单选题In most American cities, the rent for a one-bedroom apartment was $250 or more per month in recent years. In some smaller cities such as Louisville, Kentucky or Jacksonville, Florida the rent was less, but in larger cities it was more. For example, if you lived in Los Angeles, you had to pay $400 or more to rent a one-bedroom apartment, and the same apartment rented for $625 and up in Chicago. The most expensive rents in the U. S. were in New York City, where you had to pay at least $700 a month to rent a one-bedroom apartment in most parts of the city. Renters and city planners are worried about the high cost of renting apartments. Many cities now have rent control laws to keep the cost of renting low. These laws help low-income families who cannot pay high rents. Rent controls in the United States began in 1943 when the government imposed rent controls on all American cities to help workers and the families of soldiers during World War Ⅱ. After the war, only one city—New York—continued these World War Ⅱ controls. Recently, more and more cities have returned to rent controls. At the beginning of the 1980s, nearly one fifth of the people in the United States lived in cities with rent-control laws. Many cities have rent-control laws, but why are rents so high? Builders and landlords blame rent controls for the high rents. Rents are high because there are not enough apartments to rent, and they blame rent controls for the shortage of apartments. Builders want more money to build more apartment buildings, and landlords want more money to repair their old apartment buildings. But they cannot increase rents to get this money because of the rent-control laws. As a result, landlords are not repairing their old apartments, and builders are not building new apartment buildings to replace the old apartment buildings. Builders are building apartments for high-income families, not low income families, so low-income families must live in old apartments that are in disrepair. Builders and landlords claim that rent-control laws really hurt low income families. Many renters disagree with them. They say that rent control is not the problem. Even without rent controls, builders and landlords will continue to ignore low-income housing because they can make more money from high-income housing. The only answer, they claim, is more rent controls and government help for low-income housing.

单选题 Developing a peaceful, understanding, and supportive relationship between parents and children is not an easy task. Failures can and do occur at any age level, and at times the results are the abuse, neglect, and even death of children. Child abuse has become a major topic in child development and an issue of much national concern. In the span of four legislative years, 1963～1967, all fifty states enacted laws calling for the reporting of injuries inflicted on children. By 1973, the United States Congress passed the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (Public Law 93-247), This law not only reflected the mood of concerned citizens, but it also did much to clear up the confusion and disagreement over what is child abuse. The question "what causes child abuse?" has prompted much debate. The single most persistent myth which had plagued efforts to understand causes is the notion that parents who abuse children are mentally disturbed or ill. Although there is no specific psychiatric diagnosis which comprises the behavior and personalities of abuser, they seem to share a common style of child rearing. Those parents demand high levels of child performance and they often use severe physical punishment to ensure the child's proper behavior, Abusive parents themselves were raised In similar family situations and their own childhood experience has a lasting influence on their behavior as adults. Current research has suggested, however, that the "abuser is sick" hypothesis is too limited, A broader social, psychological approach recognizes that some personal problems are implicit but that psychological factors arise out of a social context. Social factors include unemployment, social isolation, and unwanted pregnancy. Moreover, findings that abuse occurs more frequently in larger families and families with low income, poor education, and low occupational status suggest that many such parents cannot withstand the twenty-four-hour-a-day responsibility to raise and care for their children. These problems aggravate the situation, especially when combined with the general approval in our culture of violence.

单选题We must_____the problem of poverty as soon as possible.

单选题All the parts of these washing machines are ______, so that it is very convenient tO replace them.

单选题Although a few contemporaries ______ the book, most either ignored or mocked it.

单选题After their misfortunes the once wealthy family slowly became______ again.

单选题Resistance to the 1954 United States Supreme Court decision terminating segregation placed the schools in the middle of a bitter and sometimes violent dispute. By 1965, when a measure of genuine integration had become a reality in many school districts, tile schools again found themselves in the eye of a stormy controversy. This time the question was not which children were going to what schools but what kind of education society should provide for the students. The goal of high academic performance, which had been revived by criticisms and reforms of the 1950s and early 1960s, began to be challenged by demands for more liberal and free schooling. Many university and some high-school students from all ethnic groups and classes had been growing more and more frustrated--some of them desperately so--over what they felt was a cruel and senseless war in Vietnam and a cruel, discriminatory, competitive, loveless society at home. They demanded curriculum reform, improved teaching methods, and greater stress and action on such problems as overpopulation, pollution, international strife, deadly weaponry, and discrimination. Pressure for reform came not only from students but also from many educators. While students and educators alike spoke of the greater need for what was taught, opinions as to what was relevant varied greatly. The blacks wanted new textbooks in which their people were recognized and fairly represented, and some of them wanted courses in black studies. They, and many white educators, also objected to culturally biased intelligence and aptitude tests and to academic college entrance standards and examinations. Such tests, they said, did not take into account the diverse backgrounds of students who belonged to ethnic minorities and whose culture was therefore different from that of the white middle-class student. Whites and blacks alike also wanted a curriculum that touched more closely on contemporary social problems and teaching methods that recognized their existence as individual human beings rather than as faceless robots competing for grades. Alarmed by the helplessness and hopelessness of the urban ghetto schools, educators began to insist on curricula and teaching methods flexible enough to provide for differences in students' social and ethnic backgrounds. Moreover, for educational reformers the urban ghetto school became a symbol of a general failure of American education to accomplish the goal of individual development. Also reminiscent of those decades were the child-centered schools that sprang up in the later 1960s as alternatives to and examples for tile traditional schools. The clash between the academically and the humanistically oriented schools of thought, therefore, was in many ways one more encounter in the continuing battle between conservative and liberals.

单选题His strange behavior had greatly ______ me and my friends as well that evening.

单选题The heavy snow ______ travel, so he had to stay here for more days. A. impeached B. impelled C. impeded D. imparted

单选题Rachel was the______choice for the job thanks to her communication skills.

单选题Australia began to assume its modem configuration by the Eocene Epoch, some 50 million years ago, when Antarctica broke away and drifted southward.

单选题It tales (the most) cool-headed and (good-tempered) of drivers (to resist) the temptation to revenge (as subjected) to uncivilized behavior.

单选题Which of the following statement about the depression of our ancestors is NOT true?

单选题Which statement is NOT correct?

单选题The reality is that the consumer is at the receiving end of the numerous impacts and ______ generated by regulation.

单选题This month Singapore passed a bill that would give legal teeth to the moral obligation to support one"s parents. Called the Maintenance of Parents Bill, it received the backing of the Singapore Government. That does not mean it hasn"t generated discussion. Several members of the Parliament opposed the measure as un-Asian. Others who acknowledged the problem of the elderly poor believed it a disproportionate response. Still others believe it will subvert relations within the family: cynics dubbed it the "Sue Your Son" law. Those who say that the bill does not promote filial responsibility, of course, are right. It has nothing to do with filial responsibility. It kicks in where filial responsibility fails. The law cannot legislate filial responsibility any more than it can legislate love. All the law can do is to provide a safety net where this morality proves insufficient. Singapore needs this bill not to replace morality, but to provide incentives to shore it up. Like many other developed nations, Singapore faces the problems of an increasing proportion of people over 60 years of age. Demography is inexorable. In 1980, 7.2% of the population was in this bracket. By the end of the century that figure will grow to 11%. By 2030, the proportion is projected to be 26%. The problem is not old age per se. It is that the ratio of economically active people to economically inactive people will decline. But no amount of government exhortation or paternalism will completely eliminate the problem of old people who have insufficient means to make ends meet. Some people will fall through the holes in any safety net. Traditionally, a person"s insurance against poverty in his old age was his family, lifts is not a revolutionary concept. Nor is it uniquely Asian. Care and support for one"s parents is a universal value shared by all civilized societies. The problem in Singapore is that the moral obligation to look after one"s parents is unenforceable. A father can be compelled by law to maintain his children. A husband can be forced to support his wife. But, until now, a son or daughter had no legal obligation to support his or her parents. In 1989, an Advisory Council was set up to look into the problems of the aged. Its report stated with a tinge of complacency that 95% of those who did not have their own income were receiving cash contributions from relations. But what about the 5% who aren"t getting relatives" support? They have several options: (a) get a job and work until they die; (b) apply for public assistance (you have to be destitute to apply); or (c) starve quietly. None of these options is socially acceptable. And what if this 5% figure grows, as it is likely to do, as society ages? The Maintenance of Parents Bill was put forth to encourage the traditional virtues that have so far kept Asian nations from some of the breakdowns encountered in other affluent societies. This legislation will allow a person to apply to the court for maintenance from any or all of his children. The court would have the discretion to refuse to make an order if it is unjust. Those who deride the proposal for opening up the courts to family lawsuits miss the point. Only in extreme cases would any parent take his child to court. If it does indeed become law, the bill"s effect would be far more subtle. First, it will reaffirm the notion that it is each individual"s—not society"s—responsibility to look after his parents. Singapore is still conservative enough that most people will not object to this idea. It reinforces the traditional values and it doesn"t hurt a society now and then to remind itself of its core values. Second, and more important, it will make those who are inclined to shirk their responsibilities think twice. Until now, if a person asked family elders, clergymen or the Ministry of Community Development to help get financial support from his children, the most they could do was to mediate. But mediators have no teeth, and a child could simply ignore their pleas. But to be sued by one"s parents would be a massive loss of face. It would be a public disgrace. Few people would be so thick-skinned as to say, "Sue will be damned." The hand of the conciliator would be immeasurably strengthened. It is far more likely that some sort of amicable settlement would be reached if the recalcitrant son or daughter knows that the alternative is a public trial. It would be nice to think Singapore doesn"t need this kind of law. But that belief ignores the clear demographic trends and the effect of affluence itself on traditional bends. Those of us who pushed for the bill will consider ourselves most successful if it acts as an incentive not to have it invoked in the first place.

单选题

单选题According to the passage, the advertising man must have the ability to ______.