单选题Back in the .16th century, political plays were all about men. Not now. For some time, American female playwrights have followed the (1) of Wendy Wasserstein, a 50-year-old Brooklyn-born dramatist, whose work has focused (2) family drama and personal (3) . Overtly political plays were considered (4) and unfashionable. But this is no longer so often the (5) . A new generation of female playwrights (6) tackling such subjects (7) racism, rape and apartheid. The quality of these plays has varied (8) . The best (9) their subjects with nuance and subtlety, while it is the more controversial pr6ductions (10) fall flat. With topical issues now the stuff 0fshallow, made-for-television movies, audiences are looking to the theatre for something more (11) . Rebecca Gilman's previous play, "Spinning into Butter", dealt with white racism in academia; her current drama, "Boy Gets Girl", gives a feminist take on male searching and objeetificati6n of women. Kia Corthron has three plays, including "Force Continuum", (12) with racial issues (13) or coming to the New York stage this year. But perhaps the most (14) recent play on political themes to (15) is "The Syringa Tree", a one-woman show about segregation in South Africa in the 1960s, written and (16) by Pamela Glen. (17) the play had trouble (18) an audience when it (19) in September last year, critical acclaim and persistent word-of-mouth followed, gradually (20) to make "The Syringa Tree" one of the city's most popular offerings.

单选题In the early 1960s Wilt Chamberlain was one of only three players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) listed at over seven feet. If he had played last season, however, he would have been one of 42. The bodies playing major professional sports have changed dramatically over the years, and managers have been more than willing to adjust team uniforms to fit the growing numbers of bigger, longer frames. The trend in sports, though, may be obscuring an unrecognized reality: Americans have generally stopped growing. Though typically about two inches taller now than 140 years ago, today"s people—especially those born to families who have lived in the U.S. for many generations—apparently reached their limit in the early 1960s. And they aren"t likely to get any taller. "In the general population today, at this genetic, environmental level, we"ve pretty much gone as far as we can go," says anthropologist William Cameron Chumlea of Wright State University. In the case of NBA players, their increase in height appears to result from the increasingly common practice of recruiting players from all over the world. Growth, which rarely continues beyond the age of 20, demands calories and nutrients—notably, protein—to feed expanding tissues. At the start of the 20th century, under-nutrition and childhood infections got in the way. But as diet and health improved, children and adolescents have, on average, increased in height by about an inch and a half every 20 years, a pattern known as the secular trend in height. Yet according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, average height—5"9" for men, 5"4" for women—hasn"t really changed since 1960. Genetically speaking, there are advantages to avoiding substantial height. During childbirth, larger babies have more difficulty passing through the birth canal. Moreover, even though humans have been upright for millions of years, our feet and back continue to struggle with bipedal posture and cannot easily withstand repeated strain imposed by oversize limbs. "There are some real constraints that are set by the genetic architecture of the individual organism," says anthropologist William Leonard of Northwestern University. Genetic maximums can change, but don"t expect this to happen soon. Claire C. Gordon, senior anthropologist at the Army Research Center in Natick, Mass, ensures that 90 percent of the uniforms and workstations fit recruits without alteration. She says that, unlike those for basketball, the length of military uniforms has not changed for some time. And if you need to predict human height in the near future to design a piece of equipment, Gordon says that by and large, "you could use today"s data and feel fairly confident."

单选题The "reconfiguration plan'(Par

单选题Which of the following can best conclude the main idea of the passage?

单选题European leaders primarily fear that

单选题The apprenticeship can bring Gemma Magson many benefits NOT because it

单选题What's the position of the head of human resources management in American companies?

单选题 Even plants can run a fever, especially when they are under attack by insects or disease. But{{U}} (1) {{/U}}humans, plants can have their temperature{{U}} (2) {{/U}}from 3,000 feet away—straight up. A decade ago,{{U}} (3) {{/U}}the infrared scanning technology developed for military purpose and other satellites, physicist Stephen Paley{{U}} (4) {{/U}}a quick way to take the temperature of crops to determine{{U}} (5) {{/U}}ones are under stress. The goal was to let farmer{{U}} (6) {{/U}}target pesticide spraying{{U}} (7) {{/U}}rain poison on a whole field, which{{U}} (8) {{/U}}include plants that don't have the pest problem. Even better, Paley's Remote Scanning Services Company could detect crop problem before they became{{U}} (9) {{/U}}to the eye. Mounted on a plane flown at 3,000 feet{{U}} (10) {{/U}}, an infrared scanner measured the heat emitted by crops. The data were{{U}} (11) {{/U}}into a color-coded map showing{{U}} (12) {{/U}}plants were running "fevers". Farmers could then spot spray, using 50 to 70 percent less pesticide than they{{U}} (13) {{/U}}would. The bad news is that Paley's company closed down in 1984, after only three years. Farmers{{U}} (14) {{/U}}the new technology and long-term backers were hard{{U}} (15) {{/U}}. But with the renewed concern about pesticides on produce, and refinements in infrared scanning, Paley hopes to{{U}} (16) {{/U}}into operation. Agriculture experts have no doubt about the technology works. "This technique can be used{{U}} (17) {{/U}}75 percent of agricultural land in the United States," says George Oerther of Texas A＆M. Ray Jackson, who recently retired from the Department of Agriculture, thinks{{U}} (18) {{/U}}infrared crop scanning could be adopted by the end of the decade. But{{U}} (19) {{/U}}Paley finds the financial backing{{U}} (20) {{/U}}he failed to obtain 10 years ago.

单选题From the last paragraph, we know that

单选题The basic reason for the mistake Washington has committed is that

单选题{{B}}Part A{{/B}}{{B}}Directions: {{/B}}Read the 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}} About three-quarters of Americans, according to surveys, think the country is on the wrong track. About two-thirds of the public disapprove of the job performance of President Bush, and an even higher number disdain Congress. The media are excited about the prospect of a wealthy businessman running for President as an independent who could tap into broad public disgruntlement with the partisan politicians in Washington. 2007? Yes. But also 1992, The main difference between the two situations is that Michael Bloomberg is richer—and saner—than Ross Perot. But one similarity might be this: the American people were wrong then and may be wrong now. The widespread pessimism in the early 1990s about the course of the country turned out to be unwarranted. The rest of the decade featured impressive economic growth, a falling crime rate, successful reform of the welfare system and a reasonably peaceful world. Perhaps the problems weren't so bad in the first place, or perhaps the political system produced politicians, like Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich, who were able to deal with the problems. But, in any case, the country got back on course. That's not to say all was well in the 1990s, especially in foreign policy. Responsibilities in places ranging from Bosnia to Rwanda to Afghanistan were shirked, and gathering dangers weren't dealt with. Still, the sour complaints and dire predictions of 1992—oh, my God, the budget deficit will do us in! —were quickly overtaken by events. What's more, the fear of many conservatives that we might be at the mercy of unstoppable forces of social disintegration turned out to be wrong. Indeed, the dire predictions were rendered obsolete so quickly that one wonders whether we were, in 1992, really just indulging in some kind of post-cold-war victory. Sometimes the public mood is ... well, moody. Today we're moody again. We are obviously fighting a difficult and, until recently, badly managed war in Iraq, whose outcome is uncertain. This accounts for much of the pessimism. It also doesn't help that the political system seems incapable of dealing with big problems like immigration, an energy policy and health care. Still, is the general feeling that everything is going to the dogs any more justified today than it was 15 years ago? Not really. Think of it this way: Have events in general gone better or worse than most people would have predicted on Sept. 12, 20017 There's been no successful second attack here in the U. S. —and very limited terrorist successes in Europe or even in the Middle East. We've had 5 1/2 years of robust economic growth, low unemployment and a stock-market recovery. Social indicators in the U. S. are mostly stable or improving—abortions, teenage births and teenage drug use are down and education scores are up a bit. As for American foreign policy since 9/11, it has not produced the results some of us hoped for, and there are many legitimate criticisms of the Bush Administration's performance. But, in fact, despite the gloom and doom from critics left and right (including, occasionally, me), the world seems to present the usual mixed bag of difficult problems and heartening developments. The key question, of course, is the fate of Iraq. A decent outcome—the defeat of alQaeda in what it has made the central front in the war on terrorism and enough security so there can be peaceful rule by a representative regime—seems to me achievable, if we don't lose our nerve here at home. With success in Iraq, progress elsewhere in the Middle East will be easier. The balance sheet is uncertain. But it is by no means necessarily grim.

单选题Being good-looking is useful in so many ways. In addition to whatever personal pleasure it gives you, being attractive also helps you earn more money, f"amd a higher-earning spouse and get better deals on mortgages . Each of these facts has been demonstrated over the past 20 years by many economists and other researchers, The effects are not small: one study showed that an American worker who was among the bottom one-seventh in looks, as assessed by randomly chosen observers, earned 10 to 15 percent less per year than a similar worker whose looks were assessed in the top one-third — a lifetime difference, in a typical case, of about $ 230, 000. Most of us, regardless of our professed attitudes, prefer as customers to buy from better-looking salespeople, as jurors to listen to better-looking attorneys , as voters to be led by better-looking politicians, as students to learn from better-looking professors. This is not a matter of evil employers" refusing to hire the ugly: in our roles as workers, customers and potential lovers we are all responsible for these effects. How could we remedy this injustice? A radical solution may be needed: why not offer legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial , ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals? We actually already do offer such protections in a few places, including in some jurisdictions in California, and in the District of Columbia, where discriminatory treatment based on looks in hiring, promotions, housing and other areas is prohibited. The mechanics of legislating this kind of protection are not as difficult as you might think. Ugliness could be protected generally in the United States by small extensions of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Ugly people could be allowed to seek help from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other agencies in overcoming the effects of discrimination. You might argue that people can"t be classified by their looks — that beauty is in the eye of the beholder . In one study, more than half of a group of people were assessed identically by each of two observers using a five-point scale ; and very few assessments differed by more than one point. There are possible other objections. "Ugliness" is not a personal trait that many people choose to embrace; those whom we classify as protected might not be willing to admit that they are ugly. But with the chance of obtaining extra pay and promotions amounting to $ 230, 000 in lost lifetime earnings, there"s a large enough incentive to do so . Bringing antidiscrimination lawsuits is also costly, and few potential plaintiffs could afford to do so. But many attorneys would be willing to organize classes of plaintiffs to overcome these costs, just as they now do in racial-discrimination and other lawsuits. Economic arguments for protecting the ugly are as strong as those for protecting some groups currently covered by legislation. So why not go ahead and expand protection to the looks-challenged? There"s one legitimate concern. With increasingly tight limits on government resources, expanding rights to yet another protected group would reduce protection for groups that have commanded our legislative and other attention for over 50 years. You might reasonably disagree and argue for protecting all deserving groups. Either way, you shouldn"t be surprised to see the United States heading toward this new legal frontier.

单选题From the text we can conclude that the robot race

单选题At 18, Ashanthi DeSilva of suburban Cleveland is a living symbol of one of the great intellectual achievements of the 20th century. Born with an extremely rare and usually fatal disorder that left her without a functioning immune system (the "bubble-boy disease", named after an earlier victim who was kept alive for years in a sterile plastic tent), she was treated beginning in 1990 with a revolutionary new therapy that sought to correct the defect at its very source, in the genes of her white blood cells. It worked. Although her last .gene-therapy treatment was in 1992, she is completely healthy with normal immune function, according to one of the doctors who treated her, W. French Anderson of the University of Southern California. Researchers have long dreamed of treating diseases from hemophilia to cancer by replacing mutant genes with normal ones. And the dreaming may continue for decades more. "There will be a gene-based treatment for essentially every disease, " Anderson says, "within 50 years. " It's not entirely clear why medicine has been so slow to build on Anderson's early success. The National Institutes of Health budget office estimates it will spend $432 million on gene-therapy research in 2005, and there is no shortage of promising leads. The therapeutic genes are usually delivered through viruses that don't cause human disease. "The virus is sort of like a Trojan horse," says Ronald Crystal of New York Presbyterian/Weill Comell Medical College. "The cargo is the gene." At the University of Pennsylvania's Abramson Cancer Center, immunologist Carl June recently treated HIV patients with a gene intended to help their cells resist the infection. At Comell University, researchers are pursuing gene-based therapies for Parkinson's disease and a rare hereditary disorder that destroys children's brain cells. At Stanford University and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, researchers are trying to figure out how to help patients with hemophilia who today must inject themselves with expensive clotting drugs for life. Animal experiments have shown great promise. But somehow, things get lost in the translation from laboratory to patient. In human trials of the hemophilia treatment, patients show a response at first, but it fades over time. And the field has still not recovered from the setback it suffered in 1999, when Jesse Gelsinger, an 18-year-old with a rare metabolic disorder, died after receiving an experimental gene therapy at the University of Pennsylvania. Some experts worry that the field will be tarnished further if the next people to benefit are not patients but athletes seeking an edge. This summer, researchers at the Sulk Institute in San Diego said they had created a "marathon mouse" by implanting a gene that enhances running ability; already, officials at the World Anti-Doping Agency are preparing to test athletes for signs of "gene doping". But the principle is the same, whether you're trying to help a healthy runner run faster or allow a muscular-dystrophy patient to walk. "Everybody recognizes that gene therapy is a very good idea," says Crystal. "And eventually it's going to work".

单选题 The oceans are the main source of humidity, but plants also pour moisture into the air. In one day, a five - acre forest can release 20, 000 gallons of water, enough to fill an average swimming, pool. A dryer extracts moisture from wet clothes, adding to humidity. Even breathing contributes to this sticky business. Every time we exhale, we expel nearly one pint of moist air into the atmosphere. Using sophisticated measuring devices, science is learning more and more about the far - reaching and often surprising impact humidity has on all of us. Two summers ago angry callers phoned American Television and Communications Corp. ' s cable - TV operation in northeastern Wisconsin, complaining about fuzzy pictures and poor reception. "What happened," said the chief engineer, "was that the humidity was interfering with our signals. "When a blast of dry air invaded the state, the number of complaints dropped sharply. Humidity plays hob with our mechanical world as well. Water condensation on the playing beads and tapes of videocassette recorders produces a streaky picture. Humidity shortens the life of flashlight and smoke - detector batteries. When the weather gets sticky, the rubber belts that power the fan, air conditioner and alternator under the hood of our cars can get wet and squeak. Moisture also causes pianos to go out of tune, often in no time flat. At the Wolf Trap Farm Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Va. , pianos are tuned twice a day during the summer concert season. Often a tuner stands in the wings, ready to make emergency adjustments during performances. Humidity speeds the deterioration of treasured family photos and warps priceless antiques. Your home' s wooden support beams, doors and window framers absorb extra moisture and expand - swelling up to three percent depending on the wood, its grain and the setting. Too much moisture promotes blight that attacks potato and green - bean crops--adding to food costs. It also causes rust in wheat, which can affect grain- product prices. Humidity affects our health, as well. We get more migraine headaches, ulcer attacks, blood clots and skin rashes in hot, humid weather. Since 1987, the Health, Weight and Stress Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore has tested over 1700 patients for responses to high humidity. They have reported increased dizziness, stomachaches, chest pains, cramps, and visual disturbances such as double and blurred vision.