单选题 {{B}} Questions 14～16 are based on the following conversation. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14～16.{{/B}}

单选题What is NOT true about the eight girls?

单选题Why is this research considered to be of great importance?

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单选题California legislators have a chance to eliminate the state's unjust and loop-hole-ridden newspaper sales tax, if a handful of Senate leaders will let them. The long-overdue repeal of this eight-year-old "temporary" tax breezed through the General Assembly the other day by a vote of 73-5. Senate leadership, however, appears determined to avoid any similar vote in its house. "We've kind of always felt that if we could get to the rank and file in the Senate, repeal would pass," says Thomas W. Newton, general counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA). Senate president pro tem John Burton and other leaders know that, so they are hoping to keep the bill bottled up in committee until the Legislature adjourns in August. Certainly, neither Burton nor anyone else can make a compelling argument for keeping the tax. Sixteen states impose some kind of sales tax on newspapers, but California's is uniquely, um, Californian in making odd distinctions about what kinds of newspapers do or do not get taxed. Its very creation was an example of legislative sausagemakinq at its worst. Back in 1991, California was in a budget crisis. With the state deficit approaching $14.5 billion, legislators agreed to overturn the traditional sales tax exemptions for newspapers, magazines, bottle water, candy, and snack foods. The 8% sales tax was sold as a temporary, emergency measure to get out of a fiscal jam. As soon as it was passed, legislators began to pare away at it. Free distribution newspapers were exempted within days. The next year, most weekly newspapers -those that publish fewer than 60 times a year -were exempted, as were magazines. Since then, the sales tax has been dropped on candy, snack foods, bottled water, and, yes, bunker fuel. Who's left? About 135 daily and twice-weekly newspapers. One other thing has changed since 1991: Instead of facing a $14.5 billion deficit, California this year expect to rake in a surplus of $4 to $5 billion. Senate leaders talk as if repealing the tax amounts to giving a financial windfall to the Los Angeles Times or some other big-city paper. Well, there are perhaps 10 of those in California. "The typical paper that is paying this tax is the 6,000-circulation daily Turlock Journal or the 11,000-circulation twice-weekly Sonoma IndexTribune," CNPA's Newton says. For these local papers, the sales tax is a real burden -especially since the Legislature in its wisdom has never taxed competing media. There is no sales tax on direct mail, yellow Pages, cable TV, radio, or the Internet. Sometimes the burden is fatal: Assemblyman Jack Scott says he was persuaded to repeal the tax after a community paper in his district folded. California's sales tax on newspapers has done enough damage. It is time for president pro tem Burton to show some real leadership -by getting out of the way and letting state senators vote for repeal.

单选题The trams that glide through Croydon by day are evocative of continental Europe. The loud and sometimes violent drunkenness among the young people who roam this south London suburb on a Saturday night is all too British, however. That Britons tend to drink too much is nothing new. But the debate about how to curb youthful drunkenness is gaining focus, in part because of recent reminders that the violence it produces can go beyond clumsy late-night fights. On August 17th, three youths in Gateshead were convicted of beating a man into a month-long coma for refusing to buy alcohol for their underage friends. Peter Fathy, the chief constable of Cheshire, where a father of three was murdered on August 10th by youths, has suggested, among other things, raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 and banning alcohol consumption in public places. These proposals sound plausible but they have drawbacks. It would put Britain out of line with international practice: the buying age is 18 in most of Europe, and as low as 16 in countries without much of a drink problem, such as Italy. In any case, binge-drinkers in their mid-twenties are also part of the problem. As for banning drinking in public places, local authorities in Britain can already do this. Two particularly enthusiastic councils are Westminster in London and Brighton and Hove on the south coast, both of which have raucous" night-time economies. Other councils apply the ban more selectively. An alternative to restrictive measures is to teach Britons more sensible drinking habits. After all, government campaigns and public health advertisements played some role in the decline in smoking. But Ben Baumberg, a researcher at the Institute for Alcohol Studies, cautions against pinning too many hopes on this approach. By itself, he says, it will not revolutionise Britain"s binge-drinking culture. A surer solution is to raise the cost of alcohol by increasing taxes. Grant Thornton, an accountancy firm, points out that taxes on alcohol have fallen in real terms over the past decade, although they are still high by European standards. Intense competition between the pubs and bars in town centres has also pushed down prices. Drinkers stumble from one watering hole to the next in search of "happy hours" and other promotions. Supermarkets are also accused of selling alcoholic beverages. The government may be about to change course. Its previous strategy to counter excessive alcohol consumption was criticized for relying too heavily on voluntary action by the drinks industry. But ministers said in June that they would review the pricing and promotion of alcohol. Raising the cost of drinking is the best hope of making a Saturday night in Croydon more peaceful.

单选题Whichofthefollowingisnotaplacewheremostoriginalclassicalmusicwaswritten?A.RussiaB.AustraliaC.ItalyD.Germany

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} It is possible for students to obtain advanced degrees in English while knowing little or nothing about traditional scholarly methods. The consequences of this neglect of traditional scholarship are particularly unfortunate for the study of women writers. If the canon — the list of authors whose works are most widely taught — is ever to include more women, scholars must be well trained in historical scholarship and textual editing. Scholars who do not know how to read early manuscripts, locate rare books, establish a sequence of editions, and so on are bereft of crucial tools for revising the canon. To address such concerns, an experimental version of the traditional scholarly methods course was designed to raise students' consciousness about the usefulness of traditional learning for any modern critic or theorist. To minimize the artificial aspects of the conventional course, the usual procedure of assigning a large number of small problems drawn from the entire range or historical periods was abandoned, though this procedure has the obvious advantages of at least superficially familiarizing students with a wide range of reference sources. Instead students were engaged in a collective effort to do original work on a neglected eighteenth-century writer, Elizabeth Griffith, to give them an authentic experience of literary scholarship and to inspire them to take responsibility for the quality of their own work. Griffith's work presented a number of advantages for this particular pedagogical purpose. First, the body of extant scholarship on Griffith was so tiny that it could all be read in a day, thus students spent little time and effort mastering the literature and had a clear field for their own discoveries. Griffith's play—The Platonic Wife exists in three versions, enough to provide illustrations of editorial issues but not too many for beginning students to manage. In addition, because Griffith was successful in the eighteenth century, as her continued productivity and favorable reviews demonstrate, her exclusion from the canon and virtual disappearance from literary history also helped raise issues concerning the current canon. The range. or Griffith's work meant that each student could become the world's leading authority on a particular Griffith text. For example, a student studying Griffith's Wife in the Right obtained a first edition of the play and studied it for some weeks. This student was suitably shocked and outraged to find its title transformed into A Wife in the Night in Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica. Such experiences, inevitable and common in working on a writer to whom so little attention has been paid, serve to vaccinate the student — I hope for a lifetime — against credulous use of reference sources.

单选题Which can be the best title for the passage?

单选题"AIDS has spread both numerically and geographically. " What does the statement mean?

单选题{{I}}Questions 11～13 are based on the following talk. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11～13.{{/I}}

单选题Thetrampwaslockedinthestore______.A.forhisownmistakeB.duetoamisunderstandingC.byaccidentD.throughanerrorofjudgment

单选题Questions 17 to 20 are based on a discussion about the life of James Dean, an American actor. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 17 to 20.

单选题In department stores and closets all over the world, they are waiting. Their outward appearance seems rather appealing because they come in a variety of styles, textures, and colors. But they are ultimately the biggest deception that exists in the fashion industry today. What are they? They are high heels — a woman''s worst enemy (whether she knows it or not). High heel shoes are the downfall of modern society. Fashion myths have led women to believe that they are more beautiful or sophisticated for wearing heels, but in reality, heels succeed in posing short as well as long term hardships. Women should fight the high heel industry by refusing to use or purchase them in order to save the world from unnecessary physical and psychological suffering. For the sake of fairness, it must be noted that there is a positive side to high heels. First, heels are excellent for aerating lawns. Anyone who has ever worn heels on grass knows what I am talking about. A simple trip around the yard in a pair of ''those babies'' eliminates all need to call for a lawn care specialist, and provides the perfect-sized holes to give any lawn oxygen without all those messy chunks of dirt lying around. Second, heels are quite functional for defense against oncoming enemies, who can easily be scared away by threatening them with a pair of these sharp, deadly fashion accessories. Regardless of such practical uses for heels, the fact remains that wearing high heels is harmful to one''s physical health. Talk to any podiatrist, and you will hear that the majority of their business comes from high-heel-wearing women. High heels are known to cause problems such as deformed feet and torn toenails. The risk of severe back problems and twisted or broken ankles is three times higher for a high heel wearer than for a flat shoe wearer. Wearing heels also creates the threat of getting a heel caught in a sidewalk crack or a sewer-grate and being thrown to the ground — possibly breaking a nose, back, or neck. And of course, after wearing heels for a day, any woman knows she can look forward to a night of pain as she tries to comfort her swollen, aching feet.

单选题World leaders met recently at United Nations headquarters in New York City to discuss the environmental issues raised at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992．The heads of state were supposed to decide what further steps should be taken to halt the decline of Earth's life-support systems．In fact，this meeting had much the flavour of the original Earth Summit．To wit：empty promises，hollow rhetoric，bickering between rich and poor，and irrelevant initiatives．Think U.S. Congress in slow motion． Almost obscured by this torpor is the fact that there has been some remarkable progress over the past five years—real changes in the attitude of ordinary people in the Third World toward family size and a dawning realisation that environmental degradation and their own well-being are intimately，and inversely，linked．Almost none of this，however, has anything to do with what the bureaucrats accomplished in Rio． Or it didn't accomplish．One item on the agenda at Rio，for example，was a renewed effort to save tropical forests．(A previous UN-sponsored initiative had fallen apart when it became clear that it actually hastened deforestation．)After Rio，a UN working group came up with more than 100 recommendations that have so far gone nowhere．One proposed forestry pact would do little more than immunizing wood-exporting nations against trade sanctions． An effort to draft an agreement on what to do about the climate changes caused by CO2 and other greenhouse gases has fared even worse．Blocked by the Bush Administration from setting mandatory limits，the UN in 1992 called on nations to voluntarily reduce emissions to 1990 levels．Several years later，it's as if Rio had never happened．A new climate treaty is scheduled to be signed this December in Kyoto，Japan，but governments still cannot agree on these limits．Meanwhile，the U.S. produces 7% more CO2 than it did in 1990，and emissions in the developing world have risen even more sharply．No one would confuse the“Rio process”with progress． While governments have dithered at a pace that could make drifting continents impatient，people have acted．Birth-rates are dropping faster than expected，not because of Rio but because poor people are deciding on their own to reduce family size．Another positive development has been a growing environmental consciousness among the poor．From slum dwellers in Karachi，Pakistan，to colonists in Rondonia，Brazil，urban poor and rural peasants alike seem to realize that they pay the biggest price for pollution and deforestation．There is cause for hope as well in the growing recognition among business people that it is not in their long-term interest to fight environmental reforms．John Browne，chief executive of British Petroleum，boldly asserted in a major speech in May that the threat of climate change could no longer be ignored．

单选题HowoldistheearliestsurvivingexamplesofChineseprinting?A.ItwasproducedbeforeAD400.B.ItwasproducedbeforeAD200.C.ItwasproducedbeforeAD100.D.ItwasproducedbeforeAD50.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} In Denver, five were pummeled to death and two more beheaded. In Richmond, Virginia, one was beaten, stabbed and beheaded, his head then carried nearly a mile and placed for display on a footbridge. In Seattle, one was stabbed 18 times, another beaten bloody, then stabbed. They were all homeless people killed over the last year. And these were just the killings that make the news. Exactly how many homeless people have been victims of savage attacks is unknown. Police departments do not tabulate crimes against homeless people, and in many cases, such as several beatings that have frightened the large homeless population in San Francisco, those who survive attacks often do not report them. In many cases, because many people on the streets are mentally ill or drug addicted or both, they are easier to victimize and harder to help, the police say, since they are often unable to describe the time and place of their attacks or their attackers. Surveys show that high school students often call the homeless bums and drunks who are too lazy to work. Even some officials would say these people don't count. What appears certain is that living on the streets is becoming more dangerous. In the last few years, police departments across the country have reported more frequent, more vicious attacks on those who are homeless. Nearly always, the victims are ambushed as they sleep. Nearly as often, the suspects, who are not always caught, are described as young men who appear to attack for no reason. In some cases, suspects call it "bumbashing"or "troll-busting," police say. Attacks against homeless people rarely get attention. But nationally, violence against people who are unsheltered is becoming so common that the Congress is asked to consider "homeless people" as a maligned minority, or protected class, in drafting any new legislation against hate crimes. No one can say for sure why young people in particular seem to be attacking homeless people in increasing numbers. But looking at arrests in cases of violence against homeless people over several years, by far the majority of the suspects were young teenagers, or even pre-teenage boys, who bragged about the attacks afterward. Officials believed that the homeless were singled out probably because they are accessible, anonymous and stigmatized as "throwaways of society." Many say crackdowns on homeless people for sitting, sleeping or lying in public spaces are a significant factor in the increased attacks. In Chicago, more of these kinds of attacks happened with increased "gentrification' of the city. The police often keep people off the streets where homeless people live. In doing so, we were obviously sending a message to our young people that homeless people are not worthy of their respect.

单选题{{I}} Questions 11 to 13 are based on the following talk on hygiene. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11 to 13.{{/I}}

单选题The novel Sons and Lovers was written by [A] Thomas Hardy. [B] John Galsworthy. [C] D. H. Lawrence. [D] James Joyce.