单选题Some houses are designed to be smart. Others have smart designs. An example of the second type of house won an Award of Excellence from the American Institute of Architects. Located on the shore of Sullivan"s Island off the coast of South Carolina, the award-winning cube-shaped beach house was built to replace one smashed to pieces by Hurricane (飓风) Hugo 10 years ago. In September 1989, Hugo struck South Carolina, killing 18 people and damaging or destroying 36,000 homes in the state. Before Hugo, many new houses built along South Carolina"s shoreline were poorly constructed, and enforcement of building codes wasn"t strict, according to architect Ray Huff, who created the cleverly-designed beach house. In Hugo"s wake, all new shoreline houses are required to meet stricter, better-enforced codes. The new beach house on Sullivan"s Island should be able to withstand a Category 3 hurricane with peak winds of 179 to 209 kilometers per hour. At first sight, the house on Sullivan"s Island looks anything but hurricane-proof. Its red wood shell makes it resemble "a large party lantern (灯笼)" at night, according to one observer. But looks can be deceiving. The house"s wooden frame is reinforced with long steel rods to give it extra strength. To further protect the house from hurricane damage, Huff raised it 2. 7 meters off the ground on timber pilings—long, slender columns of wood anchored deep in the sand Pilings might appear insecure, but they are strong enough to support the weight of the house. They also elevate the house above storm surges. The pilings allow the surges to run under the house instead of running into it. "These swells of water come ashore at tremendous speeds and cause most of the damage done to beach-front buildings," said Huff. Huff designed the timber pilings to be partially concealed by the house"s ground-to-roof shell. "The shell masks the pilings so that the house doesn"t look like it"s standing with its pant legs pulled up," said Huff. In the event of a storm surge, the shell should break apart and let the waves rush under the house, the architect explained. (358 words)

单选题Human beings are animals. We breathe, eat and digest, and reproduce the same life (31) common to all animals. In a biological laboratory, rats, monkeys, and humans seem very much the same. However, biological understanding is not enough: (32) itself, it can never tell us what human beings are. (33) to our physical equipment—the naked human body—we are not an (34) animal. We are tropical creatures, (35) hairless and sensitive to cold. We are not fast and have neither claws nor sharp teeth to defend ourselves. We need a lot of food but have almost no physical equipment to help us get it. In the purely physical (36) , our species seems a poor (37) for survival. But we have survived—survived and multiplied and (38) the earth. Some day we will have a (39) living on the moon, a place with neither air nor water and with temperatures that turn gases into solids. How can we have done all these things? Part of the answer is physical. (40) its limitations, our physical equipment has some important potentials. Inhabitants of our eventual moon colony will bring their Own food and oxygen and then create an artificial earth environment to supply necessities.

单选题{{B}}Passage Two{{/B}} Migration is usually defined as "permanent or semi-permanent change of residence". However, our concern is with movement between nations, not with internal migration within nations, although such movements often exceed international movements in volume. Today, the motives of people who move short distances are very similar to those of international migrants. Students of human migration speak of "push" and "pull" factors, which influence an individual's decision to move from one place to another. Push factors are associated with the place of origin. A push factor can be as simple and mild a matter as difficulty in finding a suitable job, or as traumatic as war, or severe famine. Obviously, refugees who leave their homes with guns pointed at their heads are motivated almost entirely by push factors (although pull factors do influence their choice of destination). Pull factors are those associated with the place of destination. Most often these are economic, such as better job opportunities or the availability of good land to farm. In general, pull factors add up to an apparently better chance for a good life and material well-being than is offered by the place of origin. When there is a choice between several attractive potential destinations, the deciding factor might be a non-economic consideration such as the presence of relatives, friends, or at least fellow countrymen already established in the new place who are willing to help the newcomers settle in. Besides push and pull factors, there are what the sociologists call "intervening obstacles." Even if push and (or) pull factors are very strong they still may be outweighed by intervening obstacles, such as the distance of the move, the trouble and cost of moving, the difficulty of entering the new country, and the problems likely to be encountered on arrival. The decision to move is also influenced by "personal factors" of the potential migrant. The prospect of packing up everything and moving to a new and perhaps very strange environment may appear interesting and challenging to an unmarried young man and appallingly difficult to a slightly older man with a wife and small kids. Similarly, the need to learn a new language and customs may excite one person and frighten another. Regardless of why people move, migration of large numbers of people causes conflict. The United States and other western countries have experienced adjustment problems with each new wave of immigrants. It has usually taken several decades for each group to be accepted into the mainstream of society in the host country.

单选题Many people are not aware that it is rather rude to ______.

单选题Where do our favorite foods come from? The truth may 31 you. Did you know curry (咖喱) isn"t Indian? Did you know Americans weren"t the 32 to eat hamburgers? Or did you know pizza wasn"t created in Italy? First, let"s talk about curry. Many people think the English found out about curry from people in India in the 1600s. But 33 , wealthy English people were cooking with curry spices hundreds of years 34 British ships traveled to India. In fact, the word "curry" can be found in the English language as far back as 1377. Cooks of wealthy English families created curry dishes, and later these 35 caught on in other parts of England. 36 pizza, this dish was probably first made in Persia(what is now Iran). The Persians were eating round, flat bread with cheese in the 500s-nearly one thousand years before pizza caught on in Naples, Italy! Finally. let"s look at the truth behind 37 . Many people think hamburgers are an American food. However, 38 some stories, hamburgers came from Hamburg, Germany. A German named Otto Kuasw made the first hamburger in 1891. Four years later, German sailors 39 hamburgers to Americans. Where foods come from isn"t nearly as 40 as how they taste-delicious! So, go get some of your favorite food and dig in.

单选题Not until ten o'clock ______ it was too late to return. A. did we realize B. we did realize C. realized we D. we realized

单选题During the past 15 years, the most important component of executive pay packages, and the one most responsible for the large increase in the level of such compensation, has been stock-option grants. The increased use of option grants was justified as a way to align executives' interests with shareholders'. For various tax, accounting, and regulatory reasons, stock-option grants have largely comprised " at-the-money options", rights to purchase shares at an "exercise price" equal to the company's stock price on the grant date. In such at-the-money options, the selection of the grant date for awarding options determines the options' exercise price and thus can have a significant effect on their value. Earlier research by financial economists on backdating practices focused on the extent to which the company's stock price went up abnormally after the grant date. My colleagues and I focused instead on how a grant-date's price ranked in the distribution of stock prices during the month of the grant. Studying the universe of about 19,000 at-the-money, unscheduled grants awarded to public companies' CEOs during the decade 1996-2005, we found a clear relation between the likelihood of a day's being selected as a grant date for awarding options, and the rank of the day's stock price within the price distribution of the month: a day was most likely to be chosen if the stock price was at the lowest level of the month, second most likely to be chosen if the price was at the second-lowest level, and so forth. There is an especially large incidence of "lucky grants" ( defined as grants awarded on days on which the stock price was at the lowest level of the month) : 12 percent of all CEO option grants were lucky grants, while only 4 percent were awarded at the highest price of the month. The passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in August 2002 required firms to report grants within two days of any award. Most firms complied with this requirement, but more than 20 percent of grants continued to be reported after a long delay. Thus, the legislation could be expected to reduce but not eliminate backdating. The patterns of CEO luck are consistent with this expectation: the percentage of grants that were lucky was a high 15 percent before enactment of the law, and declined to a lower, but still abnormally high, level of 8 percent afterwards. Altogether, we estimate that about 1,150 CEO stock-option grants owed their financially advantageous status to opportunistic timing rather than to mere luck. This practice was spread over a significant number of CEOs and firms: we estimate that about 850 CEOs (about 10 percent) and about 720 firms (about 12 percent) received or provided such lucky grants. In addition, we estimate that about 550 additional grants at the second-lowest or third-lowest price of the month owed their status to opportunistic timing. The cases that have come under scrutiny thus far have led to a widespread impression that opportunistic timing has been primarily concentrated in " new economy" firms. But while the frequency of lucky grants has been somewhat higher in such firms, more than 80 percent of the opportunistically timed grants have been awarded in other sectors. Indeed, there is a significantly higher-than-normal incidence of lucky grants in each of the economy's 12 industries.

单选题Passage One For all his vaunted talents, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has never had much of a reputation as an economic forecaster. In fact, he shies away from making the precise-to-the-decimal-point predictions that many other economists thrive on. Instead, he owes his success as a monetary policymaker to his ability to sniff out threats to the economy and manipulate interest rates to dampen the dangers he perceives. Now, those instincts are being put to the test. Many Fed watchers — and some policymakers inside the central bank itself- are beginning to wonder whether Greenspan has lost his touch. Despite rising risks to the economy from a swooning stock market and soaring oil prices that could hamper growth, the Greenspan-led Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) opted to leave interest rates unchanged on Sept. 24. But in a rare dissent, two of the Fed's 12 policymakers broke ranks and voted for a cut in rates — Dallas Fed President Robert D. McTeer Jr. and central bank Governor Edward M. Gramlich. The move by McTeer, the Fed's self-styled "one some Dove". was no .surprise. But Gramlich's was. This was the first time that the monetary moderate had voted against the chairman since joining the Fed's board in 1997. And it was the first public dissent by a governor since 1995. Despite the split vote, it's too soon to count the maestro of monetary policy out. Greenspan had good reasons for not cutting interest rates now. And by acknowledging in the statement issued after the meeting that the economy does indeed face risks, Greenspan left the door wide open to a rate reduction in the future. Indeed, former Fed Governor Lyle Gramley thinks chances are good that the central bank might even cut rates before its next scheduled meeting on Nov. 6th, the day after congressional elections. So why didn't the traditionally risk-averse Greenspan cut rates now as insurance against the dangers dogging growth? For one thing, he still thinks the economy is in recovery mode. Consumer demand remains buoyant and has even been turbocharged recently by a new wave of mortgage refinancing. Economists reckon that homeowners will extract some $100 billion in cash from their houses in the second half of this year. And despite all the corporate gloom, business spending has shown signs of picking up, though not anywhere near as strongly as the Fed would like. Does that mean that further rate cuts are off the table? Hardly. Watch for Greenspan to try to time any rate reductions to when they'll have the most psychological pop on business and investor confidence. That's surely no easy feat, but it's one that Greenspan has shown himself capable of more than once in the past. Don't be surprised if he surprises everyone again.

单选题I'd rather have a room of my own, however small it is, than ______ a room with someone else. A. to share B. to have shared C. share D. sharing

单选题______, the researchers cannot concentrate on that very precise experiment.

单选题One reason why the loss of lives in the Los Angeles earthquake was comparatively low is that______?

单选题A: I'm sorry I broke your mirror. B: Oh, really? ______.

单选题Jean: Hello, Wilson, this is Jean. Listen, Wilson... Ted: ______ A. Just a minute, let me get a pencil. B. I beg your pardon. Who is it, please? C. Speaking. D. Good morning. Greenwood Car Rental.

单选题{{B}}Questions 21-25 are based on the following passage:{{/B}} Once the 12 Girls Band became popular, similar groups predictably starting popping up. Musicat and Beautiful Youth 18 were formed last year. Both feature now-familiar formulas of attractive young women playing different instruments in songs that combine modem music with classic Chinese tunes. Yet they add to the mix by throwing in song, dance and even acrobatics. In an interview, noted music critic Jin Zhaojun said the girl band phenomenon was not new to China, as similar acts appeared in the 1980s. However, the undying role is that to be successful, bands have to have a novel look. "The 12 Girls Band was the first group to give big live shows and show creativity in how they present their performances. The Beijing Red Poppy Ladies Percussion group, formed in 1999, has made a name for itself because they are the only band that exclusively plays drams and percussion instruments. Bands that don't have 'a thing' are sure to die fast," Jin said.

单选题Woman: I"m new in town. Can you tell me how to get to the subway? Man: Turn left around the corner and then walk one block up. ______.

单选题In the 1960s, medical researchers Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe developed a checklist of stressful events. They appreciated the tricky point that any major change can be stressful. Negative events like "serious illness of a family member" were high on the list, but so were some positive life-changing events, like marriage. When you take the Holmes-Rahe test you must remember that the score does not reflect how you deal with stress—it only shows how much you have to deal with. And we now know that the way you handle these events dramatically affects your chances of staying healthy. By the early 1970s, hundreds of similar studies had followed Holmes and Rahe. And millions of Americans who work and live under stress worried over the reports. Somehow, the research got boiled down to a memorable message. Women"s magazines ran headlines like "Stress causes illness!" If you want to stay physically and mentally healthy, the articles said, avoid stressful events. But such simplistic advice is impossible to follow. Even if stressful events are dangerous, many—like the death of a loved one—are impossible to avoid. Moreover, any warning to avoid all stressful events is a prescription (处方) for staying away from opportunities as well as trouble. Since any change can be stressful, a person who wanted to be completely free of stress would never marry, have a child, take a new job or move. The notion that all stress makes you sick also ignores a lot of what we know about people. It assumes we"re all vulnerable (脆弱的) and passive in the face of adversity (逆境 ). But what about human initiative and creativity? Many come through periods of stress with more physical and mental vigor than they had before. We also know that a long time without change or challenge can lead to boredom, and physical and mental straia (319 words)

单选题My train arrives in New York at eight o'clock. The plane I would like to take from there ______ by then. A. would leave B. will have left C. has left D. had left

单选题In The Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are (2004), Dr. Kevin Leman notes that 21 of the first 23 Americans in space were first-born males or only children. More than half of United States presidents have been first-horns or first-born boys. It"s a pretty significant finding historically, because families used to be bigger than they are today. In addition to being high achievers, older children also generally have higher IQs (智商) than younger ones. Researchers have noted that the more kids a family has, the lower each child"s individual IQ tends to be. They give a few reasons for this. Parents only have so much time, attention, and money. The more kids they have, the more these things are divided. First-borns initially get the entire parental-time pie. What"s more, the ratio of grown-ups to kids decreases with each new baby. So the younger ones are surrounded by more children"s language on average than the older kids. Some researchers think parental attention is the key to personality birth-order differences. In his book Born to Rebel , psychologist Frank Sulloway says competition for Mom and Dad"s attention is the thing that really shapes our personalities and, in fact has shaped history. He argues that we adapt our personalities as part of our strategy to seek favor from Morn and Dad. Younger siblings (兄弟姐妹) tend to become rebels. Sulloway studied political activists and found that later-born activists were more radical than their first-born peers. The conclusion of his book is that sibling competition for parental attention can affect society as a whole in times of revolution. Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx, and Fidel Castro were all younger siblings, for example. As compelling as this all is, it"s also something we should probably take with caution, there are other things that happen to us in life besides the addition of siblings to our families. A parent can die; a hurricane can leave us homeless; we can catch a life-threatening disease. Any one of these things will probably have more of an effect on our personalities than the presence of siblings. A 2002 study bore this out. After interviewing 535 undergraduates, researchers concluded that personality differences related to birth order were "folklore", although IQ and achievement differences were widely supported by research.

单选题Text 1 In the villages of the English countryside there are still people who remember the good old days when no one bothered to lock their doors. There simply wasn't any crime to worry about. Amazingly, these happy times appear still to be with us in the world's biggest community. A new study by Dan Farmer, a gifted programmer, using an automated investigative program of his own called SATAN, shows that the owners of well over half of all World Wide Web sites have set up home without fitting locks to their doors. SATAN can try out a variety of well-known hacking tricks on an Internet site without actually breaking in. Farmer has made the program publicly available, amid much criticism. A person with evil intent could use it to hunt down sites that are easy to burgle. But Farmer is very concerned about the need to alert the public to poor security and, so far, events have proved him right. SATAN has done more to alert people to the risks than cause new disorder. So is the Net becoming more secure? Far from it. In the early days, when you visited a Web site your browser simply looked at the content. Now the Web is full of tiny programs that automatically download when you look at a Web page, and run on your own machine. These programs could, if their authors wished, do all kinds of nasty things to your computer. At the same time, the Net is increasingly populated with spiders, worms, agents and other types of automated beasts designed to penetrate the sites and seek out and classify information. All these make wonderful tools for antisocial people who want to invade weak sites and cause damage. But let's look on the bright side. Given the lack of locks, the Internet is surely the world's biggest (almost) crime-free society. Maybe that is because hackers are fundamentally honest. Or that there currently isn't much to steal. Or because vandalism isn't much fun unless you have a peculiar dislike for someone. Whatever the reason, let's enjoy it while we can. But, expect it ail to change, and security to become the number one issue, when the most influential inhabitants of the Net are selling Services they want to be paid for.