单选题In a sweeping change to how most of its 1,800 employees are paid, the Union Square Hospitality Group will eliminate tipping at Union Square Cafe and its 12 other restaurants by the end of next year, the company"s chief executive, Danny Meyer, said on Wednesday. The move will affect New York City businesses. The first will be the Modern, inside the Museum of Modern Art, starting next month. The others will gradually follow. A small number of restaurants around the country have reduced or eliminated tipping in the last several years. Some put a surcharge on the bill, allowing the restaurants to set the pay for all their employees. Others, including Bruno Pizza, a new restaurant in the East Village, factor the cost of an hourly wage for servers into their menu prices. Union Square Hospitality Group will do the latter. The Modern will be the pilot restaurant, Mr. Meyer said, because its chef, Abram Bissell, has been agitating for higher pay to attract skilled cooks. The average hourly wage for kitchen employees at the restaurant is expected to rise to $15.25 from $11.75. Mr. Meyer said that restaurants such as his needed to stay competitive as the state moved to a $15 minimum wage for fast-food workers. If cooks" wages do not keep pace with the cost of living, he said, "it"s not going to be sustainable to attract the culinary talent that the city needs to keep its edge." Mr. Meyer said he hoped to be able to raise pay for junior dining room managers and for cooks, dishwashers and other kitchen workers. The wage gap is one of several issues cited by restaurateurs who have deleted the tip line from checks. Some believe it is unfair for servers" pay to be affected by factors that have nothing to do with performance. A rash of class-action lawsuits over tipping irregularities, many of which have been settled for millions of dollars, is a mounting worry. Scott Rosenberg, an owner of Sushi Yasuda in Manhattan, said in an interview in 2013 that he had eliminated tipping so his restaurant could more closely follow the customs of Japan, where tipping is rare. He said he also hoped his customers would enjoy leaving the table without having to solve a math problem. While Drew Nieporent, who owns nine restaurants in New York City and one in London, said he doubted the average diner would accept an increase in prices. "Tipping is a way of life in this country," he said. "It may not be the perfect system, but it"s our system. It"s an American system."

单选题In spring of 2004, when US gas prices hit US $2 a gallon, University of Washington senior Jo Blue kept on driving. After Hurricane Katrina last August, prices topped US $3 a gallon. But Blue kept driving. Now, when prices have leveled at about US $2.25, she still commutes an hour everyday to her job as a swim coach. Blue has to get to work and public transportation is not an option. Buses to the suburb where she works are infrequent, so Blue has no choice but to spend US $30 a week on gas. High gas price, which began to soar in 2004, have Americans-whose way of life depends on cars- complaining, but not doing much to change the country's car culture. Like Blue, most Americans, except those in major cities, drive to work. Many live in sprawling suburbs which are accessible only by car. The average American spends 55 minutes each day behind the wheel, according to the US Department of Transportation. In 2003, the US's 290,000 residents registered 237,000 vehicles. Many experts say that this car driven lifestyle is unsustainable. "An event like Hurricane Katrina demonstrates how constrained and fragile the energy supply is now." said Barry Silverthorne, producer of "The End of Suburbia", a documentary about American car culture. In the 1950s, King Hubert, a geologist working for Shell, a major US oil company, predicted that the rate of oil extraction (提取) could not continue to increase forever. Once all the high quality or easiest-to-reach oil was extracted, oil would become progressively scarcer and more expensive until the supply runs out altogether. Many major oil fields in the Middle East have reached or will soon reach their peaks, says Megan Qinn, director of the Community Solution, an organization that promotes sustainable development. Though most experts agree the US should become less dependent on cars, few have addressed the issue of "how". "Deep down in America many of us have a sense that we are about to hit a brick wall of some kind. But people are too distracted by Paris Hiton and iPods to notice." said Silverthorne.

单选题On her first morning in America, last summer, my daughter went out to explore her new neighborhood—alone, without even telling my wife or me. Of course we were worried; we had just moved from Berlin, and she was just 8. But when she came home, we realized we had no reason to panic. Beaming with pride, she told us how she had discovered the little park around the corner, and had made friends with a few local dog owners. She had taken possession of her new environment, and was keen to teach us things we didn"t know. When this story comes up in conversations with American friends, we are usually met with polite disbelief. Most are horrified by the idea that their children might roam around without adult supervision. A study by the University of California, Los Angeles, has found that American kids spend 90 percent of their leisure time at home. Even when kids are physically active, they are watched closely by adults. Such narrowing of the child"s world has happened across the developed world. But Germany is generally much more accepting of letting children take some risks. To this German parent, it seems that America"s middle class has taken overprotective parenting to a new level. "We are depriving them of opportunities to learn how to take control of their own lives," writes Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College. He argues that this increases "the chance that they will suffer from anxiety, depression, and so on," which have gone up dramatically in recent decades. He sees risky, outside play of children among themselves without adult supervision as a way of learning to control strong emotions like anger and fear. I am no psychologist like Professor Gray, but I know I won"t be around forever to protect my girl from the challenges life holds in store for her, so the earlier she develop the intellectual maturity to navigate the world, the better. And by giving kids more control over their lives, they learn to have more confidence in their own capabilities. It is hard for parents to balance the desire to protect their children against the desire to make them more self-reliant. And every one of us has to decide for himself what level of risk he is ready to accept. But parents who prefer to keep their children always in sight and under their thumbs should consider what sort of trade-offs are involved in that choice.

单选题Directions: Read the following four passages. Answer the questions below by choosing A, B, C or D. Thanks to closed doors and fierce gatekeepers, bosses are tricky to observe in their natural habitat. Yet it might be useful to know what they do all day, and whether any of it benefits shareholders. A new Harvard Business School working paper sheds some light. Researchers asked the chief executives of 94 Italian firms to have their assistants record their activities for a week. You may take this with a grain of salt. Is the boss's assistant a neutral observer? If the boss spends his lunch hour drinking a lot, or in a motel with his assistant, will she record this truthfully? Nonetheless, here are the results. The average Italian boss works for 48 hours a week and spends 60% of that time in meetings. The most diligent put in another 20 hours. And the longer they work, the better the company does. Less diligent chief executives are more likely to have one-to-one meetings with people from outside the company. The authors speculate that such people are trying to raise their own profile, perhaps to secure a better job. Bosses who work longer hours, by contrast, spend more of them meeting their own employees. Bosses often complain that they get bogged down in day-to-day operations, says Rajesh Chandy, a professor at the London Business School. Regulations that make them legally responsible for their underlings' wrongdoings are partly to blame. The prospect of jail is a powerful attention-grabber. Many bosses also feel they must dash around the world pitching to clients. Mr Chandy thinks bosses should spend less time with clients and more time thinking about the future. How much time they spend thinking about anything is hard to measure. But in an experiment, Mr Chandy measured how often bosses use forward-looking words like "will" and "shall" in their public statements. He concluded that bosses spend only 3%～4% of their day thinking about long-term strategy. Brian Sullivan, the chief executive of CTPartners, a headhunting firm, says the most difficult part of his job is saying no to people who want a piece of his time. Mr Sullivan says the only time he gets for blue-sky thinking is when he is in the sky. Bill Gates took regular "think weeks", when he would sit alone in a cabin for 18 hours a day reading and contemplating. This, it is said, led to such strategic masterstrokes as "the Internet tidal wave memo" in 1995, which shifted Microsofrs focus to the web. But not every boss thinks he needs more time for thinking. "You can hire McKinsey to do that for you," says one.

单选题Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C, or D. In spring of 2004, when US gas prices hit US $2 a gallon, University of Washington senior Jo Blue kept on driving. After Hurricane Katrina last August, prices topped US $3 a gallon. But Blue kept driving. Now, when prices have leveled at about US $2.25, she still commutes an hour everyday to her job as a swim coach. Blue has to get to work and public transportation is not an option. Buses to the suburb where she works are infrequent, so Blue has no choice but to spend US $30 a week on gas. High gas prices, which began to soar in 2004, have Americans-whose way of life depends on carscomplaining, but not doing much to change the country's car culture. Like Blue, most Americans, except those in major cities, drive to work. Many live in sprawling suburbs which are accessible only by car. The average American spends 55 minutes each day behind the wheel, according to the US Department of Transportation. In 2003, the US's 290,000 residents registered 237,000 vehicles. Many experts say that this car driven lifestyle is unsustainable. "An event like Hurricane Katrina demonstrates how constrained and fragile the energy supply is now," said Barry Silverthorne, producer of "The End of Suburbia", a documentary about American car culture. In the 1950s, King Hubert, a geologist working for Shell, a major US oil company, predicted that the rate of oil extraction (提取) could not continue to increase forever. Once all the high quality or easiest-to-reach oil was extracted, oil would become progressively scarcer and more expensive until the supply runs out altogether. Many major oil fields in the Middle East have reached or will soon reach their peaks, says Megan Qinn, director of the Community Solution, an organization that promotes sustainable development. Though most experts agree the US should become less dependent on cars, few have addressed the issue of "how" "Deep down in America many of us have a sense that we are about to hit a brick wall of some kind. But people are too distracted by Paris Hiton and iPods to notice," said Silverthorne.

单选题At the heart of the debate over illegal immigration lies one key question: are immigrants good or bad for the economy? The American public overwhelmingly thinks they're bad. Yet the consensus among most economists is that immigration, both legal and illegal, provides a small net boost to the economy. Immigrants provide cheap labor, lower the prices of everything from farm produce to new homes, and leave consumers with a little more money in their pockets. So why is there such a discrepancy between the perception of immigrants' impact on the economy and the reality? There are a number of familiar theories. Some argue that people are anxious and feel threatened by an inflow of new workers. Others highlight the strain that undocumented immigrants place on public services, like schools, hospitals, and jails. Still others emphasize the role of race, arguing that foreigners add to the nation's fears and insecurities. There's some truth to all these explanations, but they aren't quite sufficient. To get a better understanding of what's going on, consider the way immigration's impact is felt. Though its overall effect may be positive, its costs and benefits are distributed unevenly. David Card, an economist at UC Berkeley, notes that the ones who profit most directly from immigrants' low- cost labor are businesses and employers-meatpacking plants in Nebraska, for instance, or agricultural businesses in California. Granted, these producers' savings probably translate into lower prices at the grocery store, but how many consumers make that mental connection at the checkout counter? As for the drawbacks of illegal immigration, these, too, are concentrated. Native low-skilled workers suffer most from the competition of foreign labor. According to a study by George Borjas, a Harvard economist, immigration reduced the wages of American high-school drop-outs by 9% between 1980-2000. Among high-skilled, better-educated employees, however, opposition was strongest in states with both high numbers of immigrants and relatively generous social services. What worried them most, in other words, was the fiscal (财政的) burden of immigration. That conclusion was reinforced by another finding: that their opposition appeared to soften when that fiscal burden decreased, as occurred with welfare reform in the 1990s, which curbed immigrants' access to certain benefits. The irony is that for all the overexcited debate, the net effect of immigration is minimal. Even for those most acutely affected-say, low-skilled workers, or California residents-the impact isn't all that dramatic. "The unpleasant voices have tended to dominate our perceptions," says Daniel Tichenor, a political science professor at the University of Oregon. "But when all those factors are put together and the economists calculate the numbers, it ends up being a net positive, but a small one." Too bad most people don't realize it.

单选题"Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists?" Rick Scott, the Florida governor, once asked. A leader of a prominent Internet company once told me that the firm regards admission to Harvard as a useful proof of talent, but a college education itself as useless. Parents and students themselves are acting on these principles, retreating from the humanities. I"ve been thinking about this after reading Fareed Zakaria"s smart new book, In Defense of a Liberal Education . Like Mr. Zakaria, I think that the liberal arts teach critical thinking. So, to answer the skeptics, here are my three reasons the humanities enrich our souls and sometimes even our pocketbooks as well. First, liberal arts equip students with communications and interpersonal skills that are valuable and genuinely rewarded in the labour force, especially when accompanied by technical abilities. "A broad liberal arts education is a key pathway to success in the 21st-century economy," says Lawrence Katz, a labour economist at Harvard. Professor Katz says that the economic return to pure technical skills has flattened, and the highest return now goes to those who combine soft skills—excellence at communicating and working with people—with technical skills. My second reason: We need people conversant with the humanities to help reach wise public policy decisions, even about the sciences. Technology companies must constantly weigh ethical decisions. To weigh these issues, regulators should be informed by first-rate science, but also by first-rate humanism. When the President"s Council on Bioethics issued its report in 2002, "Human Cloning and Human Dignity," it depends upon the humanities to shape judgments about ethics, limits and values. Third, wherever our careers lie, much of our happiness depends upon our interactions with those around us, and there"s some evidence that literature nurtures a richer emotional intelligence. Science magazine published five studies indicating that research subjects who read literary fiction did better at assessing the feelings of a person in a photo than those who read nonfiction or popular fiction. Literature seems to offer lessons in human nature that help us decode the world around us and be better friends. Literature also builds bridges of understanding. In short, it makes eminent sense to study coding and statistics today, but also history and literature.

单选题Birds that are literally half asleep--with one brain hemisphere alert and the other sleeping—control which side of the brain remains awake, according to a new study of sleeping ducks. Earlier studies have documented half brain sleep in a wide range of birds. The brain hemispheres take turns sinking into the sleep stage characterized by slow brain waves. The eye controlled by the sleeping hemisphere keeps shut, while the wakeful hemisphere"s eye stays open and alert. Birds also can sleep with both hemispheres resting at once. Decades of studies of bird flocks led researchers to predict extra alertness in the more vulnerable, end of the row sleepers. Sure enough, the end birds tended to watch carefully on the side away from their companions. Ducks in the inner spots showed no preference for gaze direction. Also, birds dozing (打盹) at the end of the line resorted to single hemisphere sleep, rather than total relaxation, more often than inner ducks did. Rotating 16 birds through the positions in a four duck row, the researchers found outer birds half asleep during some 32 percent of dozing time versus about 12 percent for birds in internal spots. "We believe this is the first evidence for an animal behaviorally controlling sleep and wakefulness simultaneously in different regions of the brain," the researchers say. The results provide the best evidence for a long standing supposition that single hemisphere sleep evolved as creatures scanned for enemies. The preference for opening an eye on the lookout side could be widespread, he predicts. He"s seen it in a pair of birds dozing side by side in the zoo and in a single pet bird sleeping by a mirror. The mirror side eye closed as if the reflection were a companion and the other eye stayed open. Useful as half sleeping might be, it"s only been found in birds and such water mammals (哺乳动物) as dolphins, whales, and seals. Perhaps keeping one side of the brain awake allows a sleeping animal to surface occasionally to avoid drowning. Studies of birds may offer unique insights into sleep. Jerome M. Siegel of the UCLA says he wonders if birds" half brain sleep "is just the tip of the iceberg (冰山)" He speculates that more examples may turn up when we take a closer look at other species.

单选题Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle viewed laughter as "a bodily exercise precious to health". But (1) some claims to the contrary, laughing probably has little influence on physical fitness. Laughter does (2) short-term changes in the function of the heart and its blood vessels, (3) heart rate and oxygen consumption But because hard laughter is difficult to (4) , a good laugh is unlikely to have (5) benefits the way, say, walking or jogging does. (6) , instead of straining muscles to build them, as exercise does, laughter apparently accomplishes the (7) , studies dating back to the 1930s indicate that laughter (8) muscles, decreasing muscle tone for up to 45 minutes after the laugh dies down. Such bodily reaction might conceivably help (9) the effects of psychological stress. Anyway, the act of laughing probably does produce other types of (10) feedback, that improve an individual's emotional state. (11) one classical theory of emotion, our feelings are partially rooted (12) physical reactions. It was argued at the end of the 19th century that humans do not cry (13) they are sad but they become sad when the tears begin to flow. Although sadness also (14) tears, evidence suggests that emotions can flow (15) muscular responses. In an experiment published in 1988, social psychologist Fritz Strack of the University of Würzburg in Germany asked volunteers to (16) a pen either with their teeth-thereby creating an artificial smile- or with their lips, which would produce a (n) (17) expression. Those forced to exercise their smiling muscles (18) more exuberantly to funny cartons than did those whose mouths were contracted in a frown, (19) that expressions may influence emotions rather than just the other way around (20) , the physical act of laughter could improve mood.

单选题Could the bad old days of economic decline be about to return? Since OPEC agreed to supply-cuts in March, the price of crude oil has jumped to almost $26 a barrel, up from less than $10 last December. This near-tripling of oil prices calls up scary memories of the 1973 oil shock, when prices quadrupled, and 1979-]980, when they also almost tripled. Both previous shocks resulted in double-digit inflation and global economic decline. So where are the headlines warning of gloom and doom this time? The oil price was given another push up this week when Iraq suspended oil exports. Strengthening economic growth, at the same time as winter grips the northern hemisphere, could push the price higher still in the short term. Yet there are good reasons to expect the economic consequences now to be less severe than in the 1970s. In most countries the cost of chide oil now accounts for a smaller share of the price of petrol than it did in the 1970s. In Europe, taxes account for up to tour-fifths of the retail price, so even quite big changes in the price of crude have a more muted effect on pump prices than in the past. Rich economies are also less dependent on oil than they were, and so less sensitive to swing in the oil price. Energy conservation, a shift to other fuels and a decline in the importance of heavy, energy- intensive industries have reduced oil consumption. Software, consultancy and mobile telephones use far less oil than steel or car production. For each dollar of GDP (inconstant prices) rich economies now use nearly 50% less oil than in 1973. The OECD estimates in its latest Economic Outlook that, if oil prices averaged $22 a barrel for a full year, compared with $13 in 1998, this would increase the oil import bill in rich economies by only 0.25% -0.5% of GDP. That is less than one-quarter of the income loss in 1974 or 1980. On the other hand, oil-importing emerging economies—to which heavy industry has shifted—have become more energy-intensive, and so could be more seriously squeezed. One more reason not to lose sleep over the rise in oil prices is that, unlike the rises in the 1970s, it has not occurred against the background of general commodity-price inflation and global excess demand. A sizable portion of the world is only just emerging from economic decline. The Economist's commodity price index is broadly unchanging from a year ago. In 1973 commodity prices jumped by 70%, and in 1979 by almost 30%.

单选题In the 1950s, the pioneers of artificial intelligence (AI) predicted that, by the end of this century, computers would be conversing with us at work and robots would be performing our housework. But powerful as computers are, they"re nowhere close to achieving anything remotely resembling these early aspirations for humanlike behavior. Never mind something as complex as conversation: the most powerful computers struggle to reliably recognize the shape of an object, the most elementary of tasks for a ten-month-old kid. A growing group of AI researchers think they know where the field went wrong. The problem, the scientists say, is that AI has been trying to separate the highest, most abstract levels of thought, like language and mathematics, and to duplicate them with logical, step-by- step programs. A new movement in AI, on the other hand, takes a closer look at the more roundabout way in which nature came up with intelligence. Many of these researchers study evolution and natural adaptation instead of formal logic and conventional computer programs. Rather than digital computers and transistors, some want to work with brain cells and proteins. The results of these early efforts are as promising as they are peculiar, and the new nature-based AI movement is slowly but surely moving to the forefront of the field. Imitating the brain"s neural (神经的) network is a huge step in the right direction, says computer scientist and biophysicist Michael Conrad, but it still misses an important aspect of natural intelligence. "People tend to treat the brain as if it were made up of color-coded transistors", he explains, "but it"s not simply a clever network of switches. There are lots of important things going on inside the brain cells themselves. " Specifically, Conrad believes that many of the brain"s capabilities stem from the pattern recognition proficiency of the individual molecules that make up each brain cell. The best way to build and artificially intelligent device, he claims, would be to build it around the same sort of molecular skills. Right now, the option that conventional computers and software are fundamentally incapable of matching the processes that take place in the brain remains controversial. But if it proves true, then the efforts of Conrad and his fellow AI rebels could turn out to be the only game in town.

单选题Most worthwhile careers require some kind of specialized training. Ideally, therefore, the choice of an 1 should be made even before the choice of a curriculum in high school. Actually, 2 , most people make several job choices during their working lives, 3 because of economic and industrial changes and partly to improve 4 position. The "one perfect job" does not exist. Young people should 5 enter into a broad flexible training program that will 6 them for a field of work rather than for a single 7 . Unfortunately many young people have to make career plans 8 benefit of help from a competent vocational counselor or psychologist. Knowing 9 about the occupational world, or themselves for that matter, they choose their lifework on a hit-or-miss 10 . Some drift from job to job. Others 11 to work in which they are unhappy and for which they are not fitted. One common mistake is choosing an occupation for 12 real or imagined prestige. Too many high-school students—or their parents for them—choose the professional field, 13 both the relatively small proportion of workers in the professions and the extremely high educational and personal 14 . The imagined or real prestige of a profession or a "White-collar" job is 15 good reason for choosing it as life"s work. 16 , these occupations are not always well paid. Since a large proportion of jobs are in mechanical and manual work, the 17 of young people should give serious 18 to these fields. Before making an occupational choice, a person should have a general idea of what he wants 19 life and how hard he is willing to work to get it. Some people desire social prestige, others intellectual satisfaction. Some want security, others are willing to take 20 for financial gain. Each occupational choice has its demands as well as its rewards.

单选题Directions: Read the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D. The mass media is a big part of our culture, yet it can also be a helper, adviser and teacher to our young generation. The mass media affects the lives of our young by acting as a (an) {{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}for a number of institutions and social contacts. In this way, it {{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}}a variety of functions in human life. The time spent in front of the television screen is usually at the {{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}of leisure: there is less time for games, amusement and rest. {{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}by what is happening on the screen, children not only imitate what they see but directly {{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}themselves with different characters. Americans have been concerned about the {{U}} {{U}} 6 {{/U}} {{/U}}of violence in the media and its {{U}} {{U}} 7 {{/U}} {{/U}}harm to children and adolescents for at least forty years. During this period, new media {{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}, such as video games, cable television, music videos, and the Internet. As they continue to gain popularity, these media, {{U}} {{U}} 9 {{/U}} {{/U}}television, {{U}} {{U}} 10 {{/U}} {{/U}}public concern and research attention. Another large societal concern on our young generation {{U}} {{U}} 11 {{/U}} {{/U}}by the media, is body image. {{U}} {{U}} 12 {{/U}} {{/U}}forces can influence body image positively or negatively. {{U}} {{U}} 13 {{/U}} {{/U}}one, societal and cultural norms and mass media marketing {{U}} {{U}} 14 {{/U}} {{/U}}our concepts of beauty. In the mass media, the images of {{U}} {{U}} 15 {{/U}} {{/U}}. beauty fill magazines and newspapers, {{U}} {{U}} 16 {{/U}} {{/U}}from our televisions and entertain us {{U}} {{U}} 17 {{/U}} {{/U}}the movies. Even in advertising, the mass media {{U}} {{U}} 18 {{/U}} {{/U}}on accepted cultural values of thinness and fitness for commercial gain. Young adults are presented with a {{U}} {{U}} 19 {{/U}} {{/U}}defined standard of attractiveness, a (n) {{U}} {{U}} 20 {{/U}} {{/U}}that carries unrealistic physical expectations.

单选题In the idealized version of how science is done, facts about the world are waiting to be observed and collected by objective researchers who use the scientific method to carry out their work. But in the everyday practice of science, discovery frequently follows an ambiguous and complicated route. We aim to be objective, but we cannot escape the context of our unique life experience. Prior knowledge and interest influence what we experience, what we think our experiences mean, and the subsequent actions we take. Opportunities for misinterpretation, error, and self-deception abound. Consequently, discovery claims should be thought of as proto science. Similar to newly staked mining claims, they are full of potential. But it takes collective scrutiny and acceptance to transform a discovery claim into a mature discovery. This is the credibility process, through which the individual researcher's me, here, now becomes the community's anyone, anywhere, anytime. Objective knowledge is the goal, not the starting point. Once a discovery claim becomes public, the discoverer receives intellectual credit. But, unlike with mining claims, the community takes control of what happens next. Within the complex social structure of the scientific community, researchers make discoveries; editors and reviewers act as gatekeepers by controlling the publication process; other scientists use the new finding to suit their own purposes; and finally, the public (including other scientists) receives the new discovery and possibly accompanying technology. As a discovery claim works it through the community, the interaction and confrontation between shared and competing beliefs about the science and the technology involved transforms an individual's discovery claim into the community's credible discovery. Two paradoxes exist throughout this credibility process. First, scientific work tends to focus on some aspect of prevailing Knowledge that is viewed as incomplete or incorrect. Little reward accompanies duplication and confirmation of what is already known and believed. The goal is new-search, not re- search. Not surprisingly, newly published discovery claims and credible discoveries that appear to be important and convincing will always be open to challenge and potential modification or refutation by future researchers. Second, novelty itself frequently provokes disbelief. Nobel Laureate and physiologist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi once described discovery as "seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." But thinking what nobody else has thought and telling others what they have missed may not change their views. Sometimes years are required for truly novel discovery claims to be accepted and appreciated. In the end, credibility "happens" to a discovery claim-a process that corresponds to what philosopher Annette Baler has described as the commons of the mind. "We reason together, challenge, revise, and complete each other's reasoning and each other's conceptions of reason. /

单选题In a famous lab trial, a chimp named Sultan put two interlocking sticks together and pulled down a bunch of bananas hanging just out of arm"s reach. Nearly a century later, eager tourists have conducted their own version of the experiment. Equipped with the camera extender known as a selfie stick, they can now reach for flattering CinemaScope selfies wherever they go. Art museums have watched this development nervously, fearing damage to their collections or to visitors, as users swing their sticks. Now they are taking action. One by one, museums across the United States have been imposing bans on using selfie sticks for photographs inside galleries (adding them to existing rules on umbrellas, rucksacks, tripods and monopods), yet another example of how controlling overcrowding has become part of the museum mission. The Hirshhorn Museum in Washington prohibited the sticks this month, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston plans to impose a ban. In New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has been studying the matter for some time, has just decided that it, too, will forbid selfie sticks. "From now on, you will be asked quietly to put it away," said Sree Sreenivasan, the chief digital officer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "It"s one thing to take a picture at arm"s length, but when it is three times arm"s length, you are invading someone else"s personal space." The personal space of other visitors is just one problem. The artwork is another. "We do not want to have to put all the art under glass," said Deborah Ziska, the chief of public information at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which has been quietly enforcing a ban on selfie sticks but is in the process of adding it formally to its printed guidelines for visitors. Last but not least is the threat to the camera operator, intent on capturing the perfect shot and oblivious to the surroundings. "If people are not paying attention in the Temple of Dendur, they can end up in the water with the crocodile sculpture," Mr. Sreenivasan said. "We have so many bal conies you could fall from, and stairs you can trip on."

单选题 In 2007 Safaricom, the biggest mobile operator in Kenya, launched M-PESA, a service that allows money to be sent and received using mobile phones. It is used by 70% of the adult population and has become central to the economy: around 25% of Kenya's GNP flows through it. Similar schemes have had some success elsewhere. There has been a particular push in east Africa. Yet in many poor countries where mobile money should be flourishing, it isn't. Mobile-money services are especially useful in developing countries. A worker in the city can send money to his family in the village without having to waste a day travelling on a rickety bus. Indeed, he can pay his family's household bills directly from his phone. It is safer too: nobody wants to carry wads of currency on public transport. Mobile money also gives its users—many of whom are poor and have no access to banks—a way to save small amounts of money. Mobile transactions are more traceable than cash, making it harder for corrupt officials to embezzle undetected. And lately Kenya has discovered a further benefit: the success of M-PESA has provided the foundation for a group of start-ups in Nairobi that are building new products and services on top of it. Not all countries need mobile money, of course. Rich countries, with cash machines, credit cards and Internet banking, have little use for it. And among developing countries, not all have Kenya's specific mix of circumstances. Safaricom had a dominant market share when it launched M-PESA, giving the service a large base of potential customers. But there is also a bad reason why mobile money has failed to spread. Many of the poor countries that would most benefit from mobile money seem intent on keeping its suppliers out—mainly by insisting they should be regulated like banks. Nobody disputes the idea that financial transactions need to be monitored. But there is also, equally clearly, a rather big difference between a cheap money-transfer system like M-PESA and a full lending bank like Citicorp. The security worries are usually fairly easily dealt with. Placing a limit on the size of transactions and the total balance that can be stored reduces the risk of mobile money being used to launder cash. Another concern is consumer protection: cunning operators could steal cash. One compromise, which has been adopted in several African countries, is to get operators to form partnerships with banks. Indeed, rather than fighting mobile money, governments should use it themselves.

单选题Oversize cupids in pink, furry outfits hand out heart-shaped balloons with "I Do" written on them (in English) at a wedding-themed trade fair in Beijing. Vendors offer romantic photo-shoots of couples under water, personalised wedding cigarettes, and biscuits with names. An emphasis on love is a new addition to Chinese weddings—and shines a pink-filtered spotlight on social change. For centuries, marriage in China was about ensuring heirs for the groom"s family. Both the groom"s and the bride"s family exchanged money or goods. The more money changed hands, the more opulent the wedding. In 1949, frugality was imposed. Dowries consisted of necessities like bed linen or a bicycle. But since the 1980s the extravagance of weddings has matched the country"s rise. Celebrations moved out of homes into hotels. Brides swapped traditional red dresses for white ones. A large industry has emerged to serve the 13 million couples who many each year. Wedding planners are increasingly common, particularly in cities. A decade ago Cosmo Bride, an American owned lifestyle magazine, launched a Chinese-language edition in China. An average wedding cost $12,000 in 2011—the equivalent of more than two years" income for the average urban household. An increase in the average marriage age by 2.5 years since 1990 has given parents (who still usually pay for weddings, despite the earning power of their children) more time to save up. The change in wedding also reflects a fundamental shift in society. For the first time in the history of Chinese family life, the child—rather than ancestors or parents—is regarded as the centre of the family, says Yan Yunxiang of the University of California, Los Angeles. Most newly-weds now are single children, born since the one-child policy was introduced more than 30 years ago. Parents have more to spend if they only have to afford one wedding. William Jankowiak of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who has documented relationships in China for 30 years, says love plays a larger part in young people"s lives—both in choice of partner and in their relationships with parents. The result is evident in weddings, which now focus on the couple. Both sets of parents are represented, but their position is peripheral. Weddings often feature a day of wedding photos, shot before the event, with the couple in a range of outfits against romantic backgrounds, but with no family members.

单选题In our contemporary culture, the prospect of communicating with—or even looking at—a stranger is virtually unbearable. Everyone around us seems to agree by the way they cling to their phones, even without a 1 on a subway. It"s a sad reality—our desire to avoid interacting with other human beings—because there"s 2 to be gained from talking to the stranger standing by you. But you wouldn"t know it, 3 into your phone. This universal protection sends the 4 : "Please don"t approach me." What is it that makes us feel we need to hide 5 our screens? One answer is fear, according to Jon Wortmann, an executive mental coach. We fear rejection, or that our innocent social advances will be 6 as "weird." We fear we"ll be 7 . We fear we"ll be disruptive. Strangers are inherently 8 to us, so we are more likely to feel 9 when communicating with them compared with our friends and acquaintances. To avoid this uneasiness, we 10 to our phones." Phones become our security blanket," Wortmann says. "They are our happy glasses that protect us from what we perceive is going to be more 11 " But once we rip off the band-aid, tuck our smartphones in our pockets and look up, it doesn"t 12 so bad. In one 2011 experiment, behavioral scientists Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder asked commuters to do the unthinkable: Start a 13 . They had Chicago train commuters talk to their fellow 14 "When Dr. Epley and Ms. Schroeder asked other people in the same train station to 15 how they would feel after talking to a stranger, the commuters thought their 16 would be more pleasant if they sat on their own," The New York Times summarizes. Though the participants didn"t expect a positive experience, after they 17 with the experiment, " not a single person reported having been embarrassed." 18 , these commuters were reportedly more enjoyable compared with those without communication, which makes absolute sense, 19 human beings thrive off of social connections. It"s that 20 : Talking to strangers can make you feel connected.

单选题Germany's economic success presents something of an educational puzzle. On the one hand, its schools turn out a workforce capable of producing the goods that have made its companies the export champions of the world. On the other hand, the academic achievements of its school children, measured in international tests, look only moderate. The reading abilities of German 15-year-old, according to the PISA studies published by the OECD, are below the average for rich countries. In a world where brainpower matters more and more, how does German business thrive? The answer is that a combination of schooling and apprenticeship has proved a reliable supplier and shaper of the sort of labor German businesses need to make goods of high quality, even as similar jobs have disappeared in other rich economies. At the age of 10 or 11 about two-fifths of children are selected to go to a Gymnasium. A lot of these go eventually to universities. Most who do not, and many of those at least academic schools, go ultimately into specialized training for one of around 350 trades, from gardening to glass-blowing. Students divide their time between classrooms and the factory floor, acquiring a lot of knowledge on the job. According to many company bosses, this makes them both expert and flexible. Because German jobs are fairly secure, many employees invest time in learning new skills. Companies invest in teaching them, too—for example, to use computers to design parts-because their workers are not like to quit. Moreover, basic education seems to be getting better. The first PISA study, published in 2001, in which German children did poorly, caused much national soul-searching. Germany's position in the OECD rankings has improved a great deal in the past few years. Even so, the system has flaws. Some worry, for example, that the stronger general education is needed to equip young Germans to change trades should demand for their specific expertise dry up. A bigger concern is that early selection fails children form poor and immigrant families, who are likeliest to attend the least academic schools and to miss out on apprenticeships. Partly for this reason, there is a large group of students at the bottom of the rankings—which explains why the German average is still below standard. Some think that this may eventually cost the economy. Ludger Wossmann, of the Ifo Institute at Munich University, reckons that the best long-run predictor of a country's economic growth rate is the performance of its children in comparative tests in science, math and so forth. Germany's scores, he points out, do not predict well.

单选题At work, as in life, attractive women get a lot of the breaks. Studies have shown that they are more likely to be promoted than their plain-Jane colleagues. Because people tend to project positive traits onto them, such as sensitivity and poise, they may also be at an advantage in job interviews. The only downside to hotness is having to fend off ghastly male colleagues; or so many people think. But research by two Israelis suggests otherwise. Bradley Ruffle at Ben-Gurion University and Ze"ev Shtudiner at Ariel University Centre looked at what happens when job hunters include photos with their curricula vitae , as is the norm in much of Europe and Asia. The pair sent fictional applications to over 2,500 real-life vacancies. For each job, they sent two very similar résumés, one with a photo, one without. Subjects had previously been graded for their attractiveness. For men, the results were as expected. Hunks were more likely to be called for an interview if they included a photo. Ugly men were better off not including one. However, for women this was reversed. Attractive females were less likely to be offered an interview if they included a mugshot. When applying directly to a company (rather than through an agency) an attractive woman would need to send out 11 CVs on average before getting an interview; an equally qualified plain one just seven. At first, Mr. Ruffle considered what he calls the "dumb-blonde hypothesis" that people assume beautiful women to be stupid. However, the photos had also been rated on how intelligent people thought each subject looked; there was no correlation between perceived intellect and beauty. So the cause of the discrimination must lie elsewhere. Human resources departments tend to be staffed mostly by women. Indeed, in the Israeli study, 93% of those tasked with selecting whom to invite for an interview were female. The researchers" unavoidable and unpalatable conclusion is that old-fashioned jealousy led the women to discriminate against pretty candidates. So should attractive women simply attach photos that make them look dowdy? No. Better, says Mr. Ruffle, to discourage the practice of including a photo altogether. Companies might even consider the anonymous model used in the Belgian public sector, where CVs do not even include the candidate"s name.