单选题Susan Baroness Greenfield is a British institution . In a country that perceives its scientists as white-coated eccentrics, and probably male, Lady Greenfield is fashionable, extravagant, and female. At least, that is the image she has sought to project as a populariser of science. She is accused, though, of bringing another British institution, the Royal Institution (RI), to the verge of bankruptcy. The RI, of which she was director from 1998 until last Friday (January 8th), has made her job redundant. She says she plans to respond with a suit for sexual discrimination. Lady Greenfield, a neuroscientist at Oxford University, was recruited to shake up the two-century-old institution because she had made a name for herself, particularly on television, as one of the popular faces of science. The RI is, in part, a members" club famous for its Christmas lectures "adapted to a juvenile audience", which are broadcast on television every year, and its Friday evening discourses (black ties, please, gentlemen), in which prominent scientists chat about their work for precisely an hour—no more and no less—before everyone is served tea and chocolate cake. But it is also a serious research laboratory (one of the longest-established in the world), looking into things like the medical applications of nanotechnology. Lady Greenfield"s offence, if offence it be, was to modernize the RI"s headquarters in Mayfair, one of the most stylish parts of London, without proper cost control. The redecoration included a high-class bar and restaurant that are open to the general public. Sadly, these opened for business in October 2008—the least favorable moment imaginable for such a venture. The redecoration, which cost ￡ 22m, much of which was raised by selling the institution"s shares of property, has left the RI ￡ 3m in debt, and the trustees have decided that one way to cut costs is to cut the job of director. Lady Greenfield, the first female director in a line that stretches back through Michael Faraday to Humphry Davy, seems to suspect that financial considerations were not the only ones when this decision was made. Instead of a director, the RI is to be led by a newly-invented chief executive officer, in the person of Chris Rofe. Mr. Rofe, who was appointed in April 2009, has a degree in business administration, not science. Given the debt, though, perhaps an alchemist, a person who devotes himself to turning ordinary metals into gold, would be the most appropriate person for the job.

单选题 It was not "the comet of the century" experts predicted it might be. However, Kohoutek has provided a bonanza of scientific information. It was first spotted 370 million miles from Earth, by an astronomer who was searching the sky for asteroids, and after whom the comet was named. Scientists who tracked Kohoutek the ten months before it passed the Earth predicted the comet would be a brilliant spectacle. But Kohoutek fell short of these predictions, disappointing millions of amateur sky watchers, when it proved too pale to be seen with the unaided eye. Researchers were very happy nonetheless with the new information they were able to glean from their investigation of file comet. Perhaps the most significant discovery was the identification of two important chemical compounds -- methyl cyanide and hydrogen cyanide -- never before seen in comets, but found it the far reaches of interstellar space. This discovery revealed new clues about the origin of comets. Most astronomers agree that comets are primordial remnants from the formation of the solar system, but whether they were born between Jupiter and Neptune or much farther out toward interstellar space has been the subject of much debate. If compounds no more complex than ammonia and methane, key components of Jupiter, were seen in comets, it would suggest that comets form within the planetary orbits. But more complex compounds, such as the methyl cyanide found in Kohoutek, point to formation far beyond the planets; there the deep freeze of space has kept them unchanged.

单选题What right did women win in government?

单选题The proportion of works cut for the cinema in Britain dropped from 40 percent when I joined the BBFC in 1975 to less than 4 percent when I left. But I don't think that 20 years from now it will be possible to regulate any medium as closely as I regulated film. The Internet is, of course, the greatest problem for this century. The world will have to find a means, through some sort of international treaty of United Nations initiative, to control the material that's now going totally unregulated into people's homes. That said, it will only take one little country like Paraguay to refuse to sign a treaty for transmission to be unstoppable. Parental control is never going to be sufficient. I'm still very worried about the impact of violent video games, even though researchers say their impact is moderated by the fact that players don't so much experience the game as enjoy the technical manoeuvres (策略)that enable you to win. But in respect of violence in mainstream films, I'm more optimistic. Quite suddenly, tastes have changed, and it's no longer Stallone or Schwarzenegger who are the top stars, but Leonardo DiCaprio—that has taken everybody by surprise. Go through the most successful films in Europe and America now and you will find virtually none that are violent. Quentin Tarantino didn't usher in a new, violent generation, and films are becoming much more prosocial than one would have expected. Cinemagoing will undoubtedly survive. The new multiplexes are a glorious experience, offering perfect sound and picture and very comfortable seats, things which had died out in the 1980s. I can't believe we've achieved that only to throw it away in favor of huddling around a 14-inch computer monitor to watch digitally-delivered movies at home. It will become increasingly cheap to make films, with cameras becoming smaller and lighter but remaining very precise. That means greater chances for new talent to emerge, as it will be much easier for people to learn how to be better film-makers. People's working lives will be shorter in the future, and once retired they will spend a lot of time learning to do things that amuse them like making videos. Fifty years on we could well be media-saturated as producers as well as audience; instead of writing letters, one will send little home movies entitled My Week.

单选题Which of the following respects does NOT help New York become the most famous city?

单选题Man has been storing up useful knowledge about himself and the universe at the rate which has been spiraling upward for 10,000 years.　　The (21) took a sharp upward leap with the invention of writing, but even (22) it remained painfully slow for several centuries. The next great leap forward (23) knowledge acquisition did not occur (24) the invention of movable type in the 15th century by Gutenberg and others. (25) to 1500, by the most optimistic (26) Europe was producing books at a rate of 1000 titles per year. This means that it (27) a full century to produce a library of 100,000 titles. By 1950, four and a half (28) later, the rate had accelerated so sharply that Europe was producing 120,000 titles a year. (29) once took a century now took only ten months. By 1960, a (30) decade later, the rate had made another significant jump, (31) a century's work could be finished in seven and a half months. (32) , by the mid-sixties, the output of books on a world (33) , Europe included, approached the prodigious figure of 900 titles per day.　　One can (34) argue that every book is a net gain for the advancement of knowledge. Nevertheless we find that the accelerative (35) in book publication does, in fact, crudely (36) the rate at which man discovered new knowledge. For example, prior to Gutenberg (37) 11 chemical elements were known. Antimony the 12th, was discovered (38) about the time he was working on his invention. It was fully 200 years since the 11th, arsenic, had been discovered. (39) the same rate of discovery continued, we would by now have added only two or three additional elements to the periodic table since Gutenberg. (40) , in the 450 years after his time, certain people discovered some seventy additional elements. And since 1900 we have been isolating the remaining elements not at a rate of one every two centuries, but of one every three years.

单选题I'll never forget the days ______ I worked together with you. A. when B. where C. which D. that

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Every spring migrating salmon return to British Columbia's rivers to spawn. And every spring new reports detail fresh disasters that befall them. This year is no different. The fisheries committee of Canada' s House of Commons and a former chief justice of British Columbia, Bryan Williams, have just examined separately why 1. 3 m sockeye salmon mysteriously "disappeared" from the famed Fraser river fishery in 2004. Their conclusions point to a politically explosive conflict between the survival of salmon and the rights of First Nations, as Canadians call Indians. In 2004, only about 524,000 salmon are thought to have returned to the spawning grounds, barely more than a quarter the number who made it four years earlier. High water temperatures may have killed many. The House of Commons also lambasted the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) for poor scientific data, and for failing to enforce catch levels. Four similar reports since 1992 have called for the department's reform. In vain. its senior officials are "in denial" about its failings, said the committee. Mr Williams' report added a more shocking twist. He concluded that illegal fishing on the Fraser river is "rampant and out of control", with "no-go" zones where fisheries of ricers are told not to confront Indian poachers for fear of violence. The judge complained that the DFO withheld a report by one of its investigators which detailed extensive poaching and sale of salmon by members of the Cheam First Nation, some of whom were armed. Some First Nations claim an unrestricted right to fish and sell their catch. Canada's constitution acknowledges the aboriginal right to fish for food and for social and ceremonial needs, but not a general commercial right. On the Fraser, however, the DFO has granted Indians a special commercial fishery. To some Indians, even that is not enough. Both reports called for more funds for the DFO, to improve data collection and enforcement. They also recommended returning to a single legal regime for commercial fishing applying to all Canadians. On April 14th, Geoff Regan, the federal fisheries minister, responded to two previous reports from a year ago. One, from a First Nations group, suggested giving natives a rising share of the catch. The other proposed a new quota system for fishing licenses, and the conclusion of long-standing talks on treaties, including fishing rights, with First Nations. Mr Regan said his department would spend this year consulting "stakeholders" (natives, commercial and sport fishermen). It will also launch pilot projects aimed at improving conservation, enforcement and First Nations' access to fisheries.

单选题 Reading to oneself is modem activity which was almost unknown to the scholars of the classical and medieval (between AD 1100 and 1500) worlds, while during the fifteenth century the term "reading" undoubtedly meant reading aloud. Only during the nineteenth century did silent reading become commonplace. One should be careful, however, in assuming that silent reading came about simply because reading aloud is distraction to others. Examination of factors related to the historical development of silent reading reveals that it became the usual mode of reading for most adult reading tasks mainly because the tasks themselves changed in character. The last century saw a steady gradual increase in literacy, and thus in the number of readers. As readers increased, so the number of potential listeners decreased, and thus there was some reduction in the need to read aloud. As reading for the benefit of listeners grew less common, so came the flourishing of reading as a private activity in such public places as libraries, railway carriages and offices, where reading aloud would cause distraction to other readers. Towards the end of the century there was still considerable argument over whether books should be used for information or treated respectfully, and over whether the reading of materials such as newspapers was in some way mentally weakening. Indeed this argument remains with us still in education. However, whatever its virtues, the old shared literacy culture had gone and was replaced by the printed mass media on the one hand and by book and magazines for a specialized readership on the other. By the end of the century students were being recommended to adopt attitudes to books and to use skills in reading them which were inappropriate, if not impossible, for the oral reader. The social, cultural, and technological changes in the century had greatly altered what the term "reading" implied.

单选题{{I}} You will hear four dialogues or monologues. Before listening to each one, you will have 5 seconds to read each of the questions which accompany it. While listening, answer each question by choosing A, B, C or D. After listening, you will have 10 seconds to check your answer to each question. You will hear each piece ONLY ONCE.{{/I}} {{I}}Questions 11 to 13 are based on the passage you have just heard.{{/I}}

单选题 When the world was a simpler place, the rich were fat, the poor were thin, and right-thinking people worried about how to feed the hungry. Now, in much of the world, the rich are thin, the poor are fat, and right-thinking people are worrying about obesity. Evolution is mostly to blame. It has designed mankind to cope with deprivation, not plenty. People are perfectly tuned to store energy in good years to see them through lean ones. But when bad times never come, they are stuck with that energy, stored around their expanding bellies. Thanks to rising agricultural productivity, lean years are rarer all over the globe. Modernday Malthusians, who used to draw graphs proving that the world was shortly going to run out of food, have gone rather quiet lately. According to the UN, the number of people short of food fell from 920m in 1980 to 799m 20 years later, even though the world's population increased by 1.6 billion over the period. This is mostly a cause for celebration. Mankind has won what was, for most of his time on this planet, his biggest battle: to ensure that he and his offspring had enough to eat. But every silver lining has a cloud, and the consequence of prosperity is a new plague that brings with it ahost of interesting policy dilemmas. As a scourge of the modern world, obesity has an image problem. It is easier to associate with Father Christmas than with the four horses of the apocalypse. But it has a good claim to lumber along beside them, for it is the world's biggest public-health issue today—the main cause of heart disease, which kills more people these days than AIDS, malaria, war; the principal risk factor in diabetes; heavily implicated in cancer and other diseases. Since the World Health Organisation labelled obesity an "epidemic" in 2000, reports on its fearful consequences have come thick and fast. Will public-health warnings, combined with media pressure, persuade people to get thinner, just as they finally put them off tobacco? Possibly. In the rich world, sales of healthier foods are booming (see survey) and new figures suggest that over the past year Americans got very slightly thinner for the first time in recorded history. But even if Americans are losing a few ounces, it will be many years before the country solves the health problems caused by half a century's dining to excess. And, everywhere else in the world, people are still piling on the pounds. That's why there is now a consensus among doctors that governments should do something to stop them.

单选题I don’t believe you can draw ______ picture. [A] so a good [B] so well a [C] such a good

单选题--Must I stay here now?--No, you ______ . [A] won't [B] mustn't [C] needn't

单选题It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. "My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?" Mr. Bennet replied that he had not. " But it is," returned she; "for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it." Mr. Bennet made no answer. "Do you not want to know who has taken it?" cried his wife impatiently. "You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it." This was invitation enough. "Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four4 to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week." "What is his name?" " Bingley." "Is he married or single?" "Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!" "How so? How can it affect them?" "My dear Mr. Bennet," replied his wife, "how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them." "Is that his design in settling here?" "Design! Nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes." "I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley may like you the best of the party." " My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty." "In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of." "But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when he comes into the neighborhood." " It is more than I engage for, I assure you." " But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to go, merely on that account, for in general, you know, they visit no newcomers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for us to visit him if you do not." " You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy." " I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the others; and I am sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so good-humored as Lydia. But you are always giving her the preference." " They have none of them much to recommend them," replied he;" they are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters." " Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves." " You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these last twenty years at least." Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humor, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.

单选题The "contract system" is ______.