单选题They are among the 250,000 people under the age of 25 who are out of work in the Netherlands, a group that accounts for 40 percent of the nation's unemployed. A storm of anger boils up at the government-sponsored (政府资助的) youth center, even among those who are continuing their studies. "We study for jobs that don't exist." Nicollete Steggerda, 23, said. After three decades of prosperity, unemployment among 10 member nations of the European Community has exceeded 11 percent, affecting a total of 12.3 million people, and the number is climbing. The bitter disappointment long expressed by British youths is spreading across the Continent. The title of a rock song "No Future" can now be seen written on the brick walls of closed factories in Belgium and France. Recent surveys have found that the increasing argument in the last few years over the deployment 布局) in Europe of North Atlantic Treaty Organization missiles and the possibility of nuclear war have clouded European youths' confidence in the future. One form of protest tends to put the responsibility tot a country's economic troubles on the large numbers of "guest workers" from Third World nations, people welcomed in Western Europe in the years of prosperity. Young Europeans, brought up in an extended period of economic success and general stability, seem to resemble Americans more than they do their own parents. Material enjoyment has given them a sense of expectation, each the right, to a standard of living that they see around them. "And so we pass the days at the discos, or meet people at the café, and sit and stare." said Isabella Gcuit. "There is usually not much conversation. You look for happiness. Sometimes you even find it./

单选题People kill each other over diamonds; countries go to war over oil. But the world's most expensive commodities are worth nothing in the absence of water. Fresh water is essential for life, with no substitute. Although mostly unpriced, it is the most valuable stuff in the world. Nature has decided that the supply of water is fixed. Meanwhile demand rises as the world's population increases and enriches itself Homes, factories and offices are sucking up ever more. But it is the planet's growing need for food that matters most. Farming accounts for 70% of withdrawals. Few of the world's great rivers that run through grain-growing areas now reach the sea all the year round or, if they do, they do so as a trickle. Less obvious, though even more serious, are the withdrawals from underground, which are hidden from sight but big enough to produce changes in the Earth's gravitational field that can be monitored by NASA's satellites in space. Water tables are now falling in many parts of the world, including America, India and China. So far the world has been spared a true water war, and competition for water can sometimes bring rivals together as well as drive them apart. But since over 60% of the world's population lives in a river basin shared by two or more countries, the scope for squabbles is plain. Even if acute water shortages were to become widespread in just one country—India—they could lead to mass migration and fighting. Although the supply of water cannot be increased, mankind can use what there is better—in four ways. One is through the improvement of storage and delivery, by creating underground reservoirs, replacing leaking pipes, lining earth-bottomed canals, irrigating plants at their roots with just the right amount of water, and so on. A second route focuses on making farming less thirsty—for instance by growing newly bred, perhaps genetically modified, crops that are drought-resistant or higher-yielding. A third way is to invest in technologies to take the salt out of sea water and thus increase supply of the fresh stuff. The fourth is of a different kind: release the market on water-users and let the price mechanism bring supply and demand into balance. And once water is properly priced, trade will encourage well-watered countries to make water-intensive goods, and arid ones to make those that are water-light.

单选题Investment in the public sector, such as electricity, irrigation, public services and transport (excluding vehicles, ships and planes) increased by about 10%, although the emphasis moved to the transport and away from the other sectors mentioned. Trade and services recorded a 16%～17% investment growth, including a 30% increase in investment in business premises. Industrial investment is estimated to have risen by 8%. Although the share of agriculture in total gross investment in the economy continued to decline, investment grew by 9% in absolute equipment. Housing construction had 12% more invested in it in 1964, not so much owing to increased demand, as to fears of new taxes and limitation of building. Total consumption in real terms rose by close on 11% during 1964, and per capita personal consumption by under 7%, as in 1963. The undesirable trend towards a rapid rise in consumption, evident in previous years, remained unaltered. Since at current prices consumption rose by 16% and disposable income by 13%, there was evidently a fall in the rate of saving in the private sector of the economy. Once again consumption patterns indicated a swift advance in the standard of living. Expenditure on food declined in significance, although consumption of fruit increased. Spending on furniture and household equipment, health, education and recreation continued to increase. The greatest proof of altered living standards was the rapid expansion of expenditure on transport (including private cars) and personal services of all kinds, which occurred during 1964. The progressive wealth of large sectors of the public was demonstrated by the changing composition of durable goods purchased. Saturation (饱和) point was rapidly being approached for items such as the first household radio, gas cookers, and electric refrigerators, whereas increasing purchases of automobiles and television sets were registered.

单选题Bill Gates was 20 years old. Steve Jobs was 21. Warren Buffett was 26. Ralph Lauren was 28. Estée Lauder was 29. These now iconic names were all 20-somethings when they started their companies that would throw them, and their enterprises, into some of the biggest successes ever known. Consider this: many of the truly remarkable innovations of the latest generation—a list that includes Google, Facebook and Twitter—were all founded by people under 30. The number of people in their mid-20s disrupting entire industries, taking on jobs usually reserved for people twice their age and doing it in the glare of millions of social media "followers" seems to be growing very rapidly. So what is it about that youthful decade after those awkward teenage years that inspires such shoot-for-the-moon success? Does age really have something to do with it? It does. Young people bring fresh eyes to confronting problems and challenges that others have given up on. 20-something entrepreneurs see no boundaries and see no limits. And they can make change happen. Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, has another, colder theory that may explain it: Ultimately, it"s about money. In other words, it"s the young people who have nothing to lose, with no mortgage and, frankly, with nothing to do on a Friday night except work, who are the ones often willing to take the biggest risks. Sure, they are talented. But it"s their persistence and zeal, the desire to stay up until 6 a.m. chugging Red Bull, that is the difference between being a salaried employee and an entrepreneur. That"s not to say that most 20-somethings are finding success. They"re not. The latest crop of fiber-successful young entrepreneurs, designers and authors are far, far from the norm. In truth, unemployment for workers age 16 to 24 is double the national average. One of the biggest challenges facing this next generation—and one that may prevent more visionary entrepreneurs from succeeding—is the staggering rise in the level of debt college students have been left with. If Peter Thiel"s theory is right, it is going to be harder and harder for young people to take big risks because they will be crushed with obligations before they even begin. If you"re over 29 years old and still haven"t made your world-changing mark, don"t despair. Some older people have had big breakthroughs, too. Thomas Edison didn"t invent the phonograph until he was 30.

单选题 Shopping has always been something of an impulse activity, in which objects that catch our fancy while strolling are immediately bought on a whim. Advertisers and sellers have taken advantage of this fact, carefully positioning inexpensive but attractive items on paths that we are most likely to cross, hoping that our human nature will lead to a greater profit for them. With the dawn of the Internet and its exploding use across the world, the same tactics apply. Advertisers now place "banners", links to commercial web sites decorated with attractive pictures designed to catch our eyes while browsing the webs, on key web sites with heavy traffic. They pay top dollar for the right, thus creating profits for the hosting web site as well. These actions are performed in the hopes that during the course of our casual and leisurely web surfing, we'll click on that banner that sparks our interest and thus, in theory, buy the products advertised. Initial results have been positive. Web sites report a huge inflow of cash, both from the advertisers who tempt customers in with the banners and the hosting web sites, which are paid for allowing the banners to be put in place. As trust and confidence in Internet buying increases and information security is heightened with new technology, the volume of buying is increasing, leading to even greater profits. The current situation, however, is not quite as optimistic. Just as magazine readers tend to unconsciously ignore advertisements in their favorite periodicals, web browsers are beginning to allow banners to slip their notice as well. Internet users respond to the flood of banners by viewing them as annoyances, a negative image that is hurting sales, since users are now less reluctant to click on those banners, preferring not to support the system that puts them in place. If Internet advertising is to continue to be a viable and profitable business practice, new methods will need to be considered to reinvigorate the industry. With the recent depression in the technology sector and slowing economy, even new practices may not do the trick. As consumers are saving more and frequenting traditional real estate businesses over their Internet counterparts, the fate of Internet business is called into question. The coming years will be the only reliable indication of whether shopping on the worldwide web is the wave of the future or simply an impulse activity whose whim has passed.

单选题Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, burdensome, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has resulted in robotics—the science of conferring various human capabilities on machines. And if scientists have yet to create the mechanical version of science fiction, they have begun to come close. As a result, the modern world is increasingly populated by intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose universal existence has removed much human labor. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with mechanical politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robot-drivers. And thanks to the continual miniaturization of electronics and micro-mechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with sub millimeter accuracy—far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone. But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves—goals that pose a real challenge. "While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error," says Dave Lavery, manager of a robotics program at NASA, "we can"t yet give a robot enough "common sense" to reliably interact with a dynamic world." Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results. Despite a spell of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the human brain by the year 2010, researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast by decades if not centuries. What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain"s roughly one hundred billion nerve cells are much more talented—and human perception far more complicated—than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognize the error of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 percent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of a winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can"t approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don"t know quite how we do it.

单选题Next month Britons will have yet more smartphones to choose from, when devices from Wiko, a two-year-old French company, go on sale. Wiko hopes that its phones, which in France start at around 70 Euros, will be as popular across Britain as at home. In 2013 nearly 7% of French first-time smartphone-buyers chose a Wiko. In early 2014 the firm claims to have been the second-biggest vendor in France. Wiko is not alone. In both rich countries and poor ones, cheaper smartphone brands are making inroads . Demand for costly phones, mainly in developed economies, is slowing, but that for less expensive devices is booming. People who will buy their first smartphones today perhaps care less about the brand and more about price than the richer, keener types of a few years ago. They are likely to pay less for a nice new smartphone than they did for their shabby old phone, because the cost of making smartphones has decreased. The declining cost of making phones means that buyers are getting more for their money. Two years ago the median price of a smartphone was $325. Last year it was $250. This year it may be $200. The cheapest phones will become cheaper still. All this is great for smartphone-buyers everywhere. It is less good news for the market leaders, Apple and Samsung—the only vendors making much money. Apple may evade being influenced by its operating system and apparently exceptional brand, although it has lately been selling cheaper iPhones. Samsung, which dominates the market for phones running on Google"s Android operating system, may be more vulnerable. Granted, Samsung makes cheaper devices as well as dearer ones, and it can afford some slimming of its margins. But its problem, Mr. Jeronimo, a researcher from Internet Data Center, says, is that it carries lots of costs, in research and development and in marketing, that cheaper rivals do not. Samsung is doubtless wise to this. Hence its attempt to push beyond the smartphone, into smart watches and wristbands, connected domestic appliances and the business market. The weather of Mobile-phone brands is variable: ask Ericsson, HTC, Motorola and Nokia—the previous successful brands. Samsung has spent buckets of gold building its name. It will not want to be replaced by the Wikos of the world.

单选题"It"s such a simple thing," said John Spitzer, managing director of equipment standards for the United States Golf Association. "I"m amazed that so many people spend so much time and energy on trying to change it." The simple thing to which he refers is the humble golf tee, a peg made of wood that most of us grab by the handful or buy for a few pennies each, stick in our pockets, and don"t give a second thought to. The road to the tee began with a Boston-area dentist named George F. Grant, who received a patent in 1899 for "an Improvement in Golf-Tees." Grant"s tees consisted of a small piece of rubber tubing attached to a tapered wooden peg to be pushed into the ground. The rubber held the ball, and yielded when the club contacted it. He had them produced by a nearby manufacturing concern and gave them out to his friends but never tried to sell or market them. That fell to William Lowell—another tooth doctor, coincidentally—who created the Reddy Tee in 1921. It was a one-piece implement of solid wood, painted red at the top so it could be easily found and cleverly named. He paid Walter Hagen and trick-shot artist Joe Kirkwood to endorse and use the device, and it was a commercial success, with more than $100,000 in sales by the time it was patented in 1925. The introduction of the oversize metal driver in the 1980s led most golfers to adopt longer tees to go along with the larger and higher sweet spot of those clubs. The USGA has banned tees longer than 4 inches, a height that is well past the point of diminishing returns. Even back in the 1960s, Jack Nicklaus understood the value of teeing the ball high, which he explained by saying, "Through years of experience I have found that air offers less resistance than dirt." Golfers who have fairly steep swings (like me) break a lot of tees. We can only envy the legendary Canadian pro Moe Norman, who could play for weeks with a single tee. When his playing partners asked him how he managed to stripe his drives without dislodging the peg, he answered, "I"m trying to hit the ball, not the tee." So are we all, Moe. So are we all.

单选题The notion of using a management degree to do good while doing well has grown in popularity on today's business school campuses. And an ever-increasing number of students plan on putting their talent to use within the (1) sector. The recession has led many applicants to reevaluate their priorities and (2) what they want to do with their lives, often trading jobs with status and huge paychecks for careers with a (n) (3) social impact. In order to keep and develop the competitive (4) needed to survive in today's uncertain economy, nonprofits must run themselves just like any other successful business. What you need to (5) a company well, as is often the (6) within this sector, business skills are essential. (7) are people skills, management skills, financial-analysis skills, IT skills—the list goes on. That's (8) the MBA degree comes in. While at business school, social enterprise-minded students can take (9) of numerous clubs, competitions, global experiences, and centers. And the centers are (10) to teach students about topics ranging from nonprofit management to starting businesses that (11) underrepresented communities. The Social Enterprise Initiative is a big part of MBA experience at Harvard Business School, which (12) more than 500 books and cases published on the subject since 1993 and more than 90 HBS (13) engaged in social enterprise research and teaching. (14) the Center for Social Innovation at Standard Graduate School of Business, MBA students can earn a certificate in the Public Management Program as they focus their academic efforts in (15) such as the environment, international development, health care, and education. Across the pond, the Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford's Said Business School (16) for its variety of social entrepreneurship electives, MBA projects on social innovation, and co- curricular activities. It was (17) in 2003 with a ￡4.4 million investment by the Skoll Foundation, the largest (18) center offers up to five fully funded MBA scholarships to (19) impressive candidates, named Skoll Skollars, who plan to (20) entrepreneurial solution for urgent social and environmental challenges.

单选题Have you ever wondered what our future is like? Practically all people (1) a desire to predict their future (2) . Most people seem inclined to (3) this task using causal reasoning. First we (4) recognize that future circumstances are (5) caused or conditioned by present ones. We learn that getting an education will (6) how much money we earn later and that swimming beyond the reef may bring an unhappy (7) with a shark. Second, people also learn that such (8) of cause and effect are probabilistic (可能的) in nature. That is, the effects occur more often when the causes occur than when the causes are (9) but not always. Thus, students learn that studying hard (10) good grades in most instances, but not every time. Science makes these concepts of causality and probability more (11) and provides techniques for dealing (12) then more accurately than does causal human inquiry. In looking at ordinary human inquiry, we need to (13) between prediction and understanding. Often, even if we don't understand why, we are willing to act (14) the basis of a demonstrated predictive ability. Whatever the primitive drives (15) motivate human beings, satisfying them depends heavily on the ability to (16) future circumstances. The attempt to predict is often played in a (17) of knowledge and understanding. If you can understand why certain regular patterns (18) , you can predict better than if you simply observe those patterns. Thus, human inquiry aims (19) answering both "what" and "why" question, and we pursue these (20) by observing and figuring out.

单选题We often tend to associate smiling as the result of a positive event or mood. But research demonstrates that the act of smiling, in and 1 itself, can be the catalyst for joy. Wonderful things, ranging from an 2 mood to a better relationship, can be the result of the 3 act of smiling. Even better, it is a tool that is free, easy and always available. Even when you aren"t feeling happy, smile can help 4 your mood. Darwin hypothesized, back in 1872, that making changes in our 5 expressions can influence our 6 experience, some- thing he called facial feedback response theory. Psychological research has 7 Darwin"s assertion that expressions do not just result from moods, but actually influence them. Smiling more may actually 8 your lifespan. Research indicates that smiling may improve heart health by 9 heart rate after stressful events. So, 10 smiling to your health regime of eating well, getting enough sleep and exercising may just add 11 years to your life. People who smile more tend to be more 12 , joyful and emotionally stable which lends itself to healthier relationships, and thus have longer and more successful 13 . An interesting study published in 2009 found a correlation between smiles in photographs and divorce rates. The larger the smile, the 14 likely divorce was later in life. 15 , those with the smallest smiles or no smiles, were five times more likely to be divorced. When Mother Teresa said "Every time you smile at someone, it is... a 16 to that person, a beautiful thing", she was right. One study 17 by Hewlett Packard found that seeing another"s smile stimulated the heart and 18 more so than eating chocolate or receiving money. This was particularly true 19 viewing the smile of a child. Additionally, research has demonstrated smiling may actually be easily diffused. Research published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology examined mimicry, the tendency to mimic the emotional expressions of those around us, and found that it is actually hard to 20 when someone else is smiling.

单选题I had an experience some years ago which taught me something about the ways in which people make a bad situation worse by blaming themselves. One January, I had to officiate at two funerals on successive days for two elderly women in my community. Both had died "full of years", as the Bible would say both yielded to the normal wearing out of the body after a long and full life. Their homes happened to be near each other, so I paid condolence (吊唁) calls on the two families on the same afternoon. At the first home, the son of the deceased (已故的) woman said to me, "If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold snow, she would be alive today. It's my fault that she died. " At the second home, the son of the other deceased woman said, "If only I hadn't insisted on my mother's going to Florida, she would be alive today. That long airplane ride, the abrupt change of climate, was more than she could take. It's my fault that she's dead. " When things don't turn out as we would like them to, it is very tempting to assume that had we done things differently, the story would have had a happier ending. Priests know that any time there is a death, the survivors will feel guilty. Because the course of action they took turned out badly, they believe that the opposite course-keeping mother at home, postponing the operation—would have turned out better. After all, how could it have turned out any worse? There seem to be two elements involved in our readiness to feel guilt. The first is our pressing need to believe that the world makes sense, that there is a cause for every effect and a reason for everything that happens. That leads us to find patterns and connections both where they really exist and where they exist only in our minds. The second element is the notion that we are the cause of what happens, especially the bad things that happen. It seems to be a short step from believing that every event has a cause to believing that every disaster is our fault. The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood. Psychologists speak of the infantile myth of omnipotence (万能). A baby comes to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it. He wakes up in the morning and summons the rest of the world to its tasks. He cries, and someone comes to attend to him. When he is hungry, people feed him, and when he is wet, people change him. Very often, we do not completely outgrow that infantile notion that our wishes cause things to happen.

单选题How"s this for unintended consequences? Some of the biggest beneficiaries (受惠者) of the women"s movement have been married men. According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, married men have a 60% higher average household income than they did in 1970, even adjusted for inflation. Unmarried men, on the other hand, only got a 16% bump. One reason for the rise is that more men are marrying women who make more money than they do, mainly because there are more high-income women to go around. In 1970, just 4% of men at the age of 30 to 44 had wives who brought in more money than they did. By 2007, more than a fifth of men in that age range had wives who out-earned them. Members of this thriving demographic (人口统计学的) are effectively doubling their income or more when they wed, without doubling their costs. Aside from the increase in white-collar women, the other trend summed up by the Pew Research Center is that marriage rates have declined most sharply among the least educated men and women, which helps explain why the average household income figures for married men have pulled even further ahead of those for their single counterparts. More of the least rich are unmarried than before. The study, which drew on household income data from the Decennial Census and the 2007 American Community Survey, showed that the biggest gainers were married college-educated men. The biggest losers were unmarried men who did not complete high school or who only had a high school diploma. After adjusting for inflation, the 2007 unmarried low-income men and women had lower household incomes than their 1970 counterparts. "The steeper decline in marriage among the less educated has contributed to a steeper decline in their income," says one of the study"s authors, D"Vera Cohn. The trend has a dark side, says Dalton Conley, social sciences dean at New York University. "High-income women marrying high-income men is one of the drivers of inequality," he says. "It affects the distribution of income between families." He notes that among college-educated high-income couples, the divorce rate is getting lower, while unmarried low-income men and women tend to partner up and then uncouple more rapidly. "This leads to family instability and a cycle of disadvantage," says Conley.

单选题In theory, annual performance review are constructive and positive interactions between managers and employees working together to attain (1) performance and strengthen the organization. In reality, they often create division, (2) morale (士气), and spark anger and jealousy. (3) , although the object of the annual performance review is to improve performance, it often has the (4) result. A programmer at a brokerage (经济) firm was (5) to learn at her annual performance review that she was denied a promotion (6) she wasn't a "team player". What were the data used to make this (7) ? She didn't smile in the company photo. (8) this story might sound as if it came straight out of a comic strip, it is a true (9) of one woman's experience. By (10) a few tips and guidelines (准则) from industry analysis, this kind of ordeal (厄运) can be avoided. To end the year (11) a positive and useful performance review, managers and employees must start the year by working together to (12) clear goals and expectations. It may be helpful to allow employees to submit a list of people (13) with the company who will be in a good position to (14) their performance at the end of the year is out. These people may be coworkers, suppliers, or even customers. By checking (15) progress at about nine months, managers can give them a chance to correct mistakes and provide (16) to those who need it before the year is out. When conducting the review, managers should (17) strengths and weaknesses during the past year and discuss future responsibilities, avoiding punishment or blame. (18) , when employees leave their performance reviews, they should be focusing on (19) they can do in the year (20) , not worrying about what went into their files about the past.

单选题For American parents, bargain prices for toys this holiday season qualify as good news: A Barbie fan who rose before dawn for Wal-Mart's Black Friday sale could secure the "Barbie Diamond Castle Princess Liana Doll" for $5-royally marked down from its regular retail price. At Target, a radio- controlled helicopter cost a mere $15. The price wars were enough to draw consumers out of their bunkers (碉堡) for their first shopping outing in months. But wrapped up with those cheap toys are ominous economic omens for both sides of the Pacific. The rock-bottom prices show how desperate US retailers are to plump up weak consumer demand—a symptom of the ailing US economy and a serious problem for China, which makes nine of every 10 toys sold in American stores. The toy industry has played a major role in China's economic surge (猛增) over the past 30 years. But Chinese toy makers began feeling the economic squeeze well before the US recession was made official in late November. The volume of Chinese toys passing through eight major US ports was down 5.9 percent in the first nine months in 2008, compared to the same period in 2007, according to economic: forecasters IHS Global Insight, which tracks the information for the National Federation of Retailers. China's new labor contract law which imposed stricter conditions and compensation for layoffs of temporary workers took effect in 2007, increasing costs for manufacturers that rely heavily on migrants on production lines, including toy makers and other labor- intensive manufacturers based mainly in southern Guangdong province. Toy makers also were hard hit by the rising price of oil, which surged to more than $140 a barrel in June, and in turn sharply increased the price of plastic. Industry sources say the toy makers saw profits squeezed to the point where many tried to renegotiate contracts with buyers—especially major US players like Wal-Mart. When they discovered the buyers wouldn't move even slightly on the purchase agreements, many simply decided to close their factories. "Over half (of the factories) that have closed had negotiated a price, then when they couldn't get the retailer to move (on the price), they wouldn't make it at a loss and closed down. " said Britt Beemer, a retail strategist and founder of America's Research Group. To be sure, some of the factories that were shut down were small shops that employed only a few dozen workers. And the contraction is to some degree a natural consolidation process in an industry, that is overbuilt.

单选题Scientists have long argued over the relative contributions of practice and native talent to the development of elite performance. This debate swings back and forth every century, it seems, but a paper in the current issue of the journal Psychological Science illustrates where the discussion now stands and hints—more tantalizingly, for people who just want to do their best—at where the research will go next. The value-of-practice debate has reached a stalemate. In a landmark 1993 study of musicians, a research team led by K. Anders Ericsson found that practice time explained almost all the difference (about 80 percent) between elite performers and committed amateurs. The finding rippled quickly through the popular culture, perhaps most visibly as the apparent inspiration for the "10,000-hour rule" in Malcolm Gladwell"s best-selling "Outliers"—a rough average of the amount of practice time required for expert performance. The new paper, the most comprehensive review of relevant research to date, comes to a different conclusion. Compiling results from 88 studies across a wide range of skills, it estimates that practice time explains about 20 percent to 25 percent of the difference in performance in music, sports and games like chess. In academics, the number is much lower—4 percent—in part because it"s hard to assess the effect of previous knowledge, the authors wrote. One of those people, Dr. Ericsson, had by last week already written his critique of the new review. He points out that the paper uses a definition of practice that includes a variety of related activities, including playing music or sports for fun or playing in a group. But his own studies focused on what he calls deliberate practice: one-on-one lessons in which an instructor pushes a student continually, gives immediate feedback and focuses on weak spots. "If you throw all these kinds of practice into one big soup, of course you are going to reduce the effect of deliberate practice," he said in a telephone interview. Zach Hambrick, a co-author of the paper of the journal Psychological Science, said that using Dr. Ericsson"s definition of practice would not change the results much, if at all, and partisans on both sides have staked out positions. Like most branches of the nature-nurture debate, this one has produced multiple camps, whose estimates of the effects of practice vary by as much as 50 percentage points.

单选题Soft-drink sales have been declining for nine straight years. This is much more than a trend——it"s a fundamental shift in consumer tastes that 1 a major problem for soda makers, no matter how 2 their product combination might be. The latest numbers are astonishing, but not surprising. Sales of soda fell 3% 3 volume in 2013, to the lowest levels since 1995, 4 to a report from Beverage Digest issued on Monday. That would be a big 5 no matter what, and it"s more than double 2012"s decline. People are moving away from soda at a(n) 6 rate. At this point, companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsico must be 7 not on what they"re doing to save their flagship brands, but on how well they"re 8 those brands" decline. Of course that"s not easy for companies that are named for those very brands, so they"re still crazily trying to 9 how to at least stop the losses, even as they wisely continue to invest in 10 like energy drinks, sports drinks, and flavored water. Pepsico took measures such as trying a new bottle design and signing with Beyoncé, 11 sales have continued to decrease. And the hoped-for savior of the business—diet drinks with 12 sweeteners—are no help. Up until a few years ago, sales of diet sodas were falling at about the same rate as the sugar-filled ones. Now they"re actually falling faster 13 consumers continue to hear about health 14 . Just yesterday, a study was released indicating that consumption of diet soda can 15 the risk of cardiovascu-lar disease in older women. But health concerns are not the only problem. If they were, it would seem 16 that energy drinks, sports beverages, coffee-based beverages, and flavored waters would be taking up the slack. But they are. That"s a further 17 that what"s doing soda in is the increase of 18 in the beverage aisle, especially those 19 at young people, a growing number of whom think of Coke, Dr. Pepper, Sprite, and Pepsi—Beyoncé notwithstanding—— 20 the stuff their grandparents drank in the old days.

单选题Learning disabilities are very common. They affect perhaps 10 percent of all children. Four times as many boys as girls have learning disabilities. Since about 1970, new research has helped brain scientists understand these problems better. Scientists now know there are many different kinds of learning disabilities and that they are caused by many different things. There is no longer any question that all learning disabilities result from differences in the way the brain is organized. You cannot look all a child and tell if he or she has a learning disability. There is no outward sign of the disorder. So some researchers began looking at the brain itself to learn what might be wrong. In one study, researchers examined the brain of a learning-disabled person, who had died in an accident. They found two unusual things. One involved cells in the left side of the brain, which control language. These cells normally are white. In the learning-disabled person, however, these cells were gray. The researchers also found that many of the nerve cells were not in a line the way they should have been. The nerve cells were mixed together. The study was carried out under the guidance of Norman Geschwind, an early expert on learning disabilities. Doctor Geschwind proposed that learning disabilities resulted mainly from problems in the left side of the brain. He believed this side of the brain failed to develop normally. Probably, he said, nerve cells there did not connect as they should. So the brain was like an electrical device in which the wires were crossed. Other researchers did not examine brain tissue. Instead, they measured the brain's electrical activity and made a map of the electrical signals. Frank Duff), experimented with this technique at Children's Hospital Medical Center in Boston. Doctor Duffy found large differences in the brain activity of normal children and those with reading problems. The differences appeared throughout the brain. Doctor Dully said his research is evidence that reading disabilities involve damage to a wide area of the brain, not just the left side.

单选题Imagine fishermen walking down to the seashore, ready to carry out their early morning routine of preparing their boats and net. 1 they hope for a good catch of fish. But to their 2 , a horrible sight meets their still sleepy eyes. Thousands of fish have been washed 3 dead. The cause of this mass destruction? A red tide! Red tides are a global 4 . They have been observed on both the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts of the United States and Canada. They have also 5 in many other places. Though relatively few people are 6 them, red tides are not new. In the Philippines, a red tide was first seen in the province of Bataan in 1908. Since then, red tides have been seen in many other 7 . A Philippines red tide expert told us that " 8 the fish kills, the Philippines has documented 1,926 cases of dead shellfish poisoning caused by red tides." The term "red tide" 9 the discoloration of water that sometimes occurs in certain areas of the ocean or sea. Although the color is often red, it may also be 10 of brown or yellow. The World Book Encyclopedia reports that "the discolored areas may range from 11 a few square yards to more than 2,600 square kilometers." What causes such discoloration? Red tides are generally caused by several 12 of single-celled organisms. These tiny organisms have hair-like projections which they use to 13 themselves in water. There are about 2,000 varieties of these organisms, 30 of which carry poisonous 14 . These minute organisms usually stay in warm waters with high content of salt. A red tide occurs when there is a sudden and rapid 15 of these organisms. The concentration of these organisms may 16 to 50,000,000 per quart of water! Although scientists do not fully understand why this happens, it is known that these organisms 17 when certain conditions simultaneously affect the water. These include abnormal weather, 18 temperatures, an oversupply of nutrients in the water, a generous 19 sunlight, and favorable water currents. When a heavy rainfall occurs, minerals and other nutrients are sometimes washed 20 the land into coastal water. These nutrients can contribute to the breeding of the organisms. The result? Red tides!

单选题Talk to any parent of a student who took an adventurous gap year (a year between school and university when some students earn money, travel, etc. ) and a misty look will come into their eyes. There are some disasters and even the most motivated, organized gap student does require family back-up, financial, emotional and physical. The parental mistiness is not just about the brilliant experience that has matured their offspring; it is vicarious living. We all wish pre-university gap years had been the fashion in our day. We can see how much tougher our kids become; how much more prepared to benefit from university or to decide positively that they are going to do something other than a degree. Gap years are fashionable, as is reflected in the huge growth in the number of charities and private companies offering them. Pictures of Prince William toiling in Chile have helped, but the trend has been gathering steam for a decade. The range of gap packages starts with backpacking, includes working with charities, building hospitals and schools and, very commonly, working as a language assistant, teaching English. With this trend, however, comes a danger. Once parents feel that a well structured year is essential to their would-be undergraduates' progress to a better university, a good degree, an impressive CV and well paid employment, as the gap companies blurbs suggest it might be, then parents will start organizing and paying for the gaps. Where there are disasters, according to Richard Oliver, director of the gap companies umbrella organization, the Year Out Group, it is usually because of poor planning. That can be the fault of the company or of the student, he says, hut the best insurance is thoughtful preparation. "When people get it wrong, it is usually medical or, especially among girls, it is that they have not been away from home before or because expectation does not match reality." The point of a gap year is that it should be the time when the school leaver gets to do the thing that he or she fancies. Kids don't mature if mum and dad decide how they are going to mature. If the 18-year-old's way of maturing is to slob out on Hampstead Heath soaking up sunshine or spending a year working with fishermen in Cornwall, then that's what will be productive for that person. The consensus, however, is that some structure is an advantage and that the prime mover needs to be the student. The 18-year-old who was dispatched by his parents at two weeks' notice to Canada to learn to be a snowboarding instructor at a cost of ￡5,800, probably came back with little more than a hangover. The 18-year-old on the same package who worked for his fare and spent the rest of his year instructing in resorts from New Zealand to Switzerland, and came back to apply for university, is the positive counterbalance.