单选题It is the world's fourth-most-important food crop, after maize, wheat and rice. It provides more calories, more quickly, using less land and in a wider range of climates than any Other plant. It is, of Course, the potato. The United Nations has declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato. It hopes that greater awareness of the merits of potatoes will contribute to the achievement of its Millennium Development Goals, by helping to alleviate poverty, improve food security and promote economic development. It is always the international year of this or month of that. But the potato's unusual history means it is well worth celebrating by readers of The Economist because the potato is intertwined with economic development, trade liberalisation and globalisation. Unlikely though it seems, the potato promoted economic development by underpinning the industrial revolution in England in the 19th century. It provided a cheap source of calories and was easy to cultivate, so it liberated workers from the land. Potatoes became popular in the north of England, as people there specialised in livestock farming and domestic industry, while farmers in the south (where the soil was more suitable ) concentrated on wheat production. By a happy accident, this concentrated industrial activity in the regions where coal was readily available, and a potato-driven population boom provided ample workers for the new factories. Friedrich Engels even declared that the potato was the equal of iron for its "historically revolutionary role". The potato promoted free trade by contributing to the abolition of Britain's Corn Laws-the cause which prompted the founding of The Economist in 1843. The Corn Laws restricted imports of grain into the United Kingdom in order to protect domestic wheat producers. Landowners supported the laws, since cheap imported grain would reduce their income, but industrialists opposed them because imports would drive down the cost of food, allowing people to spend more on manufactured goods. Ultimately it was not the eloquence of the arguments against the Corn Laws that led to their abolition-and more's the pity. It was the tragedy of the Irish potato famine of 1845, in which 1million Irish perished when the potato crop on which they subsisted succumbed to blight. The need to import grain to relieve the situation in Ireland forced the government, which was dominated by landowners who backed the Corn Laws, to reverse its position. This paved the way for liberalisation in other areas, and free trade became British policy. As the Duke of Wellington complained at the time, "rotten potatoes have done it all. " In the form of French fries, served alongside burgers and Coca-Cola, potatoes are now an icon of globalisation. This is quite a turnaround given the scepticism which first greeted them on their arrival in the Old World in the 16th century. Spuds were variously thought to cause leprosy, to be fit only for animals, to be associated with the devil or to be poisonous. They took hold in 18th century Europe only when war and famine meant there was nothing else to eat; people then realised just how versatile and reliable they were. As Adam Smith, one of the potato's many admirers, observed at the time, "The very general use which is made of potatoes in these kingdoms as food for man is a convincing proof that the prejudices of a nation, with regard to diet, however deeply rooted, are by no means unconquerable. " Mashed, fried, boiled and roast, a humble tuber changed the world, and free-trading globalisers everywhere should celebrate it.

单选题Culture is the sum total of all the traditions, customs, belief and ways of life of a given group of human beings. In this sense, every group has a culture, however savage, undeveloped, or uncivilized it may seem to us. To the professional anthropologist, there is no intrinsic superiority of one culture over another, just as to the professional linguist there is no intrinsic hierarchy among languages. People once thought of the languages of backward groups as savage, undeveloped form of speech, consisting largely of grunts and groans. While it is possible that language in general began as a series of grunts and groans, it is a fact established by the study of "backward" languages that no spoken tongue answers that description today. Most languages of uncivilized groups are, by our most severe standards, extremely complex, delicate, and ingenious pieces of machinery for the transfer of ideas. They fall behind the western languages not in their sound patterns or grammatical structures, which usually are fully adequate for all language needs, but only in their vocabularies, which reflect the objects and activities known to their speakers. Even in this department, however, two things are to he noted: 1. All languages seem to possess the machinery for vocabulary expansion; either by putting together words already in existence or by borrowing them from other languages and adapting them to their own system. 2. The objects and activities requiring names and distinctions in "backward" languages, while different from ours; are often surprisingly numerous and complicated. A western language distinguishes merely between two degrees of remoteness ("this" and "that"); some languages of the American Indians distinguish between what is close to the speaker, or the person addressed, or remote from both, or out of sight, or in the past, or in the future. This study of language, in turn, casts a new light upon the claim of the anthropologists that all cultures are to viewed independently, and without ideas of rank or hierarchy.

单选题The word "haywire" ( Line 5, Paragraph 3) most probably means

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1. Many people invest in the stock market hoping to find the next Microsoft and Dell. However, I know{{U}} (1) {{/U}}personal experience how difficult this really is. For more than a year, I waw{{U}} (2) {{/U}}hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars a day investing in the market. It seemed so easy, I dreamed of{{U}} (3) {{/U}}my job at the end of the year, of buying a small apartment in Paris, of traveling around the world. But these dreams{{U}} (4) {{/U}}to a sudden and dramatic end when a stock I{{U}} (5) {{/U}}, Texas cellular pone wholesaler, fell by more than 75 percent{{U}} (6) {{/U}}a one year period. On the{{U}} (7) {{/U}}day, it plunged by more than $ 15 a share. There was a rumor the company was{{U}} (8) {{/U}}sales figures. That was when I leamed how quickly Wall street{{U}} (9) {{/U}}companies that misrepresent the{{U}} (10) {{/U}}. In a{{U}} (11) {{/U}}, I sold all my stock in the company, paying{{U}} (12) {{/U}}margin debt with cash advances from my{{U}} (13) {{/U}}card. Because I owned so many shares, I{{U}} (14) {{/U}}a small fortune, half of it from money I borrowed from the brokerage company. One month, I am a{{U}} (15) {{/U}}, the next, a loser. This one big loss was my first lesson in the market. My father was a stockbroker, as way my grandfather{{U}} (16) {{/U}}him. (In fact, he founded one of Chicago's earliest brokerage firms. ) But like so many things in life, we don't learn anything until we{{U}} (17) {{/U}}it for ourselves. The only way to really understand the inner{{U}} (18) {{/U}}of the stock market is to invest your own hard-earned money. When all your stocks are doing{{U}} (19) {{/U}}and you feel like a winner, you learn very little. It's when all your stocks are losing and everyone is questioning your stock-picking{{U}} (20) {{/U}}that you find out if you have what it takes to invest in the market.

单选题By the mid-sixties, blue jeans were an essential part of the wardrobe of those with a commitment to social struggle. In the American Deep South, black farmers and grandchildren of slaves still segregated from whites, continued to wear jeans in their mid-nineteenth-century sense; but now they were joined by college students-black and white-in a battle to overturn deeply embedded race hatred. The clothes of the workers became a sacred bond between them. The clothing of toil came to signify the dignity of struggle. In the student rebellion and the antiwar movement that followed, blue jeans and work shirts provided a contrast to the uniforms of the dominant culture. Jeans were the opposite of high fashion, the opposite of the suit or military uniform. With the rise of the women's movement in the late 1960s, the political significance of dress became increasingly explicit; Rejecting orthodox sex roles, blue jeans were a woman's weapon against uncomfortable popular fashions and the view that women should be passive. This was the cloth of action; the cloth of labor became the badge of freedom. If blue jeans were for rebels in the 1960s and early 1970s, by the 1980s they had become a foundation of fashion-available in a variety of colors, textures, fabrics, and fit. These simple pants have made the long journey "from workers' clothes to cultural revolt to status symbol." On television, in magazine advertising, on the sides of buildings and buses, jeans call out to us. Their humble past is obscured; practical roots arc incorporated into a new aesthetic. Jeans are now the universal symbol of the individual and Western democracy. They are the costume of liberated women, with a fit tight enough to restrict like the harness of old-but with the look of freedom and motion. In blue jeans, fashion reveals itself as a complex world of history and change. Yet looking at fashions, in and of themselves, reveals situations that often defy understanding. Our ability to understand a specific fashion-the current one of jeans, for example-shows us that as we try to make sense of it, our confusion intensifies. It is a fashion whose very essence is contradiction and confusion. To pursue the goal of understanding is to move beyond the actual cloth itself, toward the more general phenomenon of fashion and the world in which it has risen to importance. Exploring the role of fashion within the social and political history of industrial America helps to reveal the parameters and possibilities of American society. The ultimate question is whether the development of images of rebellion into mass-produced fashions has actually resulted in social change.

单选题Current Group, a Germantown-based technology firm, has taken over an ordinary looking house in Bethesda and turned it into a laboratory for smart-grid technology, the system the company believes will bring the nation"s electricity grids into the digital age. In the front yard stands a utility pole hooked up to a special transformer that connects the power lines to high-speed Internet. Hundreds of sensors attached to the lines monitor how power flows through the home. That information is then sent back to the utility company. The process lets a utility more efficiently manage the distribution of electricity by allowing two-way communication between consumers and energy suppliers via the broadband network on the power lines. Based on data they receive from hundreds of homes, utilities can monitor usage and adjust output and pricing response to demand. Consumers can be rewarded with reduced rates by cutting back on consumption during peak periods. And computerized substations can talk to each other so overloaded circuits hand off electricity to those that axe not fully loaded, helping to prevent blackouts. Some utility companies have launched initiatives to give consumers data about their energy consumption habits in an effort to lower energy bills. Smart-grid technology takes such programs further by automating electricity distribution, which would make grids more reliable and efficient. By partnering with utilities, the company hopes to tap into $4.5 billion in stimulus grants intended to encourage smart-grid development. When he announced the funding, President Obama pointed to a project in Boulder, Colo., as an example of a successful smart-grid experiment. Current is one of the companies working on the project. Current"s chief executive Tom Casey believes the technology will help utility companies better distribute electricity produced by renewable resources, such as solar panels or wind farms. "A smart grid"s system can be paired up with the renewable resources so that when the renewable source is varying, the overall load can be varied as well," Casey told the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. "This will reduce or eliminate the need for backup coal or gas based power generation plants."

单选题According to the passage, Niall FitzGerald

单选题What can be inferred from the sentence "it’s the account holder who may get burned" ( Line 2, Paragraph 1 ) ?

单选题Nell Barrett's remarks are quoted to show______.

单选题Go Ask Alice as mentioned in the passage is______.

单选题What's the world's greatest moral challenge, as judged by its capacity to inflict human tragedy? It is not, I think, global warming, whose effects—if they become as grim as predicted—will occur over many years and provide societies time to adapt. A case can be made for preventing nuclear proliferation, which threatens untold deaths and a collapse of the world economy. But the most urgent present moral challenge, I submit, is the most obvious: global poverty. The solution to being poor is getting rich. It's economic growth. We know this. The mystery is why all societies have not adopted the obvious remedies. Just recently, the 21-member Commission on Growth and Development examined the puzzle. Since 1950, the panel found, 13 economies have grown at an average annual rate of 7 percent for at least 25 years. The panel identified five common elements of success: Openness to global trade and, usually, an eagerness to attract foreign investment; political stability and "capable" governments "committed" to economic growth; high rates of saving and investment, usually at least 25 percent of national income; economic stability, keeping government budgets and inflation under control and avoiding a broad collapse in production; a willingness to "let markets allocate resources," meaning that governments didn't try to run industry. Of course, qualifications abound, still, broad lessons are clear. Globalization works. Countries don't get rich by staying isolated. Those that embrace trade and foreign investment acquire know-how and technologies, can buy advanced products abroad, and are forced to improve their competitiveness. The transmission of new ideas and products is faster than ever. There is a role for foreign aid, technical assistance and charity in relieving global poverty. But it is a small role. It can improve health, alleviate suffering from natural disasters or wars, and provide some types of skills. But it cannot single: handedly stimulate the policies and habits that foster self-sustaining growth. Japan and China have grown rapidly not because they received foreign aid but because they pursued pro-growth policies and embraced pro-growth values. The hard question is why all societies haven't adopted them. One reason is politics; some regimes are more interested in preserving their power and privileges than in promoting growth. But the larger answer, I think, is culture, as Lawrence Harrison of Tufts University argues. Traditional values, social systems or religious views are often hostile to risk-taking, wealth accumulation and economic growth. In his latest book, Harrison contends that politics can alter culture, hut it isn't easy. Globalization has moral as well as economic and political dimensions. The United States and other wealthy countries are experiencing an anti-globalization backlash. Americans and others are entitled to defend themselves from economic harm, but many of the allegations against globalization are wildly exaggerated. By making globalization an all-purpose scapegoat for economic complaints, many "progressives" are actually undermining the most powerful force for eradicating global poverty.

单选题The scarcity of TV selection according to the text