单选题As used in the first line of the second paragraph, the word "utter" means ______.

单选题FLOWER: VIOLET

单选题 In a stark ______ of fortunes, the Philippines—once Asia's second richest country recently had to beg Vietnam to sell its rice for its hungry millions.

单选题Six years later, in an about-face, the FBI admits that federal agents fired tear gas canisters capable of causing a fire at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas in 1993. But the law enforcement official said the firing came several hours before the structure burst into flames, killing 80 people including the Davidians' leader, David Koresh. "In looking into this, we've come across information that shows some canisters that can be deemed pyrotechnic in nature were fired—hours before the fire started," the official said. "Devices were fired at the bunker, not at the main structure where the Davidians were camped out." The Federal Bureau of Investigation maintains it did not start what turned to be a series of fiery bursts of flames that ended a 51-day standoff between branch members and the federal government. "This doesn't change the bottom line that David Koresh started the fire and the government did not," the official said. "It simply shows that devices that could probably be flammable were used in the early morning hours." The law enforcement official said the canisters were fired not at the main structure where the Davidian members were camped out but at the nearby underground bunker. They bounced off the bunkers concrete roof mad landed in an open field well, the official said. The canisters were fired at around 6 a.m., and the fire that destroyed the wooden compound started around noon, the official said. The official also added that other tear gas canisters used by agent that day were not flammable or potentially explosive. While Coulson denied the grenades played a role in starting the fire, his statement marked the first time that any U. S. government official has publicly contradicted the govemment's position that federal agents used nothing on the final day of the siege at Waco that could have sparked the fire that engulfed the compound. The cause of the fiery end is a major focus of an ongoing inquiry by the Texas Rangers into the Waco siege.

单选题"It was the beginning of a revolution in America and the world, a revolution that some have yet to acknowledge and many have yet to appreciate," says Harold Skramstad, president of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. 17767 No indeed: 1896, when Frank Duryea finally perfected the Duryea Motor Wagon. At its first airing, the contraption rolled less than 100 metres before the transmission froze up. But by the end of 1896 Duryea had sold 13 of them, thus giving birth to the American motor industry. That industry (whose roots, outside America, are usually attributed to tinkerings by Messrs Daimler and Benz in Germany) is being celebrated hugely over the coming months, culminating with a Great American Cruise in Detroit in June. "Our goal is to attract the greatest collection of antique and classic cars this nation has ever seen in one place at one time," says Mr. Skramstad modestly. Americans may indeed blame the car for almost everything that has happened to their country, and themselves, since 1896. The car has determined: The way they live. From cradle to grave, the car marks every rite of American passage. Home by car from the maternity ward; first driving licence (usually at the age of 16); first (backseat) sexual experience; first car of one's own (and the make of car is a prime determinant of social status, symbolic of everything a person is or does). In Las Vegas, and elsewhere, Americans can get married at drive-in chapels. They then buy, or lust after, a house with garages big enough for not one but two or three cars. This allocates more space to cars than to children. And when the time comes, they may lie in state at a drive-through funeral home, where you can pay your respects without pulling over. The way they shop. Main Street has been replaced by the strip mall and the shopping mall, concentrating consumer goods in an auto-friendly space. A large part of each shopping trip must now be spent, bags under chin, searching for the place where the car was left. (And another point: bags have annoyingly lost their carrying handles since shoppers ceased to be pedestrian) Since car-friendly living and shopping became the role, most builtup parts of America now look like every other part. There is simply no difference between a Burger Inn in California and one on the outskirts of Boston. The way they eat. A significant proportion of Americans' weekly meals are now consumed inside cars, sometimes while parked outside the (drive-by) eatery concerned, sometimes en route, which leads to painful spillages in laps, leading to overburdening of the legal system. Dozens of laws have been written to deal with car cases, ranging from traffic disputes to product liability. Drive-by shootings require a car, as do most getaways. The car is a great crime accessory; and it also causes the deaths of nearly 40,000 Americans every year. Personal finances. Before the age of the car, few people went into debt; no need to borrow money to buy a home. Now Americans tie themselves up with extended installment loans, and this in turn has spawned a whole financial industry. The wealth of the nation. By 1908, an estimated 485 different manufacturers were building cars in the United States. Employment grew nearly 100-fold in the industry during the first decade of the 20th century. When Henry Ford, in a stroke of genius, automated his production line he required a rush of new, unskilled labour, which he enticed by offering an unheard-of $ 5 a day in wages. Henceforth, workers could actually afford to buy what they built. And Americans never looked back. Today, the Big Three car manufacturers (Food, GM and Chrysler) generate more than $ 200 billion a year in business inside the United States. Directly and indirectly, the industry employs roughly one in seven workers. Every car job is reckoned to add $100,000 in goods and services to the economy, twice the national average. People occasionally suppose that the car is under attack as it enters its second century. Environmental regulators and transport planners (with their talk of car pools and subways) tend to give this impression. There are signs that personal computers may be replacing the sports car as the chief passion, and expense, of young men. But, in the end, nothing beats the idea of individual mobility. In a society that values freedom above all, the obvious way to celebrate a centenary is just to keep driving.

单选题Susan Clinton's participation in the Progressive Movement was far-reaching, embracing such causes as labor legislation and housing reforms.

单选题Summer holidays spent on the hot ghetto streets are __________ the time middle-class students devote to camps, exotic vacations and highly organized sports.

单选题All the musical instruments in the orchestra will be ______ before it starts.

单选题The relationship between exposure to ______ has not yet been determined.

单选题4 Once upon a time, innovation at Procter & Gamble flowed one way: from the United States outward. While the large Cincinnati-based corporation was no stranger to foreign markets, it usually sold them products that were already familiar to most Ameri- cans. Many Japanese families, for instance, swaddle their babies in Pampers diapers, and lots of Venezuelans brush their teeth with Crest. And of course ( company executives assumed) Amer- icans at home wanted these same familiar, red-white and blue brands. We might buy foreign-made cars, or chocolates, or cameras but household cleaners and detergents? Recently, however, P & G broke with this long-standing tradition. Ariel, a P & G laundry detergent, was born overseas, and is a familiar sight on store shelves in Europe and Latin America. Now bilingual packages of Ariel Ultra, a super-concentrated cleaner, are appearing on supermarket shelves in Los Angeles. Ariel's appearance in the United States reflects demographic changes making Hispanics the nation's fastest-growing ethnic group. Ariel is a hit with this population. In fact, many Mexican immigrants living in Southern California have been "importing" Ariel from Tijuana, Mexico. "Hispanics knew this product and wanted it," says P & G spokeswoman Marie Salvado. "We realized that we couldn't convince them to buy (our) other laundry detergents. " P & G hopes that non-Hispanic consumers will give Ariel a try too. Ariel's already strong presence in Europe may provide a springboard for the company to expand into other markets as well. Recently P & G bought R akona, Czechoslovakia's top detergent maker. Ariel, currently a top seller in Germany, is likely to be one of the first new brands to appear in Czech supermarkets. And Ariel is not the only foreign idea that the company hopes to transplant back to its home territory. Cinch, an all-purpose spray cleaner similar to popular European products, is currently being test-marketed in California and Arizona. Traditionally Americans have used separate cleaners for different types of surfaces, but market research shows that American preferences are becoming more like those in other countries. Insiders note that this new reverse flow of innovation reflects more sweeping changes at Procter & Gamble. The firm has hired many new Japanese, German, and Mexican man- agers who view P~G's business not as a one-way flow of American ideas, but a two-way exchange with other markets. Says Bonita Austin of the investment firm Wertheim Schroeder, "When you met with P & G's top managers years ago, you wouldn't have seen a single for- eign face. " Today, "they could even be in the majority. " As Procter & Gamble has found, the United States is no longer an isolated mar- ket. Americans are more open than ever before to buying foreign-made products and to sell- ing U.S. made products overseas.

单选题Business in this area has been ______ because prices are too high. A. prosperous B. secretive C. slack D. shrill

单选题Money, time and health concerns loom largely in the poll of more than 1,100 women who have at least one living parent. About 20 % said they were very happy. More than half of the women were concerned about an elderly relative's health. Those who had sick relatives were much more likely to feel depressed and to worry about having enough time for family member. A. loom largely in the poll of more than 1,100 women who have at least one living parent B. an elderly relative's C. worry about D. having enough time

单选题The spring of last year witnessed the ______ of the strange weather.

单选题A (n)______attitude at a critical time such as this is not justified by the news reaching us from the war front.

单选题Codes are a way of writing something in secret; ________, anyone who doesn't know the code will not be able to read it.

单选题When I was a child in Sunday school, I would ask searching questions like "Angels can fly up in heaven, but how do clouds hold up pianos?" and get the same puzzling response about how that was not important, what was important was that Jesus died for our sins and if we accepted him as our savior, when we died, we would go to heaven, where we'd get everything we wanted. Some children in my class wondered why anyone would hang on a cross with nails stuck through his hands to help anyone else; I wondered how Santa Claus knew what I wanted for Christmas, even though I never wrote him a letter. Maybe he had a tape recorder hidden in every chimney in the world. This literal-mindedness has stuck with me; one result of it is that I am unable to believe in God. Most of the other atheists I know seem to feel freed or proud of their unbelief, as if they have cleverly refused to be sold snake oil. My husband, who was reared in a devout Catholic family, has served as an altar boy. So other than baptizing our son to reassure our families, we've skated over the issue of faith. Some people believe faith is a gift; it's a choice, a matter of spiritual discipline. I have a friend who was reared to believe, and he does. But his faith has wavered. He has struggled to hang onto it and to pass it along to his children. Another friend of mine never goes to church because she's a single mother who doesn't have the gas money. But she once told me a day when she was washing oranges as the sun streamed onto them. As she peeled one, the smell rose to her face, and she felt she received the Holy Spirit. "He sank into my bones," she recounted. "I lifted my palms upward, feeling filled with love." Being no theologian, and not even a believer, I am not in a position to offer up theories, but mine is this: people who receive faith directly, as a spontaneous combustion of the soul, have fewer questions. They have been sparked with a faith that is more unshakable than that of those who have been taught.

单选题The United Nations Security Council established the ICTR in 1995 to try the alleged perpetrators of the 1994 ______ in Rwanda that claimed the lives of more than 800,000 people.

单选题According to the author, Schlesinger' s book will ______.

单选题It's time-consuming to locate the book in the bookcase, because the way he arranges books is quite ______.