单选题Around the world more and more people are taking part in dangerous sports and activities. Of course, there have always been people who have looked for adventure—those who have climbed the highest mountains, explored unknown parts of the world or sailed in small boats across the greatest oceans. Now, however, there are people who seek an immediate excitement from a risky activity which may only last a few minutes or even seconds. I would consider bungee jumping to be a good example of such an activity. You jump from a high place (perhaps a bridge or a hot-air balloon) 200 meters above the ground with an elastic rope tied to your ankles. You fall at up to 150 kilometers an hour until the rope stops you from hitting the ground. It is estimated that two million people around the world have now tried bungee jumping. Other activities which most people would say are as risky as bungee jumping involve jumping from tall buildings and diving into the sea from the top of high cliffs. Why do people take part in such activities as these? Some psychologists suggest that it is because life in modem societies has become safe and boring. Not very long ago, people"s lives were constantly under threat. They had to go out and hunt for food, diseases could not easily be cured, and life was a continuous battle for survival. Nowadays, according to many people, life offers little excitement. They live and work in comparatively safe environment; they buy food in shops; and there are doctors and hospitals to look after them if they become ill. The answer for some of these people is to seek danger in activities such as bungee jumping.

单选题During the famine many people ______eating grass and leaves.

单选题Whether work should be placed among the causes of happiness or among the causes of unhappiness may perhaps be regarded as a doubtful question. There is certainly much work which is exceedingly weary and an excess of work is always very painful. I think, however, that, provided work is not excessive in amount, even the dullest work is to most people less painful then idleness. There are in work all grades, from mere relief of tedium up to the profoundest delights, according to the nature of the work and the abilities of the worker. Most of the work that most people have to do is not in itself interesting, but even such work has certain great advantages. To begin with, it fills a good many hours of the day without the need of deciding what one shall do. Most people, when they are left free to fill their own time according to their own choice, are at a loss to think of anything sufficiently pleasant to be worth doing. And whatever they decide, they are troubled by the feeling that something else would have been pleasanter. To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level. Moreover the exercise of choice is in itself tiresome. Except to people with unusual initiative it is positively agreeable to be told what to do at each hour of the day, provided the orders are not too unpleasant. Most of the idle rich suffer unspeakable boredom as the price of their freedom from toil. At times they may find relief by hunting big game in Africa, or by flying round the world, but the number of such sensations is limited, especially after youth is past. Accordingly the more intelligent rich men work nearly as hard as if they were poor, while rich women for the most part keep themselves busy with innumerable trifles of those earth-shaking importance they arc firmly persuaded. Work therefore is desirable, first and foremost, as a preventive of boredom, for the boredom that a man feels when he is doing necessary though uninteresting work is as nothing in comparison with the boredom that he feels when he has nothing to do with his days. With this advantage of work another is associated, namely that it makes holidays much more delicious when they come. Provided a man does not have to work so hard as to impair his vigor, he is likely to find far more zest in his free time than an idle man could possibly find. The second advantage of most paid work and of some unpaid work is that it gives chances of success and opportunities for ambition. In most work success is measured by income, and while our capitalistic society continues, this is inevitable. It is only where the best work is concerned that this measure ceases to be the natural one to apply. The desire that men feel to increase their income is quite as much a desire for success as for the extra comforts that a higher income can acquire. However dull work may be, it becomes bearable if it is a means of building up a reputation, whether in the world at large or o01y in one's own circle.

单选题One in three Americans said that money was a crucial factor in their decision to work for pay (or have a spouse work) rather than stay home to raise the children, with Baby Boomer women most likely to have made that choice. Forty-five percent of Baby Boomer women—compared with just 32 percent of those 55 and over—said they went to work. "Baby Boomer women, especially the older ones, grew up expecting to replicate the pattern of their mothers' lives," suggests Hochschild. "But then the bills started coming in and more job opportunities opened up, and these women moved into a life they hadn't anticipated." Money played a great role in marriage—even an unhappy one. Approximately 18 percent of all those interviewed said they stayed married because they lacked money to get a divorce, while less than 8 percent said that financial strain in their marriage has caused them to divorce. Lack of money also influenced education choices. Nearly one in four Americans has postponed or decided not to attend college because of financial pressures. Even with the sustained prosperity of the past eight years, Gen-Xers were most likely to have altered their college plans. A 39-year-old Hispanic billing clerk in New York spoke about how the need for money limited her teenager son's ability to take part in extracurricular activities that could increase his chances of getting into college. "Since age 14, my son's been working, and I think he is a superb person. Not having a lot of money has made him realize what work is all about. On the other hand, he was elected to go to a youth leadership conference in Washington, and I can't send him because I don't have the money. Lack of money takes away opportunities he otherwise could have had." On the question of what money can and can't buy, a large majority of Americans said that money could buy "freedom to live as you choose", "excitement in life", and "less stress". In a number of follow-up interviews, many people commented that having extra money would immediately alleviate one source of profound stress——the need to work overtime. Those with college and graduate degrees were far more likely to believe that money can buy freedom, perhaps because better-educated people already have a wider array of choices. College-educated professionals, for instance, were much more likely to consider wealth a way of financing travel, starting a business of their own, or funding charitable works in their communities. A 55-year-old Hispanic woman in Los Angeles with a graduate degree and an income of more than＄90,000 described a midlife career switch. After resigning from a high-level, high paying——but extremely stressful—civil service job, she became a florist. "After I Started tearing my hair out," she said, "I decided to go into business for myself—flowers don't talk back." Can money buy peace of mind? Fifty-two percent of Americans said no. "It all depends on what 'peace' means to you," observed a businesswoman in California who is nearing 60 and would like to retire at 62 and go back to college. "For my husband, peace of mind means working as long as he can and collecting the biggest possible pension. For me, it means knowing I've worked long enough so that I can afford to go after an old dream, I guess you should say that my peace of mind is his worry./

单选题Competitors from more than a hundred countries have ______ in Los Angeles for the Olympic Games. A. denounced B. converged C. detached D. sprawled

单选题He had a (n) ______ habit of emptying ash trays out of his upstairs window on to our doorsteps.

单选题You don't have to ______ yourself. I think you did the right thing putting your mother in a nursing home. A. justify B. hinder C. indulge D. appoint

单选题Our interests seem to ______ at this point.

单选题He was on a diet, though the food ______ him enormously.

单选题He covered the fish lavishly with sauce.

单选题His administration's economic policy would focus un ______ inflation and reducing the budget deficit.

单选题Most Americans believe that our society of consumption-happy, fun-loving, jet-traveling people creates the greats happiness for the greatest number. Contrary to this view, I believe that our present way of life leads to increasing anxiety, helplessness and, eventually, to the disintegration of our cultures. I refuse to identify fun with pleasure, consumption with joy, busyness with happiness, or the faceless, buck-passing "organization man" with an independent individual. Modem industrialism has succeeded in producing this kind of man. He is the "alienated" man. He is alienated in the sense that his actions, and his own forces have become estranged from him; they stand above him and against him, and rule him rather than being ruled by him. His life forces have been transformed into things and institutions, and these things and institutions have become idols. They are something apart from him, which he worships and to which he submits. Alienated man bows down before the works of his own hands. He experiences himself not as the active bearer of his own forces and riches but as an impoverished "thing", dependent on other things outside of himself. He is the prisoner of the very economic and political circumstances which he has created. Since our economic organizations is based on continuous and ever-increasing consumption (think of the threat to our economy if people did not buy a new car until their old one was really obsolete), contemporary industrial man is encouraged to be consumption-crazy. Without any real enjoyment, he "takes in" drink, food, cigarettes, sights, lectures, books, movies, television, any new kind of gadget. The world has become one great maternal breast, and man has become the eternal suckling, forever expectant, forever disappointed. In general, our society is becoming one of giant enterprises directed by a bureaucracy in which man becomes a small, well-oiled cog in the machinery. The oiling is done with higher wages, fringe benefits, well-ventilated factories and piped music, and by psychologists and "human relations" experts; yet all this oiling does not alter the fact that man has become powerless, that he does not wholeheartedly participate in his work and that he is bored with it. In fact, the blue—and white-collar workers have become economic puppets who dance to the tune of automated machines and bureaucratic management.

单选题Edmund likes to drive at a speed ______ the traffic limit. I wonder how be always manages to escape A. haying exceeded, to be fined B. exceeded, having been fined C. to exceed, to fine D. exceeding, being fined

单选题Given a relatively ______ sentence of 18 years (others were given suspended death sentences), Chen was later released from jail in consideration of age and poor health.

单选题Their Uattempts/U to evade taxes turned out to be futile.

单选题I was ______ in my reading, and didn't at first hear the doorbell ting. A. immured B. immersed C. busy D. infatuated

单选题The coalition parties have asked the government to consider using more. funds to help support the {{U}}ailing{{/U}} market.

单选题When he realized he had been ______ to sign the contract by intrigue, he threatened to start legal proceedings to cancel the agreement. [A] elicited [B] excited [C] deduced [D] induced