单选题Questions 14～17 are based on a radio program. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 14～17.

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单选题Talk to any parent of a student who took an adventurous gap year (a year between school and university when some students earn money, travel, etc. ) and a misty look will come into their eyes. There are some disasters and even the most motivated, organised gap student does require family back-up, financial, emotional and physical. The parental mistiness is not just about the brilliant experience that has matured their offspring; it is vicarious living. We all wish pre-university gap years had been the fashion in our day. We can see how much tougher our kids become; how much more prepared to benefit from university or to decide positively that they are going to do something other than a degree. Gap years are fashionable, as is reflected in the huge growth in the number of charities and private companies offering them. Pictures of Prince William toiling in Chile have helped, but the trend has been gathering steam for a decade. The range of gap packages starts with backpacking, includes working with charities, building hospitals and schools and, very commonly, working as a language assistant, teaching English. With this trend, however, comes a danger. Once parents feel that a well-structured year is essential to their would-be undergraduate's progress to a better university, a good degree, an impressive CV and well paid employment, as the gap companies' blurbs suggest it might be, then parents will start organising and paying for the gaps. Where there are disasters, according to Richard Oliver, director of the gap companies' umbrella organisation, the Year Out Group, it is usually because of poor planning. That can be the fault of the company or of the student, he says, but the best insurance is thoughtful preparation. "When people get it wrong, it is usually medical or, especially among girls; it is that they have not been away from home before or because expectation does not match reality. " The point of a gap year is that it should be the time when the school leaver gets to do the thing that he or she fancies. Kids don't mature if Mum and Dad decide how they are going to mature. If the 18-year-old's way of maturing is to slob out on Hampstead Heath soaking up sunshine or spending a year working with fishermen in Cornwall, then that's what will be productive for that person. The consensus, however, is that some structure is an advantage and that the prime mover needs to be the student. The 18-year-old who was dispatched by his parents at two weeks' notice to Canada to learn to be a snowboarding instructor at a cost of ￡5, 800, probably came back with little more than a hangover. The 18-year-old on the same package who worked for his fare and spent the rest of his year instructing in resorts from New Zealand to Switzerland, and came back to apply for university, is the positive counterbalance.

单选题With which of the following topics in this text primarily concerned?

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单选题Questions 17—20 are based on the following talk about the Worm Bank.

单选题I wanted to know when they ______ come to see me. [A] will [B] would [C] should

单选题 {{I}} Questions 11--13 are based on the following passage. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11--13.{{/I}}

单选题 Boeing Co's Sonic Cruiser, a proposed faster airliner, would be mostly blended material, program director Walt Gillette said recently. In its quest for the{{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}to fly 15 to 20 per cent faster than{{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}}airliners, the US company says about 60 per cent of the new plane's{{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}}{{/U}}, including the wing, would be a carbon-fiber-reinforced composite material that is lighter than aluminum for the same{{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}}{{/U}}. "Composites would{{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}almost all of the airplane that you could see from the outside," Gillette said. Composites are well regarded among aeronautical engineers and have been in{{U}} {{U}} 6 {{/U}} {{/U}}use since the 1970s. Each generation of planes has more composites, and Gillette{{U}} {{U}} 7 {{/U}} {{/U}}that about 10 per cent of Boeing's{{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}civil aircraft, the early-1990s 777, is built{{U}} {{U}} 9 {{/U}}{{/U}}the material.{{U}} {{U}} 10 {{/U}}{{/U}}still only a proposal, the Sonic Cruiser has{{U}} {{U}} 11 {{/U}} {{/U}}the interest of many airlines, which expressed unusual enthusiasm for the aircraft{{U}} {{U}} 12 {{/U}}{{/U}}the September 11 attacks forced most of them to scale back operations. When Boeing{{U}} {{U}} 13 {{/U}}{{/U}}the Sonic Cruiser last year it said the plane might enter service{{U}} {{U}} 14 {{/U}}{{/U}}2006 and 2008. Gillette said the{{U}} {{U}} 15 {{/U}} {{/U}}date now is 2008, by which time the market and technology are expected to have developed{{U}} {{U}} 16 {{/U}}{{/U}}Wind-tunnel tests{{U}} {{U}} 17 {{/U}} {{/U}}the company's computer calculations of optimal cruising speed for the plane at 95 to 98 per. cent of the speed of sound. Going faster than sound would use too much fuel and{{U}} {{U}} 18 {{/U}} {{/U}}great{{U}} {{U}} 19 {{/U}} {{/U}}on the aircraft's engines. Gillette said the Sonic Cruiser{{U}} {{U}} 20 {{/U}}{{/U}}be offered as a family of aircraft with 200 to 250 seats and a range of 6,500 to 9,000 nautical miles (12,000 to 16,700 kilometers).

单选题According to the passage, most of the slang words

单选题Police in the popular resort city Virginia Beach recently began operating video surveillance cameras with controversial face recognition technology. Virginia Beach and Tampa in Florida two cities in the United States acquired the technology, which cost them $197,000. "Before we switched it on, we went through an extensive public education process with hearings and the involvement of citizen groups and minority groups, who helped write the policies we are using, " said deputy police chief Greg Mullen. A citizens" auditing committee has the fight to perform unannounced spot checks on police headquarters to make sure the technology is not being misused. Three of the city"s 13 cameras are linked full time to the face recognition system, though the others can be activited as needed. The database of wanted people is updated every day. So far, the system has failed to produce a single arrest, though it has generated a few false alarms. It works by analyzing faces based on a series of measurements, such as the distance from the tip of the nose to the chin or the space between the eyes. Critics say it is highly inaccurate and can be easily fooled. Mullen, who sees the system eventually being linked to the databases of other city, state and federal law enforcement agencies to track criticals and suspected terrorists, said, "The system doesn"t look at skin color or your hair or your gender. It takes human prejudices out of the equation. " "This technology has little or no effect on the crime rate but it does have an effect on people"s behavior. People feel cowed, " said Bruce Steinhardt, who directs the technology. Despite the fact that tests have shown faces recognition only works in around 30% cases, the ACLU is alarmed that the technology may soon spread to airports. The organization also fears it could potentially be used to monitor individual"s political activities to harass law-abiding citizens. "This kind of surveillance should be subject to the same procedures as wiretaps. Law enforcement agencies should justify why they need it and it should be tightly limited, otherwise it will soon become a tool of social control, " said Mihir Kshisagar of the Electronic Information Privacy Center. Nor does such criticism come exclusively from the political left. Lawyer John Whitehead, founder of the conservative Rutherford Institute, wrote in an editorial that the technology threatened the right of each U.S. citizen to participate in society. "After all, that is exactly what constant surveillance is—the ultimate implied threat of coercion, " he wrote.

单选题BPassage 2/B 　　I was not at all happy at the prospect of the 700-mile drive from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi. It was not that I disliked driving but I suspected that what is a very pleasant trip in the dry season could prove disastrous during the long rains, and the monsoons had arrived the previous week. I was fully aware of the possibility of a breakdown, of hitting large animals as they stopped, dazzled by my headlamps, or even of skidding off the road. But these dangers worried me much less than the thought of the stretches of black cotton soil I would have to negotiate, gray and hard as concrete when dry, but a black, viscous, muddy mess with the consistency of elastic after just one heavy shower of rain. However, I had to be in Nairobi by the weekend so there was nothing for it but to drive; all planes were fully booked three weeks ahead and with the railway line washed out there was little likelihood of a train in the next few days.　　The first half of the journey proved completely uneventful, and I was in a very cheerful frame of mind as I pulled in to Moshi in the misty dawn. A little later, buoyed up by an excellent breakfast and the thought of tarmac roads all the way to the border, I resumed my journey. I drove another 80 miles; I was now within 20 miles of the border and what I saw ahead matched my spirits. Gone were the hills, completely hidden by the lowering clouds, their ominous, gloomy depths rent by jagged flashes of lightning.　　Ten minutes later the rain struck--an almost solid wall of water that smashed down on the car in a noisy frenzy, sheeted down the windscreen and made it almost impossible for me to see where I was going. The windscreen wipers did little to help; they were not designed to cope with such an avalanche of water. But rain of such intensity could not last long, and by the time I reached the border check-point the rain had eased off to proportions I felt I could cope with.　　The check-point consisted of two poles resting on tar barrels with the half-completed structure of a modem control post in between. In six months or so, everything would be complete as far as I could see. In the meantime, the officials I needed to stamp my passport and check my luggage could only be in the bedraggled tent I noticed perched on a slope over to my left. I took off my shoes and socks, climbed out of my car and dashed over to the tent. In the tent was an impeccably dressed immigration official sitting on a chair with his feet tucked under him while a river of water flowed in under one wall of the tent and out under another. These were hardly ideal working conditions. Yet nobody would have thought that, as he saw me, he could grin cheerfully and extend a very courteous welcome.

单选题Crime is a subject on which people have strong opinions. Some believe society creates criminals; others think the prison system is at fault. Others still say it is individuals who are to blame. The truth is that we don't really know what makes people turn to crime, but it seems likely that it is a combination of the above factors, rather than a single cause. There is, however, one thing we can be sure of: when crime falls—something which admittedly doesn't happen very often—every politician around will claim credit for it. President Clinton was the first to do so. During the American Presidential campaign in 1996, he claimed his government was responsible for falling crime rates in the U.S. which had been dropping for five years in a row. "We are making a difference," he declared "our neighborhoods are safer, and we are bringing back the American People's confidence that crime can be reduced." At first sight, one might be tempted to believe him, particularly if one looks at the situation in New York. Here, many neighborhoods which used to be crime-ridden are certainly safer. Last year, fewer than 1000 people were killed in the Big Apple. This is the lowest recorded number since 1968, and less than half the number recorded in 1990, when 2245 died as a result of crime. But while President Clinton was busy claiming credit for reducing crime across the country, New York's Republican mayor, Rudolph Giuliani was quick to point out that his "zero-tolerance" policy was the reason crime rates in New York were falling. "Zero-tolerance" works on the principle that smaller crimes lead to bigger offences. This policy has, according to Mayor Giuliani, sent a message to more serious criminals.

单选题 Lacking a cure for AIDS, society must offer education, not only by public pronouncement but also in classrooms. Those with AIDS or those at high risk of AIDS suffer prejudice; they are feared by some people who find living itself unsafe, while others conduct themselves with a "bravado" that could be fatal. AIDS has afflicted a society already short on humanism, open-handedness and optimism. Attempts to strike it out with the offending microbe are not abetted by pre-existing social ills. Such concerns impelled me to offer the first university level undergraduate AIDS course, with its two important aims: To address the fact the AIDS is caused by a virus, not by moral failure of societal collapse. The proper response to AIDS is compassion coupled with an understanding of the disease itself. We wanted to foster (help the growth of) the idea of a humane society. To describe how {{U}}AIDS tests institutions upon which our society rests.{{/U}} The economy, the political system, science, the legal establishment, the media and our moral ethical-philosophical attitudes must respond to the disease. Those responses, whispered, or shrieked, easily accepted or highly controversial, must be put in order if the nation is to manage AIDS. Scholars have suggested that how a society deals with the threat of AIDS describes the extent to which that society has the right to call itself civilized. AIDS, then, is woven into the tapestry of modern society; in the course of explaining that tapestry, a teacher realizes that AIDS may bring about changes of historic proportions. Democracy obliges its educational system to prepare students to become informed citizens, to join their voices to the public debate inspired by AIDS. Who shall direct just what resources of manpower and money to the problem of AIDS? Even more basic, who shall formulate a national policy on AIDS? The educational challenge, then, is to enlighten the individual and the societal, or public responses to AIDS.

单选题The author seems to regard Greenspan's manipulation of interest rates with

单选题 Questions 14—16 are based on the following talk on a dialogue between a man and a woman. You now have 15 seconds to read questions 14—16.