单选题Data from Voyager Ⅱ have presented astronomers with a {{U}}puzzle{{/U}} about why our outermost planet exists. A. problem B. mystery C. question D. point

单选题The Smog (烟雾) For over a month, Indonesia was in crisis. Forest fires raged out of control as the country suffered its worst drought for 50 years. Smoke from the fires mixed with sunlight and hot dry air to form a cloud of smog. This pollution quickly spread and within days it was hanging over neighbouring countries including Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. When the smoke combined with pollution from factories and cars, it soon became poisonous (有毒的). Dangerous amounts of CO became trapped under the smog and pollution levels rose. People wheezed (喘息) and coughed as they left the house and their eyes watered immediately. The smog made it impossible to see across streets and whole cities disappeared as grey soot (烟灰) covered everything. In some areas, water was hosed (用胶管浇) from high-rise city buildings to try and break up the smog. Finally, heavy rains, which came in November, put out the fires and cleared the air. But the environmental costs and health problems will remain. Many people from South- Eastern Asian cities already suffer from breathing huge amounts of car exhaust fumes (汽车排放的废气) and factory pollution. Breathing problems could well increase and many non- sufferers may have difficulties for the first time. Wildlife has suffered too. In lowland forests, elephants, deer, and tigers have been driven out of their homes by smog. But smog is not just an Asian problem. In fact, the word was first used in London in 1905 to describe the mixture of smoke and thick fog. Fog often hung over the capital. Sometimes the smog was so thick and poisonous that people were killed by breathing problems or in accidents. About 4,000 Londoners died within five days as a result of thick smog in 1952.

单选题They Say Ireland's the Best Ireland is the best place in the world to live in for 2005, according to a life quality ranking that appeared in Britain's Economist magazine last week. The ambitious attempt to compare happiness levels around the world is based on the principle that wealth is not the only measure of human satisfaction and well-being. The index of 111 countries uses data on incomes, health, unemployment, climate, political stability, job security, gender equality as well as what the magazine calls "freedom, family and community life". Despite the bad weather, troubled health service, traffic congestion (拥挤) , gender inequality and the high cost of living. Ireland scored an impressive 8.33 points out of 10. That put it well ahead of second-place Switzerland, which managed 8.07. Zimbabwe, troubled by political insecurity and hunger, is rated the gloomiest (最差的), picking up only 3.89 points. "Although rising incomes and increased individual choices are highly valued." the report said, "some of the factors associated with modernization such as the breakdown (崩溃) in traditional institutions and family values in part take away from a positive impact." "Ireland wins because it successfully combines the most desirable elements of the new with the preservation of certain warm elements of the old, such as stable family and community life". The magazine admitted measuring quality of life is not a straightforward thing to do, and that its findings would have their critics. No. 2 on the list is Switzerland. The other nations in the top 10 are Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden, Australia, Iceland, Italy, Denmark and Spain. The UK is positioned at No. 29, a much lower position chiefly because of the social and family breakdown recorded in official statistics. The US, which has the second highest per capita GDP (人均国内生产总值) after Luxembourg, took the 13th place in the survey. China was in the lower half of the league at 60th.

单选题He's spent years {{U}}cultivating{{/U}} a knowledge of art. A. sharing B. using C. denying D. developing

单选题Sally likes to tease her brother about his girl friends.

单选题Allthe cars are tested for {{U}}defects{{/U}} before leaving the factory

单选题Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as an instance of attack by a hacker?

单选题My father is a physician .

单选题Many of Edith Wharton"s best stories were completed under great personal strain.

单选题He cannot discriminate between a good idea and a bad one. A．judge B．assess C．distinguish D．recognize

单选题Houses in 18th Century North America Seventeenth-century houses in colonial North America were simple structures that were primarily functional, carrying over traditional designs that went back to the Middle Ages. During the first half of the eighteenth century, however, houses began to show a new elegance. As wealth increased, more and more colonists built fine houses. Since architecture was not yet a specialized profession in the colonies, the design of buildings was left either to amateur designers or to carpenters who undertook to interpret architectural manuals imported from England. Inventories of colonial libraries show an astonishing number of these handbooks for builders, and the houses erected during the eighteenth century show their influence. Nevertheless, most domestic architecture of the first three-quarters of the eighteenth century displays a wide divergence of taste and freedom of application of the rules laid down in these books. Increasing wealth and growing sophistication throughout the colonies resulted in houses of improved design, whether the material was wood, stone or brick. New England still favored wood, though brick houses became common in Boston and towns, where the danger of fire gave an impetus to the use of more durable material. A few houses in New England were built of store, but only in Pennsylvania and adjacent area was stone widely used in dwellings. An increased use of brick in houses and outbuildings is noticeable in Virginia and Maryland, but wood remained the most popular material even in houses built by wealthy landowners. In the Carolinas, even in closely packed Charleston, wooden houses were much more common than brick. Eighteenth-century houses showed great interior improvement over their predecessors. Windows were made larger and shutters removed. Large, clear panes replaced the small leaded glass of the seventeenth century. Doorways were larger and more decorative. Fireplaces became decorative features of rooms. Walls were made of plaster of wood, sometimes elaborately paneled. White paint began to take the place of blues, yellows, greens, and lead colors, which had been popular for walls in the earlier years. After about 1730, advertisements for wallpaper styles in scenic patterns began to appear in colonial newspapers.

单选题He found that cool weather is much more favorable for creative thinking than is summer heat. This does not mean that all people are less intelligent in the summer than they are during the rest of the year. It does mean, however, that the mental abilities of large numbers of people tend to be lowest in the summer. Spring appears to be the best period of" the year for thinking. One reason may be that in the spring man's mental abilities are affected by the same factors that bring about great changes in all of nature. Fall is the next best season, then winter. As for summer, it seems to be a good time to take a long vacation from thinking. Most people's mental abilities seem to be highestA. in spring.B. in summer.C. in fall.D. in winter.

单选题Singing Alarms Could Save the Blind If you cannot see, you may not be able to find your way out of a burning building—and that could be fatal. A company in Leeds could change all that 1 directional sound alarms capable of guiding you to the exit. Sound Alert, a company 2 the University of Leeds, is installing the alarms in a residential home for 3 people in Sommerset and a resource centre for the blind in Cumbria. 4 produce a wide range of frequencies that enable the brain to determine where the 5 is coming from. Deborah Withington of Sound Alert says that the alarms use most of the frequencies that can be 6 by humans. "It is a burst of white noise 7 people say sounds like static on the radio," she says. "Its life-saving potential is great." She conducted an experiment in which people were filmed by thermal-imaging cameras trying to find their way out of a large 8 room. It 9 them nearly four minutes to find the door 10 a sound alarm, but only 15 seconds with one. Withington studies how the brain 11 sounds at the university. She says that the 12 of a wide band of frequencies can be pinpointed more easily than the source of a narrow band. Alarms 13 the same concept have already been installed on emergency vehicles. The alarms will also include rising or falling frequencies to indicate whether people should go up 14 down stairs. They were 15 with the aid of a large grant from British Nuclear Fuels.

单选题阅读下面这篇短文，短文后列出了7个句子，请根据短文的内容对每个句子作出判断。如果该句提供的是正确信息，清选择A项；如果该句提供的是错误信息，请选择B项；如果该句的信息文章中没有提及，请选择C项。 {{B}}Food and Cancer{{/B}} Medical Experts have suspected for many years that there is a strong link between what a person eats and cancer. They say a new study provides the first evidence that vitamins could reduce a person's chance of developing cancer. A team of Chinese and American scientists did the study. They are from American National Cancer Institute and the Cancer Institute of the Chinese Academy of Medical sciences in Beijing. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute published the results of the study. About thirty thousand people between the ages of 40 to 69 took part in the study. They were form the northern central Chinese area of Linxian. Most of them took vitamins and minerals every day for five years. Linxian was chosen because the people there have an extremely high rate of cancer of stomach and esophagus. Researchers believe that fungus and molds in local foods may be partly responsible for the high cancer rate. Researchers divided those into eight groups. Seven of the groups received different mixtures of vitamins and minerals daily. The amounts of the vitamins and minerals were 1 to 2 times greater than what American health officials say is needed. The eighth group received sugar pills that had no effect. Those who seemed to fain the most received a mixture of a form of vitamin A called B-carotene, vitamin E and the mineral selenium. The vitamin and mineral are believed to prevent damage to cells caused by cancer-causing substances. Researchers reported a 13 percent drop in cancer rates in those who took B-carotene, vitamin E and selenium. They also found a 10 percent drop in the number of deaths caused by strokes from bursting blood vessels. Scientists warn that it is too soon to know if the effect, would be the same among people in other countries. They note that the people in Linxian eat foods that lack necessary vitamins and minerals. Chinese officials will continue to record the health records of the people in Linxian for many years. For now officials reportedly are considering using the results of the study. They want to find a way to improved the health of people in Linxian and other small towns in China.

单选题 Lateral Thinking Lateral thinking (迂回思维), first described by Edward de Bono in 1967, is just a few years older than Edward's son. You might imagine that Caspar was raised to be an adventurous thinker, but de Bono name was so famous, Casper's parents worried that any time he would say something bright at school, his teachers might snap, "Where do you get that idea from?" "We had to be careful and not overdo it," Edward admits. Now Casper is at Oxford—which once looked unlikely because he is also slightly dyslexic (诵读困难). In fact, when he was applying to Oxford, none of his school teachers thought he had a chance. "So then we did several thinking sessions," his father says, "using my techniques and, when he went up for the exam, he did extremely well." Soon after, Edward de Bono decided to write his latest book, "Teach Your Children How to Think", in which he transforms the thinking skills he developed for brain—storming businessmen into informal exercises for parents and children to share. Thinking is traditionally regarded as something executed in a logical sequence, and everybody knows that children aren't very logical. So isn't it an uphill battle, trying to teach them to think? "You know," Edward de Bono says, "if you examine people's thinking, it is quite unusual to find faults of logic. But the faults of perception are huge! Often we think ineffectively because we take too limited a view." "Teach Your Child How to Think" offers lessons in perception improvement, of clearly seeing the implications of something you are saying and of exploring the alternatives.

单选题The stories of Sarah Orne Jewett are considered by many to be more {{U}}authentically{{/U}} regional than those of Bret Harte.

单选题The building ______ at this moment will be a modern hospital.A. builtB. being builtC. to be builtD. building

单选题It can be inferred from the passage that

单选题She was sent a box of chocolates along with a letter saying she was fired .

单选题Food Fright Experiments under way in several labs aim to create beneficial types of genetically modified (GM) foods, including starchier potatoes and caffeine-free coffee beans. Genetic engineers are even trying to transfer genes from a cold-water fish to make a frost-resistant tomato. A low-sugar GM strawberry now in the works might one day allow people with health problems such as diabetes to enjoy the little delicious red fruits again. GM beans and grains supercharged with protein might help people at risk of developing kwashiorkor. Kwashiorkor, a disease caused by severe lack of protein, is common in parts of the world where there are severe food shortages. Commenting on GM foods, Jonathon Jones, a British researcher, said, "The future benefits will be enormous, and the best is yet to come." To some people, GM foods are no different from unmodified foods. "A tomato is a tomato," said Brian Sansoni, an American food manufacturer. Critics of GM foods challenge Sansoni"s opinion. They worry about the harm that GM crops might do to people, other animals, and plants. In a recent lab study conducted at Cornell University, scientists tested pollen made by Bt corn, which makes up one-fourth of the U.S. corn crop. The scientist sprinkled the pollen onto milkweed, a plant that makes a milky juice and is the only known food source of the monarch butterfly caterpillar. Within four days of munching on the milkweed leaves, almost half of a test group of caterpillars had died. "Monarchs are considered to be a flagship species for conservation," said Cornel1 researcher Linda Raynor. "This is a warning bell." Some insects that are not killed by GM foods might find themselves made stronger. How so? The insecticides used to protect most of today"s crops are sprayed on the crops when needed and decay quickly in the environment. But GM plants produce a continuous level of insecticide. Insect species feeding on those crops may develop resistance to the plants and could do so in a hurry, say the critics. Insects may also develop a resistance to the insecticide Bt. At the forum on GM food held last year in Canada, GM crops that have been made resistant to the herbicide might crossbreed with wild plants, creating "superweeds" that could take over whole fields. So where do you stand? Should GM foods be banned in the United States, as they are in parts of Europe? Or do their benefits outweigh any of the risks they might carry?