单选题It is high time that we ______some measures to deal with water pollution.

单选题The unusual design of the new boat is a leap in the dark by the shipbuilders. The underlined phrase means______.

单选题Social institutions are now being called ______to provide assistance to the homeless.

单选题At the inaugural address yesterday the President got his most enthusiastic ______ applause when he talked about tax cuts which would help revive the economy.

单选题The euro-zone crisis has transitioned from an______phase to a______one. At just this moment the fear that market panic might one or several economies out of the single currency is low.

单选题In his plays, Shakespeare ______his characters live through their language.

单选题The editor found the articles so ______ that he hesitated to print them.

单选题Our dreams will sometimes be______and our ethereal hopes blasted.

单选题Passage Two Global warming was once an uncommon term used by a few scientists who were growing concerned over the effects of decades of pollution on long-term weather patterns. Today, the idea of global warming is well known, if not well understood. It is not unusual to hear someone complaining about a hot day or a freak storm and remark, "It's global warming. " Global warming is a significant increase in the Earth's climatic temperature over a relatively short period of time as a result of the activities of humans. In specific terms, an increase of l or more degrees Celsius in a period of one hundred to two hundred years would be considered global warming. Over the course of a single century, an increase of even 0.4 degrees Celsius would be significant. Most scientists recognize that global warming does seem to be happening, but a few don't believe that it is anything to be worried about. These scientists say that the Earth is more resistant to climate changes on this scale than we think. Plants and animals will adapt to subtle shifts in weather patterns, and it is unlikely anything catastrophic will happen as a result of global warming. Slightly longer growing seasons, changes in precipitation levels and stronger weather, in their opinion, are not generally disastrous. They also argue that the economic damage caused by cutting down on the emission of greenhouse gases will be far more damaging to humans than any of the effects of global warming. In a way, the scientific consensus may be a moot point. The real power to enact significant change rests in the hands of those who make national and global policy. Some policymakers in the United States are reluctant to propose and enact changes because they feel the costs may outweigh any risks global warming poses. Some common concerns, claims and complaints include: A change in the United States' policies in emissions and carbon production could result in a loss of jobs; India and China, both of which continue to rely heavily on coal for their main source of energy, will continue to cause environmental problems even if the United States changes its energy policies (critics of these policymakers point out that this approach employs the tu quoque logical fallacy); Since scientific evidence is about probabilities rather than certainties, we can't be certain that human behavior is contributing to global warming, that our contribution is significant, or that we can do anything to fix it; Technology will find a way to get us out of the global warming mess, so any change in our policies will ultimately be unnecessary and cause more harm than good. What's the correct answer? It can be hard to figure out. Most scientists will tell you that global warming is real and that it is likely to do sonic kind of harm, hut the extent of the problem and the danger posed by its effects are wide open for debate. Though scientists warn that global warming will likely continue for centuries because of the long natural processes involved, there are a few things we can do to decrease the effects. Basically, they all boil down to this: Don't use as much of the stuff that creates greenhouse gases. On a local level, you can help by using less energy. The electricity that operates many of the devices in our homes comes from a power plant, and most power plants burn fossil fuels to generate that power. Turn off lights when they're not in use. Take shorter showers to use less hot water. Use a fan instead of an air conditioner on a warm day. Here are some other specific ways you can help decrease greenhouse-gas emissions: Make sure your car is properly tuned up. This allows it to run more efficiently and generate fewer harmful gases; Walk or ride your bike if possible, or carpool on your way to work. Cars burn fossil fuel, so smaller, more fuel-efficient cars emit less CO2, particularly hybrid cars; Turn lights and other appliances off when you're not using them. Even though a light bulb doesn't generate greenhouse gas, the power plant that generates the electricity used by the light bulb probably does. Switch from incandescent light bulbs to fluorescent bulbs, which use less energy and last longer; Recycle. Garbage that doesn't get recycled ends up in a landfill, generating methane. Recycled goods also require less energy to produce than products made from scratch; Plant trees and other plants where you can. Plants take carbon dioxide out of the air and release oxygen. Don't burn garbage. This releases carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. To really stem the emission of greenhouse gases, we need to develop non-fossil fuel energy sources. Hydro-electric power, solar power, hydrogen engines and fuel cells could all create big cuts in greenhouse gases if they were to become more common. At the international level, the Kyoto treaty was written to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Thirty-five industrialized nations have committed to reducing their output of those gases to varying degrees. Unfortunately, the United States, the world's primary producer of greenhouse gases, did not sign the treaty. In March, 2007, former Vice President Al Gore testified in front of Congress and urged them to make some very challenging changes in national policy. These include: Freeze carbon production at the current level and create programs to reduce carbon production by 90 percent by 2050 ; Shift taxation from employment and production to a taxation upon pollution; Create an international treaty that would effectively comply with the Kyoto treaty without carrying the same perceived political baggage; halt the construction of all new coal-based power facilities unless they comply with restrictions on carbon production; increase emission standards across the board for both the automobile industry and power facilities; ban incandescent light bulbs. Gore admits that the decision to enact these and other proposed responses to global warming can be difficult, He also says that climate change is not just a crisis, but the most important crisis mankind has ever faced.

单选题I spent hours simply wandering these back streets, looking for photo opportunities and inhaling the unmistakable scent of burning coal.

单选题The terrible disease is said ______the number-one killer of both men and women over the past few years in that region.

单选题She has taken a (n) ______to wearing my shoes around the house.

单选题The bank is reported in the local newspaper ______ in broad daylight yesterday. A. to be robbed B. robbed C. to have been robbed D. having been robbed

单选题The term "Ice Age" may give a wrong impression . The epoch that geologists know as the Pleistocene and that spanned the 1.5 to 2. 0 million years prior to the current geologic epoch was not one long continuous glaciation, but a period of oscillating climate with ice advances punctuated by times of interglacial climate not very different from the climate experienced now. Ice sheets that derived from an ice cap centered on northern Scandinavia reached southward to Central Europe. And beyond the margins of the ice sheets, climatic oscillations affected most of the rest of the world; for example, in the deserts, periods of wetter conditions(pluvials)contrasted with drier, interpluvial periods. Although the time involved is so short, about 0. 04 percent of the total age of the Earth, the amount of attention devoted to the Pleistocene has been incredibly large, probably because of its immediacy, and because the epoch largely coincides with the appearance on Earth of humans and their immediate ancestors. There is no reliable way of dating much of the Ice Age. Geological dates are usually obtained by using the rates of decay of various radioactive elements found in minerals. Some of these rates are suitable for very old rocks but involve increasing errors when used for young rocks; others are suitable for very young rocks and errors increase rapidly in older rocks. Most of the Ice Age spans a period of time for which no element has an appropriate decay rate. Nevertheless, researchers of the Pleistocene epoch have developed all sorts of more or less fanciful model schemes of how they would have arranged the Ice Age had they been in charge of events. For example, an early classification of Alpine glaciation suggested the existence there of four glaciations, named the Gunz, Mindel, Piss, and Wurm. This succession was based primarily on a series of deposits and events not directly related to glacial and interglacial periods, rather than on the more usual modern method of studying biological remains found in interglacial beds themselves interstratified within glacial deposits. Yet this succession was forced willy-nilly onto the glaciated parts of Northern Europe, where there are partial successions of true glacial ground moraines and interglacial deposits, with hopes of ultimately piecing them together to provide a complete Pleistocene succession. Eradication of the Alpine nomenclature is still proving a Herculean task. There is no conclusive evidence about the relative length, complexity, and temperatures of the various glacial and interglacial periods. We do not know whether we live in a postglacial period or an interglacial period. The chill truth seems to be that we are already past the optimum climate of postglacial time. Studies of certain fossil distributions and of the pollen of certain temperate plants suggest decreases of a degree or two in both summer and winter temperatures and, therefore, that we may be in the declining climatic phase leading to glaciation and extinction.

单选题Man is still a ______ in the labor market.

单选题She was subject to both admiration and ______ exposing the indiscretions of a prominent politician.

单选题The hapless pair had the misfortune to discover for themselves what any decent guide will inform you: Wangfujing is not the place for better restaurants.

单选题Had Jane been more careful on the math exam, she______much better results now.

单选题After a show sales start early in the year, mobile homes have been gaining favor as ______ to increasingly expensive conventional housing. A. a reaction B. an addition C. an introduction D. an alternative

单选题 The World Bank is undeniably in crisis. But not because its president, Paul Wolfowitz, got hisgirlfriend a raise. It is the Wolfowitz saga that has been grabbing all the headlines, of course. The Iraq war architect was plucked from the Defense Department and deposited by President George W. Bush at the World Bank in 2005 (by tradition, the U. S. president picks the bank's chief). At the time, Wolfowitz informed the bank's ethics committee that he was seeing Shaha Riza, a communication adviser at the bank, and the in-house ethicists told him she should be moved to another agency and given a raise for her troubles. But the size of the pay hike (from $133,000 to $180,000, tax free) and other details about Riza's transfer raised hackles among bank staff and sparked an investigation. The bank's board will decide any day now whether Wolfowitz stays or goes. This dragged-out mess, though, is a distraction. The bigger issue is that the Washington-based bank and its sister organization, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are struggling to justify their continued existence. The situation is most pressing for the smaller IMF, which pays its bills with the profits it makes by lending money to middle-income countries in financial trouble. With hardly any such countries in trouble these days, the organization is projecting a $224 million deficit for this fiscal year and asking its member nations if they can start selling off some of the gold they deposited with it after World War II (the answer so far. no). The World Bank isn't that desperate, but it faces similar pressure. Both organizations were created in 1944 by the soon-to-be-victorious Allied powers. At the time, says Harvard professor and former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff, "global financial markets barely existed, and domestic financial markets barely existed in Europe." The World Bank's initial job was to finance reconstruction in Europe. The Marshall Plan rendered that task superfluous, so the bank—in the first of several reinventions— moved on to bankroll development in other countries. The idea was to lend to governments that were creditworthy but had no access to rich-country capital markets."Now we live in a world where there are huge global capital markets, where, if anything, investors are too willing to invest in developing countries," says Adam Lerrick, a former investment banker who teaches economics at Carnegie Mellon University. The World Bank's net lending has plummeted over the past few years, even as it keeps shopping loans to the likes of Brazil, Turkey, Russia and China, sometimes on hugely generous terms. This is the work of the biggest part of the World Bank, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Member countries make deposits (the U. S. share is $2 billion down and $ 30 billion pledged); the bank sells bonds backed by those deposits and pledges, then lends the money out at a small profit. The other main arm of the World Bank, the International Development Association, gets regular infusions of cash from rich countries and lends funds on near giveaway terms to truly poor countries, mostly in Africa ( the U.S. contribution is just under $1 billion a year, or 0. 04% of federal spending). Lerrick wants the World Bank to stop lending to middle-income countries and restructure its loans to the poorest nations as outright grants. Nancy Birdsall, a former World Banker who runs a Washington think tank called the Center for Global Development, argues that the bank could have more impact on poverty by making better use of its best assets : the expertise of its staff and its ability to coordinate global action."Lending and grant making at the country level should not be the end-all and be-all," she says. "It should be the vehicle for advice and constant rebuilding of the bank's knowledge." Birdsall is a World Bank fan but agrees with critics like Lerrick that it must become smaller (it has a staff of 10,000) and less bank like to remain relevant. Wolfowitz's allies say he is the victim of backlash from entrenched bank staff upset that he is turning up the heat on an anticorruption campaign begun by his predecessor, James Wolfensohn. That's probably overstating things. But the potential backlash against slashing the bank's staff and getting it out of lending would surely be epic. Which may explain why no World Bank president, Wolfowitz included, has attempted it.