单选题The passengers were delayed because the flood ______ the train service.
单选题Neither John nor his roommates______in the dormitory yesterday evening.
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单选题{{B}}Passage 3{{/B}}
The blue, mystic Lake Ellsinore lies in
an inland California valley, which is teeming and steaming with hot springs.
Rimmed by shaggy mountains whose forested crests are reflected in its clear
waters, Lake Ellsinore is the very personification of peace--but on it rests the
curse of Tondo. The lake had a colorful history. Much of it lies
buried in legend, and it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. There have
been stories of underground volcanoes on the lake bottom, erupting, killing fish
and discoloring the water. There have been stories of a playful sea serpent that
lived in its depths. Long noted for its scenic beauty and
health-giving waters, the lake was a famous resort in the Nineties. But long
before the first white man had set foot along the shore of the lake, this part
of California had been the home of the Soboba Indians. Their chief was Tondo, a
stern and unforgiving man. He had a daughter, Morning Star, who
was in love with Palo, son of the chief the Pales, a neighboring tribe. The
Sobobas and Pales were sworn enemies. For a time the lovers met secretly. Then
one day they were discovered by Tondo. His rage was terrible to behold. He
forbade the lovers ever to meet again. Morning Star tried in
every way to appease her father's anger, to soften his heart toward Palo. But in
time she saw that it was useless; that he would never give his consent to their
marriage. Vowing that they would never be separated, the Indian maid and her
lover walked hand in hand into the lake, as the dreary November sun cast long
shadows on the land. They were followed by a group of orphan children whom
Morning Star had befriended. All walked into the lake, singing the mournful
death song of their people, while Tondo stood on the shore and cursed the
lovers, cursed the blue water into which they all walked to their
death. Ever since that day it would see that a jinx has been
laid over Lake Ellsinore. Old-timers tell of a great upheaval in the lake which
caused water to spout into the air like a geyser and turn blood-red. Later, 'it
became known that three hundred springs of boiling mud and water were born in
the valley during that upheaval. The springs reeked with sulphur.
For many years after this phenomenon the lake remained peaceful. Then
boats were overturned for an apparent reason, and few of their occupants ever
returned to tell the story. This continued for several years. At the same time,
strong swimmers dived into the lake never to reappear. In 1833
and again in 1846, fish in the lake suddenly died. In the spring
of 1850 came the Battle of the Gnats. They bred in the water of the lake and
swarmed over the land. They invaded the countryside until the harassed
inhabitants called for help. And in July 1951, the sky-blue
waters of the lake vanished like mist before a noonday sun. When the bottom was
laid bare there was no trace of a volcano, the bottomless pits, or the other
disturbances of legend or fact. The copious winter rains of
1951~1952 have replenished the lake. But what menace does its haunting beauty
hold today? For tomorrow? The once mighty Sobobas are few now.
But the old men swear that their ancestors still haunt the lake. They nod
grizzled head and murmur that the Great Tondo's curse will forever remain upon
the lake. Only Time, the wise and silent one, can
tell.
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单选题The information in this passage centers about ______.
单选题The domestic economy in the United States expanded in a remarkably vigorous and steady fashion. The revival in consumer confidence was reflected in the higher proportion of incomes spent for goods and services and the marked increase in consumer willingness to take on installment debt. A parallel strengthening in business psychology was manifested in a stepped-up rate of plant and equipment spending and a gradual pickup in expenses for inventory. Confidence in the economy was also reflected in the strength of the stock market and in the stability of the bond market. For the years as a whole, consumer and business sentiment benefited from the ease in East-West tensions. The bases of the business expansion were to be found mainly in the stimulative monetary and fiscal policies that had been pursued. Moreover, the restoration of sounder liquidity positions and tighter management control of production efficiency had also helped lay the groundwork for a strong expansion. In addition, the economic policy moves made by the President had served to renew optimism on the business outlook while boosting hopes that inflation would be brought under more effective control. Final]y, of course, the economy was able to grow as vigorously as it did because sufficient leeway existed in terms of idle men and machines. The United States balance of payments deficit declined sharply. Nevertheless, by any other test, the deficit remained very large, and there was actually a substantial deterioration in our trade account to a sizable deficit, almost two-thirds of which was with Japan. While the overall trade performance proved disappointing, there are still good reasons for expecting the delayed impact of devaluation to produce in time a significant strengthening in our trade picture. Given the size of the Japanese component of our trade deficit, however, the outcome will depend importantly on the extent of the corrective measures undertaken by Japan. Also important will be our own efforts in the United States to fashion internal policies consistent with an improvement in our external balance. The underlying task of public policy for the year ahead--and indeed for the longer run--remained a familiar one: to strike the right balance between encouraging healthy economic growth and avoiding inflationary pressures. With the economy showing sustained and vigorous growth, and with the currency crisis highlighting the need to improve our competitive posture internationally, the emphasis seemed to be shifting to the problem of inflation. The Phase Three Program of wage and price restraint can contribute to reducing inflation. Unless productivity growth is unexpectedly large; however, the expansion of real output must eventually begin to slow down to the economy's larger run growth potential if generalized demand pressures on prices are to be avoided.
单选题The joys of travel, having long ______ the disabled, are opening up virtually to anyone who has the means. [A] omitted [B] missed [C] neglected [D] discarded
单选题Without a(n) {{U}}liberal{{/U}} supply of necessary equipment and materials, the mountain-climbers would not have been able to scale the heights and reach the top in such bad weather.
单选题If you think you can do my job better than I can, you are welcome to______.
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单选题You can rely on Mr. Smith to carry out this mission for his judgment is always ______.
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. 1776? 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 built-up 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 als0 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He gave his work to his friend to ______, because he found it hard to see his own mistakes.(2003年上海变通大学考博试题)
单选题Under the Bush administration America has gone from a policy of "dual containment" of Iran and Iraq to one approaching dual failure. It removed the iron rule of Saddam Hussein, but created an anarchic void in Iraq into which Iran has extended its influence. Exhausted by the insurgency in Iraq, America now struggle to deal with the more acute threat of weapons of mass destruction posed by Iran's nuclear programme. America's Arab allies may be terrified by the strengthening of Iran, but they are even more terrified by the prospect of American military action to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. In Europe there is a degree of acceptance that, sooner or later, the world may have to deal with a nuclear-armed Iran. Some in the Bush administration though, regard that prospect as even more horrendous than the consequences of attacking Iran, which may include more instability in Iraq and elsewhere, more terrorism and the disruption of oil from the Persian Gulf. There is no certainty, moreover, about how far military strikes can set back the nuclear programme, if at all. George Bush has repeatedly said that "all opinions" remain on his table, by which he means the use of military force. But the one option he has seemed less keen on is the idea, advocated by many of seeking a "grand bargain" with Iran on a whole range of disputes, from the nuclear question to peace with Israel. When America was strong, it felt it did not need to deal with Iran. Now it is worried by the prospect of looking weak. Nevertheless, there has been a real change of policy since the days when Mr. Bush said Iran was part of the "axis of evil". His administration has offered to join nuclear talks if Iran suspends uranium enrichment. Ray Takeyh, an expert on Iran, argues in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs says: better to deal with the pragmatists, and strengthen them, rather than give free rein to the radicals. He may or may not be right.
单选题3 The Greek's lofty attitude toward scientific research—and the scientists' contempt of utility—was a long time dying. For a millennium after Archimedes, this separation of me chanics from geometry inhibited fundamental technological progress and in some areas re pressed it altogether. But there was a still greater obstacle to change until the very end of the middle ages: the organization of society. The social system of fixed class relationships that prevailed through the Middle Ages (and in some areas much longer) itself hampered improvement. Under this system, the laboring masses, in exchange for the bare necessi ties of life, did all the productive work, while the privileged few—priests, nobles, and kings concerned themselves only with ownership and maintenance of their own posi tion. In the interest of their privileges they did achieve considerable progress in defense, in warmaking, in government, in trade, in the arts of leisure, and in the extraction of labor from their dependents, but they had no familiarity with the process of production. On the other hand, the laborers, who were familiar with manufacturing techniques, had no in centive to improve or increase production to the advantage of their masters. Thus, with one class possessing the requisite knowledge and experience, but lacking incentive and leis ure, and the other class lacking the knowledge and experience, there was no means by which technical progress could be achieved. The whole ancient world was built upon this relationship—a relationship as sterile as it was inhuman. The availability of slaves nullified the need for more efficient machinery. In many of the commonplace fields of human endeavor, actual stagnation prevailed for thou sands of years. Not all the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome could de velop the windmill or contrive so simple an instrument as the wheelbarrow—products of the tenth and thirteenth centuries respectively. For about twenty-five centuries, two-thirds of the power of the horse was lost because he wasn't shod, and much of the strength of the ox was wasted because his harness wasn't modified to fit his shoulders. For more than five thousand years, sailors were confined to rivers and coasts by a primitive steering mechanism which required remarkably little altera tion (in the thirteenth century) to become a rudder. With any ingenuity at all, the ancient plough could have been put on wheels and the ploughshare shaped to bite and turn the sod instead of merely scratching it—but the inge nuity wasn't forthcoming. And the villager of the Middle Ages, like the men who first had fire, had a smoke hole in the center of the straw and reed thatched roof of his one-room dwelling (which he shared with his animals), while the medieval charcoal burner (like his Stone Age ancestor) made himself a hut of small branches.
单选题Don't do anything against law again, otherwise, you and your ______ will be caught by the police.
单选题_____that everyone couldn't help laughing at the sight of him.
单选题On an average of six times a day, a doctor in Holland practices "active" euthanasia: intentionally administering a lethal (致死的) drug to a terminally ill patient who has asked to be relieved of suffering. Twenty times a day, life-prolonging treatment is withheld or withdrawn when there is no hope that it can effect an ultimate cure. "Active" euthanasia remains a crime on the Dutch statute books, punishable by 12 years in prison. But a series of court cases over the past 15 years has made it clear that a competent physician who carries it out will not be prosecuted. Euthanasia, often called "mercy killing" is a crime everywhere in Western Europe. But more and more doctors and nurses readily admit to practicing it, most often in the "passive" form of withholding or withdrawing treatment. The long simmering euthanasia issue has lately boiled over into a, sometimes, fierce public debate, with both sides claiming the mantle of ultimate righteousness. Those opposed to the practice see themselves upholding sacred principles of respect for life, while those in favor raise the banner of humane treatment. After years on the defensive, the advocates now seem to be gaining ground. Recent polls in Britain show that 72 percent of British subjects favor euthanasia in some circumstances. An astonishing 76 percent of respondents to a poll taken last year in France said they would like the law changed to decriminalize mercy killings. Euthanasia has been a topic of controversy in Europe since at least 1936, when a bill was introduced in the House of Lords that would have legalized mercy killing under very tightly supervised conditions. That bill failed, as have three others introduced in the House of Lords since then. Reasons for the latest surge of interest in euthanasia are not hard to find. Europeans, like Americans, are now living longer. Therefore, lingering chronic diseases have replaced critical illnesses as the primary cause of death. And the euthanasists argue that every human being should have the right to "die with dignity," by which they usually mean the right to escape the horrors of a painful or degrading hospitalization (住院治疗). Most experts believe that euthanasia will continue to be practiced no matter what the law says.
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