单选题One thing that "Assertiveness Training" does not do is ______.

单选题We can learn from the fourth paragraph that the author believes

单选题The best title for this text could be

单选题Here is a quick way to spoil a Brussels dinner party. Simply suggest that world governance is slipping away from the G20, G7, G8 or other bodies in which Europeans may hog up to half the seats. Then propose, with gloomy relish, that the future belongs to the G2: newly fashionable jargon for a putative body formed by China and America. The fear of irrelevance haunts Euro-types, for all their public boasting about Europe’s future might. The thought that the European Union might not greatly interest China is especially painful. After all, the 21st century was meant to be different. Indeed, to earlier leaders like France’s Jacques Chirac, a rising China was welcome as another challenge to American hegemony, ushering in a “multipolar world” in which the EU would play a big role. If that meant kow-towing to Chinese demands to shun Taiwan, snub the Dalai Lama or tone down criticism of human-rights abuses, so be it. Most EU countries focused on commercial diplomacy with China, to ensure that their leaders’ visits could end with flashing cameras and the signing of juicy contracts. Meanwhile, Europe’s trade deficit with China hit nearly∈170 billion ( $ 250 billion) last year. In five years, China wants 60% of car parts in new Chinese vehicles to be locally made. This is alarming news for Germany, the leading European exporter to China thanks to car parts, machine tools and other widgets. As ever, Europeans disagree over how to respond. Some are willing to challenge China politically — for example, Germany, Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands. But they are mostly free traders. That makes them hostile when other countries call for protection against alleged Chinese cheating. In contrast, a block of mostly southern and central Europeans, dubbed “accommodating mercantilists” by the ECFR (The European Council on Foreign Relations), are quick to call for anti-dumping measures: But that makes them anxious to keep broader relations sweet by bowing to China on political issues. The result is that European politicians often find themselves defending unconditional engagement with China. The usual claim is that this will slowly transform the country into a freer, more responsible stakeholder in the world. The secret, it is murmured, is to let Europe weave China into an entangling web of agreements and sectoral dialogues. In 2007 no fewer than 450 European delegations visited China. Big countries like France and Britain add their own bilateral dialogues, not trusting the EU to protect their interests or do the job properly. There are now six parallel EU and national “dialogues” with China on climate change, for example.

单选题It is hard to box against a southpaw, as Apollo Creed found out when he fought Rocky Balboa in the first of an interminable series of movies. While "Rocky" is fiction, the strategic advantage of being left-handed in a fight is very real, simply because most right-handed people have little experience of fighting left-handers, but not vice versa. And the same competitive advantage is enjoyed by left-handers in other sports, such as tennis and cricket. The orthodox view of human handedness is that it is connected to the bilateral specialization of the brain that has concentrated language-processing functions on the left side of that organ. Because, long ago in the evolutionary past, an ancestor of humans (and all other vertebrate animals) underwent a contortion that twisted its head around 180° relative to its body, the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and vice versa. In humans, the left brain (and thus the right body) is usually dominant. And on average, lefthanders are smaller and lighter than right-handers. That should put them at an evolutionary disadvantage. Sporting advantage notwithstanding, therefore, the existence of left-handed-ness poses a problem for biologists. But Charlotte Faurie and Michel Raymond, of the University of Montpellier Ⅱ , in France, think they know the answer. As they report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, there is a clue in the advantage seen in boxing. As any schoolboy could tell you, winning fights enhances your status. If, in prehistory, this translated into increased reproductive success, it might have been enough to maintain a certain proportion of left-handers in the population, by balancing the costs of being left-hand-ed with the advantages gained in fighting. If that is true, then there will be a higher proportion of left-handers in societies with higher levels of violence, since the advantages of being left-handed will be enhanced in such societies. Dr Faurie and Dr Raymond set out to test this hypothesis. Fighting in modern societies often involves the use of technology, notably firearms, that is unlikely to give any advantage to left-handers. So Dr Faurie and Dr Raymond decided to confine their investigation to the proportion of left-handers and the level of violence (by number of homicides) in traditional societies. By trawling the literature, checking with police departments, and even going out into the field and asking people, the two researchers found that the proportion of left-handers in a traditional society is, indeed, correlated with its homicide rate. One of the highest proportions of left-handers, for example, was found among the Yanomamo of South America. Rai-ding and warfare are central to Yanomamo culture. The murder rate is 4 per 1000 inhabitants per year (compared with, for example, 0.068 in New York). And, according to Dr Faurie and Dr Raymond, 22.6% of Yanomamo are left-handed. In contrast, Dioula-speaking people of Burkina Faso in West Africa are virtual pacifists. There are only 0.013 murders per 1000 inhabitants among them and only 3.4% of the population is left-handed. While there is no suggestion that left-handed people are more violent than the right-hand-ed, it looks as though they are more successfully violent. Perhaps that helps to explain the double meaning of the word "sinister".

单选题By now, the 2012 Republican presidential contenders have all been tattooed by the opposition, branded as boring, damaged, or even insane . The entire GOP (共和党的别称) is "mad, " as The New Republic recently put it, and the party"s White House hopefuls display what The New Yorker calls " crackles of craziness. " This kind of talk flows both ways, of course. But what if the big problem with Washington—isn"t nuttiness so much as a lack of it? That"s one takeaway from A First-Rate Madness, a new book of psychiatric case studies by Nassir Ghaemi, director of the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center. He argues that what sets apart the world"s great leaders isn"t some splendidly healthy mind but an exceptionally broken one, coupled with the good luck to lead when extremity is needed. "Our greatest crisis leaders toil in sadness when society is happy, " writes Ghaemi. "Yet when calamity occurs, if they are in a position to act, they can lift up the rest of us. " If so, then what we need for these calamitous times is a calamitous mind, a madman in chief, someone whose abnormal brain can solve our abnormal problems. Perhaps the nicotione -free, no-drama Obama won"t do after all. The good doctor isn"t saying that all mental illness is a blessing. Only that the common diseases of the mind—mania, depression, and related quirks—shouldn"t disqualify one from the upper stairs of public life, and for a simple reason: they are remarkably consistent predictors of brilliant success. Depression in all its forms (which Ghaemi finds in Abraham Lincoln and the mildly bipolar Churchill) brings suffering, which makes one more clear-eyed, fit to recognize the world"s problems, and able to face them down like the noonday demon . Madness in all its forms ( which Ghaemi detects in FDR and JFK) brings resilience , which helps one learn from failure, often with enough creativity to make a new start. Most originally, Ghaemi coins "the inverse law of sanity" : the perils of well-being. It"s why the poor, sane Neville Chamberlain chummed around with Nazi leaders while Churchill"s "black dog" foresaw a fight. In Ghaemi"s view, even our supposedly crazy leaders were too sane for their times, and the nation suffered. When Richard Nixon faced the Watergate crisis, "he handled it the way an average normal person would handle it: he lied, and he dug in, and he fought. " Similarly, George W. Bush was " middle of the road in his personality traits , " which is why his response to the September 11 attacks was simplistic, unwavering , and, above all, "normal. " So should we bring on the crazy in 2012? At the very least, we should rethink our definitions and stop assuming that normality is always good, and abnormality always bad. If Ghaemi is right, that is far too simplistic and stigmatizing, akin to excluding people by race or religion—only possibly worse because excellence can clearly spring from the unwell, and mediocrity from the healthy . The challenge is getting voters to think this way, too. It won"t do to have candidates shaking Prozac bottles (一种治疗抑郁症的物) from the podium , unless the public is ready to reward them for it. Amid multiple wars and lingering recession, maybe that time is now.

单选题We can infer from the passage that the author ______.

单选题The underlined word "entitlement" in the text ( Para. 3) probably means______.

单选题{{B}}Text 1{{/B}} Sharks have gained an unfair reputation for being fierce predators of large sea animals. Humanity's unfounded fear and hatred of these ancient creatures is leading to a worldwide slaughter that may result in the extinction of many larger, coastal shark species. The shark is the victim of a warped attitude of wildlife protection: we strive only to protect the beautiful, nonthreatening parts of our environment. And, in our efforts to restore only nonthreatening parts of our earth, we ignore other important parts. A perfect illustration of this attitude is the contrasting attitude towards another large sea animal, the dolphin. During the 1980s, environmentalists in the U. S. A. protested the use of driftnets for tuna fishing in the Pacific Ocean since these nets also caught dolphins. The environmentalists generated enough political and economic pressure to prevent tuna companies from buying tuna that had been caught in driftnets. In contrast to this effort, the populations of sharks in the Pacific Ocean have decreased to the point of extinction and there has been very little effort by the same environmentalists to save this important species, of marine wildlife. Sharks are among the oldest creatures on earth, having survived in the seas for more than 350 million years. They are extremely efficient animals, feeding on wounded or dying animals, thus performing an important role in nature of weeding out the weaker animals in a species. Just the fact that species such as the Great White Shark have managed to live in the oceans for so many millions of years is enough proof of their efficiency and adaptability to changing environments. It is time for humans, who may not survive another 1000 years at the rate they are damaging the planet, to east away their fears and begin considering the protection of sharks as creatures that may provide us insight into our own survival.

单选题The author of the book hopes that by reading the book, the reader can______

单选题 It was a fixing sight: there, in the Capitol itself, a U.S. Senator often mocked for his halting, inarticulate speaking, reached deep into his Midwestern roots and spoke eloquently, even poetically, about who he was and what he believed, stunning politicians and journalists alike. I refer, of course, to Senator Jefferson Smith. In Frank Capra's classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Jimmy Stewart plays this simple, idealistic small-town American, mocked and scorned by the big-moneyed, oh-so-sophisticated power elite--only to triumph over a corrupt Establishment with his rock-solid goodness. At root, it is this role that soon-to-be-ex-Senator Bob Dole most aspires to play: the self effacing, quietly powerful small-town man from {{U}}Main Street{{/U}} who outwits the cosmopolitan, slick-talking snob from the {{U}}fleshpots{{/U}}. And why not? There is, after all, no more enduring American icon. How enduring? Before Americans had a Constitution, Thomas Jefferson was arguing that the new nation's future would depend on a base of agrarian yeomen free from the vices inherent in big cities. In 1840 one of the classic, image-driven presidential campaigns featured William Henry Harrison as the embodiment of rural virtues, the candidate of the log cabin and hard cider, defeating the incumbent Martin Van Buren, who was accused of dandified dress and manners. There is, of course, a huge disconnect between this professed love of the simple, unspoiled life and the way Americans actually live. As a people, Americans have spent the better part of the 20th century deserting the farms and the small towns for the cities and the suburbs; and are torn between vacationing in Disney World and Las Vegas. U.S. politicians too haven't exactly shunned the temptations of the cosmopolitan life. The town of Russell, Kansas, often seems to be Dole's running mate, but the candidate spends his leisure time in a luxury condominium in Bal Harbor, Florida. Bill Clinton still believes in a place called Hope, but the spiffy, celebrity-dense resorts of Martha's Vineyard and Jackson Hole are where he kicks back. Ronald Reagan embodied the faith-and-family pieties of the front porch and Main Street, but he fled Iowa for a career and a life in Hollywood. Still, the hunger for the way Americans believe they are supposed to live is strong, and the distrust of the intellectual hustler with his airs and his high-flown language runs deep. It makes sense for the Dole campaign to make this a contest between Dole as the laconic, quiet man whose words can be trusted and Bill Clinton as the traveling salesman with a line of smooth patter but a suitcase full of damaged goods. It makes sense for Dole to make his campaign song Thank God I'm a Country Boy--even if he is humming it 9,200 m up in a corporate jet on his way to a Florida condo.

单选题Many Americans regard the jury system as a concrete expression of crucial democratic values, including the principles that all citizens who meet minimal qualifications of age and literacy are equally competent to serve on juries; that jurors should be selected randomly from a representative cross section of the community; that no citizen should be denied the right to serve on a jury on account of race, religion, sex, or national origin; that defendants are entitled to trial by their peers; and that verdicts should represent the conscience of the community and not just the letter of the law. The jury is also said to be the best surviving example of direct rather than representative democracy. In a direct democracy, citizens take turns governing themselves, rather than electing representatives to govern for them. But as recently as in 1986, jury selection procedures conflicted with these democratic ideals. In some states, for example, jury duty was limited to persons of supposedly superior intelligence, education, and moral character. Although the Supreme Court of the United States had prohibited intentional racial discrimination in jury selection as early as the 1880 case of Strauder v. West Virginia, the practice of selecting so-called elite or blue-ribbon juries provided a convenient way around this and other antidiscrimination laws. The system also failed to regularly include women on juries until the mid-20th century. Although women first served on state juries in Utah in 1898, it was not until the 1940s that a majority of states made women eligible for jury duty. Even then several states automatically exempted women from jury duty unless they personally asked to have their names included on the jury list. This practice was justified by the claim that women were needed at home, and it kept juries unrepresentative of women through the 1960s. In 1968, the Congress of the United States passed the Jury Selection and Service Act, ushering in a new era of democratic reforms for the jury. This law abolished special educational requirements for federal jurors and required them to be selected at random from a cross section of the entire community. In the land-mark 1975 decision Taylor v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court extended the requirement that juries be representative of all parts of the community to the state level. The Taylor decision also declared sex discrimination in jury selection to be unconstitutional and ordered states to use the same procedures for selecting male and female jurors.

单选题Richard Holbrooke, who died at the age of 69 after suffering a ruptured aorta, was not the most universally beloved, but was certainly one of the ablest, 'the most admired and the most effective of American diplomats. He is one of the few of that profession in the past 40 years who can be compared with the giants of the "founding generation" of American hegemony, such as Dean Acheson and George Kennan. Holbrooke was tough as well as exceptionally bright. He was a loyal, liberal Democrat, but also a patriot who was prepared to be ruthless in what he saw as his nation's interest. To his friends, he was kind and charming, but he could be abrasive: no doubt that characteristic helped prevent him becoming Secretary of State on two occasions, under Bill Clinton and again when Barack Obama became president. He held almost every other important job in the international service of the US. He was ambassador to the United Nations, where he dealt with the vexed problem of America's debts to the organization, and to Germany. He was the only person in history to be assistant Secretary of State—the key level in routine diplomacy—in two regions of the world, Europe and Asia. He distinguished himself as an investment banker, a magazine editor, a charity executive and an author, but he will be remembered most of all for his success in negotiating an end to the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina at an Ohio airbase, and for his part in the American intervention in Kosovo. At the time of his death, he was Obama's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Holbrooke joined the Foreign Service, and in 1963 was sent as a civilian official to Vietnam, where he was one of a talented cohort of young men who were to become leaders in American diplomacy. Once back in Washington in 1966, Holbrooke worked for two years in the White House under Johnson, and then at the State Department, where he was a junior member of the delegation to the fruitless initial peace talks with North Vietnam in Paris. By 1972, Holbrooke was ready for a change. He became the first editor of the magazine Foreign Policy, created as a less stuffy competitor to the august Foreign Affairs. He also worked for Newsweek magazine. In 1976, he went to work for Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia, who was beginning his campaign for president and badly needed some foreign policy expertise. When Carter became president, in 1977, Holbrooke became his assistant Secretary of State for Asian affairs. (425 words)

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} "My own feelings went from disbelief to excitement to downright fear," says Carl Hergenrother, 23, an Arizona undergraduate who verified a large asteroid barreling toward Earth with a 230cm telescope atop nearby Kitt Peak. "It was scary, because there was the possibility that we were confirming the demise of some city somewhere, or some state or small country." Well, not quite. Early last week, his celestial interloper whizzed by Earth, missing the planet by 450620 km--a hairbreadth in astronomical terms. Perhaps half a kilometer across, it was the largest object ever observed to pass that close to Earth. Duncan Steel, an Australian astronomer, has calculated that if the asteroid had struck Earth, it would have hit at some 93460 km/h. The resulting explosion, scientists estimate, would have been in the 3000-to-12000-megaton range. That, says astronomer Eugene Shoemaker, a pioneer asteroid and comet hunter, "is like taking all of the U. S. and Soviet nuclear weapons, putting them in one pile and blowing them all up." And what if one them is found to be on a collision course with Earth? Scientists at the national laboratories at Livermore, California, and Los Alamos, New Mexico, have devised a number of ingenious plans that, given enough warning time, could protect Earth from a threatening NEO. Their defensive weapons of choice include long distance missiles with conventional or, more likely, nuclear warheads that could be used either to nudge an asteroid into a safe orbit or blast it to smithereens. Many people including some astronomers--are understandably nervous about putting a standby squadron of {{U}}nuclear tipped missiles{{/U}} in place. Hence the latest strategy, which in some cases would obviate the need for a nuclear defense: propelling a fusillade of {{U}}cannonball-size steel spheres{{/U}} at an approaching asteroid. In a high-velocity encounter with a speeding NEO, explains Gregory Canavan, a senior scientist at Los Alamos, "the kinetic energy of the balls, would change into heat energy and blow the thing apart." Some astronomers oppose any immediate defensive preparations, citing the high costs and low odds of a large object's striking Earth in the coming decades. But at the very least, Shoemaker contends, NEO detection should be accelerated. "There's this thing called the '{{U}}giggle factor{{/U}}' in Congress," he says. "people in Congress and also at the top level in NASA still don't take it seriously. But we should move ahead. It's a matter of prudence." The world, however, still seems largely unconcerned with the danger posed by large bodies hurtling in from space, despite the spectacle two years ago of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 riddling the planet Jupiter with mammoth explosions. It remains to be seen whether last week's record near-miss has changed any minds.

单选题There are a number of formats for reporting research, such as articles to appear in journals, reports addressed to funding agencies, theses or dissertations as part of the requirements for university degrees, and papers to be presented at conferences. These formats differ from one another mostly in their purposes and the audiences whom they address. We will now briefly describe them. The journal article is a way of reporting research for professional journals or edited collections. The research is reporting in a brief, yet informative way, focusing mostly on the main features of the research such as the purpose, review of the literature (often referred to as "background"), procedures used for carrying out the research accompanied by tables, charts, and graphs, and interpretations of the results (often referred to as discussion). The content and emphasis of the journal article will vary according to the intended readers (research or practitioners) and it is important for the researcher to be aware of the background and interest of the readers of the journal. Articles intended to be read by practitioners will emphasize the practical implications and recommendations of the research, while articles intended to be read by researchers will describe in detail the method used to collect data, the construction of data collection procedures, and the techniques used for analyzing the data It is important for the novice researcher to be aware of the fact that articles submitted to journals go through a process of evaluation by experts who make a judgment and recommend whether they should be published or not. The thesis or dissertation is a format for reporting research which graduate students write as part of fulfilling the requirements for an advanced academic degree. The student is expected to describe in great detail all the phases of the research so it can be examined and evaluated carefully by the reader. Thus the thesis or dissertation includes the purpose and significance of the study, the rationale, a thorough review of the literature, detailed information as to the research tools and the procedures involved in their development, a description of data analysis and the results, and an interpretation of the results in the form of conclusions, implications, and recommendation. This detailed description of the process of the research is needed to provide the professors with an indication of the student's ability to carry out research. The conference paper is a way of reporting research at conferences, seminars and colloquia. At such meetings research papers are usually presented orally. They are similar to the research article since research is reported in a concise, yet informative way, focusing on the most essential elements of the research. Handouts and transparencies can also accompany the presentations. As with the research article, here too, the content and emphasis of the oral report will depend to a large extent on the type of audience present at the meeting, and whether they are researchers or practitioners.

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} A key reason the news media exists with special privileges is to be our watchdogs. Reporters' charge is to alert us when something is wrong, when human or natural disasters are about to threaten our welfare. When it comes to natural disasters, the news media do a praisable job of reporting the obvious, but not a very good one of preparing the public for what might happen, for alerting us to potential difficulties. When it comes to human disasters, especially problems in government and economic matters, the press has failed miserably. For example, Time magazine finally told the public in a recent cover story what only the most quick observers already knew: "The Great Retirement Ripoff (偷窃): Millions of Americans who think they will retire with benefits are going be shocked. How corporations are picking people's pockets—with the help of Congress...How can this legal?" Where was the media when each piece of corporate-biased legislation was being passed? Why wasn't Congress afraid to pass such legislation? Because the media has decided that news concerning Congress is of little interest to its audience. TV news managers have believed that economic and social issues are too complicated for the public to grasp. Newspaper editors occasionally print such stories, but mostly they concentrate on human-interest features, consumer health sections and entertainment. Hard news holes are shrinking and investigative journalism is carried out only on occasion. It is too difficult and costly. Besides, it antagonizes advertisers while seldom increasing circulation. Magazines that would look into such subjects seem to be dying out. The result is that no one is watching the rich and powerful so they can do almost anything with impunity (不受惩罚). Millions of Americans have been robbed in broad daylight while the news media has busied itself with celebrity trials and sensational crime stories. Corporations steal the public blind under legislation authorized by government officials. Companies file for bankruptcy protection, cutting off medical and life-insurance benefits for retirees. It isn't a new phenomenon. For the most part, today's press has let down the American public time and time again. If it seems to be getting worse, it's because there are so many segments of the media that should be telling us, in an accurate and fair manner, what our elected officials are doing before it's too late to take action. It's harder to blame corporations because they make no bones about their mission: make as much money as possible at all costs. Those in Congress are supposed to protect us and look out for our interests. Yet, it appears they constantly help their powerful supporters who often buy their offices for them. No one is doing the right thing. The joke apparently is on all of us—the old and the sick who will have no help in the future and the young burdened with the debt of caring for their impoverished elders for the rest of their lives.

单选题 The federal entity created by the Constitution is by far the dominant feature of the American governmental system.{{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}the system itself is in reality a mosaic,{{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}}of thousands of smaller units--building blocks which together{{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}the whole. There are 50 state governments{{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}the government of the District of Columbia, and further down the ladder are still smaller units,{{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}counties, cities, towns and villages. This{{U}} {{U}} 6 {{/U}} {{/U}}of governmental units is best understood{{U}} {{U}} 7 {{/U}} {{/U}}the evolution of the United States. The federal system, it has been seen, was the last step in the{{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}process. Prior to its creation, there were the governments of the{{U}} {{U}} 9 {{/U}} {{/U}}colonies (later states) and prior to{{U}} {{U}} 10 {{/U}} {{/U}}, the governments of counties and smaller units. One of the first tasks (11) by the early English settlers was the creation of governmental units for the tiny{{U}} {{U}} 11 {{/U}} {{/U}}they established along the Atlantic coast. Even before the Pilgrims disembarked {{U}} {{U}} 12 {{/U}} {{/U}}their ship in 1620, they{{U}} {{U}} 13 {{/U}} {{/U}}the Mayflower Compact, the first written American constitution. And as the new nation pushed{{U}} {{U}} 14 {{/U}} {{/U}}each frontier outpost created its own government to manage its affairs. The drafters of the U. S. Constitution left this multilayered governmental system{{U}} {{U}} 15 {{/U}} {{/U}}. While they made the national structure supreme, they wisely{{U}} {{U}} 16 {{/U}} {{/U}}the need for a series of governments more directly in{{U}} {{U}} 17 {{/U}} {{/U}}with the people and more keenly attuned(合拍) to their needs. Thus, certain{{U}} {{U}} 18 {{/U}} {{/U}}such as defense, currency regulation and foreign relations--could only be managed by a strong centralized government. But{{U}} {{U}} 19 {{/U}} {{/U}}such as sanitation, education and local transportation--belong mainly to local jurisdictions(管辖权).