单选题{{B}}第二篇{{/B}} {{B}}Eiffel Is an Eyeful{{/B}} Some 300 meters up, near the Eiffel Tower's wind-whipped summit the world comes to scribble. Japanese, Brazilians, Americans they graffiti their names, loves and politics on the cold iron -- transforming the most French of monuments into symbol of a world on the move. With Paris laid out in miniature below, it seems strange that visitors would rather waste time marking their presence than admire the view. But the graffiti also raises a question: Why, nearly 114 years after it was completed, and decades after it ceased to be the world's tallest structure, is la Tour Eiffel still so popular? The reasons are as complex as the iron work that graces a structure some 90 stories high. But part of the answer is, no doubt, its agelessness. Regularly maintained, it should never rust away. Graffiti is regularly painted over, but the tower lives on. "Eiffel represents Paris and Paris is France. It Is very symbolic," says Hugues Richard, a 31-year-old Frenchman who holds the record for cycling up to the tower's second floor -- 747 steps in 19 minutes and 4 seconds, without touching the floor with his feet. "It's iron lady, it inspires us," he says. But to what? After all, the tower doesn't have a purpose. It ceased to be the world's tallest in 1930 when the Chrysler Building went up in New York. Yes, television and radio signals are beamed from the top, and Gustave Eiffel, a frenetic builder who died on December 27, aged 91, used its height for conducting research into weather, aerodynamics and radio communication. But in essence the tower inspires simply by being there -- a blank canvas for visitors to make of it what they will. To the technically minded, it's an engineering triumph. For lovers, it's romantic. "The tower will outlast all of us, and by a long way," says Isabelle Esnous, whose company manages Eiffel Tower.

单选题Their interpretation was faulty .

单选题Very few people are prepared to Usacrifice/U their own comfort for the good of other people.

单选题Microchip Research Center Created A research center has been 1 in this Far Eastern country to develop advanced microchip production technology. The center, which will start out with about US $14 million, will help the country develop its chip industry without always depending on imported technology. The center will make use of its research skills and 2 to develop new technology for 3 chip plants. The advent of the center will possibly free the country from the 4 that it is always buying almost-outdated technologies from other countries, said the country"s flagship chipmaker. 5 , chip plants in this country are in a passive situation because many foreign governments don"t allow them to 6 the most advanced technologies, fearing they will be used for 7 purposes. Moreover, the high licensing fees they have to pay to technology providers are also an important 8 for their decision of self-reliance. As mainstream chip production technology 9 from one generation to the next every three to five years, plants with new technology can make more powerful chips at lower costs, while plants with 10 equipment, which often cost billions of dollars to build, will be 11 by the maker. More than 10 chip plants are being built, each costing millions of US dollars. The majority of that money goes to overseas equipment 12 and technology owners—mainly 13 Japan and Singapore. Should the new center play a major role in improving the situation in the industry, the country admits the US $14 million investment is still rather small. This country is developing 14 technologies. Most of the investment will be spent on setting 15 with technology and intellectual property owners.

单选题1. The Internet Don't we find it irresistible? The Internet is everywhere, and it is loved and used by everyone for everything. A quick survey reveals that most people will tell you that they use the Internet to stay in touch with others on the Internet. Most of us say that writing or receiving e-mail is our" number One use of the Internet. We do this at home, at work, or wherever we sit down at a computer. We send and receive e-mails for fun, for personal reason, daily for business, and in all areas of our work. The Internet allows us to communicate from room to room, city to city, or country to country for the same price and the same immediate speed. Correspondence is king of Internet use. As students, we use the Internet to do research and help us with our assignments. Friends or teachers often suggest we look up an article on the web. We act on those suggestions nearly as frequently as we write e-mails. We love the ability to grab quick chunks of information and make it ours. As students, we no longer have to search through dusty books and spend money, copying articles to get our research done. This unique research tool is available twenty-four hours a day, every day of the week, or as long as have electricity or a form of power to get us online. For those of us who have watched travel agencies close up their doors and go out of business, we know that online travel is the future, and the future has arrived. Wherever we want to go and however we want to get there, the Internet is our guide and companion to those destinations. The Internet has changed the way we travel forever. Go online with a credit card in hand, and you can arrange for hotel in Dallas, a rental car in Los Angeles, or a safari in Kenya. Electronic commerce or e-commerce is one of the fastest growing areas of Internet use. Ecommerce is the buying and selling of either services or merchandise while using the Internet. Buying cars, sending musical greeting cards, downloading the newest music, and even trading stocks are done everyday on the Interact before some of us see the sun rise. Just imagine how many millions and millions of dollars have changed due to commercial activities since you started reading this.

单选题The depiction of the lives of black people in the south is graphic .

单选题In fine days, you"d better open windows to ventilate the room.

单选题Her regular primary care doctor Uset aside/U her complaints with a smile.

单选题Our statistics show that we consume all that we are capable of producing.

单选题People fishing on a lake must wait calmly so as not to scare the fish away.

单选题I want to provide my boys with a decent education.

单选题{{B}}第三篇{{/B}} {{B}}Underground Coal Fires -- a Looming Catastrophe{{/B}} Coal burning deep underground in China, India and Indonesia is threatening the environment and human life, scientists have warned. These large-scale underground blazes cause the ground temperature to heat up and kill surrounding vegetation, produce greenhouse gases and can even ignite forest fires, a panel of scientists told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver. The resulting release of poisonous elements like arsenic and mercury can also pollute local water sources and soils, they warned. "Coal fires are a global catastrophe," said Associate Professor Glenn Stracher of East Georgia College in Swainsboro, USA. But surprisingly few people know about them. Coal can heat up on its own, and eventually catch fire and burn, if there is a continuous oxygen supply. The heat produced is not caused to disappear and under the right combinations of sunlight and oxygen, can trigger spontaneous catching fire and burning. This can occur underground, in coal stockpiles, abandoned mines or even as coal is transported. Such fires in China consume up to 200 million tones of coal per year, delegates were told. In comparison, the U.S. economy consumes about one billion tones of coal annually, said Stracher, whose analysis of the likely impact of coal fires has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Coal Ecology. Once underway, coal fires can bum for decades, even centuries. In the process, they release large volumes of greenhouse gases, poisonous fumes and black particles into the atmosphere. The members of the panel discussed the impact these fires may be having on global and regional climate change, and agreed that the underground nature of the fires makes them difficult to detect. One of the members of the panel, Assistant Professor Paul Van Dijk of the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation in the Netherlands, has been working with the Chinese government to detect and monitor fires in the northern regions of the country. Ultimately, the remote sensing and other techniques should allow scientists to estimate how much carbon dioxide these fires are emitting. One suggested method of containing the fires was presented by Gary Colaizzi, of the engineering firm Goodson, which has developed a heat-resistant grout (a thin mortar used to fill cracks and crevices), which is designed to be pumped into the coal fire to cut off the oxygen supply.

单选题Even the best-build machine will not run forever without proper maintenance.A. eternallyB. smoothlyC. dependablyD. accurately

单选题It can be inferred that the writer thinks that engineering curricula are

单选题How the First Stars in the Universe Came into Existence How the first stars formed from this dust and gas has been a burning question for years, but a state-of-the-art computer simulation now offers the most detailed picture yet of how these first stars in the universe came into existence, researchers say. The composition of the early universe was quite different from that of today, and the physics that governed the early universe were also somewhat simpler. Dr. Naoki Yoshida and colleagues in Japan and the U.S. incorporated these conditions of the early universe, sometimes referred to as the "cosmic dark ages," to simulate the formation of an astronomical object that would eventually shine its light into this darkness. The result is a detailed description of the formation of a protostar--the early stage of a massive primordial star of our universe, and the researchers' computer simulation, which has been called a "cosmic Rosetta Stone" sets the bar for further investigation into the star formation process. The question of how the first stars evolved is so important because their formations and eventual explosions provided the seeds for subsequent stars to come into being. According to their simulation, gravity acted on minute density variations in matter, gases, and the mysterious "dark matter" of the universe after the Big Bang in order to form this early stage of a star-a protostar with a mass of just one percent of our sun. The simulation reveals how pre-stellar gases would have actually evolved under the simpler physics of the early universe to form this protostar. Dr. Yoshida's simulation also shows that the protostar would likely evolve into a massive star capable of synthesizing heavy elements, not just in later generations of star, but soon after the Big Bang. "This general picture of star formation, and the ability to compare how stellar objects form in different time periods and regions of the universe, will eventually allow investigation into the origins of life and planets," said Lars Hernquist, a Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University and a coauthor of this latest report. "The abundance of elements in the universe has increased as stars have accumulated," he says, "and the formation and destruction of stars continues to spread these elements further across the universe. So when you think about it all of the elements in our bodies originally formed from nuclear reactions in the centers of stars, long ago." Their simulation of the birth of a protostar in the early universe signifies a key step toward the ambitious goal of piecing together the formation of an entire primordial star and of predicting the mass and properties of these first stars of the universe. More powerful computers, more physical data, and an even larger range will be needed for further calculations and simulations, but these researchers hope to eventually extend this simulation to the point of nuclear reaction initiation when a stellar object becomes a true star. "Dr. Yoshida has taken the study of primordial star formation to a new level with this simulation, but it still gets us only to the halfway point towards our final goal. It is like laying the foundation of a skyscraper," said Volker Bromm, Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the University of Texas, Austin and the author of a companion article. "We must continue our studies in this area to understand how the initially tiny protostar grows, layer by layer, to eventually form a massive star. But here, the physics become much more complicated and even more computational resources are needed./

单选题Dark Forces Dominate Universe The earth, moon, sun and all visible stars in the sky make up less than one percent of the universe. Almost all the rest is dark matter and dark energy, unknown forces that 1 astronomers. Observations in recent years have changed the basic 2 of how the universe evolved and have indicated how little is known about the major forces and substances that 3 our world. Astronomers now know that luminous (发光的) matter—stars, planets and hot gas—accounts 4 only about 0.4 percent of the universe. Non-luminous components, such as black holes and intergalactic (星系间的) gas, 5 up 3.6 percent. The rest is either dark matter, about 23 percent, or dark energy, about 73 percent. Dark matter, sometimes 6 "cold dark matter", has been known for some time. Only recently have researchers come to understand the key role it 7 in the formation of stars, planets and even people. "We 8 our very existence to dark matter," said physicist Paul Steinhardt and a co-author of a review on dark matter which 9 not long ago in the journal Science. "Dark matter dominated the structure 10 in the early universe," Steinhardt said. "For the first few billion years dark matter contained most of the mass of the universe. You can think of ordinary matter 11 a froth (泡沫) of an ocean of dark matter. The dark matter clumps (结成块) and the ordinary matter falls into it. That 12 to the formation of the stars and galaxies (星系)." Without dark matter, "there would be virtually no structures in the universe." The nature of dark matter is 13 . It cannot be seen or detected directly. Astronomers know it is there because of its 14 on celestial (天体的) objects that can be seen and measured. But the most dominating force of all in the universe is called dark energy, a recently 15 power that astronomers say is causing the galaxies in the universe to separate at a faster and faster speed.

单选题Youth hostels provide inexpensive {{U}}lodging{{/U}} for young people throughout the United States and in other countries.

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 feel onto houses and Cars. Other trees fell into telephone and electrical wires as they went down. Amanda Symcheck was having a party when the storm began. "I knew something was wrong," she said. "I saw the sky go green and pink (粉红色的). 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 hight 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 (撤走). The Red Cross served meals to them. "This was a really intense storm." said Snyder. People were afraid. MotherNature call be fierce. We were lucky this time. No one was killed."

单选题Money and Love Paul had long promised to marry Clara. But at thirty-three he met and married Alice. Clara was driven mad. Paul was taken to court. The judge ordered him to pay Clara $600 because of the broken promise. Paul had to borrow the money from a moneylender. He agreed to pay back $5 a month—for twenty years. His wages at the time were $16 a month. Paul and Alice were poor but not unhappy. They had little enough food, certainly, even before the children began to arrive. Each month Paul paid $5 to the moneylender. He worked hard, never taking a holiday. In time, there were seven mouths to feed. Illness was always with them. It grew serious when the oldest child was eight. The years of hunger weakened the family, because each month Paul paid $5. The details of the sickness were ugly, but the result was this: After twelve years of family life, Paul was alone in the world. He lived alone, except for memories. Work was not now a god for him: it was a pain-killer. Each month he paid, and in time the twenty years ended. From that moment his wages were his own. One day, it was a holiday—he went to the seaside. He sat down on a seat by the sea. A middle-aged woman came and sat down near him. They recognized each other at once. The woman said, "The $600 has been in the bank since the day it was paid to me. It is now $6,000, and I have kept it for you. Will you let me share it with you?" "No," said Paul, gently. "Each thousand is a lost life in a desert between us. It can never bring any happiness."

单选题{{B}}第二篇{{/B}} {{B}} Lateral Thinking{{/B}} Lateral thinking (迂回思维), first described by Edward de Bono in 1967, is just a few years older than Edward’s son. You might imagine that Caspar was raised to be an adventurous thinker, but de Bono name was so famous, Casper’s parents worried that any time he would say something bright at school, his teachers might snap, “Where do you get that idea from?” “We had to be careful and not overdo it,” Edward admits. Now Casper is at Oxford —— which once looked unlikely because he is also slightly dyslexic (通读困难). In fact, when he was applying to Oxford, none of his school teachers thought he had a chance. “So then we did several thinking sessions,” his father says, “using my techniques and, when he went up for the exam, he did extremely well.” Soon after, Edward de Bono decided to write his latest book, “Teach Your Children How to Think”, in which he transforms the thinking skills he developed for brain-storming businessmen into informal exercises for parents and children to share. Thinking is traditionally regarded as something executed in a logical sequence, and everybody knows that children aren’t very logical. So isn’t it an uphill battle, trying to teach them to think? “You know,” Edward de Bono says, “if you examine people’s thinking, it is quite unusual to find faults of logic. But the faults of perception are huge! Often we think ineffectively because we take too limited a view.” “Teach Your Child How to Think” offers lessons in perception improvement, of clearly seeing the implications of something you are saying and of exploring the alternatives.