单选题 Questions 21 and 22 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions. Now, listen to the news.

单选题What was the broader Standard and Poor' s 500 index on Thursday?

单选题{{I}}Questions22 to 23 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the news.{{/I}}

单选题I still remember—my hands and my fingertips still remember—what used to lie in store for us on our return to school from the holidays. The trees in the school yard would be in full leaf again and the old leaves would be lying around in scattered heaps like a muddy sea of leaves. "Get that all swept up!" the headmaster would tell us. "I want the whole place cleaned up, at once!" There was enough work there, to last for over a week. Especially since the only tools with which we were provided were our hands, our fingers, our nails. "Now see that it"s done properly, and be quick about it," the headmaster would say to the older pupils, "or you"ll have to answer for it!" So at an order from the older boys we would all line up like peasants about to cut and gather in crops. If the work was not going as quickly as the headmaster expected, the big boys, instead of giving us a helping hand, used to find it simpler to whip us with branches pulled from the trees. In order to avoid these blows, we used to bribe our tyrants with the juicy cakes we used to bring for our midday meal. And if we happened to have any money on us the coins changed hands at once. If we did not do this, if we were afraid of going home with an empty stomach or an empty purse, the blows were redoubled. They hit us so violently and with such devilish enjoyment that even a deaf and dumb person would have realized that we were being whipped not so much to make us work harder, but rather to beat us into a state of obedience in which we would be only too glad to give up our food and money. Occasionally one of us, worn out by such calculated cruelty, would have the courage to complain to the headmaster. He would of course be very angry, but the punishment he gave the older boys was always very small—nothing compared to what they had done to us. And the fact is that however much we complained our situation did not improve in the slightest. Perhaps we should have let our parents know what was going on, but somehow we never dreamed of doing so; I don"t know whether it was loyalty or pride that kept us silent, but I can see now that we were foolish to keep quiet about it, for such beatings were completely foreign to our nature.

单选题All ______ at the present time is an urgent and rational decision other than endless dispute.

单选题A committee of four men and three women ______ to consider the matter. A. are B. is C. were D. be

单选题The army got the order to arrive at the front immediately, but their advance was ______ by bad weather. A. confused B. hampered C. hammered D. perplexed

单选题Negotiations are likely to be ______by the differences between the two parties.

单选题Questions 18 and 20 are based on the following news. At the end of the passage, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions.Now, listen to the passage.

单选题In contemporary standard, a successful teacher is one ______.

单选题On day one of my self-proclaimed Month of Gratitude, my five-year-old son woke up "bored" at 5:15 a.m., I spied a speeding ticket in my wife's purse, and our water heater spluttered to its death as I was getting into the shower. Ordinarily, I would have started complaining and the day would've been off to an ugly start. But this day was different. How cute my child's dimples (酒窝) are. How fetching my wife's taste for adventure. Only 29 days to go. Just a week earlier, as I struggled with the feeling that I'd been put on this earth to load and unload the dishwasher, I'd decided it was time to end my reflexive complaining. But it wasn't simply the little things that were annoying me. All of a sudden, my friends were dealing with bad news--cancer diagnoses, divorce, job loss. Shouldn't I be celebrating my relative good fortune? I'd heard about the feel-good benefits of a gratitude attitude. Hoping for tips, I called professor Emmons, who pioneered research on the benefits of positive thinking. Emmons quoted new studies that indicated that even pretending to be thankful raises levels of the chemicals associated with pleasure and contentment. He recommended keeping a log of everything I'm grateful for in a given week or month. I followed his suggestions, but my first attempts at keeping a gratitude list were pretty weak: coffee, naps, caffeine in general. As my list grew, I found more uplift: freshly picked blueberries; the Beatles' White Album; that I'm not bald. By day three, I was on a tear, thanking every grocery bagger and parent on the playground like I'd just won an Oscar and hanging Post-it notes to remind myself of the next day's thank-you targets: the mailman, my son's math teacher. But soon, the full-on approach started to bum me out. Researchers call it the Pledge of Allegiance effect. "K you overdo gratitude, it loses its meaning or, worse, becomes a chore," professor Emmons told me when I mentioned my slump. Be selective, he advised, and focus on thanking the unsung heroes in your life. Then professor Emmons suggested a "gratitude visit." Think of a person who has made a major difference in your life and whom you've never properly thanked. Compose a detailed letter to him or her that expresses your appreciation in concrete terms, then read it aloud, face-to-face. I immediately flashed on Miss Riggi, my eighth-grade English teacher. She was the first one to open my eyes to Hemingway, Faulkner, and other literary giants. To this day, I am guided by her advice ("Never be boring"). I booked plane tickets to my hometown, Scranton, Pennsylvania. Miss Riggi was shorter than I remember, though unmistakable with her still long, black hair and bright, intelligent eyes. After a slightly awkward hug and small talk, we settled in. I took a deep breath and read. "I want to thank you in person for the impact you've had on my life," I began. "Nearly 30 years ago, you introduced my eighth-grade class to the wonders of the written word. Your passion for stories and characters and your enthusiasm for words made me realize there was a world out there that made sense to me." And whether it was Miss Riggi's enormous smile when I finished the letter, or the way she held it close as we said goodbye, my feeling of peace and joy remained long after I returned home. Since then, I have written several more gratitude letters, and my wife and 1 both summon our "training" when we feel saddled by life. The unpleasant matters are still there, but appreciation, I've learned, has an echo—and it's loud enough to drown out the grumbling of one man emptying the dishwasher.

单选题The bank manager asked his assistant if it was possible for him to ______ the investment plan within a week. A. work out B. put out C. make out D. set out

单选题 Questions 11 to 13 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the passage.

单选题One effect of the railways coming to central London was to stimulate the building of______

单选题The author seems, in the last paragraph of this passage, ______.

单选题Many people believe that our species ______ threatened with extinction.[A] is[B] are[C] are to be[D] used to be

单选题How did Maggie get to the Peak?