单选题Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been condemned or made illegal. But one insidious form continues to thrive: alphabetism. This, for those as yet unaware of such a disadvantage, refers to discrimination against those whose surnames begin with a letter in the lower half of the alphabet. It has long been known that a taxi firm called AAAA cars has a big advantage over Zodiac cars when customers thumb through their phone directories. Less well known is the advantage that Adam Abbott has in life over Zoe Zysman. English names are fairly evenly spread between the halves of the alphabet. Yet a suspiciously large number of top people have surnames beginning with letters between A and K. Thus the American president and vice-president have surnames starting with B and C respectively; and 26 of George Bush's predecessors(including his father)had surnames in the first half of the alphabet against just 16 in the second half. Even more striking, six of the seven heads of government of the G7 rich countries are alphabetically advantaged(Berlusconi, Blair, Bush, Chirac, Chretien and Koizumi). The world's three top central bankers(Greenspan, Duisenberg and Hayami)are all close to the top of the alphabet, even if one of them really uses Japanese characters. As are the world's five richest men(Gates, Buffett, Allen, Ellison and Albrecht). Can this merely be coincidence? One theory, dreamt up in all the spare time enjoyed by the alphabetically disadvantaged, is that the ret sets in early. At the start of the first year in infant school, teachers seat pupils alphabetically from the front, to make it easier to remember their names. So shortsighted Zysman junior gets stuck in the back row, and is rarely asked the improving questions posed by those insensitive teachers. At the time the alphabetically disadvantaged may think they have had a lucky escape. Yet the result may be worse qualifications, because they get less individual attention, as well as less confidence in speaking publicly. The humiliation continues. At university graduation ceremonies, the ABCs proudly get their awards first; by the time they reach the Zysmans most people are literally having a ZZZ. Shortlists for job interviews, election ballot papers, lists of conference speakers and attendees: all tend to be drawn up alphabetically, and their recipients lose interest as they plough through them.

单选题Some African Americans have had a profound impact on American society, changing many people's views on race, history and politics. The following is a sampling of African Americans who have shaped society and the world with their spirit and their ideals. Muhammad Ali Cassius Marcellus Clay grew up a devout Baptist in Louisville, Kentucky, learning to fight at age 12 after a police officer suggested he learn to defend himself. Six years later, he was an Olympic boxing champion, going on to win three world heavyweight titles. He became known as much for his swagger(趾高气昂)outside the ring as his movement in it, converting to Islam in 1965, changing his name to Muhammad Ali and refusing to join the U. S. Army on religious grounds. Ali remained popular after his athletic career ended and he developed Parkinson's disease, even lighting the Olympic torch at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and conveying the peaceful virtues of Islam following the September 11 terrorist attacks. W. E. B. Du Bois Born William Edward Burghardt Du Bois in 1868, this Massachusetts native was one of the most prominent, prolific intellectuals of his time. An academic, activist and historian, Du Bois co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP), edited The Crisis magazine and wrote 17 books, four journals and many other scholarly articles. In perhaps his most famous work, The Souls of Black Folk, published in 1903, he predicted "the problem of 20th century[would be]the problem of the color-line. " Martin Luther King Jr. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is considered one of the most powerful and popular leaders of the American civil rights movement. He spearheaded(带头，做先锋)a massive, nonviolent initiative of marches, sit-ins, boycotts and demonstrations that profoundly affected Americans' attitudes toward race relations. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Malcolm X Black leader Malcolm X spoke out about the concepts of race pride and black nationalism in the early 1960s. He denounced the exploitation of black people by whites and developed a large and dedicated following, which continued even after his death in 1965. Interest in the leader surged again after Spike Lee's 1992 movie Malcolm X was released. Jackie Robinson In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier by joining the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first black baseball player in the U. S. major leagues. After retirement from baseball in 1957, he remained active in civil rights and youth activities. In 1962, he became the first African-American to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

单选题When deposits are federally insured, people no longer rush to withdraw their money if they______the financial condition of their bank.

单选题In 2005, President Bush put his political capital where his mouth was, and lost. He went all-out to______Congress and the American people that privatizing Social Security would be good and necessary.

单选题You don't have to ______ yourself. I think you did the right thing putting your mother in a nursing home.

单选题{{B}}Passage Two{{/B}} Pity those who aspire to put the initials PhD after their names. After 16 years of closely supervised education, prospective doctors of philosophy are left more or less alone to write the equivalent of a large book. Most social-science postgraduates have still not completed their theses by the time their grant runs out after three years. They must then get a job and finish in their spare time, which can often take a further three years. By then, most new doctors are sick to death of the narrowly defined subject, which has blighted their holidays and mined their evenings. The Economic and Social Research Council, which gives grants to postgraduate social scientists, wants to get better value for money by cutting short this agony. It would like to see faster completion rates: until recently, only about 25 % of PhD candidates were finishing within four years. The ESRC's response has been to stop PhD grants to all institutions where the proportion taking less than four years is below 10%; in the first year of this policy the national average shot up to 39%. The ESRC feels vindicated in its toughness, and will progressively raise the threshold to 40% in two years. Unless completion rates improve further, this would exclude 55 out of 73 universities and polytechnics-including Oxford University, the London School of Economics and the London Business School. Predictably, howls of protest have come from the universities, who view the blacklisting of whole institutions as arbitrary and negative. They point out that many of the best students go quickly into jobs where they can apply their research skills, but consequently take longer to finish their theses. Polytechnics with as few as two PhD candidates complain that they are penalized by random fluctuations in student performance. The colleges say there is no hard evidence to prove that faster completion rates result from greater efficiency rather than lower standards or less ambitious doctoral topics. The ESRC thinks it might not be a bad thing if PhD students were more modest in their aims. It would prefer to see more systematic teaching of research skills and fewer unrealistic expectations placed on young men and women who are undertaking their first piece of serious research. So in future its grants will be given only where it is convinced that students are being trained as researchers, rather than carrying out purely knowledge-based studies. The ESRC can not dictate the standard of thesis required by external examiners, or force departments to give graduates more teaching time. The most it can do is to try to persuade universities to change their ways. Recalcitrant professors should note that students want more research training and a less elaborate style of thesis, too.

单选题You are not allowed to take a second job ______ your employer gives you permission. A. so long as B. otherwise C. unless D. whereas

单选题You can choose from three plans to suit your personal mobility needs and, if you're married, you and your______ can benefit from an attractive 10% discount.

单选题One of the most common techniques is to add alloying elements that inhibit the corrosion.

单选题Which of the following is the function that nanoscale motors perform?

单选题The idea of test-tube babies may make you either delighted at the wonders of modern medicine or irritated while considering the moral, or legal, or technological implications of starting life in a laboratory. But if you"ve ever been pregnant yourself, one thing is certain: You wonder what it"s like to carry a test-tube baby. Are these pregnancies normal? Are the babies normal? The earliest answers come from Australia, where a group of medical experts at the Queen Victoria Medical Center in Melbourne have taken a look at the continent"s first nine successful in vitro pregnancies. The Australians report that the pregnancies themselves seemed to proceed according to plan, but at birth some unusual trends did show up. Seven of the nine babies turned out to be girls. Six of the nine were delivered by Caesarean section. Undone baby, a twin, was born with a serious heart defect and a few days later developed life-threatening problems. What does it all mean? Even the doctors don"t know for sure, because the numbers are so small. The proportion of girls to boys is high, but until there are many more test-tube babies none will know whether that"s something that just happened to be like that or something special that happens when egg meets sperm in a test tube instead of a Fallopian tube. The same thing is true of the single heart defect; it usually shows up in only 15 out of 60,000 births in that part of Australia, but the fact that it occurred in one out of nine test-tube babies does not necessarily mean that they are at special risk. One thing the doctors can explain is the high number of Caesareans. Most of the mothers were older, had long histories of fertility problems and in some cases had had surgery on the fallopian tubes, all of which made them likely candidates for Caesareans anyway. The Australian researchers report that they are quite encouraged. All the babies are now making normal progress even the twin with the birth defects.

单选题(In an effort to) produce the largest, fastest, most luxurious ship afloat, the British built the Titanic. It was so superior to (anything) (on the seas) that it (was dubbed) "unsinkable".

单选题In Africa HIV and AIDS continue to _________ the population; nearly 60 percent of those infected are women.

单选题There is a real possibility that these animals could be frightened, ______ a sudden loud noise.

单选题From the passage we can draw the conclusion that ______.

单选题Which of the following is NOT mentioned as the important source of the ius commune in the paragraph? ( )

单选题Stephen gripped the ______ wheel hard as the car bounced up and down.

单选题The rise of multinational corporations (跨国公司), global marketing, new communications technologies, and shrinking cultural differences have led to an unparalleled increase in global public relations or PR. Surprisingly, since modern PR was largely an American invention, the U. S. leadership in public relations is being threatened by PR efforts in other countries. Ten years ago, for example, the world"s top five public relations agencies were American-owned. In 1991, only one was. The British in particular are becoming ore sophisticated and creative. A recent survey found that more than half of all British companies include PR as part of their corporate (公司的) planning activities, compared to about one-third of U. S. companies, It may not be long before London replaces New York as the capital of PR. Why is America lagging behind in the global PR race? First, Americans as a whole tend to be fairly provincial and take more of an interest in local affairs. Knowledge of world geography, for example, has never been strong in this country. Secondly, Americans lag behind their European and Asian counterparts (相对应的人) in knowing a second language. Less than 5 percent of Burson-Marshall"s U. S. employees know two languages. Ogilvy and Mather has about the same percentage conversely, some European firms have half or more of their employees fluent in a second language. Finally, people involved in PR abroad tend to keep a closer eye on international affairs. In the financial PR area, for instance, most Americans read the Wall Street Journal. Overseas, their counterparts read the Journal as well as the Financial Times of London and The Economist, publications not often read in this country. Perhaps the PR industry might take a lesson from Ted Turner of CNN(Cable News Network). Turner recently announced that the word "foreign" would no longer be used on CNN news broadcasts. According to Turner, global communications have made the nations of the world so interdependent that there is no longer any such thing as foreign.