单选题The world religion is derived from the Latin noun religion, which denotes both (1) observance of ritual obligations and an inward spirit of reverence. In modern usage, religion covers a wide spectrum of (2) that reflects the enormous variety of ways the term can be (3) At one extreme, many committed believers (4) only their own tradition as a religion, understanding expressions such as worship and prayer to refer (5) to the practices of their tradition. They may (6) use vague or idealizing terms in defining religion, (7) , true love of God, or the path of enlightenment. At the other extreme, religion may be equated with (8) , fanaticism, or wishful thinking. By defining religion as a sacred engagement with what is taken to be a spiritual reality, it is possible to consider the importance of religion in human life without making (9) about what is really is or ought to be. Religion is not an object with a single, fixed meaning, or (10) a zone with clear boundaries. It is an aspect of Human (11) that may intersect, incorporate, or transcend other aspects of life and society. Such a definition avoid the drawbacks of (12) the investigation of religion to Western or biblical categories (13) monotheism or church structure, which are not (14) . Religion in this understanding includes a complex of activities that cannot be (15) to any single aspect of human experience. It is a part of individual life but also of (16) dynamics. Religion includes not only patterns of language and thought. It is sometimes an (17) part of a culture. Religious experience may be expressed (18) visual symbols, dance and performance, elaborate philosophical systems, legendary and imaginative stories, formal (19) , and detailed rules of some ways. There are as many forms of religious expression as there are human cultural (20) .

单选题Almost every day, a new study points to gaps between people—in income, education, debt, values, even brain size. The latest report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, for example, finds a third of Americans have moved up in income class over four decades while 16 percent have dropped. The most commonly cited "gap" is the rising disparity of income between the wealthy and poor. It helped spawn the "Occupy" movement last year with a focus on "the 99 percent." Today"s politics revolves around campaign talk of "the wealth gap." Researchers both left and right are writing books that explore such differences between people. Conservative political scientist Charles Murray"s work Coming Apart: The State of White America , 1960-2010 tries to define a new kind of class system based on what the wealthy must do. Peter Edelman at Georgetown University has written So Rich, So Poor: Why It"s So Hard to End Poverty in America. And Harvard economist Edward Glaeser argues in a new paper that the gap between affluent suburbanites and the urban poor is driven in part by the government granting a tax deduction for home mortgage interest. This trend toward focusing on what divides us comes with a cost. It polarizes politics, such as the current clash over whether to cut spending or raise taxes. And gap studies are also constantly changing as researchers find new gaps or redefine old ones, causing confusion over how to bridge them. Harvard academic Robert Putnam, for example, tried to persuade an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival last week that Americans must focus less on gaps in race and wealth and more on differences between "classes" and the need for social mobility. "The class gap over the last 20 years in unmarried births, controlling for race, has doubled, and the racial gap, controlling for class, has been cut in half," he said. "Twenty years ago the racial gap was the dominant gap in unmarried births—and now the class gap is by far." What is easily forgotten in such data is that many people measure themselves less against one another and more against the absolutes of life, such as virtues. Am I being truthful with myself and others? How can I learn to love others by helping those in need? Where can I express life, using the talents I have? The tendency to make relative comparisons to others may be useful, especially if they evoke empathy to help the needy or inspire people to achieve more. But they can obscure a primary human need to be grounded in ideas that create a person"s identity without being assigned to a class, group, or category. Accepting stereotypes of one"s self—and others—can create a limiting effect on the ability to choose a new path. Studies of "gaps" can guide social action and government policies, but they can be taken too far—or taken too seriously by individuals who may feel trapped by labels of comparison.

单选题It is implied in the text that

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Young people in the early 1980s are taking on a set of attitudes and values remarkably different from those of the stormy' 60s and '70s. Instead of anti-establishment outbursts, today's younger generation had turned more thoughtful and more serious. There is heightened concern for the future of the country and a yearning for the traditions and support systems that gave comfort in the past. Many young men and Women of high-school and college age are having second thoughts about the "new morality" and condemn what a soaring divorce rate has done to families. They speak openly of gaining strength from religion. Patriotism, too, seems to be making a modest comeback. One change in the early 1980s is a questioning of the permissive moral climate of recent years. More young people, while hesitant to preach or to condemn their peers, cite the destructive effects of the drugs and alocohol that are so widely available in the schools. It is peer pressure that pushes teenagers into drugs, but now the habit often is dropped after high school, according to Debbie Bishop, a 22-year-old secretary. James Elrod, a college junior in Kentucky, also reports that use of marijuana on campus has lessened. A Cornell University law student reflects the views of many with the comment: "I think that drug abuse is harmful to your own health and those around you." But he adds: "Drinking is fine only as long as it's not done to excess." With the added pressures of a more uncertain world, most young people stress the importance of a healthy family life. Yet, as they look at the family's breakup that has taken place in the past decade, they concede that the challenge for many is to make the best of one-parent families. "The American family is evolving and changing, "according to Nina Mule, "Women are going out into the world and having careers. They're becoming more independent instead of being the burden of the family." "But a great need remains for a family structure, "says Nina, who still lives with her parents, "because people have to be able to survive emotionally." In Atlanta, 18-year-old Liss Jciner feels strongly about what's happened to the family." People have realized that the family has disintegrated, "she says, "But today's family—particularly the black family—is trying to pull itself together and become the strong unit as it once was. "A similar view is expressed by a senior at Brigham Young University: "A happy family means everything to me. I read a lot about how the American family is falling a part. But I see losts of strong families around me, and that makes me very optimistic."

单选题{{B}}Part B{{/B}}{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} In the following article, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41--45, choose the most suitable one from the. list [A] -- [G] to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points) At Columbia University, where I taught economics for many years before coming to China, most of my students spent a great deal of time in volunteer work. They taught poor children in the local neighborhoods, they visited the elderly in hospitals and at home and helped them with their shopping, they worked to preserve historic sites and places of beauty, they cleaned up waste dumps, they prepared food for the hungry, they created and ran student newspapers, they organized concerts and artistic events, they acted as translators for migrant workers, they formed political pressure groups, they raised money to combat AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, and so on. As part 0f that tradition I do volunteer work here in Beijing, just as I did in New York, but I find that my students at Tsinghua University and at other schools in Beijing are much less involved in volunteering then I had expected; In part, of course, this reflects the heavier workload in Chinese schools, which leaves less time for outside activities. But I think there is more to it than just this. I think it also reflects a very different system, in which volunteer work for students here is usually organized or sponsored by government, schools, or other official groups, rather than by the students themselves.{{U}} (41) {{/U}}. This is unfortunate. I think it would be better both for them and for society if Chinese students took the initiative to decide what kinds of problems or issues they felt to be of importance, and then played a more active role in organizing the work.{{U}} (42) {{/U}}. But there are at least two other important reasons for doing volunteer work. The first is that you can learn a lot about yourself and about your abilities by organizing, taking on responsibilities, deciding on objectives, and fulfilling them.{{U}} (43) {{/U}}. This is an important lesson. Many of my students here work very hard, but their attitude towards their work is not always a healthy one. They do the work not because they love it or feel that it is exciting but rather because it is expected of them, and they will get rewarded (or at least not punished) if they do it. With charitable work there is no explicit reward. You work because you have goals, and in the end the only judge of your work is yourself.{{U}} (44) {{/U}}. It also forces you to think about what you are doing and the best way to accomplish your objectives. You are no longer simply doing something because your teacher or your boss told you to do it. The second important reason for charitable work is that it changes your relationship with your society. Sometimes I feel that many of the people I meet here don't really appreciate the greatness of China and the excitement of the process through which it is currently living. The Chinese are well-known for being nationalistic, but sometimes I think this nationalism has more to do with distrust of foreigners than with love of country. Many of my friends and students simply do not know very much about their own country, and often seem unhappy with or embarrassed by certain aspects of China. {{U}} (45) {{/U}}. For example, if you help the children of migrant workers with their education, you will quickly realize that poor migrant workers should not be seen as an embarrassment to Beijing. On the contrary, they are a great strength, and their stories are part of a huge and dramatic experiment that China is undergoing. In a small way by working with migrant children you can help make the experiment a success. [A] I think that if they had spent more time engaged in activities outside of school and family such as doing volunteer work, they would feel very differently. [B] This changes the way you think about work and about your responsibilities to yourself and others. [C] You will realize how future events can have just as Big an impact on your life and those of your friends and family. [D] This means that many students here in Beijing think of volunteering as something that must be done to please teachers, bosses, or other figures of authority, rather than because of a desire to address a problem about which they have thought very deeply. [E] When you work closely with others who are less fortunate than you, or when you set a local goal and work to accomplish it, you see directly how your actions can affect the world around you. [F] If you are interested in volunteer work you don't have to wait for your school, your teachers, or officials on television to tell you what to do. [G] There are many reasons why this would be good. The most obvious reason, of course, is that we all have obligations towards our society, and volunteer work is one way of repaying this obligation.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Not many 25-year-olds can reasonably claim to have changed the world. The IBM personal computer, which was launched in 1981 and celebrates its 25th birthday in August, is a rare exception. Other personal computers had been launched before; but it was the IBM PC that ended up defining the standard around which a vast new industry then coalesced. IBM, the titan of the computing World at the time, quickly lost control of its own creation, allowing others to reap the benefits. But leave aside what the PC has done for the fortunes of particular companies, and instead step back and consider what the PC has done for mankind. The PC's most obvious achievement has been to help make computers cheaper, more widely available and more useful than ever before. Before it appeared, different computers from different manufacturers were mostly incompatible with each other. The PC's architecture was not perfect, but its adoption as an industry standard made possible economies of scale in both hardware and software. This in turn reduced prices and enabled the PC to democratise computing. But although the PC has its merits, it also has its faults. Its flexibility has proved to be both a strength and a weakness: it encourages innovation, but at the cost of complexity, reliability and security. And for people in the developing world, PCs are too bulky, expensive and energy-hungry. W. hen it comes to extending the benefits of digital technology--chiefly, cheap and easy access to information to everyone on the planet, the PC may not be the best tool for the job. Look on the streets of almost any city in the world, however, and you will see people clutching tiny, pocket computers, better known as mobile phones. Already, even basic handsets have simple web-browsers, calculators and other computing functions. Mobile phones are cheaper, simpler and more reliable than PCs, and market forces--in particular, the combination of pie-paid billing plans and microcredit schemes--are already putting them into the hands of even the world's poorest people. Initiatives to spread PCs in the developing world, in contrast, rely on top-down funding from governments or aid agencies, rather than bottom-up adoption by consumers. All kinds of firms, from giants such as Google to start-ups such as CellBazaar, are working to bring the full belle, fits of the web to mobile phones. There is no question that the PC has democratised computing and-unleashed innovation, but it is the mobile phone that now seems most likely to carry the dream of the "personal computer" to its conclusion.

单选题Disability among the elderly has declined markedly in the United States in the past two decades. In 1984, 25 percent of the elderly population reported difficulty with activities associated with independent living. By 1999, the share had fallen to 20 percent, a decline of one-fifth. Although these basic facts are well known, their interpretation is not clear. Is the reduction in disability a result of improved medical care, individual behavioral changes, environmental modifications that allow the elderly to better function by themselves, or other demographic changes? Will the trend continue, or is it time limited? What does the reduction in disability mean for years of healthy life and labor force participation? The researchers David Cutler, Mary Beth Landrum, and Kate Stewart focus on disability caused by cardiovascular disease to investigate the role of improved medical care on reductions in disability. By looking at just one condition, they can analyze health shocks and their outcomes in some detail. Cardiovascular disease is a natural condition to analyze, because it is the most common cause of death in the United States and most other developed countries. Also, more is spent on cardiovascular disease than on any other condition, clearly a case where medical care could really matter. The researchers measure disability as the presence of impairments in. Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs). Their data source, the National Long-Term Care Survey(NLTCS) , includes information on six ADL measures: eating, getting in or out of bed, walking around inside, dressing, bathing, and getting to or using the toilet. There are also questions about eight IADL measures: doing light housework or laundry, preparing meals, shopping for groceries, getting around outside, managing money, taking medications, and making telephone calls. The NLTCS is a nationally representative longitudinal survey of the health and disability profile of the population aged 65 and over. Cutler and his co-researchers find that reduced disability associated with cardiovascular disease accounts for a significant part of the total reduction in disability--between 14 and 22 percent. The evidence suggests that improvements in medical care, including both increased use of relevant procedures and pharmaceuticals, led to a significant part of this decline in disability. Regions with higher use experienced substantial reductions in mortality and disability. While precise data on the implications of reduced disability are lacking, the possible impact of disability reductions is staggering. The researchers estimate that preventing disability after an acute cardiovascular event can add as much as 3.7 years of quality-adjusted life expectancy, or perhaps $ 316,000 of value. The cost of this outcome is significantly smaller. The initial treatment costs range from $ 8,610 to $ 16,332, depending on the procedure used. Further, recent cost analyses reported that annual Medicare spending was lower for the non-disabled than the disabled, which suggests that higher treatment costs may be offset by lower future spending among a more healthy population. By virtually any measure, therefore, the researchers conclude that medical technology after acute cardiovascular episodes is worth the cost.

单选题Government officials reported three new cases of mad cow, bringing the total so far this year to 99. Last year, France recorded just 31 cases of the mad cow disease. The rising numbers are in part (1) a new testing program that focuses on cows that are most (2) . That program has (3) 39 cases. But still 60 new cases were identified in the usual way, (4) were found in 1999. Many scientists (5) that this year, five years after safety precautions were (6) , the number of cases would be (7) . The rise in cases has (8) some scientists to question whether the disease can be transmitted in ways not yet understood. Scientists are still (9) the disease, first recognized in cows in 1986. It appears that it is not caused by a bacteria, virus or fungus, but (10) infectious particles called prion, perhaps (11) a virus or other agent. The disease kills cells in the brain, (12) it spongy and full of holes. France has taken more steps to (13) safety than most European countries, (14) refusing to take English beef (15) the European Union. But some scientists believe that France has not been (16) in imposing the ban on feed that (17) animal pans. Some French officials hope that the sudden interest in mad cow disease will mean that French consumers will become educated about it, thereby recognizing that French beef is actually (18) controlled. Every cow is given a passport at birth, and extensive information about its parentage and (19) it was raised must be (20) to any slaughterhouse. When a diseased animal is found, the entire herd is destroyed.

单选题Genghis Khan was not one to agonize over gender roles. He was into sex and power, and he didn't mind saying so. "The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them before him." The emperor once thundered. Genghis Khan conquered two thirds of the known world during the early 13th century and he may have set an all-time record for what biologists call reproductive success. An account written 33 years after his death credited him with 20,000 descendants. Men's manners have improved markedly since Genghis Khan's day. At heart, though, we're the same animals we were 800 years ago, which is to say we are status seekers. We may talk of equality and fraternity. We may strive for classless societies. But we go right on building hierarchies, and jockeying for status within them. Can we abandon the tendency? Probably not. As scientists are now discovering, status seeking is not just a habit or a cultural tradition. It's a design feature of the male psyche--a biological drive that is rooted in the nervous system and regulated by hormones and brain chemicals. How do we know this relentless one-upmanship is a biological endowment? Anthropologists find the same pattern virtually everywhere they 10ok and so do zoologists. Male competition is fierce among crickets, crayfish and elephants, and it's ubiquitous among higher primates, for example, male chimpanzees have an extraordinarily strong drive for dominance. Coincidence? Evolutionists don't think so. From their perspective, life is essentially a race to repro-duke, and natural selection is bound to favor different strategies in different organisms. In reproductive terms, they have vastly more to gain from it. A female can't flood the gene pool by commandeering extra mates; no matter how much sperm she attracts, she is unlikely to produce more than a dozen viable offspring. But as Genghis Khan's exploits make clear, males can profit enormously by out mating their peers. It's not hard to see how that dynamic, played out over millions of years, would leave modern men fretting over status. We're built from the genes that the most determined competitors passed down. Fortunately, we don't aspire to families of 800. As monogamy and contraceptives may have leveled the reproductive playfield, power has become its own psychological reward. Those who achieve high status still enjoy more sex with more partners than the rest of us, and the reason is no mystery. Researchers have consistently found that women favor signs of "earning capacity" over good looks. For sheer sex appeal, a doughy (脸色苍白的) bald guy in a Rolex will outscore a stud (非常英俊的男子) in a Burger King uniform almost every time.

单选题The suggestion in the text that price-fixing in industrialized societies is normal arises from the author's statement that price-fixing is

单选题If you have ever longed for a meat substitute that smelt and tasted like the real thing, but did not involve killing an animal, then your order could be ready soon. Researchers believe it will soon be possible to grow cultured meat in quantities large enough to offer the meat industry an alternative source of supply. Growing muscle cells (the main component of meat) in a nutrient broth is easy. The difficulty is persuading those cells to form something that resembles real meat. Paul Kosnik, the head of engineering at a firm called Tissue Genesis, is hoping to do it by stretching the cells with mechanical anchors. This encourages them to form small bundles surrounded by connective tissue, an arrangement similar to real muscle. Robert Dennis, a biomedical engineer at the University of North Carolina, believes the secret of growing healthy muscle tissue in a laboratory is to understand how it interacts with its surroundings. In nature, tissues exist as elements in a larger system and they depend on other tissues for their survival. Without appropriate stimuli from their neighbours they degenerate. Dr Dennis and his team have been working on these neighbourly interactions for the past three years and report some success in engineering two of the most important--those between muscles and tendons, and muscles and nerves. At the Touro College School of Health Sciences in New York, Morris Benjaminson and his team are working on removing living tissue from fish, and then growing it in culture. This approach has the advantage that the tissue has a functioning system of blood vessels to deliver nutrients, so it should be possible to grow tissue cultures more than a millimetre thick--the current limit. Henk Haagsman, a meat scientist at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, is trying to make minced pork from cultured stem cells with the backing of Stegeman, a sausage company. It could be used in sausages, burgers and sauces. But why would anyone want to eat cultured meat, rather than something freshly slaughtered and just off the bone? One answer, to mix metaphors, is that it would allow vegetarians to have their meatloaf and eat it too. But the sausage-meat project suggests another reason: hygiene. As Ingrid Newkirk of PETA, an animal-rights group, puts it, "no one who considers what's in a meat hot dog could genuinely express any reluctance at eating a clean cloned meat product." Cultured meat could be grown in sterile conditions, avoiding Salmonella, E. coli and other nasties. It could also be made healthier by adjusting its composition--introducing. heart-friendly omega-3 fatty acids, for example. You could even take a cell from an endangered animal and, without threatening its extinction, make meat from it.

单选题In the fourth sentence in paragraph one, the "call-and-response pattern" refers to the pattern in which______