单选题ATIME columnist bears witness to an operation to help triplets with cerebral palsy walk like other boys. Cindy Hickman nearly bled to death the day she gave birth—three months prematurely—to her triplet sons. Weighing less than 2 lbs. each, her babies were alive, but barely. They clung so tenuously to life that her doctors recommended she name them A, B and C. Then, after a year of heroic interventions—brain shunts, tracheotomies, skull remodeling—often requiring emergency helicopter rides to the hospital nearest their rural Tennessee home, the Hickmans learned that their triplets had cerebral palsy. Fifteen years ago there wasn"t much that could be done about cerebral palsy, a disorder caused by damage to the motor centers of the brain. But pediatric medicine has come a long way since then, both in intervention before birth, with better prenatal care and various techniques to postpone delivery, and surgical interventions after birth to correct physical deficiencies. So although the incidence of cerebral palsy seems to be increasing (because the odds of preemies surviving are so much better), so too are the number of success stories. This is one of them. Lane, Codie and Wyatt (as the Hickman boys are called) have spastic cerebral palsy, the most common form, accounting for nearly 80% of cases. "We first noticed that they weren"t walking when they should," Cindy recalls. "Instead they were only doing the combat crawl." Their brains seemed to be developing age appropriately, but their muscles were unnaturally stiff, making walking difficult if not impossible. Happily, spastic cerebral palsy is also the most treatable form of CP, largely thanks to a procedure known as selective dorsal rhizotomy, in which the nerve roots that are causing the problem are isolated and severed. Among the first to champion SDR in the U.S. in the late 1980s was Dr. T.S. Park, a Korean-born pediatric neurosurgeon at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., who has preformed more than 800 of these operations and hopes to do an additional 1,000 before he retires. Peering through a microscope and guided by an electric probe, we were able to distinguish between the two groups of nerve roots leaving the spinal cord. The ventral roots send information to the muscle; the dorsal roots send information back to the spinal cord. The dorsal roots cause spasticity, and if just the right ones are severed, the symptoms can be greatly reduced. Nearly half a million Americans suffer from cerebral palsy. Not all are candidates for SDR, but Park estimates that as many as half may be. He gets the best results with children between ages 2 and 6 who were born prematurely and have stiffness only in their legs. He is known for performing the operation very high up in the spine, right where the nerve roots exit the spinal cord. It"s riskier that way, but the recovery is faster, and in Park"s skilled hands, the success rate is higher. Cindy and Jeremy Hickman will testify to that. Just a few weeks after the procedure, two of their sons are walking almost normally and the third is rapidly improving.

单选题Another hazard was that bottles sometimes fell off the shelves because of ______ from above.

单选题Passage 1 Scientists now tend to agree that the noise level for potential hearing loss begins at about 7 decibels. Some of them are very concerned because normal daily life often exposes people to nois levels of about 70 decibels even inside their homes. Cities have always been noisy, but noise is nm spreading to areas that were quiet just a few years ago. Clearly, something must be done or noise will seriously and permanently maim the populatior Fortunately, the knowledge and methods to control noise already exist. As a matter of fact, this i one instance where the knowledge of control methods exceeds the knowledge about the effects o human life and on the environment. There are two common means for control. The first is reducing noise at its source, and th second is changing the sound path by distance or by shielding. The second approach is being used more often today as people become more aware of th danger of noise. New building codes require better sound insulation in homes and apartments. Mor and more towns are passing zoning ordinances that try to segregate noisy factories or airports fro~ residential areas. Sound-absorbent materials and construction designed to block sound paths ar slowly coming into use in offices and homes. New highways are being built to redirect traffic nois up and away from nearby areas. Aircraft are increasingly being required to use reduced powe flights around airports. There are many examples of available noise control methods that are not being used. Mor flexible building codes would permit the use of quieter kinds of plumbing pipes. Sound-absorbint materials can reduce the noise of motors and engines. Power generators can be quieted with baffles exhaust silencers, and sound absorbers. Truck tires can be made with quieter treads. In many cases the cost of building quieter machines is the same or only slightly higher than that of the current noisy ones. Even though the new equipment may cost more initially, it can prove more profitable in the long run. The new jumbo jets, for example, are quieter than the older ones, yet they are more powerful and carry twice as many passengers. All of these methods are only partial measures as noisy levels continue to rise. Most specialists in the field agree that much of the solution must come from eliminating some of the noise at its source, therefore saving through prevention the large costs of hearing loss.

单选题 "For all you know, I might have a tremendous burning talent," warns the heroine of Brief Encounter, as the camera pans on to a serenading lady cellist in a teashop trio. "Oh dear, no," comes the reply, "you're too sane and uncomplicated." For a place where talent rarely falls below combustion point, the Royal College of Music is good at not encouraging the cinema stereotype of what it means to be an artist. In fact, the college is too close to the profession it serves to be anything but a breeding ground of serious hard work: there's not time, and very little room for temperament. The proof of industry is quite audible on weekdays during term, when the whole building generates a comfortable din of uncoordinated noise, as pervasive as the English academic smell of polished and cooked cabbage that haunts the corridors. The overall impression is that the college has outgrown its premises as well as its sound-proofing, even though the building in Prince Consort Road has been extended twice. A hundred years ago, when the Royal College came into official existence, it was on a much smaller scale and housed in what is now the Royal College of Organists--a florid piece of 19th-century fantasy beside the Altert Hall. Most students come here straight from school, which is often at a younger age than the current director, Sir David Willcocks, would like, "Singers in particular we encourage to come later, because the voice doesn't really develop until 20 -23. But in practice we accept people before then, rather than see them go elsewhere. If you tell someone to come back in three years time, and he goes off and gets a good job, why should he then risk giving it up to become a student?" Willcocks likes to keep his students for as long as possible, and one of the major policy decisions taken since he came to the college in 1974 has been to increase the length of the basic performers course by a fourth year. "The only ones who could properly go into the profession after three years are wind players, because their standards are astonishingly high these days. Other- wise, my advice is usually to stay here for four years and then perhaps take a specialist course abroad. The most critical recommendation of all—for a student to abandon the idea of a professional performing career—is one that Willcocks rarely has to make. It's in the nature of a conservatoire that progress, or lack of it, is public knowledge; and, given some sensitivity to the competition, most students find their own level without having to be told, "You know when you' ye done well," said one battle-scarred soprano, "because nobody speaks to you." In fact the great majority do carry on with music after they leave the college, but not necessarily in the form they had expected. Conductors may end up repetiteurs in provincial opera houses; solo singers may be swept into the chorus; some are absorbed by arts administration or the BBC, and many become teachers. In all cases, even those who give up music altogether, Willcocks is insistent that they haven't failed: "Music is a discipline in itself, a training of the mind."

单选题The jurors came to a Udeadlock/U in the defendant's trial for murder.

单选题If ambition is to be well regarded, the rewards of ambition wealth, distinction, control over one"s destiny must be deemed worthy of the sacrifices made on ambition"s behalf. If the tradition of ambition is to have vitality, it must be widely shared; and it especially must be highly regarded by people who are themselves admired, the educated not least among them. In an odd way, however, it is the educated who have claimed to have give up on ambition as an ideal. What is odd is that they have perhaps most benefited from ambition—if not always their own then that of their parents and grandparents. There is heavy note of hypocrisy in this, a case of closing the barn door after the horses have escaped with the educated themselves riding on them. Certainly people do not seem less interested in success and its signs now than formerly. Summer homes, European travel, BMWs. The locations, place names and name brands may change, but such items do not seem less in demand today than a decade or two years ago. What has happened is that people cannot confess fully to their dreams, as easily and openly as once they could, lest they be thought pushing, acquisitive and vulgar. Instead, we are treated to fine hypocritical spectacles, which now more than ever seem in ample supply: the critic of American materialism with a Southampton summer home; the publisher of radical books who takes his meals in three-star restaurants; the journalist advocating participatory democracy in all phases of life, whose own children are enrolled in private schools. For such people and many more perhaps not so exceptional, the proper formulation is, "Succeed at all costs but avoid appearing ambitious." The attacks on ambition are many and come from various angles; its public defenders are few and unimpressive, where they are not extremely unattractive. As a result, the support for ambition as a healthy impulse, a quality to be admired and fixed in the mind of the young, is probably lower than it has ever been in the United States. This does not mean that ambition is at an end, that people no longer feel its stirrings and promptings, but only that, no longer openly honored, it is less openly underground, or made sly. Such, then, is the way things stand: on the left angry critics, on the right stupid supporters, and in the middle, as usual, the majority of earnest people trying to get on in life.

单选题In my twenties, I was______ to anxiety and depression, which I experienced as a depletion of my self-esteem.

单选题The none of students in the class likes the mistress, who is used to being______ of everything they do.(2002年清华大学考博试题)

单选题Being able to move gives animals many advantages, but it also generates its own demands. For any animal, ______ movement can be unhelpful or even dangerous. A. ransom B. retrieve C. random D. redeem

单选题Britain hopes of a gold medal in the Olympic Games suffered ______ yesterday, when Hunter failed to qualify during preliminary session. A. a severe set-back B. sharp set-back C. a severe blown-up D. sharp blown-up

单选题Despite claims made by skincare manufacture's, the effects of aging are ______ A. irrefutable B. irreplaceable C. irreversible D. irritable

单选题Walking is excellent for working______.tension.

单选题Questions 21—23 are based on the passage about ice phrases. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 21—23.

单选题Some people have greater______to pain than others.

单选题Scientists have spent years______ into the effects of certain chemicals on the human brain with no results.

单选题Building this road will ______ the construction of ten bridges, and then the total cost reaches 1 million US dollars.

单选题I arranged to go to my new work before my predecessor left, so that he could help me to______

单选题People living in a large modern city have to ______.

单选题Our proposal failed to meet the ______ established by the committee, so they gave us no money.

单选题Other non-dominant males were hyperactive; they were much more active than is normal, chasing others and fighting each other. A. hardly active B. relatively active C. extremely inactive D. pathologically active