The legends of the Wild West still color many people's impression of the United States of America

The country's ______ political freedom had been long and arduous, but eventually the ______ government was replaced by a true democracy.

The ______ of science and technology thesis is usually reportorial, which needs reflect purposes, methods, important results and conclusions.

In the next few weeks

A man escaped from the prison last night

Samuel was obliged to compromise on lesser questions.

With the US economy slowing down

I am writing this at home because last week my ergonomic (符合人体工程学的) chair at the office fell apart, unable any longer to bear my weight. I am writing it on a computer that is propped on top of two thick books, because otherwise my neck would he cricked as I peered down at the screen. At 1.93m and weighing...well, I'm not going to say what I weigh, but think second-row rugby union forward... I am not built for this world. We therefore welcome a new report from Professor Tim Hatton at the University of Essex, demonstrating that the average height of men in Europe has increased by 4 inches in the past century and in the UK by a whopping 5 inches. A similar increase is likely to have occurred among women, but, because the study is based in part on military records, evidence is thinner on the ground. The problem, as Hatton observes, is that the world hasn't kept pace with our increased height. I long ago abandoned buses—levering myself into a narrow seat was impossible. Air travel is also challenging. I was in the back row of an easyJet plane recently, which has even less space than an ordinary seat, and would have ended up with severe backache had it not been for some thoughtful passenger not turning up, allowing me to relocate to an aisle seat where the only danger is being hit by the trolley. Small cars are impossible—I have to drive with my head through the sunroof. West End theatres are hopelessly cramped. As before in cricket grounds: I would under no circumstances pay ￡80 for a plastic bucket seat at a Test match, where I would be wedged uneasily between two loud, red-trousered merchant bankers sipping warm champagne. As for those appalling pine beds with footboards, usually found in absurdly small hotel rooms where I invariably get stuck in the toilet because the door won't open with me inside, they should be banned immediately. Our extra height generally means extra weight. US data shows baseball players are on average 3 inches taller and 2 stones heavier than they were a century ago—and these are the super-fit guys. Other data suggests ordinary Americans have added 2.54 cm and 12.6 kg in the past 50 years alone. We are all giants now—or will be soon. As a representative of this new breed, I would say just one thing, beware garden furniture. It appears to be made for gnomes. I routinely remove pleasant-looking but wholly impractical cane chairs, and once, while interviewing the actress Jenny Seagrove, snapped the strings of a hammock-type chair in her garden. It is not easy to get your interviewee to take you seriously after your vast bulk has been plunged suddenly onto their manicured lawn. What is tone of the writer when he is depicting his recent travel in an easyJet plane?

In order to strengthen his arguments

One of the most authoritative voices speaking to us today is of course the voice of the advertisers. Its strident clamour dominates our lives. It shouts at us from the television screen and the radio loudspeakers; waves to us from every page of the newspaper; plucks at our sleeves on the escalator; signals to us from the roadside billboards all day and flashes messages to us in coloured lights all night. It has forced on us a whole new conception of the successful man as a man no less than 20% of whose mail consists of announcements of giant carpet sales. Advertising has been among England's biggest growth industries since the war, in terms of the ratio of money earnings to demonstrable achievement. Why all this fantastic expenditure? Perhaps the answer is that advertising saves the manufacturers from having to think about the customer. At the stage of designing and developing a product, there is quite enough to think about without worrying over whether anybody will want to buy it. The designer is busy enough without adding customer-appeal to all his other problems of man-hours and machine tolerances and stress factors. So they just go ahead and make the thing and leave it to the advertiser to find eleven ways of making it appeal to purchasers after they have finished it, by pretending that it confers status, or attracts love, or signifies manliness. If the advertising agency can do this authoritatively enough, the manufacturer is in clover. Other manufacturers find advertising saves them changing their product. And manufacturers hate change. The ideal product is one which goes on unchanged for ever. If, therefore, for one reason or another, some alteration seems called for—how much better to change the image, the packet or pile pitch made by the product, rather than go to all the inconvenience of changing the product itself. The advertising man has to combine the qualities of the three most authoritative professions: Church, Bar and Medicine. The great skill required of our priests, most highly developed in missionaries but present, indeed mandatory, in all, is the skill of getting people to believe in and contribute money to something which can never be logically proved. At the Bar, an essential ability is that of presenting the most persuasive case you can to a jury of ordinary people, with emotional appeals masquerading as logical exposition; a case you do not necessarily have to believe in yourself, just one you have studiously avoided discovering to be false. As for medicine, any doctor will confirm that a large part of his job is not clinical treatment but faith healing. His apparently scientific approach enables his patients to believe that he knows exactly what is wrong with them and exactly what they need to put the right, just as advertising does—"Run down? You need..." "No one will dance with you? A dab of... will make you popular." Advertising man use statistics rather like a drunk uses a lamp-post for support rater than illumination. They will dress anyone up in a white coat to appear like an em>unimpeachable/em> authority or, failing that, they will even be happy with the announcement, "As used by 90% of the actors who play doctors on television." Their engaging quality is that they enjoy having their latest ruses uncovered almost as much as anyone else. According to the passage, modern advertising is "authoritative" because of the way it ______.

The earthquake refugees are ______ for food and blankets.

Her remarks______a complete disregard for human rights.

Celebrate. Celebrate

Jeans were invented a little over a century ago and are currently the world's most popular, versatile garment, crossing boundaries of class, age and nationality. From their origins as pure workwear, they have spread through every level of the fashion spectrum, and are embraced internationally for their unmatched comfort and appeal. In the mid 1940s, the Second World War came to an end, and denim blue jeans, previously worn almost exclusively as workwear, gained a new status in the U. S. and Europe. Rugged but relaxed, they stood for freedom and a bright future. Sported by both men and women, by returning GI's and sharp teenagers, they seemed as clean and strong as the people who chose to wear them. In Europe, surplus Levi's were left behind by American armed forces and were available in limited supplies. It was the European population's first introduction to the denim apparel. Workwear manufacturers tried to copy the U.S. originals, but those in the know insisted on the real thing. In the 1950s, Europe was exposed to a daring new style in music and movies and consequently jeans took on an aura of sex and rebellion. Rock 'n' roll coming from America blazed a trail of defiance, and jeans became a symbol of the break with convention and rigid social mores. When Elvis Presley sang in "Jailhouse Rock", his denim prison uniform carried a potent, virile image. Girls swooned and guys were quick to copy the King. In movies like "The Wild One" and "Rebel Without a Cause" cult figures Marion Brando and James Dean portrayed tough anti-heroes in jeans and T-shirts. Adults spurned the look; teenagers, even those who only wanted to look like rebels, embraced it. By the beginning of the 1960s, slim jeans had become a leisure wear staple, as teens began to have real fun, forgetting the almost desperate energy of the previous decade, while cocooned (包围在) in wealth and security. But the seeds of change had been sown, and by the mid 1960s jeans had acquired yet another social connotation—as the uniform of the budding social and sexual revolution. Jeans were the great equalizer, the perfect all-purpose garment for the classless society sought by the Hippy generation. In the fight for civil rights, at anti-war demonstrations off the streets of Paris, at sit-ins and love-ins everywhere, the battle cry was heard above a sea of blue. Jeans were first designed for ______.

Tests have proved that caffeine affects the body by increasing the heart rate and rhythm, which ______ affects the circulatory system.

The flicker of impatience in the husband's eyes melts into bemused______as his wife asks for "just a little more time" at the mall.

My parents, ______ touring in Britain

It's strange that he should refuse a job in government ______ a university appointment.