阅读理解Read the following passages carefully and choose one bestanswer for each question in Passage 1 2and 3, and answerthe questions in passage 4 based on your understanding ofthe passage.(1)Scattered around the globe are more than one hundredregions of volcanic activity known as hot spots (hot spot:a place in the upper mantle of the earth at which hotmagma from the lower mantle upwells to melt through thecrust usually in the interior of a tectonic plate to forma volcanic feature; also: a place in the crust overlying ahot spot) Unlike most volcanoes, hot spots are rarelyfound along the boundaries of the continental and oceanicplates that comprise the Earth’ s crust; most hot spotslie deep in the interior of plates and are anchored deepin the layers of the Earth’ s surface. Hot spots are alsodistinguished from other volcanoes by their lavas, whichcontain greater amounts of alkali metals than do thosefrom volcanoes at plate margins.In some cases, plates moving past hot spots have lefttrails of extinct volcanoes in much the same way that windpassing over a chimney carries off puffs of smoke. Itappears that the Hawaiian Islands were created in such amanner by a single source of lava, welling up from a hotspot, over which the Pacific Ocean plate passed on acourse roughly from the east toward the northwest,carrying off a line of volcanoes of increasing age. Twoother Pacific island chains the Austral Ridge and theTuamotu Ridge parallel the configuration of the Hawaiianchain; they are also aligned from the east toward thenorthwest, with the most recent volcanic activity neartheir eastern terminuses.That the Pacific plate and the other plates are moving isnow beyond dispute; the relative motion of the plates hasbeen reconstructed in detail. However, the relative motionof the plates with respect to the Earth’s interior cannotbe determined easily. Hot spots provide the measuringinstruments for resolving the question of whether twocontinental plates are moving in opposite directions orwhether one is stationary and the other is drifting awayfrom it. The most compelling evidence that a continentalplate is stationary is that, at some hot spots, lavas ofseveral ages are superposed instead of being spread out inchronological sequence. Of course, reconstruction of platemotion from the tracks of hot-spot volcanoes assumes thathot spots are immobile, or nearly so. Several studiessupport such an assumption, including one that has shownthat prominent hot spots throughout the world seem not tohave moved during the past ten million years.Beyond acting as frames of reference, hot spots apparentlyinfluence the geophysical processes that propel the platesacross the globe. When a continental plate comes to restover a hot spot, material welling up from deeper layersforms a broad dome that, as it grows, develops deepfissures. In some instances, the continental plate mayrupture entirely along some of the fissures so that thehot spot initiates the formation of a new ocean. Thus,just as earlier theories have explained the mobility ofthe continental plates, so hot-spot activity may suggest atheory to explain their mutability.

阅读理解Read the following passages carefully and choose one bestanswer for each question in Passage 1 2and 3, and answerthe questions in passage 4 based on your understanding ofthe passage.(2)“They treat us like mules. ” the guy installing my washertells me, his eyes narrowing as he wipes his hands, I hadjust complimented him and his partner on the speed andassurance of their work. He explains that it’ s rare thatcustomers speak to him this way. I know what he’ s talkingabout. My mother was a waitress all her life, in coffeeshops and fast-paced chain restaurants. It was hard work,but she liked it, liked “being among the public, ” as shewould say. But that work had its sting too the customerwho would treat her like a servant or, her biggestcomplaint, like she was not that bright.There’s a lesson here for this political season: thesubtle and not-so-subtle insults that blue-collar andservice workers endure as part of their working lives. Andthose insults often have to do with intelligence.We like to think of the United States as a classlesssociety. The belief in economic mobility is central to theAmerican Dream, and we pride ourselves on our spirit ofegalitarianism. But we also have a troubling streak ofaristocratic bias in our national temperament, and one wayit manifests itself is in the assumptions we make aboutpeople who work with their hands. Working people sensethis bias and react to it when they vote. The commonpolitical wisdom is that hot-button social issues havedriven blue-collar voters rightward. But there are othercultural dynamics at play as well. And Democrats can be asoblivious to these dynamics as Republicans-though theGrand Old Party did appeal to them in St. Paul.Let’ s go back to those two men installing my washer anddryer They do a lot of heavy lifting quickly mine was thefirst of 15 deliveries and efficiently, to avoid injury.Between them there is ongoing communication, verbal antinonverbal, to coordinate the lift, negotiate the tightfit, move in rhythm with each other. And all the while,they are weighing options, making decisions and solvingproblems as when my new dryer didn’ t match up with thegas outlet.Think about what a good waitress has to do in the busyrestaurant: remember orders and monitor them, attend to adynamic, quickly changing environment, prioritize tasksand manage the flow of work, make decisions on the flyThere’s the carpenter using a number of mathematicalconcepts symmetry, proportion. congruence, the propertiesof angles and visualizing these concepts while building acabinet, a flight of stairs, or a pitched roof.The hairstylist’s practice is a mix of technique,“knowledge about the biology of hair. aesthetic judgmentand communication skill. The mechanic, electrician, andplumber are troubleshooters and problem solvers Even theroutinized factory floor calls for working smarts When hasany of this made its way into our political speeches? Fromeither pasty. Even on Labor Day.Last week, the CDP masterfully invoked some old culturalsuspicions: country folk versus, city and east coastversus heartland education But these are symbolic populistgestures not the stuff of the engagement. Judgements aboutintelligence easy great weight in our society, and we havea tendency to make sweeping assessments of people’sintelligence based on the kind of work they do.Political tributes to labor over the next two months willrender the muscled arm, sleeve rolled tight againstbiceps. But few will also celebrate die thought brightbehind the eye, or offer an image that links hand andbrain. It would be fitting in a country with anegalitarian vision of itself to have a truer, richer senseof all that is involved in the wide range of work thatsurrounds and sustains us.Those politicians who can communicate that sense will tapa deep reserve of neglected feeling. And those who canhonor and use work in explaining and personalizing theirpolicies will find a welcome reception.

阅读理解Directions: In this section, there are 4 passages followed by multiple-choice questions. Read the passage and thenwrite ONE best answer for each question on your ANSWER SHEET.Passage FourRicky Gervais’s new film, The Invention of Lying, is about a world where lying doesn’t exist, which means that everybody tells the truth, and everybody believes everything everybody else says. “I’ve always hated you,” a man tells a work colleague. “He seems nice, if a bit fat,” a woman says about her date. It’s all truth, all the time, at whatever the cost. Until one day, when Mark, a down-on-his-luck loser played by Gervais, discovers a thing called “lying” and what it can get him. Within days, Mark is rich, famous, and courting the girl of his dreams. And because nobody knows what “lying” is, he goes on, happily living what has become a complete and utter farce.It’s meant to be funny, but it’s also a more serious commentary on us all. As Americans, we like to think we value the truth. Time and time again, public-opinion polls show that honesty is among the top five characteristics we want in a leader, friend, or lover; the world is full of sad stories about the tragic consequences of betrayal. At the same time, deception is all around us. We are lied to by government officials and public figures to a disturbing degree; many of our social relationships are based on little white lies we tell each other. We deceive our children, only to be deceived by them in return. And the average person says psychologist Robert Feldman, the author of a new book on lying, tells at least three lies in the first 10 minutes of a conversation. “There’s always been a lot of lying,” says Feldman， whose new book, The Liar in Your Life, came out this month. “But I do think we’re seeing a kind of cultural shift where we’re lying more, it’s easier to lie, and in some ways it’s almost more acceptable.”As Paul Ekman, one of Feldman’s longtime lying colleagues and the inspiration behind the Fox IV series “Lie To Me” defines it， a liar is a person who “intends to mislead,” “deliberately,” without being asked to do so by the target of the lie. Which doesn’t mean that all lies are equally toxic: some are simply habitual—“My pleasure!”—while others might be well-meaning white lies. But each, Feldman argues, is harmful, because of the standard it creates. And the more lies we tell, even if they’re little white lies, the more deceptive we and society become.We are a culture of liars, to put it bluntly, with deceit so deeply ingrained in our mind that we hardly even notice we’re engaging in it. Junk e-mail, deceptive advertising, the everyday pleasantries we don’t really mean—“It’s so great to meet you! I love that dress”—have, as Feldman puts it, become “a white noise we’ve learned to neglect.” And Feldman also argues that cheating is more common today than ever. The Josephson Institute, a nonprofit focused on youth ethics, concluded in a 2008 survey of nearly 30,000 high school students that “cheating in school continues to be rampant, and it’s getting worse.” In that survey, 64 percent of students said they’d cheated on a test during the past year, up from 60 percent in 2006. Another recent survey, by Junior Achievement, revealed that more than a third of teens believe lying, cheating, or plagiarizing can be necessary to succeed, while a brand-new study, commissioned by the publishers of Feldman’s book, shows that 18- to 34-year-olds—those of us fully reared in this lying culture—deceive more frequently than the general population.Teaching us to lie is not the purpose of Feldman’s book. His subtitle, in fact, is “the way to truthful relationships.” But if his book teaches us anything, it’s that we should sharpen our skills—and use them with abandon.Liars get what they want. They avoid punishment, and they win others’ affection. Liars make themselves sound smart and intelligent, they attain power over those of us who believe them, and they often use their lies to rise up in the professional world. Many liars have fun doing it. And many more take pride in getting away with it.As Feldman notes, there is an evolutionary basis for deception: in the wild, animals use deception to “play dead” when threatened. But in the modem world, the motives of our lying are more selfish. Research has linked socially successful people to those who are good liars. Students who succeed academically get picked for the best colleges, despite the fact that, as one recent Duke University study found, as many as 90 percent of high-schoolers admit to cheating. Even lying adolescents are more popular among their peers.And all it takes is a quick flip of the remote to see how our public figures fare when they get caught in a lie: Clinton keeps his wife and goes on to become a national hero. Fabricating author James Frey gets a million-dollar book deal. Eliot Spitzer’s wife stands by his side, while “Appalachian hiker” Mark Sanford still gets to keep his post. If everyone else is being rewarded for lying， don’t we need to lie, too, just to keep up?But what’s funny is that even as we admit to being liars, study after study shows that most of us believe we can tell when others are lying to us. And while lying may be easy, spotting a liar is far from it. A nervous sweat or shifty eyes can certainly mean a person’s uncomfortable, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re lying. Gaze aversion, meanwhile, has more to do with shyness than actual deception. Even polygraph machines are unreliable. And according to one study, by researcher Bella DePaulo, we’re only able to differentiate a lie from truth only 47 percent of the time, less than if we guessed randomly. “Basically everything we’ve heard about catching a liar is wrong,” says Feldman, who heads the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Ekman, meanwhile, has spent decades studying micro-facial expressions of liars: the split-second eyebrow arch that shows surprise when a spouse asks who was on the phone; the furrowed nose that gives away a hint of disgust when a person says “I love you.” He’s trained everyone from the Secret Service to the TSA, and believes that with close study, it’s possible to identify those tiny emotions. The hard part, of course, is proving them. “A lot of times, it’s easier to believe,” says Feldman. “It takes a lot of cognitive effort to think about whether someone is lying to us.”Which means that more often than not, we’re like the poor dumb souls of The Invention of Lying, hanging on a liar’s every word, no matter how untruthful they may be.

阅读理解Directions: Read the following passages and answer the questions. Choose the most appropriate answer for each question and circle the letter on the answer sheet. Remember to write the letter corresponding to the question number.Over the past decade, thousands of patents have been granted for what are called business methods. Amazon.com received one for its “one-click” online payment system. Merrill Lynch got legal protection for an asset allocation strategy. One inventor patented a technique for lifting a box.Now the nation’s top patent court appears completely ready to scale back on business-method patents, which have been controversial ever since they were first authorized 10 years ago. In a move that has intellectual-property lawyers abuzz, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said it would use a particular case to conduct a broad review of business-method patents. In re Bilski, as the case is known, is “a very big deal”, says Dennis D. Crouch of the University of Missouri School of law. It “has the potential to eliminate an entire class of patents.”Curbs on business-method claims would be a dramatic about-face, because it was the Federal Circuit itself that introduced such patents with its 1998 decision in the so-called State Street Bank case, approving a patent on a way of pooling mutual-fund assets. That ruling produced an explosion in business- method patent filings, initially by emerging Internet companies trying to stake out exclusive rights to specific types of online transactions. Later, move established companies raced to add such patents to their files, if only as a defensive move against rivals that might beat them to the punch. In 2005, IBM noted in a court filing that it had been issued more than 300 business- method patents, despite the fact that it questioned the legal basis for granting them. Similarly, some Wall Street investment films armed themselves with patents for financial products, even as they took positions in court cases opposing the practice.The Bilski case involves a claimed patent on a method for hedging risk in the energy market. The Federal Circuit issued an unusual order stating that the case would be heard by all 12 of the court’s judges, rather than a typical panel of three, and that one issue it wants to evaluate is whether it should “reconsider” its State Street Bank ruling.The Federal Circuit’s action comes in the wake of a series of recent decisions by the Supreme Court that has narrowed the scope of protections for patent holders. Last April, for example the justices signaled that too many patents were being upheld for “inventions” that are obvious. The judges on the Federal Circuit are “reacting to the anti-patent trend at the Supreme Court”, says Harold C. Wegner, a patent attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.

阅读理解Read the following passages carefully and choose one bestanswer for each question in Passage 1 2and 3, and answerthe questions in passage 4 based on your understanding ofthe passage.(3)Joy and sadness are experienced by people in all cultures around the world, but how can we tell when other people are happy or despondent? It turns out that the expression of many emotions may be universal. Smiling is apparently a universal sign of friendliness and approval. Baring the teeth in a hostile way, as noted by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century, may be a universe sign of anger. As the originator of the theory of evolution, Darwin believed that the universal recognition of facial expressions would have survival value. For example, facial expressions could signal the approach of enemies (or friends) in the absence of language. Most investigators concur that certain facial expressions suggest the same emotions in a people. Moreover, people in diverse cultures recognize the emotions manifested by the facial expressions. In classic research Paul Ekman took photographs of people exhibiting the emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness and sadness. He then asked people around the world to indicate, what emotions were being depicted in them. Those queried ranged from European college students to members of the Fore, a tribe that dwells in the New Guinea highlands. All groups including the Fore, who had almost no contact with Western culture, agreed on the portrayed emotions. The Fore also displayed familiar facial expressions when asked how they would respond if they were the characters in stories that called for basic emotional responses. Ekman and his colleagues more recently obtained similar results in a study of ten cultures in which participants were permitted to report that multiple emotions were shown by facial expressions. The participants generally agreed on which two emotions were being shown and which emotion was more intense. Psychological researchers generally recognize that facial expressions reflect emotional states. In fact various emotional states give rise to certain patterns of electrical activity in the facial muscles and in the brain The facial-feedback hypothesis argues, however, that the causal relationship between emotions and facial expressions can also work in the opposite direction. According to this hypothesis, signals from the facial muscles (“feedback” ) are sent back to emotion centers-of the brain, and so a person’s facial expression can influence that person’s emotional state. Consider Darwin’s words: “The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it. On the other hand, the repression, as far as possible, of all outward signs softens our emotions. ” Can smiling give rise to feelings of good will, for example, and frowning to anger? Psychological research has given rise to some interesting findings concerning the facial-feedback hypothesis. Causing participants in experiments to smile, for example, leads them to report more positive feelings and to rate cartoons (humorous drawings of people or situations) as being more humorous. When they are caused to frown, they rate cartoons as being more aggressive. What are the possible links between facial expressions and emotion? One link is arousal, which is the level of activity or preparedness for activity in an organism. Intense contraction of facial muscles, such as those used in signifying fear, heightens arousal Self-perception of heightened arousal then leads to heightened emotional activity. Other links may involve changes in brain temperature and the release of neurotransmitters (substances that transmit nerve impulses. ) The contraction of facial muscles both influences the internal emotional state and reflects it. Ekman has found that the so-called Duchenne smile, which is characterized by “crow’ s feet” wrinkles around the eyes and a subtle drop in the eye cover fold so that the skin above the eye moves down slightly toward the eyeball, can lead to pleasant feelings.Ekman’ s observation may be relevant to the British expression “keep a stiff upper lip” as are commendation for handling stress. It might be that a “stiff” lip suppresses emotional response as long as the lip is not quivering with fear or tension. But when the emotion that leads to stiffening the lip is more intense, and involves strong muscle tension, facial feedback may heighten emotional response.

阅读理解Directions: Read the following passages and answer the questions. Choose the most appropriate answer for each question and circle the letter on the answer sheet. Remember to write the letter corresponding to the question number.Conventional wisdom about conflict seems pretty much cut and dried. Too little conflict breeds apathy (冷漠) and stagnation (呆滞). Too much conflict leads to divisiveness (分裂) and hostility. Moderate levels of conflict, however, can spark creativity and motivate people in a healthy and competitive way.Recent research by Professor Charles R. Schwenk, however, suggests that the optimal level of conflict may be more complex to determine than these simple generalizations. He studied perceptions of conflict among a sample of executives. Some of the executives worked for profit-seeking organizations and others for not-for-profit organizations.Somewhat surprisingly, Schwenk found that opinions about conflict varied systematically as a function of the type of organization. Specifically, managers in not-for-profit organizations strongly believed that conflict was beneficial to their organizations and that it promoted higher quality decision making than might be achieved in the absence of conflict.Managers of for-profit organizations saw a different picture. They believed that conflict generally was damaging and usually led to poor-quality decision making in their organizations. Schwenk interpreted these results in terms of the criteria for effective decision making suggested by the executives. In the profit-seeking organizations, decision-making effectiveness was most often assessed in financial terms. The executives believed that consensus rather than conflict enhanced financial indicators.In the not-for-profit organizations, decision-making effectiveness was defined from the perspective of satisfying constituents. Given the complexities and ambiguities associated with satisfying many diverse constituents executives perceived that conflict led to more considered and acceptable decisions.

阅读理解Directions: Read the following passages and answer the questions. Choose the most appropriate answer for each question and circle the letter on the answer sheet. Remember to write the letter corresponding to the question number.Imagine eating everything delicious you want-with none of the fat. Thatwould be great, wouldn’t it?New “fake fat” products appeared on store shelves in the United States recently, but not everyone is happy about it. Makers of the products, which contain a compound called olestra, say food manufacturers can now eliminate fat from certain foods. Critics, however, say the new compound can rob the body of essential vitamins and nutrients (营养物) and can also cause unpleasant side effects in some people. So it’s up to decide whether the new fat-free products taste good enough to keep eating.Chemists discovered olestra in the late 1960s, when they were searching for a fat that could be digested by infants more easily. Instead of finding the desired fat, the researchers created a fat that can’t be digested at all.Normally, special chemicals in the intestines (肠) “grab” molecules of regular fat and break them down so they can be used by the body. A molecule of regular fat is made up of three molecules of substances called fatty acids.The fatty acids are absorbed by the intestines and bring with them the essential vitamins A, D, E, and K. When fat molecules are present in the intestines with any of those vitamins, the vitamins attach to the molecules and are carried into the bloodstream.Olestra, which is made from six to eight molecules of fatty acids, is too large for the intestines to absorb. It just slides through the intestines without being broken down. Manufacturers say it’s that ability to slide unchanged through the intestines that makes olestra so valuable as a fat substitute. It provides consumers with the taste of regular fat without any bad effects on the body. But critics say olestra can prevent vitamins A, D, E, and K from being absorbed. It can also prevent the absorption of carotenoids (类胡萝卜素), compounds that may reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease, etc.Manufacturers are adding vitamins A, D, E, and K as well as carotenoids to their products now. Even so, some nutritionists are still concerned that people might eat unlimited amounts of food made with the fat substitute without worrying about how many calories they are consuming.

阅读理解Directions: In this section, there are 3 passages followed by multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and thenwrite ONE best answer for each question on your ANSWER SHEET.Passage 1Many Americans harbor a grossly distorted and exaggerated view of most of the risks surrounding food. FergusClydesdale, head of the department of food science and nutrition at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, saysbluntly that if the dangers from bacterially contaminated chicken were as great as some people believe. “The streetswould be littered with people lying here and there.”Though the public increasingly demands no-risk food, there is no such thing. Bruce Ames, chairman of thebiochemistry department at the University of California, Berkeley, points out that up to 10% of a plant’s weight ismade up of natural pesticides. Says he: “Since plants do not have jaws or teeth to protect themselves, they employchemical warfare.” And many naturally produced chemicals, though occurring in tiny amounts, prove in laboratorytests to be strong carcinogens-a substance which can cause cancer. Mushrooms might be banned if they were judgedby the same standards that apply to food additives. Declares Christina Stark, a nutritionist at Cornell University:“We’ve got fat worse natural chemicals in the food supply than anything man-made.”Yet the issues are not that simple. While Americans have no reason to be terrified to sit down at the dinner table, theyhave every reason to demand significant improvements in food and water safety. They unconsciously andunwillingly take in too much of too many dangerous chemicals. If food already contains natural carcinogens, it doesnot make much sense to add dozens of new man-made ones. Though most people will withstand the small amountsof contaminants generally found in food and water, at least a few individuals will probably get cancer one daybecause of what they eat and drink.To make good food and water supplies even better, the government needs to tighten its regulatory standards, stiffenits inspection program and strengthen its enforcement policies. The food industry should modify some long-acceptedpractices or turn to less hazardous alternatives. Perhaps most important, consumers will have to do a better job oflearning how to handle and cook food properly. The problems that need to be tackled exist all along the food-supplychain, from fields to processing plants to kitchens.

阅读理解Directions: Read the following passages and answer the questions. Choose the most appropriate answer for each question and circle the letter on the answer sheet. Remember to write the letter corresponding to the question number.The deserts, which already occupy approximately a fourth of the earth’s land surface, have in recent decades been increasing at an alarming pace. The expansion of desert like conditions into areas where they did not previously exist is called desertification. It has been estimated that an additional one- fourth of the earth’s land surface is threatened by this process.Desertification is accomplished primarily through the loss of stabilizing natural vegetation and the subsequent accelerated erosion of the soil by wind and water. In some cases, the loose soil is blown completely away, leaving a stony surface. In other cases, the finer particles may be removed, while the sand-sized particles are accumulated to form mobile hills or ridges of sand.Even in the areas that retain a soil cover, the reduction of vegetation typically results in the loss of the soil’s ability to absorb substantial quantities of water. The impact of raindrops on the loose soil tends to transfer fine clay particles into the tiniest soil spaces, sealing them and producing a surface that allows very little water penetration. Water absorption is greatly reduced; consequently runoff is increased, resulting in accelerated erosion rates. The gradual drying of the soil caused by its diminished ability to absorb water results in the further loss of vegetation, so that a cycle of progressive surface deterioration is established.In some regions, the increase in desert areas is occurring largely as the result of a trend toward drier climatic conditions. Continued gradual global warming has produced an increase in aridity for some areas over the past few thousand years. The process may be accelerated in subsequent decades if global warming resulting from air pollution seriously increases.There is little doubt, however, that desertification in most areas results primarily from human activities rather than natural processes. The semiarid lands bordering the deserts exist in a delicate ecological balance and are limited in their potential to adjust to increased environmental pressures. Expanding populations are subjecting the land to increasing pressures to provide them with food and fuel. In wet periods, the land may be able to respond to these stresses. During the dry periods that are common phenomena along the desert margins, though, the pressure on the land is often far in excess of its diminished capacity, and desertification results.Four specific activities have been identified as major contributors to the desertification processes: overcultivation, overgrazing, firewood gathering, and over irrigation. The cultivation of crops has expanded into progressively drier regions as population densities have grown. These regions are especially likely to have periods of severe dryness, so that crop failures are common. Since the raising of most crops necessitates the prior removal of the natural vegetation, crop failures leave extensive tracts of land devoid of a plant cover and susceptible to wind and water erosion.

阅读理解In this section there are five reading passages followed by a total of 20 multiple-choice questions and 5 short answerquestions. Please read the passages and then write your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.Text AOur knowledge of the oceans a hundred years ago was confined to the two-dimensional shape of the sea surface and the hazards of navigation presented by the irregularities in depth of the shallow water close to the land. The open sea was deep and mysterious, and anyone who gave more than a passing thought to the bottom confines of the oceans probably assumed that the sea bed was flat. Sir James Clark Ross had obtained a sounding of over 2,400 fathoms in 1839, but it was not until 1869, when H.M.S. Porcupine was put at the disposal of the Royal Society for several cruises, that a series of deep soundings was obtained in the Atlantic and the first samples were collected by dredging the bottom. Shortly after this the famous H.M.S. Challenger expedition established the study of the sea floor as a subject worthy of the most qualified physicists and geologists. A burst of activity associated with the laying of submarine cables soon confirmed the Challengers observation that many parts of the ocean were two to three miles deep, and the existence of underwater features of considerable magnitude.Today, enough soundings are available to enable a relief map of the Atlantic to be drawn and we know something of the great variety of the sea bed’s topography. Since the sea covers the greater part of the earth’s surface, it is quite reasonable to regard the sea floor as the basic form of the crust of the earth, with, superimposed upon it, the continents, together with the islands and other features of the oceans. The continents form rugged tablelands which stand nearly three miles above the floor of the open ocean. From the shore line, out a distance which may be anywhere from a few miles to a few hundred miles, runs the gentle slope of the continental shelf, geologically part of the continents. The real dividing line between continents and oceans occurs at the foot of a steeper slope.This continental slope usually starts at a place somewhere near the 100-fatheom mark and in the course of a few hundred miles reaches the true ocean floor at 2,500-3,500 fathoms. The slope contains steep, probably vertical, cliffs, and gentle sediment-covered terraces, and near its lower reaches there is a long tailing-off which is almost certainly the result of material transported out to deep water after being eroded from the continental masses.

阅读理解Read the following passages carefully and choose one bestanswer for each question in Passage 1 2and 3, and answerthe questions in passage 4 based on your understanding ofthe passage.(4) BANKS mimic other banks. They expose themselves to similar risks by making the same sorts of loans. Each bank’ s appetite for lending rises and falls in sync. What is safe for one institution becomes dangerous if they all do the same, which is often how financial trouble starts. The scope for nasty spillovers is increased by direct linkages. Banks lend to each other as well as to customers, so one firm’ s failure can quickly cause others to fall over, too. Because of these connections, rules to ensure the soundness of each bank are not enough to keep the banking system safe Hence the calls for “macroprudential” regulation to prevent failures of the financial system as a whole. Although there is wide agreement that macroprudential policy is needed to limit systemic risk, there has been very little detail about how it might work. Two new reports help fill this gap. One is a discussion paper from the Bank of England, which sketches out the elements of a macroprudential regime and identifies what needs to be decided before it is put into practice. The other paper, by the Warwick Commission, a group of academics and experts on finance from around the world, advocates specific reforms. The first step is to decide an objective for macroprudential policy. A broad aim is to keep the financial system working well at all times. The bank’ s report suggests a more precise goal: to limit the chance of bank failure to its “social optimum” . Tempering the boom-bust credit cycle and taking some air out of asset- price bubbles may be necessary to meet these aims, but both reports agree that should not be the main purpose of regulation. Making finance safer is ambitious enough. Policymakers then have to decide on how they might achieve their goal. The financial system is too willing to provide credit in good times and too shy to do so in bad times. In upswings banks are keen to extend loans because write-offs seem unlikely. The willingness of other banks to do the same only reinforces the trend. Borrowers seem less likely to default because with lots of credit around, the value of their assets is rising. As the boom gathers pace, even banks that are wary of making fresh loans carry on for fear of ceding ground to rivals. When recession hits, each bank becomes fearful of making loans partly because other banks are also reluctant. Scarce credit hurts asset prices and leaves borrowers prey to the cash-flow troubles of customers and suppliers. Since the cycle is such an influence on banks, macroprudential regulation should make it harder for all banks to lend so freely in booms and easier for them to lend in recessions, it can do this by tailoring capital requirements to the credit cycle. Whenever overall credit growth looks too frothy, the macroprudential body could increase the minimum capital buffer that supervisors make each bank hold. Equity capital is relatively dear for banks, which benefit from an implicit state guarantee on their debt finance as well as the tax break son interest payments enjoyed by all firms. Forcing banks to hold more capital when exuberance reigns would make it costlier for them to supply credit. It would also provide society with an extra cushion against bank failures. Each report adds its own twist to this prescription. The Bank of England thinks extra capital may be needed for certain sorts of credit. If capital penalties are not targeted, it argues, banks may simply cut back on routine loans to free up capital for more exotic lending. The Warwick report says each bank’ s capital should also vary with how long-lived its assets are relative to its funding. Firms with big maturity mismatches are more likely to cause systemic problems and should be penalized. The ease of raising cash against assets and of rolling over debt varies over the cycle, and capital rules need to reflect this Regulators should also find ways to match different risks with the firms which can best bear them Banks are the natural bearers of credit risk since they know about evaluating borrowers Pension funds are less prone to sudden withdrawals of cash and are the best homes for illiquid assets. The Warwick group is keen that macroprudential policy should be guided by rules. If credit asset prices and GDP were all growing above their long-run average rates, say, the regulator would be forced to step in or explain why it is not doing so. Finance is a powerful lobby. Without such a trigger for intervention, regulators may be swayed by arguments that the next credit boom is somehow different and poses few dangers The bank frets about regulatory capture, too, but doubts that any rule would be right for all circumstances. It favours other approaches, such as frequent public scrutiny, to keep regulators honest.When banks attack, no regulatory system is likely to be fail-safe. That is why Bank of England officials stress that efforts to make bank failures less costly for society must be part of regulatory reform. That includes making banks’ capital structures more flexible, so that some kinds of debt turn into loss-bearing equity in a crisis. Both reports favour making systemically important banks hold extra capital, as they pose bigger risks when they fail. The Warwick group also thinks cross-border banks should abide by the rules of their host countries, so that macroprudential regulation fits local credit conditions. That would require that foreign subsidiaries be independently capitalized , which may also be necessary for a cross border bank to have a credible “living will” , a guide to its orderly resolution. This advice will chafe most in the European Union, where standard rules are the basis of the single market. But varying rules on capital could also be used as a macroeconomic tool in the euro area, where monetary policy cannot be tailored to each country’ s needs. Regulation to address negative spillovers that hurt financial stability might then have a positive spillover for economic stability. Answer the following questions in your own words according to the requirements. The answer should be as clear and relevant as possible.

阅读理解In this section there are five reading passages followed by a total of 20 multiple-choice questions and 5 short answerquestions. Please read the passages and then write your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.TEXT DA controversy erupted in the scientific community in early 1998 over the use of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) fingerprinting in criminal investigations. DNA fingerprinting was introduced in 1987 as a method to identify individuals based on a pattern seen in their DNA, the molecule of which genes are made. DNA is present in every cell of the body except red blood cells. DNA fingerprinting has been used successfully in various ways, such as to determine paternity where it is not clear who the father of a particular child is. However, it is in the area of criminal investigations that DNA fingerprinting has potentially powerful and controversial uses.DNA fingerprinting and other DNA analysis techniques have revolutionized criminal investigations by giving investigators powerful new tools in the attempt to prove guilt, not just establish innocence. When used in criminal investigations, a DNA fingerprint pattern from a suspect is compared with a DNA fingerprint pattern obtained from such materials as hairs or blood found at the scene of a crime. A match between the two DNA samples can be used as evidence to convict a suspect.The controversy in 1998 stemmed from a report published in December 1991 by population geneticists Richard C. Lewontin of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., and Daniel L. Hartl called into question the methods to calculate how likely it is that a match between two DNA fingerprints might occur by chance alone. In particular, they argued that the current method cannot properly determine the likelihood that two DNA samples will match because they came from the same individual rather than simply from two different individuals who are members of the same ethnic group.In response to their criticisms, population geneticists Ranajit Chakraborty of the University of Texas in Dallas and Kenneth K. Kidd of Yale University in New Haven, Conn., argued that enough data are already available to show that the methods currently being used are adequate. In January 1998, however, the federal Bureau of Investigation and laboratories that conduct DNA tests announced that they would collect additional DNA samples from various ethnic groups in an attempt to resolve some of these questions. And, in April, a National Academy of Sciences called for strict standards and system of accreditation for DNA testing laboratories.

阅读理解Directions: In this section, there are 3 passages followed by multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and thenwrite ONE best answer for each question on your ANSWER SHEET.Passage 3It is frequently assumed that the mechanization of work has a revolutionary effect on the lives of the people who operate the new machines and on the society into which the machines have been introduced. For example, it has been suggested that the employment of women in industry took them out of the household, their traditional sphere, and fundamentally altered their position in society. In the nineteenth century, when women began to enter factories, Jules Simon, a French politician, warned that by doing so, women would give up their femininity. Friedrich Engels, however, predicted that women would be liberated from the “social, legal, and economic subordination” of the family by technological developments that made possible the recruitment of “the whole female sex…into public industry.” Observers thus differed concerning the social desirability of mechanization’s effects, but they agreed that it would transform women’s lives.Historians, particularly those investigating the history of women, now seriously question this assumption of transforming power. They conclude that such dramatic technological innovations as the spinning jenny, the sewing machine, the typewriter, and the vacuum cleaner have not resulted in equally dramatic social changes in women’s economic position or in the prevailing evaluation of women’s work. The employment of young women in textile mills during the Industrial Revolution was largely an extension of an older pattern of employment of young, single women as domestics. It was not the change in office technology, but rather the separation of secretarial work, previously seen as an apprenticeship for beginning managers, from administrative work that in the 1880’s created a new class of “dead end” jobs, thenceforth considered “women’s work.” The increase in the numbers of married women employed outside the home in the twentieth century had less to do with the mechanization of housework and an increase in leisure time for these women than it did with their own economic necessity and with high marriage rates that shrank the available pool of single women workers, previously, in many cases, the only women employers would hire.Women’s work has changed considerably in the past 200 years, moving from the household to the office or the factory, and later becoming mostly white-collar instead of blue-collar work. Fundamentally, however, the conditions under which women work have changed little since before the Industrial Revolution: the segregation of occupations by gender, lower pay for women as a group, jobs that require relatively low levels of skill and offer women little opportunity for advancement all persist, while women’s household labor remains demanding. Recent historical investigation has led to a major revision of the notion that technology is always inherently revolutionary in its effects on society. Mechanization may even have slowed any change in the traditional position of women both in the labor market and in the home.

阅读理解In this section there are five reading passages followed by a total of 20 multiple-choice questions and 5 short answerquestions. Please read the passages and then write your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.TEXT EHow to answer interview questions?To start, take a tip from consultants who coach executives on how to handle media interviews. They say you can deliver the message you want to an employer, regardless of the question you’re asked.“Unlike some politicians, who take no notice of press questions and immediately introduce a different topic in response, job candidates must answer employers’ queries,” says John Barford of the interview training firm Genesis. “However, you can quickly make the transition from your answer to the important points you want to convey about your qualifications,” he says.He advises candidates at job interviews to apply the formula Q=A+1: Q is the question; A is the answer; + is the bridge to the message you want to deliver; and 1 is the point you want to make. Diligent preparation is also necessary to effectively answer any interview question, say senior executives. They give a number of useful tips:•Learn as much as you can beforehand. Ask company employees questions prior to job interviews to gain as much insight as you can. If the company is publicly owned, find out how viable it is by reading shareholder reports. You can then tailor what you say to the company’s issues.•Be prepared for questions that require you to show how you handled difficult challenges. These questions require stories in response, but as it’s unlikely that you’ll have one that fits every situation, try to recall some from your past experience that show how you coped with a range of issues.•Count on being asked about a past mistake or blemish on your career record, and don’t try to dodge the issue. Ms. Murphy, president of the Murphy Group, a media interview training firm, says that it’s important to steer clear of lies at all costs. Just answer the question and move on.•When discussing a mistake, focus on the positive outcomes. “You learn as much by dropping the ball as you do by catching it,” says senior executive Mr. Friedmann. When he was being interviewed for his current job, he mentioned he had been involved in many successful turnarounds and one that failed. “And I said how I’d benefited in many ways from going through that experience,” he says.Answer the following questions, using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the text foreach answer.

阅读理解In this section there are five reading passages followed by a total of 20 multiple-choice questions and 5 short answerquestions. Please read the passages and then write your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.TEXT BMost of us are taught to pay attention to what is said—the words. Words do provide us with some information, but meanings are derived from so many other sources that it would hinder our effectiveness as a partner to a relationship to rely too heavily on words alone. Words are used to describe only a small part of the many ideas we associate with any given message. Sometimes we can gain insight into some of those associations if we listen for more than words. We don’t always say what we mean or mean what we say. Sometimes our words don’t mean anything except “I’m letting off some steam. I don’t really want you to pay close attention to what I’m saying. Just pay attention to what I’m feeling.” Mostly we mean several things at once. A person wanting to purchase a house says to the current owner, “This step has to be fixed before I’ll buy.” The owner says, “It’s been like that for years.” Actually, the step hasn’t been like that for years, but the unspoken message is: “I don’t want to fix it. We put up with it. Why can’t you?” The search for a more expansive view of meaning can be developed of examining a message in terms of who said it, when it occurred, the related conditions or situation, and how it was said.The time when a message occurs can also reveal associated meaning. Let us assume two couples do exactly the same amount of kissing and arguing. But one couple always kisses after an argument and the other couple always argues after a kiss. The ordering of the behaviors may mean a great deal more than the frequency of the behavior. A friend’s unusually docile behavior may only be understood by noting that it was preceded by situations that required an abnormal amount of assertiveness. Some responses may be directly linked to a developing pattern of responses and defy logic. For example, a person who says “No!” to a series of charges like “You’re dumb,” “You’re lazy,” and “You’re dishonest,’’ may also say “No!” and try to justify his or her response if the next statement is “And you’re good looking.”We would do well to listen for how messages are presented. The words, “It sure has been nice to have you over,” can be said with emphasis and excitement or ritualistically. The phrase can be said once or repeated several times. And the meanings we associate with the phrase will change accordingly. Sometimes if we say something infrequently it assumes more importance; sometimes the more we say something the less importance it assumes.

阅读理解In this section there are five reading passages followed by a total of 20 multiple-choice questions and 5 short answerquestions. Please read the passages and then write your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.Text EWilliam Henry Perkin was born on March 12, 1838, in London, England. As a student at the City of London School, Perkin became immersed in the study of chemistry. His talent and devotion to the subject were perceived by his teacher, Thomas Hall, who encouraged him to attend a series of lectures given by the eminent scientist Michael Faraday at the Royal Institution. Those speeches fired the young chemist’s enthusiasm further, and he later went on to attend the Royal College of Chemistry, which he succeeded in entering in 1853, at the age of 15.At the time of Perkin’s enrolment, the Royal College of Chemistry was headed by the noted German chemist August Wilhelm Hofmann. Perkin’s scientific gifts soon caught Hofmann’s attention and, within two years, he became Hofmann’s youngest assistant. Not long after that, Perkin made the scientific breakthrough that would bring him both fame and fortune.At the time, quinine was the only viable medical treatment for malaria. The drug is derived from the bark of the cinchona tree, native to South America, and by 1856 demand for the drug was surpassing the available supply. During his vacation in 1856, Perkin spent his time in the laboratory on the top floor of his family’s house. He was attempting to manufacture quinine from aniline, an inexpensive and readily available coal tar waste product. Despite his best efforts, however, he did not end up with quinine. Instead, he produced a mysterious dark sludge. Luckily, Perkin’s scientific training and nature prompted him to investigate the substance further. Incorporating potassium dichromate and alcohol into the aniline at various stages of the experimental process, he finally produced a deep purple solution.Historically, textile dyes were made from such natural sources as plants and animal excretions. Some of these, such as the glandular mucus of snails, were difficult to obtain and outrageously expensive. Indeed, the purple color extracted from a snail was once so costly that in society at the time only the rich could afford it. Further, natural dyes tended to fade quickly. It was against this backdrop that Perkin’s discovery was made.Perkin quickly grasped that his purple solution could be used to color fabric, thus making it the world’s first synthetic dye. Realizing the importance of this breakthrough, he lost no time in patenting it. But perhaps the most fascinating of all Perkin’s reactions to his find was his nearly instant recognition that the new dye had commercial possibilities.With the help of his father and brother, Perkin set up a factory not far from London. Utilising the cheap and plentiful coal tar that was an almost unlimited byproduct of London gas street lighting, the dye works began producing the world’s first synthetically dyed material in 1857.Although Perkin’s fame was achieved and fortune assured by his first discovery, the chemist continued his research. Among other dyes he developed and introduced were aniline red (1859) and aniline black (1863) and, in the late 1860s, Perkin’s green. It is important to note that Perkin’s synthetic dye discoveries had outcomes far beyond the merely decorative. The dyes also became vital to medical research in many ways. For instance, they were used to stain previously invisible microbes and bacteria, allowing researchers to identify such bacilli as tuberculosis, cholera, and anthrax. Artificial dyes continue to play a crucial role today. And, in what would have been particularly pleasing to Perkin, their current use is in the search for a vaccine against malaria.

阅读理解Directions: In this section, there are 4 passages followed by multiple-choice questions. Read the passage and thenwrite ONE best answer for each question on your ANSWER SHEET.Passage TwoThe idea that government should regulate intellectual property through copyrights and patents is relatively recent in human history, and the precise details of what intellectual property is protected for how long vary across nations and occasionally change. There are two standard sociological justifications for patents or copyrights: They reward creators for their labor, and they encourage greater creativity. Both of these are empirical claims that can be tested scientifically and could be false in some realms.Consider music. Star performers existed before the 20th century, such as Franz Liszt and Niccolo Paganini, but mass media produced a celebrity system promoting a few stars whose music was not necessarily the best or most diverse. Copyright provides protection for distribution companies and for a few celebrities, thereby helping to support the industry as currently defined, but it may actually harm the majority of performers. This is comparable to Anatole France’s famous irony, The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges. In theory, copyright covers the creations of celebrities and obscurities equally, but only major distribution companies have the resources to defend their property rights in court. In a sense, this is quite fair, because nobody wants to steal unpopular music, but by supporting the property rights of celebrities, copyright strengthens them as a class in contrast to anonymous musicians.Internet music file sharing has become a significant factor in the social lives of children, who download bootleg music tracks for their own use and to give as gifts to friends. If we are to believe one recent poll done by a marketing firm rather than social scientists, 48 of American Internet users aged 12 to 17 had downloaded music files in the past month. In so doing, they violate copyright laws, and criminologists would hypothesize they thereby learn contempt for laws in general. A poll by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that two-thirds of an estimated 35 million Americans who download music files do not care whether they are copyrighted. Thus, on the level of families, ending copyright could be morally as well as economically advantageous. On a much higher level, however, the culture-exporting nations (notably the United States) could stand to lose, although we cannot really predict the net balance of costs and benefits in the absence of proper research. We do not presently have good cross national data on file sharing or a well-developed theoretical framework to guide research on whether copyright protection supports cultural imperialism versus enhancing the positions of diverse cultures in the global marketplace.It will not be easy to test such hypotheses, and extensive economic research has not conclusively answered the question of whether the patent system really promotes innovation. We will need many careful, sharp-focus studies of well-formed hypotheses in specific industries and sectors of life. For example, observational and interview research can uncover the factors that really promote cultural innovation among artists of various kinds and determine the actual consequences for children of Internet peer-to-peer file sharing.

阅读理解Directions: In this section, there are 4 passages followed by multiple-choice questions. Read the passage and thenwrite ONE best answer for each question on your ANSWER SHEET.Passage OneJust over a decade into the 21st century, women’s progress can be celebrated across a range of fields. They hold the highest political offices from Thailand to Brazil, Costa Rica to Australia. A woman holds the top spot at the International Monetary Fund; another won the Nobel Prize in economics. Self-made billionaires in Beijing, tech innovators in Silicon Valley, pioneering justices in Ghana — in these and countless other areas, women are leaving their mark.But hold the applause. In Saudi Arabia, women aren’t allowed to drive. In Pakistan, 1,000women die in honor killings every year. In the developed world, women lag behind men in pay and political power. The poverty rate among women in the U.S. rose to 14.5% last year.To measure the state of women’s progress. Newsweek ranked 165 countries, looking at five areas that affect women’s lives; treatment under the law, workforce participation, political power, and access to education and health care. Analyzing data from the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, among others, and consulting with experts and academics, we measured 28 factors to come up with our rankings.Countries with the highest scores tend to be clustered in the West, where gender discrimination is against the law, and equal rights are constitutionally enshrined. But there were some surprises. Some otherwise high-ranking countries had relatively low scores for political representation. Canada ranked third overall but 26th in power, behind countries such as Cuba and Burundi. Does this suggest that a woman in a nation’s top office translates to better lives for women in general? Not exactly. “Trying to quantify or measure the impact of women in politics is hard because in very few countries have there been enough women in politics to make a difference,” says Anne-Marie Goetz, peace and security adviser for U.N. Women.Of course, no index can account for everything. Declaring that one country is better than another in the way that it treats more than half its citizens means relying on broad strokes and generalities. Some things simply can’t be measured. And cross-cultural comparisons can’t account for difference of opinion.Certain conclusions are nonetheless clear. For one thing, our index backs up a simple but profound statement made by Hillary Clinton at the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. “When we liberate the economic potential of women, we elevate the economic performance of communities, nations, and the world,” she said. “There’s a simulative effect that kicks in when women have greater access to jobs and the economic lives of our countries: Greater political stability. Fewer military conflicts. More food. More educational opportunity for children. By harnessing the economic potential of all women, we boost opportunity for all people.”

阅读理解Directions: Read the following passages and answer the questions. Choose the most appropriate answer for each question and circle the letter on the answer sheet. Remember to write the letter corresponding to the question number.At the end of the nineteenth century, a rising interest in Native American customs and an increasing desire to understand Native American culture prompted ethnologists to begin recording the life stories of Native American. Ethnologists had a distinct reason for wanting to hear the stories: they were after linguistic or anthropological data that would supplement their own field observations, and they believed that the personal stories, even of a single individual, could increase their understanding of the cultures that they had been observing from without. In addition, many ethnologists at the turn of the century believed that Native American manners and customs were rapidly disappearing, and that it was important to preserve for posterity as much information as could be adequately recorded before the cultures disappeared forever.There were, however, arguments against this method as a way of acquiring accurate and complete information. Franz Boas, for example, described autobiographies as being “of limited value, and useful chiefly for the study of the perversion of truth by memory,” while Paul Radin contended that investigators rarely spent enough time with the tribes they were observing, and inevitably derived results too tinged by the investigator’s own emotional tone to be reliable.Even more importantly, as these life stories moved from the traditional oral mode to recorded written form, much was inevitably lost. Editors often decided what elements were significant to the field research on a given tribe. Native Americans recognized that the essence of their lives could not be communicated in English and that events that they thought significant were often deemed unimportant by their interviewers. Indeed, the very act of telling their stories could force Native American narrators to distort their cultures, as taboos had to be broken to speak the names of dead relatives crucial to their family stories.Despite all of this, autobiography remains a useful tool for ethnological research: such personal reminiscences and impressions, incomplete as they may be, are likely to throw more light on the working of the mind and emotions than any amount of speculation from an ethnologist or ethnological theorist from another culture.

阅读理解Directions: In this section, there are 3 passages followed by multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and thenwrite ONE best answer for each question on your ANSWER SHEET.Passage 2Practically speaking, the artistic maturing of the cinema was the single-handed achievement of David W. Griffith (1875-1848). Before Griffith, photography in dramatic films consisted of little more than placing the actors before a stationary camera and showing them in full length as they would have appeared on stage. From the beginning of his career as a director, however, Griffith, because of his love of Victorian painting, employed composition. He conceived of the camera image as having a foreground and a rear ground, as well as the middle distance preferred by most directors. By 1910 he was using close-ups to reveal significant details of the scene or of the acting and extreme long shots to achieve a sense of spectacle and distance. His appreciation of the camera’s possibilities produced novel dramatic effects. By splitting an event into fragments and recording each from the most suitable camera position, he could significantly vary the emphasis from camera shot to camera shot.Griffith also achieved dramatic effects by means of creative editing. By juxtaposing images and varying the speed and rhythm of their presentation, he could control the dramatic intensity of the events as the story progressed. Despite the reluctance of his producers, who feared that the public would not be able to follow a plot that was made up of such juxtaposed images, Griffith persisted, and experimented as well with other elements of cinematic syntax that have become standard ever since. These included the flashback, permitting broad psychological and emotional exploration as well as narrative that was not chronological, and the crosscut between two parallel actions to heighten suspense and excitement. In thus exploiting fully the possibilities of editing, Griffith transposed devices of the Victorian novel to film and gave film mastery of time as well as space.Besides developing the cinema’s language, Griffith immensely broadened its range and treatment of subjects. His early output was remarkably eclectic: it included not only the standard comedies, melodramas, westerns, and thrillers, but also such novelties as adaptations from Browning and Tennyson, and treatments of social issues. As his successes mounted, his ambitions grew, and with them the whole of American cinema.When he remade Enoch Arden in 1911, he insisted that a subject of such importance could not be treated in the then conventional length of one reel. Griffith’s introduction of the American-made multi-reel picture began an immense revolution. Two years later, Judith of Bethulia, an elaborate historicophilosophical spectacle, reached the unprecedented length of four reels, or one hour’s running time. From our contemporary viewpoint, the pretension of this film may seem a trifle ludicrous, but at the time it provoked endless debate and discussion and gave a new intellectual respectability to the cinema.