单选题 The small size of the components of computer chips has proved unstoppable. In each new {{U}}(1) {{/U}}, those components are smaller and more tightly packed than they were in their predecessor. {{U}}(2) {{/U}} has been so rapid that chip designers are {{U}}(3) {{/U}} apparently fundamental barriers to further reductions in size and increases in density. In a small size version of the {{U}}(4) {{/U}} to wireless communication in the macroscopic world, a group of researchers led by Alain Nogaret, think they can make chips {{U}}(5) {{/U}} components talk to each other wirelessly. The researchers {{U}}(6) {{/U}} to use the standard print techniques employed in chipmaking to coat a semiconductor with tiny magnets. These magnets will {{U}}(7) {{/U}} local magnetic fields that point in opposite directions at different points {{U}}(8) {{/U}} the chip's surface. Electrons have a {{U}}(9) {{/U}} called spin--that is affected by magnetic fields, and the team hopes to use a/an {{U}}(10) {{/U}} called inverse electron-spin vibration to make electrons {{U}}(11) {{/U}} the chip emit microwaves. Dr. Nogaret imagine great advances that would stem {{U}}(12) {{/U}} the success of his work, and these are not {{U}}(13) {{/U}} to the possibility of packing components yet more tightly. In today's chips, the failure of a single connection can put the whole circuit out of {{U}}(14) {{/U}}. This should not happen with a wireless system {{U}}(15) {{/U}} it could be programmed to re-route signals. The project will not be {{U}}(16) {{/U}} sailing. Generating microwaves powerful enough to {{U}}(17) {{/U}} data reliably will {{U}}(18) {{/U}} involve stacking several layers of magnets and semiconductors together and encouraging the electrons in them to move in a harmonious union. But if it {{U}}(19) {{/U}}, a whole new wireless world will be {{U}}(20) {{/U}}.

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. (40 points){{B}}Text 1{{/B}} Despite increased airport security since September 11th, 2001, the technology to scan both passengers and baggage for weapons and bombs remains largely unchanged. Travellers walk through metal detectors and carry-on bags pass through x-ray machines that superimpose colour-coded highlights, but do little else. Checked-in luggage is screened by "computed tomography", which peers inside a suitcase rather like a CAT scan of a brain. These systems can alert an operator to something suspicious, but they cannot tell what it is. More sophisticated screening technologies are emerging, albeit slowly. There are three main approaches: enhanced x-rays to spot hidden objects, sensor technology to sniff dangerous chemicals, and radio frequencies that can identify liquids and solids. A number of manufacturers are using "reflective" or "backscatter" x-rays that can be calibrated to see objects through clothing. They can spot things that a metal detector may not, such as a ceramic knife or plastic explosives. But some people think they can reveal too much. In America, civil-liberties groups have stalled the introduction of such equipment, arguing that it is too intrusive. To protect travellers' modesty, filters have been created to blur genital areas. Machines that can detect minute traces of explosive are also being tested. Passengers walk through a machine that blows a burst of air, intended to dislodge molecules of substances on a person's body and clothes. The air is sucked into a filter, which instantaneously analyses it to see whether it includes any suspect substances. The process can work for baggage as well. It is a vast improvement on today's method, whereby carry-on items are occasionally swabbed and screened for traces of explosives. Because this is a manual operation, only a small share of bags are examined this way. The most radical of the new approaches uses "quadrupole resonance technology". This involves bombarding an object with radio waves. By reading the returning signals, the machines can identify the molecular structure of the materials it contains. Since every compound--solid, liquid or gas--creates a unique frequency, it can be read like a fingerprint. The system can be used to look for drugs as well as explosives. For these technologies to make the jump from development labs and small trials to full deployment at airports they must be available at a price that airports are prepared to pay. They must also be easy to use, take up little space and provide quick results, says Chris Yates, a security expert with Jane's Airport Review. Norman Shanks, an airport security expert, says adding the new technologies costs around $ 100 000 per machine; he expects the systems to be rolled out commercially over the next 12 months. They might close off one route to destroying an airliner, but a cruel certainty is that terrorists will try to find others.

单选题The increase in global trade means that international companies cannot afford to make costly advertising mistakes if they want to be competitive. Understanding the language and culture of target markets in foreign countries is one of the keys to successful international marketing. Too many companies, however, have jumped into foreign markets with embarrassing results. Translation mistakes are at the heart of many blunders in international advertising. General Motors, the US auto manufacturer, got a costly lesson when it introduced its Chevrolet Nova to the Puerto Rican market. "Nova" is Latin for "new (star)" and means "star" in many languages, but in spoken Spanish it can sound like "nova", meaning "it doesn't go". Few people wanted to buy a car with that cursed meaning. When GM changed the name to Caribe, sales "picked up" dramatically. Marketing blunders have also been made by food and beverage companies. One American food company's friendly "Jolly Green Giant" (for advertising vegetables) became something quite different when it was translated into Arabic as "Intimidating Green Ogre". When translated into German, Pepsi's popular slogan, "Come Alive with Pepsi" came out implying "Come Alive from the Grave". No wonder customers in Germany didn't rush out to buy Pepsi. Successful international marketing doesn't stop with good translations—other aspects of culture must be researched and understood if marketers are to avoid blunders. When marketers do not understand and appreciate the values, tastes, geography, climate, superstitions, religion, or economy of a culture, they fail to capture their target market. For example, an American designer tried to introduce a new perfume into the Latin American market but the product aroused little interest. The main reason was that the camellia used in it was traditionally used for funerals in many South American countries. Having awakened to the special nature of foreign advertising, companies are becoming much more conscientious in their translations and more sensitive to cultural distinctions. The best way to prevent errors is to hire professional translators who understand the target language and its idiomatic usage, or to use a technique called "back translation" to reduce the possibility of blunders. The process used one person to translate a message into the target language and another to translate it back. Effective translators aim to capture the overall message of an advertisement because a word-for-word duplication of the original rarely conveys the intended meaning and often causes misunderstandings. In designing advertisements for other countries, messages need to be short and simple. They should also avoid jokes, since what is considered funny in one part of the world may not be so humorous in another.

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}}Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C, and D on ANSWER SHEET 1. Political controversy about the public-land policy of the United States began with the America Revolution.{{U}} (1) {{/U}}, even before independence from Britain was{{U}} (2) {{/U}}, it became clear that{{U}} (3) {{/U}}the dilemmas surrounding the public domain might prove necessary to{{U}} (4) {{/U}}the Union itself. At the peace negotiation with Britain, Americans obtained a western{{U}} (5) {{/U}}at the Mississippi River. Thus the new nation secured for its birthright a vast internal empire rich in agricultural and mineral resources. But{{U}} (6) {{/U}}their colonial charters, seven states claimed{{U}} (7) {{/U}}of the western wilderness. Virginia's claim was the largest,{{U}} (8) {{/U}}north and west to encompass the later states. The language of the charters was{{U}} (9) {{/U}}and their validity questionable, but during the war Virginia reinforced its title by sponsoring Colonel Georgia Rogers Clark's 1778{{U}} (10) {{/U}}to Vicennes and Kaskaskia, which{{U}} (11) {{/U}}America's trans Appalachian pretensions at the peace table. The six states holding no claim to the transmontane region{{U}} (12) {{/U}}whether a confederacy in which territory was so unevenly apportioned would truly prove what it claimed to be, a union of equals. Already New Jersey, Delaware, Rhode Isaland, and Maryland were{{U}} (13) {{/U}}the smallest and least populous of the states.{{U}} (14) {{/U}}they levied heavy taxes to repay state war debts, their larger neighbors might retire debts out of land-sale proceeds.{{U}} (15) {{/U}}by fresh lands and low taxes, people would desert the small states{{U}} (16) {{/U}}the large, leaving the former to fall{{U}} (17) {{/U}}bankruptcy and eventually into political subjugation. All the states shared in the war effort, how then could half of them "be left no sink under an{{U}} (18) {{/U}}debt, whilst others are enabled, in a short period, to{{U}} (19) {{/U}}all their expenditures from the hard earnings of the whole confederacy?" As the Revolution was a common endeavor,{{U}} (20) {{/U}}ought its fruits, including the western lands be a common property.

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} Read the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on Answer Sheet 1. In an ideal world, the nation's elite schools would enroll the most qualified students. But that's not how it{{U}} (1) {{/U}}.Applicants whose parents are alums get special treatment, as{{U}} (2) {{/U}}athletes and rich kids. Underrepresented minorities are also given{{U}} (3) {{/U}}. Thirty years of affirmative action have changed the character of{{U}} (4) {{/U}}white universities; now about 13 percent of all undergraduates are black or Latino.{{U}} (5) {{/U}}a recent study by the Century Foundation found that at the nation's 146 most{{U}} (6) {{/U}}schools, 74 percent of students came from upper middle-class and wealthy families, while only about 5 percent came from families with an annual income of{{U}} (7) {{/U}}$ 35,000 or less. Many schools say diversity--racial, economic and geographic--is{{U}} (8) {{/U}}to maintaining intellectually{{U}} (9) {{/U}}campuses. But Richard Kahlenberg of the Century Foundation says that even though colleges{{U}} (10) {{/U}}they want poor kids, "they don't try very hard to find them."{{U}} (11) {{/U}}rural students, many colleges don't try at all. "Unfortunately, we go where we can{{U}} (12) {{/U}}a sizable number of potential applicants," says Tulane admissions chief Richard Whiteside, who{{U}} (13) {{/U}}aggressively and in person--from metropolitan areas. Kids in rural areas get a glossy{{U}} (14) {{/U}}in the mail. Even when poor rural students have the{{U}} (15) {{/U}}for top colleges, their high schools often don't know how to get them there. Admissions officers{{U}} (16) {{/U}}guidance counselors to direct them to promising prospects. In{{U}} (17) {{/U}}high schools, guidance counselors often have personal{{U}} (18) {{/U}}with both kids and admissions officers. In rural areas, a teacher, a counselor or{{U}} (19) {{/U}}an alumnus "can help put a rural student on our radar screen," says Wesleyan admissions dean Nancy Meislahn. But poor rural schools rarely have college{{U}} (20) {{/U}}with those connections; without them, admission "can be a crapshoot," says Carnegie Mellon's Steidel.

单选题The "holiday season" (Line 2, Paragraph 13) probably refers to

单选题The Belgian blue is an ugly but tasty cow that has 40% more muscle than it should have. It is the product of random mutation followed by selective breeding—as, indeed, are all domesticated creatures. But where an old art has led, a new one may follow. By understanding which genetic changes have been consolidated in the Belgian blue, it may be possible to design and build similar versions of other species using genetic engineering as a short-cut. And that is precisely what Terry Bradley, a fish biologist at the University of Rhode Island, is trying to do. Instead of cattle, he is doing it in trout. His is one of two projects that may soon put the first biotech animals on the dinner table. The other project is led by Aqua Bounty. It is one thing to make such fish, of course. It is quite another to get them to market. First, it is necessary to receive the approval of the regulators. In America, the relevant regulator is the Food and Drug Administration ( FDA), which Aqua Bounty says it has been petitioning for more than a decade and which published guidelines for approving genetically engineered animals in 2009. Aqua Bounty has now filed its remaining studies for approval, and hopes to hear the result this year. Dr Bradley has not yet applied for approval. The FDA is concerned mainly with the healthfulness of what people put in their mouths, and it seems unlikely that the new procedures will yield something that is unsafe to eat. But what happens if the creatures escape and start breeding in the wild? For that to be a problem, the modified fish would have to be better at surviving and reproducing than those honed by millions of years of natural selection. On the face of it, this seems unlikely, because the characteristics that have been engineered into them are ones designed to make them into better food, rather than lean, mean breeding machines. But there is a chink in this argument. As Mark Abrahams, a biologist at Memorial University in Newfoundland, points out, it is not just the fish that have been modified by man, but also the environment in which they could escape. Many of the creatures that eat salmon and trout, such as bears and some birds, have had their ranks thinned by human activity. Dr Abrahams thinks it possible that fast-growing salmon could displace the natural sort in places where predators are rare. Aqua Bounty is addressing such concerns by subjecting developing eggs to high pressures. The result, if all goes well, will be that animals follow plants down the biotech route. Whether people will actually want to buy or eat the new fish is a different matter— though they buy the meat of Belgian blue cattle at a premium. Perhaps clever marketing could make "double-muscled" fish into a premium product, too. If people will pay extra for meat from a monstrosity like the Belgian blue, anything is possible.

单选题One of the basic characteristics of capitalism is the private ownership of the major means of production— capital. The ownership of large amounts of capital can bring (1) profits, as well as economic and political power. Some recent theorists, (2) , have argued that our society has moved to a new stage of (3) that they call "postindustrial" society. One important change in such a society is that the ownership of (4) amounts of capital is no longer the only or even the most important (5) of profits and influence; knowledge as well as (6) capital brings profits and influence. There arc many (7) with the thesis above, not the least of (8) is that wealthy capitalists can buy the experts and knowledge they need to keep their profits and influence. But this does not (9) the importance of knowledge in an advanced industrial society, as the (10) of some new industries indicates. (11) , genetic engineering and the new computer technology have (12) many new firms and made some scientists quite rich. In (13) with criticism of the postindustrial society thesis, however, it must also be (14) that those already in control of huge amounts of capital (i. e., major corporations) soon (15) to take most profits in these industries based on new knowledge. Moving down from the level of wealth and power, we still find knowledge increasingly (16) . Many new high-tech jobs are being created at the upper-middle-class level, but even more new jobs are being created in the low-skill, low-paying service (17) . Something like a caste line is emerging centered around knowledge. Individuals who fall too far behind in the (18) of knowledge at a young age will find it almost impossible to catch up later, no matter how hard they try. Illiteracy in the English language has been a severe (19) for many years in the United States, but we are also moving to the point when computer illiteracy will hinder many more people and (20) them to a life of low-skill and low-paid labor.

单选题The term "otherwise" (Line 1, Paragraph 1) most probably means

单选题 HOW soon your performance will be rated may influence how well you do, according to a new study published in the journal Psychological Science. In the study, researchers Keri L. Kettle and Gerald Hubl from the University of Alberta set out to determine whether the timing of feedback influences performance. Because earlier feedback means a more proximate possibility of disappointment, the researchers hypothesized that students told they would be learning their grade sooner would be more likely to perform well, compared with those who wouldn't fend out their grade until later. Of 501 students taking a particular course, 271 agreed to participate in the study. All students were assigned a four minute oral presentation, which they had to deliver in front of about 10 classmates. Their performance was ranked on a scale of 1-10 by classmates, and the average of those scores made up their grade for the assignment. Prior to giving their oral presentation, study participants were asked to predict how well they would do, and were also told how soon they would learn their grade. The researchers found that study participants who'd been told they would be given their scores earlier performed far better than those told they'd receive their scores later. What's more, despite the fact that, on average, students who anticipated fending out how they'd done earlier significantly outperformed classmates who were given their scores later, they were more likely to predict low marks for themselves. In contrast, those who were told they wouldn't learn their scores until later were more likely to predict very high marks-which they seldom actually went on to earn. As a control, the researchers also assessed the scores of the 230 students who had declined to participate in the study. While students with the earliest feedback scored in the 60th percentile on average, and those with the latest feedback scored in the 40th percentile on average, those not included in the study (and whose feedback time hadn't been manipulated) consistently scored in the 50th percentile. The findings suggest that "mere anticipation of more rapid feedback improves performance," the authors conclude, and that, interestingly, proximity of feedback influences predicted performance and actual performance differently. As the authors sum up: "People do best precisely when their predictions about their own performance are least optimistic." The influence of feedback anticipation on performance has implications beyond the classroom as well, the researchers argue-in the way that managers respond to employee work, for example, or maybe even how Mom and Dad size up how clean that room is. The findings, Kettle and Hubl conclude, "have important practical implications for all individuals who are responsible for mentoring and for evaluating the performance of others."

单选题By using the word "correlates" (Line 7, Paragraph 3 ), the author implies that

单选题 A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in identically the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as sacred texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual circumstances of the time and the individual child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better. A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or arousing his sadistic impulses. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often guilty of cruelty than those who had not. Aggressive, destructive, sadistic impulses every child has and, on the whole, their symbolic verbal discharge seen is to be rather a safety valve than an incitement to overt action. As to fears, there are, I think, well-authenticated cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy stories. Often, however, this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity. with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of the fear faced and mastered. There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two -headed dragons, magic carpets, etc., do not exist; and that, instead of indulging his fantasies in fairy tales, the child should be taught how to adapt to reality by studying history and mechanics. I find such people, I must confess, so unsympathetic and peculiar that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of mad men attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a broomstick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their enchanted girl-friend. No fairy story ever claimed to be a description of the external world and no sane child has ever believed that it was.

单选题Invention and innovation have been quintessentially American pursuits from the earliest days of the republic. Benjamin Franklin was a world-famous scientist and inventor. Cyrus McCormick and his harvester, Samuel F. B. Morse and the telegraph, Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone—the 19th century produced a string of inventors and their world-changing creations. And then there was the greatest of them all, Thomas Alva Edison. He came up with the crucial devices that would give birth to three enduring American industries:electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures. Much of the world we live in today is a legacy of Edison and of his devotion to science and innovation. Edison taught us to invent, and for decades we were the best in the world. But today, more than 160 years after Edison"s birth, America is losing its scientific edge. A landmark report released in May by the National Science Board lays out the numbers:while U. S. investment in R&D as a share of total GDP has remained relatively constant since the mid-1980s at 2.7% , the federal share of R&D has been consistently declining—even as Asian nations like Japan and South Korea have rapidly increased that ratio. At the same time, American students seem to be losing interest in science. Only about one-third of U. S. bachelor"s degrees are in science or engineering now, compared with 63% in Japan and 53% in China. It"s ironic that nowhere is America"s position in science and technology more threatened than in the industry that Edison essentially invented: energy. Clean power could be to the 21st century what aeronautics and the computer were to the 20th, but the U. S. is already falling behind. Meanwhile, Congress remains largely paralyzed . Though in May the House of Representatives was finally able to pass the $ 86 billion America Competes Reauthorization Act, which would double the budgets of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Energy Department"s Office of Science, the bill"s fate is cloudy in the deadlocked Senate. "At this rate... we"ll be buying most of our wind generators and photovoltaic panels from other countries, " former NSF head Arden L. Bement said at a congressional hearing recently. "That"s what keeps me awake sometimes at night. " Some erosion of the U. S. "s scientific dominance is inevitable in a globalized world and might not even be a bad thing. Tomorrow"s innovators could arise in Shanghai or Seoul or Bangalore. And Edison would counsel against panic—as he put it once, " Whatever setbacks America has encountered, it has always emerged as a stronger and more prosperous nation. " But the U. S. will inevitably decline unless we invest in the education and research necessary to maintain the American edge . The next generation of Edisons could be waiting. But unless we move quickly, they won"t have the tools they need to thrive .