单选题 {{I}}Questions 14-17 are based on the following dialogue:{{/I}}

单选题The author write this passage to______.

单选题Competition for admission to the country"s top private schools has always been tough, but this year Elisabeth realized it had reached a new level. Her wake-up call came when a man called the Dalton School in Manhattan, where Elisabeth is admissions director, and inquired about the age cutoff for their kindergarten program. After providing the information, she asked about the age of his child. The man paused for an uncomfortably long time before answering. "Well, we don"t have a child yet. We"re trying to figure out when to conceive a child so the birthday is not a problem." Worries are spreading from Manhattan to the rest of the country. Precise current data on private schools are unavailable, but interviews with representatives of independent schools all told the same story: an oversupply of applicants, higher rejection rates. "We have people calling us for spots two years down the road," said Marilyn of the Seven Hills School in Cincinnati. "We have grandparents calling for pregnant daughters." Public opinion polls indicate that Americans" No. 1 concern is education. Now that the long economic boom has given parents more disposable income, many are turning to private schools, even at price tags of well over $10,000 a year. "We"re getting applicants from a broader area geographically than we ever have in the past," said Betsy of the Latin School of Chicago, which experienced a 20 percent increase in applications this year. The problem for the applicants is that while demand has increased, supply has not. "Every year, there are a few children who do not find places, but this year, for the first time that I know of, there ale a significant number without places," said Elisabeth. So what can parents do to give their 4-year-old an edge? Schools know there is no easy way to pick a class when children are so young. Many schools give preference to children of their graduates. Some make the choice by drawing lots. But most rely on a mix of subjective and objective measures: tests that at best identify developmental maturity and cognitive potential, interviews with parents and observation of applicants in classroom settings. They also want a diverse mix. Children may end up on a waiting list simply because their birthdays fall at the wrong time of year, or because too many applicants were boys. The worst thing a patent can do is to pressure preschoolers to perform—for example, by pushing them to read or do math exercises before they"re ready. Instead, the experts say, parents should take a breath and look for alternatives. Another year in preschool may be all that"s needed.

单选题When the author says that the success of the gold-exchange standard "depended on the superior position of the United States in world trade" (paragraph 4), she is most probably referring to the idea that

单选题The word "contingencies" underlined here means

单选题The "standard of living" of any country means the average person"s share of the goods and services which the country produces. A country"s standard of living, therefore, depends first and foremost on its capacity to produce wealth. "Wealth" in this sense is not money, for we do not live on money but on things that money can buy: "goods" such as food and clothing, and "services" such as transport and entertainment. A country"s capacity to produce wealth depends upon many factors, most of which have an effect on one another. Wealth depends to a great extent upon a county"s natural resources, such as coal, gold, and other minerals, water supply and so on. Some regions of the world are well supplied with coal and minerals, and have a fertile soil and a favorable climate; other regions possess perhaps only one of these things, and some regions possess none of them. The USA is one of the wealthiest regions of the world because she had vast natural resources within her borders, her soil is fertile, and her climate is varied. The Sahara Desert, on the other hand, is one of the least wealthy. Next to natural resources comes the ability to turn them to use. China is perhaps as well off as the USA in natural resources, but suffered for many years from civil and external wars, and for this and other reasons was unable to develop her resources. Sound political conditions, and freedom from foreign invasion, enable a country to develop its natural resources peacefully and steadily, and to produce more wealth than another country equally well served by nature but less well ordered. Another important factor is the technical efficiency of a country"s people. Old countries that have, through many centuries, trained up numerous skilled craftsmen and technicians are better placed to produce wealth than countries whose workers are largely unskilled. Wealth also produces wealth. As a country becomes wealthier, its people have a large margin for saving, and can put their savings into factories and machines which will help workers to turn out more goods in their working day.

单选题Formal education in modern societies ________.

单选题According to the passage, lack of technological progress in the ancient and medieval worlds was primarily due to the absence of______.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} The telecity is a city whose life, direction, and functioning are largely shaped by telecommunications. In the twenty-first century, cities will be based more and more on an economy that is dependent on services and intellectual property. Telecommunications and information networks will define a city's architecture, shape, and character. Proximity in the telecity will be defined by the speed and bandwidth of networks as much as by geographical propinquity. In the age of the telecity, New York and Singapore may be closer than, say, New York and Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Telecities will supersede megacities for several reasons, including the drive toward clean air, reducing pollution, energy conservation, more jobs based on services, and coping with the high cost of urban property. Now we must add the need to cope with terrorist threats in a high-technology world. Western mindsets were clearly jolted in the wake of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City and attacks in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. But the risks posed by twentieth-century patterns of urbanization and architecture have yet to register fully with political figures and leaders of industry. The Pentagon, for example, has been rebuilt in situation rather than distributed to multiple locations and connected by secure landlines and broadband wireless systems. Likewise, the reconstruction of the World Trade Center complex still represents a massive concentration of humanity and infrastructure. This is a remarkably short-sighted and dangerous vision of the future. The security risks, economic expenses, and environmental hazards of over-centralization are everywhere, and they do not stop with skyscrapers and large governmental structures. There are risks also at seaports and airports, in food and water supplies, at nuclear power plants and hydro-electric turbines at major dams, in transportation systems, and in information and communications systems. This vulnerability applies not only to terrorist threats but also to human error, such as system-wide blackouts in North America in August 2003 and in Italy in September 2003, and natural disasters such as typhoons, hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes. Leaders and planners are only slowly becoming aware that over-centralized facilities are the most vulnerable to attack or catastrophic destruction. There is also growing awareness that new broadband electronic systems now allow governments and corporations to safeguard their key assets and people in new and innovative ways. So far, corporations have been quickest to adjust to these new realities, and some governments have begun to adjust as well.

单选题By saying "an uphill battle", the author means

单选题 Questions 11--13 are based on the following dialogue. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11--13.

单选题 A wise man once said that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. So, as a police officer, I have some urgent things to say to good people. Day after day my men and I struggle to hold back a tidal wave of crime. Something has gone terribly wrong with our once-prod American way of life. It has happened in the area of values. A key ingredient is disappearing, and I think I know what it is: accountability. Accountability isn't hard to define. It means that every person is responsible for his or her actions and liable for their consequences. Of the many values that hold civilization together-honesty, kindness, and so on—accountability may be the most important of all. Without it, there can be no respect, no trust, no law—and, ultimately, no society. My job as a police officer is to impose accountability on people who refuse, or have never learned, to impose it on themselves. But as every policeman knows, external controls on people's behavior are far less effective than internal restraints such as guilt, shame and embarrassment. Fortunately there are still communities—smaller towns, usually—where schools maintain discipline and where parents hold up standards that proclaim: "In this family certain things are not tolerated—they simply are not done!" Yet more and more, especially in our larger cities and suburbs, these inner restraints are loosening. Your typical robber has done. He considers your property his property; he takes what he wants, including your life if you enrage him. The main cause of this break-down is a radical shift in attitudes. Thirty years ago, if a crime was committed, society was considered the victim. Now, in a shocking reversal, it's the criminal who is considered victimized: by his underprivileged upbringing, by the school that didn't teach him to read, by the church that failed to reach him with moral guidance, by the parents who didn't provide a stable home. I don't believe it. Many others in equally disadvantaged circumstances choose not to engage in criminal activities. If we free the criminal, even partly, from accountability, we become a society of endless excuses where no one accepts responsibility for anything. We in America desperately need more people who believe that the person who commits a crime is the one responsible for it.