单选题The best title which describes the content of the text as a whole Would be

单选题Linguists have understood for decades that language and thought are closely related. Humans construct reality using thought and express these thoughts through the use of language. Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Whorf are credited with developing the most relevant explanation outlining the relationship between thought and language, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. The hypothesis consists of two parts, linguistic relativity and linguistic determinism. Supporters of linguistic relativity assume that culture is shaped by language. Terwilliger defines linguistic determinism as the process by which "the functions of one's mind are determined by the nature of the language which one speaks." In simpler terms, the thoughts that we construct are based upon the language that we speak and the words that we use. In its strongest sense, linguistic determinism can be interpreted as meaning that language determines thought. In its weakest sense, language partially influences thought. Whorf was careful to avoid authoritative statements which would permanently commit him to a particular position. Because of the broad nature of his statements, it is difficult to distinguish exactly to what extent Whorl believes that language determines thought. Heated debate among modern linguists demonstrates that disagreement exists about the accuracy and correctness of Whorf's studies and of the actual level of influence of language on thought processes. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis essentially consists of two distinct statements connecting the relation of thought and language. Whorf believes that humans may be able to think only about objects, processes, and conditions that have language associated with them. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis also explains the relationship between different languages (French, English, German, Chinese, and so on) and thought. Whorl demonstrated that culture is largely determined by language. Different cultures perceive the world in different ways. Culturally essential objects, conditions and processes usually are defined by a plethora of words, while things that cultures perceive as unimportant are usually assigned one or two words. Whorl developed this theory while studying the Hopi Indian tribe. Whorf was amazed that the Hopi language has no words for past, present, and future. The Hopi have only one word for flying objects. A dragonfly, an airplane, and a pilot are defined using the same word. Whorf questioned whether or not the Hopi view the world differently from western people. After further interpretation and analysis he concluded that the Hopi have a sense for the continuum of time despite having no words to specifically describe past, present, and future. It is commonly believed that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis possesses some truth, but the extent to which it is applicable to all situations is questioned. Linguists generally support a "strong" or a "weak" interpretation. Linguists who study the hypothesis tend to cite examples that support their beliefs but are unable or unwilling to refute the opposing arguments. Examples exist that strengthen the arguments of everyone who studies the hypothesis. Nobody has gained significant ground in proving or refuting the hypothesis because the definitions of Sapir and Whorl are very vague and incomplete, leaving room for a significant amount of interpretation.

单选题We know less about the astronomical universe than we do about any social system because ______.

单选题The author implies

单选题One of the enduring myths of American folklore is that Jesse James was a home-grown Robin Hood who "stole from the rich and gave to the poor" That legend enjoyed a revived popularity in the 1960s. Supported by movies, pulp fiction, and even serious scholarship, this image has dominated our understanding of the post-Civil War James gang and other western outlaws. Historians have described James as a "primitive rebel" who championed "a special type of peasant protest and rebellion" against modernizing forces by robbing banks and railroads. But James himself would have considered this notion a great joke. In fact, James's robbers went after the express company safes just because that's where the money was. As for the Robin Hood theme, there is no evidence the James gang did anything with the cash they stole except to spend it on fine horseflesh and gambling. The key to understanding the motives of the James gang—besides greed—is the Civil War, especially the vicious guerrilla combat within the larger war that plagued Missouri. Support for the Confederacy was strong in the Little Dixie counties that flanked the Missouri River just east of the Kansas border. In these counties lived most of the men and boys who went into the bush as Confederate guerrillas, including Frank and Jesse James. They learned their trade under the tutelage of such psychopathic killers as " Bloody Bill" Anderson and William Clarke Quantrill, who murdered scores of Missouri Unionists and fought it out with Union soldiers during four years of internecine warfare. These guerrillas were anything but the poor farmers of folklore. Many of them (like James) came from families that were three times more likely to own slaves and possessed twice as much wealth as the average Missouri family. James fought during the war against emancipation and after the war against the Republican Party that freed and enfranchised the slaves. Many of the banks and express companies struck by the James gang were owned by individuals or groups associated with the Republican Party. Like the Ku Klux Klan in former Confederate states, the James gang did its best to undermine the new order ushered in by Northern victory in the Civil War. When Democrats regained control of Missouri in the 1870s, the James gang looked for greener pastures outside the state. In August 1876, they rode all the way to Northfield, Minn. , with the aim of robbing a bank there in which a Union general was reported to have deposited large funds. When the bank cashier—also a Union veteran—refused to open the vault, James shot him in cold blood. The citizens of Northfield fought back, killing two of the bandits before they could flee the town. Jesse and Frank James got away, but this affair was the beginning of the end for Jesse's career as the self-described "Napoleon of crime. /

单选题The author's opinion upon the development of Wal-Mart is

单选题With the Met Office predicting a summer heatwave, Macmillan Cancer Relief this week (1) its customary warning about the sun's ultravioiet rays: (2) , it says, for the huge rise in skin cancers affecting 70,000 people a year. (3) a hat and long-sleeved shirt, it advises, keep in the (4) in the middle of the day, and slap (5) suncream with a protection factor of 15 or above. We all know it (6) ; it's the message that's been drummed into us for the past 20 years. Too much sun (7) . But now there's a fly in the suntan lotion, complicating the message's clarity. It comes (8) a thin, quietly-spoken and officially retired Nasa scientist, Professor William Grant, who says that sun doesn't kill; in act, it does us the world of (9) . What's killing us, he says, is our (10) with protecting ourselves from skin cancer. Grant is trying to turn the scientific world (11) down. Talking to me on a trip to Britain this week, he (12) his startling--and at first appearance off-the-wall new calculation that (13) excessive exposure to the sun is costing 1,600 deaths a year in the UK from melanoma skin cancers, (14) exposure to the sun is the cause of 25,000 deaths a year from cancer generally. In other words, one sixth of all cancer deaths could be prevented (15) we sunned ourselves a little more; in comparison, the melanoma (16) is insignificant. The reason is vitamin D. Grant, the director of the Sunlight, Nutrition and Health Research Centre (SUNARC) he (17) in California a year ago, says that he and other scientists have (18) vitamin D deficiency as a key cause (19) 17 different types of cancer including melanoma, osteoporosis, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and other neurological (20) .

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} A very important world problem, if not the most serious of all the great world problems which affect us at the moment, is the increasing number of people who actually inhabit this planet. The limited amount of land and land resources will soon be unable to support the huge population if it continues to grow at its present rate. In an early survey conducted in 1888, a billion and a half people inhabited the earth. Now, the population exceeds five billion and is growing fast—by the staggering figure of 90 million in 1988 alone. This means that the world must accommodate a new population roughly equal to that of the United States and Canada every three years! Even though the rate of growth has begun to slow down, most experts believe the population size will still pass eight billion during the next 50 years. So why is this huge increase in population taking place? It is really due to the spread of the knowledge and practice of what is becoming known as "Death Control". You have no doubt heard of the term "Birth Control"—" Death Control" is something rather different. It recognizes the work of the doctors and scientists who now keep alive people who, not very long ago, would have died of a variety of then incurable diseases. Through a wide variety of technological innovations that include farming methods and sanitation, as well as the control of these deadly diseases, we have found ways to reduce the rate at which we die—creating a population explosion. We used to think that reaching seventy years old was a remarkable achievement, but now eighty or even ninety is becoming recognized as the normal life-span for humans. In a sense, this represents a tremendous achievement for our species. Biologically this is the very definition of success and we have undoubtedly become the dominant animal on the planet. However, this success is the very cause of the greatest threat to mankind. Man is constantly destroying the very resources which keep him alive. He is destroying the balance of nature which regulates climate and the atmosphere, produces and maintains healthy soils, provides food from the seas, etc. In short, by only considering our needs of today we are ensuring there will be no tomorrow. An understanding of man's effect on the balance of nature is crucial to be able to find the appropriate remedial action. It is a very common belief that the problems of the population explosion are caused mainly by poor people living in poor countries who do not know enough to limit their reproduction. This is not true. The actual number of people in an area is not as important as the effect they have on nature. Developing countries do have an effect on their environment, but it is the populations of richer countries that have a far greater impact on the earth as a whole. The birth of a baby in, for example, Japan, imposes more than a hundred times the amount of stress on the world's resources as a baby in India. Most people in India do not grow up to own cars or air-conditioners—nor do they eat the huge amount of meat and fish that the Japanese child does. Their life-styles do not require vast quantities of minerals and energy. Also, they are aware of the requirements of the land around them and try to put something back into nature to replace what they take out. For example, tropical forests are known to be essential to the balance of nature yet we are destroying them at an incredible rate. They are being cleared not to benefit the natives of that country, but to satisfy the needs of richer countries. Central American forests are being destroyed for pastureland to make pet food in the United States cheaper; in Papua New Guinea, forests are destroyed to supply cheaper cardboard packaging for Japanese electronic products; in Burma and Thailand, forests have been destroyed to produce more attractive furniture in Singapore and Japan. Therefore, a rich person living thousands of miles away may cause more tropical forest destruction than a poor person living in the forest itself. In short then, it is everybody's duty to safeguard the future of mankind-not only through population control, but by being more aware of the effect his actions have on nature. Nature is both fragile and powerful. It is very easily destroyed; on the other hand, it can so easily destroy its most aggressive enemy—man.

单选题Cats, according to the author, ______.

单选题What happened in 1996?

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} It may be just as well for Oxford University's reputation that this week's meeting of Congregation, its 3,552-strong governing body, was held in secret, for the air of civilized rationality that is generally supposed to pervade donnish conversation has lately turned fractious. That's because the vice-chancellor, the nearest thing the place has to a chief executive, has proposed the most fundamental reforms to the university since the establishment of the college system in 1249; and a lot of the dons and colleges don't like it. The trouble with Oxford is that it is unmanageable. Its problems-the difficulty of recruiting good dons and of getting rid of bad ones, concerns about academic standards, severe money worries at some colleges-all spring from that. John Hood, who was recruited as vice-chancellor from the University of Auckland and is now probably the most-hated antipodean in British academic life, reckons he knows how to solve this, and has proposed to reduce the power of dons and colleges and increase that of university administrators. Mr. Hood is right that the university's management structure needs an overhaul. But radical though his proposals seem to those involved in the current row, they do not go far enough. The difficulty of managing Oxford stems only partly from the nuttiness of its system of governance; the more fundamental problem lies in its relationship with the government. That's why Mr. Hood should adopt an idea that was once regarded as teetering on the lunatic fringe of radicalism, but these days is discussed even in polite circles. The idea is independence. Oxford gets around ￡5,000 ($9,500) per undergraduate per year from the government. In return, it accepts that it can charge students only ￡1,150 (rising to￡3,000 next year) on top of that. Since it probably costs at least ￡10,000 a year to teach an undergraduate, that leaves Oxford with a deficit of ￡4,000 or so per student to cover from its own funds. If Oxford declared independence, it would lose the ￡52m undergraduate subsidy at least. Could it fill the hole? Certainly. America's top universities charge around ￡20,000 per student per year. The difficult issue would not be money alone, it would be balancing numbers of not-so-brilliant rich people paying top whack with the cleverer poorer ones they were cross-subsidising. America's top universities manage it: high fees mean better teaching, which keeps competition hot and academic standards high, while luring enough donations to provide bursaries for the poor. It should be easier to extract money from alumni if Oxford were no longer state-funded.

单选题On April 20,2000, in Accra, Ghana, the leaders of six West African countries declared their intention to proceed to monetary union among the non-CFA franc countries of the region by January 2003, as first step toward a wider monetary union including all the ECOWAS countries in 2004. The six countries (1) themselves to reducing central bank financing of budget deficits (2) 10 percent of the previous years government (3) ; reducing budget deficits to 4 percent of the second phase by 2003; creating a Convergence Council to help (4) macroeconomic policies; and (5) up a common central bank. Their declaration (6) that, " Member States (7) the need (8) strong political commitment and (9) to (10) all such national policies (11) would facilitate the regional monetary integration process. " The goal of a monetary union in ECOWAS has long been an objective of the organization, going back to its formation in 1975, and is intended to (12) broader integration process that would include enhanced regional trade and (13) institutions. In the colonial period, currency boards linked sets of countries in the region. (14) independence, (15) , these currency boards were (16) , with the (17) of the CFA franc zone, which included the francophone countries of the region. Although there have been attempts to advance the agenda of ECOWAS monetary cooperation, political problems and other economic priorities in several of the region's countries have to (18) inhibited progress. Although some problems remain, the recent initiative has been bolstered by the election in 1999 of a democratic government and a leader who is committed to regional (19) in Nigeria, the largest economy of the region, raising hopes that the long-delayed project can be (20) .

单选题"The U.S. economy is rapidly deteriorating," says Mr. Grannis. "The odds of a recession are now very high, perhaps by the end of the year. " There are already some signs that important pillars are weakening. Consumer confidence has fallen for the past two months; and the housing sector, which has been buoyant, is starting to sink. Corporate profits are falling. Some analysts are especially concerned over the sharp fall of commodity prices. They believe it represents the threat of inflation, or falling prices in general. While this may be good for consumers, it could cause a global slowdown. "The Central Bank will have to act forcefully to arrest the deflationary forces," says Robert LaMorte, chairman of Behavioral Economics, a consulting firm in San Diego. But others counter that the Central Bank doesn't need to intervene, and they argue it should wait to see real data before acting. "The fundamentals are better than the stock market reflects," says Peter Kretzmer, an economist at Nationsbanc Montgomery Securities. The president also tried to do his part to calm the markets, citing the strong job market and balanced budget. "We believe our fundamental economic policy is sound," he said. His comments echoed statements by Treasury Secretary in Washington. Some numbers do continue to reflect a strong economy. On September 11, the Conference Board released its index of leading indicators. The index rose 0.4 percent, promoting the business organization to predict that the nation's output should increase at a moderate pace for the rest of this year. The group sees little risk of recession in the near term. But what has changed is the global economy. Japan and the rest of Asia are in recession. The woes are spreading to Latin America. "I'm convinced that we are going to have a global economic recession," says Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Norwest Corp. , a Minneapolis-based bank. But, he adds, it's not certain the U.S. will slide into a period of negative growth. He rates the risk of recession at only 10 to 15 percent. "We will be responding to the world economic situation rather leading it," he says. Still, Fed watchers don't think the Central Bank will act to try to save the world. "It's inconceivable the Fed could make much difference in Asia, Russia, or Latin America," says Lyle Gramley, a former Fed governor. After the last stock market crash, the Federal Revenue acted quickly to provide liquidity to the markets and to lower interest rates. But the economy is in better shape this time. The banking sector is stronger and the financial markets have been able to respond to enormous trading volume.

单选题Weak dollar or no, $ 46,000-the price for a single year of undergraduate instruction amid the red brick of Harvard Yard-is (1) But nowadays cost is (2) barrier to entry at many of America's best universities. Formidable financial-assistance policies have (3) fees or slashed them deeply for needy students. And last month Harvard announced a new plan designed to (4) the sticker-shock for undergraduates from middle and even upper-income families too. Since then, other rich American universities have unveiled (5) initiatives. Yale, Harvard's bitterest (6) , revealed its plans on January 14th. Students whose families make (7) than $60,000 a year will pay nothing at all. Families earning up to $ 200,000 a year will have to pay an average of 10% of their incomes. The university will (8) its financial- assistance budget by 43%, to over $ 80m. Harvard will have a similar arrangement for families making up to $180,000. That makes the price of going to Harvard or Yale (9) to attending a state-run university for middle-and upper-income students. The universities will also not require any student to take out (10) to pay for their (11) , a policy introduced by Princeton in 2001 and by the University of Pennsylvania just after Harvard's (12) . No applicant who gains admission, officials say, should feel (13) to go elsewhere because he or she can't afford the fees. None of that is quite as altruistic as it sounds. Harvard and Yale are, after all, now likely to lure more students away from previously (14) options, particularly state-run universities, (15) their already impressive admissions figures and reputations. The schemes also provide a (16) for structuring university fees in which high prices for rich students help offset modest prices for poorer ones and families are less (17) on federal grants and government-backed loans. Less wealthy private colleges whose fees are high will not be able to (18) Harvard or Yale easily. But America's state-run universities, which have traditionally kept their fees low and stable, might well try a differentiated (19) scheme as they raise cash to compete academically with their private (20) . Indeed, the University of California system has already started to implement a sliding-fee scale.