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单选题{{B}}TEXT D{{/B}} The law firm Patrick worked for before he died filed for bankruptcy protection a year after his funeral. After his death, the firm's letterhead properly included him: Patrick S. Lanigan, 1954-1992. He was listed up in the right-hand corner, just above the paralegals. Then the rumors got started and wouldn't stop. Before long, everyone believed he had taken the money and disappeared. After three months, no one on the Gulf Coast believed that he was dead. His name came off the letterhead as the debts piled up. The remaining partners in the law firm were still together, attached unwillingly at the hip by the bondage of mortgages and the bank notes, back when they were rolling and on the verge of serious wealth. They had been joint defendants in several unwinnable lawsuits; thus the bankruptcy. Since Patrick's departure, they had tried every possible way to divorce one another, but nothing would work. Two were raging alcoholics who drank at the office behind locked doors, but never together. The other two were in recovery, still teetering on the brink of sobriety. He took their money. Their millions. Money they had already spent long before it arrived, as only lawyers can do. Money for their richly renovated office building in downtown Biloxi. Money for new homes, yachts, condos in the Caribbean. The money was on the way, approved, the papers signed, orders entered; they could see it, almost touch it when their dead partner—Patrick—snatched it at the last possible second. He was dead. They buried him on February 11,1992. They had consoled the widow and put his rotten name on their handsome letterhead. Yet six weeks later, he somehow stole their money. They had brawled over who was to blame. Charles Bogan, the firm's senior partner and its iron hand, had insisted the money be wired from its source into a new account offshore, and this made sense after some discussion. It was ninety million bucks, a third of which the firm would keep, and it would be impossible to hide that kind of money in Biloxi, population fifty thousand. Someone at the bank would talk. Soon everyone would know. All four vowed secrecy, even as they made plans to display as much of their new wealth as possible. There had even been talk of a firm jet, a six-seater. So Bogan took his share of the blame. At forty-nine, he was the oldest of the four, and, at the moment, the most stable. He was also responsible for hiring Patrick nine years earlier, and for this he had received no small amount of grief. Doug Vitrano, the litigator, had made the fateful decision to recommend Patrick as the fifth partner. The other three had agreed, and when Patrick Lanigan was added to the firm name, he had access to virtually every file in the office. Bogan, Rapley, Vitrano, Havarac, and Lanigan, Attorneys and Counselors-at-Law. A large ad in the yellow pages claimed "Specialists in Offshore Injuries." Specialists or not, like most firms they would take almost anything if the fees were lucrative, Lots of secretaries, and paralegals. Big overhead, and the strongest political connections on the Coast. They were all in their mid-to late forties, Havarac had been raised by his father on a shrimp boat. His hands were still proudly calloused, and he dreamed of choking Patrick until his neck snapped. Rapley was severely depressed and seldom left his home, where he wrote briefs in a dark office in the attic.

单选题The national day of Australia is ______.A. Jan. 26th B. Jan. 1st C. Jan. 18th D. Jan. 25th

单选题{{B}}TEXT D{{/B}} President Bush has proposed adding optional personal accounts as one of the central elements of a major Social Security reform proposal. Although many details remain to be worked out, the proposal would allow individuals who choose to do so to divert part of the money they currently pay in Social Security taxes into individual investment accounts. Individuals would have a choice of fund managers, and the return that they earn from those accounts would then partially determine the Social Security benefit they receive when they retire. Individual accounts pose a number of important and complex design and implementation issues, including how to lower the cost of administering accounts so that they do not erode the value of pensions that individuals receive when they retire, how many and what kinds of fund choices should be offered, and how to engage workers in choosing funds. In the late 1990s, Sweden added a mandatory individual accounts tier to its public pension system. This p01icy brief examines the Swedish experience and lessons it suggests for the United States about the design and implementation challenges of individual accounts. Sweden has one of the oldest and most comprehensive public pension systems in the world. But by the 1980s, several problems with the system were becoming evident, including current funding deficits and a very large projected funding shortfall as Sweden's population, which is among the oldest in the world, continued to age. Between 1991 and 1998, Sweden adopted a new pension system built on three fundamental elements. A new "income pension" is intended to tie pension benefits more closely to contributions made over the entire course of an individual' s working life, while lowering the overall cost of the system; it is financed entirely by a 16 percent payroll tax. A "guarantee pension" provides minimum income support for workers with low lifetime earnings. It is financed entirely by general government revenues and is income-tested against other public pension income. The third element is a "premium pension" financed by a 2.5 percent payroll tax. These funds are placed in an individual investment account. Individuals have a wide variety of fund choices. To lower administrative costs; and the administrative burden on employers, collection of premium pension contributions and fund choices are centrally administered by a new government agency, the Premium Pension Authority. Deposits into pension funds are made only once a year, after complete wage records for a calendar year are available from the state tax authorities. Employees choose up to five funds from a list of funds approved by the PPA. Swedes can change their fund allocations as often as they want without charge, but the system is not designed to facilitate "day trading"—switching funds often takes several days. The new pension system's planners recognized that many workers might not make an active pension fund choice. They created a Seventh Swedish National Pension Fund to offer a default fund, called the Premium Savings Fund, for those who do not choose a fund or simply prefer to have the government invest for them.

单选题The minimal phonological unit is ______.A. phonemeB. morphemeC. rootD. syllable

单选题On Page 357 are presented details about ______.

单选题{{B}}TEXT D{{/B}} Robert Congel, a commercial real-estate developer who lives in upstate New York, has a plan to "change the world." Convinced that it will "produce more benefit for humanity than any one thing that private enterprise has ever done," he is raising $20 billion to make it happen. That's 12 times the yearly budget of the United Nations and more than 25 times Congel's own net worth. What Congel has in mind is an outsize and extremely unusual mega-mall. Destiny U.S.A., the retail-and-entertainment complex he is building in upstate New York, aspires to be not only the biggest man-made structure on the planet but also the most environmentally friendly. Equal parts Disney World, Las Vegas, Bell Laboratories and Mall of America-- with a splash of Walden Pond m the "retail city" will include the usual shops and restaurants as well as an extensive research facility for testing advanced technologies and a 200-acre recreational biosphere complete with spring-like temperatures and an artificial river for kayaking. After a false start in 2002, countless changes of plan and a storm of local opposition, Congel is finally breaking ground again, with a projected completion date of 2009. Later this month, bulldozers powered by biodiesel are scheduled to begin leveling the site, a rehabilitated brownfield in Syracuse, Congel's hometown. Whether Congel's firm, the Pyramid Companies, can maintain the cash flow and political support needed to complete the project is a subject of much local debate. Also disputed are Congel's goals of creating 200,000 jobs regionally and making Destiny nothing less than "the No. 1 tourist destination in America." More mind-boggling than the sheer scope of Destiny is its agenda. Congel emphasizes that renewable energy alone will power the mall, with its 1,000 shops and restaurants, 80,000 hotel rooms, 40,000-seat arena and Broadway-style theaters. As a result, Congel says, Destiny will jump-start renewable-energy markets nationwide with its investments in solar, wind fuel cells and other alternative-energy sources. But if Congel does manage to erect his El Dorado, will it really help cure our country's addiction to scarce and highly polluting fossil fuel? Or will it just be a cleverly marketed boondoggle that may create more environmental problems than it solves? All by itself, the mall would boost America's solar-electric power capacity by nearly 10 percent. "On every level, this project astounds," Senator Hillary Clinton said in April, claiming that the mall could make the area a hub for clean technologies and deliver a shot of adrenaline to upstate New York's ailing economy. To help foot the bill for Congel's project, Clinton and other politicians successfully persuaded Congress to provide financial incentives for mega, scale green development projects. (Destiny, of course, will face little competition to reap those benefits.)

单选题In Britain, a general election takes place at least every ______ years.A. 3 B. 4 C. 5 D. 6

单选题Emily Dickinson wrote many short poems on various aspects of life. Which of the following is NOT a usual subject of her poetic expression?

单选题______ is generally defined as the study of meaning and usually pays attention to the study of meaning of linguistic units themselves, words and sentences in particular, which has always been a central topic in human scholarship.

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. Now listen to the news.

单选题Big Ben is in ______.A. LondonB. New YorkC. WashingtonD. Liverpool

单选题{{B}}TEXT C{{/B}} The United Nations was founded lo promote peace, prosperity and human rights. It is doing some what better on the first two counts than its critics sometimes make out. The last, however, has been such a failure that it is threatening to bring the whole edifice down. Once revered as the creator of all the great universal human-rights rules and instruments, the 53-member Commission on Human Rights has been thoroughly discredited. If it cannot be fixed it needs to be scrapped. In its present form it serves only to make a mockery of the cause. The reason for this is simple enough. The present committee is packed with members who are themselves serial abusers of human rights. Kofi Annan. the UN Secretary-General, admits that their main purpose in being on the committee is not to strengthen human rights but to protect themselves from criticism. At present, these members include exemplars of virtue such as Zimbabwe, Sudan, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Nepal and Russia--a veritable roll call of the worst offenders. A plan of sorts exists to reform this mess. Mr. Annan called for the replacement of the commission, which at present meets for just six weeks once a year, by a leaner, tougher, year-round Human Rights Council, which would be ready to act whenever serious abuse was discovered, and whose members should have a solid record on human rights. America and the other leading democracies backed the idea. The serial abusers did not. In the wrangling at a summit on wider UN reforms, Mr. Annan's baby was reduced to a skeleton. Many wondered whether it could survive. Amazingly, it has just. There is now agreement on the need for a new body, on a par with the Security Council, that would meet several times a year including, when necessary, for emergencies. But its size, powers and composition are still up for grabs. The Americans want no more than 30 members, all with solid human-rights credentials, elected by a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly, along with a routine review of human rights in all 191 UN member states. The abusers want as big a body as possible, elected by a simple majority, as at present, with no membership criteria, and no automatic peer review. Any reform must not just shrink the commission, but must also change the way in which members are elected. At present, regions usually put forward a slate of candidates corresponding to their allotted number of seats, which the General Assembly votes on to the commission as a block. Under one sensible proposal, regions would be required to put forward more contestants than their quota. Each candidate country would then stand separately for election by the General Assembly. Early peer review of all members would further reduce the temptation for thugs to try to get seats. But opposition is fierce, not only from the most notorious offenders, but also from those middle-ranking ones who fear their relatively minor abuses would be put under the spotlight. Timing is tight. The old, unreformed commission is due to hold its next annual meeting. Mr. Annan wants a new one to be ready to take over by then. That means reaching agreement on a blueprint within the next few weeks. If agreement is stymied, the next best solution will be to wind the existing commission up altogether. Human rights matter too much for the UN to continue to shunt the subject off to a cynical talking shop that has become home to the worst violators. That just blackens the overall reputation of the UN.

单选题______ is called "The Father of English History" and is the author of The Ecclesiastical History of the English People.A. William Shakespeare B. Geoffrey ChaucerC. John Milton D. Venerable Bede

单选题Who is not responsible for the pressure?

单选题"In the autumn of 1882 the rains perhaps were less short than abundant; but when the days were fine it was impossible that anything in the way of weather could be more charming." This tells us that______.

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单选题Once found almost entirely in the western United States and in Asia, dinosaur fossils are now being discovered on all seven continents. A host of new revelations emerged in 1998 that promise to reshape scientists' views of dinosaurs, including what they looked like and when and where they lived. It is doubtful that Tyrannosaurus Rex had lips or that Triceratops had cheeks, says Lawrence Witmer, an assistant professor of anatomy at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. He reached its conclusions by using high-tech computerized axial tomography (CT or CAT) scans along with comparative anatomy studies. For example, the theory that Triceratops and similar dinosaur species had cheeks was based on past comparisons with mammals such as sheep. But Witmer's careful analysis found the structure of the triceratops jaw and skull made it more likely that Triceratops had a beak like that of an eagle. Witmer said that scientists should use birds and crocodiles as models when researching the appearance of dinosaurs. In early October scientists announced that they had confirmed the discovery of a new type of ceratopsian dinosaur. The dinosaur's bones, found in New Mexico in 1996, are forcing paleontologists to rethink their theories about when ceratopsians migrated to what is now North Arnerica. Scientists previously thought that ceratopsians, the group that included the well-known Triceratops, arrived in North America from Asia between 70 million and 80 million years ago. During this time, the late Cretaceous Period, the earth's two supercontinents—Laurasia in the north and Gondwanaland in the south—were in the process of pulling apart, cutting dinosaur populations off from each other and interrupting migratory patterns. The fossilized bones, found by paleontologist Doug Wolfe of the Mesa Southwest Museum in Arizona, date to about 90 million years ago. This could mean that ceratopsians originated in North America and migrated to Asia rather than the reverse, paleontologists said. An expedition from the Universities of Alaska in Anchorage and Fairbanks has discovered a region in remote north ern Alaska so rich in fossilized dinosaur tracks that team members dubbed it the " dino expressway". The trampled area was found during the summer of 1998 on Alaska's North Slope near the Brooks Range. The team found 13 new track sites and made casts from the prints of five different types of dinosaurs. The rock in which the prints were found dates to more than 100 million years ago, or about 25 million years older than the previously discovered signs of dinosaurs in the Arctic region. Paleontologists said that the new findings provide important evidence that dinosaurs migrated between Asia and North America during the early and mid-Cretaceous Period, before Asia split off into its own continent. Two rich fossil sites in the hills of Bolivia have been recently discovered, exciting paleontologists and dinosaur buffs. This discovery includes one of the most spectacular dinosaur trackways ever found. The discovery of a large site in the mountain region of Kila Kila in southern Bolivia was announced in early October. Here scientists found the tracks of at least two unknown species of dinosaur. These included a large quadruped (four- footed) dinosaur that was probably about 20 m (about 70 ft) long. The other site, located not far from the Bolivian city of Sucre, was uncovered in a cement quarry by workers several years ago but was not brought to paleontologists' attention until the middle of 1998. The site features a vertical wall covered with thousands of dinosaur prints representing more than 100 different species. The tracks date back to between 65 million and 70 million years ago. Since dinosaurs are believed to have died out around 65 million years ago, the prints were likely made by some of the last dinosaurs on earth. Paleontologists hope to study the site and learn about the diet and physical characteristics of the dinosaurs that are represented there.

单选题Why didn't the writer’s wife and friends ask him what had happened?

单选题Questions 8 to 10 are based on the following news from the VOA. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer each question. Now listen to the news.