单选题The monopoly-capitalist group annexed many smaller enterprises last year.

单选题{{B}}第二篇{{/B}} {{B}}The Cherokee Nation{{/B}} Long before the white man came to America, the land belonged to the American Indian nations. The nation of the Cherokees lived in what is now the southeastern part of the United States. Aft6r the white man came, the Cherokees copied many of their ways. One Cherokee named Sequoyah saw how important reading and writing was to the white man. He decided to invent a way to write down the spoken Cherokee language. He began by making word pictures. For each word he drew a picture. But that proved impossible—there were just too many words. Then he took the 85sounds that made up the language. Using his own imagination and an English spelling book, Sequoyah invented a sign for each sound. His alphabet proved amazingly easy to learn. Before long, many Cherokees knew how to read and write in their own language. By 1828, they were even printing their own newspaper. In 1830, the US Congress passed a law. It allowed the government to remove Indians from their lands. The Cherokees refused to go. They had lived on their lands for centuries. It belonged to them. Why should they go to a strange land far beyond the Mississippi River? The army was sent to drive the Cherokees out. Soldiers surrounded their villages and marched them at gunpoint into the western territory. The sick, the old and the small children went in carts, along with their belongings. The rest of the people marched on foot or rode on horseback. It was November, yet many of them still wore their summer clothes. Cold and hungry, the Cherokees were quickly exhausted by the hardships of the journey. Many dropped dead and were buried by the roadside. When the last group arrived in their new home in March 1839, more than 4,000 had died. It was indeed a march of death.

单选题Almost Human? Scientists are racing to build the world's first thinking robot. This is not science fiction: some say they will have made it by the year 2020. Carol Packer reports. Machines that walk, speak and feel are no longer science fiction. Kismet is the name of an android (机器人) which scientists have built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Kismet is different from the traditional robots because it can show human emotions. Its eyes, ears and lips move to show when it feels happy, sad or bored. Kismet is one of the first of a new generation of androids—robots that look like human beings—which can imitate human feelings. Cog, another android invented by the MIT, imitates the action of a mother. However, scientists admit that so far Cog has the mental ability of a two-year-old. The optimists (乐观主义者) say that by the year 2020 we will have created humanoids (机器人) with brains similar to those of an adult human being. These robots will be designed to look like people to make them more attractive and easier to sell to the public. What kind of jobs will they do? In the future, robots like Robonaut, a humanoid invented by NASA, will be doing dangerous jobs, like repairing space stations. They will also be doing more and more of the household work for us. In Japan, scientists are designing androids that will entertain us by dancing and playing the piano. Some people worry about what the future holds: will robots become monsters (怪物)? Will people themselves become increasingly like robots? Experts predict that more and more people will be wearing micro-computers, connected to the Internet, in the future. People will have micro-chips in various parts of their body, which will connect them to a wide variety of gadgets (小装置). Perhaps we should not exaggerate (夸大) the importance of technology, but one wonders whether, in years to come, we will still be falling in love, and whether we will still feel pain. Who knows?

单选题 阅读下面的短文，文中有15处空白，每处空白给出了4个选项，请根据短文的内容从 4个选项中选择1个最佳答案。 {{B}} Cost as a Factor in Supply{{/B}} In a purely competitive market, the supplier of goods and services has no control over the market price, because he produces too little to influence market conditions. With no difference between his products and the products{{U}} (51) {{/U}}his competitors, he will sell nothing if he charges above the market price and he will sell all if he charges at or{{U}} (52) {{/U}}the market price. However, in considering the price, he must take the{{U}} (53) {{/U}}of production into consideration. There are times when he may be willing to sell below his cost. This might happen when prices tumble for{{U}} (54) {{/U}}he believes will be a short time. However, no business person can{{U}} (55) {{/U}}to lose money for a prolonged period. He must be constantly{{U}} (56) {{/U}}of his costs in relation to the market price if he is to compete successfully and earn a profit. Many people have the impression that as production increases, costs per unit decrease.{{U}} (57) {{/U}}mass production has made this true in certain industries and at certain levels of production,{{U}} (58) {{/U}}logic and practical experiences have shown that costs per unit begin to rise beyond a certain level of production. Some economists{{U}} (59) {{/U}}to this principle as the law of increasing costs. The reason costs rise as production goes up is{{U}} (60) {{/U}}. However, it is easy to recognize that as production goes up, the need for additional factors of production will also grow,{{U}} (61) {{/U}}competitive bidding in the marketplace for the factors of production. If a producer needs{{U}} (62) {{/U}}skilled labor to produce more, and none of this labor is unemployed, the producer will have to get{{U}} (63) {{/U}}from other sources. This can be done by{{U}} (64) {{/U}}higher wages. Higher bidding would also apply to the other factors of production. We must also recognize that not all labor is equally productive,{{U}} (65) {{/U}}not all land is equally fertile and not all ore (矿石) is equally rich in the mineral wanted.

单选题Guests were scared when the bomb explored.

单选题The scientists began to Uaccumulate/U a huge mass of data.

单选题Gross National Happiness In the last century, new technology improved the lives of many people in many countries. However, one country resisted these changes. High in the Himalayan mountains of Asia, the kingdom of Bhutan remained separate. Its people and Buddhist (佛教) culture had not been affected for almost a thousand years. Bhutan, however, was a poor country. People died at a young age. Most of its people could not read, and they did not know much about the outside world. Then, in 1972, a new ruler named King Jigme Singye Wangchuck decided to help Bhutan to become modern, but without losing its traditions. King Wangchuck looked at other countries for ideas. He saw that most countries measured their progress by their Gross Natonal Product (GNP). The GNP measures products and money. When the number of products sold increases, people say the country is making progress. King Wangchuck had a different idea for Bhutan. He wanted to measure his country"s progress by people"s happiness. If the people"s happiness increased, the king could say that Bhutan was making progress. To decide if people were happier, he created a measure called Gross National Happiness (GNH). GNH is based on certain principles that create happiness. People are happier if they have health care, education, and jobs. They are happier when they live in a healthy, protected environment. They are happier when they can keep their traditional culture and customs. Finally, people are happier when they have a good, stable government. Now these is some evidence of increased GNH in Bhutan. People are healthier and are living longer. More people are educated and employed. Teenty-five percent of the land has become national parks, and the country has almost no pollution. The Bhutanese continue to wear their traditional clothing and follow their ancient Buddhist customs. Bhutan has also become a democracy. In 2008, King Wangchuck gave his power to his son. Although the country still had a king, it held its first democratic elections that year. Bhutan had political parties and political candidates for the first time. Finally, Bhutan has connected to the rest of the world through television and internet. Bhutan is a symbol for social progress. Many countries are now interested in Bhutan"s GNH. These countries are investigating their own ways to measure happiness. They want to create new policies that take care of their people, cultures, and land. Brazil may be the nest country to use the principles of GNH. Brazilian leaders see the principles of GNH as a source of inspiration. Brazil is a large country with a diverse population. If happiness works as a measure of progress in Brazil, perhaps the rest of the world will follow.

单选题Italian ice cream is imitated all over the world.

单选题Time to Stop Traveling by Air Twenty-five years ago a young British man called Mark Ellingham decided that he wanted a change of scenery. So he went to Australia, stopping off in many countries in between. He also decided to write about the experience and produced a guide for other travelers making similar journeys. In 1970, British airports were used by 32 million people. In 2004, the figure was 216 million. In 2030, according to government forecasts, it will be around 500 million. It"s a growth driven by the emergence of low cost airlines, offering access to all parts of the world for less than ￡100. This has made a huge contribution to global warming. One return flight from Britain to the US produces the same carbon dioxide (二氧化碳) as a year"s motoring (驾车). A return flight to Australia equals the emissions (排放) of three average cars for a year. And the pollution is released at a height where its effect on climate change is more than double that on the ground. Mark Ellingham built his business on helping people travel. Now he wants to help people stop—at least by air. He is calling for ￡100 green tax on all flights to Europe and Africa, and ￡250 on flights to the rest of the world. He also wants investment to create a low-carbon economy, as well as a halt to airport expansion. Mark Ellingham"s commitment is important because his readers aren"t just the sort of young and adventurous people who would happily jump on a plane to spend a weekend exploring a foreign culture. They are also the sort of people who say they care about the environment. It"s a debate that splits people down the middle. The tourist industry has responded by offering offsetting (补偿) schemes. A small increase in the price of a ticket is used to plant trees. But critics say that it is not enough to just be carbon neutral. We should be actively cutting back on putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And for the average person, making a plane journey will be his or her largest contribution to global warming. It may be good to repair the damage we do. But surely it is better not to do the damage in the first place.

单选题What did the‘‘couch’’represent?

单选题The dentist has decided to take out the girl"s bad tooth.

单选题Gambling is {{U}}lawful{{/U}} in Nevada. A. popular B. booming C. legal D. profitable

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The wealth of a country should be measured in the light of the health and happiness of its people as well as the material goods it can produce.

单选题The most famous Shoshone Indian was Sacagawea—the woman who {{U}}accompanied{{/U}} Lewis and Clark on their exploration of the upper Missouri River.

单选题All the nations in the world are supposed to {{U}}uphold{{/U}} the principles set by the United Nations.

单选题Their style of playing football is (utterly) different.

单选题{{B}}第三篇{{/B}} {{B}}TV Shows and Long Bus Trips{{/B}} Long bus rides are like television shows. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end - with commercials thrown in every three or four minutes. The commercials are unavoidable. They happen whether you want them or not. Every couple of minutes a billboard glides by outside the bus window. "Buy Super Clean Toothpaste." "Drink Good'n Wet Root Beer." "Fill up with Pacific Gas." Only if you sleep, which is equal to turning the television set off, are you spared the unending cry of "You Need It! Buy It Now! " The beginning of the ride is comfortable and somewhat exciting, even if you've traveled that way before. Usually some things have changed - new houses, new buildings, sometimes even a new road. The bus driver has a style of driving and it's fun to try to figure it out the first hour or so. If the driver is particularly reckless or dating, the ride can be as thrilling as a suspense story. Will the driver pass the truck in time? Will the driver move into the tight or the left-hand lane? After a while, of course, the excitement dies down. Sleeping for a while helps pass the middle hours of the ride. Food always makes bus tides more interesting. But you've got to be careful of what kind of food you eat. Too much salty food can make you very thirsty between stops. The end of the ride is somewhat like the beginning. You know it will soon be over and there's a kind of expectation and excitement in that. The seat, of course, has become harder as the hours have passed. By now you've sat with your legs crossed, with your hands in your lap, with your hands on the ann rests - even with your hands crossed behind your head. The end comes just at the tight time. There are just no more ways to sit.

单选题The shrapnel maimed the young soldier.

单选题More Than Just Money When Patricia Rochester decided to go back to school after ten years as a staff nurse at Toronto Western Hospital, her employer not only cheered her on, but also paid her tuition and gave her a day off with pay every week to study. Throughout her years at the hospital, Rochester has also taken workshops on everything from coaching peers to career development-courses that she believes have helped her advance at work. "I'm now head of the mentoring (指导) program for new hires, students and staff nurses," she says. "There's a lot of room for personal improvement here." Perhaps as important, Rochester says her employer supports and values her work. "If you put in overtime," the nurse points out, "you get your meals-they'll order in pizza or Greek food or Chinese. " And if staffers feel stiff and stressed from too many hours on the ward, they can call for a free 15-minute shoulder-and-neck massage (按摩) or even sign up for an eight-week evening course on meditation skills and stress-relief. If that's not enough, employees can take advantage of five family days a year that can be used if the kids come down with the flu or an aging parent needs ferrying to an important doctor's appointment. And they have access to a range of perks (好处) such as special rates on hotel rooms, drugstore purchases, and scholarships for employees' children. You might wonder how an organization can provide such resources and still survive. But University Health Network is one of a number of progressive employers in Canada that have discovered that investing in staff is good business. If such initiatives help companies cut down on turnover (人员更替) alone, they're well worthwhile, says Prem Benimadhu, a vice-president at the Conference Board of Canada. It costs anywhere from $3, 300 to rehire support staff, an average $13, 300 for technical staff and a whopping (巨资) $43, 000 for an executive position, according to one study of Conference Board members. Innovative initiatives help companies attract talented employees, cut down on sick days (which cost Canadian businesses an estimated $17 billion a year. or an average of $3, 550 per employee) and keep employees more interested in their work. With the substantial talent shortage that already exists in Canada and the prospect of mass retirement over the next five years-as many as 50 or 60 per cent in some sectors-Benimadhu says that intelligent employers are putting a renewed focus on the people who work for them.