填空题Today there is widespread agreement that multinational corporations will have an important effect on international relations and world economy. But there is little agreement on exactly what that effect will be. There are two groups of those who see them as benevolent and those who see them as evil. Among those who see multinational corporations as benevolent, many emphasize their importance in helping reduce the gap between rich countries and poor ones. These business giants are referred to as "engines of development", because it is claimed that they do more to improve the economic life in less developed countries than all governmental foreign aid programs have ever done. By setting up factories abroad, they provide jobs; by equipping these factories with the latest machines and equipment, they make available the most modern technology. (41) . Multinational corporations today do not need their countries to provide military force to open foreign countries to their investment, products and sales. In fact, they do better on their own. It may have been necessary in the mid-nineteen century for Admiral Perry to threaten the Japanese with naval bombardment if they did not allow western countries to trade with them. Such threats would make no sense today. (42) . The decision of the Nixon administration to improve relations with China was more profitable to them. The leaders of multinational corporations see patriotism as old-fashioned, the nation-state obsolete, and war in pursuit of national glory downright foolish. They believe that the multinational corporation is "a modern concept evolved to meet the requirements of modern age", while the nation-state is "still rooted in archaic concepts unsympathetic to the need of our complex world". (43) "I think," an official of General Electric once said, "getting General Electric into China and the Soviet Union is the biggest thing we can do for world peace." These proponents of the multinational corporations come by and large from the business world. There are however, many critics among academic students of multinational corporations who regard them as a sinister force. They have produced detailed studies to prove that the benefits of multinational corporations are mostly illusory. To the claim that multinational corporations provide jobs, they point out that this is at the cost of jobs in other countries. To the claim that multinational corporations transfer technology, they reply: a) often the equipment shipped overseas is out of date: b) their technology is often unsuitable for many of the less developed countries where labor is plentiful and therefore cheap. (44) . Therefore, they maintain that instead of being the "engines of development", the multinational corporations are actually "engines of impoverishment". These critics do not deny that consumption of the products of these corporations has risen in countries around the world. (45) . Therefore, although these corporations may breakdown national frontiers they strengthen class distinctions, widening the gap between the rich and the poor, creating greater social injustice and instability. A. The long, expensive American war in Viet Nam did not bring new opportunities in Southeast Asia for the multinational corporations. B. The fact that both American teenagers and Mexican peasants are drinking Coca Cola does not mean that the life of the Mexican peasants is getting better due to the multinational corporations. C. They therefore characterize themselves as hard-headed people who are helping to bring about a more co-operative system or world order by breaking down national, geographical, political, economic and ideological barriers. D. One study actually showed that multinational corporations do not invest capital from wealthy countries, but prefer to finance their operations from the local economy. In other words, they are simply transferring wealth from poorer countries to richer ones. E. According to these critics, states will soon realize that they have lost their control over issues such as taxation, employment and even the stability of their own currency. F. But they point out that this so-called "Global Shopping Center" is available only to a very small portion of the local population. G. Because goods are now produced within the less developed countries, there is less need for them to import from abroad, and their balance of payments will improve.

填空题[A] The Need for Science [B] The Methods of Science [C] The Challenge of Unsolved Problems [D] The Specific Features of the Laws of Science [E] The Steps in Establishing a Scientific Theory [F] The Rapid Increase of Scientific Knowledge It is the business of the scientist to accumulate knowledge about the universe and all that is in it, and to find, if he is able, common factors which underlie and account for the facts that he knows. He chooses, when he can, the method of the "controlled experiment". 41. ______ In the course of his inquiries the scientist may find what he thinks is one common explanation for an increasing number of facts. The explanation, if it seems consistently to fit the various facts, is called a hypothesis. If a hypothesis continues to stand the test of numerous experiments and remains unshaken, it becomes a law. 42. ______ The "laws" of science differ from the "laws" of a country in two ways. First, a scientific law is liable at any time to need modifying. This happens when a fact is discovered which seems to contradict what the "law" would lead one to expect. The "law" may, in fact, have to be abandoned altogether. Second, a scientific "law" says, "This is likely to be the explanation", or "This accounts for the facts as far as we know them". But the "law" of the country says, "You must... " or "You must not... " The scientific "law" has no moral force; it is not binding on human behavior nor approved or opposed by human conscience. 43. ______ The evidence as to the vastness of the universe and the complexity of its arrangements continues to grow at an amazing rate. The gap between what we know and all that can he known seems not to diminish, but rather to increase with every new discovery. Fresh unexplored regions are forever opening out. The rapidity of the growth of scientific knowledge, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is apt to give students and teachers the impression that no sooner is a problem stated than the answer is forthcoming. A more detailed study of the history of science corrects the impression that fundamental discoveries are made with dramatic suddenness. Even in our present age no less than fifty years separate the discovery of radioactivity from the explosion of the first atomic bomb. The teacher, giving his brief accounts of scientific discovery, is apt to forget the long periods of misunderstanding, of false hypotheses and general uncertainty, which almost invariably precede the clear statement of scientific truth. 44. ______ The vast mass of information which scientists have gained has provided the answer to the fundamental questions which, through the centuries, have puzzled and sometimes tortured the human mind. There are many such questions. The study of parasites has provided evidence that organisms which could be self-supporting have become parasites, but hardly any light has been shed on the problem of why they should have done so. What enables an organism to respond to the poisonous secretions of harmful bacteria and organize its resources to defend its life? 45. ______ To raise the standard of living in any country, two things are required, scientific knowledge, and a population sufficiently educated to understand how to apply it. Without the latter, the expected benefits will not come.

填空题 [A] Preserving cultural identity can be achieved in different way.[B] Ritual and ceremony are used in order to keep their own cultural identification.[C] Ritual and ceremony should not be regarded as a only way of keeping cultural identification, for they have other function.[D] Different cultures mainly use superstition to keep identification.[E] Ritual and ceremony have a closer relation with superstition.[F] In American ritual and ceremony can show their subcultures identity. The speaker asserts that rituals and ceremonies are needed for any culture or group of people to retain a strong sense of identity. I agree that one purpose of ritual and ceremony is to preserve cultural identity, at least in modern times. However, this is not their sole purpose; nor are ritual and ceremony the only means of preserving cultural identity. 41.______ I agree with the speaker insofar as one purpose of ritual and ceremony in today's world is to preserve cultural identity. Native American tribes, for example, cling tenaciously to their traditional ceremonies and rituals, which typically tell a story about 'tribal heritage. The reason for maintaining these rituals and customs lies largely in the tribes' 500-year struggle against assimilation, even extinction, at the hands of European intruders. An outward display of traditional customs and distinct heritage is needed to put the world on notice that each tribe is a distinct and autonomous people, with its own heritage, values, and ideas. Otherwise, the tribe risks total assimilation and loss of identity. 42.______ The lack of meaningful ritual and ceremony in homogenous mainstream America underscores this point. Other than a few gratuitous ceremonies such as weddings and funerals, we maintain no common rituals to set us apart from other cultures. The reason for this is that as a whole America has little cultural identity of its own anymore. Instead, it has become a patchwork quilt of many subcultures, such as Native Americans, Hasidic Jews, Amish, and urban African Americans--each of which resort to some outward demonstration of its distinctiveness in order to establish and maintain a unique cultural identity. 43.______ Nevertheless, preserving cultural identify cannot be the only purpose of ritual and ceremony. Otherwise, how would one explain why isolated cultures that don't need to distinguish themselves to preserve their identity nevertheless engage in their own distinct rituals and ceremonies? In fact, the initial purpose of ritual and ceremony is rooted not in cultural identity but rather superstition and spiritual belief. The original purpose of a ritual might have been to frighten away evil spirits, to bring about weather conditions favorable to bountiful harvests, or to entreat the gods for a successful hunt or for victory in battle. Even today some primitive cultures engage in rituals primarily for such reasons. 44.______ Nor are ritual and ceremony the only means of preserving cultural identity. For example, our Amish culture demonstrates its distinctiveness through dress and lifestyle. Hasidic Jews set themselves apart by their dress, vocational choices, and dietary habits. And African Americans distinguish themselves today by their manner of speech and gesture. Of course, these subcultures have their own distinct ways of cerebrating events such as weddings, coming of age, and so forth. Yet ritual and ceremony are not the primary means by which these subcultures maintain their identity. 45.______ In sum, to prevent total cultural assimilation into our modern-day homogenous soup, a subculture with a unique and proud heritage must maintain an outward display of that heritage--by way of ritual and ceremony. Nevertheless, ritual and ceremony serve a spiritual function as well--one that has little to do with preventing cultural assimilation. Moreover, rituals and ceremonies are not the only means of preserving cultural identity.

填空题 Among certain parents, it is an article of faith not only that they should treat their sons and daughters alike, but also that they do. If Jack gets videos games, and joins the soccer team and the math club, so does Jane.{{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}} In one, scientists dressed newborns in gender-neutral clothes and misled adults about their sex. The adults described the "boys" (actually girls) as angry or distressed more often than did adults who thought they were observing girls, and described the "girls" (actually boys) as happy and socially engaged more than adults who knew the babies were boys. {{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}} In another study, mothers estimated how steep a slope their 11-month-olds could crawl down. Moms of boys got it right to within one degree; morns of girls underestimated what their daughters could do by nine degrees, even though there are no differences in the motor skills of infant boys and girls. {{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}. How we perceive children-sociable or remote, physically bold or quiet-shapes how we treat them and therefore what experiences we give them. Since life leaves footprints on the very structure and function of the brain, these various experiences produce sex differences in adult behavior and brains-the result not of innate and inborn nature but of nurture. Yet there are differences in adults' brains, and here Eliot is at her most original and persuasive: explaining how they arise from tiny sex differences in infancy. For instance, baby boys are more irritable than girls. {{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}. By 4 months of age, boys and girls differ in how much eye contact they make, and differences in sociability, emotional expressivity, and verbal ability-all of which depend on interactions with parents-grow throughout childhood. {{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}You often see the claim that toy preferences-trucks or dolls-appear so early, they must be innate. But as Eliot points out, 6 and 12-month-olds of both sexes prefer dolls to trucks, according to a host of studies. Children settle into sex-based play preferences only around age 1, which is when they grasp which sex they are, identify strongly with it, and conform to how they see other, usually older, boys or girls behaving. "Preschoolers are already aware of what's acceptable to their peers and what's not," writes Eliot. Those play preferences then snowball, producing brains with different talents. The belief in blue brains and pink brains has real-world consequences, which is why Eliot goes after them with such vigor (and rigor). It encourages parents to treat children in ways that make the claims come true, denying boys and girls their full potential. "Kids rise or fall according to what we believe about them," she notes. And the belief fuels the drive for single-sex schools, which is based in part on the false claim that boy brains and girl brains process sensory information and think differently. A. That makes parents likely to interact less with their "nonsocial" sons, which could cause the sexes' developmental pathways to diverge. B. Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, doesn't think these parents are lying, exactly. But she would like to bring some studies to their attention. C. Those differences also arise from gender conformity. D. Dozens of such disguised-gender experiments have shown that adults perceive baby boys and girls differently, seeing identical behavior through a gender-tinted lens. E. For instance, the idea that the band of fibers connecting the right and left brain is larger in women, supposedly supporting their more "holistic" thinking, is based on a single 1982 study of only 14 brains. F. But that prejudice may cause parents to unconsciously limit their daughter's physical activity. G. Eliot's inescapable conclusion: there is "little solid evidence of sex differences in children's brains."

填空题 [A] Separation of Hollinger[B] Profits of newspaper[C] The ideal business model[D] Hollinger denies the rumor[E] Difficult to share in the international market[F] Lord Black sells his remaining local newspapers in Canada HE HAS been selling newspaper titles in Canada. backing a new one in New York and trying to quash rumours that he is selling them in Britain. What exactly is Conrad Black, chairman of Hollingar, ex-Canadian, newly ennobled Briton, up to?41._______________. Last month, Lord Black of Crossharbour. as he is now known, sold his remaining local newspapers in Canada. This came shortly after he had offloaded his residual 50% stake in the National Post, the Canadian daily paper he founded only in 1998, to Can West Global Communications. This Canadian media group had already picked up the other half last year, along with most of Lord Black's other local newspapers in the country, for $1.8 billion.42._______________.Shorn of its Canadian operations, and apart from the tiny Jerusalem Post, Hollinger has now been pared down to two chief assets: the Chicago Sun-Times, plus a bagful of local papers in that area, and the Daily Telegraph, Britain's most popular broadsheet paper. After the group recently reported a net loss of $9 million for the nine months to September. excluding exceptional items, rumours swirled that even the Telegraph might be for sale.43._______________.Not so, says Hollinger. Although earnings at the Telegraph and its Sunday sister are well down on last year, and the papers plan to sack up to 40 editorial staff, they still provide most of the group's profits. "There is no substance at all to the story that the Telegraph is for sale," says Daniel Colson, Hollinger's vice-chairman. Indeed, having stemmed the National Post's losses and booked a good price for the sale of most of its Canadian assets last year, the group has cut its heavy debt burden and is wall-placed to look for new projects.44._______________.But what? Economies of scale in the newspaper market are best achieved with the local and regional press. The ideal business model, says Peter Kreisky of Mercer Management Consulting, is a geographical cluster of regional titles. With local monopoly power, this can bring down the cost of paper and ink, of printing and distribution, and of marketing. Hollinger enjoys many of these benefits in the Chicago area, where it has 97 papers.45._______________.But it is far harder to achieve cost-sharing across international borders. Most national papers are still mn from and owned in their home country. Those that belong to an international owner, such as Hollinger, Tony O'Reilly's Independent News and Media and Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp, concentrate on English-speaking markets. Yet owning newspapers is as much to do with kudos and influence as it is about profits. Although he would not rule out opportunities even in non-English-speaking parts of Europe, Lord Black's sights now seem to be set on the United States. He has just made a small bet on a new quality paper, The New York Sun, by putting in $2 million, or about 13% of the total investment. Although Hollinger stresses that it is only loosely involved, the project is nevertheless intriguing. There has long been a view that New York. a city of 8 million people, ought m be able to support more than one all-round quality newspaper; yet the New York Times, with a circulation of 1.1 million, has no direct cross-town rival. Lord Black's experience of launching a new title, The National Post, in Canada may be salutary. He managed to create a franchise from nothing in a competitive market, and in doing so stirred up political controversy in consensus-minded Canada. But it never made him any money, which may be why his bet on The New York Sun is so modest. Buying established but faltering papers would make more sense. "There will be investment opportunities arising from this economic downturn that H. advantage of," says Mr Colson, "not only in New York, but elsewhere in the US."

填空题Scientists say they have achieved small-scale nuclear fusion in a tabletop experiment, using tried and true techniques that are expected to generate far less controversy than past such claims. This latest experiment relied on a tiny crystal to generate a strong electric field. While the energy created was too small to harness cheap fusion power, the technique could have potential uses in medicine, spacecraft propulsion, the oil drilling industry and homeland security, said Seth Putterman, a physicist at the University of California at Los Angeles. Putterman and his colleagues at UCLA, Brian Naranjo and Jim Gimzewski, report their results in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.41. Held up to ridicule Previous claims of tabletop fusion have been met with skepticism and even derision by physicists. ( )42. Sound theoretical basis Fusion experts said the UCLA experiment will face far less skepticism because it conforms to well-known principles of physics. ( )43. Energy in waiting Fusion power has been touted as the ultimate energy source and a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels like coal and oil. Fossil fuels are expected to run short in about 50 years. ( )44. Process of fusion In the UCL'A experiment, scientists placed a tiny crystal that can generate a strong electric field into a vacuum chamber filled with deuterium gas, a form of hydrogen capable of fusion. Then the researchers activated the crystal by heating it. ( )45. Commercial uses UCLA's Putterman said future experiments will focus on refining the technique for potential commercial uses, including designing portable neutron generators that could be used for oil well drilling or scanning luggage and cargo at airports. ( ) In the Nature report, Putterman and his colleagues said the crystal-based method could be used in "microthrusters for miniature spacecraft." In such an application, the method would not rely on nuclear fusion for power generation, But rather on ion propulsion, Putterman said. "As wild as it is, that's a conservative application," he said.A. In fusion, light atoms are joined in a high-temperature process that frees large amounts of energy. It is considered environmentally friendly Because it produces virtually no air pollution and does not pose the safety and long-term radioactive waste concerns associated with modern nuclear power plants, where heavy uranium atoms are split to create energy in a process known as fission.B. The resulting electric field created a Beam of charged deuterium atoms that struck a nearby target, which was embedded with yet more deuterium. When some of the deuterium atoms in the beam collided with their counterparts in the target, they fused. The reaction gave off an isotope of helium along with subatomic particles known as neutrons, a characteristic of fusion. The experiment did not, however, produce more energy than the amount put in-- an achievement that would be a huge breakthrough.C. Another technique, known as sonoluminescence, generates heat through the collapse of tiny bubbles in a liquid. Some scientists claim that nuclear fusion occurs during the reaction, but those claims have sparked sharp debate.D. In a Nature commentary, Michael Saltmarsh of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory said the process was in some ways "remarkably low-tech,' drawing upon principles that were first recorded by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus in 314B.C.. "This doesn't have any controversy in it because they're using a tried and true method," David Ruzic, professor of nuclear and plasma engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbane-Champaign, told The Associated Press. "There's no mystery in terms of the physics. 'E. In one of the most notable cases, Dr.B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of Southampton University in England shocked the world in 1989 when they announced that they had achieved so-called cold fusion at room temperature. Their work was discredited after repeated attempts to reproduce it failed.F. The technology also could conceivably give rise to implantable radiation sources, which could target cancer cells while minimizing damage to healthy tissue. "You could bring a tiny crystal into the body, place it next to a tumor, turn on the radiation and blast the tumor," Putterman told MSNBC. com.

填空题 Scientists had until very recently believed that there were around 100,000 human genes, available to make each and every one of us in our splendid diversity. 41) __________. So that grand panjandrum, the human, may not manage to boast twice as many genes as that microscopic nowhere—worm, with its 18,000 genes, the nematode. Even the fruit fly, considered so negligible that even the most extreme of animal rights activists don't kick up a fuss about its extensive use in genetic experimentation, has 16,000 genes. 42) __________. Without understanding in the least what the scientific implications of this discovery might be, anybody with the smallest curiosity about people—and that's pretty much all of us—can see that it is pretty significant. 43) __________. Human complexity, on this information, can he Best explained in the manner it looks to be best explained before scientific evidence becomes involved at all. In other words, in the nature versus nurture debate, the answer, thankfully, is "both". 44) __________. Nurture does have a huge part to play in human destiny. Love can transform humans. Trust can make a difference. Second chances are worth trying. Life, to a far greater extent than science thought up until now, is what we make it. One day we may know exactly what we can alter and what we cannot. Knowing that there is a great deal that we can alter or improve, as well as a great deal that we must accept and value for its own sake, makes the human journey progressive rather than deterministic, complex and open, rather than simple and unchangeable. For no one can suggest that 30,000 genes doesnt't give the human race much room for manoeuver. Look how many tunes, after all, we're able to squeeze out of eight notes. But it surely must give the lie to the rather sinister belief that has been gaining credence in the West that there is a hardwired, no-prisoners-taken, gene for absolutely everything and that whole sections of the population can be labelled as "stupid" or "lazy" or "criminal" or somehow or other sub-human. 45) __________.[A] Instead, like the eight notes which can only make music (albeit in astounding diversity), the 30,000 genes can only make people. The rest is up to us.[B] Now, the two rival teams decoding the book life, have each found that instead there are only somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 genes.[C] There's nothing wrong with our genes: it's that our modern food supply has given us far too many calories and far more food processing than our bodies evolved to handle.[D] The most obvious conclusion to be drawn from the limited number of genes available to programme a human is that biological deternination goes so far and no further.[E] Why is this so important? Because it should mean that we can accept one another's differences more easily, and help each other when appropriate.[F] Some genes were identified in both of the previous studies, which made the researchers feel pretty sure that they were indeed looking at a gene.[G] Not for the first time it has to be admitted that it's a funny old world, and that we humans are the beings who make it such.