单选题The second book was ______ by August 1952, but two years later, the end was still nowhere in sight.

单选题Many economists believed that ______ consumers would cut spending once the value of their homes began to fall.

单选题The growth of cell-phone users in the U.S. has tapered off from the breakneck pace of 50% annually in the late 1990s to what analysts project will be a 15% to 20% rise in 2002, and no more than that in 2003. To some extent, numerous surveys have found, slower growth in demand reflects consumer disillusionment with just about every aspect of cell-phone service—its reliability, quality, and notorious customer service. The cooling off in demand threatens to cascade through the industry: The big four U.S. cell-phone carders—Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wireless, AT&T Wireless, Sprint imperil their timetables for becoming profitable, not to mention their efforts to whittle down their mountains of debt. As the carders have begun to cut costs, wireless- equipment makers—companies such as Lucent, Nokia, and Ericsson—have been left with a market that"s bound to be smaller than they had anticipated. Handset makers have been insulated so far, but they, too, face a nagging uncertainty. They"ll soon introduce advanced phones to the U.S. market that will run on the new networks the carders are starting up over the next year or two. But the question then will be: Will Americans embrace these snazzy data features—and their higher costs—with the wild enthusiasm that Europeans and Asians have? Long before the outcome in clear, the industry will have to adopt a new mind-set. "In the old days, it was all about connectivity." says Andrew Cole, an analyst with wireless consultancy Adventis. Build the network, and customers will come. From now on, the stakes will be higher. The new mantra: Please customers, or you may not survive. To work their way out of this box, the carders are spending huge sums to address the problem. Much of Sprint PCS"s $ 3.4 billion in capital outlays this year will be for new stations. And in fact, the new high-speed, high-capacity nationwide networks due to roll out later this year should help ease the calling-capacity crunch that has caused many consumer complaints. In the meantime, some companies are using better training and organization to keep customers happy. The nation"s largest rural operator, Alltel (AT), recently reorganized its call centers so that a customer"s query goes to the first operator who"s available anywhere in the country, instead of the first one available in the customer"s home area. That should cut waiting time to one minute from three to five minutes previously.

单选题Although this area is very poor just now, its______wealth is great.

单选题{{B}}Passage Five{{/B}} Can the Internet help patients jump the line at the doctor's office? The Silicon Valley Employers Forum, a sophisticated group of technology companies, is launching a pilot program to test online "virtual visits" between doctors at three big local medical groups and about 6, 000 employees and their families. The six employers taking part in the Silicon Valley initiative, including heavy hitters such as Oracle and Cisco Systems, hope that online visits will mean employees won't have to skip work to tend to minor ailments or to follow up on chronic conditions. "With our long commutes and traffic, driving 40 miles to your doctor in your hometown can be a big chunk of time," says Cindy Conway, benefits director at Cadence Design Systems, one of the participating companies. Doctors aren't clamoring to chat with patients online for free; they spend enough unpaid time on the phone. Only 1 in 5 has ever E-mailed a patient, and just 9 percent are interested in doing so, according to the research firm Cyber Dialogue. "We are not stupid," says Stifling Somers, executive director of the Silicon Valley employers group. "Doctors getting paid is a critical piece in getting this to work." In the pilot program, physicians will get $ 20 per online consultation, about what they get for a simple office visit. Doctors also fear they'll be swamped by rambling E-mails that tell everything but what's needed to make a diagnosis. So the new program will use technology supplied by Healinx, an Alameda, Calif.-based start-up. Healinx's "Smart Symptom Wizard" questions patients and turns answers into a succinct message. The company has online dialogues for 60 common conditions. The doctor can then diagnose the problem and outline a treatment plan, which could include E-mailing a prescription or a face-to-face visit. Can E-mail replace the doctor's office? Many conditions, such as persistent cough, require a stethoscope to discover what's wrong and to avoid a malpractice suit. Even Larry Bonham, head of one of the doctor's groups in the pilot, believes the virtual doctor's visits offer a "very narrow" sliver of service between phone calls to an advice nurse and a visit to the clinic. The pilot program, set to end in nine months, also hopes to determine whether online visits will boost worker productivity enough to offset the cost of the service. So far, the Internet's record in the health field has been underwhelming. The experiment is "a huge roll of the dice for Healinx," notes Michael Barrett, an analyst at Internet consulting firm Forester Research. If the "Web visits" succeed, expect some HMOs (Health Maintenance Organizations) to pay for online visits. If doctors, employers, and patients aren't satisfied, figure on one more E-health start-up to stand down.

单选题I used to think memory ______ were for the hopelessly disorganized, but when I hit mid- 40s it takes three trips between my home and office before I remember why I set out on the journey. A. problems B. mistakes C. lapses D. faults

单选题A thermal camera is expected to detect deception by ______.

单选题{{B}}Section A{{/B}}{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} Read through the following passage and then decide which of the choices given below would correctly complete the passage if inserted in the corresponding blanks. Circle the correct choice for each blank. In Switzerland, six miles west of Geneva, lies a collection of laboratories and buildings, and most curious of ally a circular mound{{U}} (36) {{/U}}more than 650 feet in diameter. This cluster has unique importance. It is Europe's{{U}} (37) {{/U}}atomic city dedicated to investigating the atom for peaceful purposes. The strange buildings{{U}} (38) {{/U}}the European Council for Nuclear Research, more popularly known, from their French initials as CERV. The council was{{U}} (39) {{/U}}when a handful of statesmen and scientific experts met in Paris in 1950. Their aim was to "{{U}} (40) {{/U}}an organization providing for cooperation among European states in nuclear research of a pure scientific and fundamental character." The CERV agreement was signed in 1953, and work on the atomic city began in 1954. Today CERV's{{U}} (41) {{/U}}are among the most modern and the most diversified in the world. Impressive as the scientific aspect may be, the real significance of CKRV may lie{{U}} (42) {{/U}}the thousand people—scientists, lab workers, and administrative—group drawn from the fourteen member nations{{U}} (43) {{/U}}populate it. British engineers work{{U}} (44) {{/U}}with Swiss electricians and Yugoslav nuclear physicists. The official languages are French and English, with German an unofficial third. But CFRV is{{U}} (45) {{/U}}tower of Babel—the language of science is universal and all-embracing.

单选题Every dream is a message from your unconscious self, expressed in a code which only you can understand and interpret. The images, colors, moods and terms of your dreams depend upon your culture, upbringing, slang and your own understanding of things and values. Dreaming is like looking into a mirror and seeing yourself with your own eyes. The first dreams which we have after falling asleep often revolve around the day's events. We go through them, sorting out and discarding things we don't need to remember and gaining insight into those we do. Often, we are inspired with suggestions that we can use to remedy the situations that plague us by day. As we progress through the night's dreams, they may take up more fantastic qualities, offering fanciful experiences. These often pleasant images can relieve the stress of the day. But the dream we have just before the awakening often contains information the subconscious mind wants to make known to the conscious. And this information, if remembered, interpreted, and understood, can serve as an important tool in our lives. Depending upon the content, dream can strike us with their peculiarity, or sometimes even their alarming nature. Some dreams haunt us for years, not only because of their persistence, but also primarily because we cannot explain or understand them. Other dreams stand out with the weird mixture of images, emotions and context, which make us remember them for life. Recurring dreams are quite common, and we usually have them when a certain life situation repeats, or we are facing the same problem over and over again. A recurring dream is often a sign of some emotional weakness in our nature which causes us problems over the years. Lucid dreams are rare, but they are all about people's ability to control their dreams. In such a dream, the dreamer becomes consciously aware that she/he is dreaming and is able to use the memory and participate in dream actions and emotions. Lucid dreams are usually enhanced in a sensory and imaginary way, and sometimes can be accompanied by pleasant music. People can learn the techniques of controlling their dreams. Some historic manuscripts and records say that the ability to control dreams helps a person to reach a higher degree of mind development. This is what some Tibetan Buddhists and Islam followers practiced for the purpose of elevation in consciousness.

单选题It"s becoming something of a joke along the Maine-Canada border. So many busloads of retired people crisscross the line looking for affordable drugs that the roadside stands should advertise, "Lobsters. Blueberries. Lipitor. Coumalin." Except, of course, that such a market in prescription drugs would be illegal. These senior long-distance shopping sprees fall in a legal gray zone. But as long as people cross the border with prescriptions from a physician and have them filled for no more than a three-month supply for personal use, customs and other federal officials leave them alone. The trip might be tiring, but people can save an average of 60 percent on the cost of their prescription drugs. For some, that"s the difference between taking the drugs or doing without. "The last bus trip I was on six months ago had 25 seniors," says Chellie Pingree, former Maine state senator and now president of Common Cause. "Those 25 people saved $19,000 on their supplies of drugs." Pingree sponsored Maine RX, which authorizes a discounted price on drugs for Maine residents who lack insurance coverage. The law was challenged by drug companies but recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. It hasn"t yet taken effect. Figuring out ways to spend less on prescription drugs has become a multifaceted national movement of consumers, largely senior citizens. The prescription drug bill in America is $160 billion annually, and people over 65 fill five times as many prescriptions as working Americans on average. "But they do it on health benefits that are half as good and on incomes that are half as large," says Richard Evans, senior analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, an investment research firm. What"s more, seniors account for 20 percent of the voting public. It"s little wonder that the May 19 Supreme Court ruling got the attention of drug manufacturers and politicians across the country. The often-over-looked state of 1.3 million tucked in the northeast corner of the country became David to the pharmaceutical industry"s Goliath. The face-off began three years ago when state legislators like Pingree began questioning why Maine"s elderly population had to take all those bus trips.

单选题The single greatest shift in the history of mass-communication technology occurred in the 15th century and was well described by Victor Hugo in a famous chapter of Notre-Dame de Paris. It was a Cathedral. On all parts of the giant building, statuary and stone representations of every kind, combined with huge widows of stained glass, told the stories of the Bible and the saints, displayed the intricacies of Christian theology, adverted to the existence of highly unpleasant demonic winged creatures, referred diplomatically to the majesties of political power, and in addition, by means of bells in bell towers, told time for the benefit of all of Pairs and much of France. It was an awesome engine of communication. Then came the transition to something still more awesome. The new technology of mass communication was portable, could sit on your table, and was easily replicable, and yet, paradoxically, contained more information, more systematically presented, than even the largest of cathedrals. It was the printed book. Though it provided no bells and could not tell time, the over-all superiority of the new invention was unmistakable. In the last ten or twenty years, we have been undergoing a more or less equivalent shift—this time to a new life as a computer-using population. The gain in portability, capability, ease, orderliness, accuracy, reliability, and information-storage over anything achievable by pen scribbling, typewriting, and cabinet filing is recognized by all. The progress for civilization is undeniable and, plainly, irreversible. Yet, just as the book's triumph over the cathedral divided people into two groups, one of which prospered, while the other lapsed into gloom, the computer's triumph has also divided the human race. You have only to bring a computer into a room to see that some people begin at once to buzz with curiosity and excitement, sit down to conduct experiments, ooh and ah at the boxes and beeps, and master the use of the computer or a new program as quickly as athletes playing a delightful new game. But how difficult it is—how grim and frightful!—for the other people, the defeated class, whose temperament does not naturally respond to computers. The machine whirrs and glows before them and their faces twitch. They may be splendidly educated, as measured by book-reading, yet their instincts are all wrong, and no amount of manual-studying and mouse-clicking will make them right. Computers require a sharply different set of aptitudes, and, if the aptitudes are missing, little can be done, and misery is guaranteed. Is the computer industry aware that computers have divided mankind into two new, previously unknown classes, the computer personalities and the non-computer personalities? Yes, the industry knows this. Vast stuns have been expended in order to adapt the computer to the limitations of non-computer personalities. Apple's Macintosh, with its zooming animations and pull-down menus and little pictures of life folders and watch faces and trash cans, pointed the way. Such seductions have soothed the apprehensions of a certain number of the computer-averse. This spring, the computer industry's efforts are reaching a culmination of sorts. Microsoft, Bill Gates' giant corporation, is to bring out a program package called Microsoft Bob, designed by Mr. Gates' wife, Melinda French, and intended to render computer technology available even to people who are openly terrified of computers. Bob's principle is to take the several tasks of operating a computer, rename them in a folksy style, and assign to them the images of an ideal room in ideal home, with furniture and bookshelves, and with chummy cartoon helpers("Friends of Bob")to guide the computer user over the rough spots, and, in that way, simulate an atmosphere that feels nothing like computers.

单选题We are living in the midst of a great chemical experiment and some______consequences are becoming apparent to scientists.

单选题San Francisco was ______ by a terrible earthquake and fire in 1906. A. deprived B. detained C. devastated D. deported

单选题In the movie, he plays a loving and ______ father trying to bring up two teenage children on his own. A. sensitive B. senseless C. sensual D. sensuous

单选题How can personal income tax be levied to______ as many as possible while at the same time ensuring State finances do not suffer too much?

单选题We have had to raise our prices because of the increase in the cost of materials.

单选题The dean can"t see you at the moment. He is addressing the first-year students in the lecture hall.

单选题It is true that Matviyenko's heading of the campaign would ______ certain staffing shuffles in the leadership, and now only a few members of the company were in the know.

单选题Crew chiefs Usupervised/U engines, switches and lights that told them how each item of equipment was functioning.