阅读理解There are a great many careers in which the increasing emphasis is on specialization. You find these careers in engineering, in production, in statistical work, and in teaching. But there is an increasing demand for people who are able to take in a great area at a glance, people who perhaps do not know too much about any one field. There is, in other words, a demand for people who are capable of seeing the forest rather than the trees, of making general judgement. We can call these people "generalists". And these "generalists" are particularly needed for positions in administration, where it is their job to see that other people do the work, where they have to plan for other people, to organize other people’s work, to begin it and judge it. The specialist understands one field; his concern is with technique and tools. He is a "trained" man; and his educational background is properly technical or professional. The generalist -- and especially the administrator deals with people; his concern is with leadership, with planning, and with direction giving. He is an "educated" man; and the humanities are his strongest foundation. Very rarely is a specialist capable of being an administrator. And very rarely is a good generalist also a good specialist in a particular field. Any organization needs both kinds of people, though different organizations need them in different proportions. It is your task to find out, during our training period, into which of the two kinds of jobs you fit, and to plan your career accordingly. Your first job may turn out to be the right job for you--but this is pure accident. Certainly you should not change jobs constantly or people will become suspicious of your ability to hold any job. At the same time you should not look upon the first job as the final job; it is primarily a training job, an opportunity to understand yourself and your fitness for being an employee.

阅读理解The human brain contains 10 thousand million cells and each of these may have a thousand connections. Such enormous numbers used to discourage us and cause us to dismiss the possibility of making a machine with human-like ability, but now that we have grown used to moving forward at such a pace we can be less sure. Quite soon, in only 10 or 20 years perhaps, we will able to assemble a machine as complex as the human brain, and if we can we will. It may then take us a long time to render it intelligent by loading in the right soft--ware or by altering the architecture but that too will happen. I think it certain that in decades, not centuries, machines of silicon will first to rival and then exceed their human ancestors. Once they exceed us they will be capable of their own design. In a real sense they will be able to reproduce themselves. Silicon will have ended carbon’s long control. And we will no longer be able to claim ourselves to be the finest intelligence in the known universe. As the intelligence of robots increases to match that of humans and as their cost declines through economies of scale we may use them to expand our frontiers, first on earth through their ability to withstand environments, harmful to ourselves. Thus, deserts may bloom and the ocean beds be mined. Further ahead, by a combination of the great wealth this new age will bring and the technology it will provide, the construction of a vast, man created world in space, home to thousands or millions of people, will be within our power.

阅读理解People living on parts of the south coast of England face a serious problem. In 1993, the owners of a large hotel and of several houses discovered, to their horror, that their gardens had disappeared overnight. The sea had eaten into the soft limestone cliffs on which they had been built. While experts were studying the problem. The hotel and several houses disappeared altogether, sliding down the cliff and into the sea. Erosion of the white cliffs along the south coast of England has always been a problem but it has become more serious iii recent years. Dozens of homes have had to be abandoned as the sea has crept farther and farther inland. Experts have studied the areas most affected and have drawn up a map for local people, forecasting the year in which their homes will be swallowed up by the hungry sea. Angry owners have called on the Government to erect sea defenses to protect their homes. Government surveyors have pointed out that in most cases, this is impossible. New sea walls would cost hundreds of millions of pounds and would merely make the waves and currents go further along the coast, shifting the problem from one area to another. The danger is likely to continue, they say, until the waves reach an inland area of hard rock which will not be eaten as limestone is. Meanwhile, if you want to buy a cheap house with an uncertain future, apply to a house agent in one of the threatened areas on the south coast of England. You can get a house for a knockdown price but it may mm out to be a knockdown home.

阅读理解Clearly if we are to participate in the society in which we live we must communicate with other people. A great deal of communicating is performed on a person-to-person basis by the simple means of speech. If we travel in buses, buy things in shops, or eat in restaurants, we are likely to have conversations where we give information or opinions, receive news or comment, and very likely have our views challenged by other members of society. Face-to-face contact is by no means the only form of communication and during the last two hundred years the art of mass communication has become one of the dominating factors of contemporary society. Two things, above others, have caused the enormous growth of the communication industry. Firstly, inventiveness has led to advances in printing, telecommunications, photography, radio and television. Secondly, speed has revolutionized the transmission and reception of communications so that local news often takes a back seat to national news, which itself is often almost eclipsed by international news. No longer is the possession of information confined to a privileged minority. In the last century the wealthy man with his own library was indeed fortunate, but today there are public libraries. Forty years ago people used to flock to the cinema, but now far more people sit at home and turn on the TV to watch a programme that is being channeled into millions of homes. Communication is no longer merely concerned with the transmission of information. The modern communication industry influences the way people live in society and broadens their horizons by allowing access to information, education and entertainment. The printing, broadcasting and advertising industries are all involved with informing, educating and entertaining. Although a great deal of the material communicated by the mass media is very valuable to the individual and to the society of which he is a part, the vast modern network of communications is open to abuse. However, the mass media are with us for better, for worse, and there is no turning back.

阅读理解A recent study, published in last week''s Journal of the American Medical Association, offers a picture of how risky it is to get a lift from a teenage driver. Indeed, a 16-year-old driver with three or more passengers is three times as likely to have a fatal accident as a teenager driving alone. By contrast, the risk of death for drivers between 30 and 59 decreases with each additional passenger. The authors also found that the death rates for teenage drivers increased dramatically after 10 p.m., and especially after midnight. With passengers in the car, the driver was even more likely to die in a late-night accident. Robert Foss, a scientist at the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center, says the higher death rates for teenage drivers have less to do with "really stupid behavior" than with just a lack of driving experience. "The basic issue" he says. "is that adults who are responsible for issuing licenses fail to recognize how complex and skilled a task driving is." Both he and the author of the study believe that the way to mitigate the problem is to have states institute so-called graduated licensing systems in which getting a license is a multistage process. A graduated license requires that a teenager first prove himself capable of driving in the presence of an adult followed by a period of driving with night or passenger restrictions before graduating to full driving privileges. Graduated licensing systems have reduced teenage driver crashes according to recent studies. About half of the states now have some sort of graduated licensing system in place, but only l0 of those states have restrictions on passengers. California is the stricter, with a novice driver prohibited from carrying any passenger under 20 (without the presence of an adult over 25) for the first six months.

阅读理解Which of the following statements about writers is TRUE according to the last paragraph?

阅读理解Sending a child to school in England is a step which many parents do not find easy to take. In theory, at least, the problem is that there are very many choices to make. Let us try to list some of the alternatives between which parents are forced to decide. To begin with, they may ask themselves whether they would like their child to go to a single-sex school or a co-educational school. They may also consider whether he should go to a school which is connected to a particular church or religious group, or whether the school should have no such connections. Another decision is whether the school should be one of the vast majority financed by the State or one of the very small but influential minority of private schools, though this choice is, of course, only available to the small number of those who can pay. Also connected with the question of money is whether the child should go to a boarding school or live at home. Then there is the question of what the child should do at school. Should it be a school whose curriculum lays emphasis, for instance, on necessary skills, such as reading, writing and mathematics, or one which pays more attention to developing the child''s personality, morally, emotionally and socially. Finally, with dissatisfaction with conventional education as great as it is in some circles in England and certainly in the USA, the question might even arise in the parents'' minds as to whether the child should be compelled to go to school at all. Although in practice, some parents may not think twice about any of these choices and send their child to the only school available in the immediate neighbourhood, any parent who is interested enough can insist that as many choices as possible be made open to him, and the system is theoretically supposed to provide them.

阅读理解There seems never to have been a civilization without toys, but when and how they developed is unknown. They probably came about just to give children something to do. In the ancient world, as is today, most boys played with some kinds of toys and most girls with another. In societies where social roles are rigidly determined , boys pattern their play after the activities of their fathers and girls after the tasks of their mothers. This is true because boys and girls are being prepared, even in play, to step into the roles and responsibilities of the adult world. What is remarkable about the history of toys is not so much how they changed over the centuries but how much they have remained the same. The changes have been mostly in terms of craftsmanship, mechanics, and technology. It is the universality of toys with regard to their development in all parts of the world and their persistence to the present that is amazing. In Egypt, the Americas, China, Japan and among the Arctic peoples, generally the same kinds of toys appeared. Variations depended on local customs and ways of life because toys ''imitate their surroundings. Nearly every civilization had dolls, little weapons, toy soldiers, tiny animals and vehicles. Because toys can be generally regarded as a kind of art form, they have not been subject to technological leaps that characterize inventions for adult use. The progress from the wheel to the oxcart to the automobile is a direct line of ascent. The progress from a rattle used by a baby in 3000 BC to one used by an infant today, however, is not characterized by inventiveness. Each rattle is the product of the artistic tastes of the times and subject to the limitations of available materials.

阅读理解The author is ____ about the role of the lnternet in solving mysteries.

阅读理解For centuries in Spain and Latin America, heading home for lunch and a snooze with the family was some thing like a national right, but with global capitalism standardizing work hours, this idyllic habit is fast becoming an endangered pleasure. Ironically, all this is happening just as researchers are beginning to note the health benefits of the afternoon nap. According to a nationwide survey, less than 25 percent of Spaniards still enjoy siestas. And like Spain, much of Latin America has adopted Americanized work schedules, too, With shortened lunch breaks to one hour and requiring its employees to work their eight-hour shift between 7 a. m Before the mandate, workers would break up the shift--going home midday for a long break with the family and returning to work until about 9 or 10 p.m. The idea of siesta is changing in Greece, Italy and Portugal, too, as they rush to join their more "industrious" counterparts in the global market. Most Americans I know covet sleep, but the idea of taking a nap mid-afternoon equates with laziness, un employment and general sneakiness. Yet according to a National Sleep Survey poll, 65 percent of adults do not get enough sleep. Numerous scientific studies document the benefits of nap taking, including one 1997 study on the deleterious effects of sleep deprivation in the journal Internal Medicine. The researchers found that fatigue harms not only marital and social relations but worker productivity. According to Mark Rosekind, a former NASA scientist and founder of Solutions in Cupertino, Calif. , which educates businesses about the advantages of sanctioning naps, we''re biologically programmed to get sleepy between 3 and 5 p. m. and 3 and 5 a.m. Our internal timekeeper-called the circadian clock--operates on a 24-hour rotation and every 12 hours there''s a dip. In accordance with these natural sleep rhythms, Rosekind recommends that naps be either for 40 minutes or for two hours. Latin American countries, asserts Rosekind, have had it right all along. They''ve been in sync with their clocks; we haven''t. Since most of the world is sleep-deprived, getting well under the recommended eight hours a night (adults get an average of 6. S hours nightly), we usually operate on a kind of idle midday. Naps are even more useful now that most of us forfeit sleep because of insane work schedules, longer commute times and stress, In a study published last April, Brazilian medical researchers noted that blood pressure and arterial blood pressure dropped during a siesta.

阅读理解According to the passage, which of the following is CORRECT?

阅读理解Passage Two What comes to mind when you hear the word--diversity? Issues of race or gender may spring to mind.Equal rights? Or minority issues? 　　I encourage people to look at a much wider definition of the word.1 would tend to say diversity is “differentness” in any form.A good example of this kind of diversity has been experienced by every person who ever left behind the comforts of home and moved into uncharted territory.Issues of diversity are informed not only by your cultural background and context，but also by your religion，age，field of work，family situation， personality，and countless other factors that make us unique.Diversity affects everyone. 　　It’s for this reason that diversity has become such a buzz word.The buzz happens because it’s all about how you handle it.It’s very much like the job a composer has when creating a great musical composition.If the composer understands what each unique note and dynamic mark is capable of in combination with the other parts，the result achieved is extraordinary.If, however，none of the parts is communicating with the others，we’re left with a cacophony(刺耳的声音). 　　On a personal level.it’s this understanding and acceptance of “the other” which rests at the core of diversity.Whether we’re talking about navigating through a multicultural urban environment or uprooting and moving to a new foreign social context，it is necessary to set aside rigid assumptions about “the other” and put oneself in the other's shoes. So how do we make this leap? It's often as simple as asking questions and being careful not to assume that what you see is necessarily what the other side sees. 　　Often in my workshops I give a magic lesson to the audience to illustrate this principle. I first present the magic and accomplish the "impossible". The participants receive the same props but simply can't manage. We look more carefully at the situation and realize that the assumptions they made about it actually blocked them from achieving this feat; a feat they suddenly are empowered to do which, moments ago, was impossible. 　　The goal in being sensitive to diversity is to cultivate a culture of respect for people's differences and understand that such an environment is beneficial to everyone involved. 　　Diversity awareness is an evolution. We can't get there by snapping our fingers, and it isn't a matter of training people to have textbook politically correct attitudes. Instead it's a case of looking at the big picture of how we see the world, understanding why we see it that way, and then making sure we do our part to genuinely value difference and benefit from it.

阅读理解Foxes and farmers have never got on well. These small dog-like animals have long been accused of killing farm animals. They are officially classified as harmful and farmers try to keep their numbers down by shooting or poisoning them. Farmers can also call on the services of their local hunt to control the fox population. Hunting consists of pursuing a fox across the countryside, with a group of specially trained dogs, followed by men and women riding homes. When the dogs eventually catch the fox they kill it or a hunter shoots it. People who take part in hunting think of it as a sport; they wear a special uniform of red coats and white trousers, and follow strict codes of behavior. But owning a horse and hunting regularly is expensive, so most hunters are wealthy. It is estimated that up to 100,000 people watch or take part in fox hunting. But over the last couple of decades the number of people opposed to fox hunting, because they think it is brutal, has risen sharply. Nowadays it is rare for a hunt to pass off without some kind of confrontation between hunters and hunt saboteurs. Sometimes these incidents lead to violence, but mostly saboteurs interfere with the hunt by misleading riders and disturbing the trail of the fox''s smell, which the dogs follow. Noisy confrontations between hunters and saboteurs have become so common that they are almost as much a part of hunting as the pursuit of foxes itself. But this year supporters of fox hunting face a much bigger threat to their sport. A Labor Party Member of the Parliament, Mike Poster, is trying to get Parliament to approve a new law which will make the hunting of wild animals with dogs illegal. If the law is passed, wild animals like foxes will be protected under the ban in Britain.

阅读理解In the case of mobile phones, change is everything. Recent research indicates that the mobile phone is changing not only our culture, but our very bodies as well. First, let''s talk about culture. The difference between the mobile phone and its parent, the fixed-line phone, is that a mobile number corresponds to a person, while a landline goes to a place. If you call my mobile , you get me. If you call my fixed-line phone, you get whoever answers it. This has several implications. The most common one, however, and perhaps the thing that has changed our culture forever, is the "meeting" influence. People no longer need to make firm plans about when and where to meet. Twenty years ago, a Friday night would need to be arranged in advance. You needed enough time to allow everyone to get from their place of work to the first meeting place. Now, however, a night out can be arranged on the run. It is no longer "see you there at 8" ,but "text me around 8 and we''ll see where we all are". Texting changes people as well. In their paper, "Insights into the Social and Psychological Effects of SMS Text Messaging", two British researchers distinguished between two types of mobile phone users: the "talkers" and the "texters"— those who prefer voice to text messages and those who prefer text to voice. They found that the mobile phone''s individuality and privacy gave texters the ability to express a whole new outer personality. Texters were likely to report that their family would be surprised if they were to read their texts. This suggests that texting allowed texters to present a self-image that differed from the one familiar to those who knew them well. Another scientist wrote of the changes that mobiles have brought to body language. There are two kinds that people use while speaking on the phone. There is the "speakeasy"; the head is held high, in a self-confident way, chatting away. And there is the "spacemaker": these people focus on themselves and keep out other people. Who can blame them? Phone meetings get cancelled or reformed and camera-phones intrude on people''s privacy. So, it is understandable if your mobile makes you nervous. But perhaps you needn''t worry so much. After all, it is good to talk.

阅读理解The passage is mostly about ______.

阅读理解So long as teachers fail to distinguish between teaching and learning, they will continue to undertake to do for children that which only children can do for themselves. Teaching children to read is not passing reading on to them. It is certainly not endless hours spent in activities about reading. Douglas insists that "reading cannot be taught directly and schools should stop trying to do the impossible." Teaching and learning are two entirely different processes. They differ in kind and function. 7he function of teaching is to create the conditions and the climate that will make it possible for children to devise the most efficient system for teaching themselves to read. Teaching is also a public activity: It can be seen and ob served. Learning to read involves all that each individual does to make sense of the world of printed language. Almost all of it is private, for learning is an occupation of the mind, and that process is not open to public serum. If teacher and learner roles are not interchangeable, what then can be done through teaching that will aid the child in the quest for knowledge? Smith has one principal rule for all teaching instructions. "Make learning to read easy, which means making reading a meaningful, enjoyable and frequent experience for children." When the roles of teacher and learner are seen for what they are, and when both teacher and learner fulfill them appropriately, then much of the pressure and feeling of failure for both is eliminated. Learning to read is made easier when teachers create an environment where children are given the opportunity to solve the problem of learning to read by reading.

阅读理解He was a funny looking man with a cheerful face, good-natured and a great talker. He was described by his student, the great philosopher Plato, as" the best and most just and wisest man." Yet, the same man was condemned to death for his beliefs. The man was the Greek philosopher, Socrates, and he was condemned for not believing in the recognized gods and for corrupting young people. The second charge stemmed from his association with numerous young men who came to Athens from all over the civilized world to study under him. Socrates'' method of teaching was to ask questions and, by pretending not to know the answers, to press his students into thinking for themselves. His teachings had unsurpassed influence on all the great Greek and Roman schools of philosophy. Yet, for all his fame and influence, Socrates himself never wrote a word. Socrates encouraged new ideas and free thinking in the young, and this was frightening to the conservative people. They wanted him silenced. Yet, many were probably surprised that he accepted death so readily. Socrates had the right to ask for a lesser penalty, and he probably could have won over enough of the people who had previously condemned him. But Socrates, as a firm believer in law, reasoned that it was proper to submit to the death sentence. So, he calmly accepted his fate and drank a cup of poison hemlock in the presence of his grief-stricken friends and students.

阅读理解Some people believe that international sport creates goodwill between the nations and that if countries play games together they will I can to live together, Others say that the opposite is true: the international contests encourage false national pride and lead to misunderstanding and hatred. There is probably some troth in both arguments, but in recent years the Olympic Games have done little to support the view that sport encourages international brotherhood. Not only was there the tragic incident involving the murder of athletes, but the Games were also mined by lesser incidents caused principally by minor national contests. One country received its second-place medals with visible indignation after the hockey. There had been noisy scenes at the end of the hockey match, the losers objecting to the final decisions. They were convinced that one of their goals should not have been disallowed and that their opponents'' victory was unfair. Their manager was in a rage when he said "This wasn''t hockey. Hockey and the International Hockey Federation are finished." The president of the Federation said later that such behavior could result in suspension of the team for at least three years. The American basketball team announced that they wouldn''t yield the first place to Russia, after a disputable end to their contest. The game had ended in disturbance. It was thought at first that the United States had won, by a single point, but it was announced that there were three seconds still to play. A Russian player then threw the ball from one end of the court to the other, and another player popped it into the basket. It was the first time the USA had ever lost an Olympic basketball match. An appeal jury debated the matter for four and a half hours before announcing that the result would stand. The American players then voted not to receive the silver medals. Incidents of this kind will continue as long as sport is played competitively rather than for file love of the game. The suggestion that athletes should compete as individuals, or in non-national teams, might be too much to hope for. But in the present organization of the Olympics there is far too much that encourages aggressive patriotism.

阅读理解Some pessimistic experts feel that the automobile is bound to fall into disuse, They see a day in the not. too-distant future when all autos will be abandoned and allowed to rust. Other authorities, however, think the auto is hem to stay. They hold that the car will remain a leading means of urban travel in the foreseeable future. The motorcar will undoubtedly change significantly over the next 30 yearn. It should become smaller, safer, and more economical, and should not be powered by the gasoline engine. The car of the future should be far more pollution-free than present types. Regardless of its power source, the auto in the future will still be the main problem in mi)an traffic congestion. One proposed solution to this problem is the automated highway system. When the auto enters the highway system, a retractable arm will drop from the auto and make contact with a mil, which is similar to those powering subway trains electrically. Once attached to the rail, the car will become electrically powered from the system, and control of the vehicle will pass to a central computer. The computer will then monitor all of the car''s movements. The driver will use a telephone to dial instructions about his destination into the system. The computer will calculate the best mute, and reserve space for the car an the way to the correct exit from the highway. The driver will then be free to relax and wait for the buzzer that win warn him of his coming exit. It is estimated that au automated highway will be able to handle 10,000 vehicles per hour, compared with the 1,500 to 2,000 vehicles that can be carried by a present-day highway.

阅读理解One reason why the outbreak of the disease was not discovered sooner