阅读理解It may look like just another playgroup, but a unique educational center in Manhattan is really giving babies something to talk about. "It''s a school to teach languages to babies and young children with games, songs—some of the classes also have arts and crafts," said Francois Thibaut, the founder of the Langrage Workshop for Children, a place where babies become bilingual. Children as young as few months are exposed to French and Spanish before many of them can even speak English. Educators use special songs and visual (视觉的) aids to ensure that when a child is ready to talk, the languages will not be so foreign. "Children have a unique capacity to learn many languages at the same time," said Thibaut. "Already at nine months, a child can tell the differences between the sounds he or she has heard since birth and the sounds he or she has never heard yet." Thibaut says the best time to expose children to language is from birth to 3 years old. For the last 30 years, the school has been using what it calls the Thibarut Technique, a system that combines language lessons with child''s play. "I always wanted to learn Spanish, but by the time I got to high school it was too late to pick it up and speak fluently," said Marc Lazare, who enrolled his son at the school. "I figured at this age, two, it''s a perfect time for him to learn." Aside from learning a language, the kids also gain a tremendous sense of confidence. One young student boasted that aside from French, she can speak five languages (though that included "monkey" and "lion"). The school gives children the tools to communicate, and sometimes that gives them an advantage over their parents. "I think they sometimes speak French when they think I won''t understand them," said parent Foster Gibbons. Depending on the age group, classes run from 45 minutes up to 2 hours. Even when students are not in class, the program is designed to make sure the learning continues at home. Tapes and books are included so kids can practice on their own.

阅读理解Whether you are logging on to your personal computer, using a credit card, or disarming a door security system, passwords or PINs(personal identification numbers) jealously guard access to numerous regular operations. It is estimated that within ten years, consumers could be faced with handling more than 100 passwords! Given the popularity of passwords, how can you choose ones that are sufficiently complicated to he secure yet are simple enough to remember? There are basic guidelines to bear in mind. First, don''t use as a password your name or that of a member of your family, even in modified form. Also avoid use of your telephone number, your Social Security number, or your address. Such information can easily be obtained by a determined hacker (黑客). In addition, if possible, don''t use passwords made up entirely of letters or digits. A relatively simple computer program can crack such a code quickly. Finally, do not use a word that can be found in any dictionary, even a foreign-language one. Huge lists are available that contain words, place names, and proper names from all languages. Programs can test for variations of these words, such as if they are spelled backward, capitalized, or combined. So, what kinds of passwords should be used? Usually ones that have a minimum of six to eight characters and that have a mixture of upper-and lower-case letters, digits, and punctuation (标点) symbols. How difficult is it to crack such a combination of characters? One source says that "a machine that could try one million passwords per second would require, on the average, over one hundred years." How can you choose a combination that is easy to remember? Some suggest that you take the title of a favorite book or film or a line from a song or poem and use the first letter from each word as your password, adding capital letters, punctuation, or other characters. For example, "to be or not to be" could become "2B/not2B". Other suggestions include taking two short words and link them with a punctuation character, such as "High.?Bug " or "Song; Tree". Taking into account the suggestions outlined above can help you to protect important information from unwanted hackers. Remember, too, the importance of changing your passwords regularly. Just a final comment: Whatever passwords you decide to use, don''t pick any of the examples given above.

阅读理解The loudest outcry (大声疾呼) about poverty seemed to come in the wealthiest country by far in the world. According to most calculations, through most of the 1945-1970 period the United States had a standard of living well above Europe''s and many times above the world average. Yet protests about grinding poverty, hunger, and dreadful need proceed from the United States than from countries with one fortieth of their living standard. (An annual per capita income of eight dollars is typical of much of Africa and Asia and not a little of South America.) It would seem strange to these people(they were only aware of the fact) that American radicals demand a retreat from an American commitment to the far concerns of the globe so that the money thus saved can be spent raising the standard of living of underprivileged Americans. What this last point suggests is not so much that human wants all never to be satisfied though this is doubtless true, and the American suburbanite (郊区居民) deprived of his second car and his color TV suffers just as acutely as an African farmer in need of a second cow and a screen door. Rather, it suggests the extent of contemporary broach (违背) of social norms—the emancipation (解放) of the individual self. People have learned that their wants are sacred and right ought to be satisfied. They have learned to consider any obstacle to personal fulfillment an intolerable insult They have greatly expended the circle of self-awareness. They no longer accept sharp limitations on individual desires in the name of the group. The amount of potential human discontent has always been infinite misery, failure, misfitting, bitterness, hatred, envy beyond telling. It has usually failed of utterance, and in the past it was accepted passively as being beyond help.

阅读理解The way people hold to the belief that a fun-filled, pain-free life equals happiness actually reduces their chances of ever attaining real happiness. If fun and pleasure are equal to happiness then pain must be equal to unhappiness. But in fact, the opposite is true: more often than not things that lead to happiness involve some pain. As a result, many people avoid the very attempts that are the source of true happiness. They fear the pain inevitably brought by such things as marriage, raising children, professional achievement, religious commitment (承担的义务), self improvement. Ask a bachelor (单身汉) why he resists marriage even though he finds dating to be less and less satisfying. If he is honest he will tell you that he is afraid of making a commitment. For commitment is in fact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun, adventure, excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most distinguishing features. Couples with infant children are lucky to get a whole night''s sleep or a three day vacation. I don''t know any parent who would choose the word fun to describe raising children. But couple who decide not to have children never know the joys of watching a child grow up or of playing with a grandchild. Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is one of the most liberating realizations. It liberates time: now we can devote more hours to activities that can genuinely increase our happiness. It liberates money: buying that new car or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy: we now understand that all those who are always having so much fun actually may not be happy at all.

阅读理解More and more, the operations of our businesses, governments, and financial institutions are controlled by information that exists only inside computer memories. Anyone clever enough to modify this information for his purpose can gain substantial rewards. Even worse, a number of people who have done this and been caught at it have managed to get away without punishment. It''s easy for computer crimes to go undetected if no one checks up on what the computer is doing. But even if the crime is detected, the criminal may walk away not only unpunished but with a glowing recommendation from his former employers. Of course, we have no statistics on crime that go undetected. But it''s disturbing to note how many of the crimes we do know about were detected by accident, not by systematic inspections or other security procedures. The computer criminals who have been caught may be the victims of uncommonly bad luck. For example, a certain keypunch operator complained of having to stay overtime to push extra cards. Investigation revealed that the extra cards she was being asked to punch were for dishonest transactions. In another case, dissatisfied employees of the thief tipped off the company that was being robbed. Unlike other lawbreakers, who must leave the country, commit suicide, or go to jail, computer criminals sometimes escape punishment demanding not only that they not be charged but that they be given good recommendations and perhaps other benefits. All too often, their demands have been met. Why? Because company executives are afraid of the bad publicity that would result if the public found out that their computer had been misused. They hesitate at the thought of a criminal boasting in open court of how he juggled the most confidential records right under the noses of the company''s executives, accountants, and security staff. And so another computer criminal departs with just the recommendations he needs to continue his crimes elsewhere.

阅读理解Next week, as millions of families gather for their Thanksgiving (感恩节) feasts, many other Americans will go without. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, more than 12 million households lack enough food for everyone in their family at some time during the year—including holidays. Hunger is surprisingly widespread in our country—one of the world''s wealthiest—yet the government estimates that we waste almost 100 billion pounds of food each year, more than one-quarter of our total supply. Reducing this improper distribution of resources is a goal of America''s Second Harvest, the nation''s largest domestic hunger-relief organization. Last year, it distributed nearly 2 billion pounds of food to more than 23 million people in need. America''s Second Harvest is a network of 214 inter-connected food banks and other organizations that gather food from growers, processors, grocery stores and restaurants. In turn, the network distributes food to some 50,000 soup kitchens, homeless shelters and old people''s centers in every county of every state. A great deal of work is involved in distributing tons of food from thousands of donors (捐赠者) to hundreds of small, nonprofit organizations. Until a few years ago, America''s Second Harvest lacked any effective way to manage their inventory. Without accurate and timely information, soup kitchens were sometimes empty while food was left to spoil in loading places. In 2000, America''s Second Harvest began to use a new inventory and financial-management system—Ceres. It is software designed specifically for hunger-relief operations. It is used by more than 100 America''s Second Harvest organizations to track food from donation to distribution. Ceres has helped reduce the spoiling of food and improve distribution. An evaluation found that the software streamlined food banks'' operations by 23 percent in the first year alone. With more accurate and timely reports, Ceres saves time, flees staff members to focus on finding new donors, and promises more efficient use of donations. Hunger in America remains a troubling social problem. Technology alone cannot solve it. But in the hands of organizations such as America''s Second Harvest, it is a powerful tool that is helping to make a difference—and helping more Americans to join in the feast.

阅读理解Which of the following statements would the author agree with?

阅读理解In science, a theory is a reasonable explanation of observed events that are related. A theory often involves an imaginary model that helps scientists picture the way an observed event could be produced. A good example of this is found in the kinetic (运动的) molecular theory, in which gases are pictured as being made up of many small particles that are in constant motion. A useful theory, in addition to explaining past observations, helps to predict events that have not as yet been observed. After a theory has been publicized, scientists design experiments to test the theory. If observations confirm the scientists'' predictions, the theory is supported. If observations do not confirm the predictions, the scientists must search further. There may be a fault in the experiment, or the theory may have to be revised or rejected. Science involves imagination and creative thinking as well as collecting information and performing experiments. Facts by themselves are not science. As the mathematician Jules Henri Poincare said: "Science is built with facts just as a house is built with bricks, but a collection of facts cannot be called science anymore than a pile of bricks can be called a house." Most scientists start an investigation by finding out what other scientists have learned about a particular problem. After known facts have been gathered, the scientist comes to the part of the investigation that requires considerable imagination. Possible solutions to the problem are formulated. These possible solutions are called hypotheses. In a way, any hypothesis is a leap into the unknown. It extends the scientist''s thinking beyond the known facts. The scientist plans experiments, performs calculations, and makes observations to test hypotheses. For without hypotheses, further investigation lacks purpose and direction. When hypotheses are confirmed, they are incorporated into theories.

阅读理解International airlines have rediscovered the business travelers, the man or woman who regularly jets from country to country as part of the job. This does not necessarily mean that airlines ever abandoned their business travelers. Indeed, companies like Lufthansa and Swissair would rightly argue that they have always catered best for the executive class passengers. But many lines could be accused of concentrating too heavily in the recent past on attracting passengers by volume, often at the expense of regular travelers. Too often, they have seemed geared for quantity rather than quality. Operating a major airline in the 1980s is essentially a matter of finding the right mix of passengers. The airlines need to fill up the back end of their wide-bodied jets with low fare passengers, without forgetting that the front end should be filled with people who pay substantially more for their tickets. It is no coincidence that the two major airline bankruptcies in 1982 were among the companies specializing in cheap flights. But low fares require consistently full aircraft to make flights economically viable, and in the recent recession the volume of traffic has not grown. Equally the large number of airlines jostling for the available passengers has created a huge excess of capacity. The net result of excess capacity and cutthroat competition driving down fares has been to push some airlines into collapse and leave many others hovering on the edge. Against this severe background, it is no surprise that airlines are turning increasingly towards the business travelers to improve their rates of return. They have invested much time and effort to establish exactly what the executive demands for sitting apart from the tourists. High on the list of priorities is punctuality; an executive''s time is money. In-flight service is another area where the airlines are jostling for the executive''s attention. The free drinks and headsets and better foods are all part of the lure.

单选题He talked a lot about things and persons ______ they remembered in the school.

单选题Don"t you know it"s the first time he ______ this kind of meeting?

单选题Every man is not polite, and all are not born ______.

单选题Bacteria are sometimes ______ too small to be seen without a microscope.

单选题He often quoted "reason over passion" as maxim in ______ the long-standing division among Canada's English-speaking majority and the French-descended minority concentrated in his home province of Quebec.

单选题Suppose you tried to lift a 100-pound rock two feet, you______more work than if you______ it one feet.

单选题Speaker A: I'd like to buy a copy of Professor Franklin's book on shells. Speaker B: ______ A. Are you one of Professor Franklin's students? B. But I like his book on fish better than that on shells. C. I'm sorry, sir. That book has been out of print for some time now. D. Will you pay over there at the cashier?

单选题Don't forget to ______ your letter before you mail it. A. fasten B. shut C. seal D. stick

单选题A: If you like, I can help you paint the room tomorrow. B: __________________ A. Thanks a lot. But I think I can manage it myself. B. No. Don't worry about that. C. I don't like it. Thanks anyway. D. I'm sorry. That's not necessary.

单选题Man: The snow is really coming down, isn't it? Woman: Rarely do we get so much snow in December. Question: What does the woman mean? A. It's typical December weather for this region. B. It won't really snow until December. C. Such a large amount of snow is unusual for this month. D. There has never been much snow down South.

单选题______ all the possible disasters mentioned, the one promoting most discussions was a major release of radioactivity from a nuclear power station.