单选题I wasn't qualified for the job really, but I got it {{U}}anyhow. {{/U}}

单选题第二篇From Ponzi to Madoff The year was 1920. The country was the United States of America. The man’s name was Charles Ponzi. Ponzi told people to stop depositing money in a savings account. Instead, they should give it to him to save for them. Ponzi promised to pay them more than the bank. For example, a savings account might pay you $ 5 a year for every $ 100 you deposit. Ponzi, however, would pay you $ 40 a year for every $ 100 you gave him to hold. Many people thought this was a good plan. They began to give their money to Ponzi. How could Ponzi make so much money for people? This is what he did with the money people gave him: He used some of that money to pay other people who gave him money. However, he also kept a lot of the money for himself. Soon he had $ 250 million. This was a kind of theft, and it was against the law. The people who gave him their money didn’t think anything was wrong. Ponzi paid them every month, just like a bank. Ponzi continued this way of working for two years. Then one day, he didn’t have enough money to pay all the people. They discovered his crime, and he went to prison for fraud. Ninety years later, people began to hear about a businessman in New York named Bernard Madoff. People said he gave good advice about money. They said when they gave him their money, he paid them a lot more than the bank. Madoff helped hospitals, schools, and individuals earn money. Over a period of 40 years, people gave him $ 170 billion. However, no one investigated what he did with the money. The people who gave Madoff their money also didn’t think anything was wrong because he paid them every month. One day, Madoff didn’t have enough money to pay all the people he needed to pay. That’s when people discovered how Madoff worked; He was taking money from some people to pay other people, just the way Charles Ponzi did. However, this time, instead of losing millions of dollars, people lost billions. Madoff was accused of fraud, and United States government officials arrested him. He didn’t have to go on trial because he said he was guilty. In 2009, a judge sentenced him to 150 years in prison. Bernard Madoff’s crime was even bigger than Ponzi’s. It was the biggest fraud in history. The lesson of this story is clear; When something seems too good to be true, it probably is!

单选题Although originally a German innovation, kindergarten got its real start in the United States as a movement to provide an improved learning environment for children.

单选题The class of mammals embraces nearly all warm-blooded animals except the birds.

单选题The river widens considerably as it begins to turn east.

单选题 Some Things We Know about Language Many things about language are a mystery, and many will always remain so. But some things we do know. First, we know that all human beings have a language of some sort. There is no race of men anywhere on earth so backward that it has no language, no set of speech sounds by which the people communicate with one another. Furthermore, in historical times, there has never been a race of men without a language. Second, there is no such thing as a primitive language. There are many people whose cultures are undeveloped, who are, as we say, uncivilized, but the languages they speak are not primitive. In all known languages we can see complexities that must have been tens of thousands of years in developing. This has not always been well understood; indeed, the direct contrary has often been stated. Popular ideas of the language of the American Indians will illustrate. Many people have supposed that the Indians communicated in a very primitive system of noises. Study has proved this to be nonsense. There are, or were, hundreds of American Indian languages, and all of them turn out to be very complicated and very old. They are certainly different from the languages that most of us are familiar with, but they are no more primitive than English and Greek. A third thing we know about language is that all languages are perfectly adequate. That is, each one is a perfect means of expressing the culture of the people who speak the language. Finally, we know that language changes. It is natural and normal for language to change; the only languages which do not change are the dead ones. This is easy to understand if we look backward in time. Change goes on in all aspects of language. Grammatical features change as do speech sounds, and changes in vocabulary are sometimes very extensive and may occur very rapidly. Vocabulary is the least stable part of any language.

单选题Mother Nature Shows Her Strength Tornadoes (龙卷风) and heavy thunderstorms moved across the Great Lakes and into Trumbull County on Saturday evening. The storms were dramatic and dangerous. George Snyder was driving the fire truck down Route 88 when he first noticed that a funnel (漏斗状的) cloud was behind him. "I stopped the truck and watched the funnel cloud. It was about 100 feet off the ground and I saw it go up and down for a while. It was moving toward Bradley Road and then suddenly it disappeared," Snyder said. Snyder only saw one of the funnel clouds that passed through northeastern Ohio on Saturday. In Trumbull County, a tornado turned trees onto their sides. Some trees fell onto houses and cars. Other trees fell into telephone and electrical wires as they went down. Amanda Psychic was having a party when the storm began. "I knew something was wrong," she said. "I saw the sky go green and pink (粉红色). Then it sounded like a train rushing toward the house. I started crying and told everyone to go to the basement for protection." The tornado caused a lot of damage to cars and houses in the area. It will take a long time and much money to repair everything. There was also serious water damage from the thunderstorms. The heavy rains and high wind caused the power to go out in many homes. The storms caused serious flooding in areas near the river. More than four inches of rain fell in parts of Trumbull County. The river was so high that the water ran into streets and houses. Many streets had to be closed to cars and trucks because of the high water. This made it difficult for fire trucks, police cars, and other rescue vehicles to help people who were in trouble. Many people who live near the river had to leave their homes for their own safety. Some people reported five feet of water in their homes. Local and state officials opened emergency shelters for the people who were evacuated (搬走). The Red Cross served meals to them. "This was a really intense storm," said Snyder, "People were afraid. Mother Nature can be fierce. We were lucky this time. No one was killed."

单选题Breakfast Studies show that children who eat breakfast do better in school. It doesn"t take much further thought to believe that adults will feel better and perform better at work as well. Whether you work at home, on the farm, at the office, at school, or on the road, it is not a good idea to skip (故意略去) breakfast. If we don"t eat breakfast, we are likely to become tired when our brains and bodies run low on fuel. By mid-morning, a lot of us grab a cup of coffee, or wolf down a sugary candy bar to wake up again. This might work for a few minutes, but by lunchtime we are hungry, bad-tempered, and perhaps our mood might make us a little more likely to make unhealthy choices at lunch. Eating a good breakfast sets the tone for the rest of the day. People who eat breakfast are generally more likely to maintain a healthy weight. Many people believe that they will lose weight if they skip meals, but that isn"t a good idea. The body expects to be refueled a few times a day, so start with a healthy breakfast. A healthy breakfast should contain some protein (蛋白质) and some fiber (纤维). Protein can come from meat, eggs, beans, or soy (大豆). Fiber can be found in whole cereals (谷物), grains or in fruits. A good example of a healthy breakfast might be something simple like a hard boiled egg, an orange, and a bowl of whole grain cereal with soy milk.

单选题Melon Compound "Reduces Stress" The key ingredient is an enzyme called superoxide dismutase, thought to have beneficial antioxidant properties which prevent damage to the body's tissues. Volunteers given a capsule containing the enzyme reported fewer symptoms of stress and fatigue than those given a dummy capsule, which were filled with inactive starch. The French study is published in BioMed Central's open access Nutrition Journal. The researchers found a strong placebo effect in the 35 volunteers who received the dummy capsules. However, this effect only lasted for the first seven days of the study. In contrast, the positive effects on perceived stress and fatigue reported in the group of 35 who took the enzyme capsules were much greater- and much longer lasting. Taking the enzyme appeared to boost concentration, cut feelings of weariness and irritability and improve problems with sleeping. The researchers said the placebo effect might have been relatively high because the people who took part in the study had everyday levels of fatigue and stress which were not out of the ordinary. They suggest the results might have been more pronounced if people with higher levels of fatigue and stress had taken part. It is thought that the enzyme may help to minimise the damage caused by a chemical process known as oxidative stress ,which releases harmful atoms called free radicals into the body's tissues. More work needed Lead researcher Marie -Anne Milesi, from the commercial health products company Seppie, said:" Several studies have shown that there is a link between psychological stress and intracellular oxidative stress. " We wanted to test whether augmenting the body's ability to deal with oxidative species might help a person's ability to resist burnout. "It will be interesting to confirm these effects and better understand the action of antioxidants on stress in further studies with a larger number of volunteers and a longer duration. " Dr Laura Wyness, a senior nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, said the study emphasised that fruit and vegetables were packed with compounds which, in combination, have a beneficial effect on health. However, she said a bigger trial would be needed before firm conclusions could be drawn about the benefits of this particular enzyme supplement.

单选题 下面有3篇短文，每篇短文后有5道题，每道题后面有4个选项。请根据文章的内容，从每题所给的4个选项中选择1个最佳答案。{{B}}第一篇{{/B}} {{B}} Preserving Nature for Future{{/B}} Demands for stronger protection for wildlife in Britain sometimes hide the fact that similar needs are felt in the rest of Europe. Studies by the Council of Europe, of which 21 countries are members, have shown that 45 per cent of reptile (爬行动物) species and 24 per cent of butterflies (蝴蝶) are in danger of dying out. European concern for wildlife was outlined by Dr Peter Baum, an expert in the environment and natural resources division of the council, when he spoke at a conference arranged by the administrators of a British national park. The park is one of the few areas in Europe to hold the council's diploma (证书) for nature reserves (自然保护区) of the highest quality, and Dr Baum had come to present it to the park once again. He was afraid that public opinion was turning against national parks, and that those set up in the 1960s and 1970s could not be set up today. But Dr Baum clearly remained a strong supporter of the view that natural environments needed to be allowed to survive in peace in their own right. "No area could be expected to survive both as a true nature reserve and as a tourist attraction," he went on. The short-sighted view that reserves had to serve immediate human demands for outdoor recreation (户外娱乐) should be replaced by full acceptance of their importance as places to preserve nature for the future. "We forget that they are the guarantee of life systems, on which any built-up area ultimately depends," Dr Baum went on. "We could manage without most industrial products, but we could not manage without nature. However, our natural environment areas, which are the original parts of our countryside, have shrunk (缩小) to become mere islands in a spoiled and highly polluted land mass."

单选题Colleges and universities usually give diplomas or certificates to students who complete course requirements {{U}}adequately{{/U}}.

单选题The {{U}}representation{{/U}} of a cultural phenomenon is usually a logical consequence of some physical aspect in the life style of the people. A. implementation B. manifestation C. demonstration D. expedition

单选题The phrase“kicked around”(paragraph 4)could be best replaced by

单选题Don"t Rely on Indirect Evidence Conservationists may be miscalculating the numbers of the threatened animals such as elephants, say African and American researchers. The error occurs because of a flaw in the way they estimate animal numbers from the piles of dung (粪) the creatures leave behind. The mistake could lead researchers to think that there are twice as many elephants as there really are in some regions,according to Andrew Plumptre of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in New York. Biologist Katy Payne of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, agrees. "We really need to know elephant numbers and the evidence that we have is quite indirect," says Payne, who electronically tracks elephants. Counting elephants from aeroplanes is impossible in the vast rainforests of Central Africa. So researchers often estimate elephant numbers by counting dung piles in a given area. They also need to know the rate at which dung decays. Because it"s extremely difficult to determine these rates, however, researchers tallying (统计) elephants in one region tend to rely on standard decay rates established elsewhere. But researchers at the WCS have found that this decay rate varies from region to region depending on the climate and environment. Using the wrong values can lead the census astray (歧途), says Plumptre. He and his colleague Anthony Chifu Nchanji studied decaying elephant dung in the forests of Banyany--Mbo wildlife sanctuary (禁猎区) in Southwest Cameroon. They found that the dung decayed between 55 and 65 per cent more slowly than dung in the rainforests of neighbouring Gabon. If researchers use decay rates from Gabon to count elephants in Cameroon, they would probably find more elephants than are actually around. This could mean estimates in Cameroon are at least twice as high as those derived from decay rates calculated locally, says Plumptre. " However accurate your dung density estimate is, the decay rate can severely affect the result. " Plumptre also says that the dung-pile census should be carried out over a region similar in size to an elephant"s natural range. The usual technique of monitoring only small, protected areas distorts numbers because elephants move in and out of these regions, he says. "if the elephant population increases within the protected area, you can not determine whether it is a real increase or whether it is due to elephants moving in because they are being poached (偷猎) outside. " Plumptre says that similar problems may also plague other animal census studies that rely on indirect evidence such as nests, tracks or burrows (地洞).

单选题The phrase "the world" in the first line of the passage refers to A. "man". B. "you". C. "woman". D. "they".

单选题Health experts have tried to get many restaurants to serve smaller portions. Now, apparently, some customers are calling for this too. The restaurant industry trade magazine QSR reported last month that 57 percent of more than 4,000 people surveyed believed restaurants serve portions that are too large;23 percent had no opinion;20 percent disagreed. But a closer look at the survey indicates that many Americans who can't afford fine dining still prefer large portions. Seventy percent of those earning at least $150,000 per year prefer smaller portions ;but only 45 percent of those earning less than $ 25,000 want smaller. What is the average percentage of customers preferring smaller portions according to the report by QSR?A. 57%.B. 70%.C. 45%.D. 20%.

单选题Stem Cell Therapy May Help Repair the Heart According to scientists in the USA, stem cell therapy may one day be able to repair the hearts of people with heart failure. Researchers at Pittsburgh University School of Medicine examined 20 patients who had severe heart failure and were going to have surgery. They injected stem cells into the parts of their hearts that were damaged. They then compared their hearts with those of people who had undergone surgery without having the stem cells injected into them (they had also suffered from severe heart failure). The patients who had the stem cells injected had hearts that were able to pump (用泵抽运) more blood than the others. According to Professor Robert Kormos, one of the researchers, these results could revolutionize heart treatment. Although previous studies had indicated that there might be a benefit, this is the first study that has actually proved that stem cell therapy can help the failing heart work better. All the patients in this study had hearts that could not pump blood properly. The scientists measured their ejection fraction (射血分数). It is a measure of heart performance; you measure how much blood is being pumped out by the left ventricle (心室). Healthy people"s ejection fraction is about 55%. These patients had ejection fraction of under 35%. They all had by-pass surgery (搭桥手术) performed on them. Some of the patients had stem cells taken from their hip bones and injected into 25～30 sites in the damaged heart muscle. Six months later their ejection fraction rate was 46.1% while those who just had surgery but no stem cell injections averaged 37.2%. No side effects were reposed. Heart failure is a common problem all over the world. In the UK alone about 650,000 people suffer from heart failure every year. As the number of people suffering from heart failure increases in the world in general these findings are particularly significant. Current treatments relieve the symptoms. This new stem cell therapy actually repairs the damaged muscle in the heart and has the potential of curing the disease.

单选题The spoils meeting is cancelled due to the heavy rain.A. because ofB. regardless ofC. rather thanD. up to

单选题 Food and Health The food we eat seems to have profound effects on our health. Although science has made enormous steps in making food more fit to eat, it has at the same time, made many foods unfit to eat. Some research has shown that perhaps eighty percent of all human illnesses are related to the diet as well, especially cancer of the colon (结肠). Different cultures are more likely to develop certain illnesses because of the food that is characteristic in these cultures. That food is related to illness is not a new discovery. In 1945, government researchers realized that nitrates (硝酸盐)commonly used to preserve color in meats, and other food additives, accused cancer. Yet, these additives remain in our food, and it becomes more difficult all the time to know which things on the packaging labels of processed food are helpful or harmful. The additives which we eat are not all so direct. Farmers often give penicillin(青霉素) to beef and poultry(家禽),and because of this, penicillin has been found in the milk of treated cows. Sometimes similar drags are administered to animals not for medicinal purposes, hut for financial reasons. The farmers are simply trying to fatten the animals in order to obtain a higher price on the market. Although the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) has tried repeatedly to control these procedures, the practices continue.

单选题Stress Level Tied to Education Level People with less education suffer fewer stressful days, according to a report in the current issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. However, the study also found that when less-educated people did suffer stress it was more severe and had a larger impact on their health. From this, researchers have concluded that the day-to-day factors that cause stress are not random. Where you are in society determines the kinds of problems that you have each day, and how well you will cope with them. The research team interviewed a national sample of 1,031 adults daily for eight days about their stress level and health. People without a high school diploma reported stress on 30 percent of the study days, people with a high school degree reported stress 38 percent of the time, and people with college degrees reported stress 44 percent of the time. "Less advantaged people are less healthy on a daily basis and are more likely to have downward turns in their health." lead researcher Dr. Joseph Grzywacz, of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, said in a prepared statement. "The downward turns in health were connected with daily stressors and the effect of daily stressors on their health is much more devastating for the less advantaged." Grzywacz suggested follow-up research to determine why less-educated people report fewer days of stress when it is known their stress is more acute and chronic. "If something happens every day, maybe it"s not seen as a stressor" Grzywacz says. "Maybe it is just life."