单选题4. The news will horrify everyone.

单选题. The Wasteland A new catastrophe faces Afghanistan. The American bombing campaign is conspiring with years of civil conflict and drought to create an environmental crisis. Humanitarian and political concerns are dominating the headlines. But they are also masking the disappearance of the country's once rich habitat and wildlife, which are quietly being crushed by war. The UN is dispatching a team of investigators to the region next month to evaluate the damage. "A healthy environment is a prerequisite for rehabilitation," says Klaus Topfer, head of the UN Environment Programme. Much of south-east Afghanistan was once lush forest watered by monsoon rains. Forests now cover less than 2 percent of the country. "The worst deforestation occurred during Taliban rule, when its timber mafia denuded forests to sell to Pakistani markets," says Usman Qazi, an environmental consultant based in Quetta, Pakistan. And the intense bombing intended to flush out the last of the Taliban troops is destroying or burning much of what remains. The refugee crisis is also wrecking the environment, and much damage may be irreversible. Forests and vegetation are being cleared for much-needed farming, but the gains are likely to be only short-term. "Eventually the land will be unfit for even the most basic form of agriculture," warns Hammad Naqi of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Pakistan. Refugees—around 4 million as the last count—are also cutting into forests for firewood. The hail of bombs falling on Afghanistan is making life particularly hard for the country's wildlife. Birds such as the pelican and endangered Siberian crane cross eastern Afghanistan as they follow one of the world's great migratory thoroughfares from Siberia to Pakistan and India. But the number of the birds flying across the region has dropped by a staggering 85 percent. "Cranes are very sensitive and they do not use the route if they see any danger," says Ashiq Ahgmad, an environmental scientist for the WWF in Peshawar, Pakistan, who has tracked the collapse of the birds' migration this winter. The rugged mountains also usually provide a safe haven for mountain leopards, gazelles, bears and Marco Polo sheep—the world's largest species. "The same terrain that allows fighters to strike and disappear back into the hills has also historically enabled wild life to survive," says Peter Zahler of the Wildlife Conservation society, based in New York. But he warns they are now under intense pressure from the bombing and invasions of refugees and fighters. For instance, some refugees are hunting rare snow leopards to buy a safe passage across the border. A single fur can fetch $2,000 on the black market, says Zahler. Only 5,000 or so snow leopards are thought to survive in central Asia and less than 100 in Afghanistan, their numbers already decimated by extensive hunting and smuggling into Pakistan before the conflict. Timber, falcons and medicinal plants are also being smuggled across the border. The Taliban once controlled much of this trade, but the recent power vacuum could exacerbate the problem. Bombing will also leave its mark beyond the obvious craters. Defence analysts say that while depleted uranium has been used less in Afghanistan than in the Kosovo conflict, conventional explosives will litter the country with pollutants. They contain toxic compounds such as cyclonite, a carcinogen, and rocket propellants contain perchlorates, which damage thyroid glands.1. All of the following are causes of the environmental crisis in Afghanistan EXCEFF ______.

单选题10. The thief was finally captured two miles away from the village.

单选题6. The food is insufficient for three people.

单选题3. The manager allocates duties to the clerks.

单选题14. In Britain and many other countries appraisal is now a tool of management.

单选题4. Our statistics show that we consume all that we are capable of producing.

单选题5. The city has decided to do away with all the old buildings in its center.

单选题14. His shoes were shined to perfection.

单选题 FDA: Human

单选题 Small But Wise On December 14

单选题1. Her novel depicts an ambitious Chinese.

单选题7. His sole motive was to make her happy.

单选题4. The umbrella was ingeniously devised to fold up into the pocket.

单选题5. They had a far better yield than any other farm miles away around this year.

单选题7. The manager allocates duties to the clerks.

单选题 U.S

单选题1. Some astronomers contend that the universe may be younger than previously believed.

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 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 (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.1. Casper succeeded in applying to Oxford because ______.

单选题8. The city has decided to do away with all the old buildings in its center.