单选题However bad the situation is, the majority is unwilling to risk change.

单选题Stage Fright Fall down as you come onstage. That's an odd trick. Not recommended. But it saved the pianist Vladimir Feltsman when he was a teenager back in Moscow. The veteran cellist Mstislav Rostropovich tripped him purposely to cure him of pre-performance panic, Mr. Feltsman said. " All my fright was gone. I already fell. What else could happen? " Today, music schools are addressing the problem of anxiety in classes that deal with performance techniques and career preparation. There are a variety of strategies that musicians can learn to fight stage fright and its symptoms: icy fingers, shaky limbs, racing heart, blank mind. Teachers and psychologists offer wide-ranging advice, from basics like learning pieces inside out, to mental discipline, such as visualizing a performance and taking steps to relax. Don't deny that you're jittery, they urge; some excitement is natural, even necessary for dynamic playing. And play in public often, simply for the experience. Psychotherapist Diane Nichols suggests some strategies for the moments before performance, "Take two deep abdominal breaths, open up your shoulders, then smile, " she says. "And not one of these 'please don't kill me' smiles. Then choose three friendly faces in the audience, people you would communicate with and make music to, and make eye contact with them. " She doesn't want performers to think of the audience as a judge. Extreme demands by mentors or parents are often at the root of stage fright, says Dorothy Delay, a well-known violin teacher. She tells other teachers to demand only what their students are able to achieve. When Lynn Harrell was 20, he became the principal cellist of theCleverland Orchestra, and he suffered extreme stage fright. "There were times when I got so nervous I was sure the audience could see my chest responding to the throbbing. It was just total panic. I came to a point where I thought, 'If I have to go through this to play music, I think I'm going to look for another job. " Recovery, he said, involved developing humility-recognizing that whatever his talent, he was fallible, and that an imperfect concert was not a disaster. It is not only young artists who suffer, of course. The legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz's nerves were famous. The great tenor Franco Corelli is another example. "They had to push him on stage, " Soprano Renata Scotto recalled. Actually, success can make things worse. "In the beginning of your career, when you're scared to death, nobody knows who you are, and they don't have any expectations, " Soprano June Anderson said. "There's less to lose. Later on, when you're known, people are coming to see you, and they have certain expectations. You have a lot to lose. " Anderson added, "I never stop being nervous until I've sung my last note. /

单选题What is the effect of exercise on elderly people with type 2 diabetes?

单选题To Be a Lawyer Boosted by booming international financial markets, the City of London has not had it so good since the end of the dotcom bonanza in the late 1990s. Basking in double-digit growth rates, London"s law firms have both contributed to that success and benefited from it. The earnings of top City lawyers can now exceed ￡2m a year. Having opted to expand and go global ahead of most others, Britain"s leading law firms tend to be bigger than their American rivals. Indeed, according to a survey of the world"s top 50 law firms, compiled by Legal Business, a British trade paper, five of the world"s top six law firms—in terms of turnover—are now British (if DLA Piper, the result of an Anglo-American merger, is included). But they have tended to lag behind in terms of their profitability. That is now changing. The profit margins of the City"s five "magic circle" firms—Clifford Chance, Slaughter and May, Allen & Overy, Linklaters and Freshfields—have soared in recent years and are now comparable with, if not higher than, those of New York"s "white shoe" elite. Slaughter and May, the only one of the five not to have gone global, has the joint second- highest profit margin among the top 50. Not so long ago, a London surgeon could expect to earn as much as a City lawyer. But even the recent big rises in hospital consultants" earnings pall in comparison with those enjoyed by London lawyers. At Slaughter and May, for example, average profits per equity partner (PEP) jumped by almost a third (in dollar terms) last year to $ 2.75m— more than at any other of the top 50 law firms bar two in New York where PEP averaged $ 2.8m and $ 3.0m respectively. Some senior partners get a lot more of course. Competition for the best lawyers is fierce and poaching frequent. Hence the need to keep headline PEP figures up—even at the cost of getting rid of equity partners, leaving a bigger share of the bounty for the remaining ones. Freshfields is in the process of shedding around 100 of its equity partners. Other leading firms are also undertaking painful restructuring. Newly qualified lawyers" salaries have also been shooting up in the search for the best talent. Both Freshfields and Allen & Overy now pay their first-year associates ￡65,000, rising to around ￡90,000 after three years. (First-year associates at America"s top law firms get the equivalent of ￡80,000. ) But, as many other top-rank City employers have discovered, big earnings do not necessarily guarantee big satisfaction. According to a YouGov poll, published by the Lawyer earlier this month, a quarter of Britain"s lawyers (including a fifth of law-firm partners) would like to leave the profession. The disgruntled complained about cripplingly long hours, intense competition and the impersonality of the biggest firms (some with more than 3,000 lawyers). So why don"t they quit? Because, say three-quarters, of the pay.

单选题U.S. Life Expectancy Hits New High Life expectancy rates in the United States are at an all-time high, with people born in 2005 projected to live for nearly 78 years, a new federal study finds. The finding reflects a continuing trend of increasing life expectancy that began in 1955, when the average American lived to be 69.6 years old. By 1995, life expectancy was 75.8 years, and by 2005, it had risen to 77.9 years, according to the report released Wednesday. "This is good news", said report coauthor Donna Hoyert, a health scientist at the National Center for Health Statistics. "It"s even beer news that it is a continuation of trends, so it is a long period of continuing improvement." Despite the upward trend, the United States still has a lower life expectancy than some 40 other countries, according to the U. S. Census (人口普查) Bureau. The country with the longest life expectancy is Andorra at 83.5 years, followed by Japan, Macau, San Marino and Singapore. Much of the increase owes to declining death rates from the three leading causes of death in the country-heart disease, cancer and stroke. In addition, in 2005, the U. S. death rate dropped to an all-time low of less than 800 deaths per 100,000. Dr. David Katz director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, said, "News that life expectancy is increasing is, of course, good. But the evidence we have suggests that there is more chronic disease than ever in the U. S." Adding years to life is a good thing, Katz said. "But adding vital life to years is at least equally important. If we care about living well, and not just longer, we still have our work cut out for us." he said.

单选题The river {{U}}widens{{/U}} considerably as it begins to turn west. A. twists B. stretches C. broadens D. bends

单选题It is obvious that he will win the game. A. likely B. possible C. clear D. strange

单选题There is also a football team, whose colours are green and yellow. The team is known as "The Canaries (金丝雀)", though nobody can be sure why. The football team is called "The Canaries" because of the colours the players wear.A. RightB. WrongC. Not mentioned

单选题International applicants are not {{U}}eligible{{/U}} for financial aid. A. impressed B. mutual C. qualified D. outraged

单选题They Say Ireland"s the Best Ireland is the best place in the world to live in for 2,005, according to a life quality ranking that appeared in Britain"s Economist magazine last week. The ambitious attempt to compare happiness levels around the world is based on the principle that wealth is not the only measure of human satisfaction and well-being. The index of 111 countries uses data on incomes, health, unemployment, climate, political stability, job security, gender equality as well as what the magazine calls "freedom, family and community life". Despite the bad weather, troubled health service, traffic congestion (拥挤), gender inequality and the high cost of living, Ireland scored an impressive 8.33 points out of 10. That put it well ahead of second-place Switzerland, which managed 8.07. Zimbabwe troubled by political insecurity and hunger, is rated the gloomiest (最差的), picking up only 3.89 points. "Although rising incomes and increased individual choices are highly value," the report said, "some of the factors associated with modernization such as the breakdown (崩溃) in traditional institutions and family values in part take away from a positive impact." "Ireland wins because it successfully combines the most desirable elements of the new with the preservation of certain warm elements of the old, such as stable family and community life." The magazine admitted measuring quality of life is not a straightforward thing to do, and that its findings would have their critics. No.2 on the list is Switzerland. The other nations in the top 10 are Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden, Australia, Iceland, Italy, Denmark and Spain. The UK is positioned at No.29, a much lower position chiefly because of the social and family breakdown recorded in official statistics. GDP (人均国内生产总值) after Luxembourg, took the 13th place in the survey, China was in the lower half of the league at 60th.

单选题Retirement Brings Most a Big Health Boost The self-reported health of the newly retired improves so much that most feel eight years younger, a new European study suggests. This happy news was true of almost everyone except a small minority -- only 2 percent -- who had experienced "ideal" conditions in their working life, anyway. "The results really say three things: that work puts an extra burden on the health of older workers, that the effects of this extra burden are largely relieved by retirement and, finally, that both the extra burden and the relief are larger when working conditions are poor," said Hugo Westerlund, lead author of a study published online Nov. 9 in The Lancet (柳叶刀). "This indicates that there is a need to provide opportunities for older workers to decrease the demands in their work out of concern for their health and well-being. " But of course, added Westerlund, who is head of epidemiology at the Stress Research Institute at Stockholm University in Sweden, "not all older workers suffer from poor perceived health. Many are indeed remarkably healthy and fit for work. But sooner or later, everyone has to slow down because of old age catching up. " Last week, the same group of researchers reported that workers slept better after retirement than before. "Sleep improves at retirement, which suggests that sleeping could be a mediator between work and perception of poor health," Westerlund said. This study looked at what the same 15,000 French workers, most of them men, had to say about their own health up to seven years pre-retirement and up to seven years post-retirement. As participants got closer to retirement age, their perception of their own health declined, but went up again during the first year of retirement. Those who reported being in poorer health declined from 19.2 percent in the year prior to retirement to 14.3 percent by the end of the first year after retiring. According to the researchers, that means postretirement levels of poor health fell to levels last seen eight years previously. The changes were seen in both men and women, across different occupations, and lasted through the first seven years of not punching the clock. Workers who felt worse before retirement and had lower working conditions reported greater improvements as soon as they retired, the team found.

单选题One of the qualifications we need in advertising is an original mind.A. experiencesB. talentsC. educationD. requirements

单选题The {{U}}layout{{/U}} of the book, with the text on the left and the notes on the right, makes it a pleasure to use.

单选题The city of New Orleans showed its appreciation for Eleanor McMain's work in social reform by giving her the Times-Picayune award for out-standing service in 1920.A. demonstratedB. publishedC. repeatedD. postponed

单选题Hundreds of species are declared to Ube extinct/U in the coming century.

单选题There are many teachers who are strong supporters traditional methods in Chinese teaching.A. performersB. advocatesC. sponsorsD. contributors

单选题40 May Be the New 30 as Scientists Redefine Age Is 40 really the new 30 ? In many ways people today act younger than their parents did at the same age. Scientists have defined a new age concept and believe it could explain why populations are aging, but at the same time seem to be getting younger. Instead of measuring aging by how long people have lived, the scientists have factored in how many more years people can probably still look forward to. "Using that measure, the average person can get younger in the sense that he or she can have even more years to live as time goes on," said Warren Sanderson of the University of New York in Stony Brook. He and Sergei Scherbov of the Vienna Institute of Demography (人口统计学) at the Austrian (奥地利的) Academy of Sciences, have used their method to estimate how the proportion of elderly people in Germany, Japan and the United States will change in the future. The average German was 39.9 years old in 2000 and could plan to live for another 39.2 years, according to research reported in the journal Nature on Wednesday. However, by 2050 the average German will be 51.9 years old and will be expected to live another 37.1 years. So middle age in 2050 would occur at around 52 years instead of 40 years as in 2000. "As people have more and more years to live they have to save more and plan more and they effectively are behaving as if they were younger," said Sanderson. Five years ago, the average American was 35.3 years old and could plan for 43.5 more years of life. By 2050, the researchers estimate it will increase to 41.7 years and 45.8 future years. "A lot of our skills, our education, our savings and the way we deal with our health care depend a great deal on how many years we have to live," said Sanderson. This dimension of how many years people have to live has been completely ignored in the discussion of aging so far.

单选题It is {{U}}highly{{/U}} unlikely that she will arrive today. A. probably B. very C. hardly D. possibly

单选题The risk of dying from cancer in developed countries is

单选题Could you please arrange an appointment for me to see Mr. Smith?A. keepB. makeC. doD. take