单选题 The Adjustment in Understanding of Man's Relation to the Physical Universe Nowadays the scattering of galaxies and the astounding abundance of stars are forcing those who ponder such matters to a further adjustment of their concept of the place and function of man in the material universe. In the history of the {{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}human mind, with its increasing knowledge of the surrounding context, there must have been a time when the philosophers of the {{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}}tribes began to realize that the world was not simply centered on man himself. The geocentric concept, which accepted a universe centered on the earth, then became common {{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}. The second adjustment in the understanding of man's relation to the physical universe was not generally acceptable {{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}the sixteenth century. Copernican revolution soundly {{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}the heliocentric concept, the theory of a universe {{U}} {{U}} 6 {{/U}} {{/U}}on the sun. Man is a stubborn adherent to official dogma; eventually, however, he accepted the sun as the center. Then, forty years ago, came the need for a third adjustment. This {{U}} {{U}} 7 {{/U}} {{/U}}has deeply exploded man's pride and {{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}, for it has carried with it the knowledge of the appalling number of galaxies. The galactocentric universe {{U}} {{U}} 9 {{/U}} {{/U}}puts the earth and its life near the edge of one great galaxy in a universe of millions of galaxies. Man becomes peripheral among the billions of stars of his own Milky Way; and, according to the revelations of paleontology and geochemistry, he is {{U}} {{U}} 10 {{/U}} {{/U}}and apparently transient in the {{U}} {{U}} 11 {{/U}} {{/U}}of cosmic time. The downgrading of the earth and sun and the elevation of the galaxies is not the end of this {{U}} {{U}} 12 {{/U}} {{/U}}of scientific pilgrims through philosophic fields. The need for another {{U}} {{U}} 13 {{/U}} {{/U}}adjustment now {{U}} {{U}} 14 {{/U}} {{/U}}not wholly unexpected by scientists, {{U}} {{U}} 15 {{/U}} {{/U}}wholly the result of one or two scientific revelations. Our new problem concerns the spread of life throughout the universe. As unsolicited spokesmen for all the earthly organisms of land, sea, and air, we ask the thrilling question: Are we alone?

单选题Men Smell of Cheese and Women of Onions Little girls may be made of sugar and all things nice, but their armpits (腋部) 1 of onions. And while free of slug or snail odours, men"s armpits pack a 2 cheesy whiff. That"s the 3 of research in Switzerland that involved taking armpit sweat samples from 24 men and 25 women after he had 4 time in a sauna or ridden an exercise bike for 15 minutes. The researchers found marked 5 in the sweat from men and women. "Men smell of cheese, and women of grapefruit (葡萄柚) or onion," says Christian Starkenmann of Firmenich, a company in Geneva 6 researches flavors and perfumes for food and cosmetics companies. The team 7 that the women"s armpit sweat constrained relatively high levels of an odourless sulphur-containning compound—5 milligrams per milliliter of sweat versus 0.5 milligrams in men. When the researchers mixed this compound in the lab with bacteria commonly found in the armpit, the bugs turned it into a thiol (硫醇)—a previously discovered odour from armpits that is 8 to onion. "The more sulphur (硫) precursor we 9 , the more intense was the malodour (难闻的 气味，恶臭)," says Starkenmann, whose team"s results appear in Chemical Senses . Bacterial enzymes (酶) turn the otherwise odourless precursor 10 the malodour. The men, meanwhile, had relatively high levels of an odourless fatty acid which turned into a cheesy odour when 11 to the same types of bacteria. The balance of oniony to cheesy precursors in women"s sweat made it smell worse than men"s as rated by independent smell assessors. Nest; the team hope to develop new ingredients for deodorants that 12 the smells. "We could make inhibitors that neutralize the precursors, or block the bacterial enzymes that do the conversion," says Starkenmann. Some researchers are skeptical that gender is the main deciding factor, 13 that the patterns found in Swiss volunteers might not apply to other populations with different diets and genetic background. "Other factors 14 what you eat, what you wash with, what you wear and what genes you 15 ," says Tim Jacob of Cardiff University in the U.K.

单选题 Public and Private Schools in the United States Religious and private schools receive little or no support from public taxes in the United States, and, as a result, are usually somewhat expensive to {{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}. The largest group of religious schools in America {{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}}by the Roman Catholic Church. While religious schools tend to be {{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}expensive than private schools, there are usually some fees. When there is free education available to all children in the United States, why do people {{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}money on private schools? Americans offer {{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}great variety of reasons for doing so, including the desire of some parents to send their children to schools {{U}} {{U}} 6 {{/U}} {{/U}}classes tend to be smaller, or where religious instruction is included as part of the educational program, or because, {{U}} {{U}} 7 {{/U}} {{/U}}their opinion, the public schools in their area are not {{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}high enough quality to meet their needs. Private schools in the United States {{U}} {{U}} 9 {{/U}} {{/U}}widely in size, quality, and in the kind of program that are offered to meet {{U}} {{U}} 10 {{/U}} {{/U}}of certain students. The degree {{U}} {{U}} 11 {{/U}} {{/U}}American parents are active in their children's schools is often {{U}} {{U}} 12 {{/U}} {{/U}}to people of other countries. Most schools have organizations {{U}} {{U}} 13 {{/U}} {{/U}}of both parents and teachers, usually called P.T.A. for Parent-Teacher Association. They meet together to {{U}} {{U}} 14 {{/U}} {{/U}}various matters concerning the school. Parents often give {{U}} {{U}} 15 {{/U}} {{/U}}time to help with classroom or after school activities.

单选题My father is a physician .

单选题Lateral Thinking 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 Casper 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 (诵读困难). 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.

单选题It will absorb a large amount of money to decorate the office.

单选题Although I sympathize, I can"t really do very much to help.

单选题A Letter from Alan I have learnt of a plan to build three hundred houses on the land called Parson's Place by the football ground. Few people know about this new plan to increase the size of our town. For me, Parson's Place is special because it is a beautiful natural area where local people can relax—the small wood has many unusual trees and the stream is popular with fishermen and bird-watchers. It's very quiet because there are few houses or roads nearby. I think that losing this area will be terrible because we have no other similar facilities in the neighbourhood. I am also against this plan because it will cause traffic problems. How will the people from the new houses travel to work? The motorway and the railway station are on the other side of town. Therefore, these people will have to drive through the town centre every time they go anywhere. The roads will always be full of traffic, there will be nowhere to park and the tourists who come to see our lovely old buildings will leave. Shops and hotels will lose business. If the town really needs more homes, the empty ground beside the railway station is a more suitable place. No doubt the builders will make a lot of money by selling these houses. But, in my opinion, the average person will quickly be made poorer by this plan. As well as this, we will lose a very special place and our town will be much less pleasant. I am going to the local government offices on Monday morning to protest about this plan and I hope that your readers will join me there. We must make them stop this plan before it is too late.

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 admiring 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 bland canvas for visitors 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Ford's Assembly Line When it comes to singling out those who have made a difference in all our lives, you cannot overlook Henry Ford. A historian a century from now might well conclude that it was Ford who most influenced all manufacturing, everywhere, even to this day, by introducing a new way to make cars-one, strange to say, that originated in slaughterhouses (屠宰场). Back in the early 1900's, slaughterhouses used what could have been called a "disassembly line". Ford reversed this process to see if it would speed up production of a part of an automobile engine called a magneto. Rather than have each worker complelely assemble a magneto, one of its elements was placed on a conveyer, and each worker, as it passed, added another component to it, the same one each time. Professor David Hounshell of the University of Delaware, an expert on industrial development, tells what happened: "The previous day, workers carrying out the entire process had averaged one assembly every 20 minutes. But on that day, on the line, the assembly team averaged one every 13 minutes and 10 seconds per person. " Within a year, the time had been reduced to five minutes. In 1913, Ford went all the way. Hooked together by ropes, partially assembled vehicles were towed (拖，拉) past workers who completed them one piece at a time. It wasn't long before Ford was turning out several hundred thousand cars a year, a remarkable achievement then. And so efficient and economical was this new system that he cut the price of his cars in half, to $260, putting them within reach of all those who, up until that time, could not afford them. Soon, auto makers the world over copied him. In fact, he encouraged them to do so by writing a book about all of his innovations, entitled Today and Tomorrow. The Age of the Automobile has arrived. Today, aided by robots and other forms of automation (自动化), everything from toasters to perfumes is made on assembly lines.

单选题She has proved that she can be relied on in a crisis.

单选题The company recommended that a new gas station be built here. A. ordered B. insisted C. suggested D. demanded

单选题John Hanson helped draft instructions far Maryland's delegates to the Stamp Act Congress.A. clarifyB. formulateC. reviseD. contribute

单选题Some newspapers in the west are notably biased.

单选题He got well very quickly after his illness.

单选题Many people say that they are annoyed by the U.S. News pictures.

单选题I had neither time nor inclination to hear about the afflicted cow.

单选题Pop Music in Africa Young musicians in African countries are creating a new kind of pop music. The tunes and the rhythms of their music combine African traditions with various forms of music popular today, such as hip-hop, rap, rock, jazz, or reggae. The result is music that may sound familiar to listeners anywhere in the world, but at the same time is distinctly African. It is different also in another way: Many of the songs are very serious and they deal with important social or political issues in Africa today. Erie Wainaina is one of these African musicians. He grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, in a family of musicians. As a teenager, he listened to pop music from the United States, and later he moved to Boston to study at the Berklee College of Music. Now he has produced a CD in Kenya. Eric's most popular song, "Land of 'A Little Something'" is about Kenya's problem of bribery, or paying others for illegal favors. He wants people to listen to his songs and think about how to make Kenya a better place to live. Another musician who writes serious songs is Witness Mwaijaga from Tanzania. Her own experiences have helped her understand the suffering of many African women. At the age of fifteen she lost her home, but she was luckier than other homeless young people. She could make a living by writing songs and singing on the street. By the time she was eighteen years old, she had become a star. Her songs are written in rap or hip-hop style about the problems that she sees in Tanzania, especially AIDS and the lack of rights for women. Baaba Maal, from Senegal, also feels that pop music must go beyond entertainment. He says that in Senegal, storytellers have always been important people. In the past, they were the ones who kept the history of their people alive. Baaba believes that songwriters now have a similar responsibility. They must write about the world around them and help people understand how it could be better. The words of his songs are important, in fact. They speak of peace and cooperation among Africans, as well as the rights of women, love for one's family, and saving the environment. One of South Africa's most popular musicians is Brenda Fassie. She is sometimes compared to Madonna, the American pop star, because she likes to shock people in her shows. But she also likes to make people think. She became famous in the 1980s for her simple pop songs against apartheid. Now that apartheid has ended, her songs are about other issues in South African culture and life. To sing about these, she uses local African languages and a new pop style called kwaito. In recent years, people, outside of Africa have also begun to listen to these young musicians. Through music, the younger generation of Africans are connecting with the rest of the world and, at the same time, influencing the rest of the world.

单选题David Talbot's lead story argues that Kennedy was less a cold warrior than a warrior for peace, that he was a man who despised war and sought above all to avoid nuclear conflict. The Kennedy who emerges is a wily pragmatist who had certain moral limits that he would not compromise. In November 1961, Kennedy gave a speech in which he said that there was nothing" soft" about averting (防止，避免)nuclear war and that America showed its true strength when it avoided using military force. Which of the following statements about John F. Kennedy is not true according to David Talbot?A. He was a warrior for peace rather than a warrior for war.B. He was in favor of using nuclear weapons to show the power of US.C. He was a mail who would not compromise his moral limits.D. He was a man of determination to fight for peac

单选题Regular visits from a social worker can be of immense value to old people living alone.