单选题How to Improve Reading Speed The comprehension passages on this course are designed to help you increase your speed. A higher reading rate with no loss of comprehension will help you in other subjects as well as English, and the general principles applied to any language. Naturally, you will read every book at the same speed. You would expect to read a newspaper, for example, much more rapidly than a physics or economics textbook, hut you can raise your average reading speed over the whole range of materials you wish to cover so that the percentage gain will be the same whatever kind of reading you are concerned with. The reading passages which follow are all of an average level of difficulty for your stage of instruction. They are all proximately 500 words long. They are about topics of general interest which do not require a great deal of specialized knowledge. Thus they fall between the kind of reading you might find in your textbooks and the much less demanding kind you will find in a newspaper or light novel. If you read this kind of English, with understanding, at say, 400 words per minute (w. p. m.), you might skim through a newspaper at perhaps 650-700 w. p. m., while with a difficult textbook you might drop to 200 or 250 w. p.m. If you get to the point where you can read books of average difficulty at between 400 and 500 w. p. m., with 70% or more comprehension, you will be doing quite well, though of course any further improvement of speed with comprehension will be a good thing. When you practise reading with passage shorter than book length, do not try to take in each word separately, one after the other. It is much more difficult to grasp the broad theme of the passage this way, and you will also get stuck on individual words which may not be absolutely essential to a general understanding of the passage. It is a good idea to skim through the passage very quickly first (say, 500 words in a minute or so) to get the general idea of each paragraph. Titles, paragraph headings and emphasized words (underlined or in italics) can be a great help in getting this skeleton outline of the passage.

单选题What do you know from the passage about the book Don't Know Much about History?

单选题 Questions 11～13 are based on a conversation between two college classmates. You now hove 15 seconds to read Questions 11～13.

单选题The forms of nonverbal communication are______.

单选题According to the writer, forecasting is fairly accurate in ______.

单选题Which of the following can NOT be inferred from the passage?

单选题In the sentence "Police believed he was murdered for informing them about Ramos" (Para. 3), "he" may refer to

单选题How many countries took part in the Normandy Landings sixty years ago?

单选题What are the inconveniences the Excite Inbox offer to customers?

单选题Who first hinted at the possible cause of childhood leukaemia by infection?

单选题In the 18th century, New York was smaller than Philadelphia and Boston. Today it is the largest city in America. How to explain the change in its size and importance? To answer this question we must consider certain facts about geography, history and economics. Together these three will explain the huge growth of America's most famous cities. The map of the Northeast shows that four of the most heavily-populated areas in this region are around seaports. At these points materials from across tile sea enter America, and the products of the land are sent there for export across the sea. Economists know that places where transportation lines meet are good places for making raw materials into completed goods, That is why seaports often have cities nearby. But cities like New York needed more than their geographical location in order to become great industrial centers. Their development did not happen simply by chance. About 1815, when many Americans from the east coast had already moved to the west. trade routes from the ports to the central regions of the country began to be a serious problem, The slow wagons of that time. drawn by horses or oxen, were too expensive for moving heavy freight very far. Americans had long admired Europe's canals. In New York State a canal seemed the best solution to the transportation problem From the eastern end of Lake Erie all the way across the state to the Hudson River there is a long trip of low land Here the Erie Canal was constructed. After working for several years it was completed in 1825. The canal produced an immediate effect. Freight costs were cut to about one-tenth of what they had been. New York City, which had been smaller than Philadelphia and Boston, quickly became the leading city of the coast. In later years, transportation routes on the Great Lakes were joined to routes on the Mississippi River. Then New York City became the end point of a great inland shipping system that emended from the Atlantic Ocean far up to the western branches of the Mississippi. The new railroads made canal shipping not as important as before, but it tied New York even more closely to the central regions of the country. It was easier for people in the central states to ship their goods to New York for export overseas. Exports from New York were greater than imports. Consequently, shipping companies were eager to fill their ships with passengers on the return trip from Europe. Passengers could come from Europe very cheaply as a result. Thus New York became the greatest port for receiving people from European countries. Many of them remained in the city. Others stayed in New York for a few weeks, months or years, and then moved to other parts of the United States. For these great numbers of new Americans. New York had to provide homes, goods and services. Their labor helped the city become great

单选题Accordingtothepassage,whatdidnaturerepresenttoIsadoraDuncan?A.SomethingtoconquerB.AmodelformovementC.AplacetofindpeaceD.Asymbolofdisorder

单选题Our analysis therefore suggests that the real problem facing the black community lies in the educational obstacles prior to the Ph. D. programs rather than in the pour-in of foreign students. Equally, our analysis suggests that we ought to treat foreign students as an important source of brain gain for us and that we ought to facilitate, rather than hinder, their arrival and their entry into our work force. How could this be done? There is a long-standing provision in our immigration laws under which those who bring in a certain amount of financial capital (which will "create jobs") are allowed to immigrate: A foreigner who invests one million dollars in a commercial enterprise established in a high-unemployment area, which creates jobs for at least ten Americans, is automatically given immigrant status (i.e., a green card). We suggest extending the idea from financial to human capital. Currently, graduate students who wish to stay on in the United States after their Ph. D. s must be sponsored by their employers, a process that imposes substantial hardship both on the students and on smaller employers. The standard procedure is in two stages. First, the U.S. Department of Labor must, on the basis of a U.S. employer"s sponsorship, certify that "no American can do this job." Then, the would-be immigrant must apply for immigrant status at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). ff all goes right, the entire process takes about two years (considerably more for citizens of certain countries). But things may not go right: there could be problems at either stage. Thus, the employer or the "alien" must hire an immigration lawyer. The current process, then, is costly both to the would-be immigrant and to the employer (and hence, it unfairly penalizes smaller firms that cannot afford this expensive process and so cannot recruit this foreign talent). The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1990 introduced an alternative route for professors and researchers to secure immigrant status. Essentially, it eliminates the average processing time to about one year, it does not eliminate any of the uncertainty or the need for expensive legal counsel. We budget that automatic green cards be given to all those who obtain a Ph.D. in the science and engineering programs at our universities. In adopting such a "guaranteed green card" proposal, we would be recognizing the important contribution that these students make to our leading position in science by giving equal weight to human capital and financial capital.

单选题As West Nile virus creeps toward California, an unlikely warrior could provide the first line of defense: the chicken. The familiar fowl make irresistible targets for mosquitoes. Unlike crows, chickens don"t get sick from West Nile. But they do produce telltale antibodies to the virus. So in test coops scattered across the state, more than 2000 "sentinel chickens" submit to frequent blood tests. When antibodies do turn up, California health officials will know that the inevitable has occurred; the West Nile epidemic will have swept the country. Last week alone, more than 100 new human cases of West Nile were reported. The virus was detected as far west as Colorado and Wyoming, infecting 371 and killing 16 people in 20 states plus the District of Columbia. This year West Nile appeared earlier in the mosquito season—mid-June instead of August—and claimed younger victims ; the average age dropped from 65 to 54. Federal health officials are still trying to figure out why, but say they may be finding more West Nile precisely because they"re on the lookout for it. As Dr. Julie Gerberding, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), recently told reporters, "We"re not in crisis mode." When West Nile hit New York City in 1999, the CDC realized it was a victim of its own success. Because health officials had conquered most mosquito-borne diseases decades ago, many states abolished their mosquito-control programs. The Feds rushed in with funds—some $50 million since 1999, plus $31 million more this year alone—to train insect researchers, set up state testing labs and kill off the annoying insects. The CDC established a new computer monitoring system and held strategy sessions with state officials. Some epidemiologists question the focus—and the millions—lavished on a virus that"s killed fewer than 20. "There"s an epidemic in gun violence that"s taking more lives than West Nile virus," says Dr. William Steinmann, director of the Tulance Center for Clinical Effectiveness and Prevention, But the Feds say their efforts have kept West Nile from doing far more damage. "We"re basically building the infrastructure to deal with this over the next 50 years," says Dr. Lyle Peterson, a CDC epidemiologist: "This is here to stay. " So far, there are no remedies for West Nile. Officials eventually expect the virus to settle into a quiet pattern of mild infections with occasional outbreaks. To do battle at home, the CDC recommends eliminating standing water and using insect spray with DEET—simple precautions, but the best defense against an invader that shows no signs of going away.

单选题Questions 14—16 are based on the following passage. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14—16.