单选题Few beyond California' s technology crowd recognise the name Larry Sonsini; none within its circle could fail to. For four decades he has been lawyer, adviser and friend to many prominent companies and investors. Some consider him the most powerful person in Silicon Valley. Companies beg for his law firm to represent them. The 65-year-old chairman of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and more recently, as outside counsel to Hewlett-Packard (HP), for initially defending the board's dubious investigative practices. WSG&R boasts 600 lawyers and represents around half of Silicon Valley's public companies, including Apple? Sun Microsystems and Google. Last year it ranked first in private-equity and venture-capital deals, with nearly twice as many as its closest rival. Over the past five years WSG&R has worked on over 1 000 mergers and acquisitions, collectively worth over $ 260 billion. The recent troubles cast a shadow over WSG&R's reputation. Although Mr. Sonsini is not accused of wrongdoing himself, many of his firm's clients are on the ropes. Former executives at Brocade Communications suffered criminal charges in July, Mr. Sonsini Served on Brocade's board until last year and his firm was its outside counsel. He also was on the boards of Pixar, Echelon, Lattice Semiconductor, LSI Logic and Novell all firms at which the issuing of stock options is being called into question. WSG&R dismisses the idea that Mr. Sonsini faced a conflict of interest by acting as both director and legal adviser to so many firms and says he did not advise HP in its investigation of board members. Mr. Sonsini initially said it was "well done and within legal limits". It now seems it was neither.

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. There are many features that {{U}}(1) {{/U}} a movie as American, but perhaps the most {{U}}(2) {{/U}} is the theme of the loner-hero (孤胆英雄). In the western movie, which comes out of many {{U}}(3) {{/U}} of the American West, a typical figure is the lonesome cowboy. He wanders into a town and {{U}}(4) {{/U}} out its troubles. Then the strong and independent hero rides off into the sunset {{U}}(5) {{/U}}. Americans like this {{U}}(6) {{/U}} in their films because they are {{U}}(7) {{/U}} independent, and individualism {{U}}(8) {{/U}} a great deal with them. An individual, who is able to {{U}}(9) {{/U}} the evils of the world, or of a small town, is someone to admire. Even the gangster movie, a very popular {{U}}(10) {{/U}} of the typical American film, usually has a hero. {{U}}(11) {{/U}} he is a lawman out to catch the criminals or a gangster who suddenly sees the light and tries to go {{U}}(12) {{/U}} During the violence-ridden period of Prohibition in the 1920s, the gangster movie {{U}}(13) {{/U}} in popularity. These films kept the same. {{U}}(14) {{/U}} as the western--the bad cannot triumph. One good person can save the innocent. Recent science fiction films deal {{U}}(15) {{/U}} the same theme. Against the forces of the alien powers, people will fight to protect their ideals. Here, too, the action {{U}}(16) {{/U}} around a single individual, {{U}}(17) {{/U}} now he or she must save the world. The hero battles the unknown, trusting in inner capabilities and in the power of good {{U}}(18) {{/U}} evil. Fearless, the hero of a typical American movie does not {{U}}(19) {{/U}} to jump into the action. This dominant theme of the American movie is familiar {{U}}(20) {{/U}} people around the world.

单选题People, like most animals, are naturally lazy. So the ascent of mankind is something of a mystery. Humans who make their livings hunting and gathering in the traditional way do not have to put much effort into it. Farmers who rely on rain to water their crops work significantly harder, and lead unhealthier lives. But the real back-breaking is that carried out by farmers who use irrigation. Yet it was the invention of irrigation, at first sight so harmful to its practitioners that actually produced a sufficient surplus to feed the priests, scholars, artists and so on whose activities are collectively thought of as "civilization". In the past 10,000 years, the world's climate has become temporarily colder and drier on several occasions. The first of these, known as the Younger Dryas, after a tundra-loving plant that thrived during it, occurred at the same time as the beginning of agriculture in northern Mesopotamia. It is widely believed that this was not a coincidence. The drying and cooling of the Younger Dryas adversely affected the food supply of hunter-gatherers. That would have created an incentive for agriculture to spread once some bright spark invented it. Why farmers then moved on to irrigation is, however, far from clear. But Harvey Weiss, of Yale University, thinks he knows. Dr. Weiss observes that the development of irrigation coincides with a second cool, dry period, some 8,200 years ago. His analysis of rainfall patterns in the area suggests that rainfall in agriculture's upper-Mesopotamian heartland would, at this time, have fallen below the level needed to sustain farming reliably. Farmers would thus have been forced out of the area in search of other opportunities. Once again, an innovative spark was required. But it clearly occurred to some of these displaced farmers that the slow-moving waters of the lower Tigris and Euphrates, near sea level, could be diverted using canals and used to water crops. And the rest, as the cliche has it, is history. So climate change helped to intensify agriculture, and thus start civilization. But an equally intriguing idea is that the spread of agriculture caused climate change. In this case, the presumed criminal is forest clearance. Most of the land cultivated by early farmers in the Middle East would have been forested. When the trees that grew there were cleared, the carbon they contained ended up in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Moreover, one form of farming—the cultivation of rice in waterlogged fields—generates methane, in large quantities. William Ruddiman, of the University of Virginia, explained that, in combination, these two phenomena had warmed the atmosphere prior to the start of the industrial era. As environmentalists are wont to observe, mankind is part of nature. These studies show just how intimate the relationship is.

单选题The day was star-crossed: Friday the 13th in the month of October, on the eve of the second looming anniversary of a devastating market crash. "I'm telling you, psychology is really funny. People get crazy in situations like that," said portfolio strategist Elaine Garzarelli. Last week Friday the 13th lived up to its frightful reputation. After drifting lower at a sleepy pace for most of the day, the Dow Jones industrial average abruptly lurched into a hair-raising sky dive in the final hour of trading. The Bush Administration moved swiftly to avert any sense of crisis after the market closed. Declared Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady: "It's important to recognize that today's stock market decline doesn't signal any fundamental change in the condition of the economy. The economy remains well balanced, and the outlook is for continued moderate growth." But Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey, who chairs a House subcommittee on telecommunications and finance, vowed to hold hearings this week on the stock market slide. Said he: "This is the second heart attack. My hope is that before we have the inevitable third heart attack, we pay attention to these problems." Experts found no shortage of culprits to blame for the latest shipwreck. A series of downbeat realizations converged on Friday, ranging from signs of a new burst of inflation to sagging corporate profits to troubles in the junk-bond market that has fueled major takeovers. The singular event that shook investors was the faltering of a $6.75 billion labor management buyout of UAL, the parent company of United Airlines, the second largest U. S. carrier. On one point most thoughtful Wall Streeters agreed: the market had reached such dizzying heights that a correction of some sort seemed almost inevitable. Propelled by favorable economic news and a wave of multibillion-dollar takeovers, stocks had soared more than 1,000 points since the 1987 crash. But by last August some Wall streeters were clearly worried. The heaviest blow to the market came Friday afternoon. In a three-paragraph statement, UAL said a labor-management group headed by Chairman Stephen Wolf had failed to get enough financing to acquire United. Several banks had apparently balked at the deal, which was to be partly financed through junk bonds. The take-over group said it would submit a revised bid "in the near term,' but the announcement stunned investors who had come to view the United deal as the latest sure thing in the 1980s buyout binge. Said John Downey, a trader at the Chicago Board Options Exchange: "The airline stocks have looked like attractive takeover targets. But with the United deal in trouble, everyone started to wonder what other deals might not go through./

单选题We assumed ethics needed the seal of certainty, else it was non-rational. And certainty was to be produced by a deductive model: the correct actions were derivable from classical first principles or a hierarchical ranked pantheon of principles. This model, though, is bankrupt. I suggest we think of ethics as analogous to language usage. There are no univocal rules of grammar and style which uniquely determine the best sentence for a particular situation. Nor is language usage universalizable. Although a sentence or phrase is warranted in one case, it does not mean it is automatically appropriate in like circumstances. Nonetheless, language usage is not subjective. This should not surprise us in the least. All intellectual pursuits are relativistic in just these senses. Political science, psychology, chemistry, and physics are not certain, but they are not subjective either. As I see it, ethical inquiry proceed like this: we are taught moral principles by parents, teachers, and society at large. As we grow older we become exposed to competing views. These may lead us to reevaluate presently held beliefs. Or we may find ourselves inexplicably making certain valuations, possibly because of inherited altruistic tendencies. We may "learn the hard way, that some actions generate unacceptable consequences. Or we may reflect upon our own and others' "theories" or patterns of behavior and decide they are inconsistent. The resulting views are "tested;" we act as we think we should and evaluate the consequences of those actions on ourselves and on others. We thereby correct our mistakes in light of the test of time. Of course people make different moral judgments; of course we cannot resolve these differences by using some algorithm which is itself beyond judgment. We have no vantage point outside human experience where we can judge right and wrong, good and bad. But then we don't have a vantage point from where we can be philosophical relativists either. We are left within the real world, trying to cope with ourselves, with each other, with the world, and with our own mistakes. We do not have all the moral answers; nor do we have an algorithm to discern those answers. Neither do we possess an algorithm for determining correct language usage but that does not make us throw up our hands in despair because we can no longer communicate. If we understand ethics in this way, we can see, I think, the real value of ethical theory. Some people talk as if ethical theories give us moral prescriptions. They think we should apply ethical principles as we would a poultice: after diagnosing the illness, we apply the appropriate dressing. But that is a mistake. No theory provides a set of abstract solutions to apply straightforwardly. Ethical theories are important not because they solve all moral dilemmas but because they help us notice salient features of moral problems and help us understand those problems in context.

单选题Eating better and more adventurously is becoming an obsession, especially among people with money to spend. Healthier eating-and not-so-healthy eating-as well as the number and variety of food choices and venues continue to increase at an ever quickening pace. Globalization is the master trend that will drive the world of food in the years ahead. Consumers traveling the globe, both virtually and in reality, will be able to sweep up ingredients, packaged foods, recipes, and cooking techniques from every comer of the earth at an ever-intensifying and accelerating pace. Formerly remote ingredients and cooking styles are creating a whole new culinary mosaic as they are transplanted and reinterpreted all over the world. Many factors are behind this, but none more so than the influence of the great international hotel chains. Virtually every chef who has worked for Hilton, Westin, Peninsula, or any other major chain gathers global experience in locales as diverse as Singapore, New Orleans, Toronto, and Dubai. At each stop, they carry away cooking ideas and techniques they can and do use elsewhere. This trend will gain even greater momentum as ambitious young adults stake their own futures on internationalization, treating broader food away as an important aspect of their own advancement. Young people will need knowledge of food and ingredients from different continents and cultures as one aspect of socialization, enculturation, cultural exchange, and success. In country after country, there seems little doubt that global cuisine will make its biggest inroads among the younger set. Many in the generations now coming of age will treat world-ranging food knowledge and experience as key elements in furthering their personal plans, business acumen, and individual growth. The Internet has made global contacts a matter of routine. Computer networking will permit chefs and others in the food industry, including consumers, to link directly with the best available authorities in faraway nations, supplementing or bypassing secondhand sources of information altogether. Time, with all its implications, will also be a factor in emerging world food trends. More and more of us are destined to operate on global time-that is, at full tilt 24 hours a day. This will become the norm for companies with resources scattered all over the planet. Beyond the 24-hour supermarkets many of us already take for granted, there will also be three-shift shopping centers open at any hour. Restaurants in the great business capitals intent on cultivating an international clientele will serve midnight breakfasts or break-of-dawn dinners (with the appropriate wines) without raising a single eyebrow.

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} According to studies cited by the National Eating Disorders Association, 42 percent of girls in first through third grade want to be thinner, 81 percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat, and 51 percent of 9-and 10-year-old girls feel better about themselves if they are on a diet. In many ,ways, this fixation on weight at ever earlier ages comes at an inopportune time physiologically. At a recent Hadassah meeting at the Woodlands Community Temple in White Plains, Dr. Maxcie Schneider, the director of adolescent medicine at Greenwich Hospital, and Erica Leon, a registered dietitian, spoke about early adolescence as a time when a little bit of pudginess is necessary for proper growth, and youngsters wrestle constantly with their body image. "I can't tell you how many kids I've seen who've been on the Atkins diet, or on the South Beach diet," Ms. Leon said, adding that overweight children who try diets can be at risk of developing eating disorders. After the presentation, three mothers from Hartsdale who wanted to help their children avoid such issues spoke about how their young daughters are already beginning to become weight-conscious. Anorexia is a mental illness in which the victim eats barely enough to survive, because her distorted thinking makes her think she is fat. Bulimia, a mental illness in which someone binges on large amounts of food, then purges it through vomiting or the abuse of laxatives, is on the rise, and is surfacing in younger and younger patients, mostly girls, said Judy Scheel, the director of the Center for Eating Disorder Recovery in Mount Kisco. About 90 percent of victims of eating disorders are female, and often the male victims are on teams like wrestling and crew, where they must keep their weight low for competitive reasons. Dr. Scheel believes that where girls claim the eating disorder enables them to be thin, boys typically state their goal is to achieve or maintain a muscular but thin physique. The average onset for bulimia used to be 17, but to see teenagers age 14 and 15 with bulimia is common these days, Dr. Scheel said. Other people believe the disorders have genetic or chemical components, and many people with eating disorders respond well to anti-depressants, for example. "A certain amount of education is necessary to help young people avoid becoming obsessed with their body image. Teachers need to stay outside of talking about diets," Dr. Scheel said. "It's like a parent, always talking about their next diet. You have to help a child understand that if you cat healthily and exercise, your body is going to take care of itself." And in relatively homogenous populations, like in some Westchester schools, competition runs high. "So the young people don't really see how beautiful diversity is," she said, "and they tend to all be competing for kind of the same goals."

单选题 September 11th 2001 drew the transatlantic alliance together; but the mood did not last, and over the five years since it has pulled ever further apart. A recent poll for the German Marshall Fund shows that 57% of Europeans regard American leadership in world affairs as "undesirable". The Iraq war is mainly to blame. But there is another and more. intractable reason for the growing division: God. Europeans worry that American foreign policy under George Bush is too influenced by religion. The "holy warriors" who hijacked the planes on September 11th reintroduced God into international affairs in the most dramatic of ways. It seems that George Bush is replying in kind, encouraging a clash of religions that could spell global catastrophe. Dominique Moisi, a special adviser at the French Institute for International Relations, argues that "the combination of religion and nationalism in America is frightening. We feel betrayed by God and by nationalism, which is why we are building the European Union as a barrier to religious warfare." Josef Braml, of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, complains that in America "religious attitudes have more of an influence on political choices than in any other western democracy." The notion that America is too influenced by religion is not confined to the elites. Three in five French people and nearly as many Dutch think that Americans are too religious-and that religion skews what should be secular decisions. Europeans who think that America is "too religious" are more inclined to anti-Americanism than their fellow countrymen. 38% of Britons have an unfavourable view of America, but that number rises to 50% among people who are wary of American religiosity. Is America engaged in a faith-based foreign policy? Religion certainly exerts a growing influence on its actions in the world, but in ways more subtle and complicated than Europeans imagine. It is true that America is undergoing a religious revival. "Hot" religions such as evangelical Protestantism and hardline Catholicism are growing rapidly while "cool" mainline versions of Christianity are declining. It is also true that the Republican Party, is being reshaped by this revival. Self-identified evangelicals provided almost 40% of Mr. Bushes vote in 2004; if you add in other theological conservatives, such as Mormons and traditional Catholics, that number rises closer to 60%. All six top Republican leaders in the Senate have earned 100K ratings from the Christian Coalition. It is also true that Mr. Bush frequently uses religious rhetoric when talking of foreign affairs. On September 12th he was at it again, telling a group of conservative journalists that he sees the war on terror as "a confrontation between good and evil", and remarking, "It seems to me that there's a Third Awakening" (in other words, an outbreak of Christian evangelical fervour, of the sort that has swept across America at least twice before). And Christian America overall is taking a bigger interest in foreign policy. New voices are being heard, such as Sam Brownback, a conservative senator from Kansas who has led the fight against genocide in Darfur, and Rick Warren, the author of a bestseller called "The Purpose-Driven Life", who is sending 2,000 missionaries to Rwanda. Finally, it is true that religious figures have done some pretty outrageous things. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Hugo Ch vez, the president of Venezuela. Lieutenant-General William "Jerry" Boykin, deputy under-secretary of defence for intelligence, toured the country telling Christian groups that radical Muslims hate America "because we're a Christian nation and the enemy is a guy named Satan". He often wore uniform.

单选题SoBig. F was the more visible of the two recent waves of infection because it propagated itself by e-mail, meaning that victims noticed what was going on. SoBig. F was so effective that it caused substantial disruption even to those protected by anti-virus software. That was because so many copies of the virus spread (some 500,000 computers were infected) that many machines were overwhelmed by messages from their own anti-virus software. On top of that, one common counter-measure backfired, increasing traffic still further. Anti-virus software often bounces a warning back to the sender of an infected e-mail, saying that the e-mail in question cannot be delivered because it contains a virus. SoBig. F was able to spoof this system by "harvesting" e-mail addresses from the hard disks of infected computers. Some of these addresses were then sent infected e-mails that had been doctored to look as though they had come from other harvested addresses. The latter were thus sent warnings, even though their machines may not have been infected. Kevin Haley of Symantec, a firm that makes anti-virus software, thinks that one reason SoBig. F was so much more effective than other viruses that work this way is because it was better at searching hard drives for addresses. Brian King, of CERT, an internet-security centre at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, notes that, unlike its precursors, SoBig. F was capable of "multi-threading", it could send multiple e-mails simultaneously, allowing it to dispatch thousands in minutes. Blaster worked by creating a "buffer overrun in the remote procedure call". In English, that means it attacked a piece of software used by Microsoft's Windows operating system to allow one computer to control another. It did so by causing that software to use too much memory. Most worms work by exploiting weaknesses in an operating system, but whoever wrote Blaster had a particularly refined sense of humour, since the website under attack was the one from which users could obtain a program to fix the very weakness in Windows that the worm itself was exploiting. One Way to deal with a wicked worm like Blaster is to design a fairy godmother worm that goes around repairing vulnerable machines automatically. In the case of Blaster someone seems to have tried exactly that with a program called Welchi. However, according to Mr. Haley, Welchi has caused almost as many problems as Blaster itself, by overwhelming networks with "pings" signals that checked for the presence of other computers. Though both of these programs fell short of the apparent objectives of their authors, they still caused damage. For instance, they forced the shutdown of a number of computer networks, including the one used by the New York Times newsroom, and the one organising trains operated by CSX, a freight company on America's east coast. Computer scientists expect that it is only a matter of time before a truly devastating virus is unleashed.