单选题the paragraph following this passage most likely discusses ______.

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Six years later, in an about-face, the FBI admits that federal agents fired tear gas canisters capable of causing a fire at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas in 1993. But the official said the firing came several hours before the structure burst into flames, killing 80 people including the Davidians' leader, David Koresh. "In looking into this, we've come across information that shows some canisters that can be deemed pyrotechnic in nature were fired--hours before the fire started," the official said. "Devices were fired at the bunker, not at the main structure where the Davidians were camped out. " The Federal Bureau of Investigation maintains it did not start what turned to be a series of fiery bursts of flames that ended a 51-day standoff between branch members and the federal government. "This doesn't change the bottom line that David Koresh started the fire and the government did not," the official said. "It simply shows that devices that could probably be flammable were used in the early morning hours. " The law enforcement official said the canisters were fired not at the main structure where the Davidian members were camped out but at the nearby underground bunker. They bounced off the bunker's concrete roof and landed in an open field well, the official said. The canisters were fired at around 6 a.m. , and the fire that destroyed the wooden compound started around noon, the official said. The official also added that other tear gas canisters used by agent that day were not flammable or potentially explosive. While Coulson denied the grenades played a role in starting the fire, his statement marked the first time that any U.S. government official had publicly contradicted the government's position that federal agents used nothing on the final day of the siege at Waco that could have sparked the fire that engulfed the compound. The cause of the fiery end is a major focus of an ongoing inquiry by the Texas Rangers into the Waco siege.

单选题By "selective" and "creative", the author means that the observer of an event

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

单选题Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1. Comparisons were drawn between the development of television in the 20th century and the diffusion of printing in the 15th and 16th centuries. Yet much has happened {{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}. As was discussed before, it was not {{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}}the 19th century that the newspaper became the dominant pre-electronic {{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}, following in the wake of the pamphlet and the book and in the {{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}of the periodical. It was during the same time that the communications revolution {{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}up, beginning with transport, the railways and leading {{U}} {{U}} 6 {{/U}} {{/U}}through the telegraph, the telephone, radio and motion pictures {{U}} {{U}} 7 {{/U}} {{/U}}the 20th century world of the motor car and the airplane. Not everyone sees that process in {{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}. It is important to do so. It is generally recognized, {{U}} {{U}} 9 {{/U}} {{/U}}, that the introduction of the computer in the early 20th century, {{U}} {{U}} 10 {{/U}} {{/U}}by the invention of the integrated circuit during the 1960s, radically changed the process, {{U}} {{U}} 11 {{/U}} {{/U}}its impact on the media was not immediately {{U}} {{U}} 12 {{/U}} {{/U}}. As time went by, computers became smaller and more powerful, and they became personal too, as well as {{U}} {{U}} 13 {{/U}} {{/U}}, with display becoming sharper and storage {{U}} {{U}} 14 {{/U}} {{/U}}increasing. They were thought of, like people, {{U}} {{U}} 15 {{/U}} {{/U}}generations, with the distance between generations much {{U}} {{U}} 16 {{/U}} {{/U}}. It was within the computer age that the term information society began to be widely used to describe the {{U}} {{U}} 17 {{/U}} {{/U}}within which we now live. The communications revolution has {{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}both work and leisure and how we think and feel both about place and time, but there have been {{U}} {{U}} 19 {{/U}} {{/U}}views about its economic, political, social and cultural implications. Benefits have been weighed {{U}} {{U}} 20 {{/U}} {{/U}}harmful outcomes. And generalizations have proved difficult.

单选题 Do you find it very difficult and painful to get up in the morning? This might be called laziness, but Dr. Kleitman has a new explanation. He has proved that everyone has a daily energy cycle. During the hours when you labor through your work you may say that you're "hot". That's true. The time of day when you feel most energetic is when your cycle of body temperature is at its peak. For some people the peak comes during the forenoon. For others it comes in the afternoon or evening. No one has discovered why this is so, but it leads to such familiar monologues as: "Get up, Peter! You'll be late for work again!" The possible explanation to the trouble is that Peter is at his temperature-and-energy peak in the evening. Much family quarrelling ends when husbands and wives realize what these energy cycles mean, and which cycle each member of the family has. You can't change your energy cycle, but you can learn to make your life fit it better. Habit can help, Dr. Kleitman believes. Maybe you're sleepy in the evening but feel you must stay up late any- way. Counteract your cycle to some extent by habitually staying up later than you want to. If your energy is low in the morning, but you have an important job to do early in the day, rise before your usual hour. This won't change your cycle, but you'll get up steam and work better at your low point. Get off to a slow start which saves your energy. Get up with a leisurely yawn and stretch. Sit on the edge of the bed a minute before putting your feet on the floor. Avoid the troublesome search for clean clothes by laying them out the night before. Whenever possible, do routine work in the after- noon and save tasks requiring more energy or concentration for your sharper hours.

单选题Apple Computer has a history of______.

单选题The passage suggests that being informed by radio

单选题Working conditions generally remain bad because ______.

单选题A 80-year old man from Cincinnati in America is making legal history by suing doctors who saved his wife. Edward Winter has witnessed his wife' s death from a (21) attack. The doctors had tried to restart her heart with an electric (22) with remarkable success, but leaving her brain (23) . Her death was a long and (24) experience, which he did not want to go through himself. After she died he asked his doctor (25) to save him in (26) circumstances, but instead to let him die (27) . While out visiting in May 1988, Mr. Winter (28) the heart attack, which he was treated, and was rushed to St Franc' is hospital in Cincinnati. The doctor who (29) him wrote down on his chart that he was not to be (30) but the duty nurse was not informed of Mr. Winter's (31) . The nurse took the usual (32) action and tried to revive him with an electric shock. His life was saved (33) the treatment was not completely successful. Since then he (34) stay in a nursing home, partially (35) and barely able to speak without weeping. Though there is (36) hope of improvement in his condition, doctors say he could (37) many more years. The hospital (38) his story, arguing that the injury suffered by Mr. Winter is the (39) of an act of God and they (40) him over $ 60,000 for saving his life.

单选题Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, burdensome, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has resulted in robotics-the science of conferring various human capabilities on machines. And if scientists have yet to create the mechanical version of science fiction, they have begun to come close. As a result, the modem world is increasingly populated by intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose universal existence has removed much human labor. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with mechanical politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robot drivers. And thanks to the continual miniaturization of electronics and micromechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with submillimeter accuracy-far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone. But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves-goals that pose a real challenge. "While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error," says Dave Lavery, manager of a robotics program at NASA, "we can"t yet give a robot enough "common sense" to reliably interact with a dynamic world." Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results. Despite a spell of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the human brain by the year 2010, researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast by decades if not centuries. What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain"s roughly one hundred billion nerve cells are much more talented-and human perception far more complicated-than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognize the error of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 percent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of a winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can"t approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don"t know quite how we do it.

单选题According to the context, the "simple reading" done by the computer mostly refers to

单选题You will hear three 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. Questions 11—13 are based on the following dialogue. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11—13.