单选题Although a herd of African elephants may have up to one thousand members,Asiatic elephants live in bands of five to sixty animals.

单选题He is renowned for his skill. A. remembered B. recommended C. praised D. well-known

单选题He has been granted asylum in France.

单选题A new system of quality control was brought in to overcome the defects in the firm's products.A. investedB. introducedC. installedD. insisted

单选题 {{B}}Religious belief and health{{/B}} Religious beliefs are not always a source of comfort during iii health: they may actually increase your risk of dying. A study of nearly 600 older hospital patients, 95 percent of whom were Christian, showed negative feelings evoked by religious beliefs sometimes predicted mortality. Key factors that increased the risk of death were feelings of being "abandoned or punished" by God, "believing the devil caused the illness", or "feeling abandoned by one's faith community", the study by researchers at Duke University Medical Centre and Bowling Green State University showed. "The study reminds us that religion... can, at times, be a source of problems in it self, "says lead author Kenneth Pargament. Several studies have demonstrated a reduced risk of death among those who attend church regularly, but the new research, published in today's Archives of Internal Medicine, is the first to examine negative aspects of religiousness. Patients who reported feeling alienated from God or who blamed the devil had a 19 to 28 percent increased risk of dying during the following two years, say the researchers, who found no association between gender, race, diagnosis, brain function, independence, depression, or quality of life with mortality. Duke University's Dr Harold Koenig said anger and frustration were normal grief responses when people discovered health problems. Those who were religious and were able to reconnect with God and their spiritual feeling could use those resources for support. But those who continued to experience conflict could be making their health worse. "Those people are in trouble and doctors need to know about it," he said. "Doctors need to be assessing their patients for these kinds of feelings." Referral to clergy may then be helpful. He said more than two-thirds of medical schools in the United States had courses that trained students on how to take a patient's spiritual history, a trend that recognized the growing body of evidence about the mind-body connection.

单选题下面的短文后列出了7个句子，请根据短文的内容对每个句子做出判断：如果该句提供的是正确信息，请选择A；如果该句提供的是错误信息，请选择B；如果该句的信息文巾没有提及，请选择C。 The Race into Space American millionaire Dennis Tito will always be famous．He was the first tourist in space．“I spent sixty years on Earth and eight days in space and from my viewpoint，it was two separate lives，”Tito explained．He loved his time in space．“Being in space and looking back at earth is one of the most rewarding experiences a human being can have．” This kind of experience isn't cheap．It cost $20 million．However，Tito achieved his dream，so he was happy．“For me it was a life dream．It was a dream that began when I didn't have any money，”he told reporters． On 30 April 2002，Mark Shuttleworth became the world's second space tourist．Shuttleworth is a South African businessman．At the age of twenty-eight，he also paid$20 million for the eight-day trip． Both Tito and Shuttleworth bought their tickets from a company called Space Adventures．The company has around 100 people already on their waiting list for flights into space．The spaceship to take them doesn't exist yet． Many of the customers are people who like adventure．They are the kind of people who also want to climb Mount Qomolangma．Other customers are people who love space．However，these people are worried．Because it's so expensive，only very rich people can go into space．They want space travel to be available to more people． That day may soon be here．Inter Orbital Systems(IOS)plans to send up to four tourists a week into space．The tours will depart from an island in Tonga．The company promises a package that includes forty-five days of astronaut training in Russia and California，seven days in space，and a vacation in Tonga，for $2 million． However，space flight is still very dangerous．Bill Readdy is NASA's deputy assistant administrator for space flight．He says that the chances of dying are about 1 in 500．Because of this，it may take time before space tourism really takes off．You might be able to go up，b ut will you come down?

单选题Eat More, Weigh Less, Live Longer? Clever genetic detective work may have found out the reason why a near-starvation diet prolongs the life of many animals. Ronald Kahn at Harvard Medical School in Boston, U. S. , and his colleagues have been able to extend the lifespan (寿命) of mice by 18 per cent by blocking the rodent"s (啮齿动物) increase of fat in specific cells. This suggests that thinness--and not necessarily diet--promotes long life in " calorie (热量卡) restricted" animals. "It"s very cool work," says aging researcher Cynthia Kenyon of the University of California, San Francisco. "These mice eat all they want, lose weight and live longer. It"s like heaven. " Calorie restriction dramatically extends the lifespan of organisms as different as worms and rodents. Whether this works in humans is still unknown partly because few people are willing to submit to such a strict diet. But many researchers hope they will be able to trigger the same effect with a drug once they understand how less food leads to a longer life. One theory is that eating less reduces the increase of harmful things that can damage cells. But Kahn"s team wondered whether the animals simply benefit by becoming thin. To find out, they used biology tricks to disrupt the insulin (胰岛素) receptor (受体) gene in lab mice-but only in their fat cells. "Since insulin is needed to help fat cells store fat, these animals were protected against becoming fat," explains Kahn. This slight genetic change in a single tissue had dramatic effects. By three months of age, Kahn"s modified mice had up to 70 per cent less body fat than normal control mice, despite the fact that they ate 55 per cent more food per gram of body weight. In addition, their lifespan increased. The average control mouse lived 753 days, while the thin rodents averaged a lifespan of 887 days. After three years, all the control mice had died, but one-quarter of the modified rodents were still alive. "That they get these effects by just manipulating the fat cells is controversial," says Leonard Guarente of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who studies calorie restriction and aging. But Guarente says Kahn has yet to prove that the same effect is responsible for increased lifespan in calorie-restricted animals. "It might be the same effect or there might be two routes to long life, " he points out," and that would be very interesting. "

单选题Taking Showers" Can Make You III" Showering may be bad for your health, say US scientists, who have shown that dirty shower heads can deliver a face full of harmful bacteria. Tests revealed nearly a third of devices harbour significant levels of Mycobacterium avium, a bug that causes lung disease. Levels of M. avium were 100 times higher in shower head than those found in typical household water supplies. M. avium forms a biofilm that clings to the inside of the shower head, repofls the National Academy of Science. In the Proceedings journal, the study authors say their findings might explain why there have been more cases of these lung infections in recent years, linked with people tending to take more showers and fewer baths. When the researchers swabbed and tested 50 shower heads from nine cities in seven different states in the US, including New York City and Denver, they found 30% of the devices posed a potential risk. Lead researcher Professor Norman Pace, said:" If you are getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on, that means you are probably getting a particularly high load of Mycobacterium avium, which may not be too healthy. " While it is rarely a problem for most healthy people, those with weakened immune systems, like the elderly, pregnant women or those who are fighting off other diseases, can be susceptible to infection. Water spurting from shower heads can distribute bacteria - filled droplets that suspend them selves in the air and can easily be inhaled into the deepest parts of the lungs, say the scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Since plastic shower heads appear to "load up" with more bacteria- rich biofilms, metal shower heads may be a good alternative, said Professor Pace. Showers have also been identified as a route for spreading other infectious diseases, including a type of pneumonia called Legionnaires' disease and chest infections with a bacterium called Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Hot tubs and spa pools carry a similar infection risk, according to the Health Protection Agency.

单选题Success There are many ways of defining success. It is accurate to say that each of us has our own concept of success to the extent that each of us is responsible for setting our own goals and determining whether we have met these goals satisfactorily. Because each of us possesses unique differences in genetic ability and favorable environments in which to express these abilities, it is necessarily true that we must define success broadly. For some people, simply being able to live their life with a minimum of misery and suffering is considered a success. Think of the peace of mind of the poor shepherd who tends his sheep, enjoys his frugal life with his family in the beauty of nature, and who is respected because he does a good job of achieving the goals expected of and accepted by his and his society. On the other hand, it seems that even though some people appear to be rich in material possessions, many of them seem to be miserable and consider themselves unsuccessful when judged by their own standards of success. Because not all ventures can be successful, one should not set unrealistic goals for achieving success, but if one has self-confidence it would be unfortunate to set one's goals at too low a level of achievement. A wise counselor once said to a young man who was experiencing frustration with his own professional success: "You do not have to set your goal to reach the moon in order to have success in traveling. Sometimes one can be very successful merely by taking a walk in the park or riding the subway downtown," The counselor added, "You have not really failed and spoiled your chances for success until you have been unsuccessful at something you really like, and to which you have given you best effort./

单选题Why Not Eat Breakfast ? Breakfast is not only the most important meal of the day, it is also the most neglected or skipped. Common reasons for not eating breakfast include lack of time, not feeling hungry, traditional dislike for breakfast, and dieting. Breakfast simply means "break the fast." Your body spends at least six to twelve hours each night in a fasting state. In the morning your body needs energy to rev up (转动起来) into high gear for the day's work ahead. If you skip breakfast, you are likely to concentrate less effectively in the late morning, feel irritable, short-tempered (易怒的), tired, or weak. When you choose not to eat breakfast, your body stays in slow gear. Also, people who skip breakfast often binge (无节制地大吃) later in the day at other meals or eat a high - calorie (高卡路里) snack in the morning. Breakfast eaters tend to eat less fat during the day, have more strength and endurance and better concentration and problem -solving ability. A good breakfast should provide up to 1/3 of your total calorie needs for the day. On the average, we eat 400 less calories for breakfast than for dinner. If breakfast doesn't appeal to you in the morning, try eating a lighter dinner earlier in the evening or save half your dinner for breakfast in the morning. If you still aren't hungry in the morning, start with something small like juice or toast or have a mid -morning snack later when you are hungry. Not eating breakfast can also cause you to overeat, since a fall in blood sugar often makes you feel very hungry later. To make matters worse, since your body is in a slowed state, it will not be able to burn those extra calories very efficiently. If you feed your body healthy snacks and meals throughout the day, you are less likely to become extremely hungry and stuff yourself as soon as you begin to eat. Since breakfast is the first and most important meal of the day, choosing the right fuel is important. The best breakfast foods are fruits, juice, lean meat, and grain products such as breads, rice, noodles, and cereals.

单选题What is the writer’s tone towards haute couture business?

单选题New Product Will Save Lives Drinking water that looks clean may still contain bugs (电子), which can cause illness. A small company called Genera Technologies has produced a testing method in three stages, which shows whether water is safe. The new test shows if water needs chemicals added to it, to destroy anything harmful. It was invented by scientist Dr. Adrian Parton, who started Genera five years ago. He and his employees have developed the test together with a British water company. Andy Headland, Genera"s marketing director, recently presented the test at a conference in the USA and forecast good American sales for it. Genera has already sold 11 of its tests at $42,500 a time in the UK and has a further four on order. It expects to sell another 25 tests before the end of March. The company says it is the only test in the UK to be approved by the government. Genera was formed five years ago and until October last year had only five employees. It now employs 14. Mr. Headland believes that the company should make around $19 million by the end of the year in the UK alone.

单选题{{B}}第三篇{{/B}} {{B}} "Salty" Rice Plant Boosts Harvests{{/B}} British scientists are breeding a new generation of rice plants that will be able to grow in soil containing salt water. Their work may enable abandoned farms to become productive once more. Tim Flowers and Tony Yeo, from Sussex University's School of Biological Sciences, have spent several years researching how crops, such as rice, could be made to grow in water that has become salty. The pair have recently begun a three-year programme, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, to establish which genes enable some plants to survive salty conditions. The aim is to breed this capability into crops, starting with rice. It is estimated that each year more than 1Om hectares (公顷) of agricultural land are lost because salt gets into the soil and stunts (妨碍生长) plants. The problem is caused by several factors. In the tropics, mangroves (红树林) that create swamps (沼泽) and traditionally formed barriers to sea water have been cut down. In the Mediterranean, a series of droughts have caused the water table to drop, allowing sea water to seep (渗透) in. In Latin America, irrigation often causes problems when water is evaporated (蒸发) by the heat, leaving salt deposits behind. Excess salt then enters the plants and prevents them functioning normally. Heavy concentrations of minerals in the plants stop them drawing up the water they need to survive. To overcome these problems, Flowers and Yeo decided to breed rice plants that take in very little salt and store what they do absorb in cells that do not affect the plants' growth. They 'have started to breed these characteristics into a new rice crop, but it will take about eight harvests before' the resulting seeds are ready to be considered for commercial use. Once the characteristics for surviving salty soil are known, Flowers and Yeo will try to breed the appropriate genes into all manners of crops and plants. Land that has been abandoned to nature will then be able to bloom again, providing much needed food in the poorer countries of the world.

单选题China did not take IMF advice.

单选题The study also notes a steady decline in the number of college students taking science courses.A. continuousB. relativeC. generalD. sharp

单选题I hate his adopting an air of importance when he is talked to.

单选题For urban areas this approach was {{U}}wholly{{/U}} inadequate.

单选题One-room Schools One-room schools are part of the heritage of the United States, and the mention of them makes people feel a vague long for the way things were. One-room schools are an endangered species, however. For more than a hundred years, one-room schools have been systematically shut down and their students sent away to centralized schools. As recently as 1930 there were 149,000 one-room schools in the United States. By 1970 there were 1,800. Today, of nearly 800 remaining one-room schools, more than 350 are in Nebraska. The rest are scattered through a few other states that have on their road maps wide-open spaces between towns. Now that there are hardly any left, educators are beginning to think that maybe there is something yet to be learned from one-room schools, something that served the pioneers that might serve as well today. Progressive educators have come up with progressive-sounding names like "peer-group teaching" and "multi-age grouping" for educational procedures that occur naturally in the one-room schools. In a one-room school the children teach each other because the teacher is busy part of the time teaching someone else. A fourth grader can work at a fifth-grade level in math and a third-grade level in English without the stigma associated with being left back or the pressures of being skipped ahead. A youngster with a learning disability can find his or her own level without being separated from the other pupils. In larger urban and suburban schools today, this is called "main streaming." A few hours in a small school that has only one classroom and it becomes clear why so many parents feel that one of the advantages of living in Nebraska is that their children have to go to a one-room school.

单选题The index is the government"s chief gauge of future economic activity.

单选题The Beginning of American Literature American has always been a land of beginnings. After Europeans "discovered" America in the fifteenth century, the mysterious New World became for many people a genuine hope of a new life, an escape from poverty and persecution, a chance to start again. We can say that, as nation, America begins with that hope. When, however, does American literature begin? American literature begins with American experiences. Long before the first colonists arrived, before Christopher Columbus, before the Northmen who "found" America about the year 1,000, Native Americans lived here. Each tribe's literature was tightly woven into the fabric of daily life and reflected the unmistakably American experience of lining with the land. Another kind of experience, one filled with fear and excitement, found its expression in the reports that Columbus and other explorers sent home in Spain, French and English. In addition, the journals of the people who lived and died in the New England wilderness tell unforgettable tales of hard and sometimes heartbreaking experiences of those early years. Experience, then, is the key to early American literature. The New World provided a great variety of experiences, and these experiences demanded a wide variety of expressions by an even wider variety of early American writers. These writers included John Smith, who spent only two-and-a-half years on the American continent. They included Jonathan Edwards and William Byrd, who thought of themselves as British subjects, never suspecting a revolution that would create a United States of America with a literature of its own. American Indians, explorers, Puritan ministers, frontier wives, plantation owner--they are all the creators of the first American literature.