单选题Foreign financiers complaining about the legal wars they will launch to recover bad debts in Russia rarely mean much. The expense of a lawsuit (1) the satisfaction; the chances of getting any money are (2) . Yet Noga, a company owned by Nessim Gaon, a 78-year-old businessman (3) in Geneva, has been suing the Russian government since 1993, attempting to (4) Russian assets abroad. At Mr. Gaon's request, bailiffs last week very nearly (5) two of Russia's most advanced warplanes at the Paris air (6) . The organisers (7) off the Russian authorities, and the planes flew home, just (8) time. (9) near-misses include a sail-training ship, the Sedov, nuclear-waste shipments, and the president's plane. Mr. Gaon. whose previous business partners include regimes in Nigeria and Sudan, put an (10) clause in his original export deals: Russia must abandon its sovereign immunity. An arbitration court in Stockholm has found in his (11) , so far, to the (12) of $110 million, out of a total (13) of $420 million. Other courts (14) the world have let him have a (15) at any Russian assets (16) reach. The odd thing is (17) Russia. now awash with cash, does not simply pay up. Mr. Gaon says he was told at one point that a 10% (18) on the debt to someone high up in the finance ministry would solve things. (19) off Mr. Gaon costs much in legal fees. Not accepting international judgments sits ill with the current Kremlin line (20) the rule of law. Mr. Gaon says his next move will be to seize Russia's embassy in Paris.

单选题When I was a kid, I never knew what my parents—or anyone else's—did for a living. As far as 1 could tell, all grownups had mysterious jobs that involved drinking lots of coffee and arguing about Richard Nixon. If they had job-related stress, they kept it private. Now American families are expected to be more intimate. While this has resulted in a lot more hugs, "I love you's," and attendance at kids' football games, unfortunately we parents also insist on sharing the frustrations of our work lives. While we have complained about our jobs or fallen asleep in car-pool lines, our children have been noticing. They are worried about us. A new survey, "Ask the children, "conducted by the Families and Work Institute of New York City, queried more than 1, 000 kids between the ages of 8 and 18 about their parents' work lives. "If you were granted one wish to change the way your parents' work affected your life," the survey asked kids, "what would that wish be?" Most parents assumed that children would want more time with them, but only 10% did. Instead, the most common wish (among 34%) was that parents would be less stressed and tired by work. Allison Levin is the mother of three young children and a professional in the growing field of "work/life quality". Levin counsels employees who are overwhelmed by their work and family obligations to carefully review their commitments-not only at the office but at home and in the community too—and start paring them down. "It's not about getting up earlier in the morning so you can get more done," she says. "It's about saying no and making choices." We can start by leaving work, and thoughts of work, behind as soon as we start the trip home. Do something to get yourself in a good mood, like listening to music, rather than returning calls on the cell phone. When you get home, change out of your work clothes, let the answering machine take your calls, and stay away from e-mail. When your kids ask about your day, tell them about something good that happened. (In the survey, 69% of morns said they liked their work, but only 42% of kids thought their mothers really did.) Parents can also de-stress by cutting back on their children's activities. If keeping up with your kid's schedule is killing you, insist that he choose between karate lessons and the theater troupe. Parents should also sneak away from work and family occasionally to have some fun. I keep a basketball in the trunk of my can. I might never be able to fix everything at work or at home, but at least I can work on my jump shot.

单选题The opening paragraph is written in order to state

单选题 Here you are. Every morning, you reluctantly return to the same 6×6 cube. You grab a coffee, surf a news site, and chitchat with a peer. Then it's onto that attack of calls and e-malls coming your way. But the workload doesn't bother you. Staying busy saves you from something worse. And that something worse happens each month when the promotion announcements come out. You read what your peers have accomplished, here and elsewhere. Reflecting on what you did during that same time, you realize how far you've fallen behind. Sometimes you whisper, "That should've been me." Years ago, you marched into this cube dreaming of being a big shot. You didn't plan to stay here long; it was a place to learn the ropes and build your reputation. Early on, the higher-ups raved about your natural talent and upside. But those qualities only take you so far. Now, you hold a ceremonial "Senior" title. Your place is secure and you make a decent living. Still, you feel trapped and restless. You follow the same tired routines. And you wonder ff you've settled, if this is all there is and all you'll ever be. You once rived like you had all the time in the world. Then you lost track of it as years passed. Now, you feel its weight and passing more intimately, knowing how much you've wasted. We want to believe our careers will unfold logically. We see ourselves as special, possessing a manifest destiny to someday create, change, and lead. So we put our lives on hold and sacrifice for the greater good at work, certain our efforts will eventually be rewarded. We imagine climbing the proverbial ladder, not wandering through a maze. So what happened? You'd like to believe it was one moment-a major oversight or missed opportunity-that led you here. Deep inside, you know the truth. You wrote fists and plans, knowing you'd never put them into motion. You waited for something to happen to you.., and got left behind. Despite the grueling hours, you went through the motions, subconsciously knowing your path was welcome scenery and exercise. But led nowhere. In our personal narratives, we naturally make ourselves the heroes. We seek out villains and scapegoats to justify why our lives haven't panned out. Unfortunately, the truth is far less melodramatic. It is usually a series of evasions, bad habits, fears, colnpromises, and mentalities that have led us to this point. Sure, you can spend time reflecting on the past, questioning your path, and figuring out what's missing. But are you really being honest with yourself?

单选题The mental health movement in the United States began with a period of considerable enlightenment. Dorothea Dix was shocked to find the mentally ill in jails and almshouses and crusaded for the establishment of asylums in which people could receive humane care in hospital-like environments and treatment which might help restore them to sanity. By the mid-1800s 20 states had established asylums. But during the late 1800s and early 1900s, in the face of economic depression, legislatures were unable to appropriate sufficient funds for decent care. Asylums became overcrowded and prison-like. Additionally, patients were more resistant to treatment than the pioneers in the mental health field had anticipated, and security and restraint were needed to protect patients and others. Mental institutions became frightening and depressing places in which the fights of patients were all but forgotten. These conditions continued until after World War Ⅱ. At that time, new treatments were discovered for some major mental illnesses considered untreatable (penicillin for syphilis of the brain and insulin treatment for schizophrenia and depressions), and a succession of books, motion pictures, and newspapers called attention to the plight of the mentally ill. Improvements were made, and Dr. David Vail's Humane Practices Programme is a beacon for today. But changes were store in coming until the early 1960s. At that time, the Civil Rights Movement led lawyers to investigate America's prisons, which were disproportionately populated by blacks, and they in turn followed prisoners into the institutions that were worse than the hospitals for the criminally insane. The prisons were filled with angry young men who, encouraged by legal support, were quick to demand their fights. The hospitals for the criminally insane, by contrast, were populated with people who were considered "crazy" and who were often kept obediently in their place through the use of severe bodily restraints and large dose of major tranquillizers. The young cadre of public interest lawyers liked their role in the mental hospitals. The lawyers found a population that was both passive and easy to champion. These were, after all, people who, unlike criminals, had done nothing wrong. And in many states, they were being kept in horrendous institutions, an injustice, which, once exposed, was hound to shock the public and, particularly, the judicial conscience. Judicial interventions have had some definite positive effects, but there is growing awareness that courts cannot provide the standards and the review mechanisms that assure good patient care. The details of providing day-to-day care simply cannot be mandated by a court, so it is time to take from the courts the responsibility for delivery of mental heath care and assurance of patient fights and return it to the state mental health administrators to whom the mandate was originally given. Though it is a difficult task, administrators must undertake to write rules and standards and to provide the training and surveillance to assure that treatment is given and patient rights are respected.

单选题What the author mainly intends to say in the first paragraph is ______.

单选题It's obvious that humans are fundamentally different from other animal species. It's not so easy, though, to identify the traits that make human beings so special. Scientists realized long ago that other animals make tools, play jokes and even have a sense of justice and altruism—all things we once thought were unique to our species. Now a paper in the journal Current Biology has added another behavior to the list of what other animals share with us—and this one isn't quite so charming. After years of field observations in Uganda's Kibale National Park, John Mitani of the University of Michigan and several colleagues have concluded that chimps wage war to conquer new territory. "We already knew that chimps kill each other," says Mitani. "We've known this for a long time." What scientists didn't know for certain, at least in cases in which groups of chimps banded together to kill others, was why. One hypothesis, advanced more than a decade ago by anthropologist Richard Wrangham, was the idea of territorial conquest; circumstantial evidence from both Gombe and Mahale national parks in Tanzania bolstered the theory. In Mahale, for example, male members of one group mysteriously vanished, and another group then expanded into what had been their land. In Gombe, an existing group dissolved into civil war, resulting in killings and land takeovers. What's especially chilling about the observation is that the murder rate appears to be so high. The anthropologists couldn't be certain of how big a band the victims belonged to because they weren't used to a human presence and thus couldn't be accurately counted. But even a conservative estimate suggests that the death rate is significantly higher than you would see in war between human hunter-gatherer groups. Mitani isn't oblivious to the lesson some people might draw from the study. "Invariably, some will take this as evidence that the roots of aggression run very deep," he says, and therefore conclude that war is our evolutionary destiny. "Even if that were true," says Mitani, "we operate by a moral code that chimps don't have." Apart from that, he points out, the Pan troglodytes chimps he studies are one of two subspecies. The other is called Pan paniscus, also known as bonobos, and, says Mitani, "the latter, as far as we know, aren't nearly as aggressive with respect to intergroup relations. Yet they're equally close to us." That means that if we're wired for warfare, we're wired for peace too. Ultimately, the route we choose is still up to us.

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} Like all quintessentially British things, gardening is a pastime that has long been in decline. From a high point of ￡5 billion in 2001, spending on plants, tools and garden furniture has fallen every year since then, to around ~3 billion in 2008．The arrival of economic recession only deepened the gloom: to credit-crunched consumers, shrubs and hanging baskets seemed obvious candidates for cuts. Yet the latest figures from the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) suggest a bumper year for garden-related expenditure is in the making. Sales volumes were up by 21% in March and 28% in April compared with the same months a year earlier. This was not the result of deep discounting, a strategy that many other retailers have been adopting. The value of garden goods sold was 37% higher in March and 42% higher in April than a year earlier, whereas the value of all sales had increased by just 3% in April. Datamonitor, a market-research firm, reckons that gardening will continue to outperform the rest of retailing for at least the next two years. Much of the good news is due to the weather, admits Tim Briercliffe, the HTA's director of business development. Last year the vital spring months were damp and miserable; this year sunshine (and weathermen's prediction of a hot summer) has boosted custom. But the economic downturn itself has turned out to be as much a blessing as a curse. Gardening may be a luxury, argues Mr. Briercliffe, but it competes with other, more expensive luxuries. "People who might have otherwise booked a city break to Prague are staying at home and making the best of what they have," he maintains. According to Ipsos MORI, a pollster, three-quarters of people plan to spend at least as much on their garden this year as last. Economic hardship has created a new breed of gardener too. Partly, that reflects people making the most of their enforced leisure: "We get some unemployed city types who are just filling time while looking for another job," admits a garden-centre worker near the London commuter town of Guilford. But there are more positive developments. Much of the growth in garden spending has come from the under-35s, not traditionally a green-fingered demographic. One explanation is that environmentalism and thriftiness have made growing vegetables trendy, an idea that is supported by growing shortage of allotments. But there is more to it than pleasant weather and belt-tightening. The HTA detects deeper, and darker, changes in the national psyche. Citing research from the Future Foundation, a prognosticatory consultancy, it reckons that people are spending more time in their homes, fortifying them into havens from an unwelcoming world haunted by crime, bureaucracy and rising unemployment. The longer the downturn persists, the greener the grass may grow.

单选题The consequences of heavy drinking are well documented: failing health, broken marriages, regrettable late-night phone calls. But according to Gregory Luzaich's calculations, there can be a downside to modest drinking, too—though one that damages the wallet, not the liver. The Pek Wine Steward prevents wine from spoiling by injecting argon, an inert gas, into the bottle before sealing it airtight with silicon. Mr. Luzaich. a mechanical engineer in Windsor, Calif.—in the Sonoma County wine country—first tallied the costs of his reasonable consumption in October 2001. "I'd like to come home in the evening and have a glass of wine with dinner," he said. "My wife doesn't drink very much. so the bottle wouldn't get consumed. And maybe I would forget about it the next day, and I'd check back a day or two later, and the wine would be spoiled." That meant he was wasting most of a $15 to $20 bottle of wine. dozens of times a year. A cheek of the wine-preservation gadgets on the market left Mr. Luzaich dissatisfied High-end wine cabinets cost thousands of dollars—a huge investment for a glass-a-day drinker. Affordable preservers, meanwhile, didn't quite perform to Mr. Luzaich's liking; be thought they allowed too much oxidation, which degrades the taste of a wine. The solution, he decided, was a better gas. Many preservers pumped nitrogen into an opened bottle to slow a wine's decline, even though oenological literature suggested that argon was more effective. So when he began designing the Pek Wine Steward. a metal cone into which a wine bottle is inserted, Mr. Luzaich found that his main challenge was to figure out how best to introduce the argon. He spent months fine-tuning a gas injection system. "We used computational fluid dynamics to model the gas flow," Mr. Luzaich said. referring to a computer-analysis technique that measures how smoothly particles are flowing. The goal was to create an injector that could swap a bottle's oxygen atoms for argon atoms; argon is an inert gas, and thus unlikely to harm a nice Chianti. Mr. Luzaich, who had previously designed medical and telecommunications products, also worked on creating an airtight seal, to secure the bottle after the argon was injected. He experimented with several substances, from neoprene to a visco-elastic polymer (which he dismissed as "too gooey"), before settling on a food-grade silicon. To save wine, a bottle is placed inside the Pek Wine Steward, the top is closed, and a trigger is pulled for 5 to 10 seconds, depending on how much wine remains. When the trigger is released, the bottle is sealed automatically, preserving the wine for a week or more. the company says. "We wanted to make it very easy for the consumer," Mr. Luzaich said. "It's basically mindless." The device, which resembles a high-tech thermos, first became available to consumers in March 2004, and 8,000 to 10.000 have been sold, primarily through catalogs like those of The Wine Enthusiast and Hammacher Schlemmer The base model sells for $99; a deluxe model, which also includes a thermoelectric cooler, is $199

单选题{{B}}Part A{{/B}}{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} Read tile following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.{{B}}Text 1{{/B}} Nuclear weapons were first developed in the United States during the Second World War, to be used against Germany. However, by the time the first bombs were ready for use, the war with Germany had ended and, as a result, the decision was made to use the weapons against Japan instead. Hiroshima and Nagasaki have suffered the consequences of this decision to the present day. The real reasons why bombs were dropped on two heavily-populated cities are not altogether clear. A number of people in 1944 and early 1945 argued that the use of nuclear weapons would be unnecessary, since American Intelligence was aware that some of the most powerful and influential people in Japan had already realized that the war was lost, and wanted to negotiate a Japanese surrender. It was also argued that, since Japan has few natural resources, a blockade by the American navy would force it to surrender within a few weeks, and the use of nuclear weapons would thus prove unnecessary. If a demonstration of forcewas required to end the war, a bomb could be dropped over an unpopulated area like a deserr, in front of Japanese observers, or over an area of low population inside Japan, such as a forest. Opting for this course of action might minimize the loss of further lives on all sides, while the power of nuclear weapons would still be adequately demonstrated. All of these arguments were rejected, however, and the general consensus was that the quickest way to end the fighting would be to use nuclear weapons against canters of population inside Japan. In fact, two of the more likely reasons why this decision was reached seem quite shocking to us now. Since the beginning of the Second World War both Germany and Japan had adopted a policy of genocide (i. e. killing as many people as possible, including civilians). Later on, even the US and Britain had used the strategy of fire bombing cities (Dresden and Tokyo, for example) in order to kill, injure and intimidate as many civilians as possible. Certainly, the general public in the West had become used to hearing about the deaths of large numbers of people, so the deaths of another few thousand Japanese, who were the enemy in any case, would not seem particularly unacceptable—a bit of "justifiable" revenge for the Allies' own losses, perhaps. The second reason is not much easier to comprehend. Some of the leading scientists in the world had collaborated to develop nuclear weapons, and this development had resulted in a number of major advances in technology and scientific knowledge. As a result, a lot of nor-mal, intelligent people wanted to see nuclear weapons used; they wanted to see just how destructive this new invention could be. It no doubt turned out to be even more "effective" than they had imagined.

单选题Valentine's Day may come from the ancient Roman feast of Lupercalia. (1) the fierce wolves roamed nearby, the old Romans called (2) the god Lupercus to help them. A festival in his (3) was held on February 15th. On the eve of the festival the (4) of the girls were written on (5) of paper and placed in jars. Each young man (6) a slip. The girl whose name was (7) was to be his sweetheart for the year. Legend 88 it that the holiday became Valentine's Day (9) a Roman priest named Valentine. Emperor Claudius II (10) the Roman soldiers NOT to marry or become engaged. Claudius felt married soldiers would (11) stay home than fight. When Valentine (12) the Emperor and secretly married the young couples, he was put to death on February 14th, the (13) of Lupercalia. After his death, Valentine became a (14) . Christian priests moved the holiday from the 15th to the 14th—Valentine's Day. Now the holiday honors Valentine (15) of Lupercus. Valentine's Day has become a major (16) of love and romance in the modem world. The ancient god Cupid and his (17) into a lover's heart may still be used to (18) falling in love or being in love. But we also use cards and gifts, such as flowers or jewelry, to do this. (19) to give flower to a wife or sweetheart on Valentine's Day can sometimes be as (20) as forgetting a birthday or a wedding anniversary.

单选题That Microsoft's three tasks are colliding is reflected in the fact that______.

单选题The history of African—Americans during the past 400 years is traditionally narrated (1) an ongoing struggle against (2) and indifference on the part of the American mainstream, and a struggle (3) as an upward movement is (4) toward ever more justice and opportunity. Technology in and of (5) is not at fault; it's much too simple to say that gunpowder or agricultural machinery or fiber optics (6) been the enemy of an (7) group of people. A certain machine is put (8) work in a certain way—the purpose (9) which it was designed. The people who design the machines are not intent on unleashing chaos; they are usually trying to (10) a task more quickly, cleanly, or cheaply, (11) the imperative of innovation and efficiency that has ruled Western civilization (12) the Renaissance. Mastery of technology is second only (13) money as the true measure of accomplishment in this country, and it is very likely that by (14) this under-representation in the technological realm, and by not questioning and examining the folkways that have (15) it, blacks are allowing. (16) to be kept out of the mainstream once again. This time, however, they will be (17) from the greatest cash engine of the twenty-first century. Inner-city blacks in particular are in danger, and the beautiful suburbs (18) ring the decay of Hartford, shed the past and learn to exist without contemplating or encountering the tragedy of the inner city. And blacks must change as well. The ways that (19) their ancestors through captivity and coming to freedom have begun to loose their utility. If blacks (20) to survive as full participants in this society, they have to understand what works now.

单选题Tea drinking was common in China for nearly one thousand years before anyone in Europe had ever heard about tea. People in Britain were much slower in finding out what tea was like, mainly because tea was very expensive. It could not be bought in shops and even those people who could afford to have it sent from Holland did so only because it was a fashionable curiosity. Some of them were not sure how to use it. They thought it was a vegetable and tried cooking the leaves. Then they served them mixed with butter and salt. They soon discovered their mistake but many people used to spread the used tea leaves on bread and give them to their children as sandwiches. Tea remained scarce and very expensive in England until the ships of the East India Company began to bring it direct from China early in the seventeenth century. During the next few years so much tea came into the country that the price fell and many people could afford to buy it. At the same time people on the Continent were becoming more and more fond of tea. Until then tea had been drunk without milk in it, but one day a famous French lady named Madame de Sevigne decided to see what tea tasted like when milk was added. She found it so pleasant that she would never again drink it without milk, Because she was such a great lady, her friends thought they must copy everything she did, so they also drank their tea with milk in it. Slowly this habit spread until it reached England and today only very few Britons drink tea without milk. At frist, tea was usually drunk after dinner in the evening. No one ever thought of drinking tea in the afternoon until a duchess found that a cup of tea and a piece of cake at three or four o' clock stopped her getting "a sinking feeling" as she called it. She invited her friends to have this new meal with her and so, tea - time was born.

单选题It is often observed that the aged spend much time thinking and talking about their past lives, rather than about the future. These reminiscences are not simply random or trivial memories, (1) is their purpose merely to make conversation. The old person's recollections of the past help to (2) an identity that is becoming increasingly fragile: (3) any role that brings respect or any goal that might provide (4) to the future, the individual mentions their (5) as a reminder to listeners, that here was a life (6) living. (7) , the memories form part of a continuing life (8) , in which the old person (9) the events and experiences of the years gone by and (10) on the overall meaning of his or her own almost completed life. As the life cycle (11) to its close, the aged must also learn to accept the reality of their own impending death. (12) this task is made difficult by the fact that death is almost a (13) subject in the United States. The mere discussion of death is often regarded as (14) . As adults, many of us find the topic frightening and are (15) to think about it and certainly not to talk about it (16) the presence of someone who is dying. Death has achieved this taboo (17) only in the modern industrial societies. There seems to be an important reason for our reluctance to (18) the idea of death. It is the very fact that death remains (19) our control; it is almost the only of the natural processes (20) is so.

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} In 1880, Sir Joshua Waddilove, a Victorian philanthropist, founded Provident Financial to provide affordable loans to working-class families in and around Bradford, in northern England. This month his company, now one of Britain's leading providers of "home credit"— small, short-term, unsecured loans—began the nationwide rollout of Vanquis, a credit card aimed at people that mainstream lenders shun. The card offers up to ￡ 200 ($ 380) of credit, at a price: for the riskiest customers, the annual interest rate will be 69%. Provident says that the typical interest rate is closer to 50% and that it charges no fees for late payments or breaching credit limits. Still, that is triple the rate on regular credit cards and far above the 30% charged by store cards. And the Vanquis card is being launched just when Britain's politicians and media are full of worry about soaring consumer debt. Last month, a man took his own life after running up debts of ￡ 130000 on 22 different credit cards. Credit cards for "sub-prime" borrowers, as the industry delicately calls those with poor credit records, are new in Britain but have been common in America for a while. Lenders began issuing them when the prime market became saturated, prompting them to look for new sources of profit. Even in America, the sub-prime market has plenty of room for growth. David Robertson of the Nilson Report, a trade magazine, reckons that outstanding sub-prime credit-card debt accounts for only 3% of the $ 597 billion that Americans owe on plastic. The sub-prime sector grew by 7.9% last year, compared with only 2.6% for the industry as a whole. You might wonder, though, how companies can make money from lending to customers they know to be bad risks—or at any rate, how they can do it legitimately. Whereas delinquencies in the credit-card industry as a whole are around 4%-5% , those in the sub-prime market are almost twice as high, and can reach 15% in hard times. Obviously, issuers charge higher interest rates to compensate them for the higher risk of not being repaid. And all across the credit-card industry, the assessment and pricing of risks has been getting more and more refined, thanks largely to advances in technology and data processing. Companies also use sophisticated computer programs to track slower payment or other signs of increased risk. Sub-prime issuers pay as much attention to collecting debt as to managing risk; they impose extra charges, such as application fees; and they cap their potential losses by lending only small amounts ($ 500 is a typical credit limit). All this is easier to describe than to do, especially when the economy slows. After the bursting of the technology bubble in 2000, several sub-prime credit-card providers failed. Now there are only around 100, of which nine issue credit cards. Survivors such as Metris and Providian, two of the bigger sub-prime card companies, have become choosier about their customers' credit histories. As the economy recovered, so did lenders' fortunes. Fitch, a rating agency, says that the proportion of sub-prime credit-card borrowers who are more than 60 days in arrears (a good predictor of eventual default) is the lowest since November 2001. But with American interest rates rising again, some worry about another squeeze. As Fitch's Michael Dean points out, sub-prime borrowers tend to have not just higher-rate credit cards, but dearer auto loans and variable-rate mortgages as well. That makes a risky business even riskier.