单选题Individualism The most important thing to understand about Americans is probably their 1 to "individualism". They have been trained 2 very early in their lives to consider themselves as 3 individuals who are responsible for their own situations in life and their own destinies. They have not been trained to treat themselves as members of a tightly 4 family, religious group, nation, or any other 5 . You can see individualism in the way Americans treat their children. Even very young children are given 6 to make their own choices and express their opinions. A parent will ask a one-year-old child what color balloon she wants, which candy bar she would 7 , or 8 she wants to sit next to mommy or daddy. The child"s preference will normally be accommodated. 9 this practice, Americans come to consider themselves as separate human beings who have their own opinions and who make their own decisions. 10 , some American child-rearing magazines state that the parents" 11 in raising a child is to 12 a responsible, self-reliant individual who, by the age of 18 or so, is ready to 13 of the parents" house and make his or her own way in life. Americans 14 the advice very seriously, so that a person 15 the age of about 20 who is still living at home with his or her parents may be thought of as being unable to lead a normal, independent life.

单选题Is the Tie a Necessity ? Ties, or neckties, have been a symbol of politeness and elegance in Britain for centuries. But the casual Prime Minister Tony Blair has problems with them. Reports suggest that even the civil servants may stop wearing ties. So, are the famously formal British really going to abandon the neckties? Maybe. Last week, the UK's Cabinet Secretary Andrew Turnbull openly welcomed a tieless era. He hinted that civil servants would soon be free of the costliest 12 inches of fabric that most men ever buy in their lives. In fact, Blair showed this attitude when he had his first guests to a cocktail party. Many of them were celebrities (句名人士) without ties, which would have been unimaginable even in the recent past. For some more conservative British, the tie is a must for proper appearance. Earlier, Labor leader Jim Callaghan said he would have died rather than have his children seen in public without a tie. For people like Callaghan, the tie was a sign of being complete, of showing respect. Men were supposed to wear a tie when going to church, to work in the office, to a party-almost every social occasion. But today, people have begun to accept a casual style even for formal occasions. The origin of the tie is tricky. It started as something called simply a "band". The term could mean anything around a man's neck. It appeared in finer ways in the 1633s. Frenchmen showed a love of this particular fashion statement. Their neckwear (颈饰) impressed Charles II, the king of England who was exiled (流放) to France at that time. When he returned to England in 1660, he brought this new fashion item along with him. It wasn't, however, until the late 18th century that fancy young men introduced a more colorful, flowing piece of cloth that eventually became known as the tie. Then, clubs, military institutions and schools began to use colored and patterned ties to indicate the wearer's membership in the late 19th century. After that, the tie became a necessary item of clothing for British gentlemen. But now, even gentlemen are getting tired of ties. Anyway, the clay feels a bit easier when you wake up without having to decide which tie suits you and your mood.

单选题Our lives are intimately bound up with theirs.

单选题The latest census is encouraging. A. statement B. assessment C. evaluation D. count

单选题The most crucial problem any economic system faces is how to use its scarce resources,

单选题The most crucial issue at present is how to solve the problem of food safety.______

单选题Even with detailed knowledge about an area, geologists cannot easily locate stores of underground natural gas.

单选题The contempt he felt for his fellow students was obvious

单选题The Smell of Money For many years large supermarkets have been encouraging us to spend money by pumping the smell of freshly-baked bread into their stores. Now Dale Air, a leading firm of aroma(香气) consultants, has been approached by Barclay's Bank to develop suitable artificial smells for their banks. Researchers have suggested that surrounding customers with the "smell of money" will encourage them to feel relaxed and optimistic and give them added confidence in the bank's security and professionalism. But before a smell can be manufactured and introduced into banks' air conditioning systems, it must be identified and chemically analysed, and this has proved to be difficult. The problem is that banknotes and coins tend to pick up the smell of their surroundings. So cash that has been sitting in a cash register at a fishmonger's (鱼贩)will smell of fish, and banknotes used to pay for meals in restaurants will tend to smell of food. It may be a challenge, but aroma experts have little doubt that the use of artificial smells can be an effective form of subconscious advertising. Lunn Poly, a British travel company, introduced the smell of coconuts(椰子)into its travel agencies and saw a big increase in spending by holiday makers. Many cafes now have electric dispensers (自动售货机) that release the smell of freshly roasted coffee near their entrances, subtly encouraging customers to come in and have a drink or snack. Even prestigious car maker Rolls-Royce has been spraying the inside of its cars to enhance the smell of the leather seats, "The sense of smell is probably the most basic and primitive of all human senses," explains researcher Jim O'Riordan. "There is a direct pathway from the olfactory(嗅觉的) organs in the nose to the brain. "It is certainly true that most people find certain smells incredibly strong, stirring memories and feelings in a way that few other stimulants(刺激物)can rival. It is a phenomenon marketing consultants have long recognized, but untill recently have been unable to harness. "We've made great progress but the technology of odour production is still in its infancy, " says O'Riordan. "Who knows where it will take us. /

单选题下面有3篇短文，每篇短文后有5道题，每题后面有4个选项。请仔细阅读短文并根据短文回答其后面的问题。{{B}}第一篇{{/B}} {{B}} Famous American Foods{{/B}} What, besides children, connects mothers around the world and across the seas of time? It's chicken soup, one prominent American food expert says. From Russian villages to Africa and Asia, chicken soup has been the remedy for those weak in body and spirit. Mothers passed their knowledge on to ancient writers of Greece, China and Rome, and even 12th century philosopher and physician Moses Maimonides extolled (赞美)its virtues. Among the ancients, Aristotle thought poultry should stand in higher estimation than four-legged animals because the air is less dense than the earth. Chickens got another boost (吹捧)in the Book of Genesis, where it is written that birds and fish were created on the fifth day, a day before four-legged animals. But according to Mimi Sheraton, who has spent much of the past three years exploring the world of chicken soup, much of the reason for chicken's real or imagined curative (治愈的)powers comes from its color. Her new book, "The Whole World Loves Chicken Soup", looks at the beloved and mysterious brew, with dozens of recipes from around the world. Throughout the ages, she said, "There has been a lot of feeling that white-colored foods are easier to eat for the weak woman and the ill". In addition, "soups, or anything for that matter eaten with a spoon" are considered "comfort foods" Sheraton said. "I love soup and love making soup and as I was collecting recipes I began to see this as an international dish. It has a universal mystique as something curative, a strength builder," Sheraton said from her New York home. Her book treats the oldest remedy as if it was brand new. The National Broiler Council, the trade group representing the chicken industry, reported that 51 percent of the people it surveyed said they bought chicken because it was healthier, 50 percent said it was versatile, 41 percent said it was economical and 46 percent said it was low in fat.

单选题A small number of firms have ceased trading.

单选题Last week, I called on my teacher.

单选题{{B}}第二篇{{/B}} Pushbike Peril Low speed bicycle crashes can badly injure or even kill children if they fall onto the ends of the handlebars (车把) so a team of engineers is redesigning the humble handlebar in a bid to make it safer. Kristy Arbogast, a bioengineer at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, began the project with her colleagues after a study of serious abdominal(腹部的) injuries in children in the past 30 years showed that more than a third were caused by bicycle accidents. "the task was to identify how the injuries occurred and come up with some countermeasures(对策). " she says. By interviewing the children and their parents, Arbogast and her team were able to reconstruct(重建; 重构) many of the accidents and identified a common mechanism responsible for serious injures. They discovered that most occur when children hit an obstacle at a slow speed, causing them to topple over. To maintain their balance they turn the handlebars through 90 degrees — but their momentum (冲力) forces them into the end of the handlebars The bike then falls over and the other end of the handlebars hits the ground, ramming it into their abdomen. The solution the group came up with is a handgrip(握柄) fitted with a spring and damping(制动的; 减速的，缓冲的) system. The spring absorbs up to 50 per cent of the forces transmitted through the handlebars in an impact, The group hopes to commercialize(使商品化) the device, which should add only a few dollars to the cost of a bike. "But our task has been one of education because up until now, bicycle manufacturer were unaware of the problem," says Arbogast. The team has also approached the US Consumer Product Safety Commission to try to persuade manufacturers to adopt the new design. A decision is expected later this year.

单选题She will be pleased to meet you.

单选题The {{U}}caliber{{/U}} of F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing was reassessed by literary critics in the 1950's.

单选题Sending E-mails to Professors One student skipped class and then sent the professor an e-mail (1) for copies of her teaching notes. Another (2) that she was late for a Monday class because she was recovering from drinking too much at a wild weekend party. At colleges and universities in the US, e-mail has made professors more approachable (平易近人). But many say it has made them too accessible, (3) boundaries that traditionally kept students at a healthy distance. These days, professors say, students seem to view them as available (4) the clock, sending a steady stream of informal e-mails. "The tone that they take in e-mails is pretty astounding (令人吃惊的) ," said Michael Kessler, an assistant dean at Georgetown University. "They'll (5) you to help: 'I need to know this. '" "There's a fine (6) between meeting their needs and at the same time maintaining a level of legitimacy (正统性) as an (7) who is in charge. " Christopher Dede, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said (8) show that students no longer defer to (听众) their professors, perhaps because they realize that professors' (9) could rapidly become outdated. "The deference was driven by the (10) that professors were all-knowing sources of deep knowledge," Dede said, and that notion has (11) . For junior faculty members, e-mails bring new tension into their work, some say, as they struggle with how to (12) . Their job prospects, they realize, may rest in part on student evaluations of their accessibility. College students say e-mail makes (13) easier to ask questions and helps them learn. But they seem unaware that what they write in e-mails could have negative effects (14) them, said Alexandra Lahav, an associate professor of Law at the University of Connecticut. She recalled an e-mail message from a student saying that he planned to miss class so he could play with his son. Professor Lahav did not respond. "Such e-mails can have consequences," she said. "Students don't understand that (15) they say in e-mail can make them seem unprofessional, and could result in a bad recommendation. /

单选题Effects of Environmental Pollution If pollution continues to increase at the present rate, formation of aerosols (浮质) in the atmosphere will cause the onset (开始) of an ice age in about fifty year's time. This conclusion reached by Dr S. I. Rasoo1 and Dr S. H. Scheider of the United States Goddard Space Flight Center, answer the apparently conflicting questions of whether an increase in the carbon dioxide (二氧化碳) content of the atmosphere will cause the Earth warm up or increasing the aerosol question is dominant. Two specters haunting conservationists have been the prospect that environmental pollution might lead to the planet's becoming unbearably hot or cold. One of these ghosts has now been laid, because it seems that even an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to eight times its present value will produce an increase in temperature of only 2℃, which would take place over several thousand years. But the other problem now looms larger than ever. Aerosols are collection of small liquid or solid particles dispersed in air or some other medium. The particles are all so tiny that each is composed of only a few hundred atoms. Because of this they can float in the air for a very long time. Perhaps the most commonly experienced aerosol is industrial smog (烟雾) of the kind that plagued London in the 1950s and is an even greater problem in Los Angeles today. These collections of aerosols reflect the Sun's heat and thereby cause the Earth to cool. Dr Rasoo1 and Dr Schneider have calculated the exact effect of a dust aerosol layer just above the Earth's surface in the temperature of the planet. As the layer builds up, the present delicate balance between the amount of heat absorbed from the Sun and the amount radiated from the Earth is disturbed. The aerosol layer not only reflects much of the Sun's light but also transmits the infrared (红外线) radiation from below. So, while the heat input to surface drops, the loss of heat remains high until the planet cools to a new balanced state. Within fifty years, if no steps are taken to stop the spread of aerosols in the atmosphere, a cooling of the Earth by as much as 3.5~C seems inevitable. If that lasts for only a few years it would start another ice age, and because the growing ice caps at each pole would themselves reflect much of the Sun's radiation it would probably continue to develop even if the aerosol layer were destroyed. The only bright spot in this gloomy forecast lies in the hope expressed by Dr Rasoo1 and Dr Schneider that nuclear powder may replace fossil fuels in time to prevent the aerosol content of atmosphere from becoming critical.

单选题The offender will be sentenced to life imprisonment.

单选题He {{U}}replied{{/U}} that this was absolutely impossible.

单选题Some species of bacteria and fungi thrive on simple compounds such as alcohol.