单选题Digging the garden with a spade is a very ______ task. I am exhausted after such two-hour's work. A. industrious B. manual C. conscientious D. laborious

单选题In their world of darkness, it would seem likely that some of the animals might have become blind, as has happened to some cave fauna. So, indeed, many of them have, compensating for the lack of eyes with marvelously developed feelers and long, slender fins and processes with which they grope their way, like so many blind men with canes, their whole knowledge of friends, enemies, or food coming to them through the sense of touch. The last traces of plant life are left behind in the thin upper layer of water for no plant can live below about 600 feet even in very clear water, and few find enough sunlight for their food-manufacturing activities below 200 feet. Since no animal can make its own food, the creatures of the deeper waters live a strange, almost parasitic existence of utter dependence on the upper layers. These hungry carnivores prey fiercely and relentlessly upon each other, yet the whole community is ultimately dependent upon the slow rain of descending food particles from above. The components of this never-ending rain are the dead and dying plants and animals from the surface, or from one of the intermediate layers. For each of the horizontal zones or communities of the sea that lie between the surface and the sea bottom, the food supply is different and in general poorer than for the layer above. Pressure, darkness, and silence are the conditions of life in the deep sea. But we know now that the conception of the sea as a silent place is wholly false. Wide experience with hydrophones and other listening devices for the detection of submarines has proved that, around the shore lines of much of the world, there is the extraordinary uproar produced by fishes, shrimps, porpoises and probably other forms not yet identified. There has been little investigation as yet of sound in the deep, offshore areas, but when the crew of the Atlantis lowered a hydrophone into deep water off Bermuda, they recorded strange mewing sounds, shrieks, and ghostly moans, the sources of which have not been traced. But fish of shallower zones have been captured and confined in aquaria, where their voices have been recorded for comparison with sounds heard at sea, and in many cases satisfactory identification can be made. During the Second World War the hydrophone network set up by the United States Navy to protect the entrance to Chesapeake Bay was temporarily made useless when, in the spring of 1942, the speakers at the surface began to give forth, every evening, a sound described as being like "a pneumatic drill tearing up pavement". The extraneous noises that came over the hydrophones completely masked the sounds of the passage of ships. Eventually it was discovered that the sounds were the voices of fish known as croakers, Which in the spring move into Chesapeake Bay from the offshore wintering grounds. As soon as the noise had been identified and analyzed, it was possible to screen it out with an electric filter, so that once more only the sounds of ships came thorugh the speakers.

单选题To fight against computer crimes, a computer system needs a sure way of identifying its right users and rejecting those who are not entitled to use it. The identification system should be quick, simple, and convenient. At present, signatures are widely used to identify credit card holders, but it takes an expert to detect a good forgery. Sometimes even a human expert is fooled, and there is no reason to believe that a computer could do any better. Photographs are also sometimes used for identification. But, people find it inconvenient to stop by a credit-card company and to be photographed. Companies might lose business if they made the pictures under absolute requirement. Also, photographs are less useful these days, when people frequently change their appearance by changing the way they wear their hair. Finally, computer programs for analyzing photographs are still highly experimental. Cash-drawing systems often use two identification numbers: One is recorded on a magnetic stripe on the identification cards, and the other is given to the CRS holder. When the user inserts his card into the cash-drawing terminal, he keys in the identification number he has been given. The computer checks to see that the number recorded on the card and the other keyed in by the user refer to the same person. For a long time, fingerprints have provided a method of positive identification. But they suffer from two problems. One is that there is no simple system for comparing fingerprints electronically, the other is that because most people associate being fingerprinted with being arrested~ they almost surely would resist being fingerprinted for routine identification. Voiceprints have been suggested. With these, the user has only to speak a few words for the computer to analyze his voice. There are no psychological problems here. And technically it's easier to take and analyze voiceprints than fingerprints. However, it has yet to be proved that the computer cannot be fooled by imitation. Also, the voice is subjected to the noise and distortion of a telephone line. Even lip-prints have been suggested. But it's doubtful that kissing computers will ever catch on.

单选题The police had decided not to proceed with a prosecution against Irwin, ______ that it was highly unlikely that any jury in the land would wish to punish him for doing this mercy killing.

单选题Weather exports use the ______ of the barometer as one of their guides in predicting the weather.

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单选题We brought ______ at the football match.

单选题 The Aleuts, residing on several islands of the Aleutian Chain, the Pribilof islands, and the Alaskan Peninsula, have possessed a written language since 1825, when the Russian missionary Ivan Veniaminov selected appropriate characters of the Cyrillic alphabet to represent Aleut speech sounds, recorded the main body of Aleut vocabulary, and formulated grammatical rules. The Czarist Russian conquest of the proud, independent sea hunters was so devastatingly thorough that tribal traditions, even tribal memories, were almost obliterated. The slaughter of the majority of an adult generation was sufficient to destroy the continuity of tribal knowledge, which was dependent upon oral transmission. As a consequence, the Aleuts developed a fanatical devotion to their language as their only cultural heritage. The Russian occupation placed a heavy linguistic burden on the Aleuts. Not only were they compelled to learn Russian to converse with their overseers and governors, but they had to learn Old Slavonic to take an active part in church services as well as to master the skill of reading and writing their own tongue. In 1867, when the United States purchased Alaska, the Aleuts were unable to break sharply with their immediate past and substitute English for any one of their three languages. To communicants of the Russian Orthodox Church a knowledge of Slavonic remained vital, as did Russian, the language in which one conversed with the clergy. The Aleuts came to regard English education as a device to wean them from their religious faith. The introduction of compulsory English schooling caused a minor renascence of Russian culture as the Aleut parents sought to counteract the influence of the schoolroom. The harsh life of the Russian colonial rule began to appear more happy and beautiful in retrospect. Regulations forbidding instruction in any language other than English increased its unpopularity, The superficial alphabetical resemblance of Russian and Aleut linked the two tongues so closely that every restriction against teaching Russian was interpreted as an attempt to eradicate the Aleut tongue. From the wording of many regulations, it appears that American administrators often had not the slightest idea that the Aleuts were clandestinely reading and writhing their own tongue or even had a written language of their own. To too many officials, anything in Cyrillic letters was Russian and something to be stamped out. Bitterness bred by abuses and the exploitations the Aleuts suffered from predatory American traders and adventurers kept alive the Aleut resentment against the language spoken by Americans. Gradually, despite the failure to emancipate the Aleuts from a sterile past by relating the Aleut and English languages more closely, the passage of years has assuaged the bitter misunderstandings and caused an orientation away from Russian toward English as their second language, but Aleut continues to be the language that molds their thought and expression.

单选题The main point of paragraph 2 is ______.

单选题They reached a(n) ______ to keep their dispute out of the mass media. A. understanding B. acknowledgement C. limitations D. misgivings

单选题{{B}}Passage 4{{/B}} Linguists have understood for decades that language and thought are closely related. Humans construct reality using thought and express these thoughts through the use of language. Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Whorl are credited with developing the most relevant explanation outlining the relationship between thought and language, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. The hypothesis consists of two parts, linguistic relativity and linguistic determinism. Supporters of linguistic relativity assume that culture is shaped by language. Terwilliger defines linguistic determinism as the process by which "the functions of one's mind are determined by the nature of the language which one speaks." In simpler terms, the thoughts that we construct are based upon the language that we speak and the words that we use. In its strongest sense, linguistic determinism can be interpreted as meaning that language determines thought. In its weakest sense, language partially influences thought. Whorl was careful to avoid authoritative statements which would permanently commit him to particular position. Because of the broad nature of his statements, it is difficult to distinguish exactly to what extent Whorf believes that language determines thought. Heated debate among modern linguists demonstrates that disagreement exists about the accuracy and correctness of Whorf's studies and of the actual level of influence of language on thought processes. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis essentially consists of two distinct statements connecting the relation of thought and language. Whorf believes that humans may be able to think only about objects, processes, and conditions that have language associated with them. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis also explains the relationship between different languages (French, English, German, Chinese, and so on) and thought. Whorl demonstrated that culture is largely determined by language. Different cultures perceive the world in different ways. Culturally essential objects, conditions and processes usually are defined by a plethora of words, while things that cultures perceive as unimportant are usually assigned one or two words. Whorf developed this theory while studying the Hopi Indian tribe. Whorl was amazed that the Hopi language has no words for past, present, and future. The Hopi have only one word for flying objects. A dragonfly, an airplane, and a pilot are defined using the same word. Whorl questioned whether or not the Hopi view the world differently than western peoples. After further interpretation and analysis he concluded that the Hopi have a sense for the continuum of time despite having no words to specifically describe past, present, and future. It is commonly believed that the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis possesses some truth, but the extent to which it is applicable to all situations is questioned. Linguists generally sup port a "strong" or a "weak" interpretation. Linguists who study the hypothesis tend to cite examples that support their beliefs but are unable or unwilling to refute the opposing arguments. Examples exist that strengthen the arguments of everyone who studies the hypothesis. Nobody has gained significant ground in proving or refuting the hypothesis because the definitions of Sapir and Whorl are very vague and incomplete, leaving room for a significant amount of interpretation.

单选题Flax has been raised for many thousands of years, for many different reasons. Probably the two most important reasons are for the fabric made from it and the oil produced from it. The woody stem of the flax plant contains the long, strong fibers that are used to make linen. The seeds are rich in an oil important for its industrial uses. The people of ancient Egypt, Assyria, and Mesopotamia raised flax for cloth; Egyptian mummies were wrapped in linen. Since the discovery of its drying ability, the oil from flaxseed, called linseed oil, has been used as a drying agent in paints and varnishes. The best fiber and the best seed cannot be obtained from the same kinds of plant. Fiber flax grows tall and has few branches. It needs a short, cool growing season with plenty of rainfall evenly distributed. Otherwise, the plants become woody and the fiber is rough and dry. On the other hand, seed flax grows well in places that are too dry for fiber flax. The plants are lower to the ground and have more branches.

单选题What started the public and Confessional concern about deceptive packaging rumpus?

单选题We need to make sure that we ______ our resources as fully as possible. A. use B. exploit C. employ D. explore

单选题If his father could not keep up the payments on the mortgage, his uncle might ______ it for him. A. redeem B. amend C. resemble D. appeal

单选题Brass concert music was ______ to a new level in the 1880s when John Philip Sonsa took over the U.S. Marine Band.

单选题The integration of staff for training has led to a good exchange of ideas, greater enthusiasm, and higher staff A．moral B．mortal C．morale D．mores

单选题James's first novels used conventional narrative techniques: explicit characterization, action which related events in distinctly phased sequences, settings firmly outlined and specifically described. But this method gradually gave way to a subtler, more deliberate, more diffuse style of accumulation of minutely discriminated details whose total significance the reader can grasp only by constant attention and sensitive inference. His later novels play down scenes of abrupt and prominent action, and do not so much offer a succession of sharp shocks as slow piecemeal additions of perception. The curtain is not suddenly drawn back from shrouded things, but is slowly moved away. Such a technique is suited to James's essential subject, which is not human action itself but the states of mind which produce and are produced by human actions and interactions. James was less interested in what characters do, than in the moral and psychological antecedents, realizations, and consequences which attend their doings. This is why he more often speaks of "eases" than of actions. His stories, therefore, grow more and more lengthy while the actions they relate grow simpler and less visible; not because they are crammed with adventitious and secondary events, digressive relief, or supernumerary characters, as overstuffed novels of action are; but because he presents in such exhaustive detail every nuance of his situation. Commonly the interest of a novel is in the variety and excitement of visible actions building up to a climatic event which will settle the outward destinies of characters with story-book promise of permanence. A James novel, however, possesses its characteristic interest in carrying the reader through a rich analysis of the mental adjustments of characters to the realities of their personal situations as they are slowly revealed to them through exploration and chance discovery.