单选题The language produced by second language learners is technically called[A] interlanguage.[B] foreign language.[C] first language.[D] second language.

单选题In May 1995, Andrew Lloyd Webber, creator of a string of international hit musicals and a very wealthy man, spent U. S.＄ 29.2 million on Picasso's "Portrait of Angel Fernanders de Soto'. It was the highest price paid at auction for a painting since the art market crashed in 1990. Lloyd Webber has a theory that Picasso's Blue Period paintings were influenced by Burne-Jones, the British Pre-Raphaelite master whose international reputation stood high at the turn of the century. The theory is not shared by many art historians, but that doesn't matter to the composer. He had been looking for a Blue Period Picasso for some time. It is now extremely hard to come by Blue Period Picassos—figurative works that are drenched in melancholy, expressed by a dominant use of blue. Blue Period subjects par excellence are mothers and children or harlequins; Lloyd Webber's purchase is not the most attractive of them. He paid roughly double what the picture was worth. He seems to have got carried away when the bidding started to climb. The Picasso was one of the two highest prices of the 1994—1995 auction season, and help illustrate what has been happening in this curious market. The very rich have got their confidence back, which has meant that buyers can be found for works of really outstanding quality and, very occasionally, bidding battles have driven prices back to their 1989—1990 levels. The 1980s boom collapsed in 1990. After several false dawns there are now signs that serious recovery has begun. More than an expansion of the market, however, it reflects the relative weakness of the American dollar, the currency in which most art deals are transacted. Collectors from countries with stronger currencies have been finding dollar prices cheap. The middle market is still fairly weak. It is not unusual for up to half the lots on offer at a Christie's or Sotheby's sale to be left unsold. Dealers, as opposed to auctioneers, are still finding it bard to make a living and seldom buy for stock. The auctioneers have tried to replace them by encouraging private people to buy directly at auction—and more of them are doing this. But private buying is unpredictable and cannot underpin the market in the way dealer buying used to. Private individuals buy what they want; they don't bid on everything that is going cheap. Overall, the nature of the market is changing. In' the 1980s art was bought as a speculation: buy in April, sell for double the price in September. This mentality vanished with the 1990 collapse, but the very rich and their financial advisors still take the view that it is sensible to keep a percentage of your investment portfolio in art. It is this kind of money that creates the fancy prices at the top end of the market. Geographically, the present recovery has been led by North America. Normally a major recession, such as was experienced in the United States, results in a shift of taste. But the Americans liked Impressionist and classic modern pictures best before the market collapse and that is what they have been coming back to. It is currently the strongest sector of the picture market. Contemporary and Old Master markets are still struggling and there are few buyers for Victorian pictures, apart from Lloyd Webber. Besides Europe and America, however, there is now a growing market in the East. Indeed, the East has become the great hope of hard-pressed dealers over the last three years—they have been aiming to find new buyers in Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. There are more rich connoisseurs in Japan than anywhere else but they have not been in a buying mood. Japanese speculators lost huge amounts of money in the 1990s crash and there are few collectors who dare to buy any works of art today. The market in Chinese ceramics, works of art, jade jewelry and old and modern brush paintings is now dominated worldwide by wealthy collectors from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. The huge volume of excavated art that is smuggled out of China has dramatically weakened the archaeological end of this market but rarities, especially the late imperial porcelains, are gelling well. There have even been two or three successful auctions inside China since 1994. The local millionaires are beginning to put their money into art.

单选题Cosmology is sometimes pooh-poohed as more philosophy than science. It asks deep questions about nature but provides unsatisfyingly vague answers. The cosmos may be 12 billion years old, but it could be as much as 15 billion. The stars began to shine 100 million years after the Big Bang, or maybe it's a billion. "Our ideas," acknowledges Max Tegmark of the University of Pennsylvania, "have been kind of wobbly." But much of the wobble has been fixed, thanks to a satellite known as the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or WMAP. Since July 2001, WMAP has been orbiting in deep space, more than a million kilometers from Earth, studying the most ancient light in existence. And in a dramatic reminder that important space science is almost always done by machines, not fragile humans, it reported a series of precision measurements that will finally put cosmology on a firm foundation. What the satellite found, says Princeton University's David Spergel, a theorist on the WMAP team, "is that the universe can be explained with five numbers." First, the cosmos is 13.7 billion years old, give or take a negligible couple of hundred million years. Second, the first stars turned on just 200 million years after the Big Bang. Finally, the universe is made of three things in the following proportions:4% ordinary atoms; 23% Jo "dark matter," whose nature is still unknown; and 73% "dark energy," the equally mysterious force whose antigravity effect is speeding up the cosmic expansion. "This," says astrophysicist John Bahcall, of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, "is a rite of passage for cosmology, from speculation to precision science." WMAP learned this and more by scrutinizing the faint whisper of microwaves left over from the Big Bang. Hidden in that radiation are patterns of warmer and cooler spots, marking places where matter was a little more or less dense than average spots that would eventually evolve into the clusters of galaxies and empty spaces that we see today. These patterns were first detected in crude form by the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite in 1992, but without enough detail for much to be said about them. But with a resolution some 40 times as sharp as COBE's, WMAP has plenty to say. "It’s a lot like matching fingerprints," says Spergel. "We ran computer simulations based on many different values for all of the numbers, generated patterns for each and found the one that best matched what we actually saw." WMAP also confirmed what earlier experiments had suggested about a basic characteristic of the universe: the geometry of space-time, in the Einsteinian sense, is flat. That's consistent with a theory called inflation, which posits that the cosmos underwent a period of turbocharged expansion before it was a second old. "I have to admit," says Bahcall, "that I was skeptical of the picture theorists had put together. Inflation, dark matter, dark energy—it's all pretty implausible. But this implausible, crazy universe has now been confirmed with exquisite detail." That's not to say that WMAP has answered every question. Nobody knows what dark matter and dark energy are, and the theory of inflation, while strengthened, is far from proved. Beyond that, there are some strange measurements in WMAP's data that might be mere statistical flukes—or might point to some major monkey wrench that could still throw cosmology into turmoil. "We should know better after we get in more data," says Charles Bennett of the Goddard Space Flight Venter, who is the V team leader. But cosmologists won't be sitting around waiting. "You're going to see a thousand papers based on these results," says Tegmark, who is already working on several. "It's an exciting time to be in this field./

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单选题Which of the following is a blending word?

单选题{{B}}TEXT E{{/B}} Moderate drinking reduces stroke risk, study confirms. Similar to the way a drink or two a day protects against heart attacks, moderate alcohol consumption wards off strokes, a new study found. The study also found that the type of alcohol consumed -- beer, wine or liqour -- was unimportant. Any of them, or a combination, was protective, researchers reported in today's Journal of the American Medical Association. "No study has shown benefit in recommending alcohol consumption to those who do not drink", cautioned the authors, led by Dr. Ralph L. Sacco of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. But the new data support the guidelines of the National Stroke Association, which say moderate drinkers may protect themselves from strokes by continuing to consume alcohol, the authors said. The protective effect of moderate drinking against heart attacks is well established, but the data has been conflicting about alcohol and strokes, the authors said. The new study helps settle the question and is the first to find blacks and Hispanics benefit as well as whites, according to the authors. Further research is needed among other groups, such as Asian, whom past studies suggest may get no stroke protection from alcohol or may even be put at greater risk. Among groups where the protective effect exists, its mechanism appears to differ from the protective effect against heart attacks, which occurs through boosts in levels of so-called "good" cholesterol, the authors said. They speculated alcohol may protect against stroke by acting on some other blood trait, such as the tendency of blood platelets to clump, which is key in forming the blood trait, such as the tendency of blood platelets to clump, which is key in forming the blood clots that can cause strikes. The researchers studied 677 New York residents who lived in the northern part of Manhattan and had strokes between July 1,1993, and June, 1997. After taking into account differences in other factors that could affect stroke risk, such as high blood pressure, the researchers estimated that subjects who consumed up to two alcoholic drinks daily were only half as likely to have suffered clot-type strokes as nondrinkers. Clot-type strokes account for 80 percent of all strokes, a leading cause of US deaths and disability. Stroke risk increased with heavier drinking. At seven drinks per day, risk was almost triple that of moderate drinkers. An expert spokesman for the American Heart Association, who was not involved in the study, said it was well-done and important information. But it shouldn't be interpreted to mean, "I can have two drinks and therefore not worry about my high blood pressure or worry about my cholesterol," said Dr. Edgar J. Kenton, an associate professor of clinical neurology at Thomas Jefferson University Medical College in Philadelphia. Instead, he said, the study provides good reason to do further research and to add alcohol to the list of modifiable risk factors for stroke.

单选题Canada is one Of the world's greatest ______ producers. A. coal B. timber C. fur D. wool

单选题______ is the second largest city in England, which is metropolitan district and an industrial and manufacturing city.

单选题Suppose there was a potion that could keep you strong and trim as you aged, while protecting your heart and bones; improving your mood, sleep and memory; warding off breast and colon cancer, and reducing your overall risk of dying prematurely. Studies have shown that exercise can have all those benefits—even for people who take it up late in life. Kin Narita and Gin Kanie, Japanese twins who are national longevity icons, celebrated their 105th birthday last week by planting trees and playing golf for the first time. Kanie suggested that activity might be a key to their long lives. "At this age I walk for two hours each morning for exercise," she said. When Dr. Ralph Paffenbarger started tracking the health of 19,000 Harvard and University of Pennsylvania alumni back in the early 1960s, many experts thought vigorous exercise was downright dangerous for people over 50. But the Stanford epidemiologist turned that wisdom on its head. In a landmark 1986 study, Paffenbarger showed that the participants' death rates fell in direct proportion to the number of calories they burned each week. Those burning 2,000 a week (roughly the number it takes to walk 20 miles) suffered only half the annual mortality of the couch potatoes, thanks mainly to a lower rate of heart disease. Subsequent studies have shown that different activities bring different rewards. Everyone now agrees that aerobic exercise preserves the heart, lungs and brain, and researchers at Tufts University have recently shown that weight lifting can do as much for the frail elderly as it does for high school jocks. When Dr. Maria Fiatarone got 10 chronically iii nursing-home residents, to lift weights three times a week for' two months, the participants' average walking speed nearly tripled, and their balance improved by half. {{B}}EATING TO NOURISH LONG LIFE{{/B}} We all know that living on fat, salt and empty calories can have a range of nasty consequences, from obesity and impotence to hypertension and heart disease. Yet there are other ways to eat, and people who adopt them stay younger longer. In controlled studies, San Francisco cardiologist Dean Ornish has shown that a diet based on low-fat, nutrient-rich foods not only prevents heart disease—the Western world's leading cause of early death— but can help reverse it. And other studies suggest that dietary changes could virtually eliminate the high blo9d pressure that places 50 million older Americans at high risk of stroke, heart attack and kidney failure. You wouldn't know that from watching people age in the United States. Hypertension afflicts a third of all Americans in their 5Os, half of those in their 60s and more than two thirds of those over 70. But preindustrial people don't follow that pattern. Whether they happen to live in China or Africa, Alaska or the Amazon, people in primitive settings experience no change in blood pressure as they age, and the reason is fairly simple: they don't eat processed foods. Dr. Paul Whelton of Tulane University's School of Public Health has spent the past decade tracking 15,000 indigenous Yi people in southwestern China. As long as they eat a traditional diet—rice, a little meat and a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables— these rural farmers virtually never develop hypertension. But when they migrate to nearby towns, their blood pressure starts to rise with age. What makes processed food so harmful? Salt is one key suspect. When you subsist mainly on fresh plant foods—as our ancestors did for roughly 7 million years—you get 10 times more potassium than sodium. That 10-to-one ratio is, by Eaton's reasoning, the one our bodies are designed for. But salt is now showered on foods at every stage of processing and preparation, while potassium leaches out. As a result, most of us now consume more salt than potassium. "Modern humans are the only mammals that do that," says Eaton, "and we're the only ones that develop hypertension." A recent clinical study suggests that dietary changes can reduce blood pressure as markedly as drug treatment, and can produce results in as little as two 'months. In the study, researchers at several institutions place volunteers on one of three diet's. Those on a low-fat menu that included 10 daily servings of fresh fruits and vegetables, plus two servings of calcium-rich dairy products, reduced their systolic and diastolic readings by 5.5 mm and 3.0 mm, respectively. And those suffering from hypertension get reductions of twice that magnitude.

单选题{{B}}TEXT B{{/B}} It was eleven o'clock that night when Mr. Pontellier returned from Klein's hotel. He was in an excellent humor, in high spirits, and very talkative. His entrance awoke his wife, who was in bed and fast asleep when he came in. He talked to her while he undressed, telling her anecdotes and bits of news and gossip that he had gathered during the day. From his trousers pockets he took a fistful of crumpled bank notes and a good deal of silver coin, which he piled on the bureau indiscriminately with keys, knife, handkerchief, and whatever else happened to be in his pockets, she was overcome with sleep, and answered him with little half utterances. He thought it very discouraging that his wife, who was the sole object of his existence, evinced so little interest in things which concerned him, and valued so little his conversation. Mr. Pontellier had forgotten the bonbons and peanuts for the boys. Notwithstanding he loved them very much, and went into the adjoining room where they were resting comfortably. The result of his investigation was far from satisfactory. He turned and shifted the youngsters about in bed. One of them began to kick and talk about a basket full of crabs. Mr. Pontellier returned to his wife with the information that Raoul had a high fever and needed looking after. Then he lit a cigar and went and sat near the open door to smoke it. Mrs. Pontellier was quite sure Raoul had no fever. He had gone to bed perfectly well, she said, and nothing had ailed him all day. Mr. Pontellier was too will acquainted with fever symptoms to be mistaken. He assured her the child was consuming at that moment in the next room. He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it? He himself had his hands full with his brokerage business. He could not be in two places at once; making a living for his family on the street, and staying at home to see that no harm befell them. He talked in a monotonous, insistent way. Mrs. Pontellier sprang out of bed and went into the next room. She soon came back and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning her head down on the pillow. She said nothing, and refused to answer her husband when he questioned her. When his cigar was smoked out he went to bed, and in half a minute he was fast asleep. Mrs. Pontellier was by that time thoroughly awake. She began to cry a little, and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her peignoir. Blowing out the candle, which her husband had left burning, she slipped her bare feet into a pair of satin mules at the foot of the bed and went out on the porch, where she sat down in the wicker chair and began to rock gently to and fro. It was then past midnight. The cottages were all dark. A single faint light gleamed out from the hallway of the house. There was no sound abroad except the hooting of an old owl in the top of a water-oak, and the everlasting voice of the sea, that was not uplifted at that soft hour. It broke like a mournful lullaby upon the night. The tears came so fast to Mrs. Pontellier’ s eyes that the damp sleeve of her peignoir no longer served to dry them. She was holding the back of her chair with one hand; her loose sleeve had slipped almost to the shoulder of her uplifted arm. Turning, she thrust her face, steaming and wet, into the bend of her arm, and she went on crying there, not caring any longer to dry her face, her eyes, her arms. She could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life. They seemed never before to have to have weighed much against the abundance of her husband's kindness and a uniform devotion which had come to be tacit and self-understood. An indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish. It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul's summer day. It was strange and unfamiliar; it was a mood. She did not sit there inwardly upbraiding her husband, lamenting at Fate, which had directed her footsteps to the path which they had taken. She was just having a good cry all to herself. The mosquitoes made merry over her, biting her firm, round arms and nipping at her bare insteps. The little stinging, buzzing imps succeeded in dispelling a mood which might have held her there in the darkness half a night longer.

单选题According to the passage, which of the following is a tree statement about sectional conflicts in America between 1763 and 1789?

单选题"It was hard to be sure which gear the car was about to engage. Several times I hit fifth gear when aiming for third. Chrysler apparently anticipated this problem, as a brief warning chimes to let you know when you're in reverse." In the last 3rd paragraph, this means that______.

单选题Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview.

单选题Syntax is about the principle of forming correct______.

单选题The writer makes it obvious that______

单选题The destruction of the ______ in 1588 showed England"s superiority as a naval power under Elizabeth I"s reign.

单选题The pounding rain began in the middle of the night. The people of Jackson, Ohio awoke to the sound then went back to sleep. The next day the rain continued, and the water began to rise. Statistics said Jackson floods once every one hundred years, but no one believed this would be the flood of the century. People were evacuated from their homes to higher ground, leaving everything behind. Buildings in the low-lying areas were immersed in water. People watched as dogs, cats, cows and other animals were swept away. Cars and trucks were carried miles from their homes. The people felt helpless as they watched Mother Nature show her power. Susan returned to her sixth-grade-student-teaching experience the following Monday. She told the story to her students and showed them pictures from the newspaper. Her inspired and compassionate students took action. They stopped raising money for their trip to Camp Kern and began raising money for the flood victims. They sold lollipops, wrote letters to the community asking for donations and collected their own money. Even first-graders donated money. Mountains of clothes furniture and food piled up. Susan's class made Easter baskets from shoe-boxes and filled them with candy and toys as well as toothpaste, soap, toothbrushes and shampoo. She and I loaded her mom's black Chevy Beretta to the ceiling with the Easter baskets. On the trip there, I wondered what I would see; I couldn't imagine losing almost everything. Dusk was beginning to set in, and I felt nervous when we arrived. My stomach dropped when I saw some houses reduced to the railroad ties that had been their foundation. The smell of river water permeated the air. No carpet, furniture, plumbing or appliances remained. Knowing that only days ago this had been someone's home pained my heart. How many children had grown up here? What kind of memories lingered? Would the house ever be rebuilt? The monster flood had dulled its roar and retreated, but its impact would be long-lasting. We drove from house to house, knocking on doors, ready to begin our mission. I was filled with trepidation. Would families who had been devastated by floodwater want an Easter basket? The gesture was beginning to seem useless. "Hello, I'm Susan Moore, and this is my friend, Allison. My sixth-graders at Pennyroyal Elementary made Easter baskets for you when they heard about the flooding because they wanted to help." Their faces lit up as they opened their gifts. As we entered one home, a husband and wife were crouched over their floor with hammer and nails. When he opened the box, he began to cry. "I can't believe those kids did this. Let me give you some money for their school." As I glanced at what was left of his home, I could not believe his generous spirit. He eventually conceded to write a thank-you note instead. One woman ran out to find us after opening her box, tears rolling down her face. "I collected bunny rabbits, and I lost them all in the flood. There was a small pink rabbit in my box. I can start my collection again. Thank you." The burly man standing next to her also had tears in his eyes. My heart was warmed as I played the small role of messenger in this tribute to the good in the human spirit. So often we hear of the shortcomings of our youth, but these youngsters answered a cry for help and gave proof that generosity and love prevail.

单选题Question 9 and 10 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer each question. Now listen to the news.

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单选题Now, listen to the SECOND interview. Questions 6 to 10 are based on the SECOND interview.