单选题 How men first learnt to invent words is unknown; in other words, the origin of language is a mystery. All we really know is that men, unlike animals, somehow invented certain sound to express thoughts and feelings, actions and things, so that they could communicate with each other; and that later they agreed upon certain signs, called letters, which could be combined to represent those sounds, and which could be written down. Those sounds, whether spoken or written in letters, we call words. The power of words, then, lies in their associations-the things they bring up before our minds. Words become filled with meaning for us by experience; and the longer we live, the more certain words recall to us the glad and sad events of our past; and the more we read and learn, the more the number of words that mean something to us increases. Great writers are those who not only have great thoughts but also express these thoughts in words which appeal powerfully to our minds and emotions. This charming use of words is what we call literary style. Above all, the real poet is a master of words. He can convey his meaning in words which sing like music, and which by their position and association can move men to tears. We should therefore learn to choose our words carefully and use them accurately, or they will make our speech silly and dull.

单选题Sometimes a dictionary designates a noun as attributive, which means that it can be used to describe another noun or name its attributes.

单选题The language has always changed, but the rate of change has been uneven; minor changes have slowly accumulated in every generation, but there have been period of rapid change as well. The most important of these periods occurred during the two hundred and fifty years after 1066, the year the Normans conquered England. A. but B. period of rapid change C. as well D. year the Normans

单选题Tuberculosis is highly infectious because ______.

单选题All flights in and out Tianhe Airport came to a ______ because of the snowstorm.

单选题His account of his experience in Antarctic cannot be dismissed as ______.

单选题{{B}}Passage 3{{/B}} Psychologist George Spilich and colleagues at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, decided to find out Whether, as many smokers say, smoking helps them to "think and concentrate." Spilich put young non-smokers, active smokers and smokers deprived (被剥夺) of cigarettes through a series of tests. In the first test, each subject (试验对象) sat before a computer screen and pressed a key as soon as he or she recognized a target letter among a grouping of 96. In this simple test, smokers, deprived smokers and nonsmokers performed equally well. The next test was more complex, requiring all to scan sequences of 20 identical letters and respond the instant one of the letters was transformed into a different one. Non-smokers were faster, but under the stimulation of nicotine (尼古丁), active smokers were faster than deprived smokers. In the third test of short-term memory, non-smokers made the fewest errors, but deprived smokers committed fewer errors than active smokers. The fourth test required people to read a passage, then answer questions about it. Non-smokers remembered 19 percent more of the most important information than active smokers, and deprived smokers bested those who had smoked a cigarette just before testing. Active smokers tended not only to have poorer memories but also had trouble separating important information from insignificant details. "As our tests became more complex," sums up Spilich, "non-smokers performed better than smokers by wider and wider margins." He predicts, "smokers might perform adequately at many jobs until they got complicated. A smoking airline pilot could fly adequately if no problems arose, but if something went wrong, smoking might damage his mental capacity."

单选题He lived in a______house, and for this reason he was easily accepted into his money-worshiping society. A. shabby B. ragged C. dingy D. decent

单选题（浙江大学2008年试题） The energy crisis, which is being felt around the world, has dramatized how the careless use of the earth's resources has brought the whole world to the brink of disaster. The overdevelopment of motor transport, with its【1】of more cars, more highways, more pollution, more suburbs, more commuting, has【2】to the near-destruction of our cities, and the pollution not only of【3】air, but also of the earth's atmosphere. The disaster has arrived in the【4】of the energy crisis. Our present【5】is unlike war, revolution or depression. It is also unlike the great natural disasters of the past. Worldwide resources【6】and energy use have brought us to a state【7】long-range planning is essential. What we need is not a continuation of our present serious state, which【8】the future of our country, our children, and our earth,【9】a movement forward to a new norm in order to work rapidly and effectively on planetary problems. This country has been falling back under the continuing exposures of loss of【10】. There is a strong demand for moral revival and【11】some devotion that is vast enough and yet【12】enough to enlist the devotion of all. In the past it has been only in a way in【13】of their own country【14】any people have been able to【15】themselves wholeheartedly. This is the first time we have been asked to defend ourselves and what we hold dear in【16】with all the other inhabitants of this planet, who【17】with us the same endangered air and the same endangered oceans. There is a【18】need to reassess our present course, and to【19】new methods through which the world can survive. This is a priceless【20】.

单选题The airline ______ me for the amount they had overcharged me.

单选题In width of scope, Yeats far exceeds any of his contemporaries. He is the only poet since the 18th century who has been a public man in his own country and the only poet since Milton who has been a public man at a time when his country was involved in a struggle for political liberty. This may not seem an important matter, but it is a question whether the kind of life lived by poets for the last two hundred years or so has not been one great reason for the drift of poetry away from the life of the community as a whole, and the loss of touch with tradition. Once the life of contemplation has been divorced from the life of action, or from real knowledge of men of action, something is lost which it is difficult to define, but which leaves poetry enfeebled and incomplete. Yeats responded with all his heart as a young man to the reality and the romance of Ireland's struggle but he lived to be completely disillusioned about the value of the Irish rebellion. He saw his dreams of liberty blotted out in horror by" the innumerable clanging wings that have put out the moon". It brought him to the final conclusion of the futility of all discipline that is not of the whole being, and of "how base at moments of excitement are minds without culture". But he remained a man to whom the life of action always meant something very real.

单选题The accident was a terrible______; they all died.

单选题He spends his time in ______ complaints rather than acting.

单选题Huxley is ______ optimistic for the future of either man or plant on this planet. A. anything but B. nothing but C. above all D. rather than

单选题By saying that he became sort of dependent on the industry, Mark Amerika meant that ______.

单选题Sitting still all day is______to a healthy boy's nature.

单选题Everyone has faced the embarrassing______of deciding how much extra to give a waiter or taxi-driver.

单选题He swallows his words so much that I can never ______ what he is saying. A. make out B. put up C. deal with D. take up