单选题In her 26 years of teaching English, Shannon McGuire has seen countless misplaced commas, misspelled words and sentence fragments. But the instructor at US"s Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge said her job is getting harder every day. "I kid you not, the number of errors that I"ve seen in the past few years have multiplied five times," she said. Experts say email and instant messaging are at least partly to blame for an increasing indifference toward the rules of grammar, spelling and sentence structure. They say the problem is most noticeable in college students and recently graduates. "They used to at least feel guilty (about mistakes)," said Naomi Baron, professor of linguistics at American University in Washington, D. C. "They didn"t necessarily write a little better, but at least they felt guilty." Ironically, Baron"s latest book, "Alphabet to Email: How Written English Evolved and Where It"s Heading," became a victim of sloppy proofreading. The book"s title is capitalized differently on the cover, spine and title page. "People used to lose their jobs over this," she said. "And now they just say "whatever"." "Whatever" describes Jeanette Henderson"s attitude toward writing. The sophomore at the University of Louisiana at Monroe admits that her reliance on spellcheck has hurt her grades in English class. "Computer has spoiled us," she said. But the family and consumer sciences major believes her future bosses won"t mind the mistakes as much as her professor does. "They"re not going to check semicolons, commas and stuff like that," Henderson said. LSU"s McGuire said she teaches her students to use distinct writing styles that fit their purpose. She emphasizes that there"s the informal language of an email to a friend, but there"s also the well thought out and structured academic or professional style of writing. It"s not just email and instant messaging that are contributing to slack writing habits. Society as a whole is becoming more informal. Casual wear at work used to be reserved for Friday, for example, but is now commonplace at most offices. There"s also a greater emphasis on youth culture, and youth tend to use instant messaging more than adults do. English language has been neglected at different points in history but always rebounds. During Shakespearen times, for example, spelling wasn"t considered important, and early publishers rarely proofread. There will likely be a social force that recognizes the need for clear writing and swings the pendulum back.

单选题Albert Einstein once attributed the creativity of a famous scientist to the fact that he "never went to school, and therefore preserved the rare gift of thinking freely". There is undoubtedly truth in Einstein's observation. Many artists and geniuses seem to view their schooling as a disadvantage. But such a truth is not a criticism of schools. It is the function of schools to civilize, not to train explorers. The explorer is always a lonely individual whether his or her pioneering be in art, music, science, or technology. The creative explorer of unmapped lands shares with the genius what William James described as the "faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way". Insofar as schools teach perceptual patterns they tend to destroy creativity and genius. But if schools could somewhat exist solely to cultivate genius, then society would break down. For the social order demands unity and widespread agreement, both traits are destructive to creativity. There will always be conflict between the demands of society and the impulses of creativity and genius.

单选题He did not want to be ______ by the majority. He felt that various distinguished cultures could offer a greater contribution to progress than a single culture could. A. assimilated B. afflicted C. enraged D. isolated

单选题The great ______ that have influenced the world's thinkers came not from committees but from individuals who groped for the truth in independent research.

单选题Parents with only one child tend to have higher academic______for their child.

单选题In spite of the wide range of reading material specially designed or ______ for language learning purposes, there is yet no effective and systematic program for the reading skills.

单选题Don't trust the speaker any more, since the remarks he made in his lectures are never______ with the facts. A. symmetrical B. comparative C. compatible D. harmonious

单选题Attacking an increasingly popular Internet business practice, a consumer watchdog group Monday filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, asserting that many online search engines are concealing the impact special fees have on search results by Internet users. Commercial Alert, a 3-year-old group founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader, asked the FTC to investigate whether eight of the Web's largest search engines are violating federal laws against deceptive advertising. The group said that the search engines are abandoning objective formulas to determine the order of their listed results and selling the top spots to the highest bidders without making adequate disclosures to Web surfers. The complaint touches a hot-button issue affecting tens of mil-lions of people who submit search queries each day. With more than 2 billion pages and more than 14 billion hyperlinks on the Web, search requests rank as the second most popular online activity after E-mail. The eight search engines named in Commercial Alerts complaint are: MSN, owned by Microsoft; Netscape, owned by AOL Time Warner; Directhit, owned by Ask Jeeves; HotBot and Lycos, both owned by Term Lycos; AhaVista, owned by CMGI; LookSmart, owned by LookSmart; and iWon, owned by a privately held company operating under the same name. "Portland, Ore-based Commercial Alert could have named more search engines in its complaint, but focused on the biggest sites that are auctioning off spots in their results," said Gary Ruskin, the group's executive director. "Search engines have be-come central in the quest for learning and knowledge in our society. The ability to skew the results in favor of hucksters without telling consumers is a serious problem," Ruskin said. By late Monday afternoon, three of the search engines had responded to The Associated Press' inquiries about the complaint. Two, LookSmart and AltaVista, denied the charges. Microsoft spokesman Matt Pilla said MSN is delivering "compelling search results that people want." The FTC had no comment about the complaint Monday. The complaint takes aim at the new business plans embraced by more search engines as they try to cash in on their pivotal role as Web guides and reverse a steady stream of losses. To boost revenue, search engines in the past year have been accepting payments from businesses interested in receiving a higher ranking in certain categories or ensuring that their sites are reviewed more frequently.

单选题Passage 3 In Death Valley, California, one of the hottest, most arid places in North America, there is much salt, and salt can damage rocks impressively. Inhabitants of areas elsewhere, where streets and highways are salted to control ice, are familiar with the resulting rust and deterioration on cars. That attests to the chemically corrosive nature of salt, but it is not the way salt destroys rocks. Salt breaks rocks apart principally by a process called crystal prying and wedging. This happens not by soaking the rocks in salt water, but by moistening their bottoms with salt water. Such conditions exist in many areas along the eastern edge of central Death Valley. There, salty water rises from the groundwater table by capillary action through tiny spaces in sediment until it reaches the surface. Most stones have capillary passages that suck salt water from the wet ground. Death Valley provides an ultra-dry atmosphere and high daily temperatures, which promote evaporation and the formation of salt crystals along the cracks or other opening within stones. These crystals grow as long as salt water is available. Like tree roots breaking up a sidewalk, the growing crystals exert pressure on the rock and eventually pry the rock apart along planes of weakness, such as banding in metamorphic rocks, bedding in sedimentary rocks, or preexisting or incipient fractions, and along boundaries between individual mineral crystals or grains. Besides crystal growth, the expansion of halite crystals (the same as everyday table salt) by heating and of sulfates and similar salts by hydration can contribute additional stresses. A rock durable enough to have withstood natural conditions for a very long time in other areas could probably be shattered into small pieces by salt weathering within a few generations. The dominant salt in Death Valley is halite, or sodium chloride, but other salts, mostly carbonates and sulfates, also cause prying and wedging, as does ordinary ice. Weathering by a variety of salts, though often subtle, is a worldwide phenomenon. Not restricted to arid regions, intense salt weathering occurs mostly in salt-rich places like the seashore, near the large saline lakes in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, and in desert sections of Australia, New Zealand, and central Asia.

单选题What small businesses need to learn from larger competitors is how developing a dynamic learning environment______innovation, strengthens market position, and develops a true competitive advantage. A. propels B. restrains C. prescribes D. improvises

单选题His elder sister, who works in the supermarket, is still {{U}}on the shelf{{/U}}.

单选题Through microscopes people can see objects that are ______to the naked eyes.

单选题 In recent weeks both housing and stock prices have started to retreat from their irrationally amazing highs.

单选题______ Mr. Hall admits that he pushed too hard, and ultimately his efforts failed.

单选题Everything seemed so ______ that it was difficult to suspect that it was a lie. A. plausible B. judicious C. far-fetched D. insistent

单选题The increasing A(popularity) of the motorcycle as a B(convenience), economical C(form) of transportation has been D(just short) of astounding.

单选题Although it was none of my business I asked her if the one she was Ulamenting/U for was in any way kin.

单选题It might be supposed that greater efficiency could be achieved if several people worked together to solve a problem than if only one individual works on it. Although groups often may increase the motivation of their members to deal with problems, there are conflicts arising among members of a group. Problem solving needs the presence of an effective leader who not only provides direction, but also permits the orderly, constructive expression of different opinions; much of the leader"s effort may be devoted to resolving differences. Success in problem solving also depends on the distribution of ability within a group. Although groups may reach a greater number of correct solutions, or may require less time to discover an answer, their efficiency is typically lower than that achieved by skilled individuals working alone. In brainstorming, a problem is presented to a group of people who then proceed to offer whatever they can think of. Theoretically these unrestricted suggestions increase the probability that at least some better solutions will appear. Nevertheless, studies show that when individuals work alone under similar conditions, performance tends to proceed more efficiently than it does in groups. Under special circumstances, however, a group may solve problems more effectively than a competent individual does. Group members may contribute different resources to a solution that no individual can achieve alone. Sometimes social demands may require group agreement on a single issue, as in making national economic or military policies under the governments. When only one among several solutions is correct, even if a group requires more time, it has a higher probability of identifying the right one than does an individual alone.

单选题(Track lighting) is one of the most popular types, (if not) the most popular type, (of) lighting (on market) today.