单选题The best time to view the Mona Lisa, according to a new book on the best times to do things, is around nine o'clock on a Sunday morning: most tourists, it seems, don't realise that the Louvre is open then, while plenty of those who do will still be 27 from the wine-fuelled excesses of Saturday night. The best night to eat at a restaurant is a Tuesday: no crowds, but better than a Monday, since many restaurants don't get weekend deliveries, malting Monday's food less 28 . Such is the 29 but strangely compelling life-advice collected within the covers of Buy Ketchup In May And Fly At Noon, by Mark Di Vincenzo, a book that takes literally the cliché that timing is everything. But the 30 of his outlook are universal. If there's a perfect time to ask for a pay rise or a date, or a perfect moment in life to buy a house, have children or switch jobs, then there's hope for us all, ff only we can time things right. Of course, there's no such 31 art of timing that will make everything run smoothly. But one general principle that does 32 from Di Vincenzo's book is this: it pays, in life, to learn when and how to deliberately 33 out of synchronise (同步) with the rest of the world. Sometimes, this is a simple question of 34 the crowds: obviously, that's the reason for holidaying off season, and it's why Di Vincenzo recommends calling customer-service lines the moment they open, when call volume is lowest. But there's more to the matter than 35 avoiding peak times: with a little cunning (技巧), you can desynchronise yourself from the crowd so as to make their 36 behaviour work to your advantage. A. numerous B. avoiding C. worldly D. implications E. implied F. secret G. fresh H. engagements I. recovering J. emerge K. merely L. herd M. superior N. conversely O. fall

单选题 Bernard Bailyn has recently reinterpreted the early history of the United States by applying new social research findings on the experiences of European migrants. In his reinterpretation, migration becomes the organizing principle for rewriting the history of preindustrial North America. His approach rests on four separate propositions. The first of these asserts that residents of early modern England moved regularly about their countryside; migrating to the New World was simply a natural spillover. Although at first the colonies held little positive attraction for the English-they would rather have stayed home-by the 18th century people increasingly migrated to America because they regarded it as the land of opportunity. Secondly, Bailyn holds that, contrary to the notion that used to flourish in America history textbooks, there was never a typical New World community. For example, the economic and demographic character of early New England towns varied considerably. Bailyn's third proposition suggest two general patterns prevailing among the many thousands of migrants: one group came as indentured servants, another came to acquire land. Surprisingly, Bailyn suggests that those who recruited indentured servants were the driving forces of transatlantic migration. These colonial entrepreneurs helped determine the social character of people who came to preindustrial North America. At first, thousands of unskilled laborers were recruited; by the 1730's, however, American employers demanded skilled artisans. Finally, Bailyn argues that the colonies were a half-civilized hinterland of the European culture system. He is undoubtedly correct to insist that the colonies were part of an Anglo-American empire. But to divide the empire into English core and colonial periphery, as Bailyn does, devalues the achievements of colonial culture. It is true, as Bailyn claims, that high culture in the colonies never matched that in England. But what of seventeenth-century New England, where the settlers created effective laws, built a distinguished university, and published books? Bailyn might respond that New England was exceptional. However, the ideas and institutions developed by New England Puritans had powerful effects on North American culture. Although Bailyn goes on to apply his approach to some thousands of indentured servants who migrated just prior to the revolution, he fails to link their experience with the political development of the United States. Evidence presented in his work suggests how we might make such a connection. These indentured servants were treated as slaves for the period during which they had sold their time to American employers. It is not surprising that as soon as they served their time they passed up good wages in the cities and headed west to ensure their personal independence by acquiring land. Thus, it is in the west that a peculiarly American political culture began, among colonists who were suspicious of authority and intensely anti-aristocratic.

单选题 Now listen to the following recording and answer questions20-23.

单选题 Welcome, Freshmen. Have an iPod. A. Taking a step that many professors may view as a bit counterproductive, some colleges and universities are doling out Apple iPhones and Internet-capable iPods to their students. The always-on Internet devices raise some novel possibilities, like tracking where students gather together. With far less controversy, colleges could send messages about canceled classes, delayed buses, campus crises or just the cafeteria menu. B. While schools emphasize its usefulness—online research in class and instant polling of students, for example—a big part of the attraction is, undoubtedly, that the iPhone is cool and a hit with students. Being equipped with one of the most recent cutting-edge IT products could just help a college or university foster a cutting-edge reputation. Apple stands to win as well, hooking more young consumers with decades of technology purchases ahead of them. The lone losers, some fear, could be professors. C. Students already have laptops and cell phones, of course, but the newest devices can take class distractions to a new level. They practically beg a user to ignore the long-suffering professor struggling to pass on accumulated wisdom from the front of the room—a prospect that teachers find most irritating and students view as, well, inevitable. 'When it gets a little boring, I might pull it out, ' acknowledged Naomi Pugh, a first-year student at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn., referring to her new iPod Touch, which can connect to the Internet over a campus wireless network. She speculated that professors might try even harder to make classes interesting if they were to compete with the devices. D. Experts see a movement toward the use of mobile technology in education, though they say it is in its infancy as professors try to come up with useful applications. Providing powerful hand-held devices is sure to fuel debates over the role of technology in higher education. E. 'We think this is the way the future is going to work, ' said Kyle Dickson, co-director of research and the mobile learning initiative at Abilene Christian University in Texas, which has bought more than 600iPhones and 300 iPods for students entering this fall. Although plenty of students take their laptops to class, they don't take them everywhere and would prefer something lighter. Abilene Christian settled on the devices after surveying students and finding that they did not like hauling around their laptops, but that most of them always carried a cell phone, Dr. Dickson said. F. It is not clear how many colleges and universities plan to give out iPhones and iPods this fall; officials at Apple were unwilling to talk about the subject and said that they would not leak any institution's plans.' We can't announce other people's news, ' said Greg Joswiak, vice president of iPod and iPhone marketing at Apple. He also said that he could not discuss discounts to universities for bulk purchases. At least four institutions—the University of Maryland, Oklahoma Christian University, Abilene Christian and Freed-Hardeman—have announced that they will give the devices to some or all of their students this fall. G. Other universities are exploring their options. Stanford University has hired a student-run company to design applications like a campus map and directory for the iPhone. It is considering whether to issue iPhones but not sure it's necessary, noting that more than 700 iPhones were registered on the university's network last year. H. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, iPhones might already have been everywhere, if ATT, the wireless carrier offering the iPhone in the United States, had a more reliable network, said Andrew Yu, mobile devices platform project manager at M. I.T. 'We would have probably gone ahead with this, maybe just getting a thousand iPhones and giving them out, ' Mr. Yu said. I. The University of Maryland at College Park is proceeding cautiously, giving the iPhone or iPod Touch to 150 students, said Jeffrey Huskarnp, vice president and chief information officer at the university. 'We don't think that we have all the answers, ' Mr. Huskamp said. By observing how students use the gadgets, he said, 'We're trying to get answers from the students.' J. At each college, the students who choose to get an iPhone must pay for mobile phone service. Those service contracts include unlimited data use. Both the iPhones and the iPod Touch devices can connect to the Internet through campus wireless networks. With the iPhone, those networks may provide faster connections and longer battery life than ATT's data network. Many cell phones allow users to surf the Web, but only some newer ones are capable of wireless connection to the local area computer network. K. University officials say that they have no plans to track their students (and Apple said it would not be possible unless students give their permission). They say that they are drawn to the prospect of learning applications outside the classroom, though such lesson plans have yet to surface. L. 'My colleagues and I are studying something called augmented reality (a field of computer research dealing with the combination of real-world and virtual reality), ' said Christopher Dede, professor in learning technologies at Harvard University, 'Alien Contact, ' for example, is an exercise developed for middle-school students who use hand-held devices that can determine their location. As they walk around a playground or other area, text, video or audio pops up at various points to help them try to figure out why aliens were in the schoolyard. 'You can imagine similar kinds of interactive activities along historical lines, ' like following the Freedom Trail in Boston, Professor Dede said. 'It's important that we do research so that we know how well something like this works.' M. The rush to distribute the devices worries some professors, who say that students are less likely to participate in class if they are multi-tasking. 'I'm not someone who's anti-technology, but I'm always worried that technology becomes an end in and of itself, and it replaces teaching or it replaces analysis, 'said Ellen Millender, associate professor of classics at Reed College in Portland, Ore. (She added that she hoped to buy an iPhone for herself once prices fall.) N. Robert Summers, who has taught at Cornell Law School for about 40 years, announced this week—in a detailed, footnoted memorandum—that he would ban laptop computers from his class on contract law. 'I would ban that too if I knew the students were using it in class, ' Professor Summers said of the iPhone, after the device and its capabilities were explained to him. 'What we want to encourage in these students is an active intellectual experience, in which they develop the wide range of complex reasoning abilities required of good lawyers.' O. The experience at Duke University may ease some concerns. A few years ago, Duke began giving iPods to students with the idea that they might use them to record lectures (these older models could not access the Internet). 'We had assumed that the biggest focus of these devices would be consuming the content, 'said Tracy Futhey, vice president for information technology and chief information officer at Duke. But that is not all that the students did. They began using the iPods to create their own 'content, ' making audio recordings of themselves and presenting them. The students turned what could have been a passive interaction into an active one, Ms. Futhey said.

单选题 Latino youths need better education for Arizona to take full advantage of the possibilities their exploding population offers. Arizona's fast-growing Latino population offers the state tremendous promise and a challenge. Even more than the aging of the baby boomers, the Latino boom is fundamentally reorienting the state's economic and social structure. Immigration and natural increase have added 600,000 young Latino residents to the state's population in the past decade. Half of the population younger than 18 in both Phoenix and Tucson is now Latino. Within 20 years, Latinos will make up half of the homegrown entry-level labour pool in the state's two largest labour markets. What is more, Hispanics are becoming key economic players. Most people don't notice it, but Latinos born in Arizona make up much of their immigrant parents' economic and educational deficits. For example, second-generation Mexican-Americans secure an average of 12 grades of schooling where their parents obtained less than nine. That means they erase 70 percent of their parents' lag behind third-generation non-Hispanic Whites in a single generation. All of this hands the state a golden opportunity. At a time when many states will struggle with labour shortages because of modest population growth, Arizona has a priceless chance to build a populous, hardworking and skilled workforce on which to base future prosperity. The problem is that Arizona and its Latino residents may not be able to seize this opportunity. Far too many of Ari zona's Latinos drop out of high school or fail to obtain the basic education needed for more advanced study. As a result, educational deficits are holding back many Latinos—and the state as well. To be sure, construction and low-end service jobs continue to absorb tens of thousands of Latino immigrants with little formal education. But over the long term, most of Arizona's Latino citizens remain ill-prepared to prosper in an increasingly demanding knowledge economy. For the reason, the educational uplift of Arizona's huge Latino population must move to the centre of the state's agenda. After all, the education deficits of Arizona's Latino population will severely cramp the fortunes of hardworking people if they go unaddressed and could well undercut the state's ability to compete in the new economy. At the entry level, slower growth rates may create more competition for low-skill jobs, displacing Latinos from a significant means of support. At the higher end, shortages of Latinos educationally ready to move up will make it that much harder for knowledge-based companies staff high-skill positions.

单选题 近年来，中国政府进一步加大体育馆建设投资，以更好地满足人们快速增长的健身需求。除了新建体育馆外，许多城市还采取了改造旧工厂和商业建筑等措施，来增加当地体育馆的数量。在政府资金的支持下，越来越多的体育馆向公众免费开放，或者只收取少量费用。许多体育馆通过应用现代信息技术大大提高了服务质量。人们可以方便地在线预订场地和付费。可以预见，随着运动设施的不断改善，愈来愈多的人将会去体育馆健身。

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a letter of congratulation. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words following the outline given below. 假设你是刘敏，你的朋友伊丽莎白因工作能力和学习能力突出获得了去华盛顿大学进修MBA的机会，请写一封信祝贺她。 1．祝贺朋友获得海外进修的机会 2．分析获此机会给朋友带来的影响 3．表达良好的祝愿

单选题It seems to be a law in the technology industry that leading companies eventually lose their positions, often quickly and brutally. Mobile phone champion Nokia, one of Europe's biggest technology success stories, was no 27 , losing its market share in just a few years. In 2007, Nokia accounted for more than 40% of mobile phone sales 28 . But consumers' preferences were already 29 toward touch-screen smartphones. With the introduction of Apple's iPhone in the middle of that year, Nokia's market share 30 rapidly and revenue plunged. By the end of 2013, Nokia had sold its phone business to Microsoft. What sealed Nokia's fate was a series of decisions made by Stephen Elop in his position as CEO, which he 31 in October 2010. Each day that Elop spent in charge of Nokia, the company's market value declined by $23 million, making him, by the numbers, one of the worst CEOs in history. But Elop was not the only person at 32 . Nokia's board resisted change, making it impossible for the company to adapt to rapid shifts in the industry. Most 33 , Jorma Ollila, who had led Nokia's transition from an industrial company to a technology giant, was too fascinated by the company's 34 success to recognize the change that was needed to sustain its competitiveness. The company also embarked on a 35 cost-cutting program, which included the elimination of thousands of jobs. This contributed to the 36 of the company's once-spirited culture, which had motivated employees to take risks and make miracles. Good leaders left the company, taking Nokia's sense of vision and directions with them. Not surprisingly, much of Nokia's most valuable design and programming talent left as well. A. assumed F. fault K. shifting B. bias G. incidentally L. shrank C. desperate H. notably M. subtle D. deterioration I. previous N. transmitting E. exception J. relayed O. worldwide