notes, "the great books are read because they have been read"—they form a sort of social glue. C. Equally unsurprisingly, only about half end up with professorships for which they entered graduate school. There are simply too few posts. This is partly because universities continue to produce ever more PhDs. But fewer students want to study humanities subjects: English departments awarded more bachelor"s degrees in 1970-71 than they did 20 years later. Fewer students require fewer teachers. So, at the end of a decade of theses-writing, many humanities students leave the profession to do something for which they have not been trained. D. One reason why it is hard to design and teach such courses is that they can cut across the insistence by top American universities that liberal-arts educations and professional education should be kept separate, taught in different schools. Many students experience both varieties. Although more than half of Harvard undergraduates end up in law, medicine or business, future doctors and lawyers must study a non-specialist liberal-arts degree before embarking on a professional qualification. E. Besides professionalizing the professions by this separation, top American universities have professionalized the professor. The growth in public money for academic research has speeded the process: federal research grants rose fourfold between 1960 and 1990, but faculty teaching hours fell by half as research took its toll. Professionalism has turned the acquisition of a doctoral degree into a prerequisite for a successful academic career: as late as 1969 a third of American professors did not possess one. But the key idea behind professionalization, argues Mr Menand, is that "the knowledge and skills needed for a particular specialization are transmissible but not transferable." So disciplines acquire a monopoly not just over the production of knowledge, but also over the production of the producers of knowledge. F. The key to reforming higher education, concludes Mr Menand, is to alter the way in which "the producers of knowledge are produced." Otherwise, academics will continue to think dangerously alike, increasingly detached from the societies which they study, investigate and criticize." Academic inquiry, at least in some fields, may need to become less exclusionary and more holistic." Yet quite how that happens, Mr Menand does not say. G. The subtle and intelligent little book The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University should be read by every student thinking of applying to take a doctoral degree. They may then decide to go elsewhere. For something curious has been happening in American Universities, and Louis Menand, a professor of English at Harvard University, captured it skillfully. Order: G→ 1 → 2 →E→ 3 → 4 → 5

填空题How does your reading proceed? Clearly you try to comprehend, in the sense of identifying meanings for individual words and working out relationships between them, drawing on your implicit knowledge of English grammar. 11 You begin to infer a context for the text, for instance, by making decisions about what kind of speech event is involved. Who is making the utterance, to whom, when and where. The ways of reading indicated here are without doubt kinds of comprehension. But they show comprehension to consist not just of passive assimilation but of active engagement in inference and problem-solving. You infer information you feel the writer has invited you to grasp by presenting you with specific evidence and clues. 12 Conceived in this way, comprehension will not follow exactly the same track for each reader. What is in question is not the retrieval of an absolute, fixed or "tree" meaning that can be read off and checked for accuracy, or some timeless relation of the text to the world. 13 Such background material inevitably reflects who we are. 14 This doesn"t, however, make interpretation merely relative or even pointless. Precisely because readers from different historical periods, places and social experiences produce different but overlapping readings of the same words on the page—including for texts that engage with fundamental human concerns—debates about texts can play an important role in social discussion of beliefs and values. How we read a given text also depends to some extent on our particular interest in reading it. 15 Such dimensions of reading suggest—as others introduced later in the book will also do—that we bring an implicit (often unacknowledged) agenda to any act of reading. It doesn"t then necessarily follow that one kind of reading is fuller, more advanced or more worth-while than another. Ideally, different kinds of reading inform each other, and act as useful reference points for and counterbalances to one another. Together, they make up the reading component of your overall literacy, or relationship to your surrounding textual environment. A. Are we studying that text and trying to respond in a way that fulfils the requirement of a given course? Reading it simply for pleasure? Skimming it for information? Ways of reading on a train or in bed are likely to differ considerably from reading in a seminar room. B. Factors such as the place and period in which we are reading, our gender, ethnicity, age and social class will encourage us towards certain interpretations but at the same time obscure or even close off others. C. If you are unfamiliar with words or idioms, you guess at their meaning, using clues presented in the context. On the assumption that they will become relevant later, you make a mental note of discourse entities as well as possible links between them. D. In effect, you try to reconstruct the likely meanings or effects that any given sentence, image or reference might have had: These might be the ones the author intended. E. You make further inferences, for instance, about how the text may be significant to you, or about its validity—inferences that form the basis of a personal response for which the author will inevitably be far less responsible. F. In plays, novels and narrative poems, characters speak as constructs created by the author, not necessarily as mouthpieces for the author"s own thoughts. G. Rather, we ascribe meanings to texts on the basis of interaction between what we might call textual and contextual material: between kinds of organization or patterning we perceive in a text"s formal structures (so especially its language structures) and various kinds of back-ground, social knowledge, belief and attitude that we bring to the text.

填空题We don't see or hear them, but every day they quietly go about their work--filtering and cleansing our rivers and streams. And if we don't act soon, they'll disappear from the workforce just when we need them most. I am talking about pigtoes, monkeyface, pink heelsplitter and purple wartyback--freshwater mussels (贻贝) with funny names that belie the seriousness of their labors. (41) . One mussel alone can cleanse as much as a gallon of water per hour. Add up the work of a whole mussel community, and you get a virtual water treatment plant. According to Ethan Nedeau, an expert on the freshwater mussels of New England, even half the population of mussels at work in a one-half mile segment of New Hampshire's Ashuelot River can help cleanse more than 11.2 million gallons of water a day--roughly the quantity of household water used by 112 000 people. (42) . Today 69 percent of US freshwater mussel species are to some degree at risk of extinction or already extinct. The most diverse assemblage of freshwater mussels ever known was located in the middle stretch of the Tennessee River in northern Alabama. Before the damming of the river in the early 1900s, 69 mussel species had been spotted in this reach; 32 of them have apparently disappeared, with no recording sightings in nearly a century. (43) . Like many freshwater mussels, the orange-nacre mucket has a fascinating life cycle and exhibits some of the most sophisticated mimicry in the animal kingdom. The females essentially use their offspring to lure fish into helping them colonize new stream bottoms. They package their larvae (幼虫) at the end of jelly--like tubes that can extend eight feet out into the water. To fish swimming by, the larvae dancing in the riffles of the river current looks like a tasty minnow. When the fish bites, the tube breaks, releasing the larvae into the stream. A few of the offspring attach to the fish's gills and hitchhike around with their firmed host for a week or two, absorbing nutrients and growing along the way. (44) . Along with 16 other threatened or endangered mussel species in the Mobile watershed, the orange-nacre mucket is at risk of extinction--in large part due to excessive pollution and dams that have diminished the river habitat they need to survive. To me, the loss of such industrious, fascinating creatures diminishes more than our water quality-- it diminishes our natural heritage and our world. (45) . So as we celebrate World Water Day, I hope we also celebrate the freshwater mussels that help keep our waters clean and healthy--and commit to efforts to conserve them.[A] My favorite freshwater mussel is the orange-nacre mucket, found only in the rivers and streams of Alabama's Mobile River basin.[B] The United States ranks first in the world in the number of known species of freshwater mussels 292, com- pared with just 10 in all of Europe. But we're losing these "living filters" all too fast.[C] Only habitat improvements, in some cases combined with mussel breeding and release efforts, can save these and the other 200 freshwater mussel species at risk nationwide.[D] Because I bet we'll miss these little creatures with the whimsical names when they're gone.[E] They suck water in, filter out bits of algae, bacteria and other tiny particles, and then release it back to the river cleaner than before.[F] Finally, the young mussels drop off, float to the river bottom, and colonize new territory--and before long begin their vital task of water purification.[G] It is our responsibility to take actions to protect the freshwater mussels, otherwise they will disappear in the future and the water will not be refreshed.

填空题It is hardly necessary to point out that we live in a world of increasing industrialization. While this process enables us to raise our standard of living at an ever-accelerating rate, it also leads to a corresponding growth of interdependence between the different regions of, the world. 41) ______. What, then, is to be done? Although it is difficult to know where to begin to deal with such a large subject, the first step is perhaps to consider the main economic difficulties an underdeveloped or emerging region has to face. 42) ______ A number of quite common occurrences are therefore sufficient to cause immediate-and serious interference with this. export production: unfavorable weather conditions, plant or animal epidemics, the exhaustion of soil fertility or mineral deposits, the development of substitute products in the industrialized regions, etc. The sensitivity of the economy is greatly intensified in cases where exports are confined only to one or two products--"monocultures" as they are sometimes called. 43) ______ This also applies to the manufactured goods required to provide their populations with the "necessities of life". This economic structure makes it difficult for them to avoid being politically dependent on the countries which absorb their exports and provide their essential imports. Since, under modern conditions, a rapid rise in population is a phenomenon closely associated with underdevelopment. This cause alone can subject the economy to severe and continuous stress. 44) ______ In the first place, to set up modern industries necessitates capital on a large scale, which only industrialized regions are able to provider secondly, they lack the necessary trained manpower; thirdly, their industries--when established--are usually not efficient enough to compete with foreign imports, and any restriction on these imports is likely to lead to counter-action against their own exports. From another point of view, it is necessary to bear in mind that there are invariably political, educational, social and psychological obstacles which tend to interfere seriously with any measures taken to deal with the economic difficulties outlined above.45) ______. To conclude, it seems clear that if we are to succeed in solving the many inter-related problems of underdevelopment, only the fullest and most intelligent use of the resources of all branches of science will enable us to do so. Notes: be orientated... toward 被引导到......。 monoculture 单一作物耕种。[A] For example, the economies of such countries are orientated primarily toward the production of raw materials, i. e. agricultural and mineral products; these are then exported to the industrialized countries.[B] Given these conditions, it is easy to see that any permanent economic or political instability in one area is bound to have an increasingly serious effect upon the rest of the world. Since the main source of such instability is underdevelopment, it is clear that this now constitutes a problem of international dimensions.[C] As far as "necessities of life" are concerned, they represent a concept which is continually being enlarged through the mass media of communication such as newspapers, films, the radio and advertising.[D] Although it is obvious that industrialization is the key to development, it is usually very difficult for emerging countries to carry out plans of this nature.[E] Being under-industrialized, these countries are largely dependent on imports to supply the equipment needed to produce the raw materials they export.[F] To consider 0nly one point: it is obviously useless to devote great efforts and expense to education, technical training and planning if, for psychological reasons, the population as a whole fails to turn theory into effective action.[G] This sudden increase in the population of the underdeveloped countries has come at a difficult time. Even if their population had not grown so fast they would have been facing a desperate struggle to bring the standard of living of their people up.

填空题The government is to ban payments to witnesses by newspapers seeking to buy up people involved in prominent cases ---|||________|||---the trial of Rosemary West. In a significant ---|||________|||---of legal controls over the press, Lord Irvine, the Lord Chancellor, will introduce a ---|||________|||---bill that will propose making payments to witnesses ---|||________|||---and will strictly control the amount of ---|||________|||---that can be given to a case ---|||________|||---a trial begins. In a letter to Gerald Kaufman, chairman of the House of Commons media select committee, Lord Irvine said he ---|||________|||---with a committee report this year which said that self regulation did not ---|||________|||---sufficient control. ---|||________|||---of the letter came two days after Lord Irvine caused a ---|||________|||---of media protest when he said the ---|||________|||---of privacy controls contained in European legislation would be left to judges ---|||________|||---to Parliament. The Lord Chancellor said introduction of the Human Rights Bill, which ---|||________|||---the European Convention on Human Rights legally ---|||________|||---in Britain, laid down that everybody was ---|||________|||---to privacy and that public figures could go to court to protect themselves and their families. "Press freedoms will be in safe hands ---|||________|||---our British judges,"he said. Witness payments became an ---|||________|||---after West was sentenced to 10 life sentences in 1995. Up to 19 witnesses were ---|||________|||---to have received payments for telling their stories to newspapers. Concerns were raised ---|||________|||---witnesses might be encouraged to exaggerate their stories in court to ---|||________|||---guilty verdicts.

填空题Fields across Europe are contaminated with dangerous levels of the antibiotics given to farm animals. The drugs, which are in manure sprayed onto fields as fertilizers, could be getting into our food and water, helping to create a new generation of antibiotic-resistant "superbugs". The warning comes from a researcher in Switzerland who looked at levels of the drugs in farm slurry. 41．______ Some 20,000 tons antibiotics are used in the European Union and the US each year. More than half are given to farm-animals to prevent disease and promote growth. But recent research has found a direct link between the increased use of these farmyard drugs and the appearance of antibiotic-resistant bugs that infect people. 42．______But far more of the drugs end up in manure than in meat products, says Stephen Mueller of the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology in Dubendorf. And manure contains especially high levels of bugs that are resistant to antibiotics, he says. With millions of tons of animals manure spread onto fields of crops such as wheat and barley each year, this pathway seems an equally likely route for spreading resistance, he said. 43．______They could also be leaching into tap water pumped from rocks beneath fertilized fields. Mueller is particularly concerned about a group of antibiotics called sulphonamides. They do not easily degrade or dissolve in water. His analysis found that Swiss farm manure contains a high percentage of sulphonamides; each hectare of field could be contaminated with up to 1 kilogram of the drugs. 44．______But vets are not treating the issue seriously. There is growing concern at the extent to which drugs, including antibiotics, are polluting the environment. 45．______[A] The drugs contaminate the crops, which are then eaten.[B] This concentration is high enough to trigger the development of resistance among bacteria.[C] Animal antibiotics is still an area to which insufficient attention has been paid.[D] Most researchers assumed that humans become infected with the resistant strains by eating contaminated meat.[E] There is no doubt that the food and drink is always important to the health.[F] Many drugs given to humans are also excreted unchanged and are not broken down by conventional sewage treatment.[G] His findings are particularly shocking because Switzerland is one of the few countries to have banned antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feed.