单选题Questions 62 to 66 are based on the following passage. The era of the cowboy really began after the Civil War ( 1861-1865 ). During this decisive war the Texas cattle had roamed undisturbed in the wild, breeding freely on the plains and greatly increasing in number. By the end of the war, however, Texas was filled with wild cattle. The people in the mushrooming cities of the East and in the Middle West wanted more meat for their diet and local farmers could not keep up with their demands. Therefore, the need for the cowboy emerged from the demands of the people and the nature of the culture. An image of American folklore which has inspired songs, stories, folk tales and legends has been the cowboy. These romantic figures of the wild frontier probably can trace their origin back to the time of the Spanish conquistadors. The Spanish brought with them to the New World many young men who were experienced with cattle and horses. They were to evolve into the modern-day cowboy. These men were handy with tools and knew how to handle a horse. Some of them discovered the use of rope to catch cattle and developed the lariat. Their life was not an easy one. In winter they watched over the herds and in the springtime they selected cattle for market, often driving herds of them hundreds of miles to the nearest town. The cattle were then sold to buyers and the routine would start all over again. The life of a cowboy was an outdoor one endured under harsh conditions. His wide-brimmed hat protected him from the glaring summer sun and his heavy leather jacket and gloves were his defense against the cold winters. His workday was long beginning before sunrise and lasting well into the night. His best friend was his horse and he spent most of his waking hours in the saddle. His speech was a mixture of Spanish and English and at night by a campfire he wove his speech into songs about life on the prairie. A great boon to the life of the cowboy was the building of the railroads which connected eastern cities to those out West. In 1866 when the Kansas and Pacific railroad reached the small dusty village of Abilene in Kansas, the life of the cowboy was connected to the rest of the country. Hundreds of small cow towns grew up along the old trails which led the cattle to market, and thus the west became integrated into the economic life of the country. Today the life of the cowboy is quite different from those early days after the Civil War. Helicopters rather than horses are now used to round up the cattle and modem technology used in the ranches has made the cowboy's life less formidable. Yet, the legends which surround him continue to perpetuate his image as the mastertial hero of the Wild West.

单选题Sign has become a scientific hot button. Only in the past 20 years have specialists in language study realized that signed languages are unique—a speech of the hand. They offer a new way to probe how the brain generates and understands language, and throw new light on an old scientific controversy: whether language, complete with grammar, is something that we are born with, or whether it is a learned behavior. The current interest in sign language has roots in the pioneering work of one rebel teacher at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., the world"s only liberal arts university for deaf people. When Bill Stokoe went to Gallaudet to teach English, the school enrolled him in a course in signing. But Stokoe noticed something odd: among themselves, students signed differently from his classroom teacher. Stokoe had been taught a sort of gestural code, each movement of the hands representing a word in English. At the time, American Sign Language (ASL) was thought to be no more than a form of pidgin English (混杂英语). But Stokoe believed the "hand talk" his students used looked richer. He wondered: Might deaf people actually have a genuine language? And could that language be unlike any other on Earth? It was 1955, when even deaf people dismissed their signing as "substandard". Stokoe"s idea was academic heresy (异端邪说). It is 37 years later. Stokoe—now devoting his time to writing and editing books and journals and to producing video materials on ASL and the deaf culture—is having lunch at a café near the Gallaudet campus and explaining how he started a revolution. For decades educators fought his idea that signed languages are natural languages like English, French and Japanese. They assumed language must be based on speech, the modulation (调节) of sound. But sign language is based on the movement of hands, the modulation of space. "What I said," Stokoe explains, "is that language is not mouth stuff—it"s brain stuff."

单选题There are plenty of studies which show that dogs act as social catalysts (催化剂), helping their owners forge intimate, long-term relationships with other people. But does that apply to the workplace? Christopher Honts and his colleagues at Central Michigan University were surprised to find that there was not much research on this question, and decided to put that right. They wondered in particular if the mere presence of a dog in the office might make people collaborate more effectively. And, they found that it could. To reach this conclusion, they carried out two experiments. In the first, they brought together 12 groups of four individuals and told each group to come up with a 15-second advertisement for a made-up product. Everyone was asked to contribute ideas for the ad, but ultimately the group had to decide on only one. Some of the groups had a dog underfoot throughout, while the others had none. After the task, all the volunteers had to answer a questionnaire on how they felt about working with the other—human—members of the team. Mr. Honts found that those who had had a dog ranked their teammates more highly on measures of trust, team cohesion and intimacy than those who had not. In the other experiment, the researchers explored how the presence of an animal altered players' behaviour in a game known as the prisoner's dilemma. In this game played by the volunteers, all four members of each group had been "charged" with a crime. Individually, they could choose (without being able to talk to the others) either to snitch (告发) on their teammates or to stand by them. Each individual's decision affected the outcomes for the other three as well as for himself in a way that was explained in advance. The lightest sentence would be given to someone who chose to snitch while the other three did not; the heaviest penalty would be borne by a lone non-snitch. The second-best outcome came when all four decided not to snitch. And so on. Having a dog around made volunteers 30% less likely to snitch than those who played without one. The moral, then: more dogs in offices and fewer in police stations.

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单选题 Questions 62 to 66 are based on the following passage. Today, there are many avenues "open to those who wish to continue their education. However, nearly all require some break in one's career in order to attend school full time. Part time education, that is, attending school at night or for one weekend a month, tends to drag the process out over time and puts the completion of a degree program out of reach of many people. Additionally, such programs require a fixed time commitment which can also impact negatively on one's career and family time. Of the many approaches to teaching and learning, however, perhaps the most flexible and accommodating is that called distance learning. Distance learning is an educational method which allows the students the flexibility to study at his or her own pace to achieve the academic goals which are so necessary in today's world. The time required to study may be set aside at the student's convenience with due regard to all life's other requirements. Additionally, the student may enroll in distance learning courses from virtually any place in the world, while continuing to pursue their chosen career. Tutorial assistance may be available via regular airmail, telephone, facsimile machine, teleconferencing and over the Internet. Good distance learning programs are characterized by the inclusion of a subject evaluation tool with every subject. This precludes the requirement for a student to travel away from home to take a test. Another characteristic of a good distance learning program is the equivalence of the distance learning course with the same subject materials as those students taking the course on the home campus. The resultant diploma or degree should also be the same whether distance learning or on-campus study is employed. The individuality of the professor/ student relationship is another characteristic of a good distance learning program. In the final analysis, a good distance learning program has a place not only for the individual student but also the corporation or business that wants to work in partnership with their employees for the educational benefit, professional development, and business growth of the organization. Sponsoring distance learning programs for their employees gives the business the advantage of retaining career-minded people while contributing to their personal and professional growth through education.

单选题Which of the following, if true, would most dearly have supported the conclusion referred to in lines 9—12?

单选题Do you know________direction we are going, north or south?

单选题 Directions: In this section, you will hear 8 short conversations and 2 long conversations. At the endof each conversation, one or more questions will be asked about what was said. Both the conversationand the questions will be spoken only once. After each question there will be a pause. During thepause, you must read the four choices marked A, B, C and D, and decide which is the bestanswer. Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

单选题{{B}}Passage Two{{/B}} The growth of population during the past few centuries is no proof that population will continue to grow straight upward toward infinity and doom. On the contrary, demographic history offers evidence that population growth has not been at all constant. According to paleo-ecologist Edward Deevey, the past million years show three momentous changes. The first, a rapid increase in population around one million B, C, followed the innovations of tool-making and tool-using. But when the new power from the use of tools had been exploited, the rate of world population growth fell and became almost stable. The next rapid jump in population started perhaps 10,000 years ago, when men began to keep herds, plow and plant the earth. Once again when initial productivity gains had been absorbed, the rate of population growth abated. These two episodes suggest that the third great change, the present rapid growth, which began in the West between 250 and 350 years ago, may also slow down when, or if technology begins to yield fewer innovations. Of course, the current knowledge revolution may continue without foreseeable end. Either way contrary to popular belief in constant geometric growth-population can be expected in the long run to adjust to productivity. And when one takes this view, population growth is seen to represent economic progress and human triumph rather than social failure.

单选题Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.

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