单选题His strict upbringing {{U}}inhibited{{/U}} him asking such stupid questions.

单选题The news will (horrify) everyone.

单选题American Marriage and Family More surprising, perhaps, than the current difficulties of traditional marriage is the fact that marriage itself is alive and thriving. As Skolnick notes, Americans are a marrying people. relative to Europeans, more of us marry and we marry at a younger age. Moreover, after a decline in the early 1970s, the rate of marriage in the United States is now increasing. Even the divorce rate need to be taken in this pro-marriage context: some 80 percent of divorced individuals remarry. Thus marriage remains, by far, the preferred way of life for the vast majority of people in our society. What has changed more than marriage is the nuclear family. Twenty-five years ago, the typical American family consisted of a husband, a wife, and two or three children. Now, there are many marriages in which couples have decided not to have any children. And there are many marriages where at least some of the children are from the wife"s previous marriages, of the husband"s, or both. Sometimes these children spend all of their time with one parent from the former marriage; sometimes they are shared between the two former spouses Thus, one can find every type of family arrangement. There are marriages without children; marriages with children from only the present marriage; marriages with "full-time" children from both the present and former marriages; marriages with "full-time" children from the present marriage and "part-time" children from former marriages. There are stepfathers, stepmothers, half-brothers, and half-sisters. It is not all that unusual for a child to have four parents and grandparents! These are enormous changes from the traditional nuclear family. But even so, even in the midst of all this, there remains one constant: most Americans spend most of their adult life married.

单选题Many residents of apartment complexes object to noisy neighbors.A. managersB. occupantsC. landlordsD. caretakers

单选题The love of money is the root of all evil. A. result B. end C. cause D. force

单选题What does the customer collect before he or she leaves?

单选题He could not {{U}}tolerate{{/U}} the extremes of heat in the desert.

单选题Global Warming Few people now question the reality of global warming and its effects on the world"s climate. Many scientists put the 1 for recent natural disasters on the increase 2 the world"s temperatures and are convinced 3 , more than ever before, the Earth is at 4 from the forces of the wind, rain and sun. According to 5 , global warming is making extreme weather events, 6 as hurricanes and droughts, even more 7 and causing sea levels all around the world to 8 . Environmental groups are 9 pressure on governments to take action to reduce the 10 of carbon dioxide which is given off by factories and power plants, 11 attacking the problem at its source. They are in 12 of more money being spent on research into solar, wind and wave energy devices, which could then 13 existing power stations. Some scientists, 14 , believe that even if we stopped releasing carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere tomorrow, we would have to wait several hundred years to 15 the results. Global warming, it seems, is here to stay.

单选题Do you believe these two intimate friends used to be enemies?

单选题They didn"t realize how serious the problem was.

单选题We tried to restrict our conversation to arguments relevant to the topic.

单选题We should not sacrifice environmental protections to{{U}} foster{{/U}} economic growth.

单选题Mobile Phone and Diseases A study by scientists in Finland has found that mobile phone radiation can cause changes in human cells that might affect the brain, the leader of the research team said. But Darius Leszczynski, who headed the 2-year study and will present findings next week at a conference in Quebec(魁北京), said more research was needed to determine the seriousness of the changes and their impact on the brain or the body. The study at Finland"s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority found that exposure to radiation from mobile phones can cause increased activity in hundreds of proteins in human cells grown in a laboratory, he said. "We know that there is some biological response. We can detect it with our very sensitive approaches, but we do not know whether it can have any physiological effects on the human brain or human body," Leszczynski said. Nonetheless the study, the initial findings of which were published last month in the scientific journal Differentiation, raises new questions about whether mobile phone radiation can weaken the brain"s protective shield against harmful substances. The study focused on changes in cells that line blood vessels and on whether such changes could weaken the functioning of the blood-brain barrier, which prevents potentially harmful substances from entering the brain from the bloodstream, Leszczynski said. The study found that a protein called hsp27 linked to the functioning of the blood-brain barrier showed increased activity due to irradiation and pointed to a possibility that such activity could make the shield more permeable(能透过的), he said. "Increased protein activity might cause cells to shrink—not the blood vessels but the cells themselves—and then tiny gaps could appear between those cells through which some molecules could pass." he said. Leszczynski declined to speculate on what kind of health risks that could pose, but said a French study indicated that headache, fatigue and sleep disorders could result. "These are not life-threatening problems but can cause a lot of discomfort," he said, adding that a Swedish group had also suggested a possible link with Alzheimer"s disease. "Where the truth is do not know," he said. Leszczynski said that he, his wife and children use mobile phones, and he said that he did not think his study suggested any need for new restrictions on mobile phone use.

单选题In a sudden outbreak of anger, the man tore up everything within reach.

单选题Milosevic"s Death Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic was found dead last Saturday in his cell at the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The 64-year-old had been on trial there since February 2002. Born in provincial Pozarevac in 1941, he was the second son of a priest and a school teacher. Both of his parents died when he was still a young adult. The young Milosevic was "untypical", says Slavolub Djukic, his unofficial biographer. He was "not interested in sports, avoided excursions (短途旅行) and used to come to school dressed in the old-fashioned way—white shirt and tie." One of his old friends said, he could "imagine him as a station-master or punctilious (一丝不苟) civil servant." Indeed that is exactly what he might have become, had he not married Mira. She was widely believed to be his driving force. At university and beyond he did well. He worked for various firms and was a communist party member. By 1986 he was head of Serbia"s Central Committee. But still he had not yet really been noticed. It was Kosovo that gave him his chance. An autonomous province of Serbia, Kosovo was home to an Albanian majority and a Serbian minority. In 1989, he was sent there to calm fears of Serbians who felt they were discriminated against. But instead he played the nationalist card and became their champion. In so doing, he changed into a ruthless (无情的) and determined man. At home with Mira he plotted the downfall of his political enemies. Conspiring (密谋) with the director of Serbian T. V., he mounted a modern media campaign which aimed to get him the most power in the country. He was elected Serbian president in 1990. In 1997, he became president of Yugoslavia. The rest of the story is well-known: his nationalist card caused Yugoslavia"s other ethnic groups to fight for their own rights, power and lands. Yugoslavia broke up when four of the six republics declared independence in 1991. War started and lasted for years and millions died. Then Western countries intervened. N.A.T.O. bombed Yugoslavia, and he eventually stepped down as state leader in 2000. Soon after this, Serbia"s new government, led by Zoran Djindjic, arrested him and sent him to face justice at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in the Hague.

单选题The passage is most likely written for researchers.

单选题Durihg his lifetime he was able to accumulate quite a fortune.

单选题 Pool Watch Swimmers can drown in busy swimming pools when lifeguards fail to notice that they are in trouble. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents says that on average 15 people drown in British pools each year, but many more suffer major injury after getting into difficulties. Now a French company has developed an artificial intelligence system called Poseidon that sounds the alarm when it sees someone in danger of drowning. When a swimmer sinks towards the bottom of the pool, the new system sends an alarm signal to a poolside monitoring station and a lifeguard's pager. In trials at a pool in Ancenis, near Nantes, it saved a life within just a few months, says Alistair McQuade, a spokesman for its maker, Poseidon Technologies. Poseidon keeps watch through a network of underwater and overheard video cameras. AI software analyses the images to work out swimmers trajectories. To do this reliably, it has to tell the difference between a swimmer and the shadow of someone being cast onto the bottom or side of the pool. "The underwater environment is a very dynamic one, with many shadows and reflections dancing around," says McQuade. The software does this by "projecting" a shape in its field of view onto an image of the far wall of the pool. It does the same with an image from another camera viewing the shape from a different angle. If the two projections are in the same position, the shape is identified as a shadow and is ignored. But if they are different, the shape is a swimmer and so the system follows its trajectory. To pick out potential drowning victims, anyone in the water who starts to descend slowly is added to the software's "pre-alert" list, says McQuade. Swimmers who then stay immobile on the pool bottom for 5 seconds or more are {{U}}considered{{/U}} in danger of drowning. Poseidon double-checks that the image really is of a swimmer, not a shadow, by seeing whether it obscures the pool's floor texture when viewed from overhead. If so, it alerts the lifeguard, showing the swimmer's location on a poolside screen. The first full-scale Poseidon system will be officially opened next week at a pool in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. One man who is impressed with the idea is Trevor Baylis, inventor of the clockwork radio. Baylis runs a company that installs swimming pools, and he was once an underwater escapologist with a circus. "I say full marks to them if this works and can save lives," he says. But he adds that any local authority spending ￡30,000-plus on a Poseidon system ought to be investing similar amounts in teaching children to swim.

单选题下面有篇短文，每篇短文后有道题，每题后面有个选项。请仔细阅读短文并根据短文回答其后面的问题，从4个选项中选择1个最佳答案。{{B}}第一篇{{/B}} Silence Please If there is one group of workers across the Western world who will be glad that Christmas is over, that group is shop workers. It is not that they like to complain. They realize that they are going to be rushed off their feet at Christmas. They know that their employers need happy customers to make their profits that pay their wages. But there is one thing about working in a shop over Christmas that is too bad to tolerate. That thing is music. These days, all shops and many offices have what is known as "Piped music" or "muzak" playing for all the hours that they are open. Muzak has an odd history. During the 1940s, music was played to cows as part of a scientific experiment. It was found that cows which listened to simple, happy music produced more milk. Perhaps workers and customers who listened to simple, happy music would be more productive and spend more money. In fact, nobody knows what effect playing muzak in shops has on profits. It is simply something that everybody does. But we are learning more about the effect of constantly repeated hearings of songs on the people who have to hear them all the time. Research shows that repeated hearings of complex pieces of music bring greater enjoyment before becoming tiresome. And that point come much sooner with simple songs. "That's especially the case with tunes that are already familiar. Once that tipping point3 is reached, repeated listening become unpleasant, says Professor John Sloboda of UK's Keele University's music psychology group. "And the less control you have over what you hear, the less you like it. That's why police forces in the US often try and resolve hostage situations by playing pop songs over and over again at high volume. Eventually, it becomes too much for the criminals to stand and they give up. The problem gets particularly bad at Christmas, when the muzak consists entirely of the same few festive tunes played over and over again. What makes it worse for the shop workers is that they already know these runes. They get bored very quickly. Then they get irritated. Then they get angry. Shop workers in Austria recently threatened to go on strike for the right to silence. "Shop workers can't escape the Christmas muzak. They feel as if they are terrorized all day. Especially 'Jingle Bells'. It arouses aggressive feelings," said Gottfried Rieser, of the Austrian shop worker's union. It is not just shop workers who complain. A survey this year by UK recruitment website Retailchoice. com found that Christmas is not only the most testing time for shop workers, but that almost half had complaints from customers about muzak. And the British Royal National Institute for the Deaf estimates that some stores play Jingle Bells 300 times each year. "That's acoustic torture, says Nigel Rodgers of Pipedown. A group against muzak. "It's not loud but the repetitive nature causes psychological stress. " The group wants the government to legislate against unwanted music in stores, hospitals, airports, swimming pools and other public places, claiming it raises the blood pressure and depresses the immune system. Perhaps groups like Pipedown don't really have much to complain about. After all, surely the real point is that people have money to spend. Why complain about a bit of music?

单选题Such a database would be extremely costly to set up .