单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} What would happen to the U. S. economy if all its commercial banks suddenly closed their doors? Throughout most of American history, the answer would have been a disaster of epic proportions, akin to the Depression wrought by the chain-reaction bank failures in the early 1930s. But in 1993 the startling answer is that a shutdown by banks might be far from cataclysmic. Consider this: though the economic recovery is now 27 months old, not a single net new dollar has been lent to business by banks in all that time. Last week the Federal Reserve reported that the amount of loans the nation's largest banks have made to businesses fell an additional $ 2. 4 billion in the week ending June 9, to $ 274. 8 billion. Fearful that the scarcity of bank credit might sabotage the fragile economy, the White House and federal agencies are working feverishly to encourage banks to open their lending windows. In the past two weeks, government regulators have introduced steps to make it easier for banks to lend. Is the government's concern fully justified? Who really needs banks these days? Hardly anyone, it turns out. While banks once dominated business lending, today nearly 80% of all such loans come from nonbank lenders like life insurers, brokerage firms and finance companies. Banks used to be the only source of money in town. Now businesses and individuals can write checks on their insurance companies, get a loan from a pension fund, and deposit paychecks in a money-market account with a brokerage firm. "It is possible for banks to die and still have a vibrant economy," says Edward Furash, a Washington bank consultant. The irony is that the accelerating slide into irrelevance comes just as the banks racked up record profits of $ 43 billion over the past 15 months, creating the illusion that the industry is staging a comeback. But that income was not the result of smart lending decisions. Instead of earning money by financing America's recovery, the banks mainly invested their funds--on which they were paying a bargain-basement 2% or so--in risk-free Treasury bonds that yielded 7%. That left bank officers with little to do except put their feet on their desks and watch the interest roll in. Those profits may have come at a price. Not only did bankers lose many loyal customers by withholding credit, they also inadvertently opened the door to a herd of nonbank competitors, who stampeded into the lending market. "The banking industry didn't see this threat," says Furash. "They are being fat, dumb and happy. They didn't realize that banking is essential to a modern economy, but banks are not."

单选题The future for Britain's food production at that time looked like that

单选题 There are countless parents who will not allow their children to play violent video games, in which players are able to kill, maim, dismember or sexually assault human images in depraved ways. The video game industry rates them, and some stores use that rating to decide whether to sell a particular game to a minor. But California went too far in 2005 when it made it illegal to sell violent video games to minors. Retailers challenged the law, and a federal appeals court rightly ruled that it violates the First Amendment. Last week, the Supreme Court said that it would review that decision. We hope it agrees that the law is unconstitutional. California's law imposes fines of up to $1,000 on retailers that sell violent video games to anyone under 18. To qualify, a game must, as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors. But video games are a form of free expression. Many have elaborate plots and characters, often drawn from fiction or history. The California law is a content-based restriction, something that is presumed invalid under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has made it clear that minors have First Amendment rights. California has tried to lower the constitutional standard for upholding the law by comparing it to "variable obscenity," a First Amendment principle that allows banning the sale of some sexually explicit materials to minors that cannot be banned for adults. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, like other federal courts, rightly refused to extend that doctrine to violent games. Under traditional First Amendment analysis, content-based speech restrictions can survive only if they are narrowly tailored to promote a compelling government interest. California says its interest is in preventing psychological or neurological damage to young people. The appeals court concluded that the evidence connecting violent video games to this sort of damage is too weak to make restricting the games a compelling government interest. Even if the interest were legitimate, the state could have used less restrictive methods. The video game industry, like the movie business, has a voluntary rating system that provides buyers and sellers with information on the content of specific games, including age-specific ratings, ranging from "early childhood" to "adults only. " The government could do more to promote the use of voluntary ratings by retailers and parents. California lawmakers may have been right when they decided that video games in which players kill and maim are not the most socially beneficial form of expression. The Constitution, however, does not require speech to be ideal for it to be protected.

单选题If there is one thing scientists have to hear, it is that the game is over. Raised on the belief of an endless voyage of discovery, they recoil from the suggestion that most of the best things have already been located. If they have, today's scientists can hope to contribute no more than a few grace notes to the symphony of science. A book to be published in Britain this week, The End of Science, argues persuasively that this is the case. Its author, John Horgan, is a senior writer for Scientific American magazine, who has interviewed many of today's leading scientists and science philosophers. The shock of realizing that science might be over came to him, he says, when he was talking to Oxford mathematician and physicist Sir Roger Penrose. The End of Science provoked a wave of denunciation in the United States last year. "The reaction has been one of complete shock and disbelief, "Mr. Horgan says. The real question is whether any remaining unsolved problems, of which there are plenty, lend themselves to universal solutions. If they do not, then the focus of scientific discovery is already narrowing. Since the triumphs of the 1960s—the genetic code, plate tectonics, and the microwave background radiation that went a long way towards proving the Big Bang—genuine scientific revolutions have been scarce. More scientists are now alive, spending more money on research, that ever. Yet most of the great discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries were made before the appearance of state sponsorship, when the scientific enterprise was a fraction of its present size. Were the scientists who made these discoveries brighter than today's? That seems unlikely. A far more reasonable explanation is that fundamental science has already entered a period of diminished returns. "Look, don't get me wrong," says Mr Horgan. "There are lots of important things still to study, and applied science and engineering can go on for ever. I hope we get a cure for cancer, and for mental disease, though there are few real signs of progress./

单选题The diversion Yasuhisa Shizoki enjoys is mentioned in the text to ______.

单选题Which of tie following illnesses has been proved to be linked with organophosphate poisoning?______

单选题Palliative care is concerned with improving patients'

单选题 Violent criminals with something to hide have more reason than ever to be paranoid about a tap on the shoulder which could send them to jail. Queensland police are working through a backlog of unsolved murders with some dramatic success. Greater cooperation between the public and various law enforcement agencies is playing a role, but new genetic-testing techniques are the real key to providing the vital evidence to mount a prosecution. Evidence left behind at the scene of any murder is guaranteed to outlive the person who left it. A blood, saliva or tissue sample in the size of a pin, kept dry and out of sunlight, will last several thousand years. From it, scientific analysis now can tell accurately the sex of the person who left it. When matched against a sample from a crime suspect, it can indicate with million-to-one certainty whether the samples come from the same source. Only twins share identical DNA. So precise is the technology if the biological parents of a suspect agree to provide a sample, forensic scientists can work out the rest for themselves without cooperation from the suspect. Queensland forensic scientists have been using the DNA testing technology since 1992, and last year they were recognized internationally for their competence in positive individual identification. That is part of the reason 20 of Queensland's most puzzling unsolved murders dating to 1932 are being ac timely investigated. There also have been several recent arrests for unsolved murders. Forensic evidence was instrumental in charges being laid over the bashing death of waitress Tasha Douty on Brampton Island in 1983. Douty's blood-splattered, naked body was found on a nude sunbathing beach at Dinghy Bay on the island. Footprints in the sand indicated that the killer had grappled with the 21-year-old mother who had fled up the beach before being caught and beaten to death. According to Leo Freney, the supervising forensic scientist at the John Tonge Centre at Brisbane's Griffith University, DNA testing has become an invaluable tool for police, its use is in identifying and rejecting suspects. In fact, he says, it eliminates more people than it convicts. " It is easily as good as fingerprints for the purpose of identification, " he says. "In the case of violent crime it is better than fingerprints. You can't innocently explain things like blood and semen at a crime scene where you may be able to innocently explain fingerprints. " In Queensland, a person who has been arrested on suspicion of an offence can be taken before a magistrate and ordered to provide a sample of body fluid by :force if necessary.

单选题The best title for the passage might be

单选题In paragraph 3, a number of Franklin's accomplishments are listed in order to

单选题Westerners are familiar with the journalistic interview,______

单选题Low levels of literacy and numeracy have a damaging impact on almost every aspect of adults, according to a survey published yesterday, which offers (1) of a developing underclass. Tests and (2) with hundreds of people born in a week in 1958 graphically illustrated file (3) of educational underachievement. The effects can be seen in unemployment, family (4) , low incomes, depression and social inactivity. Those who left school at 16 with poor basic skills had been employed for UP to four years less than good readers (5) they reached 37. Professor John Bynner, of City University, who carried the research, said that today's (6) teenagers would even encounter greater problems because the supply of (7) jobs had shrunk. Almost one fifth of the 1,700 people interviewed for yesterday's report had poor literacy and almost half (8) with innumeracy, a proportion (9) other surveys for the Basic Skills Agency. Some could not read a child's book, and most found difficult (10) written instruction. Poor readers were twice as likely to be a low wage and four times likely to live in a household where partners worked. Women in this (11) were five times as likely to be (12) depressed, (13) both tended to feel they had no control over their lives, and to trust others (14) . Those who had low literacy and numeracy were seldom (15) in any community organization and less likely than others to (16) in a general election. There had been no (17) in the literary level of (18) . Alan Wells, the agency's director, said: "The results emphasize the dangers of developing an underclass people, who were out of work, (19) depressed and often labeled themselves as (20) . There is a circle of marginalization, with the dice against these people and their families./