单选题President Clinton ______ power when the US economy was slow.

单选题Today's college students are more narcissistic (自恋的) and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society. "We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You're special' and having children repeat that back," said the study's lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. "Kids are self-centered enough already. Unfortunately, narcissism can also have very negative consequences for society, including the breakdown of close relationships with others," he said. The study asserts that narcissists "are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short-lived, at risk for infidelity, lack emotional warmth, and to exhibit game-playing, dishonesty, and over-controlling and violent behaviors". Twenge, the author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled- and More Miserable Than Ever Before", said narcissists tend to lack empathy, react aggressively to criticism and favor self-promotion over helping others. Some analysts have commended today's young people for increased commitment to volunteer work. But Twenge viewed even this phenomenon skeptically, noting that many high schools require community service and many youths feel pressure to list such endeavors on college applications. Campbell said the narcissism upsurge seemed so pronounced(非常明显的)that he was unsure if there were obvious remedies. "Permissiveness seems to be a component," he said. "A potential antidote would be more authoritative parenting. Less indulgence might be called for." Yet students, while acknowledging some legitimacy to such findings, don't necessarily accept negative generalizations about their generation. Hanady Kader, a University of Washington senior, said she worked unpaid last summer helping resettle refugees and considers many of her peers to be civic-minded. But she is dismayed (气馁；灰心) by the competitiveness of some students who seem prematurely focused on career status. "We're encouraged a lot to be individuals and go out there and do what you want, and nobody should stand in your way," Kader said. "I can see goals and ambitions getting in the way of other things like relationships." Kari Dalane, a University of Vermont sophomore, says most of her contemporaries are politically active and not overly self-centered. "People are worried about themselves--but in the sense of where are they're going to find a place in the world," she said. "People want to look their best, have a good time, but it doesn't mean they're not concerned about the rest of the world." Besides, some of the responses on the narcissism test might not be worrisome, Dalane said. "It would be more depressing if people answered, 'No, you are not special.'/

单选题"The artificial standard" (Paragraph 4) refers to the difference between standards of judgment for ______.

单选题The woman has not yet ______ the loss of her son. A. got up B. got by C. got over D. got round

单选题Mr. Smith is a(n)______ of equal rights for women.

单选题In old day's, when a glimpse of stocking was looked upon as something far too shocking to distract the serious work of an office, secretaries were men. Then came the First World War and the male secretaries were replaced by women. A man' s secretary became his personal servant, charged with remembering his wife' s birthday and buying her presents; taking his suits to the dry-cleaners; telling lies on the telephone to keep people he did not wish to speak to at bay and, of course, typing and filing and taking shorthand. Now all this may be changing again. The microchip and high technology is sweeping the British office, taking with it much of the routine clerical work that secretaries did. "Once office technology takes over generally, the status of the job will rise again because it will involve only the high-powered work and then men will want to do it again." That was said by one of the executives (male) of one of the biggest secretarial agencies in this country. What he has predicted is already under way in the US. One girl described to me a recent temporary job placing men in secretarial jobs in San Francisco. She noted that all the men she dealt with appeared to be gay so possibly that is just a new twist to the old story. Over here, though, there are men coming onto the job market as secretaries. Classically, girls have learned shorthand and typing and gone into a company to seek their fortune from the bottom— and that' s what happened to John Bowman. Although he joined a national grocery chain as secretary to its first woman senior manager, he has since been promoted to an administration job. "I filled in the application form and said I could do audio/typing, and in fact I was the only applicant. The girls were reluctant to work for this young, glamorous new woman with all this power in the firm." "I did typing at school, and then a commercial course. I just thought it would be useful finding a job. I never got any funny treatment from the girls, though I admit I' ve never met another male secretary. But then I joined the Post Office as a clerk and carelessly played with the typewriter, and wrote letters, and thought that after all secretaries were getting a good ￡ 1,000 a year more than clerks like me. There was a shortage at that time, you see." "It was simpler working for a woman than for a man. I found she made decisions, she told everybody what she thought, and there was none of that male bitchiness, or that stuff ring this number for me dear, which men go in for." "Don' t forget, we were a team—that’s how I feel about it—not boss and servant but two people doing different things for the same purpose." Once high technology has made the job of secretary less routine, will there be male takeover? Men should beware of thinking that they can walk right into the better jobs. There are a lot of women secretaries who will do the job as well as they because they are as efficient and well trained to cope with word processors and computers, and men.

单选题Every time an old building is torn down in this country, and a new building goes up, the ground floor becomes a bank. The reason for this is that banks are the only ones who can afford the rent for the ground floor of the new buildings going up. Besides, when a bank loans someone money to build a new building, it usually takes an option for the street-floor facilities. Most people don't think there is anything wrong with this and they accept it as part of the American free-enterprise system. But there is a small group of people in this country who are fighting for Bank Birth Control. This is how Huddlestone Hubbard, the BBC's chairman, explained it. "Whenever you see an old building torn down," Hubbard said, "you usually see a candy store, a dry cleaner, a delicatessen, and possibly a florist torn down with it. These shops are all replaced in the new buildings with a beautiful glass, aluminum, wall-to-wall-carpeted money factory. "Now from an aesthetic viewpoint, a bank looks better than a fry cleaner, a candy store, a delicatessen and a florist. But from a practical point of view, it's a sheer disaster, if you want a newspaper, a candy bar or a chocolate milk shake, you can't get it at a bank. Nor can you run out to a bank for a pound of Swiss cheese and a six-pack of beer when have guests coming over. "A bank is great if you want to buy a car, but it's useless if you want to have your dress cleaned. "And while a bank might buy flowers to give itself a human image, it doesn't sell any when you want to make up with your wife." "What you're saying then, Mr. Hubbard, is that every time a bank goes up, something in all of us dies." "Exactly. One of the reasons kids are getting in so much trouble these days is that there are no candy stores to hang around anymore. When tear down a delicatessen, the tangy smell of potato salad, corned beef and dill pickles are lost forever. Unless you're trying to make a loan, no one ever salivates in a bank. "It is true," I said. "The situation is more crucial than anyone thinks," Hubbard said. "At the rate they're tearing down consumer stores and replacing them with banks, we estimate that in ten years it will be impossible to buy a loaf of bread in the country. What good is it to get 7 percent on your money if you starve to death?" "Then what you're saying is that it isn't a question of not taking it with you. It's a question of staying alive while you have it," I said. "Something like that." Hubbard agreed. "We're trying to get the public to wake up to a fact: it's better to have a store that sells screwdrivers than a bank that gives away alarm clocks." "What's the solution?" "A government decree that a bank has to supply the same services of the stores it tore down on the same property, if it's a bakery, they have to sell cake, if it's a photography shop, they have to develop films, and if it's a dry-goods store, they have to sell warm underwear, if they provide the services of the stores they tore down, then we'll let them do a little money lending on the side./

单选题The authorities had failed to react fast enough to popular Udiscontent /Ubut told citizens that only hard work could bring an improvement in living standards.

单选题Some people think it's ______ to smoke with a cigarette holder, A. flexible B. sophisticated C. versatile D. productive

单选题All flights ______ because of the storm, they decided to take the train. A. having canceled B. having been canceled C. were canceled D. have been canceled

单选题Retirement is obviously a very complex______period, and the earlier you start planning for it, thebetter.(2006年中南大学考博试题)

单选题There are increasingly fraught relationships that adults are having with children—in all walks of life, from the police and politicians, within the public sector and within communities themselves. The fear of young people has changed the way society is policed, how pupils are treated in schools and how insecure adults relate to children on their estates. Rather than children and young people becoming more violent and anti-social, it is adults who have changed, having fewer relationships with young people and becoming less confident in their dealings with them. We must explore the role that crime and safety initiatives have on the outlook of the public. The attempt by government, council departments, the police and many others to reduce the fear within communities by developing safety initiatives is having the opposite effect, resulting in the institutionalization of this fear. Curfews have increased adults"fear of young people and reduced the amount of time young children are allowed out to play. They have raised the level of insecurity amongst parents about the safety of their children and ultimately reduced the contact between generations within this community. It is not far from the truth to say that "youth" no longer exists—if by youth we mean the freedom loving rebelliousness. The outcome of this process is breeding a generation of young people who are if anything more fragile and fearful than their grandparents. Finally, as well as exploring the fear of young people, we must look at the insecurity that parents have for their children. There has been a reduction in play, and specifically in "free play", and the effect of this more regulated environment on children"s lives is yet to be determined and not something we can continually ignore in our rush to protect society from children.

单选题The mental health movement in the United States began with a period of considerable enlightenment. Dorothea Dix was shocked to find the mentally ill in jails and almshouses and crusaded for the establishment of asylums in which people could receive human care in hospital-like environments and treatment which might help restore them to sanity. By the mid 1800s, 20 states had established asylums, but during the late 1800s and early 1900s, in the face of economic depression, legislatures were unable to appropriate sufficient funds for decent care. Asylums became overcrowded and prison-like. Additionally, patients were more resistant to treatment than the pioneers in the mental health field had anticipated, and security and restraint were needed to protect patients and others. Mental institutions became frightening and depressing places in which the rights of patients were all but forgotten. These conditions continued until after World War II. At that time, new treatments were discovered for some major mental illnesses theretofore considered untreatable (penicillin for syphilis of the brain and insulin treatment for schizophrenia and depressions), and a succession of books, motion pictures, and newspaper exposes called attention to the plight of the mentally ill. Improvements were made and Dr. David Vail's Humane Practices Program is a beacon for today. But changes were slow in coming until the early 1960s. At that time, the Civil Rights movement led lawyers to investigate America's prisons, which were disproportionately populated by blacks, and they in turn followed prisoners into the only institutions that were worse than the prisons-- the hospitals for the criminally insane. The prisons were filled with angry young men who, encouraged by legal support, were quick to demand their rights. The hospitals for the criminally insane, by contrast, were populated with people who were considered "crazy" and who were often kept obediently in their place through the use of severe bodily restraints and large doses of major tranquilizers. The young cadre of public interest lawyers liked their role in the mental hospitals. The lawyers found a population that was both passive and easy to champion. These were, after all, people who, unlike criminals, had done nothing wrong. And in many states, they were being kept in horrendous institutions, an injustice, which once exposed, was bound to shock the public and, particularly, the judicial conscience. Patients' rights groups successfully encouraged reform by lobbying in state legislatures. Judicial interventions have had some definite positive effects, but there is growing awareness that courts cannot provide the standards and the review mechanisms that assure good patient care. The details of providing day-to-day care simply cannot be mandated by a court, so it is time to take from the courts the responsibility for delivery of mental health care and assurance of patient rights and return it to the state mental healty administrators to whom the mandate was originally given. Though it is a difficult task, administrators must undertake to write rules and standards and to provide the training and surveillance to assure that treatment is given and patient rights are respected.

单选题What is the tone of the text?

单选题To conduct some forms of sleep research, we have to find a way to track sleepiness over the day. Some people might believe that measuring sleepiness is a fairly trivial task. Couldn't you, for instance, simply count the number of times a person yawns during any given hour or so? In most people's minds, yawning—that slow, exaggerated mouth opening with the long, deep inhalation of air, followed by a briefer exhalation—is the most obvious sign of sleepiness. It is a common behavior shared by many animals, including our pet dogs and cats but also crocodiles, snakes, birds, and even some fishes. It is certainly true that sleepy people tend to yawn more than wide-awake people. It is also true that people who say they are bored by what is happening at the moment will tend to yawn more frequently. However, whether yawning is a sign that you are getting ready for sleep or that you are successfully fighting off sleep is not known. Simply stretching your body, as you might do if you have been siring in the same position for a long period of time, will often trigger a yawn. Unfortunately, yawns don't just indicate sleepiness. In some animals, yawning is a sign of stress. When a dog trainer sees a dog yawning in a dog obedience class, it is usually a sign that the animal is under a good deal of pressure. Perhaps the handler is pushing too hard or moving too fast for the dog to feel in control of the situation. A moment or two of play and then turning to another activity is usually enough to banish yawning for quite a while. Yawning can also be a sign of stress in humans. Once, when observing airborne troops about to take their first parachute jump, I noticed that several of the soldiers were sitting in the plane and yawning. It was 10 A. M. , just after a coffee break, and I doubted that they were tired; I knew for a fact that they were far too nervous to be bored. When I asked about this, the officer in charge laughed and said it was really quite a common behavior, especially on the first jump. There is also a social aspect to yawning. Psychologists have placed actors in crowded rooms and auditoriums and had them deliberately yawn. Within moments, there is usually an increase in yawning by everyone else in the room. Similarly, people who watch films or videos of others yawning are more likely to yawn. Even just reading about yawning tends to stimulate people to yawn. The truth of the matter is that we really don't know what purpose yawning serves. Scientists originally thought that the purpose of yawning was to increase the amount of oxygen in the blood or to release some accumulated carbon dioxide. We now know that this is not true, since increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air seems not to make people more likely to yawn but to make them breathe faster to try to bring in more oxygen. On the other hand, breathing 100 percent pure oxygen does not seem to reduce the likelihood of yawning. Since yawning seems to be associated with a lot more than the need for sleep, we obviously have to find some odier measure of sleepiness. Some researchers have simply tried to ask people how sleepy they feel at any time using some sort of self-rating scale. There are, however, problems with getting people to make these types of judgments. Sometimes people simply lie to the researchers when asked about how sleepy they are. This occurs because in many areas of society admitting that one is fatigued and sleepy is considered a mark of weakness or lack of ambition and drive. In odier instances, people may admit they need four cups of coffee to make it through the morning, but it may never occur to them that this might be due to the fact that they are so sleepy that they need stimulation from caffeine to be able to do their required tasks. For these reasons, many researchers have developed an alternate method to determine how sleepy a person is. It is based upon a simple definition of sleep need: The greater your sleep need, or the sleepier you are, the faster you will fall asleep if given the opportunity to do so.

单选题The new designs of the Christmas stamps are always waited for with keen ______.