单选题We become susceptible to the moods and feelings, the behavior and treatment of our spouse, A. responsible B. suspicious C. committed D. vulnerable

单选题Grierson remains Ucautious/U of offending the public, of moving too quickly.

单选题The waste pipe is blocked; try sluicing it out with hot water.A. rushingB. brushingC. crushingD. flushing

单选题Before you conduct a survey, you' d better refer to certain books.A. careerB. holidayC. planD. research

单选题The phrase "coming back out of the cave" in the fifth paragraph means

单选题What do we learn from the last paragraph?

单选题Silence Please If there is one group of workers across the Western world who will be glad that Christmas is over, that group is shop workers. It is not that they like to complain. They realize that they are going to be rushed off their feet at Christmas. They know that their employers need happy customers to make their profits that pay their wages. But there is one thing about working in a shop over Christmas that is too bad to tolerate. That thing is music. These days, all shops and many offices have what is known as "Piped music" or "muzak" playing for all the hours that they are open. Muzak has an odd history. During the 1940s, music was played to cows as part of a scientific experiment. It was found that cows which listened to simple, happy music produced more milk. Perhaps workers and customers who listened to simple, happy music would be snore productive and spend more money. In fact, nobody knows what effect playing muzak in shops has on profits. It is simply something that everybody does. But we are learning more about the effect of constantly repeated hearings of songs on the people who have to hear them all the time. Research shows that repeated hearings of complex pieces of music bring greater enjoyment before becoming tiresome. And that point come much sooner with simple songs. "That's especially the case with tunes that are already familiar. Once that tipping point is reached, repeated listening become unpleasant," says Professor John Sloboda of UK's Keele University's music psychology group. "And the less control you have over what you hear, the less you like it." That's why police forces in the US often try and resolve hostage situations by playing pop songs over and over again at high volume. Eventually, it becomes too much for the criminals to stand and they give up. The problem gets particularly bad at Christmas, when the muzak consists entirely of the same few festive tunes played over and over again. What makes it worse for the shop workers is that they already know these tunes. They get bored very quickly. Then they get irritated. Then they get angry. Shop workers in Austria recently threatened to go on strike for the right to silence. "Shop workers can't escape the Christmas muzak. They feel as if they are terrorized all day, especially 'Jingle Bells'. It arouses aggressive feelings," said Gottfried Rieser, of the Austrian shop worker's union. It is not just shop workers who complain. A survey this year by UK recruitment website Retailchoice.com found that Christmas is not only the most testing time for shop workers, but that almost half had complaints from customers about muzak. And the British Royal National Institute for the Deaf estimates that some stores play jingle Bells 300 times each year. "That's acoustic torture," says Nigel Rodgers of Pipedown, a group against muzak. "It's not loud but the repetitive nature causes psychological stress." The group wants the government to legislate against unwanted music in stores, hospitals, airports, swimming pools and other public places, claiming it raises the blood pressure and depresses the immune system. Perhaps groups like Pipedown don't really have much to complain about. After all, surely the real point is that people have money to spend Why complain about a bit of music?

单选题The powers of the European Commission to Uregulate/U competition 4n the Community are increasing.

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，从4个选项中选择1个最佳答案。{{B}}第一篇{{/B}} In an average winter, highway departments spread some ten million tons of salt to keep roads safe. The corrosive effects are well known, but for years they' re been dismissed with the argument that at around $ 25 a ton, salt is far cheaper than any alternative. Lately, economists have added up the actual costs. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that salt-induced road damage and vehicle corrosion cost $ 3 billion a year. That does not include damage to underground cables, which adds hundreds of millions to utility bills. Nor does it reflect the cost of brine leaking into porous water pipes, threatening the water supply. Salty water leaches into roadbeds, kills evergreens and poisons streams. The various costs probably add another $ 2 billion to the national salt bill. Scientists estimate the full economic, or "life cycle," cost for a ton of salt at $ 500, or 20 times the $ 25 purchase price. That begins to make the switch to calcium magnesium acetate, perhaps the most promising alternative look practical. CMA, made from acetic acid and dolomitic(含白石的) lime, costs $ 600 a ton and has minimal adverse effect. Some researchers believe the cost can be halved by making CMA from waste cheese whey or pulp-mill effluent. While CMA and other alternatives are being researched, many cities and states are cutting back on their use of salt. Keeping dispensing equipment in good repair helps reduce the amount spread.

单选题She read a poem which depicts the splendor of the sunset. A．declares B．asserts C．describes D．announces

单选题About one quarter of the workers in the country are employed in factories

单选题We need to {{U}}extract{{/U}} the relevant financial data. A. store B. save C. obtain D. review

单选题He hasn't the funds to {{U}}carry out{{/U}} his design. A.make B.keep C.change D.implement

单选题 EI Nino While some forecasting methods had limited success predicting the 1997 EI Nino a few months in advance, the Columbia University researchers say their method call predict large EI Nino events up to two years in advance. That would be good news for governments, farmers and others seeking to plan for the droughts and heavy rainfall that EI Nino can produce in various parts of the world. Using a computer the researchers matched sea-surface temperatures to later EI Nino occurrences between 1980 and 2000 and were then able to anticipate EI Nino events dating back to 1857, using prior sea-surface temperatures. The results were reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature. The researchers say their method is not perfect, but Bryan C. Weare. a meteorologist at the University of California, Davis, who was not involved in the work, said it "suggests EI Nino is indeed predictable." "This will probably convince others to search around more for even better methods." said Weare. He added that the new method "makes it possible to predict EI Nino at long lead times." Other models also use sea-surface temperatures, but they have not looked as far back because they need other data, which is only available for recent decades, Weare said. The ability to predict the warming and cooling of the Pacific is of immense importance. The 1997 EI Nino, for example, caused an estimated $20 billion in damage worldwide, offset by beneficial effects in other areas, said David Anderson, of the European Centre for Medium. Range Weather Forecasts in Reading England. The 1877 EI Nino, meanwhile, coincided with a failure of the Indian monsoon and a famine that killed perhaps 40 million in India and China prompting the development of seasonal forecasting, Anderson said. When EI Nino hit in 1991 and 1997, 200 million people were affected by flooding in China alone, according to a 2002 United Nations report. While predicting smaller EI Nino events remains tricky, the ability to predict larger ones should be increased to at least a year if the new method is confirmed. EI Nino tends to develop between April and June and reaches its peak between December and February. The warming tends to last between 9 and 12 months and occurs every two to seven years? The new forecasting method does not predict any major EI Nino events in the next two years, although a weak warming toward the end of this year is possible.

单选题Own Your Children"s Education "Helping them isn"t about showing your kids how to do the work. It"s about being genuinely interested and having regular conversations about what they"re learning," says J. Gary Knowles, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, part of the University of Toronto. Rozon has a slew of suggestions for how to get more involved. "Get to know the teacher. Discuss ways to tailor the assignments to your child"s learning style. Spend time in the classroom. Ask for outlines of unit studies so you can find supplementary materials at the library or through videos. Read your child"s textbooks. If you work a few pages ahead, you"ll be able to help them with problems they encounter." "Reading is another must," says Rozon. "Even after your children can read themselves, hearing somebody else read aloud is important. We nearly always have a book on the bed; we read for at least a half hour before bedtime. " The more engaged a parent is, the more the child benefit, adds Bruce Arai. "The evidence is clear. Parental involvement is one of the most important factors in school success." Arai cites the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth sponsored by Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), which is measuring all aspects of child development. "The hours children spend in class are but one element of their education." states HRDC, which says parental support, along with teacher support and a positive attitude towards school, all contribute to academic success. "I see every moment of every day as a learning experience." says Goforth. "The most satisfying part of it is seeing the love of learning continued. I"m not squelching my children"s desire to learn by insisting they learn. They learn because they want to." Adds Jeanne Lambert, mother of Carey Graham: "Make the time, take the time, guide, lead, and encourage. If nothing else, your children learn you care, and that"s the most important lesson you can give them."

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，从4个选项中选择1个最佳答案。{{B}}第一篇{{/B}} Part science and part natural history, ornithology(鸟类学) owes its tremendous popularity as a science and a scientific recreation to a simple circumstance that is sometimes forgotten when we weigh the eligibility(有被选资格，合适)of different kinds of animals for informal study. Birds are day animals where others, just as engaging in their way—mice, for instance—are creatures of the night. Apart from their visibility (something very much in their favor), the beauty of birds and their many appealing habits have won for them a huge fan following that has more than once tempted impatient and ill-informed laboratory biologists to dismiss ornithology as so much bird-watching—an absurdly unjust judgment that ignores the fact that ornithology has made a number of profoundly important contributions to general biology. Professional biologists are not hard put to reel off(滔滔不绝地讲) a list of distinctive contributions that ornithology has made to general biology science. They will cite, for example, Ernst Mayr's investigations of evolution and the mechanisms of speciation (物种形成), or M. R. Irwin's work on the immunologic performance of species of Columbidae(pigeons and doves) and of hybrids(杂交种)between them. Then again, David Lack's studies on mortality in wild populations of birds are the most illuminating life tables of wild animals and animal demography (统计学) generally. Most important of all, perhaps is the contribution that ornithology has made to the study of animal behavior, beginning with Julian Huxley' s classic study of the courtship habits of the great crested great and followed by Niko Tinbergen's studies on the behavior of herring gulls.

单选题The Exploding Lakes of Cameroon What comes to mind when you think of a lake? You probably imagine a pretty scene with blue water, birds, and fish. For the people in the northwestern Cameroon, however, the image is very different. For them, lakes may mean terrible disasters. In 1984, poisonous gases exploded out of Lake Monoun and came down into the nearby villages, killing thirty-seven people. Two years later, Lake Nyos erupted. A cloud of gases rolled down the hills and into the valleys and killed 1,700 people. Lake Nyos and Lake Monoun are crater (火山口) lakes. They were formed when water collected in the craters of old volcanoes. The volcanoes under Lake Nyos and Lake Monoun are not active anymore. However, poisonous gases from the center of the earth continue to flow up through cracks in the bottom of the lake. This is normal in a crater lake. In most crater lakes, these gases are released often because the water "turns over" regularly. That is, the water from the bottom of the lake rises and mixes with the water at the top, allowing the gases to escape slowly. However, in Lakes Nyos and Monoun, there is no regular turning over. No one knows the reason for this fact, but as a result, these lakes have more gases trapped at the bottom than other crater lakes. In fact, scientists who have studied Lakes Nyos and Monoun have found 16,000 times more gases. When a strong wind, cool weather, a storm, or a landslide (滑坡) causes the water to turn over suddenly, the gases escape in a violent explosion. In the past, no one knew when the gases might explode, so there was no way for the villagers to escape disaster. Now scientists from the United States, France, and Cameroon have found a way to reduce the gas pressure at the bottom of Lake Nyos. They stood a 672-foot plastic pipe in the middle of the lake, with one end of the pipe near the bottom and the other end in the air. Near the top of the pipe, the team put several holes that could be opened or closed by a computer. Now, when the gas pressure gets too high, the holes are opened and some of the gas-filled water shoots up through the pipe into the air like a fountain. With less pressure, a disastrous explosion is much less likely. However, the scientists are not sure that one pipe will be enough to prevent explosions. They hope to put in others soon and they plan to install a similar pipe and a computer system at Lake Monoun as well. To protect people nearby until all of the pipes are in place, the scientists have installed early warning systems at both lakes. If the gas pressure rises to a dangerous level, computers will set off loud sirens (警报) and bright lights to warn the people in the villages. That way, they will have time to escape from the dangerous gases.

单选题Every effort was made to reduce the cost of the project Usubstantially/U.

单选题 Greenhouse Effect A greenhouse is a building made of glass which is used for keeping plants warm when the outside temperature is low. In a similar way, there are several gases in the atmosphere which trap the heat generated by the sun and prevent it from escaping. These gases are known as "greenhouse gases", and the way in which they trap heat in the atmosphere is called the "greenhouse effect". This is not simply air pollution like photochemical smog(光化学烟雾), for example. Most of the main greenhouse gases occur naturally in small amounts in our atmosphere, and without them the earth would be thirty degrees colder and human life would not exist. In other words, the greenhouse effect is a natural process which is to some extent beneficial to us. The problem is that in the last century and a half, we have been putting excessive amounts of these gases into the earth's atmosphere by burning large quantities of coal and oil and by cutting down forests. In 1850, there were 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide (二氧化碳) in the atmosphere. Now there are 360, and this figure is expected to rise to 460 by the year 2030. We now put 24 billion metric(公制的) tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. We have also created a group of artificial greenhouse gases that are 20,000 times more effective than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere. These are the chlorofluorocarbon(氯氟碳) gases, which are used in refrigerators and air conditioning systems. The rapid increase in greenhouse gases is making the world warmer. The world's temperature has already gone up by half a degree this century, and the sea level has risen by ten centimeters. If the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles, there will probably be a rise in the earth's temperature of between 1 and 4. This may seem a small increase, but it would be enough to cause major changes in geography and agriculture. Large areas of the world would be flooded, and some regions would become dry and unable to produce crops. It is important, too, to consider that there maybe a delay of about thirty years in the greenhouse effect. This means that we are probably experiencing 0nly now the effect of the gases put into the atmosphere up to the 1960s. Since then, our use of these gases has greatly increased.

单选题Computer and School Education There was a time when parents who wanted an educational present for their children would buy a typewriter, a globe or an encyclopedia set. Now those (51) seem hopelessly old-fashioned; this Christmas, there were a lot of personal computers under the tree. (52) that computers are the key to success, parents are also financially insisting that children (53) taught to use them in school—as early as possible. The problem for schools is that when it (54) computers, parents don't always know best. Many schools are (55) parental impatience and are purchasing hardware without sound educational planning so they can say, "OK, we've moved into the computer age. " Teachers found themselves caught in the middle of the problem—between parent pressure and (56) educational decisions. Educators do not even agree (57) how computers should be used. (58) money is going for computerized educational materials (59) research has shown can be taught just as well with pencil and paper. (60) those who believe that all children should have access to computers, warn of potential dangers to the very young. The temptation remains strong largely because young children (61) so well to computers. First graders have been seen willing to work for two hours on math skills. Some have an attention span of 20 minutes. (62) school can afford to go into computing, and creates yet another problem: a division between the haves and have-nots. Very (63) parents are agitating (64) computer instruction in poor school districts, (65) there may be barely enough money to pay the reading teacher.