单选题All the wisdom of the ages, all the stories that have delighted mankind for centuries, are easily and cheaply 1 to all of us 2 the covers of books -- but we must know how to avail ourselves 3 this treasure and how to get 4 from it. The most 5 people all over the world, are 6 who have never discovered how 7 it is to read good books. I am very interested in people, in meeting them and 8 about them. Some of the most 9 people I"ve met existed only in a Writer"s imagination, then 10 the pages of his book, and then, again, in my imagination. I"ve found in books new friends, new societies, new words. If I am interested in people, others are interested not so much in who 11 in how. Who in the books includes everybody from science-fiction superman two hundred centuries in the future all the way back to the first 12 in history; how 13 everything from the ingenious explanations of Sherlock Holmes 14 the discoveries of science and ways of teaching manners to children. Reading can make our minds feel pleased, 15 means that it is a little like a sport: your eagerness and knowledge and quickness 16 you a good reader. Reading is 17 , not because the writer is telling you something, 18 because it makes your mind work. Your own imagination works together with the 19 or even goes beyond his. Your experience, 20 his, brings you to the same or different conclusions, and your ideas develop as you understand his.

单选题Accident and health insurance will protect people by______.

单选题Most publishing is now "electronic" in the sense that books, magazines and newspapers are prepared on computers, and exist as computer files before they are printed on paper. Often there are advantages to give readers access to the electronic versions of publications as well as--or even instead of--the printed versions. Print publications have lots of advantages. Paper is pleasant to handle, easy to read, and very portable: you can read it almost anywhere. On the other hand, print has its weaknesses. Paper is expensive, and articles are often cut to fit the space available, printing and distributing paper is expensive and takes time. Printed materials are expensive to store and almost impossible to search. Electronic publishing offers solutions to all these problems. Suppose a publisher makes the electronic copy of a newspaper or magazine available from the net, perhaps on the Internets World Wide Web. No paper is used and disc space is cheap, so internet publishing costs very little. Articles don' t have to be cut (though there is of course a limit to the amount people are willing to read on line). Internet publishing is fast, and readers can access material as soon as it becomes available: within minutes, instead of the next day, next week or next month. Internet publishing goes beyond geographical boundaries: the humblest local paper can be read everywhere form New York to London to Delhi to Tokyo, Delivery costs are low because there are no newsagents to pay, and no postal charges: readers pick up the bills for their on-line sessions, also, computer-based publications are simple to store (on disc) and every word can be, searched electronically. At the moment, newspapers and magazines, TV and radio stations, news agencies and book publishers are making content freely available on the Web because they are competing for "mind share". Perhaps they want to find out if they can attract and hold an audience on line, or perhaps they are afraid of missing out because "everyone else is doing it." But don' t count on things staying that way. Publishers are not in business to lose money.

单选题The phrase "ring up sales" most probably means "______"

单选题Which of tile following is LEAST likely to be found as a fossil, assuming that all are buried rapidly ?

单选题Increasingly, the development of tourism is seen to have an effect on the environment. Erosion is one problem. The steps and stones of major popular sites like Shakespeares birthplace or Stonehenge are literally being worn away by millions of foreign feet. The remedy in the case of Britain' s best known prehistoric monument has been to use railings to keep visitors at a distance. Such measures can hardly be adopted in the house of the Bard, however, where tourists want to enter the actual building. Overcrowding in cities, towns and villages is another problem. Traffic jams are an outcome. In narrow roads, tourist vehicles cause congestion. Local traders and residents cannot get around to do their work. Car parks fill up, so strangers park their cars where they can: in streets, across gate ways, in lay-bys, or even in private driveways. This causes obstruction. The sheer weights of incomers can be a hazard. Thus Venice, a city built for half a million inhabitants, is swollen by another half million who populate the city daily in the tourist season eight million visits each year. The mayor recently decided to limit visitors to 90,000 a day: the only way to save the city from inundation. Pollution is a further consequence. The' Lakes are popular for people who enjoy water-sports, such as water-skiing, power boat racing and swimming, but boats pump sewage directly into the water. Facilities can be provided to prevent this happening, but this is costly. There are also problems with litter. The threat to wildlife habitats is yet another result. Tourists around the Lakes destroy vegetation. This is harmful to animals which build their nests along the shores, Wildlife refuges have been created which have helped protect these natural sites. On the Greek island of Zakinthos, the breeding beaches of the rare loggerhead turtle are being threatened by tourist disturbance. Local conservationists try to monitor and protect the turtles but they have been attacked by the angry owners of taverns and hotels who make lucrative profits from bars or renting sunbeds and umbrellas. Government compensation payments for the loss of business might be the answer, but this would be costly.

单选题At the age of 16, Lee Hyuk Joon's life is a living hell. The South Korean 10th grader gets up at 6 in the morning to go to school, and studies most of the day until returning home at 6 p. m. After dinner, it's time to hit the books again—at one of Seoul's many so-called cram schools. Lee gets back home at 1 in the morning, sleeps less than five hours, then repeats the routine—five days a week. It's a grueling schedule, but Lee worries that it may not be good enough to get him into a top university. Some of his classmates study even harder. South Korea's education system has long been highly competitive. But for Lee and the other 700,000 high-school sophomores in the country, high-school studies have gotten even more intense. That's because South Korea has conceived a new college-entrance system, which will be implemented in 2008. This year's 10th graders will be the first group evaluated by the new admissions standard, which places more emphasis on grades in the three years of high school and less on nationwide SAT-style and other selection tests, which have traditionally determined which students go to the elite colleges. The change was made mostly to reduce what the government says is a growing education gap in the country: wealthy students go to the best colleges and get the best jobs, keeping the children of poorer families on the social margins. The aim is to reduce the importance of costly tutors and cram schools, partly to help students enjoy a more normal high-school life. But the new system has had the opposite effect. Before, students didn't worry too much about their grade-point averages; the big challenge was beating the standardized tests as high-school seniors. Now students are competing against one another over a three-year period, and every midterm and final test is crucial. Fretful parents are relying even more heavily on tutors and cram schools to help their children succeed. Parents and kids have sent thousands of angry online letters to the Education Ministry complaining that the new admissions standard is setting students against each other. "One can succeed only when others fail," as one parent said. Education experts say that South Korea's public secondary-school system is foundering, while private education is thriving. According to critics, the country's high schools are almost uniformly mediocre—the result of an egalitarian government education policy. With the number of elite schools strictly controlled by the government, even the brightest students typically have to settle for ordinary schools in their neighbourhoods, where the curriculum is centred on average students. To make up for the mediocrity, zealous parents send their kids to the expensive cram schools. Students in affluent southern Seoul neighbourhoods complain that the new system will hurt them the most. Nearly all Korean high schools will be weighted equally in the college-entrance process, and relatively weak students in provincial schools, who may not score well on standardized tests, often compile good grade-point averages. Some universities, particularly prestigious ones, openly complain that they cannot select the best students under the new system because it eliminates differences among high schools. They've asked for more discretion in picking students by giving more weight to such screening tools as essay writing or interviews. President Roh Moo Hyun doesn't like how some colleges are trying to circumvent the new system. He recently criticized "greedy" universities that focus more on finding the best students than trying to "nurture good students". But amid the crossfire between the government and universities, the country's 10th graders are feeling the stress. On online protest sites, some are calling themselves a "cursed generation" and "mice in a lab experiment". It all seems a touch melodramatic, but that's the South Korean school system.

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

单选题which of the following assesses the research quality of university departments on the scale of 1 to 5?

单选题A parent with a child carrying a musical instrument or a drawing board walking along a Beijing subway platform or street is a familiar sight on weekends. They are on the way to training schools. Education of their children has become the most important responsibility of parents who were sent to rural areas for "re-education" during the "Cultural Revolution" from 1966 to 1976. They lost the chance for university education and now hope their children can receive a better education than they did. As a result, these people now in their forties expose their little children to early training so that they can enter a prestigious school. The parents imagine a road to success: from excellent primary and middle schools to an elite university and then to a good job. On average, they may spend about 100 yuan a month on their children's education. And what results have these parents obtained? Most of them feel that the large investment has failed to lead to rapid progress in their children's study. "We seem to be throwing our money away," said one parent. However, many parents still think that spending more on their children's schooling will result in high scores. These parents have also introduced a "contract system", which offers rewards for good school grades. More than 80% of parents in families in Chengdu have signed contracts with their children, according to the Consumers" Times. The paper notes that the heavy pressure put on children to perform well at school has resulted in a decline in children's health. The parents' investment in their children also includes hiring tutors. A survey of 250 students in Xuzhou found that 10% of their parents hired tutors. The pay for one tutorial hour is three yuan. Liberation Daily commented that these parents have too high expectations of their children. According to the article, "They are trying to help the young plants grow by pulling them upwards." They ignore their children's psychology and perhaps will damage the real talents the children possess.

单选题Tire author's attitude towards the research of ocean bottom might be best summarize as one of______.

单选题 Questions 11～13 are based on a dialogue between husband and wife. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11～13.