单选题Now, however, armed with brain-scanning tools and a sophisticated understanding of biochemistry, researchers are realizing that the mental effects of exercise are far more profound and complex than they once thought. The process starts in the muscles. Every time a bicep (二头肌) or quad contracts and releases, it sends out chemicals, including a protein called IGF-1 that travels through the bloodstream, across the blood-brain barrier and into the brain itself. There, IGF-1 takes on the role of foreman(工头, 领班)in the body's neurotransmitter factory. It issues orders to ramp up production of several chemicals, including one called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF. Ratey, author of the upcoming book "Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain." calls this molecule" Miracle-Gro for the brain. "It fuels almost all the activities that lead to higher thought. The process of exercise functioning on mind startsA. in the muscles.B. in the bloodstreams.C. in the brain.D. in the heart.

单选题He {{U}}asserted{{/U}} that nuclear power was a safe and non-polluting energy source. A. maintained B. recommended C. considered D. acknowledged

单选题Perfect Crime Taiwan police cannot decide whether to treat it as an extremely clever act of stealing or an even cleverer cheat (诈骗). Either way, it could be the perfect crime (犯罪), because the criminals are birds—homing pigeons! The crime begins with a telephone message to the owner of a stolen car: if you want the car back, pay up then. The ear owner is directed to a park, told where to find a bird cage and how to attach money to the neck of the pigeon inside. Carrying the money in a tiny bag, the pigeon flies off. There have been at least four such pigeon pick-ups in Changwa. What at first seemed like the work of a clever stay-at-home ear thief, however, may in fact be the work of an even lazier and more inventive criminal mind—one that avoids (避免) not only collecting money but going out to steal the car in the first place. Police officer Chen says that the criminal probably has played a double trick, he gets money for things he cannot possibly return. Instead of stealing cars, he lets someone else do it and then waits for the car-owner to place an ad (启事) in the newspaper asking for help. The theory is supported by the fact that, so far, none of the stolen cars have been returned. Also, the amount of money demanded—under 3,000 Taiwanese dollars—seems too little for a car worth many times more. Demands for pigeon-delivered money stopped as soon as the press reported the story. And even if they start again, Chen holds little hope of catching the criminal. "We have more important things to do," he said.

单选题I think ￡ 7 for a drink is a bit {{U}}steep{{/U}}, don't you? A. tight B. high C. low D. cheap

单选题The absence of Y2K induced problems has been remarkable. There were no falling planes, no exploding power stations, no rogue missiles. Those horrors were always the stuff of myth. But so sparse were tales of disaster that journalists were driven to reporting on malfunctions in the breath-testing' machines used on drunken motorists by the Hong Kong police. More problems may emerge in the coming weeks. Overall, though, Y2K has turned out to be Y20K: One partial explanation is that the huge effort lavished(浪费) on bug-squashing has worked. The United States, according to a Commerce Department estimate, spent about 100 billion on the problem; the rest of the world probably spent about the same again. Those numbers are far smaller than some of the more exotic figures trailed a few years ago, but they are still substantial. Yet even the countries that had begun work late and done little-southern Europe, Russia, much of Asia-had a trouble free new year. So was the money wasted? According to the author, the amount of money spent on the Y2K problem wasA. too much.B. not enough.C. significant.D. the same as had been expecte

单选题They had no way to dispose of the Uhazardous/U waste they produced in the process of the car manufacture.

单选题 下面有3篇短文，每篇短文后有5道题，每道题后面有4个选项。请根据文章的内容，从每题所给的4个选项中选择1个最佳答案。{{B}}第一篇{{/B}} {{B}} Pushbike Danger{{/B}} 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 it to make it safer. Kristy Arbogast, a bioengineer at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, began the project with her colleagues. The cases they reviewed about 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," she says. By interviewing the children and their parents, Arbogast and her team were able to reconstruct many of the accidents and identified a common cause for serious injuries. They discovered that most cases occur when children hit an obstacle at slow speed, causing them to topple (摇摆) over. To maintain their balance the children 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, pushing it into their abdomen (腹部). The solution the group came up with is a handgrip (握柄) fitted with a spring and damping (减速) system. The spring absorbs up to 50 per cent of the forces transmitted (传递) through the handlebars in an impact. The group hopes to commercialize 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 manufacturers were unaware of the problem," says Arbogast.

单选题The Group of Seven, a clique of Canadian artists painting at the turn of the century, has been credited with arousing a widespread awareness of Canada’s rugged landscape. A. stimulating B. prolonging C. glorifying D. encouraging

单选题The Development of Personality Personality is to large extent inherent. A-type parents usually bring A-type offspring. But the environment must also have a profound effect, since if competition is important to the parents, it is likely to become a major factor in the lives of their children. One place where children soak up (浸泡) A characteristics is school, which is, by its very nature, a highly competitive institution. Too many schools adopt the "win at all costs" moral standard and measure their success by sporting achievements. The current passion for making children compete against their classmates or against the clock produces a two-layer system, in which competitive A-types seem in some way better than their B-type fellows. Being too keen to win can have dangerous consequences: Remember that Philippines, the first marathon runner, dropped dead seconds after saying, "Rejoice, We conquer!" By far the worst form of competition in schools is the disproportionate emphasis on examinations. It is a rare school that allows pupils to concentrate on those things they do well. The merits of competition by examination are somewhat questionable, but competition in the certain knowledge of failure is positively harmful. Obviously, it is neither practical nor desirable that all A youngsters change into B"s. The world needs types, and schools have an important duty to try to fit a child"s personality to hide possible future employment. It is top management. If the preoccupation of schools with academic work was lessened, more time might be spent teaching children surer values. Perhaps selection for the caring professions, especially medicine, could be made less by good grades in chemistry and more by such considerations as sensitivity and sympathy. It is surely a mistake to choose our doctors exclusively form A-type stock. B"s are important and should be encouraged.

单选题The weather last summer was {{U}}awful{{/U}}.

单选题I enjoyed the dish a lot. Can I have the prescription for it?A. menuB. listC. receiptD. recipe

单选题Dick warned you that he might Uturn you down/U, didn't he?

单选题 The Threat to Kiribati The people of Kiribati are afraid that one day in the not-too-distant future, their country will disappear from the face of the earth-literally. Several times this year, the Pacific island nation has been flooded by a sudden high tide. These tides, which swept across the island and destroyed houses, came when there was neither wind nor rain. "This never happened before." says the older citizens of Kiribati. What is causing these mysterious high tides? The answer may well be global warming. When fuels like oil and coal are being burned, pollutants (污染物) are released; these pollutants trap heat in the earth's atmosphere. Warmer temperatures cause water to expand and also create more water by melting glaciers (冰川) and polar (极地的) ice caps. If the trend continues, scientists say, many countries will suffer. Bangladesh, for example, might lose one-fifth of its land. The coral (珊瑚) island nations of the Pacific, like Kiribati and the Marshall Islands, however, would face an even worse fate-they would be swallowed by the sea. The loss of these coral islands would be everyone's loss. Coral formations are home to more species than any other place on earth. The people of these nations feel frustrated. The sea, on which their economies have always been based, is suddenly threatening their existence. They don't have the money for expensive technological solutions like seawalls. And they have no control over the pollutants, which are being released mainly by activities in large industrialized countries. All they can do is to hope that industrialized countries will take steps to reduce pollution.

单选题Coming Soon to a Theater Near You! What are special effects? Do you enjoy movies that use a lot of special effects? Dinosaurs (恐龙) from the distant past! Space battles from the distant future! There has been a revolution in special effects, and it has transformed the movies we see. The revolution began in the mid-1970s with George Lucas"s Star Wars , a film that stunned (使震惊) audiences. That revolution continues to the present, with dramatic changes in special-effects technology. The company behind these changes is Lucas"s Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). And the man behind the company is Dennis Muren, who has worked with Lucas since Star Wars . Muren"s interest in special effects began very early. At the age of 6, he was photographing toy dinosaurs and spaceships. At 10, he had an 8-millimeter movie camera and was making these things move through stop-motion. Stop-motion is a process in which objects are shot with a camera, moved slightly, shot again, and so on. When the shots are put together, the objects appear to move. Talk to Muren and you"ll understand what ILM is all about: taking on new challenges. By 1989, Muren decided he had pushed the old technology as far as it would go. He saw computer graphics (图像) (CG) technology as the wave of the future and took a year off to master it. With CG technology, images can be scanned into a computer for processing, and many separate shots can be combined into a single image. CG technology has now reached the point, Muren says, where special effects can be used to do just about anything so that movies can tell stories better than ever before. The huge success of Jurassic Park and its sequel (续集), the Lost World , the stars of which were computer-generated dinosaurs, suggests that this may very well be true.

单选题They decided to take the train because of the flights ______ by that company.A. cancelledB. being cancelledC. to cancelD. cancelling

单选题 阅读下面这篇短文，短文后列出7个句子，请根据短文的内容对每个句子做出判断。 {{B}} An Awful Afternoon{{/B}} Sometimes I feel that being the mother of three small children is like running a large circus (马戏团). One afternoon last week, my three sons were playing peacefully in the back yard, throwing the ball from one to the other. I jumped at the chance to talk to one of my friends on the phone, but before I got to the phone, I could tell that the boys had begun to quarrel with each other over something. I rushed out to make peace, but before I got there, Charles had begun to fight over this. Even David, the oldest boy, who won't usually fight with anybody over anything, was involved. First, I made them stop fighting, and then I examined Mark's eye. I decided that it wasn't going to develop into a black eye, but I felt that they should suffer at least a little for what they had done. "I'm going to speak to your father about these when he comes home tonight," I said. "He and I will think of how to punish you." Things were pretty quiet after that for about half an hour, and then Charles broke a glass in the kitchen sink, and at almost the same moment, Mark fell out of the apple tree. I suppose I will be able to laugh at all these things someday. In the meantime, I just pray to heaven for patience.

单选题Professor Taylor"s talk has indicated that science has a very strong influence on the everyday life of non-scientists as well as scientists.

单选题下面的短文有15处空白，请根据短文内容为每处空白确定1个最佳选项。 Have You Filled Up The Form? Of all things in the world, I most dislike filling up forms. In fact, I have a {{U}}(51) {{/U}} horror of it. Applying for a living license, {{U}}(52) {{/U}} for an evening course, booking a holiday abroad—everything nowadays seem to involve {{U}}(53) {{/U}} information about one's personal life and habits that has little or nothing to do with the matter {{U}}(54) {{/U}} hand. When applying for a job, it may be {{U}}(55) {{/U}} some obscure interest to a {{U}}(56) {{/U}} employer to learn that I collect stamp or had measles as a child, but why should he conceivably want to know that my father was a tobacconist who died in 1988? The authorities Who {{U}}(57) {{/U}} one to fill up forms, frequently demand answers to questions that one would hesitate to put {{U}}(58) {{/U}}one's intimate friends. The worst of it is that, when {{U}}(59) {{/U}} with such questions, my mind goes blank, Have I ever suffered from a serious illness? My mother always assured me I was "delicate". Do I suffer from any personal defects? Well, I wear contact lenses and my upper teeth are not my own, but perhaps the word "defects" {{U}}(60) {{/U}} to my character. Am ! supposed to {{U}}(61) {{/U}} that I like gambling, and find it difficult to get up in the morning? Both of them are true. Of all, I think job applications are the worst, education—previous experience—post held—give {{U}}(62) {{/U}} …Terrified by the awful warning about giving false {{U}}(63) {{/U}} which appear at the bottom of the form, I struggle to remember what exams I passed and how long I worked for what firms. {{U}}(64) {{/U}} hard I try, there always seems to be a year or two for which I cannot satisfactorily account and which I am certain, if left {{U}}(65) {{/U}}, that will give the impression that I was in prison or engaged in some occupation too dubious to mention.

单选题I have some difficulty ______ his heart disease.A. treatsB. treatingC. treatedD. to treat

单选题Magaplane (巨型飞机) The Boeing Corp. and Europe's Airbus consortium (财团) are preparing to offer bigger airplanes to the world's airlines. Now that talks on a joint project have broken down, Boeing is pushing a stretched (拓展的) version of 747, and Airbus is designing an all-new aircraft, known as the A3XX. Seating 550 passengers in the basic model, and 650 in a stretched version, the 1. 2 million pound A3XX will not only be the largest airplane in the world, but it will also be one of the most advanceD. The outer wings and the horizontal stabilizer (as big as a smaller jet's wing) will be made of carbon-fiber composite materials, and will be the largest? such structures on any aircraft except the B-2 stealth bomber (隐形轰炸机). Metal skins will be welded (焊接) together with lasers, removing thousands of fasteners. When a strong wind strikes the A3XX's 260-foot wing, movable control surfaces will prevent it from flexing (扭曲) like a giant spring. This will make the ride smoother and will save weight by reducing the load on the wing spars (翼梁). A flexible-skinned flap (副翼) will subtly change the wing's curvature (曲面) to match the airplane's changing weight as it burns fuel on each journey. The A3XX will carry up to 1,600 meals, filling more than 100 food and beverage (饮料) carts. To make more room for passengers, Airbus plans to put the carts in the lower hold; automatic conveyors and elevators will deliver them to the two passenger decks. Airlines have asked Airbus to look at extra features ranging from lower-deck sleeper cabins to a children's playroom. Airbus expects to offer the A3XX to airlines in 1998, and deliver the first aircraft in 2003.