单选题Woman: I"m looking forward to the long weekend, David. It"s been such a hectic week! We"ve been running here, running there, always on the go. Man: Well, Anna, I don"t think we need to think twice about how we"d like to spend our time off. Woman: That"s for sure. After taking care of a few odds and ends, let"s get away from the rat race of city life! Question: What are they probably looking forward to?

单选题Soon after the accident happened, the vehicles involved were ______ away.

单选题DNA testing reveals the genes of each individual person. Since the early twentieth century scientists have known that all human characteristics are contained in a person"s genes and are passed from parents to children. Genes work as a chemical instruction manual for each part and each function of the body. Their basic chemical element is called DNA, a copy of which can be found in every cell. The existence of genes and the chemical structure of DNA were understood by the mid-1900s, but scientists have only recently been able to identify a person from just a drop of blood or a single hair. One of the most important uses of DNA testing is in criminal investigation. The very first use of DNA testing in a criminal ease was in 1985 in Great Britain, when a man confessed to killing a young woman in the English countryside. Because police had found samples of the killer"s DNA at the scene of the crime, a biologist suggested that it might he possible to compare that DNA to some from the confessor"s blood. To everyone"s surprise, the tests showed that he was not the killer. Nor was he guilty of a similar murder that had happened some time earlier. At that point he admitted that he had confessed to the crimes out of fear and police pressure. The police then asked 5,000 local men for samples of their blood, and DNA testing revealed that one of them was the real murderer, so the first man was set free. In 1992, two law professors, Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck, decided to use DNA evidence to help set free such mistakenly convicted prisoners. With the help of their students, they created a not-for-profit organization called the Innocence Project. Most of their clients are poor men, many from racial and ethnic minorities. In fact, studies have shown that U. S. judges and juries are often influenced by racial and ethnic background, and that people from minority groups are more likely to be convicted. Some of these men had been sentenced to death, a form of punishment used in thirty eight states out of fifty (as of 2006). For most of these prisoners, their only hope was another trial in which DNA testing could be used to prove their innocence. Between 1992 and 2006, the Innocence Project helped free 100 men. Some of these prisoners had been in jail for ten, twenty years or more for crimes they did not commit. However, the goal of the Innocence Project is not simply to set free those who are wrongfully in jail. They also hope to bring about real changes in the criminal justice system. Illinois in the late 1990s, a group of journalism students at Northwestern University were able to bring about such a change in that state. They began investigating some Illinois prisoners who claimed to be innocent. Through DNA testing, the students were able to prove that in fact the prisoners were not guilty of the crimes they had been accused of. Thirteen of these men were set free, and in 2000, Governor Ryan of Illinois decided to stop carrying out death sentences until further study could be made of the prisoners" cases. The use of DNA in criminal cases is still being debated around the world. Some fear that governments will one day keep records of everyone"s DNA, which could put limits on the privacy and freedom of citizens. Other people mistrust the science of DNA testing and think that lawyers use it to get their clients free whether or not they are guilty. But for those whose innocence has been proven and who are now free men, DNA testing has meant nothing less than a return to life. And with the careful use of DNA testing, no innocent person should ever be convicted again.

单选题Woman: Are you prepared for the exam tomorrow? Man: Oh, yeah, the exam will be a piece of cake. Question: What does the man mean?

单选题A hundred years ago it was assumed and scientifically "proved" by economists that the laws of society make it necessary to have a vast army of poor and jobless people in order to keep the economy going. Today, hardly anybody would dare to voice the principle. It is generally accepted that nobody should be excluded from the wealth of the nation, either by the law of nature or by those of society. The opinions are outdated, which were current a hundred years ago, that the poor owed their conditions to their ignorance, lack of responsibility. In all western industrialized countries, a system of insurance has been introduced which guarantees everyone a minimum of subsistence in case of unemployment, sickness and old age. I would go one step further and argue that, even if these conditions are not present, in other words, one can claim this subsistence minimum without having to have any "reason". I would suggest, however, that it should be limited to a definite period of time, let"s say two years, so as to avoid the encouragement of an abnormal attitude which refuses any kind of social obligation. This may sound like a fantastic proposal, but so, I think, our insurance system would have sounded to people a hundred years ago. The main objection to such a scheme would be that if each person were entitled to receive minimum support, people would not work. This assumption rests on the fallacy of the inherent laziness. In human nature, actually, aside from abnormally lazy people, there would be very few who would not want to earn more than the minimum, and who would prefer to do nothing rather than work. However, the suspicions against a system of guaranteed subsistence minimum are not groundless from the standpoint of those who want to use ownership capital for the purpose of forcing others to accept the work conditions they offer. If nobody were forced to accept work in order not to starve, work would be sufficiently interesting and attractive in order to induce one to accept it. Freedom of contract is possible only if both parties are free to accept and reject it~ in the present capitalist system this is not the case. But such a system would not only be the beginning of real freedom of contract between employers and employees; its principal advantage would be the improvement of freedom in interpersonal relationships in every sphere of daily life.

单选题A: Would you like to have some ice-cream? B: ______

单选题A：Nancy，you look very well． B：Thank you，Jane．You look wonderful．Your weekend swimming must have done good to you． A：______

单选题She was tired of his constant complaining and didn"t want to tolerate him anymore.

单选题Woman: Teacher"s Day is coming. Have you decided what to buy for the teacher? Man: Well, we"re still in two minds. Question: What does the man mean?

单选题Reforming the Social Security retirement program is an issue of enormous practical importance. Yet it remains the missing piece in American policy analysis. At a time when the Congress and the Administration are considering ways to reform welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, and the income tax, elected officials are still unwilling to confront the serious problems of our Social Security system. Eventually, however, its deteriorating financial condition will force major reforms. Whether those reforms are good or bad, whether they deal with the basic economic problems of the system or merely protect the solvency of existing institutional arrangements will depend in part on whether we, as economists, provide the appropriate intellectual framework for analyzing reform alternatives. Major policy changes that affect the public at large can only happen in our democracy, when there is widespread public support for the new direction of policy. In the field of economics, the views of the media, of other private-sector opinion leaders, and of politicians and their advisers, depend very much on their perception of what economists believe feasible and correct. Fundamental policy reforms in a complex area like social security also require the development of technical expertise, both in and out of government, about the options for change and their likely consequences. Fortunately, an expanding group of economists is now thinking and writing about social security reform. My remarks today greatly benefit from what they have written and from my conversations with many of them. I began to do my research on the effects of Social Security reform nearly 25 years ago (Feldstein, 1974, 1975). A central concept in my analysis of Social Security has been the notion of "Social Security wealth" which I defined as the present actuarial value of the Social Security benefits to which the current adult population will be entitled at age 65 (or are already entitled to if they are older than 65) minus the present actuarial value of the Social Security taxes that they will pay before reaching that age. Social Security wealth has now grown to about $11 trillion or more than 1.5 times GDP. Since this is equivalent to more than $50,000 for every adult in the country, the value of Social Security wealth substantially exceeds all other assets for the vast majority of American households. In the aggregate, Social Security wealth exceeds three-fourth of all private financial wealth, as conventionally measured. Social Security wealth is of course not real wealth but only a claim on current and future taxpayers. Instead of labeling this key magnitude "Social Security wealth", I could have called it the nation"s "Social Security liability". Like ordinary government debt, Social Security wealth has the power to crowd out private capital accumulation, and Social Security wealth will continue to grow as long as our current system remains unchanged, displacing an ever larger stock of capital. The $11 trillion Social Security liability is three times as large as the official national debt. Although I certainly welcome the current political efforts to shrink future budget deficits, it is worth noting that, even if the traditional deficit is eliminated in the year 2002, so that the national debt is then no longer increasing, the national debt in the form of the Social Security liability is likely to increase that year by about $300 billion. Looking further into the future, the aggregate Social Security liability will grow as the population expands, as it becomes relatively older, and as income rises. Government actuaries predict that, under existing law, the tax rate required to pay each year"s Social Security benefit will rise over the next 50 years from the present level of slightly less than 12 percent to more than 18 percent, and perhaps to as much as 23 percent.

单选题The worst thing about television and radio is that they entertain us, saving us the trouble of entertaining ourselves. A hundred years ago, before all these devices were invented, if a person wanted to entertain himself with a song or a piece of music, he would have to do the singing himself or pick up a violin and play it. Now, all he has to do is turn on the radio or TV. As a result, singing and music have declined. Italians used to sing all the time. Now, they only do it in Hollywood movies. Indian movies are mostly a series of songs and dances wrapped around silly stories. As a result, they don"t do much singing in Indian villages anymore. Indeed, ever since radio first came to life, there has been a terrible decline in amateur singing throughout the world. There are two reasons for this sad decline: One, human beings are astonishingly lazy. Put a lift in a building, and people would rather take it than climb even two flights of steps. Similarly, invent a machine that sings, and people would rather let the machine sing than sing themselves. The other reason is people are easily embarrassed. When there is a famous, talented musician readily available by pushing a button, which amateur violinist or pianist would want to try to entertain family or friends by himself? These earnest reflections came to me recently when two CDs arrived in the mail: They are historic recordings of famous writers reading their own works. It was thrilling to hear the voices from a long dead past in the late 19th century. But today, reading out loud anything is no longer common. Today, we sing songs to our children until they are about two, we read simple books to them till they are about five, and once they have learnt to read themselves, we become deaf. We"re alive only to the sound of the TV and the stereo. I count myself extremely lucky to have been born before TV became so common. I was about six before TV appeared. To keep us entertained, my mother had to do a good deal of singing and tell us endless tales. It was the same in many other homes. People spoke a language; they sang it, they recited it; it was something they could feel. Professional actors" performance is extraordinarily revealing. But I still prefer my own reading. Because it"s mine. For the same reason, people find karaoke liberating. It is almost the only electronic thing that gives them back their own voice. Even if their voices are hoarse and hopelessly out of tune. At least it is meaningful self-entertainment.

单选题Even our Mitsubishi four-wheel-drive truck gets altitude sickness once in a while , so we like to give her a rest whenever we can.

单选题Man: I"m sorry I missed the football game, but I had a terrible cold. Woman: You didn"t miss anything. We couldn"t have played worse. Question: What does the woman mean?

单选题A: Could you break a 20-dollar bill for me? B: ______

单选题A: What a pleasant surprise! I haven"t seen you for a long time. B: ______

单选题In most South American countries rail transport is plagued by operational problems as well as by obsolete equipment.

单选题Violin prodigies (神童), I learned, have come in distinct waves from distinct regions. Most of the great performers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were born and brought up in Russia and Eastern Europe. I asked Isaac Stern, one of the world"s greatest violinists the reason for this phenomenon. "It is very clear," he told me. "They were all Jews (犹太人) and Jews at the time were severely oppressed and ill-treated in that part of the world. They were not allowed into the professional fields, but they were allowed to achieve excellence on a concert stage. " As a result, every Jewish parent"s dream was to have a child in the music school because it was a passport to the West. Another element in the emergence of prodigies, I found, is a society that values excellence in a certain field to nurture (培育) talent. Nowadays, the most nurturing societies seem to be in the Far East. "In Japan, a most competitive society, with stronger discipline than ours. " says Isaac Stem, children are ready to test their limits every day in many fields, including music. When Western music came to Japan after World War Ⅱ, that music not only became part of their daily lives, but it became a discipline as well. The Koreans and Chinese as we know, are just as highly motivated as the Japanese. That"s a good thing, because even prodigies must work hard. Next to hard work, biological inheritance plays an important role in the making of a prodigy. J. S. Bach, for example, was the top of several generations of musicians, and four of his sons had significant careers in music.

单选题In addition to redistributing incomes, inflation may affect the total real income and production of the community. An increase in prices is usually associated with high employment. In moderate inflation, industries are operating efficiently and output is near capacity. There is a great deal of private investment and jobs are plentiful. Such has been the historical pattern. Thus many business persons and union leaders, in evaluating a little deflation and a little inflation, consider the latter to be the lesser of two evils. In mild inflation, the losses to fixed-income groups are usually less than gains to the rest of the community. Even workers with relatively fixed wages are often better off because of improved employment opportunities and greater take-home pay, a rise in interest rates on new securities may partly compensate for any losses to creditor, and increases in pension benefits may partly make up losses to retirees. In deflation, on the other hand, the growing unemployment of labor and capital causes the community"s total well-being to be less; so in a sense, the gainers get less than the losers lose. As a matter of fact, in a depression, or a time of severe deflation, almost everyone suffers, including the creditor who is left with uncollectible debts. For these reasons as increase in consumption of investment spending is considered good in times of unemployment, even if this tends to increase prices slightly. When the economic system is suffering from severe depression, few people will criticize private or public spending on the ground that this might be inflationary. Actually, most of this increased spending will increase production and create jobs. Once, full employment and full plant capacity have been reached, however, any further increases in spending are likely to be completely wasted in price increase.

单选题Man: I"ll pick up a turkey the day before Thanksgiving. Woman: Did you order one ahead of time? Man: No. Woman: Then I wouldn"t count on it. Question: What does the woman mean?

单选题Man: Anne, it"s good to see you back. Do you remember when we were kids, we used to go swimming together? Woman: Yeah. I sure do. I really love this town and I have a lot good memories from here. Man: I want to tell you that we take a lot of pride in the gold medal you won and we are behind you one hundred percent. Question: What does the man think of the woman?