单选题It is not the thrill of winning, but the thrill of almost winning that sets a problem gambler apart from those who just fancy a flutter. A strong reaction in the brain in response to "near misses" is correlated with a greater tendency to compulsive gambling, according to new research. Gambling touches almost everyone, from friends playing online poker to grannies buying lotto tickets. For many it is just good fun, but for some it becomes a terrible addiction which wrecks lives: they need bigger wins to satisfy their craving, and when forced to stop they suffer withdrawal symptoms. Henry Chase of the University of Nottingham and Luke Clark of the University of Cambridge, are interested in the cognitive complexities of gamblers. For instance, gamblers often believe that games like roulette, or picking lottery numbers, involve some degree of skill, even though they do not. In games where skill does matter, such as football, a near miss like kicking a ball into the goalpost can rightly be associated with almost scoring a goal. So assigning value to an almost-goal makes some sense. But in games of chance, near misses are meaningless. They say nothing about the future likelihood of winning. Yet that is not the way many people think about it. Dr. Chase and Dr. Clark have found that in normal healthy volunteers, near misses that won participants not a penny still activated parts of the brain associated with monetary wins. In a new study in the Journal of Neuroscience they set out to discover just how that brain activation was related to gambling "severity". They invited 20 volunteers, two of whom were women, to play a kind of slot machine while a functional magnetic-resonance imaging scanner examined their brain activity. These machines show certain parts of the brain "lighting up" with increased blood flow as they become active. The volunteers all enjoyed some gambling, ranging from off-course betting on race horses and football matches to playing slot machines, scratch cards and lotteries. All but one volunteer—who had been abstinent for a year—gambled at least once a week. Bets ranged from five people who routinely spent ?10～100 ($15～150) a day on gambling and two who were willing to drop over ?10,000. Perhaps not surprisingly, 13 of the volunteers would have been considered to have an excessive gambling habit on conventional tests. The game was simple: when an icon on the left-hand reel lined up with the same icon on a right- hand one, the volunteer won a cash prize of 50 pence (75 cents). Sometimes the volunteers could pick the left-hand icon. At other times it was selected for them. A near miss came with the agonising deceleration of the right-hand reel so that something like a cowboy boot, an anchor or a banana eventually stopped within a space or two of lining up with a matching icon on the left. In fact, the results were manipulated and all participants got 30 wins, 60 near misses and 90 clear misses. The researchers found that those who scored highest in gambling severity also showed the most activity in the midbrain area in response to near misses. (They did not differ in their response to real wins, however.) This area of the brain is of interest to researchers because it is where dopamine, a neurotransmitter, is produced. Dopamine has been implicated in other addiction studies. It could be the near misses that enhance dopamine transmission in gamblers who suffer the most severe problems, the study suggests. Which means it might be possible to find treatments that reduce dopamine transmission in the brain to take some of the compulsion out of gambling.

单选题The willingness of doctors at several major medical centers to apologize .to patients for harmful errors is a promising step toward improving the rather disappointing quality of a medical system that kills tens of thousands of innocent patients a year inadvertently. For years, experts have lamented that medical malpractice litigation is an inefficient way to deter lethal or damaging medical errors. What they noticed, simply put it, is that most victims of malpractice never sue, and there is some evidence that many patients who do sue were not harmed by a physician"s error but instead suffered an adverse medical outcome that could not have been prevented. The details of what went wrong are often kept secret as part of a settlement agreement. What is needed, many specialists agree, is a system that quickly brings an error to light so that further errors can be headed off and that compensates victims promptly and fairly. Many doctors, unfortunately, have been afraid that admitting and describing their errors would only invite a costly lawsuit. Now, as described by Kevin Sack in The Times, a handful of prominent academic medical centers have adopted a new policy of promptly disclosing errors, offering earnest apologies and providing fair compensation. It appears to satisfy many patients, reduce legal costs and the litigation burden and, in some instances, helps reduce malpractice premiums. Here are some examples from colleges of the United States: at the University of Illinois, of 37 cases where the hospital acknowledged a preventable error and apologized, only one patient filed suit; at the University of Michigan Health System, existing claims and lawsuits dropped from 262 in August 2001 to 83 in August 2007, and legal costs fell by two-thirds. To encourage greater candor, more than 30 states have enacted laws making apologies for medical errors inadmissible in court. That sounds like a sensible step that should be adopted by other states or become federal law. Such laws could help bring more errors to light. Patients who have been harmed by negligent doctors can still sue for malpractice, using other evidence to make their case. Admitting errors is only the first step toward reforming the health care system so that far fewer mistakes are made. But reforms can be more effective if doctors are candid about how they went astray. Patients seem far less angry when they receive an. honest explanation, an apology and prompt, fair compensation for the harm they have suffered.

单选题The San Andreas fault is ______.

单选题{{B}}Text 1{{/B}} The Amazon River basin boasts the largest river system on Earth and harbors an ecosystem that is tremendously complex. Early travelers from renaissance Europe were overwhelmed by their first encounters. In 1531, Francisco Pizarro overthrew the Incan empire, removing the emperor from his throne and taking for Spain the Incan imperial treasures. A decade later his younger brother ventured east from the high plateau of the Andes Mountains in pursuit of the famous cities of gold and spices thought to be hidden in the jungle forest. Going down the river the expedition soon exhausted its supplies and a small group was sent ahead to search for food. Eight months later, this group emerged at the mouth of the Amazon, having made what would prove to be the first descent of the length of the river. A missionary who accompanied the group sent a remarkable account of their adventures to the Pope, including mention of the great signal drums that sounded from village to village far in advance of their arrival, warning of the coming of the European strangers. His manuscript records seeing innumerable settlements along the river—on one day they passed more than twenty villages in succession, and some of these are said to have stretched for six miles or more. Such reports have intrigued scientists ever since, for they describe dense populations and large federations of tribes which, if verified, would be entirely at odds with modern stereotypes of hidden, thinly scattered tribes scratching out an uncertain existence. Beginning in the late seventeenth-century, the successors to the first explorers recorded and collected many of the everyday objects fashioned from wood and other organic materials that usually rot in a tropical climate. Such collections housed in European museums preserve a "window" into cultures that were soon to experience huge changes brought about by foreign diseases and cruel abuse at the hands of Europeans. Population collapse and movement along the principal rivers of the Amazon system have contributed to a veil of misunderstanding that has long covered the cultural achievements of tropical forest societies. Diffuse bands hunting deep in the forest interior eventually came to be seen as the typical tropical forest adaptation. So much so that when archaeological studies began in earnest at the mouth of the Amazon in the 1950's, scientists argued that the sophisticated culture they were discovering could not have originated in the Amazon Basin itself, but must have been derived from more advanced cultures elsewhere. They imagined the tropical forest to be an "imitation paradise" unable to support much beyond a simple hunting-and-gathering way of life. This mistaken idea has exerted a persistent influence ever since.

单选题The purpose of the author in writing this text is

单选题Dr. Yoseph Bar-Cohen seems to suggest that

单选题 It was a ruling that had consumers seething with anger and many a free trader crying foul. On November 20th the European Court of Justice decided that Tesco, a British supermarket chain, should not be allowed to import jeans made by America's Levi Strauss from outside the European Union and sell them at cut-rate prices without getting permission first from the jeans maker. Ironically, the ruling is based on an EU trademark directive that was designed to protect local, not American, manufacturers from price dumping. The idea is that any brand-owning firm should be allowed to position its goods and segment its markets as it sees fit: Levi's jeans, just like Gucci handbags, must be allowed to be expensive. Levi Strauss persuaded the court that, by selling its jeans cheaply alongside soap powder and bananas, Tesco was destroying the image and so the value of its brands—which could only lead to less innovation and, in the long run, would reduce consumer choice. Consumer groups and Tesco say that Levi's case is specious. The supermarket argues that it was just arbitraging the price differential between Levi's jeans sold in America and Europe—a service performed a million times a day in financial markets, and one that has led to real benefits for consumers. Tesco has been selling some 15,000 pairs of Levi's jeans a week, for about half the price they command in specialist stores approved by Levi Strauss. Christine Cross, Tesco's head of global non-food sourcing, says the ruling risks "creating a Fortress Europe with a vengeance". The debate will rage on, and has implications well beyond casual clothes (Levi Strauss was joined in its lawsuit by Zino Davidoff, a perfume maker). The question at its heart is not whether brands need to control how they are sold to protect their image, but whether it is the job of the courts to help them do this. Gucci, an Italian clothes label whose image was being destroyed by loose licensing and over-exposure in discount stores, saved itself not by resorting to the courts but by ending contracts with third-party suppliers, controlling its distribution better and opening its own stores. It is now hard to find cut-price Gucci anywhere. Brand experts argue that Levi Strauss, which has been losing market share to hipper rivals such as Diesel, is no longer strong enough to command premium prices. Left to market forces, so-so brands such as Levi's might well. fade away and be replaced by fresher labels. With the courts protecting its prices, Levi Strauss may hang on for longer. But no court can help to make it a great brand again.

单选题Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been condemned or made illegal. But one insidious form continues to thrive: alphabetism. This, for those as yet unaware of such a disadvantage, refers to discrimination against those whose surnames begin with a letter in the lower half of the alphabet. It has long been known that a taxi firm called AAAA cars has a big advantage over Zodiac cars when customers thumb through their phone directories. Less well known is the advantage that Adam Abbott has in life over Zo ? Zysman. English names are fairly evenly spread between the halves of the alphabet. Yet a suspiciously large number of top people have surnames beginning with letters between A and K. Thus the American president and vice-president have surnames starting with B and C respectively; and 26 of George Bush"s predecessors (including his father) had surnames in the first half of the alphabet against just 16 in the second half. Even more striking, six of the seven heads of government of the G7 rich countries are alphabetically advantaged (Berlusconi, Blair, Bush, Chirac, Chré tien and Koizumi). The world"s three top central bankers (Greenspan, Duisenberg and Hayami) are all close to the top of the alphabet, even if one of them really uses Japanese characters. As are the world"s five richest men (Gates, Buffett, Allen, Ellison and Albrecht). Can this merely be coincidence? One theory, dreamt up in all the spare time enjoyed by the alphabetically disadvantaged, is that the rot sets in early. At the start of the first year in infant school, teachers seat pupils alphabetically from the front, to make it easier to remember their names. So short-sighted Zysman junior gets stuck in the back row, and is rarely asked the improving questions posed by those insensitive teachers. At the time the alphabetically disadvantaged may think they have had a lucky escape. Yet the result may be worse qualifications, because they get less individual attention, as well as less confidence in speaking publicly. The humiliation continues. At university graduation ceremonies, the ABCs proudly get their awards first; by the time they reach the Zysmans most people are literally having a ZZZ . Shortlists for job interviews, election ballot papers, lists of conference speakers and attendees: all tend to be drawn up alphabetically, and their recipients lose interest as they plough through them.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Sleep is a funny thing. We' re taught that we should get seven or eight hours a night, but a lot of us get by just fine on less, and some of us actually sleep too much. A study out of the University of Buffalo last month reported that people who routinely sleep more than eight hours a day and are still tired are nearly three times as likely to die of stroke—probably as a result of an underlying disorder that keeps them from snoozing soundly. Doctors have their own special sleep problems. Residents are famously sleep deprived. When I was training to become a doctor, it was not unusual to work 40 hours in a row without rest. Most of us took it in stride, confident we could still deliver the highest quality of medical care. Maybe we shouldn't have been so sure of ourselves. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association points out that in the morning after 24 hours of sleeplessness, a person' s motor performance is comparable to that of someone who is legally intoxicated. Curiously, surgeons who believe that operating under the influence is grounds for dismissal often don't think twice about operating without enough sleep. "I could tell you horror stories, ' says Jaya Agrawal, president of the American Medical Student Association, which runs a website where residents can post anonymous anecdotes. Some are terrifying. "I was operating after being up for over 36 hours," one writes. "I literally fell asleep standing up and nearly face planted into the wound." "Practically every surgical resident I know has fallen asleep at the wheel driving home from work, "writes another. "I know of three who have hit parked cars. Another hit a convenience store on the roadside, going [1051an/h]." "Your own patients have become the enemy," writes a third," because they are the one thing that stands between you and a few hours of sleep." Agrawal' s organization is supporting the Patient and Physician Safety and Protection Act of 2001, introduced last November by Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan. Its key provisions, modeled on New York State' s regulations, include an 80-hour workweek and a 24hour work-shift limit. Most doctors, however, resist such interference. Dr. Charles Binkley, a senior surgery resident at the University of Michigan, agrees that something needs to be done but believes" doctors should be bound by their conscience, not by the government." The U. S. controls the hours of pilots and truck drivers. But until such a system is in place for doctors, patients are on their own. If you're worried about the people treating you, you should feel free to ask how many hours of sleep they have had. Doctors, for their part, have to give up their pose of infallibility and get the rest they need.

单选题Since 1975 advocates of humane treatment of animals have broadened their goals to oppose the use of animals for fur, leather, wool, and food. They have mounted protests against all forms of hunting and the trapping of animals in the wild. And they have joined environmentalists in urging protection of natural habitats from commercial or residential development. The occasion for these added emphases was the publication in 1975 of "Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals" by Peter Singer, formerly a professor of philosophy at Oxford University in England. This book gave a new impetus to the animal rights movement. The post-1975 animal rights activists are far more vocal than their predecessors, and the organizations to which they belong are generally more radical. Many new organizations are formed. The tactics of the activists are designed to catch the attention of the public. Since the mid-1980s there have been frequent news reports about animal right organizations picketing stores that sell furs, harassing hunters in the wild, or breaking into laboratories to free animals. Some of the extreme organizations advocate the use of assault, armed terrorism, and death threats to make their point. Aside from making isolated attacks on people who wear fur coats or trying to prevent hunters from killing animals, most of the organizations have directed their tactics at institutions. The results of the protests and other tactics have been mixed. Companies are reducing reliance on animal testing. Medical research has been somewhat curtailed by legal restrictions and the reluctance of younger workers to use animals in research. New tests have been developed to replace the use of animals. Some well-known designers have stopped using fur. While the public tends to agree that animals should be treated humanely, most people are unlikely to give up eating meat or wearing goods made from leather and wool. Giving up genuine fur has become less of a problem, since fibers used to make fake fur such as the Japanese invention Kane car on can look almost identical to real fur. Some of the strongest opposition to the animal rights movement has come from hunters and their organizations. But animal rights activists have succeeded in marshaling public opinion to press for state restrictions on hunting in several parts of the nation.

单选题Are burgers and fries a product of the profound social changes of the past 50 years, or were they to a large extent responsible for them? The author of this diatribe against multinational restaurant brands opts for the latter explanation. "There is nothing inevitable about the fast food nation that surrounds us," he concludes. "The triumph of McDonald's and its imitators was by no means pre-ordained." But it happened nevertheless and. in his view, it is to be blamed for many of the evils of modem America and their global spread. The emergence of the corporate colossus, followed inexorably by its deionization, is a familiar pattern in American business history. The modem phenomenon of fast food originated in California just before the Second World War. Its first manifestation was kerb service, with meals delivered to motorists by handsome young carhops. Richard and Maurice McDonald. who ran a drive-in burger bar in San Bernardino near Los Angeles, became tired of having constantly to replace their carhops and wash up crockery and dishes. In 1948 they decided to make customers serve themselves, while restricting the menu to items that could be prepared by unskilled cooks and eaten without plates, knives or forks. The McDonald brothers were soon bought out by the entrepreneurial Ray Kroc, who franchised their name and techniques so successfully that there is now scarcely a comer of the world that is free from their trademark golden arches, invariably spawning a cluster of rival chains selling hamburgers, pizzas, or fried chicken, handed out by smiling teenagers willing to accept minimal pay. They are cheap, cheerful, popular, and children love them. So just what is Mr. Schlosser's beef? Apart from his nutritional reservations—too much fat, salt and sugar—he proves how. as the chains expanded, they were able to dictate terms to the suppliers of potatoes and ground beef, their staple ingredients. This caused an upheaval in agribusiness, as a few large suppliers quickly forced less efficient producers out of the market. The drive to keep down costs and increase the speed of production led to the employment of cheap unskilled labor and. to the widespread toleration of dangerous and unhygienic practices among growers and processors, which regulatory bodies have failed to police. Mr. Schlosser, who is a skillful and persuasive investigative reporter, sees all this as a damaging corruption of the free market. He is especially angered by promotional techniques aimed at impressionable children. A 1997 giveaway of Teenie Beanie Babies increased the sale of McDonalds' Happy Meals from 10m a week to 10rn a day. And a survey found that 96% of American schoolchildren could identify Ronald McDonald, the chain's mascot. Only Santa Claus scored higher.

单选题IfAmericanmedicinewereapatient,hewouldweigh350poundsandbegainingfast.Despitebeingrepeatedlycounseledaboutthedangersofmorbidobesity,hewouldbemakingatbesthail-heartedattemptstomendhisgluttonous(excessivedrinkingandeating)ways.Meanwhile,hisdoctors,insurancecompany,politiciansandregulatorswouldremaininadeepstateofdenial,clutchingtheillusionthattheirpatient,otherthanbeingabitoverweight,wasintip-tophealth.Truthbetold,theUSmedicalsystemisheadedformultipleorganfailure.Thespiralingcostofhealthcareiswellknown:＄7,100perpersonthisyear,projectedtoincreaseto＄12,000in2015andcompoundingatmorethandoubletherateofinflation.Already,medicalcaregobblesupone-sixthoftheGDP.Evenso,weaskourselves,howbettertospendourmoneyonthebesthealthcareintheworld?Notsofast.Thefactsshowthattheseenormousexpendituresmaybebuyingusthebestfacilitiesinmedicalcare-butnotthebesthealth.Forexample,Canadaspendsonly60%asmuchperpersononhealthcareastheUnitedStates.Yet,since1980,thelongevityofallCanadianshasimprovedmorerapidlythanthatofonlywhiteAmericans.Yes,the"queues"inCanadacaninvolvedelaysinnonemergencycare.Butthesecouldbeshortenedwithrelativelysmallincreasesinfunding.AnarticleintheUSjournalHealthAffairsinvestigatingthenumberofCanadianswhocomeheretoavoidthesewaitsfoundthenumbersosmallthatitasked,"Atipwithnoiceberg?"Britainspendsonly40%asmuchaswedoonhealthcare.ButaccordingtotheJournaloftheAmericanMedicalAssn.,middle-classinsuredAmericans"aremuchlesshealthythantheirEnglishcounterparts".Infact,althoughAmericansspendtwiceasmuchperpersononhealthcareastheother21wealthiestcountries,datafromtheWorldHealthOrganizationshowthatwelivetheshortestamountoftimeingoodhealth-yearslessthantheaverageintheothercountries.ReviewingaDartmouthMedicalSchoolstudythatfoundhighermortalityratesinareasthatspentthemostonMedicare,professorElliottFisherconcludedthat"perhapsathirdofmedicalspendingisnowdevotedtoservicesthatdon'tappeartoimprovehealthorthequalityofcare-andmaymakethingsworse."ThismeansthattheUSiswastingmorethan＄650billionayear-halfagainmorethantheentireDefenseDepartmentwillspendthisyear,includingthecostofthewarinIraq-onunnecessaryandoftenharmful.

单选题Don't look now, but they're all around you. They're standing by the copy machine, hovering by the printer, answering the phone. Yes, they're the overworked, underappreciated interns: young, eager and not always paid. And with just 20% of the graduating class of 2009 gainfully employed, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, there are more and more of them each day. It seems the importance of internships for securing full-time work has dramatically increased over the years. Intern, previously used in the medical profession to define a person with a degree but without a license to practice, became a term for a physician in training following World War I, when medical school was no longer seen as preparation enough for practice. Later, the word migrated to politics as an alternative to the term apprentice as a reference to those interested in learning about careers in government. Meanwhile, co-op programs, in which students would work at a company for an extended period during college, emerged. From 1970 to 1983, the number of colleges and universities offering the programs increased from 200 to 1,000. Sure, it took an extra year to earn a B.A., but for three months each school year, students worked for companies they were interested in, tried out careers they weren't sure about and earned money to help cover tuition. Internship programs have produced several successes: Bill Gates was once a congressional page, and Oprah Winfrey worked at a CBS affiliate during her college years, just to name a few. Of course, Monica Lewinsky was a 22-year-old White House intern when she engaged in an intimate relationship with President Clinton, a scandal that still taints both offices. Today's interns are not limited to summer jobs at their local businesses. Some programs provide dorm housing in cities like New York and Washington, allowing students from around the country to work for the nation's biggest companies. Many popular cities even have Facebook groups devoted to providing social outings and networking opportunities for the thousands of interns who descend each summer. Though internships were formerly touted as an opportunity for students to explore career options, doing so now comes with a price. Some experts argue that internships punish those who might decide later than age 18 what they want to do with their life. More important, they can favor wealthier students, who can afford to not make any money during the summer, over the less privileged. Still, with pressure increasing on students to find work, the clamor for internships is only growing. To land that first job, career advisers now say, applicants should have two or more internships under their belt. Anyone who takes a summer to simply explore might be too late.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} The view from the top of the luxurious Morgan Centre down onto Beijing's Olympic Green is breath-taking, There, far below, lies the stunning" bird nest" Olympic Stadium. Right next to it is the equally mesmerizing National Aquatics Center, known as the Water Cube. The Aquatics Center poses one critical question: where will all the water to fill this bold but massive architectural masterpiece" and to supply the Games" come from? One can drive a hundred miles in any direction from Beijing and never cross a healthy river. Heading north to Shanxi province, one passes river after river that has dried up. And in 80 percent of those Shanxi rivers that ale still flowing, water quality is" unfit for human contact" or for agricultural or industrial use. As you drive south across Hebei and Henan provinces, the situation is no better. Reaching the famed Marco Polo Bridge over the Yongding River, we crossed our first parched(干裂的) riverbed. From there to the Yellow River, we traversed many legendary rivers that show as blue lines on the map; all of them are now almost bone dry. All that remains to memorialize these watercourses are highway bridges, left behind like vestigial organs. The Yellow River itself, once known as" China’s Sorrow" because of its natural tendency to flood, killing millions, has in Henan been reduced to a modest-size channel. At its lower reaches in Shandong, it is not uncommon for the river to cease flowing into the Bohai Sea altogether. What is the answer for the 250 million thirsty people who live on the North China Plain? Drought has forced farmers to turn to groundwater. But over extraction has caused water tables to fall by as much as 10 feet a year. Desperate officials have taken to making substantial investments in" precipitation-inducement (引导水分凝结) technologies," or cloud seeding. Using aircraft, meteorological balloons and even rockets and artillery shells, they’ve been attempting to shoot passing clouds full of rainmaking chemicals. The China Meteorological Administration reports that hundreds of aircraft and thousands of rockets and shells are used each year in the effort. Such campaigns have been only modestly successful and have created tensions between different localities, each claiming that clouds are being" intercepted" upwind by the other and their precious moisture stolen! Then there is the monumental South-North Water Transfer Project. But some environmentalists fear that shifting the increasingly polluted water of the Yangtze northward will also introduce a whole host of new toxic pollutants to the breadbasket of China. No one knows what the consequences of all these Promethean(独创的) efforts will be. In the truly magnificent facilities being built for the Olympics, one can see a dear manifestation of this understandable urge to restore Chinese greatness. The question is whether China’s limited natural-resource base can sustain the magnitude of such an ambition. With water, the country is confronting the edge of one very inflexible environmental envelope. Beijing's glorious Water Cube is a symbol both of China’s remarkable accomplishments, and its all-too-pressing limits.