单选题{{B}}Part A{{/B}}{{B}}Directions:{{/B}}Reading the following four texts.
Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers
on ANSWER SHEET 1. {{B}}Text 1{{/B}}
The history of responses to the work of
the artist Sandro Botticelli (1444 ~1510) suggests that widespread appreciation
by critics is a relatively recent phenomenon. Writing in 1550, Vasari expressed
an unease with Botticelli's work, admitting that the artist fitted awkwardly
into his evolutionary scheme of the history of art. Over the next two centuries,
academic art historians defamed Botticelli in favor of his fellows Florentine,
Michelangelo. Even when anti-academic art historians of the early nineteenth
century rejected many of the standards of evaluation adopted by their
predecessors, Botticelli's work remained outside of accepted taste, pleasing
neither amateur observers nor {{U}}connoisseurs{{/U}}. (Many of his best paintings,
however, remained hidden away in obscure churches and private homes.)
The primary reason for Botticelli's unpopularity is not difficult to
understand: most observers, up until the midnineteenth century, did not consider
him to be noteworthy, because his work, for the most part, did not seem to these
observers to exhibit the traditional characteristics of fifteenth-century
Florentine art. For example, Botticelli rarely employed the technique of strict
perspective and, unlike Michelangelo, never used chiaroscuro.
Another reason for Botticelli's unpopularity may have been that his
attitude toward the style of classical art was very different from that of his
contemporaries. Although he was thoroughly exposed to classical art, he showed
little interest in borrowing from the classical style. Indeed, it is paradoxical
that a painter of large-scale classical subjects adopted a style that was only
slightly similar to that of classical art. In any ease, when
viewers began to examine more closely the relationship of Botticelli's work to
the tradition of fifteenth-century Florentine art, his reputation began to grow.
Analyses and assessments of Botticelli made between 1850 and 1870 by the artists
of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, as well as by the writer Pater (although he,
unfortunately, based his assessment on an incorrect analysis of Botticelli's
personality), inspired a new appreciation of Botticelli throughout the
English-speaking world. Yet Botticelli's work, especially the Sistine frescoes,
did not generate worldwide attention until it was finally subjected to a
comprehensive and scrupulous analysis by Home in 1908. Home rightly demonstrated
that the frescoes shared important features with paintings by other
fifteenth-century Florentines-- features such as skillful representation of
anatomical proportions, and of the human figure in motion. However, Home argued
that Botticelli did not treat these qualities as ends in themselves--rather,
that he emphasized clear depletion of a story, a unique achievement and one that
made the traditional Florentine qualities less central. Because of Home's
emphasis crucial to any study of art, the twentieth century has come to
appreciate Bottieelli's achievements.
单选题The word "ammo" ( Line 7, Paragraph 2) most probably means
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单选题Most plants can make their own food from sunlight, (1) some have discovered that stealing is an easier way to live. Thousands of plant species get by (2) photosynthesizing, and over 400 of these species seem to live by pilfering sugars from an underground (3) of fungi(真菌). But in (4) a handful of these plants has this modus operandi been traced to a relatively obscure fungus. To find out how (5) are (6) , mycologist Martin Bidartondo of the University of California at Berkeley and his team looked in their roots. What they found were (7) of a common type of fungus, so (8) that it is found in nearly 70 percent of all plants. The presence of this common fungus in these plants not only (9) at how they survive, says Bidartondo, but also suggests that many ordinary plants might prosper from a little looting, too. Plants have (10) relations to get what they need to survive. Normal, (11) plants can make their own carbohydrates through photosynthesis, but they still need minerals. Most plants have (12) a symbiotic relationship with a (13) network of what are called my corrhizal fungi, which lies beneath the forest (14) . The fungi help green plants absorb minerals through their roots, and (15) , the plants normally (16) the fungi with sugars, or carbon with a number of plants sharing the same fungal web, it was perhaps (17) that a few cheaters—dubbed epiparasites—would evolve to beat the system. (18) , these plants reversed the flow of carbon, (19) it into their roots from the fungi (20) releasing it as "payment./
单选题The term "betray" (Line 2, Paragraph 2) most probably means
单选题According to the passage, which organizations raised the proposal to stop the practice of lie detection evidence in military court?______
单选题It can be seen from the passage that the problem of resource conservation in agriculture______
单选题Europe has long prided itself on the notion that, even if its cousin across the At- lantic had surpassed it in matters geopolitical and military, its cultural cachet remained unrivaled. Europe was the capital of great literature, haute couture, the nouvelle vague. American culture may have spread to even the most remote reaches of the globe, but it was lowbrow. Superman and Hollywood blockbusters versus Picasso and Cannes. But, as it turns out, America is actually winning the culture race for global audiences and leaving Europe in the dust, says French journalist Frtdtric Martel in his book, Mainstream. Martel spent five years traveling to 30 countries to conduct his research, and his conclusions are striking, especially coming from a Frenchman. American businesses are far smarter than their European counterparts at using new digital materials to distribute movies, music, television shows, and books all around the globe. Most of all, they excel in producing a "culture that everyone likes," says Martel. But mainstream doesn't only mean Americanized. The strength of the U.S. is to be able to create universal content that caters to different interests. Yet the U.S. is now getting some stiff competition from other countries that thrive in exporting their own cultural content. India, Brazil, China, and South Korea are fast becoming regional cultural powers, symbolized by the rising fame of Bollywood, telenovelas, and K-pop. In Latin America, in particular, Brazil is much more of a threat in the regional marketplace than the U.S. And in the Arab world," big multimedia groups are trying to unify a very diverse population by offering an alternative to the Western model. This developing-world surge means Europe lags behind even more. In part, it's because Europe's default definition of "high culture" finds few fans abroad. European films and literature are increasingly seen as too ob-scure, arrogant, and self-referential to appeal to mass audiences. In part, it's because each nation has its own cultural industry and little, if any, cohesion across EU borders. And Europe could learn a few things from the U.S. For example, American producers have figured out how to go for the margins as well as the middle-- which is to say, to diversify and market to a whole range of tastes and groups. The result: even though the U.S. may be losing financial and political clout, it's gaining soft power through its cultural, media, and technological exports. Europe can regain this soft-power edge only if it embraces some new notions: that mass culture is not necessarily "bad culture," and that diversity, including contributions from immigrants and new arrivals, could make its films, books, and art more accessible to audiences abroad. That is, if Europe really wants to be part of the mainstream.
单选题
单选题Many countries have a tradition of inviting foreigners to rule them. The English called in William of Orange in 1688, and, depending on your interpretation of history, William of Normandy in 1066. Both did rather a good job. Returning the compliment, Albania asked a well-bred Englishman called Aubgrey Herbert to be their king in the 1920s. He refused—and they ended up with several coves called Zog. America, the country of immigrants, has no truck with imported foreign talent. Article two of the constitution says that "no person except a natural-born citizen.., shall be eligible to the office of the president". This is now being challenged by a particularly irresistible immigrant: Arnold Schwarzcnegger. Barely a year has passed since the erstwhile cyborg swept to victory in California's recall election, yet there is already an Amend-for-Arnold campaign collecting signatures to let the Austrian-born governor have a go at the White House. George Bush senior has weighed in on his behalf. There are several "Arnold amendments" in Congress: one al- lows foreigners who have been naturalized citizens for 20 years to become president. (The Austrian became American in 1983. ) It is easy to dismiss the hoopla as another regrettable example of loopy celebrity politics. Mr. Schwarzenegger has made a decent start as governor, but he bas done little, as yet, to change the structure of his dysfunctional state. Indeed, even if the law were changed, he could well be elbowed aside by another incomer, this time from Canada: the Democratic governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, who appears to have fewer skeletons in her closet than the hedonistic actor. Moreover, changing the American constitution is no doddle. It has happened only 17 times since 1791 (when the first ten amendments were codified as the bill of rights). To change the constitution, an amendment has to be approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, and then to be ratified by three-quarters of the 50 states. The Arnold amendment is hardly in the same category as abolishing slavery or giving women the vote. And, as some wags point out, Austrian imports have a pretty dodgy record of running mil- itary superpowers.
单选题The best title for the article is______
单选题{{B}}Part A{{/B}}{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} Read the following four
texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your
answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.{{B}}Text 1{{/B}}
"I've never met a human worth cloning,"
says cloning expert Mark Westhusin from the cramped confines of his lab at Texas
A & M University. "It's a stupid endeavor.' That's an interesting choice of
adjective, coming from a man who has spent millions of dollars trying to clone a
13-year-old dog named Missy. So far, he and his team have not succeeded, though
they have cloned two calves and expect to clone a cat soon. They just might
succeed in cloning Missy later this year--or perhaps not for another five years.
It seems the reproductive system of man's best friend is one of the mysteries of
modem science. Westhusin's experience with cloning animals
leaves him vexed by all this talk of human cloning. In three years of work on
the Missyplicity project, using hundreds upon hundreds of canine eggs, the
A&M team has produced only a dozen or so embryos carrying Missy's DNA. None
have survived the transfer to a surrogate mother. The wastage of eggs and the
many spontaneously aborted fetuses may be acceptable when you're dealing with
cats or bulls, he argues, but not with humans. "Cloning is incredibly
inefficient, and also dangerous," he says. Even so, dog cloning
is a commercial opportunity, with a nice research payoff. Ever since Dolly, the
sheep, was cloned in 1997, Westhusin's phone at A&M College of Veterinary
Medicine has been ringing busily. Cost is no obstacle for customers like Missy's
mysterious owner, who wishes him remain unknown to protect his privacy. He's
plopped down $ 3. 7 million so far to fund the research because he wants a twin
to carry on Missy's fine qualities after she dies. But he knows her clone may
not have her temperament. In a statement of purpose, Missy's owner and the
A&M team say they are "both looking forward to studying the ways that her
clone differs from Missy." The fate of the dog samples will
depend on Westhusin's work. He knows that even if he gets a dog viably pregnant,
the offspring, should they survive, will face the problems shown at birth by
other cloned animals: abnormalities like immature lungs and heart and weight
problems. "Why would you ever want to clone humans," Westhusin asks, "when we're
not even close to getting it worked out in animals
yet?"
单选题
单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}}
Without an oversized calendar tacked to
their kitchen wall, Fern Reiss and her family could never keep track of all the
meetings, appointments, home-schooling lessons, and activities that fill their
busy days. "I'm not sure they make a calendar large enough for us," says Ms.
Reiss of Newton, Mass. , explaining that her life revolves around "two
companies, three children, a spouse, a lot of community involvement, a social
life, the kids' social life, and volunteering in a soup kitchen every week."
"Everybody we know is leading a frenetic life," she adds. "Ours is frenetic,
too, but we're spending the bulk of our time with our kids. Even though we're
having a crazy life, we're having it in the right way." Although
extreme busyness is hardly a new phenomenon, the subject is getting renewed
attention from researchers. "A good life has to do with life having a direction,
life having a narrative with the stories we tel1 ourselves," Chuck Darrah, an
anthropologist, says. "Busyness fragments all that. We're absolutely focused on
getting through the next hour, the next day, the next week. It does raise
questions: If not busyness, what? If we weren't so Busy, what would we be doing?
If people weren't so busy, would they be a poet, a painter?" For
the Reisses, part of living a good life, however busy, means including the
couple's children in volunteer work and community activities. "We want the kids
to see that that's a priority," she says, Between working full
time as a publicist, caring for her home, spending time with her husband and
extended family, and helping her grandmother three times a week, a woman .says,
"I am exhaust- ed all the time." Like others, she concedes that she sets
"somewhat unrealistic expectations" for what she can accomplish in a
day, Being realistic is a goal Darrah encourages, saying, "We
can do everything, but we can't do everything well and at the same time." He
cautions that busyness can result in "poor decisions, sloppy quality, and
neglect of the things and people that matter most in the long run." He advises:
"Stop taking on so much, and keep in perspective what's most important to you."
Darrah's own schedule re- mains full, but he insists he does not feel busy. His
secret? Confining activities to things he must do and those he wants to do. He
and his wife do not overschedule their children. To those with one eye on the
calendar and the other on the deck, Darrah offers this advice: "Before you take
anything on, ask yourself: Do you have to do this? Do you want to do this? Live
with a kind of mindfulness so you don't wake up and discover that your life is a
whirl of transportation and communication, and you've hollowed yourself
out."
单选题 Since the Nov.4 election, investors have been
abandoning stocks in a kind of slow-motion crash that experts say underlines
just how anxious they are about what is likely to be a long and deep recession.
Even after a late-day rally on Friday, the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500
index has plunged 20 percent since the election. That more than wiped out the
index's 18 percent gain in the six trading days ahead of the balloting as
optimism grew that Barack Obama would be elected president.
Analysts aren't blaming Obama specifically for the post-election hangover.
Rather, they peg it to growing fears that the Bush Administration and Congress
are fumbling the $ 700 billion bailout plan and the weakened economy's impact on
financial stocks—highlighted by the plunge in shares of Citigroup Inc. to below
$ 4 a share. "You can almost hear people yelling, 'Get me out at any price, ' "
said Al Goodman, chief market strategist at Wachovia Securities. "It's the
highest level of fear and depression in my 45 years as a student of the
market." Market experts define a crash as a decline of 20
percent over a single day or several days. Over seven trading days that ended
Oct.9, the Dow lost 22 percent. This month, the S&P 500 skidded more than 25
percent in the 12 trading days after the election before a bounceback on Friday
narrowed the loss to 20 percent. All told, stocks have lost a stunning $ 2.6
trillion since Nov.4, as measured by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index, which
reflects the value of nearly all U.S. stocks. The Friday
afternoon news that Obama is likely to choose Timothy Geithner, the president of
the New York Federal Reserve, to be the next Treasury secretary helped spark a
rally that sent the Dow Jones industrial average surging almost 500 points.
Geithner has worked closely with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal
Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke this year as the government seized control of
mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and insurer American International
Group Inc. But analysts say it would be a mistake to say
Friday's market reversal marks an end to the carnage that has wiped out 45.8
percent of the value of the S&P 500 index since the start of the year. "I
don't think anyone can say we've reached the bottom yet, " said Chuck Gabriel,
managing director of Capital Alpha Partners in Washington. "It's going to be a
very gloomy Christmas." Kim Caughey, equity research analyst at Fort Pitt
Capital Group in Pittsburgh, said that "for investors to get more confidence, we
need to know details" of the new administration's plans to handle the crisis."
There's been a vacuum of leadership" she added, " and when that happens, you get
fear and rumors, and then people sell."
单选题Almost exactly a year ago, in a small village in Northern India, Andrea Milliner was bitten on the leg by a dog. "It must have (1) your nice white flesh", joked the doctor (2) he dressed the wound. Andrea and her husband Nigel were determined not to let it (3) their holiday, and thought no more (4) the dog, which had meanwhile quietly disappeared (5) the village. "We didn't realize there was (6) wrong with it," says Nigel. "It was such a small, (7) dog that rabies didn't (8) my mind". But, six weeks later,23-year-old Andrea was dead. The dog had been rabid. No one had thought it necessary to (9) her anti-rabies treatment. When, back home in England, she began to show the classic (10) --unable to drink, catching her breath--her own doctor put it (11) to hysteria. Even when she was (12) into an ambulance, hallucinating, recoiling in (13) at the sight of water, she was directed (14) the nearest mental hospital. But if her symptoms (15) little attention in life, in death (16) achieved a publicity close to hysteria. Cases like Andrea are (17) , but rabies is still one of the most feared diseases known to man. The disease is (18) by a bite of a lick from an (19) animal. It can, in very exceptional circumstances, be inhaled--two scientists died of it after (20) bat dung in a cave in Texas.
单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}}
Concrete is probably used more widely
than any other substance except water, yet it remains largely unappreciated.
“Some people view the 20th century as the atomic age, the space age, the
computer age — but an argument can be made that it was the concrete age,” says
cement specialist Hendrik Van Oss. “It’s a miracle material.” Indeed, more than
a ton of concrete is produced each year for every man, woman and child on Earth.
Yet concrete is generally ignored outside the engineering world, a victim of its
own ubiquity and the industry’s conservative pace of development. Now, thanks to
environmental pressures and entrepreneurial innovation, a new generation of
concretes is emerging. This high-tech assortment of concrete confections
promises to be stronger, lighter, and more environmentally friendly than ever
before. Concrete is also a climate-change villain. It is made by
mixing water with an aggregate, such as sand or gravel, and cement. Cement is
usually made by heating limestone and clay to over 2,500 degrees F. The
resulting chemical reaction, along with fuel burned to heat the kiln, produces
between 7% and 10% of global carbon-dioxide emissions. “When we have to
repeatedly regenerate these materials because they’re not durable, we release
more emissions,” says Victor Li who has created a concrete suffused by synthetic
fibers that make it stronger, more durable, and able to bend like a metal. Li’s
creation does not require reinforcement, a property shared by other concretes
that use chemical additives. Using less water makes concrete stronger, but until
the development of plasticizers, it also made concrete sticky, dry, and hard to
handle, says Christian Meyer, a civil engineering professor at Columbia
University. Making stronger concretes, says Li, allows less to
be used, reducing waste and giving architects more freedom. “You can have such
futuristic designs if you don’t have to put rebar in there, or structural
beams,” says Van Oss. A more directly “green” c6nerete has been developed by the
Australian company TecEeo. They add magnesium to their cement, forming a porous
concrete that actually scrubs carbon dioxide from the air. While
experts agree that these new concrete will someday be widely used, the timetable
is uncertain. Concrete companies are responsive to environmental concerns and
are always looking to stretch the utility of their product, but the construction
industry is slow to change. “When you start monkeying around with materials, the
governing bodies, the building departments, are very cautious before they let
you use an unproven material,” Meyer says. In the next few decades, says Van
Oss, building codes will change, opening the way for innovative materials. But
while new concretes may be stronger and more durable, they are also more
expensive — and whether the tendency of developers and the public to focus on
short-term rather than long-term costs will also change is another
matter.
单选题
单选题Many countries have a tradition of inviting foreigners to rule them. The English called in William of Orange in 1688, and, depending on your interpretation of history, William of Normandy in 1066. Both did rather a good job. Returning the compliment, Albania asked a well-bred Englishman called Aubgrey Herbert to be their king in the 1920s. He refused-and they ended up with several coves called Zog. America, the country of immigrants, has no truck with imported foreign talent. Article two of the constitution says that "no person except a natural-born citizen.., shall be eligible to the office of the president". This is now being challenged by a particularly irresistible immigrant: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Barely a year has passed since the erstwhile cyborg swept to victory in California's recall election, yet there is already an Amend-for-Arnold campaign collecting signatures to let the Austrian-born governor have a go at the White House. George Bush senior has weighed in on his behalf. There are several "Arnold amendments" in Congress. one allows foreigners who have been naturalized citizens for 20 years to become president. (The Austrian became American in 1983.) It is easy to dismiss the hoopla as another regrettable example of loopy celebrity politics. Mr. Schwarzenegger has made a decent start as governor, but he has done little, as yet, to change the structure of his dysfunctional state. Indeed, even if the law were changed, he could well be elbowed aside by another incomer, this time from Canada. the Democratic governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, who appears to have fewer skeletons in her closet than the hedonistic actor. Moreover, changing the American constitution is no doddle. It has happened only 17 times since 1791 (when the first ten amendments were codified as the bill of rights). To change the constitution, an amendment has to be approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, and then to be ratified by three-quarters of the 50 states. The Arnold amendment is hardly in the same category as abolishing slavery or giving women the vote. And, as some wags point out, Austrian imports have a pretty dodgy record of running military superpowers.
单选题What do you think ordinary citizens may do faster reading the different arguments?______.
