单选题Questions 7 and 8 are based on the following news.

单选题{{B}}TEXT D{{/B}} We all believe in something or someone. We must believe, just as we must eat, sleep, and reproduce. Mankind has an insatiable need for and an irresistible attraction to a vast array of beliefs about gods and demons, magic and miracles, truth and falsehood, love and hate, same and different. Implausible, even irrational ideas, have been cherished for centuries. Saints and other martyrs suffered indescribable pain and agony, even death, for their beliefs. Scientists have been put to death for their belief that the earth is round, or that there is an Invisible force called gravity, or that the earth is not the center of the universe with the sun revolving around it, or that the blood circulates throughout the body, or that Man evolving around it, or that the blood circulates throughout the body, or that Man evolved from lower forms of life. Religious leaders have attracted millions of people with their version of how life began and how we must behave. If people do not believe In medicine and science, religion, education, government, and the social contract, chaos results and no society can tolerate that, which is why all societies impose order on their members. We must believe or face unbearable ambiguity and anxiety. Belief is faith and faith is trust and trust is security, predictability. Fear and hope are the twins that shape belief. We fear death, our enemies, illness, the known, the unknown, and punishment. Hope tells us that things will improve. We will not be defeated. We will succeed. It promises ns a good life here and after death. Fear persuades ns to believe that we can be protected, safe, if we join a group whose god is capable of holding evil at bay, then I cling to that group. We dare not, not believe. Furthermore, belief confers upon believers a special status: those who know the truth. Many people believe that their faith will help them to overcome sickness, fear, sorrow, joy, grief etc., each trigger specific endocrinal secretions--hormones and neurotransmitters (adrenalin, serotonin or dopamine) that modify behavior. In order to control this torrent of endocrinal activity, many people turn to their faith because it convinces them that things will improve and that positive attitude cures the body to fight the invading bacteria or virus. Mind and body are totally integrated, supporting the notion that belief (faith) is a very powerful emotional force affecting physical behavior. Is the most effective belief system one that is composed of absolutes--unyielding, unvarying and eternal? The answer is yes, because when we eliminate doubt from a situation we feel secure, restored to balance, but if the belief system is science and is based on objective information without absolutes and requires a questioning attitude, not an accepting one us in most belief systems it unnerves people. They cannot handle the uncertainty, the lack of a God or some omnipotent overseer who eliminates doubt and reassures us that all is well and under control. Any system that offers definitive answers to complex human questions and problems: this is right, this is wrong, this is true, this is false--one question, one answer only, is very appealing. All beliefs require confirmation from an authoritative source whether that be a priest, a rabbi, a shaman, a family member, a special friend, an expert--one who commands obedience and respect. An authenticator. Per- haps all belief is composed of the same elements in approximately the same proportions for even science re- quires a suspension of some disbelief, some uncertainty, however miniscule. Black Holes and the Big Bang are metaphoric truths derived from the physics we know now. But you have to believe, to have faith in the methods of science to gather information, to analyse and interpret it objectively in order to accept its conclusions. No one witnessed the Big Bang, or a Black Hole. These were inferred from careful study and analysis by many re- searchers. Can we devise an alternative to belief? Probably not. Belief pits one group against another. Muslims against Christians, Arabs against Jews, Catholics against Protestants, Serbs against Albanians, because each group insists that all most conform to their beliefs. Belief in an exclusive God divides men and has been a major cause of innumerable bloody wars. Not only religion divides people, but politics divides, socio-economic status divides, color divides and education divides us. In all cases, one group claims possession of the truth and the most sincere faith. All men consider themselves CHOSEN, chosen by their God as the one and only, the best, the most cherished. We need our enemies. The only hope that I can imagine, and it is certainly a very fragile one, is that we all agree to believe whatever we wish and to worship as we choose, but WE WILL ACCEPT EVERY HUMAN TO HUMAN AS WE ARE, worthy of the same respect and care. Do unto others as you would have other do unto you. Simple, universal. Mankind is of a piece biologically, physiologically, and psychologically in that we all need love, peace, security, food, clothing and shelter; we must all sleep, reproduce the species and we do it the same way with the same result. In the mirror you could see me and I could see you, but our cultures have taught us to notice differences in color, speech, clothing, food, marriage, belief in their own distinctively inflect- ed way and that sets us apart. No one will take this suggestion very seriously. They never have, though most institutions have called for the same thing. This is true: your beliefs will separate you from me, may lead you to see me the enemy, and ray beliefs deny or denigrate the validity of your beliefs, but I will not be your enemy, your scapegoat, your excuse for venting suppressed anger and resentment you learned at home, in school, in your church or temple, in your neighborhood. I gain no wealth, no power, no wisdom at your expense, nor do I gain life in your death; we are bound together for our ambiguous stay on this whirling pellet in space. Belief is universal: soothing, comforting and uplifting, but it is the great divider. Perhaps we should take the witty and humorous advice of the American poet E.E. Cummings: "Listen, there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go" from his poem "pity this busy monster, manunkind."

单选题What probably made him enter the art gallery?

单选题Functional Sentence Perspective was put forward by A. the London School. B. the Prague School. C. Boas and Sapir. D. Post-Bloomfieldian linguists.

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单选题{{B}}TEXT D{{/B}} The first performance of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, in St. Petersburg in 1892, was a flop. Wrote one critic the next day: "For dancers there is rather little in it; for art absolutely nothing, and for the artistic fate of our ballet, one more step downward." Two decades passed before another production was attempted. A century later, the ballet constitutes the single biggest fine-arts moneymaker in the United States, which has claimed the ballet as its own. In 1996, box-office receipts for some 2,400 American performances of the work by more than 20,000 dancers totaled nearly U.S. $50 million. Despite the ballet's popularity, however, few Americans are aware of its history -- or of some of the twists and turns of fete that have changed it from its original form. Choreographer Maurice Petipa (known as the "father of classical ballet") prepared the first production for Tchaikovsky in 1892. He based his scenario not on the macabre 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Fang of the Mice by E. T. A. Hoffmann, which the composer had thought to use for his inspiration, but on Alexander Dumas's more benign 1845 French adaptation. Petipa did use the Hoffmann version to name his characters, but mixed up some names because he could not read German. (The heroine of the piece, Clara, should be named Marie according to the story. Clara is in fact the name of one of her dolls.) In the original story the Mouse King had seven heads and terrified the seven-year-old Marie by foaming blood from all seven mouths and grinding and chattering all seven sets of teeth. These memorable characteristics, along with other sinister qualities in Hoffmann's story, are among those aspects of the original that have been removed in most modem adaptations. Removed from the ballet altogether by Petipa is a vital plot-within-a-plot in the Hoffmann story. This is the fairytale related to Marie while she recovers from injuries sustained in the battle between the forces of the Nutcracker and the Mouse King. As a result, the storyline in the ballet does not really make sense. In the fairytale, we learn that the Mouse King's desire for vengeance has its origins in his evil mother, the wily Madam Mouserinks, whose first seven sons have been executed by the royal court for eating all the fat from the royal family's sausages. In retribution, Madam Mouserinks has attacked the little Princess Pirlipat in her cradle, turning her into a misshapen creature whose beauty can be restored only if she eats a certain rare, difficult-to-crack nut called Krakatuk. After many years the nut is finally located in Asia by the court clockmaker and wizard, Drosselmeyer, whose young nephew is identified as a prime candidate to crack it. The young man is already known as "the Nutcracker" for the gallantry he shows in cracking nuts for young ladies in his father's shop. As predicted, he alone is able to crack the hard nut. He offers it to the princess to eat, and her beauty is restored. At that moment, however, the Nutcracker chances to step backwards, trampling on none other than Madam Mouserinks. She is fatally injured, but manages to place a curse on the young man before she dies. He is transformed into a grotesque parody of his former self, with a monstrous head, a yawning mouth and a lever in the back by which his jaw may be moved up and down. Madam Mouserinks sentences him to battle her son, the Mouse King, whom she bore after the death of her seven previous sons, and who has their seven heads. The curse may be removed only when the Nutcracker is able to win the love of a young lady in spite of his ugliness.... Hoffmann, the author of the original Nutcracker story, was as peculiar as many of his characters. Small and wiry, with sunken eyes and dark bushy hair, he had nervous tics that caused his hands, feet and face to twitch constantly. He adored the music of Mozart (and changed one of his middle names from Wilhelm to Amadeus, to honor the great composer), was subject to bouts of deep melancholy and was an alcoholic who sold the rights to his first book for a cellar of wine. He eventually died of a combination of liver disease and a neural illness that gradually paralyzed his body, starting with his feet. Several of Hoffmann's stories provided the basis for operas and ballets. The French composer Jacques Offenbach, for example, used three of his short stories as the basis for The Tales of Hoffmann -- a quite serious piece, breaking with Offenbach's earlier light-hearted style. Tchaikovsky, composer of The Nutcracker, was invited to conduct his work but refused. He was terrified that if he were to mount the podium and try to conduct an orchestra his head might fall off. He died shortly after the first performance of The Nutcracker, during a cholera epidemic -- it was supposed he had been drinking impure water, but a more recent theory suggests that he killed himself out of fear of exposure for a sexual scandal involving the Russian royal family. The author and the composer may have had unusual characteristics, and the story of the Nutcracker itself may be bizarre, but its popularity endures. In recent years American choreographers have played with the formula to bring it up to date. Kirk Peterson's The American Nutcracker is set in the redwood forests of Northern California and replaces some of the characters with legendary or famous American names -- notably 19th-century writer Mark Twain as a party guest. The Pacific Northwest Ballet's popular Nutcracker production uses sets by avant-garde designer Maurice Sendak and plumbs the tale's dark psychological aspects far deeper than most. Production company Ballethnic in Atlanta, Georgia, has an Urban Nutcracker set in Atlanta in the 1940s; costumes in earth, amber and chocolate tones represent the different skin colors of the ethnic mix. In Baton Rouge, Louisianna, the Regional Ballet has in its repertory a Bayou Nutcracker in which Clara falls asleep in a bayou, dreams of a lavish plantation party and travels to the land of sweets in a hot-air balloon. Americans wanting to reclaim some of the psychology of the Hoffmann short story have been investigating choreographer Mark Morris's dark 1991 update since it became available on video. Set in the 1960s, Morris's visionary The Hard Nut probes many of the same moral issues as the Hoffmann original, most of which are lost in today's conventional versions.

单选题The Catcher in the Rye, written by______, shows the youngster's rebellions against the dubious values of the adult world.A. Carl Sandburg B. Thomas Stearns EliotC. Edwin Arlington Robinson D. Jerome David Salinger

单选题[BI reflect the writer's attitude

单选题The author is primarily concerned with describing______.

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单选题The Germanic tribes came to England from the continent about the middle of the 5th century were the Angles, Saxons and______.

单选题Who was the first great American poet to use free verse? A. Edgar Allen Poe B. Walt Whitman C. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow D. Henry David Thoreau

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单选题{{B}}TEXT C{{/B}} Roger Rosenblatt' s book Black Fiction, in attempting to apply literary rather than sociopolitical criteria to its subject, successfully alters the approach taken by most previous studies. As Rosenblatt notes, criticism of Black writing has often served as a pretext for expounding on Black history. Addison Gayle' s recent work, for example, judges the value of Black fiction by overtly political standards, rating each work according to the notions of Black identity which it introduces. Although fiction assuredly springs from political circumstances, its authors react to those circumstances in ways other than ideological, and talking about novels and stories primarily as instruments of ideology outwits much of the fictional enterprise. Rosenblatt' s literary analysis discloses affinities and connections among works of Black fiction which solely political studies have overlooked or ignored. Writing acceptable criticism of Black fiction, however, presupposes giving satisfactory answers to a number of questions. First of all, is there a sufficient reason, other than the racial identity to the authors, to group together works by Black authors? Second, how does Black fiction make itself distinct from other modem fiction with which it is largely contemporaneous? Rosenblatt shows that Black fiction constitutes a distinct body of writing that has an identifiable, coherent literary tradition. Looking at novels written by Blacks over the last eighty years, he discovers recurring concerns and designs independent of chronology. These structures are related to the themes, and they spring, not surprisingly, from the central fact that the Black characters in these novels exist in a predominantly White culture, whether they try to conform to that culture or rebel against it. Black Fiction does leave some aesthetic questions open. Rosenblatt' s theme-based analysis permits considerable objectivity, he even explicitly states that it is not his intention to judge the merit of the various works, yet his reluctance seems misplaced, especially since an attempt to appraise might have led to interesting results. For instance, some of the novels appear to be structurally diffuse. Is this a defect, or are the authors working out of, or trying to forge, a different kind of aesthetic? In addition, the style of some Black novels, like Jean Tommer's Cane, verges on expressionism or surrealism; does this technique provide a counterpoint to the prevalent theme that portrays the fate against which Black heroes are pitted, a theme usually conveyed by more naturalistic modes of expression? In spite of such omissions, what Rosenblatt does include in his discussion makes for an astute and worthwhile study. Black Fiction surveys a wide variety of novels, bringing to our attention in the process some fascinating and little-known works like James Weldon Johnson' s Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man. Its argument is tightly constructed, and its forthright, lucid style exemplifies levelheaded and penetrating criticism.

单选题Government scientists listed formaldehyde (甲醛) as a Carcinogen, substance that produces cancer, and said it is found in worrisome quantifies in glued board, particle board, and hair salons. They also said that styrene (苯乙烯), which is used in boats, bathtubs and in disposable foam plastic cups and plates, may cause cancer but is generally found in such low levels in consumer products that risks are low. Frequent and intense exposures in manufacturing plants are far more worrisome than the intermittent contact that most consumers have, but government scientists said that consumers should still avoid contact with formaldehyde and styrene along with six other chemicals that were added Friday to the government"s official Report on Carcinogens. Its release was delayed for years because of intense lobbying from the chemical industry, which disputed its findings. John Bucher, associate director of the National Toxicology Program, which produced the report, said evidence of formaldehyde"s carcinogenicity was far stronger than for styrene and that consumers were more likely to be exposed to potentially dangerous quantities of formaldehyde. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration warned in April that a hair-care product, Brazilian Blowout Acai Professional Smoothing Solution, contained unacceptable levels of formaldehyde, and salon workers have reported headaches, nosebleeds, burning eyes, and vomiting after using the product and other hair-straighteners. Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society, said that formaldehyde is both worrisome and inescapable. "It"s the smell in new houses, and it"s in cosmetics like nail polish," he said. "All a reasonable person can do is manage their exposure and decrease it to as little as possible. It"s everywhere." Consumers can reduce their exposure to formaldehyde by avoiding pressed-wood products or buying only those that are labeled as U.L.E.F. (ultra-low-emitting formaldehyde), N.A.F. (no added formaldehyde) or C.A.R.B. (California Air Resources Board) Phase 1 or Phase 2 compliant. Styrene is mostly a concern for workers who build boats, car parts, bathtubs and shower stalls. Studies of workers exposed to high levels of styrene have found increased risks of genetic damage to white blood cells. There is also some evidence that styrene increases the risks of cancer among styrene workers, the report found. Consumers can be exposed to styrene from the fumes of building materials, photocopiers and tobacco smoke. As for styrene"s presence in plastic utensils and other consumer products, Dr. Brawley likened the risk from such products to that of coffee and cellphones—uncertain and slight. An industry spokesman said the action will hurt small businesses. "It will unfairly scare workers, plant neighbors and could have a chilling effect on the development of new products," said Tom Dobbins of the American Composites Manufacturers Association. "And our companies are primarily small businesses, and this could hurt jobs and local economies." Cal Dooley, president and chief executive of the American Chemistry Council, a trade association that represents companies that make and use polystyrene and formaldehyde, rejected the report"s conclusions. "We are extremely concerned that politics may have hijacked the scientific process," he said. Some in the industry have promised to continue fighting the report, and will appeal elements of its findings. But some already have begun using alternatives to formaldehyde in their products. This is the 12th cancer list released by the toxicology program at the National Institutes of Health, and each has been controversial. In 2000, controversy erupted over the ninth report"s listing of secondhand smoke and tanning beds. The 11th report"s listing in 2005 of naphthalene (卫生球), caused similar concern. That this latest report would warn about formaldehyde and styrene has been suspected by industry since shortly after the release of the previous report, and industry groups have fought the process behind its release ever since. As a result, the government added numerous public comment periods to the process, and even after it was written, officials at the Department of Health and Human Services delayed the report"s release for months to cope with industry complaints.

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单选题X: John's bike needs repairing.Y: John has a bike.The relationship of X and Y is ______.A. synonymous B. inconsistent C. X entailing Y D. X presupposing Y

单选题Bank holidays in Britain refer to ______.A. official public holidays B. holidays for the banks onlyC. public holidays except for the banks D. holidays for the financial institutions only

单选题Scotland Yard"s top fingerprint expert, Detective Chief Superintendent Gerald Lambourne had a request from the British Museum"s Prehistoric Department to focus his magnifying glass on a mystery. "Somewhat outside my usual beat", he said. This was not a question of Who Did It, but Who Was It. The blunt instruments he pored over were the antlers of red deer, dated by a radio-carbon examination as being up to 5,000 years old. They were used as mining picks by Neolithic man to hack flints and chalk, and the fingerprints he was looking for were of our remote ancestors who had last wielded them. The antlers were unearthed in July during the British Museum"s five-year-long excavation at Grime"s Graves, near Thetford, Norfolk, a 93-acre site containing more than 600 vertical shafts in the chalk some 40 feet deep. From artifacts found in many parts of Britain it is evident that flint was extensively used by Neolithic man as he slowly learned how to farm land in the period from 3,000 to 1,500 B.C. Flint was especially used for axe heads to clear forests for agriculture, and the quality of the flint on the Norfolk site suggests that the miners there were kept busy with many orders. What excited Mr. G. de G. Sieveking, the museum"s deputy director of the excavations, was the dried mud still sticking to some of them. "Our deduction is that the miners coated the base of the antlers with mud so that they could get a better grip," he says. "The exciting possibility was that fingerprints left in this mud might at last identify as individuals a people who have left few relics, who could not read or write, but who may have had much more intelligence than has been supposed in the past." Chief Superintendent Lambourne, who four years ago had "assisted" the British Museum by taking the fingerprints of a 4,000-year-old Egyptian mummy, spent two hours last week examining about 50 antlers. On some he found minute marks indicating a human grip in the mud. Then on one he found the full imprint of the "ridge structure" of a human hand—that part of the hand just below the fingers where most pressure would be brought to bear in wielding a pick. Chief Superintendent Lambourne has agreed to visit the Norfolk site during further excavations next summer, when it is hoped that further hand-marked antlers will come to light. But he is cautious about the historic significance of his findings. "Fingerprints and handprints are unique to each individual but they can tell us nothing about the age, physical characteristics, even sex of the person who left them," he says. "Even the fingerprints of a gorilla could be mistaken for those of a man. But if a number of imprinted antlers are recovered from given shafts on this site I could at least determine which antlers were handled by the same man, and from there might be deduced the number of miners employed in a team. " "As an indication of intelligence I might determine which way up the miners held the antlers and how they wielded them." To Mr. Sieveking and his museum colleagues any such findings will be added to their dossier of what might appear to the layman as trivial and unrelated facts but from which might emerge one day an impressive new image of our remote ancestors.

单选题That smoking causes lung cancer is well established. But what causes smoking? This is the question at the heart of a study published in Nature by a group of researchers who work at deCODE, an Icelandic genomics company. They do not, quite, answer it. But they do think they have the answer to the related question of why some smokers smoke in moderation whereas others are rarely found without a fag in their hands—and thus why some people are, genetically speaking, more susceptible to lung cancer than others. That answer lies in part of human chromosome 15, and depends on what is known as allele T of SNP rs1051730. A SNP, or single-nucleotide polymorphism, to give its full name (the short version is pronounced "snip"), is a place where genomes routinely differ from one another by a single genetic letter. In this case, the variation happens inside a gene for one of the receptor molecules that nicotine attaches itself to when it produces its buzz. Based on a study of 13,945 Icelandic smokers, deCODE"s researchers showed that having a T in the appropriate part of the gene correlates very strongly indeed with being a heavy smoker. The team estimates that the chance of their being wrong is less than one in a thousand trillion. Not surprisingly, having the T variant also correlates with the chance of a smoker getting lung cancer. Each copy (there may be none, one or two, since one can come from a person"s father and one from his mother) increases that chance by 30%. The T variant does not, however, increase the likelihood that someone will take up smoking in the first place. That is either a matter of free will or, if it is genetic, is controlled by genes somewhere else. It all looks neat and simple—and extremely plausible. Genes promote smoking; smoking promotes cancer. However, it might be wrong, for another paper in Nature, and a third in its sister journal Nature Genetics, report similar studies that have drawn rather different conclusions. Paul Brennan and Christopher Amos both agree that something significant is going on in the part of chromosome 15 studied by deCODE. But they have concluded that genetic variation there acts directly on a person"s susceptibility to lung cancer, rather than acting indirectly by modifying his smoking behavior. That does not mean the gene or genes in question actually cause lung cancer. Rather, it means that they amplify the effects of smoking instead of the amount of smoking. Like deCODE, both Dr. Brennan (who works at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, in France) and Dr. Amos (who works at the University of Texas) identified rs1051730 as an important SNP. Unlike deCODE, though, both think a second SNP, rs8034191, is involved as well. That, and the fact that the region of chromosome 15 under scrutiny has two other nicotine-receptor genes in it, suggests the situation may indeed be more complex. On top of this, Dr. Brennan and Dr. Amos both used a different method from deCODE"s. They compared lung-cancer patients directly with otherwise similar cancer-free smokers, in what is known as a case controlled study, and concluded that genetic variants in the nicotine-receptor-rich part of chromosome 15 are changing not smokers" behavior, but their susceptibility to cancer. Moreover, Dr. Brennan also claims to have discovered an increased susceptibility to lung cancer in non-smokers with the relevant SNPs, though his sample size is small and his result is not supported by Dr. Amos"s work. These contradictory conclusions are both puzzling and intriguing. DeCODE has one further piece of evidence in its favor. Besides the correlation with lung cancer, the T variant also seemed to correlate with peripheral arterial disease, another common side-effect of smoking. On the other hand, the firm also acknowledges that the link it thinks it has discovered does not account for the whole of the risk of smoking-induced lung cancer. What is not in doubt, however, is that there is some sort of a link between genetics and lung cancer. That raises interesting issues, particularly as genetic testing becomes easier. DeCODE has already announced it will add rs1051730 to the standard screen it offers to those who wish to know their susceptibility to diseases. The day is not far off, therefore, when those who take the essentially irrational decision to start smoking tobacco will be able to find out in advance exactly how foolish they are being.