单选题According to this passage, research in this area is characterized as ______.

单选题Certain animal behaviors, such as mating rituals, seem to be ______, and therefore ______ extemal factors such as climate changes, food supply, or the presence of other animals of the same species.

单选题His production techniques are elaborate and near legendary, but even if they could be ______, it wouldn't be the same for any other people.

单选题It is hard to track the blue whale, the ocean's largest creature, Which has almost been killed off by commercial whaling and is now listed as an endangered species. Attaching radio devices to it is difficult and visual sightings are too unreliable to give real insight into its behavior. So biologists were delighted early this year when with the help of the Navy they were able to track a particular blue whale for 43 days monitoring its sounds. This was possible because of the Navy's formerly top-secret system of underwater listening devices spanning the oceans. Tracking whales is but one example of a exciting new world just opening to civilian scientists after the cold war as the Navy starts to share and partly uncover its global network of underwater listening system built over the decades to track the ships of potential enemies. Earth scientists announced at a news conference recently that they had used the system for closely monitoring a deep-sea volcanic eruption for the first time and that they plan similar studies. Other scientists have proposed to use the network for tracking ocean currents and measuring changes in ocean and global temperatures. The speed of sound in water is roughly one mile a second--slower than through land but faster than through air. What is most important, different layers of. ocean water can act as channels for sounds, focusing them in the same way a stethoscope (听诊器) does when it carries faint noises from a patient's chest to a doctor's ear. This focusing is the main reason that even relatively weak sounds in the ocean, especially low- frequency ones can often travel thousands of miles.

单选题Finally the dirt road in Maine was leading home. The tire touched the first profanity of pavement, and subtly my vacation began slipping away. By the first Finally the dirt road in Maine was leading home. The tire touched the first profanity of pavement, tollbooth my state of mind had shifted from neutral to first gear. By the time I had passed all my favorite landmarks, the sign to Biddeford, the bridge labeled Cat Mousam Road — I had slowly and reluctantly begun to relocate my sense of place, my sense of values. I was going back, to lists and alarm clocks and stockings and school lunches and all the external pressures of the life known as civilization. I was going back to things I had to do. This time even the skies divided these two halves of my life. Along Route 95, a curtain of almost impenetrable rain separated one world from the other. The day before, this rain on the roof of the house would have been a comforting boundary to the day, a prediction of reading and fires. Now, the rain on the windshield of the car was a hassle, a challenge to overcome. I turned up the radio, so I could hear the final installment of Jane Eyre over the pelting rain, and thought about these different rhythms that mark my own life, mark of our lives. Left behind was a world in which I simply lived — according to its patterns. Ahead of me was the world of agendas and problems that I was expected to encounter and resolve. Was it country versus city? Leisure versus work? Nature versus human environment? Both and neither. Vacation is a state of mind as much as a state of union. For two and half weeks in Main I watched the sky, the cove, the cormorants and a seagull with the gall to steal chicken off our barbecue. I am told that I became an accomplished mud watcher, sitting on the porch, watching the bottom of the cove of low tide for hours. I prided myself on developing a hobby rarely listed in Who's Who. I became a fine stick-in-the-mud. To me, an urban woman who lives much of her life according to other people's deadlines and demands, this was a chance to literally vacate the world of schedules and struggles. I did not, do not, use my vacation to climb mountains, shoot rapids or fulfill itineraries of some travel agent. I preferred to drift along ray inclination down through the circle of goals to the mud of acceptance. I was content with the harmony we call doing nothing. There was a sense of letting go, being at ease with time rather than at odds with it. I wallowed in the under-standing that there was nothing that had to be done beyond watching the clothes dry and casting for mackerel. But I was also returning. Returning to the energy, the structure, the demands, the pressure. I also chose engagement. There are, I suppose, these two sides to all of us. The side that wallows like any riser organism in the world, and the other side that seeks some purpose "above" that. The side that feels most content in nature, and the other side that feels more energized "on top of the world". I am aware of this duality, the urge to watch the mud, the urge to build something out of it. Our peculiar human creativity doesn't come from harmony but from wrestling with chaos as well. Every poem and every building was wrested out of material by people who refused to accept things as they were. Too often we work by clocks instead of sunsets and become more attuned to air conditioning than the condition of the air. But there is also in all this the challenge and energy and pleasure of accomplishment. At one time, I thought these worlds were at odds, that we had to choose engagement or disengagement, accepting or accomplishment, watching the mud or building with it. But traveling this kind of road again and again, I realized that they are just two destinations, points along a path of dirt and pavement. Now it is the tension that intrigues me. The search for a balance between comfort and purposefulness, between accepting things and struggling with them. Driving home, I was reluctant to leave one for the other, reluctant to put on my city clothes of purpose and structure. But I knew that I was lucky to be a commuter.

单选题The early retirement of experienced workers is seriously harming the U.S. economy, according to a new report from the Hudson Institute, a public policy research organization. Currently, many older experienced workers retire at an early age. According to the recently issued statistics, 79 percent of qualified workers begin collecting retirement benefits at age 62; if that trend continues, there will be a labor shortage that will hinder the economic growth in the twenty-first century. Older Americans constitute an increasing proportion of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and the population of those over age 65 will grow by 60% between 2001 and 2020. During the same period, the group aged 18 to 44 will increase by only 4%. Keeping older skilled workers employed, even part time, would increase U.S. economic output and strengthen the tax base; but without significant policy reforms, massive early retirement among baby boomers seems more likely. Retirement at age 62 is an economically rational decision today. Social Security and Medicaid earnings limits and tax penalties subject our most experienced workers to marginal tax rates as high as 67%. Social Security formulas encourage early retirement. Although incomes usually rise with additional years of work, any pay increases after the 35-year mark result in higher Social Security taxes but only small increases in benefits. Hudson Institute researchers believe that federal tax and benefit policies are at fault and reforms are urgently needed, but they disagree with the popular proposal that much older Americans will have to work because Social Security will not support them and that baby boomers are not saving enough for retirement. According to the increase in 401 (k) and Keogh retirement plans, the ongoing stock market on Wall Street, and the likelihood of large inheritances, there is evidence that baby boomers will reach age 65 with greater financial assets than previous generations. The Hudson institute advocates reforming government policies that now discourage work and savings, especially for older workers. Among the report"s recommendations: Tax half of all Social Security benefits, regardless of other income; provide 8% larger benefits for each year beyond 65; and permit workers nearing retirement to negotiate compensation packages that may include a lower salary but with greater healthcare benefits. However, it may take real and fruitful planning to find the right solution to the early retirement of older experienced workers; any measures taken must be allowed to prolong the serviceability of older experienced workers.

单选题With computers doubling in speed and power every couple of years, and with genetic engineering's dazzling feats growing more and more routine, the battered American faith in technological progress has been growing stronger and giddier of late.

单选题Now the public has an unprecedented chance to peer over the shoulders of archaeologists and historians and get a firsthand look at the ______ of the Mongols and their Asian predecessors. A. legacy B. bequest C. converse D. miracle

单选题Not until the game had begun ______ at the sports ground. A. should he have arrived B. had he arrived C. did he arrive D. would he had arrived

单选题Recorded______of today's big football game will be shown after the news. (2004年湖北省考博试题)

单选题That prospect has infuriated ordinary Mexicans, who have seen the purchasing power of their paychecks ______ more than 40% since 1982.

单选题Most small earthquakes which cause very slight ______ can only be detected with the help of sophisticated instruments.

单选题The site of the battle brought back to him memories of the ______ years of the World War Two

单选题One year ago we stared aghast at images of the Southeast Asian tsunami. Video cameras taken on vacation to record the everyday pleasures of the beach were suddenly turned to quivering utility as they documented the panic and mayhem of a natural disaster. Who can forget the disbelief in the recorded voices? This can't be happening to us. Human beings are never prepared for natural disasters. There is a kind of optimism built into our species that seems to prefer to live in the comfortable present rather than confront the possibility of destruction, It may happen, we seem to believe, but not now, and not to us. Mount Vesuvius has been erupting since historical records began. The eruption of A. D. 79 both destroyed Pompeii and preserved it for posterity. Pliny the Younger starkly recorded the details in prose that can still be read as a scientific ac-count. Yet houses are still being erected today at vulnerable sites around Vesuvius, in the face of the geological inevitability of further eruptions. Disasters are described as "acts of God". Whenever a natural catastrophe occurs, old questions resurface. How can we reconcile tragedy with the idea of a beneficent God? And with that question, the notion of punishment is never far behind. If classical religions were wont to attribute disasters to the wrath of the gods, even in this scientific age the old explanations still have their attractions. And who might not sneakily still wish to believe that a saint could intercede on our behalf? But there is another kind of disaster. Many scientists think that the Gulf Coast hurricanes may be a symptom of climate change. Carbon emissions have been accelerating more rapidly within a generation or two: this is not the result of some creeping plate indifferent to the fate of humans; this is our responsibility. However, there is still the same, almost willful blindness to the dangers of climate change; after all, the sun still rises, the crops still ripen--why worry? Geology tells us that there have been "green-house worlds" in the distant past. These have been times when seas flooded over continents. Even modest sea-level rises would spell the end of densely populated areas of the world like Bangladesh. In such a case, invoking the God to look after us for the best is just pie in the sky. These are not "acts of God" but acts of man. We should be ashamed of the consequences of our own willing blindness.

单选题______schools are a microcosm of society at large, it is important to examine the ways in which educational environments may foster and perpetuate a tolerance of gender-based stereotyping and violence.

单选题{{B}}Passage Two{{/B}} Modem technology and science have produced a wealth of new materials and new ways of using old materials. For the artist this means wider opportunities. There is no doubt that the limitations of materials and nature of tools both restrict and shape a man's work. Observe how the development of plastics and light metals along with new methods of welding has changed the direction of sculpture. Transparent plastic materials allow one to look through an object, to see its various sides superimposed on each other (as in Cubism or in an X-ray). Today, welding is as prevalent as casting was in the past. This new method encourages open designs, where surrounding and intervening space becomes as important as form itself. More ambiguous than other scientific inventions familiar to modem artists, but no less influential, are the psychoanalytic studies of Freud and his followers, discoveries that have infiltrated recent art, especially Surrealism. The Surrealists, in their struggle to escape the monotony and frustrations of everyday life, claimed that dreams were the only hope. Turning to the irrational world of their unconscious, they banished all time barriers and moral judgments to combine disconnected dream experiences from the past, present and intervening psychological states. The Surrealists were concerned with overlapping emotions more than with overlapping forms. Their paintings often become segmented capsules of associative experiences. For them, obsessive and often unrelated images replaced the direct emotional message of expressionism. They did not need to smash paint and canvas; they went beyond this to smash the whole continuity of logical thought. There is little doubt that contemporary art has taken much from contemporary life. In a period when science has made revolutionary strides, artists in their studios have not been unaware of scientists in their laboratories. But this has rarely been a one-way street. Painters and sculptors, though admittedly influenced by modern science, have also molded and changed our world. If breakup has been a vital part of their expression, it has not always been a symbol of destruction. Quite the contrary: it has been used to examine more fully, to penetrate more deeply, to analyze more thoroughly, to enlarge, isolate and make more familiar certain aspects of life that earlier we were apt to neglect. In addition, it sometimes provides rich multiple experiences so organized as not merely to reflect our world, but in fact to interpret it.

单选题Older persons typically exhibit greater experience-based knowledge, increased accuracy, better judgment, and generally improved ability to handle familiar tasks than younger persons. Such applied knowledge, or wisdom, may in fact be considerably more important to one's ability to accomplish most tasks of day-to-day life than were the abstract abilities tapped by intelligence tests. A. increased accuracy B. than younger persons C. or wisdom D. than were

单选题{{B}}(3){{/B}} Auctions are public sales of goods, conducted by an officially approved auctioneer. He asked the crowd to gather in the auction room to bid for various items on sale. He encourages buyers to bid higher figures and finally names the highest bidder as the buyer of the goods. This is called "knocking down" the goods, for the bidding ends when the auctioneer bangs a small hammer on a raised platform. The ancient Romans probably invented sales by auction and the English word comes from the Latin "autic", meaning "increase". The Romans usually sold in this way the spoils taken in war; these sales were called "sub hasta", meaning "under the spear", a spear being stuck in the ground as a signal for a crowd to gather. In England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries goods were often sold "by the candle"; a short candle was lit by the auctioneer and bids could be made while it was burning. Practically all goods can be sold by auction. Among these are coffee, skins, wool, tea, cocoa, furs, fruit, vegetables and wines. Auction sales are also usual for land and property, antique furniture, pictures, rare books, old china and works of art. The auction rooms at Chritie's and Sotheby's in London and New York are world famous. An auction is usually advertised beforehand with full particulars of the articles to be sold and where and when they can be viewed by the buyers. If the advertisement cannot give full details, catalogues are printed, and each group of goods to be sold together, called a "lot", is usually given a number. The auctioneer need not begin with lot one and continue the numerical order; he may wait until he notices the fact that certain buyers are in the room and then produce the lots they are likely to be interested in. The auctioneer's services are paid for in the form of a percentage of the price the goods are sold for. The auctioneer therefore has a direct interest in pushing up the bidding as high as possible. The auctioneer must know fairly accurately the current market values of the goods he is selling, and he should be acquainted with regular buyers of such goods. He will not waste time by starting the bidding too low. He will also play on the rivalries among his buyers and succeed in getting a high price by encouraging two business competitors to bid against each other. It is largely on his advice that a seller wilt fix a "reserve" price, that is, a price below which the goods cannot be sold. Even the best auctioneers, however, find it difficult to stop a "knock-out", whereby dealers illegally arrange beforehand not to bid against each other, but nominate one of themselves as the only bidder, in the hope of buying goods at extremely low prices. If such a "knockout" comes off, the real auction sale takes place privately afterwards among the dealers.

单选题Some individuals have applied "positive thinking" either to particular external circumstances or to some particular habits or character defects.