单选题Accordingtothenews,whatmakesthiscreditcarddifferentfromconventionalonesis______.

单选题 Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now. listen to the interview.

单选题The single most shattering statistic about life in America in the late 1990s was that tobacco killed more people than the combined total of those who died from AIDS, car accidents, alcohol, murder, suicide, illegal drugs and fire. The deaths of more than 400,000 Americans each year, 160,000 of them from lung cancer, make a strong case for the prohibition of tobacco, and particularly of cigarettes. The case, backed by Solid evidence, has been made in every public arena since the early 1950s, when the first convincing link between smoking and cancer was established in clinical and epidemiological studies-yet 50m Americans still go on smoking. Allan Brand, a Harvard professor, has written a history of the cigarette in America. It runs from the automatic rolling machine, patented by lames Bonsack in 1881, to last year's retreat by the Bush administration in a case that was intended to make the industry meet the full cost to the federal government of treating tobacco-related illness. It is a remarkable story; clearly told, astonishingly well documented and with a transparent moral motif. Most smokers in America eventually manage to quit, and local laws banning smoking in public have become common, but the industry prospers. The tobacco companies have survived virtually everything their opponents have thrown at them. At the end of his story, Mr. Brandt writes, "The legal assault on Big Tobacco had been all but repelled. The industry was decidedly intact, ready to do business profitably at home and abroad. " Although the conclusion is not to his liking, Mr. Brandt's is the first full and convincing explanation of how they pulled it off. Cigarettes overcame any lingering opposition to the pleasure they gave when American soldiers came to crave them during the First World War. War, says Mr. Brandt, was "a critical watershed in establishing the cigarette as a dominant product in modern consumer culture". Cigarettes were sexy, and the companies poured money into advertising. By 1950 Americans smoked 350 billion cigarettes a year and the industry accounted for 3.5% of consumer spending on non-durables. The first 50 years of the "cigarette century" were a golden era for Big Tobacco. That was simply because, until the 1940s, not enough men had been smoking for long enough to develop fatal cancers (women did not reach this threshold until the 1970s). The first clinical and epidemiological studies linking cigarette-smoking and lung cancer, were published only in 1950. By 1953 the six leading companies had agreed that a collective response was required. They paid handsomely for a public-relations campaign that insistently denied any proof of a causal connection between smoking and cancer. This worked well until 1964, when a devastating report from the surgeon-general's advisory committee in effect ended medical uncertainty about the harmfulness of smoking. But Big Tobacco rode the punches. When the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ruled that health warnings must appear on each pack, the industry consented. But it shrewdly exploited the warning, "in a culture that emphasized individual responsibility, smokers would bear the blame for willful risk-taking," notes Mr. Brandt. Many cases for damages against the companies foundered on that rock. Cigarette-makers also marshaled their numerous allies in Congress to help the passage of a law that bypassed federal agencies such as the FTC, and made Congress itself solely responsible for tobacco regulation. Describing the pervasive influence of tobacco lobbyists, he says, "legislation from Congress testified to the masterful preparation and strategic command of the tobacco industry. " However, the industry was powerless to prevent a flood of damaging internal documents, leaked by insiders. The companies were shown, for instance, to have cynically disregarded evidence from their in-house researchers about the addictive properties of nicotine. Internal papers also showed that extra nicotine was added to cigarettes to guarantee smokers sufficient "satisfaction". Despite such public-relations disasters, the industry continued to win judgments, most significantly when the Supreme Court rejected by five votes to four a potentially calamitous act that would have given the Federal Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products. The industry's shrewdest move was to defuse a barrage of cases brought by individual states, aiming to reclaim the cost of treating sick smokers. The states in 1998 accepted a settlement of $ 246 billion over 25 years (the price of a pack rose by 45 cents shortly, afterwards). In return, the states agreed to end all claims against the companies. But the settlement tied the state governments to tobacco's purse- strings; they now had an interest in the industry's success. For those who thought the settlement was akin to "dancing with the devil", it appeared in retrospect that the devil had indeed had the best tunes, reports Mr. Brandt. To his credit, he manages to keep his historian's hat squarely on his head. But you can feel the anguish.

单选题HowmanypeopleusetheInternetinSouthAfrica?A.34million.B.12million.C.1.2million.D.16million.

单选题The pair of words "wide/narrow" are called ______.A. gradable oppositesB. complementary antonymsC. co-hyponymsD. relational opposites

单选题The Cooperative Principle is proposed by[A] NorAm Chomsky.[B] John Lang Shaw Austin.[C] Ferdinand de Assure.[D] Herbert Paul Grice.

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单选题{{B}}TEXT E{{/B}} Every profession or trade, every art, and every science has its technical vocabulary. Different occupations, however, differ widely in the character of their special vocabularies. In trades and handicrafts, and other vocations, like farming and fishery, that have occupied great numbers of men from remote times, the technical vocabulary, is very old. It consists largely of native words, or of borrowed words that have worked themselves into the very fibre of our language. Hence, though highly technical in many particulars, these vocabularies are more familiar in sound, and more generally understood, than most other technicalities. The special dialects of law, medicine, divinity, and philosophy have also, in their older strata, become pretty familiar to cultivated persons and have contributed much to the popular vocabulary. Yet every vocation still possesses a large body of technical terms that remain essentially foreign, even to educated speech. And the proportion has been much increased in the last fifty years, particularly in the various departments of natural and political science and in the mechanic arts. Here new terms are coined with the greatest freedom, and abandoned with indifference when they have served their turn. Most of the new coinages are confined to special discussions, and seldom get into general literature or conversation. Yet no profession is nowadays, as all professions once were, a close guild, The lawyer, the physician, the man of science, the divine, associated freely with his fellow-creatures, and does not meet them in a merely professional way. Furthermore, what is called "popular science" makes everybody acquainted with modern views and recent discoveries. Any important experiment, though made in a remote or provincial laboratory, is at once reported in the newspapers, and everybody is soon talking about it--as in the case of the Roentgen rays and wireless telegraphy. Thus our common speech is always taking up new technical terms and making them commonplace.

单选题The most complex object known to humanity is the human brain—and not only is it complex, hut it is the seat of one of the few natural phenomena that science has no purchase on at all, namely consciousness. To try to replicate something that is so poorly understood may therefore seem like hubris. But you have to start somewhere, and IBM and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Switzerland, propose to start by replicating "in silico", as the jargon has it, one of the brain"s building blocks. In a partnership announced on June 6th of 2005, the two organizations said they would be working together to build a simulation of a structure known as a neo-cortical column on a type of IBM supercomputer that is currently used to study the molecular functioning of genes. If that works, they plan to use future, more powerful computers to link such simulated columns together into something that mimics a brain. In a real brain, a neo-cortical column is a cylindrical element about a third of a millimeter in diameter and three millimeters long, containing some 10,000 nerve cells. It is these columns, arranged side by side like the cells of a honeycomb, which make up the famous "grey matter" that has become shorthand for human intelligence. The Blue Gene/L supercomputer that will be used for the simulation consists of enough independent processors for each to be programmed to emulate an individual nerve cell in a column. The EPFL"s contribution to the Blue Brain Project, as it has inevitably been dubbed, will be to create a digital description of how the columns behave. Its Brain Mind Institute has what is generally regarded as the world"s most extensive set of data on the machinations of the neo-cortex—the columns" natural habitat and the part of the brain responsible for learning, memory, language and complex thought. This database will provide the raw material for the simulation. Biologists and computer scientists will then collaborate to connect the artificial nerve cells up in a way that mimics nature. They will do so by assigning electrical properties to them, and telling them how to communicate with each other and how they should modify their connections with one another depending on their activity. That will be no mean feat. Even a single nerve cell is complicated, not least because each one has about 10,000 connections with others. And nerve cells come in great variety—relying, for example, on different chemical transmitters to carry messages across those connections. Eventually, however, a digital representation of an entire column should emerge. This part of the project is expected to take two to three years. From then on, things will go in two directions simultaneously. One will be to "grow" more columns (the human brain contains about 1 million of them) and get them to interact with one another. The second will be to work at a more elementary level—that is, to simulate the molecular structure of the brain, and to look at the influence of gene expression on brain function. Assuming that the growth of computing power continues to follow Moore"s Law, Charles Peck, the leader of IBM"s side of the collaboration, reckons it should be feasible to emulate an entire human brain in silico this way in ten to fifteen years. Such an artificial brain would, of course, be a powerful research tool. It would allow neurological experiments that currently take days in a "web lab" to be conducted in seconds. The researchers hope, for instance, that their simulated brain will reveal the secrets of how certain psychiatric and neurological disorders develop. But that is probably not the real reason for doing it. The most interesting questions, surely, are whether such an artificial brain will be intelligent, or conscious, or both.

单选题The first intimation, apparently, was when three-year-old Yves told his mother that her shoes did not go with her dress. They were at home in Oran, a dull commercial town in French-ruled Algeria, where Yves's father sold insurance and ran a chain of cinemas, and Mrs. Mathieu-Saint-Laurent cut an elegant figure in colonial society. Omn had once enjoyed some small renown as the westernmost outpost of the Ottoman empire, and was to gain more later as the setting for Albert Camus's "The Plague". But after 1936 it had a genius in the making. So, at any rate, the tribute-payers are saying. "Pure genius", "the world's greatest fashion designer", "the most important designer of the 20th century": such superlatives have been lavished on Yves Saint Laurent for years, and perhaps they are not meant to be taken at face value. The fashion business is, after all, a part of the entertainment industry, where sycophancy, exaggeration and gushing insincerity are not unknown. Mr. Saint Laurent fitted perfectly into it. He was, for a start, quite literally a showman, a shy and stage-frightened one, but what shows he could put on! Dazzling girls strutted down the catwalk, wearing startling creations of gauze, or velvet, or feathers, or not much at all. He was an artist, a delicate, attenuated figure who drew his inspiration from the pages of Marcel Proust, the paintings of Braque, Matisse, Picasso and Van Gogh, and the counsels of his assistant, Loulou de la Falaise. And he was troubled: by drink, by drugs and by physical frailty. He teetered perpetually on the brink of emotional collapse and sometimes fell over it. In 1961, when Mr. Saint Laurent set up shop in Pads under his own name, most couturiers were not quite like this. But the times were propitious for something new. He had by then done a stint at the House of Dior, whose reputation he had restored with some dramatic designs and, in 1958, after the famous founder had died, an iconoclastic collection of his own. The summons to do military service, a ghastly mental dégringolade and dismissal from Dior then intervened, and might have cut short a great career had he not gone into partnership with Mr. Bergé. As it was, a series of innovations followed, with Mr. Saint Laurent responsible for the designs, Mr. Bergé for the business, including the scents, scarves, unguents and over 100 other products marketed with a YSL label. The dress designs now started flying off Mr. Saint Laurent's drawing board, though increasingly often with the aid of helpers. Many were short-lived, this being fashion and fashion being, by definition, ephemeral, But two departures were to last. One was that haute couture, hitherto available only to the very rich or vicariously through magazines and newspapers, should be sold worldwide in ready-to-wear shops at a fraction of the posh price. The other was that women should be put into men's clothes--safari outfits, smoking jackets, trench coats and, most enduringly, trouser suits. Women, for some reason, saw this as liberation. He was always imaginative, taking inspiration not just from artists like Mondrian but also from Africa and Russian ballet. He was also capable of creating the absurd, producing, for example, a dress with conical bosoms more likely to impale than to support. But his clothes, however outré, were usually redeemed by wonderful colors and exquisite tailoring. Above all, they were stylish, and the best have certainly stood the test of time. That is no doubt because most were unusually wearable, even comfortable. At a reverential extravaganza in (and outside) the Pompidou Centre in Pads in 2002, soon after Mr. Saint Laurent had announced his retirement, many of the guests wore a lovingly preserved YSL garment. The "anarchist", as Mr. Berg6 recently called him had by now become more conservative, seeing the merits of "timeless classics" and lamenting the banishment of "elegance and beauty" in fashion. He believed, he said, in "the silence of clothing". Yet perhaps he must take some of the blame for the new cacophony. The trouser suit prepared the way for the off-track track suit; and lesser designers, believing they share his flair and originality, now think they have a license to make clothes that are merely idiotic. Perhaps it would have happened without him. In an industry largely devoid of any sense of the ridiculous, he was usually an exception. He believed in beauty, recognized it in women and, amid the meretricious, created his share of it.

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单选题Space may seem remote, but it"s really not that far away. The popular orbits for satellites begin twice as far up—about 400 miles above our heads. There telecommunications and weather satellites orbit at the same rate that Earth rotates, allowing them to hover above a single spot on the Equator. It was the explosions of derelict rockets that first drew NASA"s attention to debris. In the 1970s Delta rockets left in orbit began blowing up after delivering their payloads. An investigation showed that the bulkheads separating the leftover fuels were probably cracking as a result of the rocket"s passing in and out of sunlight. NASA began recommending that leftover fuels be burned at the end of a flight, or that they be vented into space. Still, every few months on average an old rocket or satellite explodes, flinging a cloud of debris into space. For many years NASA and the Department of Defense were skeptical about the dangers of space debris. The problem seemed abstract, residing more in computer models than in hard experience. And it challenged the can-do mentality of space enthusiasts. Earth"s orbit seemed too large and empty to pollute. To its credit, NASA has long maintained a debris-research program, staffed by top-notch scientists who have persisted in pointing out the long-term hazards of space junk even when the higher-ups at NASA didn"t want to hear about it. Then the Challenger accident came in 1986. NASA officials realized that their emphasis on human space flight could backfire. If people died in space, public support for the shuttle program could unravel. Engineers took a new look at the shuttle and the international Space Station. Designed in the 1970s, when debris was not considered a factor, the shuttle was determined to be clearly vulnerable. After almost every mission windows on the shuttle are so badly pitted by microscopic debris that they need to be replaced. Soon NASA was flying the shuttle upside down and backward, so that its rockets, rather than the more sensitive crew compartments, would absorb the worst impacts. And engineers were adding shielding to the space station"s most vulnerable areas. But adding shielding and repair kits won"t solve the real problem. The real problem is that whenever something is put into an orbit, the risk of collision for all objects in that orbit goes up. Therefore, the only truly effective measure is a process known as deorbiting. The logic behind deorbiting has been inescapable since the beginning of the Space Age, yet it has just begun to penetrate the consciousness of spacecraft designers and launchers. Furthermore, the character of the Space Age is changing. The private sector now puts more payloads into orbit than do NASA and the U.S. and Russian militaries combined. A score of communications companies in the United States and other countries have announced plans that will put hundreds of satellites into orbit over the next decade. None of these companies is under any obligation to limit orbital debris. Companies that are launching large constellations of satellites are worried about collisions between the satellites. As a result, some plan to deorbit satellites at the end of their useful lives. But other companies are leaving their satellites up or are counting on atmospheric drag to bring them down. Government regulations covering orbital debris are still rudimentary. For now, the federal agencies that have authority over commercial launches are waiting to see if the private sector can deal with the problem on its own. But deorbiting rockets and satellites is expensive. A satellite could keep operating for several additional months if it didn"t need to reserve fuel for deorbiting. Some industry representatives say they want regulations, but only if the regulations apply to everyone and cannot be evaded. One reason for our nonchalance is that new technologies have gotten us out of many past scrapes—and maybe they will with orbital debris, too. In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development defined sustainable development as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. In space we are failing the sustainability test miserably. A hundred years from now, when our descendants want to put satellites into orbits teeming with debris, they will wonder what we could have been thinking. The simple answer is we weren"t thinking at all.

单选题It could be inferred from the last four paragraphs that______.

单选题If an English speaker refuses the compliment which merely comes out of politeness he may say ______.

单选题The main difficulty the police have in combating terrorist groups is ______.

单选题In, ______ a small group of Puritans sailed from Plymouth in the Mayflower, and found New Plymouth in America, Britain's first settlement in the New World.A. 1614 B. 1615 C. 1620 D. 1621

单选题After legalization and regulation of prostitution, the main cause of reduction in the spread of venereal diseases would probably be______.

单选题With regard to its size, Australia is ______ country in the world.[A] the third largest[B] the fourth largest[C] tile fifth largest[D] the sixth largest

单选题______ has no regular rhythm or line length.

单选题Questions 7 and 8 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 20 seconds to answer the questions.