单选题 Alpha Particle From decaying radon (氡) atoms can destroy the living cells they strike and increase the likelihood that those cells will later become cancerous. Researchers have now directly demonstrated that neighboring cells not suffering direct hits can be harmed, too. They've also taken a step toward showing how this type of radiation, called alpha particles, indirectly hurts those bystanders. Radon derives from the decay of uranium (铀) and seeps naturally into the air from the ground. It's the primary environmental source of alpha particles, which contribute to cancer risk by causing aberrations (失常) in DNA. Alpha particles from inhaled radon are second only to smoking as a cause of lung cancer. Because a person's exposure to alpha particles typically is low, researchers have had to estimate public health threats from radon by guess from the effects of higher doses of alpha radiation. Such data comes primarily from studies of survivors of the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The customary extrapolation (推测) assumes that cancer risk is proportional to the dose of radiation even at low doses. Radiation's effects in cell structure don't necessarily reflect what happens in "a whole organism, with its full range of defense repair mechanisms," says Duport. Processes such as DNA repair and cell death triggered by radiation damage could cancel the effect on by stander cells observed in the lab, he suggests. Furthermore, while a bystander effect can contribute to cancer, other cell-to-cell interactions in living tissue "may relieve increased risk." says Barry Michael, a radiation biophysicist at the Gray Cancer Institute in Northwood, England. One of these interactions halts cell division and hence cancer. "The jury is still out on whether cell-to-cell effects lead to a greater or lower risk," Michael says.

单选题Sleep Necessary for Memories Burning the midnight oil before an exam or interview does harm to the performance according to a recent research which found that sleep is necessary for memories to be taken back into the brain. A good night"s sleep within 30 hours of trying to remember a new task is a required condition of having good recall in the weeks ahead, scientists have found. The research, published in the December issue of Nature Neuroscience , showed that it was the act of sleep, rather than the simple passage of time, that was critical for long-term memory formation. "We think that getting that first night"s sleep starts the process of memory consolidation (巩固)," said Robert Stickgold, a sleep researcher at Harvard Medical School who conducted the latest study. "It seems that memories normally wash out of the brain unless some process nails them down. My suspicion is that sleep is one of those things that does the nailing down," Professor Stickgold said. With about one in five people claiming that they are so chronically short of sleep that it affects their daily activities, the latest work emphasizes the less well--understood side effect—serious memory impairment (损害). Volunteers in an experiment found it easier to remember a memory task if they were allowed to sleep that night. But for those kept awake, no amount of subsequent sleep made up for the initial loss. Professor Stickgold"s team trained 24 people to identify the direction of three diagonal (斜线形的) bars flashed for a sixtieth of a second on a computer screen full of horizontal (水平的) stripes. Half of the subjects were kept awake that night, while the others slept. Both groups were allowed to sleep for the second and third nights to make up for any differences in tiredness between the volunteers. Those who slept the first night were significantly and consistently better at remembering the task while the second group showed no improvement despite enjoying two nights of catch-up sleep.

单选题If the test taker finds an item to which an answer is not known, it may be wise to leave it blank and go on with the test. A. valuable B. advisable C. considerable D. probable

单选题Although he was under no Uobligation/U the shopkeeper replaced the defective battery free of charge.

单选题John is crazy about pop music.A. sorryB. madC. concernedD. worried

单选题Mike's uncle {{U}}insists on{{/U}} staying in this hotel.

单选题Satiric Literature Perhaps the most striking quality of satiric literature is its freshness, its originality of perspective. Satire rarely offers original ideas. Instead, it presents the familiar in a new form. Satirists do not offer the world new philosophies. What they do is to look at familiar conditions from a perspective that makes these conditions seem foolish, harmful, or affected. Satire jars us out of complacence into a pleasantly shocked realization that many of the values we unquestioningly accept are false. Don Quixote makes chivalry seem absurd; Brave New World ridicules the pretensions of science; A Modest Proposal dramatizes starvation by advocating cannibalism. None of these ideas is original. Chivalry was suspect before Cervantes, humanists objected to the claims of pure science before Aldoua Huxley, and people were aware of famine before Swift. It was not the originality of the idea that made these satires popular. It was the manner of expression, the satiric method, that made them interesting and entertaining. Satires are read because they are aesthetically satisfying works of art, not because they are morally wholesome or ethically instructive. They are stimulating and refreshing because with common sense briskness they brush away illusions and second-hand opinions. With Spontaneous irreverence, satire rearranges perspectives, scrambles familiar objects into incongruous juxtaposition, and speaks in a personal idiom instead of abstract platitude. Satire exists because there is need for it. It has lived because readers appreciate a refreshing stimulus, an irreverent reminder that they live in a world of platitudinous thinking, cheap moralizing, and foolish philosophy. Satire serves to prod people into all awareness of truth, though rarely to any active on behalf of truth. Satire tends to remind people that much of what they see, hear, and read in popular media is sanctimonious, sentimental, and only partially true. Life resembles in only a slight degree the popular image of it. Soldiers rarely hold die ideals that movies attribute to them, nor do ordinary citizens devote their lives to unselfish service of humanity. Intelligent people know these tings but tend to forget them when they do not hear them expressed.

单选题 下面有3篇短文，每篇短文后有5道题，每道题后面有4个选项。请根据文章的内容，从每题所给的4个选项中选择1个最佳答案。 {{B}} A Pay Rise or Not?{{/B}} "Unless I get a rise, I’ll have a talk with the boss, Henry Manley,' George Strong said to himself. George liked his job and he liked the town he lived in, but his wife kept telling him that his pay was n6t enough to meet the needs of the family. That was why he was thinking of taking a job in Birmingham, a nearby city about 50 miles away. He had been offered a job in a factory there, and the pay was far better. George lived in Wyeford, a medium-sized town. He really liked the place and didn't like the idea of moving somewhere else, but if he took the job in Birmingham, he would have to move his family there. Henry Manley was the manager of a small company manufacturing electric motors. The company was in deep trouble because, among other reasons, the Japanese were selling such things at very low prices. As a result, Manley had to cut his own prices and profits as well. Otherwise he would not get any orders at all. Even then, orders were still not coming in fast enough, so that there was no money for raises (加工资) for his workers. Somehow, he had to struggle along and keep his best workers as well. He sighed. Just then the phone rang. His secretary told him that George Strong wanted to see him as soon as possible. Manley sighed again. He could guess what it was about. George Strong was a very young engineer. The company had no future unless it could attract and keep men like him. Manley rubbed his forehead (前额); his problems seemed endless.

单选题Which of the following statements is NOT true, according to the passage?

单选题The football team is called "The Canaries" because of the colours the players wear.

单选题His job was to look after the animals.

单选题The old concerns lose importance and some of them {{U}}vanish{{/U}} altogether. A. develop B. disappear C. link D. renew

单选题I feel regret about what"s happened.

单选题The specific mechanisms by which cortisone and similar compounds function are poorly documented.

单选题Life at Aichi University I'm Yamamoto Mika, a 22-year old Japanese girl. I'd like to invite you to Aichi University so you can understand my life. Our university has a close relationship with China and my department is the only one of its kind in Japan. My courses include the Chinese language, modem Chinese politics and economics. I love the Chinese culture and I have been to Tian jin as an exchange student. In Japan, our courses are divided into compulsory, optional and specialized courses. However, we have a flexible schedule. We can choose classes from a wide range of options. Many students finish the compulsory courses in three years so that they can have one year without any classes. They often use this period of time to study abroad, conduct research and travel. Many students even suspend their study for additional study-abroad opportunities. Japanese universities encourage students to choose their own ways of study, so it is quite easy for us to apply for study suspension. Japanese students participate in various kinds of extracurricular activities. They attend clubs from elementary schools, so many have already been accustomed to clubs when they enter university. Our university now has 42 art clubs and 45 sports clubs. The annual University Festival is the grandest carnival of Japanese universities. In the festival, students promote their clubs and organize various activities. Our university's festival attracted about 150,000 people last year. I really like this festival. In school, I participate in the journalism club. When we have the club promotion, we cook "tonnjiru", a kind of pork soup, and sell it to other students at the fair. We also go to different places to interview celebrities who attend our festival as guests. It is a wonderful experience to talk to those stars face to face. Japanese students like to hold parties. We have two kinds of parties. One is the Mochiyori party. If you want to attend this party you have to cook a course and take it to the party. The organizer buys drinks and snacks. Another kind of party is the Nomikai, which mainly involves alcohol. We drink something called chu-hai, which is a combination of soda and wine. We also drink Japanese sake and beer. There are parties for many occasions, like welcoming new students, graduation, celebrating victories, birthday parties or just for promoting friendship.

单选题Seeing the World Centuries Ago If you enjoy looking through travel books by such familiar authors as Arthur Former or Eugene Fodor, it will not surprise you to lean that travel writing has a long and venerable history. Almost from the earliest annals of recorded time individuals have found ready audiences for their accounts of journeys to strange and exotic locales. One of the earliest travel writers, a Greek geographer and historian named Strabo, lived around the time of Christ. Though Strabo is known to have traveled from east of the Black Sea west to Italy and as far south as Ethiopia, he also used details gleaned from other writers to extend and enliven his accounts. His multivolumed work Geography provides the only surviving account of the cities, peoples, customs, and geographical peculiarities of the whole known world of his time. Two other classic travel writers, the Italian Marco Polo and the Moroccan Ibn Battutah, lived in roughly the same time period. Marco Polo traveled to China with his father and uncle in about A. D. 1275 and remained there 16 or 17 years, visiting several other countries during his travels. When Marco returned to Italy he dictated his memoirs, including stories he had heard from others, to a scribe, with the resulting book II million being an instant success. Though difficult to attest to the accuracy of all he says, Marco"s book impelled Europeans to begin their great voyages of exploration. Ibn Battutah"s interest in travel began on his required Muslim journey to Mecca in 1325, and during his lifetime he journeyed through all the countries where Islam held sway. His travel book the Rihlah is a personalized account of desert journeys, court intrigues, and even the effect of the Back Death in the various lands he visited. In almost 30 years of traveling it is estimated that Ibn Battutah covered more than 75,000 miles.

单选题He achieved success through hard work. ______

单选题 阅读下面这篇短文，短文后列出7个句子，请根据短文的内容对每个句子做出判断。 {{B}}Weather and forecast{{/B}} Many of the most damaging and life-threatening types of weather-torrential rains, severe thunderstorm, and tornadoes-begin quickly, strike suddenly, and dissipate (消散) rapidly, devastating (毁坏) small regions while leaving neighboring areas untouched. One such event, a tornado, struck the north-eastern section of Edmonton Alberta, in July 1987. Total damages from the tornado exceeded $250 million, the highest ever for any Canadian storm. Conventional computer models of the atmosphere have limited value in predicting short-lived local storms like the Edmonton tornado, because the available weather data are generally not detailed enough to allow computers to discern the subtle atmospheric changes that precede these storms. In most nations, for example, weather-balloon observations are taken just once every twelve hours at locations typically separated by hundreds of miles. With such limited data, conventional forecasting models do a much better job predicting general weather conditions over large regions than they do forecasting specific local events. Until recently, the observation-intensive approach needed for accurate, very short range forecasts, or "Nowcast", was not feasible. The cost of equipping and operating many thousands of conventional weather stations was prohibitively high, and the difficulties involved in rapidly collecting and processing the raw weather data from such a network were insurmountable (不能克服的). Fortunately, scientific and technological advances have overcome most of these problems. Radar systems, automated weather instruments, and satellites are all capable of making detailed, nearly continuous observations over large regions at a relatively low cost. Communications satellites can transmit data around the world cheaply and instantaneously, and modern computers can quickly compile and analyze this large volume of weather information. Meteorologists and computer scientists now work together to design computer programs and video equipment capable of transforming raw weather data into words, symbols, and vivid graphic displays that forecasters can interpret easily and quickly. As meteorologists have begun using these new technologies in weather forecasting offices, Nowcasting is becoming a reality.

单选题To Have and Have Not It had been boring hanging about the hotel all afternoon. The road crew were playing a game with dollar notes. Folding them into small planes to see whose would fly the furthest. Having nothing better to do, I joined in and won five, and then took the opportunity to escape with my profit. Despite the evil-looking clouds, I had to get out for a while. I headed for a shop on the other side of the street. Unlike the others, it didn"t have a sign shouting its name and business, and instead of the usual impersonal modern lighting, there was an appealing glow inside. Strangely nothing was displayed in the window. Not put off by this, I went inside. It took my breath away. I didn"t know where to look, where to start. On one wall there hung three hand-stitched American quilts that were in such wonderful condition they might have been newly-made. I came across tin toys and antique furniture, and on the wall in front of me, a 1957 stratocaster guitar, also in excellent condition. A card pushed between the strings said $ 50. I ran my hand along a long shelf of records, reading their titles. And there was more... "Can I help you?" She startled me. I hadn"t even seen the woman behind the counter come in. The way she looked at me, so directly and with such power. It was a look of such intensity that for a moment I felt as if I were wrapped in some kind of magnetic or electrical field. I found it hard to take and almost turned away. But though it was uncomfortable. I was fascinated by the experience of her looking straight into me, and by the feeling that I was neither a stranger, nor strange, to her. Besides amusement her expression showed sympathy. It was impossible to tell her age. She reminded me faintly of my grandmother because, although her eyes were friendly. I could see that she was not a woman to fall out with. I spoke at last. "I was just looking really", I said, though secretly wondering how much of the stuff I could cram into the bus. The woman turned away and went at once towards a back room, indicating that I should follow her. But it in no way lived up to the first room. The light made me feel peculiar, too. It came from an oil lamp that was hung from the centre of the ceiling and created huge shadows over everything. There were no rare electric guitars, no old necklaces, no hand-painted boxes with delicate flowers. It was also obvious that it must have taken years, decades, to collect so much rubbish, so many old documents arid papers. I noticed some old books, whose gold lettering had faded, making their titles impossible to read. "they look interesting", I said, with some hesitation. "To be able to understand that kind of writing you must first have had a similar experience", she said clearly. She noted the confused look on my face, but didn"t add anything. She reached up for a small book which she handed to me. "This is the best book I can give you at the moment", she laughed. "If you use it." I opened the book to find it full, or rather empty, with blank white pages, but paid her the few dollars she asked for it, becoming embarrassed when I realised the notes were still folded into little paper planes. I put the book in my pocket, thanked her and left.

单选题A Ride in a Cable-car A ride in a cable-car is one of the exciting and enjoyable experiences a child can have. In Switzerland, which is the home of the cable-car, it is used mostly to take tourists up the slope of a mountain, to a restaurant from which one can have a bird-eye view of the surrounding country, or to a top of a ski-run, from which, in winter, skiers glide down the snow covered the slope on skis. In Singapore, however, the cable-car takes one from the summit of a hill on the main island to a low hill on Sentosa, a resort island just off the southern coast. The cable-car is really a carriage which hangs from a strong steel cable suspended in the air. It moves along the cable with other cars on pulleys, the wheels of which are turned by electric motors. The cars are painted in eye-catching colours and spaced at regular intervals. Each car can seat up six persons. After the passengers have entered a car, they are locked in from outside by an attendant, they have no control over the movement of the car. Before long, the passengers get a breath-taking view through the glass windows of the modern city, the bustling harbour, and the several islands off the coast. The car is suspended so high in the air that slips on the sea look like small boats, and boats like toys. On a clear day, both the sky above and the sea below look beautifully blue. In contrast to the fast-moving traffic on the ground, the cars in the air move in a leisurely manner, allowing passengers more than enough time to take in the scenery during the brief trip to the island of Sentosa. After a few hours on Sentosa, it will be time again to take a cable-car back to Mount Faber. The return journey is no less exciting than the outward trip.