单选题There is some reason for not giving up my career and ______ a different one. A. taking in B. bringing about C. arising from D. embarking on
单选题Novel drugs developed through biotechnologies can be expected to deliver a better effect. A. distribute B. produce C. liberate D. express
单选题The government is______and will take the necessary step to maintain security and stability. A. on cue B. on the decline C. on the alert D. on purpose
单选题 Good news is bad news and bad news is good news,
newsmen often say to one another. And when you look at the media it's only too
easy to see what they mean. A dictionary definition of the media is mass
communications, e.g. the press, television, radio. The media sees its main
purpose as giving the public news. Naturally to provide the public with news it
has first to gather it. The whole function and purpose of the media, then seem
to depend on the word "news", but more important, on how the word is
interpreted. The media, like any big business venture today, is
an extremely competitive world of its own. In providing material for its public
it has constantly to make sure it serves the right diet. No public will waste
time on your paper or your TV channel otherwise. The sad truth is that there
seems only one way to catch an audience—hit them right between the eyes. What
started as a mild tap has now become a sledgehammer blow that goes by the name
of sensationalism. A reporter chooses—has to choose—a news
story because of its sensation value. The young inexperienced cub reporter rings
his news editor about a car crash. He starts to explain the details to him but
the experienced editor asks the cub one question: "Anyone killed?" and to
himself he thinks, why do we offer jobs to children? One may
accuse newsman of cynicism but they will quickly remind you of the hard facts of
survival in the world of the media. The favorite words the newspaper place cards
in the streets bombard the public with are, "Surprise, Sensation, Drama, Shock".
You wonder, put an end to sensation long ago. As a regular newspaper reader you
also thank Heavens for the light relief of the comic strips. Turn finally from
them to what is referred to laughingly as "steam radio", in order to show its
relative antiquity. This for many millions of people is the only live contact
they have with the outside world that rightly or wrongly they have been led to
believe they should have contact with. It's extremely hard of course to see why,
when for the most part its news services bring them tragedy, disaster,
heartbreak, other people's misfortunes—in a word, trouble. What again becomes
quickly apparent is that a man's job depends on sensationalism, and we are asked
to excuse him for this. Perhaps the media hasn't quite grown up
and we should congratulate it on getting this far. The year 2000 may see great
changes in the way news is presented to us. Again, who knows, it might even get
worse—if such a thing is possible. Perish the thought!
单选题Passage One Americans are more socially isolated than they were 20 years ago, separated by work, commuting and the single life, researchers reported on Friday. Nearly a quarter of people surveyed said they had "zero" close friends with whom to discuss personal matters. More than 50 percent named two or fewer confidants, the researchers said. "This is a big social change, and it indicates something that's not good for our society," said Duke University Professor Lynn Smith-Lovin. Smith-Lovin's group used data from a national survey of 1,500 American adults that has been ongoing since 1972. She said it indicated people had a surprising drop in the number of close friends since 1985. At that time, Americans most commonly said they had three close friends whom they had known for a long time, saw often, and with whom they shared a number of interests. They were almost as likely to name four or five friends, and the relationships often sprang from their neighborhoods or communities. Ties to a close network of friends create a social safety net that is good for society. Research has also linked social support and civic participation to a longer life, Smith-Lovin said. The data also show the social isolation trend mirrors other class divides: Non- whites and people with less education tend to have smaller social networks than white Americans and the highly educated. That means that in daily life, personal emergencies and national disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, those with the fewest resources also have the fewest personal friends to call for advice and assistance. "It's one thing to know someone and exchange e-mails with them. It's another thing to say, 'Will you give me a ride out of town with all of my possessions and pets? And can I stay with you for a couple or three months?'" Smith-Lovin said. "Worrying about social isolation is not a matter of remembering a warm past. Real things are strongly connected with that," added Harvard University Public Policy Professor Robert Putnam. He suggested flexible work schedules would allow Americans to tend both personal and professional lives.
单选题Directions: There are 10 questions in this part of the
test. Read the passage through. Then, go back and choose one suitable word or
phrase marked A, B, C, or D for each blank in the passage. At least since the Industrial Revolution, gender roles have been
in a state of transition. As a result, cultural scripts about marriage have
undergone change. One of the more obvious changes has occurred in the roles that
women ______. Women have moved into the world of work and have become adept at
meeting expectations in that arena, while maintaining their family roles of
nurturing and creating a (n) {{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}that is
a haven for all family members. {{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}}many
women experience strain from trying to "do it all," they often enjoy the
increased rewards that can result from playing multiple roles. As women's roles
have changed, changing expectations about men's roles have become more {{U}}
{{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}Many men are relinquishing their major
responsibility {{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}the family provider.
Probably the most significant change in men's roles, however, is in the
emotional {{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}of family life. Men are
increasingly expected to meet the emotional needs of their families, especially
their wives. In fact, expectations about the emotional domain
of marriage have become more significant for marriage in general. Research on
{{U}} {{U}} 6 {{/U}} {{/U}}marriage has changed over recent
decades points to the increasing importance of the emotional side of the
relationships and the importance of sharing in the "emotion work" {{U}}
{{U}} 7 {{/U}} {{/U}}to nourish marriages and other family
relationships. Men and women want to experience marriages that are
interdependent, {{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}both partners nurture
each other, attend and respond to each other, and encourage and promote each
other. We are thus seeing marriages in which men's and women's roles are
becoming increasingly more {{U}} {{U}} 9 {{/U}} {{/U}}
单选题The small shuttle can {{U}}funnel{{/U}} ten thousand fibers in it in one
hour.
A. move through
B. move ahead
C. hide
D. contain
单选题 Is new technology damaging our ability to
communicate? Fingers flying, we can blog, e-mail, or enter chat rooms. But, as
we type billions of words, something is being lost. Facebook is not the same as
face to face and, as our virtual skills increase, I wonder if our ability to
communicate using speech is on the decline. Young people send
me dozens of e-mails from schools. They often attach long lists of questions, to
which they want detailed responses. Time is short, so I usually reply that they
can phone me and I'll do my best to answer. They very rarely do, partly because
their verbal and telephone skills are less developed than their ability to type
and e-mail. Yet to adapt an old business saying, a meeting is
worth five 'phone calls and a phone call is worth five e-mails. Direct
communication can quickly lead to bonding and trust. People are more likely to
reveal what they are thinking when they actually speak to another person.
{{U}}Most{{/U}} are wary of committing themselves in writing. The
great tragedy is that the phone was invented before the computer. If it had been
the other way around, Internet forums would now be buzzing with the exciting
news: "Have you heard (type, type)? There is this amazing new gadget (type). Now
you can talk directly with people. And they can hear your voice. Without all
this typing." Persistent marketing would do the rest and colleges would be
rushing to develop new courses in telephone skills. But we are
stuck with the supremacy of the typed word and it weakens our ability to look
people in the eye and talk. A good example is how much new technology has
affected public speaking. Does anyone else hate PowerPoint?
"Ant meetings, I internally groan as speakers load up their ponderous
projections. I don't mind maps and pictures, but all those words of text drive
me crazy. "nd now for my introduction ..." and up comes the word "introduction."
"There are four main points" and we see "four points." Masses
of facts and statistics follow. These should all have been given out as an
information sheet. Instead, while you are trying to read through the material,
the lecturer is wandering verbally all over it. There's a confusion of focus
that gives me a headache. As the slides flash by, the most important
relationship in public speaking is being undermined--the link between the
speaker and the audience.
单选题{{U}}Adverse{{/U}} reviews in the New York press may greatly Change the
prospects of a new Broadway production.
A. additional
B. encouraging
C. unfavorable
D. subversive
单选题Passage One Justin was always prepared. His motto was "Never throw anything out, you never know when it might come in handy." His bedroom was so full of fiat bicycle tires, bent tennis rackets, deflated basketballs, and games with missing pieces that you could barely get in the door. His parents pleaded with him to clean out his room. "What use is a fish tank with a hole in the bottom?" his father asked. But Justin simply smiled and repeated his motto, "Never throw anything out, you never know when it might come in handy." When Justin was away from home, he always carried his blue backpack. He liked to think of it as a smaller version of his bedroom--a place to store the many objects that he collected. It was so worn and stretched that it hardly resembled a backpack anymore. It was full of the kind of things that seemed unimportant, but when used with a little imagination, might come in handy. Justin had earned a reputation for figuring things out and getting people out of otherwise hopeless situations. Many of his classmates and neighbors sought him out when they needed help with a problem. On the first day of school, his friend Kenny, came looking for Justin. "Do you think you have something in your bag that could help me remember my locker combination?" he asked. "I lost the scrap of paper it was written on. I have science class in two minutes and if I'm late on the first day it'll make me look bad for the rest of the year." Kenny looked genuinely worried. "Relax," Justin said, taking his backpack off and unzipping the top. "Remember how you borrowed my notebook in homeroom to write the combination down? Well, I know how we can recover what you wrote." He took the notebook and a soft lead pencil out of his bag. The page that Kenny had written on had left faint indentations (印凹痕 ) on another page in the notebook. Justin held the pencil on its side and rubbed it lightly over the indentations. Slowly but surely the numbers of the locker combination appeared in white, set off by the gray pencil rubbings. "That's amazing!" Kenny said. "I owe you one." And he dashed off to open his locker.
单选题Forty-five years of conflict and ______ between East and West are now a thing of the past. A. conviction B. compatibility C. collaboration D. confrontation
单选题A man of resolve will not retreat easily from setbacks or significant challenges. A. pull out B. pull up C. pull in D. pull over
单选题A world-renowned scientist is scheduled to give a ______ on the future of biology.
单选题This young lady was brave enough to prevent what ______ might have been
a tragedy.
A. however
B. therefore
C. otherwise
D. only
单选题It seems that countries with the highest regular chocolate intake per
person have a ______ greater number of Nobel Prize winners.
A. proportionally
B. psychologically
C. previously
D. purposefully
单选题He is not yet well enough to {{U}}dispense{{/U}} with the doctor's
services.
A. give heed to
B. pay no attention to
C. do away with
D. do without
单选题Upon learning that his mother was gravely ill, he wasted no time getting to the hospital. A. suddenly B. moderately C. seriously D. genetically
单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} {{I}}In this part of the test, there are five short passages.
Read each passage carefully, and then do the questions that follow. Choose the
best answer from the four choices given and mark the corresponding letter with a
single bar across the square brackets on your Machine-scoring Answer
Sheet.{{/I}} {{B}}Passage One{{/B}}
Money may not be flowing much in Thailand's capital these days, but something
more unlikely is traffic. Motorists like to joke that it took the International
Monetary Fund to unclog Bangkok's notoriously jammed thoroughfares.
Before the economy crashed last summer, Bangkok was famous for its
round-the-clock gridlock. Stories of how people coped became urban lore. Thais
bought custom-made vans equipped with TVs and microwave ovens. On the endless
trips home after school and work, parents would serve family dinners, then the
kids would do their homework and change into pajamas before finally arriving.
One company did a booming business in plastic disposable toilets. Consumers
could get just about anything, from McDonald's hamburgers to prescription
medicine, delivered via motorbike. The solution for
easing congestion turned out to be simple: economic catastrophe. Rising fuel
costs, coupled with lost jobs and declining incomes, mean people are making
fewer trips. About 20,000 cars have been repossessed, while new-car buying has
dwindled from about 900 a day a year ago to just 300 now. Bus rider ship is up;
taxi trips are down. So many cabbies are having trouble making enough fares to
cover gas and car rental that hundreds of taxis are sitting idle every
day. Thinner wallets also mean people are spending less
time in bars, restaurants, movie theaters and shopping malls. Instead, they're
staying home. The government, much maligned in the past
for botching up mass transit construction, deserves credit as well. New
expressways have opened, and some of the construction that has blocked traffic
lanes for years has been cleared. The good times may not last, however, at least
for motorists. If traffic flow is in fact a reliable economic indicator,
Thailand may be on the rebound. "The last few days," says taxi driver Boonlarb
Srikam, "I've noticed the traffic getting busy again." Bring out those portable
toilets.
单选题Telling your doctor about all the medicines you take may help avoid
serious drug ______.
A. interactions
B. interruptions
C. interventions
D. institutions
单选题 We wouldn't have imagined it? After years on top,
Nike suddenly looks like a world-class marathoner who, in mid-race, questions
whether he's got what it takes to keep on running. Nike's symptoms of distress:
a global glut of shoes, flat sales in key market, and declining profits.
Moreover, the global brand champ that captured its own winning corporate mindset
with the "Just do it" ad slogan has a new pitch. "I can"— to which investors
seem to be restoring. "No, you can't." Losing faith, they have knocked Nike
stock from its all time high of $76 about a year ago to a recent $46.
What happened? While Nike has tripped on fickle fashion trends and
heightened competition before, its main obstacle today appears to be its own
success. Here's why: Big-brand backlash. When he founded Nike
in 1972, CEO Phil Knight contended that "if five cool guys—the best and most
popular athletes—wore his shoes, other people would want to as well. The
strategy worked wonderfully, of course, and now Nike controls an astounding 47%
of the U.S. athletic shoe market. But the brand has become too common to be
cool. "I call it the Izod syndrome." says John Horan., publisher of Sporting
Goods Intelligence, referring to the once-hip golf shirt. "Nike is everywhere."
Brand expert Watts Wacker, chairman of the consulting firm First Matter,
believes that the ubiquity of the Nike logo —the over—Swooshing of America—turns
off important core consumers, the 12-24-year-olds. "When I was
growing up: we used to say to that rooting for Yankees is like rooting for U.S.
Steel," Wacker says. "Today, rooting for Nike is like rooting for
Microsoft." The Marlboro mistake. Indeed, many cool-conscious
youngsters have gravitated to other brands such as Adidas (which sells sneakers
at lower prices) and Timberland (a leader in the outdoorsy "brown shoes" trend).
Instead of responding with hotter products or lower prices, Nike did what many
overconfident giants do (think Marlboro, pre-Marlboro Friday): It raises its
price ahead of inflation. "Retailers loaded up, but the products weren't
necessarily reaching consumers' closets," says Josie Esquivel, who follows Nike
for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. Now, Nike is paying with price cuts—in the 50%
range—last tear's models (except the irrepressible Air Jordan line).
The (Asian) economy, stupid. Nike's inventory glut is messiest in Asia,
largely because the company operates few outlet stores there. (In the U.S. Nike
sells almost half of its leftover shoes through its 41 factory stores and the
rest through discounters like T. J. Max) Also, Nike was particularly ill
prepared for Asia's economic collapse because Knight has long believed his
company's sales are recession-resistant. Management expected revenues in Asia to
almost double this year, from $1.2 billion, but retailers canceled orders at
alarming rates. It looks as though sales will rise marginally at best.
Waffling on Wall Street. Nike worsened its woes by failing to acknowledge
them soon enough. "Early last year, there was a major crack I the day," says
analyst Esquivel. "It took them over two months to say, 'Oops, we have
problems." She lowered her rating on the stock from buy to hold last May just
before Nike warned that profits would fall short of expectations. As more
negative news followed, Some analysts complained that management was hard to
reach for information. One executive, CFO Robert Falcone, antagonized major
shareholders and left in January. Will Nike get back up to
speed? Probably it's one of the world's most powerful brands, and Knight is
resilient as well as smart. But the recovery will be long and painful. Knight
and his senior managers are currently working on a plan to close facilities and
reduce Nike's work force worldwide. A big restructuring charge will hit profits
hard this year, and growth will likely be slow during the few years.
In order to recover, Nike will certainly need flesh products to excite
bored consumers. "The lineup for the coming year looks OKEY," says Ralph Parks,
president of Foot Action, the second—largest athletic—shoe specialty retailer.
"It looks better than 1997's, but I'm not sure that core consumer is quite ready
to jump back in." Most important, Nike needs a new vision of
itself and its brand. This task belongs to Knight, who turned 60 a few weeks ago
and says he plans to work until he dies. That's a good thing, because the boss's
favorite motto "There is no finish line" seems more appropriate now than
ever.
