问答题Suddenly the door bursts open and the Time Traveler appears, dirty, disheveled, and bedraggled, with a nasty cut on his chin.
问答题Their host carved, poured, served, cut bread, talked, laughed, proposed health.
问答题The horse and carriage is a thing of the past, but love and marriage are still with us and still closely interrelated. Most American marriages, particularly first marriages involving young couples, are the result of mutual attraction and affection other than practical considerations.
In the United States, parents do not arrange marriages for their children. Teenagers begin dating in high school and usually find mates through their own academic and social contacts Though young people feel free to choose their friends from diverse groups, most choose a mate of similar background.
This is due in part to parental guidance. Parents cannot select spouses for their children, but they can usually influence choices by voicing disapproval of someone they consider unsuitable. However, marriages between members of different groups (interclass, interfaith, and interracial marriages) are increasing, probably because of the greater mobility of today"s youth and the fact that they are restricted by fewer prejudices than their parents. Many young people leave their home towns to attend college, serve in the armed forces, or pursue a career in a bigger city.
Once away from home and family, they are more likely to date and marry outside their own social group.
In mobile American society, interclass marriages are neither rare nor shocking. Interfaith marriages are on the rise particularly between Protestants and Catholics. On the other hand, interracial marriage is still very uncommon. It can be difficult for interracial couples to find a place to live, maintain friendships, and raise a family. Marriages between people of different national origin (but the same race and religion) have been commonplace here since colonial times.
问答题Acid rain, is a form of air pollution, currently a subject of great controversy because of widespread environmental damage for which it has been blamed. It forms when oxides of sulfur and nitrogen combine with atmospheric moisture to yield sulfuric and nitric acids, which may then be carded long distances from their source before they are deposited by rain. The pollution many also take the form of snow or fog or be precipitated in dry forms. In fact, although the term "acid rain" has been in use for more than a century — it is derived from atmospheric studies that were made in the region of Manchester, England — the more accurate scientific term would be "acid deposition." The dry form of such precipitation is just as damaging as the liquid form, especially to trees and structures. Furthermore, some of the pollutants also associated with acid rain are not themselves acidic.
The problem of acid rain may be said to have originated with the Industrial Revolution, and it has been growing ever since. The severity of its effects has long been recognized in local settings, as exemplified by the spells of acid smog in heavily industrialized areas. The wide destructiveness of acid rain, however, has come to be realized only in recent decades. One large area that has been studied extensively is northern Europe, where acid rain has eroded structures, injured crops and forests, and threatened or depleted life in freshwater lakes. In 1983, for example, published reports indicated that 34 percent of the forested areas of West Germany had been damaged by acid rain. The northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada have also been affected by this form of pollution, and other areas of the two countries are also showing increasing signs of damages, as are other regions of the world.
Industrial emissions have been blamed as the major cause of acid rain. Because the chemical reactions involved in the production of acid rain in the atmosphere are complex and as yet little understood, industries have tended to challenge such assessments and to stress the need for further studies; and because of the cost of pollution reduction, governments have tended to support this attitude. Studies released by the U.S. government in the early 1980s, however, strongly implicated industries as the main source of acid rain.
问答题This is supposed to be an enlightened age, but you wouldn"t think so if you could hear what the average man thinks of the average woman. Women won their independence years ago. After a long, bitter struggle, they now enjoy the same educational opportunities as men in most parts of the world. They have proved repeatedly that they are equal and often superior to men in almost every field.
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The hard-fought battle for recognition has been won, but it is by no means over. It is men, not women who still carry on the sex war because their attitude remains basically hostile.
Even in the most progressive societies, women continue to be regarded as second-rate citizens. To hear some men talk, you"d think that women belonged to a different species!
On the surface, the comments made by men about women"s abilities seem light-hearted. The same tired jokes about women drivers are repeated day in day out.
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This apparent light-heartedness does not conceal the real contempt that men feel for women. However much men sneer, at women, their claims to superiority are not borne out by statistics.
Let"s consider the matter of driving, for instance.
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We all know that women cause far fewer accidents than men. They are too conscientious and responsible to drive like maniacs.
But this is a minor quibble. Women have succeeded in any job you care to name. As politicians, soldiers, doctors, factory-hands, university professors, farmers, company directors, lawyers, bus-conductors, scientists and presidents of countries they have often put men to shame. And we must remember that they frequently succeed brilliantly in all these fields in addition to bearing and rearing children.
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Yet men go on maintaining the fiction that there are many jobs women can"t do.
Top-level political negotiation between countries, business and banking are almost entirely controlled by men, who jealously guard their so-called "rights". Even in otherwise enlightened places like Switzerland women haven"t even been given the vote. This situation is preposterous! The arguments that men put forward to exclude women from these fields are all too familiar. Women, they say, are unreliable and irrational. They depend too little on cool reasoning and too much on intuition and instinct to arrive at decisions. They are not even capable of thinking clearly. Yet when women prove their abilities, men refuse to acknowledge them and give them their due. So much for a man"s ability to think clearly!
The truth is that men cling to their supremacy because of their basic inferiority complex. They shun real competition. They know in their hearts that women are superior and they are afraid of being beaten at their own game. One of the most important tasks in the world is to achieve peace between the nations.
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You can be sure that if women were allowed to sit round the conference table, they would succeed brilliantly, as they always do, where men have failed for centuries.
问答题If you have never seen a power plant, you might find it hard to imagine how enormously complex the equipment is or how much heat is generated by the boilers or how much coal it takes to fuel the furnaces for just one day.
During the course of a day, the boilers at one of our power plants, Morgantown, for example, can turn 24 million gallons of water into steam. That generating plant alone uses 9,900 tons of coal in its furnaces in just one day. Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO) uses so much coal that we have purchased two 80-car unit trains to facilitate the delivery process. And Morgantown alone can produce over 25 million kilowatthours of electricity in a single day's operation.
Electricity is produced by spinning large magnets inside a coil of wire within the generator. The faster we spin the magnets, the higher will be the voltage of the electricity produced. Electricity leaves a PEPCO generator at between 13,800 and 24,000 volts.
The next step in the process occurs when electricity passes through a transformer where the voltage is stepped up to continue on its journey. A transmission wire is like a small diameter pipe. Stepping up the voltage is like increasing water pressure, thus speeding the flow of energy through the system.
问答题在我们发展文化关系时，大学将像过去一样再次成为中美人民之间重要的交流场所。
问答题据美国人口调查局统计，户主是高中学历的家庭年均收入为5.2万美元，户主有学士学位的家庭年均收入则猛增至9.6万美元，有博士头衔的户主则是12.4万美元。
问答题{{B}}中国的旅游业{{/B}}
中国是一个地域辽阔，有着数千年悠久历史的多民族国家，有着秀丽的自然风光、众多的名胜古迹和丰富多彩的灿烂文化，旅游资源十分丰富。改革开放以来，中国经济以年平均近10%的速度持续增长，各项事业蓬勃发展，人民生活水平显著提高，为旅游业的兴旺奠定了坚实的基础。中国政治稳定，经济发展，市场繁荣，中国政府坚持对外开放积极发展与世界各国的关系，也为旅游业的发展创造了极为有利的条件。中国政府十分重视旅游业的发展，将旅游业作为第三产业的重点，不断开发旅游资源，改善旅游设施，提高服务质量，促进了国际国内旅游业的快速发展。随着中国人民生活水平的提高，我国到国外旅行的人数也逐年增多，为国际旅游业的发展增添了新的活力。
问答题{{B}}The On-going Debate over Healthcare Reform{{/B}}
{{I}}The public debate over healthcare reform which the Nassau Guardian alone stirred up several weeks ago is at a curious point.{{/I}}
It seems that the government's so-called Blue Ribbon Commission has already decided what plan it will propose without undertaking any public consultation and is now merely engaged in a PR campaign to convince us they have the answer.
This seems a little head over heels to us. Since it is our money and our health that is in question, shouldn't we have been consulted at the break about which way we want to go?
There are several models to achieve healthcare reform, and not all of them require us to hand more money over to keep government bureaucrats in big offices. Purely private healthcare may have big problems—but so does the socialised medicine the commission is recommending.
For example, Canada's universal system of socialised medicine is now busily engaged in transferring costs from the public to the private sector… by reducing covered expenses, by deinsuring some expenses and so on.
Medical authorities are on record as saying that in an effort to manage costs, hospital stays are being shortened (or even dispensed with altogether).
So while we in the Bahamas are citing universal 'free' health care as the answer to our problems, in Canada there is an uncoordinated scramble by the public system to reduce and offioad the effects of rising health care costs. And we won't even mention the litany of complaints from users who have to wait for poor service.
But what mostly concerns us about the Blue Ribbon Commission is that they have plumped for social health insurance without determining the cost of their recommended programme, or of the alternatives.
And they do not seem to have taken into account the impact this plan will have on the fiscal deficit or on our individual pockets. Apparently, the position is that whatever the cost, this is the plan that will be presented to parliament.
An initiative so far-reaching and so potentially damaging to our economy, should require more careful assessment of the alternatives in public. There is always more than one way to skin a cat. And we do not believe that a small group of consultants constitutes 'the public'
问答题"Clean your plate!" and "Be a member of the clean-plate club!" Just about every kid in the US has heard this from a parent or grandparent. Often, it"s accompanied by an appeal: "Just think about those starving orphans(孤儿) in Arica!"
Sure, we should be grateful for every bite of food. Unfortunately, many people in the US take a few too many bites. Instead of saying "clean the plate", perhaps we should save some food for tomorrow.
According to news reports, US restaurants are partly to blame for the growing bellies(肚子). A waiter puts a plate of food in front of each customer, with two to four times the amount recommended by the government, according to a USA Today story.
Americans traditionally associate quantity with value and most restaurants try to give them that. They serve large portions to stand apart from competitors and to give the customers value. They prefer to have customers complain about too much food rather than too little.
Barbara Rolls, a nutrition professor at Pennsylvania State University, told USA Today that restaurant portion sizes began to grow in the 1970s, the same time that the American waistline began to expand.
Health experts have tried to get many restaurants to serve smaller portions. Now, apparently, some customers are calling for this too. A restaurant industry trade magazine reported last month that 57 percent of more than 4,000 people surveyed believed restaurants serve portions that are too large; 23 percent had no opinion; 20 percent disagreed.
But a closer look at the survey indicates that many Americans who can"t afford fine dining still prefer large portions. Seventy percent of those earning at least $ 150,000 per year prefer smaller portions. But only 45 percent of those earning less than $ 25,000 want smaller.
It"s not that working class Americans don"t want to eat healthy. It"s just that after long hours at low-paying jobs, getting less on their plate hardly seems like a good deal. They live from paycheck to paycheck, happy to save a little money for next year"s Christmas presents.
问答题Most economists acknowledge this trading system as one of the greatest contributors to the world's rapid recovery from the desolation of the Second World War.
问答题Teachers are paid considerably less than professions that require a simil ar amount of education and skill.
问答题{{B}}Tourism, Globalization and Sustainable Development{{/B}}
Tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors of the global economy and developing countries are attempting to cash in on this expanding industry in an attempt to boost foreign investment and financial reserves. While conceding that the uncontrolled growth of this industry can result in serious environmental and social problems, the United Nations contends that such negative effects can be controlled and reduced.
Before getting into the cold facts of global economics, let me begin with another story to warm up. I was perplexed when I recently read in the newspaper that Thailand's forestry chief had said: "Humans can't live in the forest because human beings aren't animals. Unlike us, animals can. adapt themselves to the wild or any environment naturally." This was to legitimatize the government's plan to remove hundreds of thousands of rural and hill tribe people from protected areas. This man, who is in charge of conserving the forests, is at the same time very strongly pushing to open up the country's 81 national parks to outside investors and visitors in the name of "eco-tourism". Can we conclude, then, that the forestry chief considers developers and tourists as animals that know how to adapt to the forest and behave in the wild naturally?
While authorities want to stop the access to forest lands and natural resources of village people, another group of people -- namely tourism developers and tourists with lots of money to spend -- are set to gain access to the area. While authorities believe that local people, who have often lived in the area for generations, are not capable of managing and conserving their land and natural resources -- under a community forestry scheme for example -- they believe they themselves in cooperation with the tourist industry can properly manage and conserve "nature" under a national eco-tourism plan. Taking the above quote seriously, cynics may be tempted to say there is obviously a gap between "human rights" and "animal fights".
How is this story linked to globalization? First of all, that humans cannot live in the forest is -- of course -- not a Thai concept. It is a notion of Western conservation ideology -- an outcome of the globalization of ideas and perceptions. Likewise, that eco-tourism under a "good management" system is beneficial to local people and nature is also a Western concept that is being globalized. In fact, Thailand's forestry chief thinks globally and acts locally. A lesson that can be learned from this is that the slogan "Think Globally, Act Locally" that the environmental movements have promoted all the years, has not necessarily served to preserve the environment and safeguard local communities' rights, but has been co-opted and distorted by official agencies and private industries for profit-making purposes. The tourism industry is demonstrating this all too well
Many developing countries, facing debt burdens and worsening trade terms, have turned to tourism promotion in the hope that it brings foreign exchange and investment. Simultaneously, leading international agencies such as the World Bank, United Nations agencies and business organizations like the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) have been substantially involved to make tourism a truly global industry.
However, tourism in developing countries is often viewed by critics as an extension of former colonial conditions because from the very beginning, it has benefited from international economic relationships that structurally favor the advanced capitalist countries in the North. Unequal trading relationships, dependence on foreign interests, and the division of labor have relegated poor countries in the South to becoming tourism recipients and affluent countries in the North to the position of tourism generators, with the latter enjoying the freedom from having to pay the price for the meanwhile well-known negative impacts in destinations.
问答题听到这个消息，他一肚皮的酒几乎全化成了醋酸。
问答题To put it in old economy terms, can you imagine postponing maintenance on an aircraft for six months?
问答题只有更加理解这个国度，才能够习惯它，融入到它的生活当中。
问答题在美国历史上人们最津津乐道的政治问题恐怕就是法律与秩序。但令人感到痛心的是，显然有好几百万美国人从来没有想到过自己会是违法者，更不用说是犯罪分子了，他们越来越不把那些旨在保护他们社会的法律条文放在心上。如今，人们随手乱扔垃圾、偷税漏税、发出违禁噪音，以及开车时表现出来的无政府状态，可谓是司空见惯。有时不由使人觉得，藐视法令者竞可代表未来的潮流了。哈佛大学的社会学家戴维·里斯曼认为：大多数美国人漫不经心地把犯点所谓的小错误当作是理所当然的。他还认为：今天美国社会道德准则已出现“只有傻瓜才守法的”危险倾向了。
问答题1．市场总体上是效率导向的，它不对地区间、社会成员间收入的结果进行公平与否的评价和调整。从社会总体、长远的利益出发，政府可以运用税收、转移支付等方式适当调节收入分配差距，以扶助弱势群体和维护整个社会的和谐、稳定。
2．一个负责和有效的政府对中国的社会经济发展是很重要的，这已在中国得到了广泛的、一致的认可。一个良好的政府会计制度也将有助于提高政府的责任感和理性地制定决策。
3．经济学关注的是解释所观察到的经济现象。在经济学领域，正如在其他领域一样，对现象进行解释与预测是以理论为基础的。
4．技术进步会在一定程度上取代劳动就业，这对于劳动就业压力非常大的我国来说，财政政策的选择面临着两难境地。
5．去年，我国经济保持了高达9.5%的高速增长，农民人均纯收入增长6.8%。这是自1997年以来增长幅度最高的一年。
问答题要学好英语，就必须尽可能多地接触这门语言。