单选题San Francisco was ______ by a terrible earthquake and fire in 1906.

单选题 Rubidium, potassium and carbon are three common elements used to date the history of Earth. The rates of radioactive decay of these elements are absolutely regular when averaged out over a period of time; nothing is known to change them. To be useful as clocks, the elements have to be fairly common in natural minerals, unstable but decay slowly over millions of years to form recognizable "daughter" products which are preserved minerals. For example, an atom of radioactive rubidium decays to form an atom of strontium (another element) by converting a neutron in its nucleus to a proton and releasing an electron, generating energy in the process. The radiogenic daughter products of the decay-in this case strontium atoms--diffuse away and are lost above a certain very high temperature. So by measuring the exact proportions of rubidium and strontium atoms that are present in a mineral, researchers can work out how long it has been since the mineral cooled below that critical "blocking" temperature. The main problems with this dating method are the difficulty in finding minerals containing rubidium, the accuracy with which the proportions of rubidium and strontium are measured, and the fact that the method gives only the date when the mineral last cooled below the blocking temperature. Because the blocking temperature is very high, the method is used, mainly for recrystallized (igneous or metamorphic) rocks, not for sediments--rubidium-bearing minerals in sediments simply record the age of cooling of the rocks which were eroded to form the sediments, not the age of deposition of the sediments themselves. Potassium decays to form (a gas) which is sometimes lost from its host mineral by escaping through pores. Although potassium-argon dating is therefore rather unreliable, it can sometimes be useful in dating sedimentary rocks because potassium is common in some minerals which form in sediments at low temperatures. Assuming no argon has escaped, the potassium-argon date records the age of the sediments themselves. Carbon dating is mainly used in archaeology. Most carbon atoms (carbon-12) are stable and do not change over time. However, cosmic radiation bombarding the upper atmospheres constantly interacting with nitrogen in the atmosphere to create an unstable form of carbon, carbon-14.

单选题Which of the following statements about weight control is NOT TRUE?

单选题It isestimated that a scientific principle has a life expectancy of approximately a decade before it drastically revised or replaced by newer information.

单选题As Lan is ill, we must find a(n) ______ for him in the team.

单选题Mr. Bloom is not ______ now, but he will be famous someday. A. significant B. dominant C. magnificent D. prominent

单选题Being the manager of a large corporation, he has a great deal of ______ to deal with every day.

单选题Nicholas Chauvin, a French soldier, aired his veneration of Napoleon Bonaparte so ______ and unceasingly that he became the laughingstock of all people in Europe.

单选题Many of the fads of the 1970s ______ as today"s latest fashions.

单选题Why be______about that old coat? There's no point in keeping it just because you were wearing it when you first met me. A. sensitive B. sensible C. sentimental D. sensational

单选题The association between ______ has not yet been found in Australia.

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} There are 4 reading passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C, and D. You should decide on the best choice and mark your answer on the ANSWER SHEET by blackening the corresponding letter in the brackets.{{B}}Passage 1{{/B}} Signs of deafness had given him great anxiety as early as 1798. For a long time he successfully concealed it from all but his most intimate friends, while he consulted physicians and quacks with eagerness. But neither quackery nor the best skill of his time availed him, and it has been pointed out that the root of the evil lay deeper than could have been supposed during his lifetime. Although his constitution was magnificently strong and his health was preserved by his passion for outdoor life, a post-mortem examination revealed a very complicated state of disorder, evidently dating from childhood (if not inherited) and aggravated by lack of care and good food. The touching document addressed to his brothers in 1802, and known as his "will" should be read in its entirety. No verbal quotation short of the whole will do justice to the overpowering outburst which runs in almost one long unpunctuated sentence through the whole tragedy of Beethoven's life, as he knew it then and foresaw it. He reproaches men for their injustice in thinking and calling him pugnacious, stubborn, and misanthropical when they do not know that for six years he has suffered from an incurable condition aggravted by incompetent doctors. He dwells upon his delight in human society from which he has had so early to isolate himself, but the thought of which now fills him with dread as it makes him realize his loss, not only in music but in all finer interchange of ideas, and terrifies him lest the cause of his distresses should appear. He declares that, when those near him had heard a flute or a singing shepherd while he heard nothing, he was only prevented from taking his life by the thougth of his art, but it seemed impossible for him to leave the world until he had brought out all that he felt to be in his power. He requests that after his death his present doctor , if surviving, shall be asked to describe his illness and to append it to this document in order that at least then the world may be as far as possible reconciled with him. He leaves his brothers property, such as it is, and in terms not less touching, if more conventional than the rest of the document, he declares that his experience shows that only virtue has preserved his life and his courage through all his misery. During the last twelve years of his life, his nephew was the cause of most of his anxiety and distress. His brother, Kaspar Karl, had often given him trouble—for example, by obtaining and publishing some of Beethoven's early indiscretions, such as the trio variations, op. 44, the sonatas, op. 49, and other trifles. In 1815, after Beethoven had quarreled with his oldest friend, Stephan Breuning, for warning him against trusting his brother in money matters, Kaspar died, leaving a widow of whom Beethoven strongly disapproved, and a son, nine years old, for the guardianship of whom Beethoven fought the widow through all the law courts. The boy turned out utterly unworthy of his uncle's persistent devotion and gave him every cause for anxiety. He failed in all his examinations, including an attempt to learn some trade in all his examinations, including an attempt to learn some trade in the polytechnic school, whereupon he fell into the hands of the police for attempting suicide, and after being expelled from Vienna, joined the army. Beethoven's utterly simple nature could neither educate nor understand a human being who was not possessed by the wish to do his best. His nature was passionately affectionate, and he had suffered all his life from the want of a natural outlet for it. He had often been deeply in love and made no secret of it. But Robert Browning had not a more intense dislike of "the artistic temperament" in morals, and though Beethoven's attachments were almost hopelessly above him in rank, there is not one that was not honorable and respected by society as showing the truthfulness and self-control of a great man. Beethoven's orthodoxy in such matters has provoked the smiles of Philistines, especially when it showed itself in his objections to Mozart's Don Giovanni and the grounds for selecting the subject of Fidelio for his own opera. The last thing that Philistines will ever understand is that genius is far too independent of convention to abuse it, and Beethoven's life, with all its mistakes, its grotesqueness, and its pathos, is as far beyond the shafts of Philistine wit as his art.

单选题The folk art rubric has also been extended to include all manner of traditional artistic productions, even the self-consciously quaint. A. conservative B. mysterious C. original D. unusual

单选题What is the purpose of this study?

单选题It took no time at all for the native Americans who first greeted Christopher Columbus to be all but erased from the face of the earth. For about a thousand years the peaceful people known as the Taino had thrived in modern-day Cuba and many other islands. But less than 30 years after Columbus' arrival, the Taino would be destroyed by Spanish weaponry, forced labor and European diseases. Unlike their distant cousins, the Inca, Aztecs and Maya, the Taino left no pyramids or temples—no obvious signs that they had ever existed. But it is a mistake to assume—as many scholars have until quite recently—that the absence of abundant artifacts meant the Taino were necessarily more primitive than the grander civilizations of Central and South America. They simply used less durable materials: the Taino relied on wood for building and most craftwork, and much of what they made has disintegrated over the centuries. However, thanks largely to two remarkable digs undertaken recently, archaeologists will be able to enrich their knowledge of the Taino. There nearly intact remains of a Taino dwelling buried in the dirt. This site may have been one of the Taino's major centers. Meanwhile, deep in the forests of the Dominican Republic, a U. S.-Dominican team has also made an important discovery: a 240-ft. deep Taino cenote, or ceremonial well, where hundreds of objects thrown in as offerings have been preserved in the oxygen-poor water. It will take a much longer time to understand the Taino fully, but they have been rescued from the ignoble status of footnotes in the chapter of history that began with the arrival of Columbus.

单选题"Sloganeering" did not originate in the 1960s. The term has a rich history. It originated from the Gaelic word slaughgharim, which signified a "host-shout." "war cry," or "gathering word or phrase of one of the old Highland clans; hence the shout or battle cry of soldiers in the field." English-speaking people began using the term by 1704. The term at the time meant "the distinctive note, phrase, or cry of any person or body of persons." Slogans were common throughout the European continent during the middle ages, and they were utilized primly as "passwords to insure proper recognition of individuals at night or in the confusion of battle." The American revolutionary rhetoric would not have been the same without "the Boston Massacre," "the Boston Tea Party," "the shot heard around the world," and shouts of "no taxation without representation." Slogans operate in society as "social symbols" and, as such, their intended or perceived meaning may be difficult to grasp and their impact or stimulation may differ between and among individuals and groups. Because slogans may operate as "significant symbols" or as key words that have a standard meaning in a group, they serve both expressive and persuasive functions. Harold Lasswell recognized that the influencing of collective attitudes is possible by the manipulation of significant symbols such as slogans. He believed that a verbal Symbol might evoke a desired reaction or organize collective attitudes around a symbol. Murray Edelman writes that "to the political scientist patterning or consistency in the context in which specific groups of individuals use symbols is crucial, for only through such patterning do common political meaning and claims arise." Thus, the slogans a group uses to evoke specific responses may provide us with an index for the group's norm, values, and conceptual rationale for its claims. Slogans are so pervasive in today's society that it is easy to underestimate their persuasive power. They have grown in significance because of the medium of television and the advertising industry. Television, in addition to being the major advertising medium, has altered the nature of human interaction. Political images are less personal and shorter. They function as summaries and conclusions rather than bases for public interaction and debate. The style of presentation in television is more emotional, but the content is less complex or ideological. In short, slogans work well on television. The advertising industry has made a science of sloganeering. Today, communication itself is a problem because we live in an "overcommunicated" society. Advertisers have discovered that it is easier to link product attributes to existing beliefs, ideas, goals, and desires of the consumer rather than to change them. Thus, to say that a cookie tastes "homemade" or is as good as "Mom used to make" does not tell us if the cookie is good or bad, hard or soft, but simply evokes the fond memories of Mother's baking. Advertisers, then, are more successful if they present a product in a way that capitalizes on established beliefs or expectations of the consumer. Slogans do this well by crystallizing in a few words the key idea or theme one wants to associate with an issue, group, product, or event. "Sloganeering" has become institutionalized as a virtual art form, and an advertising agency may spend months testing and creating the right slogan for a product or a person. Slogans have a number of attributes that enhance their persuasive potential for social movements. They are unique and readily identifiable with a specific social movement or social movement organization. "Gray Power," for instance, readily identifies the movement for elderly Americans, and "Huelga" (strike in Spanish) identifies the movement to aid Mexican American field workers in the west and southwest.

单选题Our hotel can______double the number of guests participating in your conference.