单选题The author holds that the man's explanation was______

单选题You go looking for a book to buy as a present for a child, and you will be spoiled for choice, even in a year such as this, when there is no new Harry Potter by Ms. J. K. Rowling. And her wizard is not alone: the past decade has been a productive one for good children's books, which has set off an enormous number of films and in turn led to increased sales of classics such as The Lord of the Rings and so forth. Yet despite the abundance in excellent books, reading is increasingly unpopular among children in Britain. According to the National Foundation for Educational Research, in 1997, 23% said they didn't like reading at all. In 2003, 35% did. And around 6% of children leave primary school each year unable to read properly. Maybe the declining popularity of reading is the fault of the increasing availability of computer games. Maybe the books boom has affected only the top of the educational pile. Either way, Gordon Brown, the chancellor, plans to change things for the bottom of the class. In his pre-budget report, he announced the national implementation of Reading Recovery, a scheme to help the children who are struggling most. Reading Recovery is aimed at six-year-olds, who receive four months of individual daily half-hour sessions with a specially trained teacher. An evaluation published earlier this year reported that children on the scheme made 20 months' progress in just one year, whereas similarly weak readers who received no special help made just five months, progress, and so ended the year even further below the level expected for their age. At more than ￡2, 000 per pupil, Reading Recovery is not cheap. But it may be a sound investment. The KPMG Foundation, a charity that has been paying for Reading Recovery in some schools, reckons that each child who leaves primary school unable to read will go on to cost the taxpayer at least ￡50, 000 in specialist teaching in secondary schools, dealing with truancy, paying benefits to adults who are more likely to be sick and jobless, and the consequences of increased crime. International research tends to find that by the time British children leave primary school they are reading well by international standards, but read less often for fun than that elsewhere. The inspectors said that when they asked why it is good to be able to read, children were more likely to say that it would help them to do well in tests or get a good job than that reading was enjoyable. This matters not only because children who are keen on reading can look forward to lifelong pleasure, but because loving books is an excellent predictor of future educational success. According to the OECD, being a regular and enthusiastic reader is more of an advantage than having well-educated parents in good jobs.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} If you smoke, you'd better hurry. From July 1st pubs all over England will, by law, be no-smoking areas. So will restaurants, offices and even company cars, if more than one per-son uses them. England's smokers are following a well-trodden path. The other three bits of the United Kingdom have already banned smoking in almost all enclosed public spaces, and there are anti-smoking laws of varying strictness over most of Western Europe. The smoker' s journey from glamour through toleration to suspicion is finally reaching its end in pariah status. But behind this public-health success story lies a darker tale. Poorer people are much more likely to smoke than richer ones—a change from the 1950s, when professionals and la-borers were equally keen. Today only 15% of men in the highest professional classes smoke, but 42% of unskilled workers do. Despite punitive taxation—20 cigarettes cost around ￡ 5.00 ($10.00), three-quarters of which is tax—55% of single mothers on benefits smoke. The figure for homeless men is even higher; for hard-drug users it is practically 100% . The message that smoking kills has been heard, it seems, but not by all. Having defeated the big killers of the past—want, exposure, poor sanitation—governments all over the developed world are turning their attention to diseases that stem mostly from how individuals choose to live their lives. But the same deafness afflicts the same people when they are strongly encouraged to give up other sorts of unhealthy behavior. The lower down they are on practically any pecking order—job prestige, income, education, background-the more likely people are to be fat and unfit, and to drink too much. That tempts governments to shout ever louder in an attempt to get the public to listen and nowhere do they do so more aggressively than in Britain. One reason is that pecking orders matter more than in most other rich countries: income distribution is very unequal and the unemployed, disaffected, ill-educated rump is comparatively large. Another reason is the frustration of a government addicted to targets, which often aim not only to improve some-thing but to lessen inequality in the process. A third is that the National Health Service is free to patients, and paying for those who have arguably brought their ill-health on themselves grows alarmingly costly. Britain' s aggressiveness, however, may be pointless, even counter-productive. There is no reason to believe that those who ignore measured voices will listen to shouting. It irritates the majority who are already behaving responsibly, and it may also undermine all government pronouncements on health by convincing people that they have an ultra-cautious margin of error built in. Such hectoring may also be missing the root cause of the problem. According to Mr. Marmot, who cites research on groups as diverse as baboons in captivity, British civil servants and Oscar nominees, the higher rates of ill health among those in more modest walks of life can be attributed to what he calls the "status syndrome". People in privileged positions think they are worth the effort of behaving healthily, and find the will-power to do so. The implication is that it is easier to improve a person's health by weakening the connection between social position and health than by targeting behavior directly. Some public-health experts speak of social cohesion, support for families and better education for all. These are bigger undertakings than a bossy campaign; but more effective, and quieter.

单选题The word "assumption" probably means ______.

单选题What do we learn from the first paragraph?______

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} The Inland Revenue on Thursday accused the British film industry of abusing government aid, with every production of recent years deliberately over-claiming tax relief. Revenue officials called in about 20 members of the film industry and warned them of severe consequences if the "exploitation" of tax-relief schemes did not immediately stop. The move, which affects the including low to high-budget film-makers and financiers, is the latest in a series of attempts by the Revenue to clamp down on tax loopholes in an attempt to raise more money for the Exchequer, But the film industry responded on Thursday night, saying the Revenue could drive productions overseas and would confuse investors. A series of tax relief schemes, introduced in 1997, enables those involved in the financing of qualifying British-made films to claim the costs of production against future income. The schemes have Become popular with investors seeking a tax shelter, with an estimated ￡400m invested in the schemes in 1997 rising to about ￡2bn last year. But the Revenue said the industry was exploiting rules on tax relief by "double dipping", that is, by claiming relief more than once against a single piece of expenditure. While not illegal, the Revenue said, the industry was "not playing fair". It said double-dipping was "against the spirit" of legislation designed to encourage investment in the British film industry. The Revenue said the practice of double dipping was "virtually universal", with "every qualifying film it had seen financed on the basis of double dipping". It warned it would "take all steps to counter such abuse including, where necessary, advising ministers on introducing legislation to put matters beyond doubt". "Both the Revenue and the government are becoming increasingly exasperated at the extent to which some parts of the industry are exploiting the film reliefs," the Revenue said. "The government remains committed to encouraging film production in the UK through use of the reliefs in the way in which the legislation allows--but this does not extend to deliberate exploitation of those reliefs." Large film financiers said on Thursday night that the Revenue's action could undermine growth prospects for the British film industry. Peter James, managing director of Movision Entertainment, which has produced 16 British-made films in recent years, including the soon-to-be released "Merchant of Venice", said while the effect of the Revenue's clamp down would not Be "devastating", it could drive many independent film-makers overseas. Industry observers said on Thursday the Revenue's move was likely to confuse investors, who have been accustomed to the benefits of double-dipping.

单选题The description of Mr. Kozeny's case shows

单选题Of all the changes that have taken place in English-language newspapers during the past quarter-century, perhaps the most far-reaching has been the inexorable decline in the scope and seriousness of their arts coverage. It is difficult to the point of impossibility for the average reader under the age of forty to imagine a time when high-quality arts criticism could be found in most big-city newspapers. Yet a considerable number of the most significant collections of criticism published in the 20th century consisted in large part of newspaper reviews. To read such books today is to marvel at the fact that their learned contents were once deemed suitable for publication in general-circulation dailies. We are even farther removed from the unfocused newspaper reviews published in England between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of World War Ⅱ, at a time when newsprint was dirt-cheap and stylish arts criticism was considered an ornament to the publications in which it appeared. In those far-off days, it was taken for granted that the critics of major papers would write in detail and at length about the events they covered. Theirs was a serious business, and even those reviewers who wore their learning lightly, like George Bernard Shaw and Ernest Newman, could be trusted to know what they were about. These men believed in journalism as a calling, and were proud to be published in the daily press. "So few authors have brains enough or literary gift enough to keep their own end up in journalism," Newman wrote, "that I am tempted to define "journalism" as "a term of contempt applied by writers who are not read to writers who are"." Unfortunately, these critics are virtually forgotten. Neville Cardus, who wrote for the Manchester Guardian from 1917 until shortly before his death in 1975, is now known solely as a writer of essays on the game of cricket. During his lifetime, though, he was also one of England"s foremost classical-music critics, a stylist so widely admired that his Autobiography (1947) became a best-seller. He was knighted in 1967, the first music critic to be so honored. Yet only one of his books is now in print, and his vast body of writings on music is unknown save to specialists. Is there any chance that Cardus"s criticism will enjoy a revival? The prospect seems remote. Journalistic tastes had changed long before his death, and postmodern readers have little use for the richly upholstered Vicwardian prose in which he specialized. Moreover, the amateur tradition in music criticism has been in headlong retreat.

单选题 Despite its name, Smugglers' Gulch is one of the toughest places to sneak into America. The narrow valley near San Diego is divided by a steel wall and watched day and night by agents of the border patrol, who track word-be illegal immigrants with the help of helicopters and underground pressure sensors. Rafael, a cement worker, has already been canght jumping over the fence five times. Yet he still wanders on the Mexican side of the fence, waiting for nightfall and another chance to cross. How much longer will he keep trying? "Until I get through," he says. Last week the Senate tried, and failed, to deal with the problem of illegal immigration. After much debate it abandoned a bill that would have provided more money for border security but also allowed many illegal immigrants to obtain visas. Yet the collapse of the Senate bill does not mean illegal immigration will go away, either as a fact or as an urgent political issue. Indeed, one likely consequence will be an outbreak of ad hoc law-making in cities and states. One such place is Arizona, where the governor, signed a bill this week imposing rigid penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants. Those who are caught once will have their licenses suspended; a second offence will put them out of business. Even the governor admits the bill is too broadly drawn and will be hard to enforce. She signed it, she explained, because the federal government has shown itself to be incapable of dealing with illegal immigration. One in ten workers in Arizona is illegal, according to the Pew Hispanic Centre. So the law, if rigorously enforced, could disrupt the state's economy, which suggests it will not be. One landscape gardener in Scottsdale who worked illegally for three decades and now pays illegal workers ＄7 an hour thinks the measure is ridiculous. "Who else is going to pick lettuces and trim trees in this heat?" he asks, pointing to the sun on a 47℃ day. He has no plans to change his ways, and says he will simply move if he is caught. Laws such as Arizona's will make life more unpleasant and unprecedented for illegal workers. But they will not curtail either illegal immigration or illegal working as much as supporters claim. In any case, the border has been so porous for so long that people now have plenty of reasons to steal across it other than work. Of five aspiring immigrants who spoke to the correspondent in Smugglers' Gulch earlier this week, three were trying to join their families.

单选题Many are aware of the tremendous waste of energy in our environment, but fail to take advantage of straightforward opportunities to conserve that energy. For example, everyone knows that lights should be switched off when no one is in an office. Similarly, when employees are not using a meeting room, there is no need to regulate temperature. Fortunately, one need not rely on human intervention to conserve energy. With the help of smart sensing and network technology, energy conservation processes such as turning off lights and adjusting temperature can be readily automated. Ultimately, this technology will enable consumers and plant managers to better identify wasteful energy use and institute procedures that lead to smarter and more efficient homes, buildings and industrial plants. Until now, wires and cables for power and connectivity have limited the widespread adoption of sensor networks by making them difficult and expensive to install and maintain. Battery-powered wireless networks can simplify installation and reduce cost. But their high power consumption and the corresponding need for regular battery replacement has made wireless networks difficult and costly to maintain. Nobody wants to replace hundreds or thousands of window sensor batteries in a large building on a regular basis. The promise of wireless sensor networks can only be fully realized when the wiring for both the data communication and the power supply is eliminated. Doing so requires a true battery-free wireless solution, one that can utilize energy harvested directly from the environments. To facilitate the widespread deployment of wireless sensor networks, Greenpeak has developed an ultra-low-power communication technology that can utilize environmental energy sources such as light, motion and vibration. This technology, employing on-board power management circuits and computer software to monitor energy harvesters and make the best use of harvested energy, enables sensors to operate reliably in a battery-free environment. Wireless sensor networks deployed in our offices and homes will have an enormaous impact on our daily lives, helping to build a smarter world in which energy is recycled and fully utilized. These wireless platforms, equipped with advanced sensing capability, will enable us to better control our lives, homes and environment, creating a truly connected world that enables people worldwide to live in a more comfortable, safer, and cleaner environment.

单选题To many people the Bermuda Triangle is really a mystery because ______.