单选题

单选题 Questions 19—22

单选题 The city water pipes in Rome were usually of baked clay or lead; copper was sometimes used and also hollowed stone. For the large supply conduits leading to the city the Romans used covered channels with free water surfaces, rather than pipes. Perhaps this choice was a matter of economics, for apparently they could make lead pipes up to 15 inches in diameter. While pipes can follow the profile of undulating ground, with the pressure increasing in the lower areas, channels cannot. They must slope continuously downwards, because water in channels does not normally flow uphill; and the grade must be flat, from 1 in 60 in small channels to perhaps 1 in 3,000 in large ones, to keep the water speed down to a few feet per second. Thus the main supply channels or aqueducts had long lengths of flat grade and where they crossed depressions or valleys they were carried on elevated stone bridges in the form of tiered arches. At the beginning of the Christian era there were over 30 miles of these raised aqueducts in the 250 miles of channels and tunnels bringing water to Rome. The channels were up to 6 feet wide and 5 to 8 feet high. Sometimes channels were later added on the tops of existing ones. The remains of some of these aqueducts still grace the skyline on the outskirts of Rome and elsewhere in Europe similar ruins are found. Brick and stone drains were constructed in various parts of Rome. The oldest existing one is the Cloaca Maxima which follows the course of an old stream. It dates back at least to the third century B.C. Later the drains were used for sewage, flushed by water from the public baths and fountains, as well as street storm run-off. The truly surprising aspect of the achievements of all the ancient hydraulic artisans is the lack of theoretical knowledge behind their designs. Apart from the hydrostatics of Archimedes, there was no sound understanding of the most elementary principles of fluid behaviour. Sextus Frontinus, Rome's water commissioner around A.D. 100, did not fully realize that in order to calculate the volume rate of flow in a channel it is necessary to allow for the speed of the flow as well as the area of cross-section. The Romans' flow standard was the rate at which water would flow through a bronze pipe roughly 4/3 inch in diameter and 9 inches long. When this pipe was connected to the side of a water-supply pipe or channel as a delivery outlet, it was assumed that the outflow was at the standard rate. In fact, the amount of water delivered depended not only on the cross-sectional area of the outlet pipe but also on the speed of water flowing through it and this speed depended on the pressure in the supply pipe.

单选题I don't think Jill would be a good teacher. She's got ______ patience with children. [A] plenty [B] much [C] less [D] little

单选题 {{B}}Questions 13 to 17 are based on the following news.{{/B}}

单选题

单选题Which best expresses the change since the seventeenth century in the perception people have of their relationship to their bodies?

单选题Questions 16-20 The freedom to lead different types of life is reflected in the person"s capacity set. The capacity of a person depends on a variety of factors, including personal characteristics and social arrangements. A full accounting of individual freedom must, of course, go beyond the capacities of personal living and pay attention to the person"s other objectives ( e.g. social goals not directly related to one"s own life), but human capacities constitute an important part of individual freedom. Freedom, of course, is not an unproblematic concept. For example, if we do not have the courage to choose to live in a particular way, even though we could live that way if we so choose, can it be said that we do have the freedom to live that way, i.e. the correspondent capacity? It is not any purpose here to brush under the carpet difficult questions of this-and-other-type. In so far as there are genuine ambiguities in the concept of freedom, that should be reflected in corresponding ambiguities in the characterization of capacity. This relates to a methodological point, which I have tried to defend elsewhere, that if an underlying idea has an essential ambiguity, a precise formulation of that idea must try to capture that ambiguity rather than hide or eliminate it. Comparisons of freedom raise interesting issues of evaluation. The claim is sometimes made that freedom must be valued independently of the values and preferences of the person whose freedom is being assessed, since it concerns the "range" of choice a person has--not how she values the elements in that range or what she chooses from it. I do not believe for an instant that this claim is sustainable (despite some superficial plausibility), but had it been correct, it would have been a rather momentous conclusion, driving a wedge between the evaluation of achievements and that of freedom. It would, in particular, be then possible to assess the freedom of a person independently of--or prior to--the assessment of the alternatives between which the person can choose.

单选题Advances in surveillance technology could seriously damage individual privacy unless drastic measures are taken to protect personal data, scientists have said. Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, gave warning last year that Britain was "sleepwalking" into a surveillance society. Yesterday the country's leading engineers developed the theme, fleshing out a dystopian vision that not even George Orwell could have predicted. They said that travel passes, supermarket loyalty cards and mobile phones could be used to track individuals' every move. They also predicted that CCTV (close-circuit television) footage could become available for public consumption and that terrorists could hijack the biometric chips in passports and rig them up as a trigger for explosives. The report by the Royal Academy of Engineering, Dilemmas of Privacy and Surveillance-Challenges of Technological Change, argues that the scientists developing surveillance technology should also think about measures to protect privacy. "Just as security features have been incorporated into car design, privacy-protecting features should be incorporated into the design of products and services that rely on divulging personal information," the report says. "There is a choice between a Big Brother world where individual privacy is almost extinct and a world where the data are kept by individual organizations or services and kept secret and secure." The report says that shoppers should be allowed to buy goods and services without revealing their identities to the companies that provide them. It argues that travel and supermarket loyalty cards and mobile phones are mines of personal information that should be closely scrutinized to make sure that data is not abused. Professor Nigel Gilbert, chairman of the report group, said. "In most cases, supermarket loyalty cards will have your name on. Why? What is needed in a loyalty card is for the supermarket to know what has been bought so you can get your discounts. " "Does it need to identify you? No, it just needs authentication that you've bought the goods. It is the same for Oyster cards on the Tube, some of which you have to register for. These are all apparently small things but people are being required to give away more identification information than is required." Ian Forbes, the report's coauthor, said that because footage from CCTV cameras could be digitized and potentially stored for ever, that necessitated greater scrutiny of the controlling networks. Britain has about five million CCTV cameras, one for every 12 people. The report says: "Give this potential, it cannot be guaranteed that surveillance images will remain private, or will not be altered, misused or manipulated. " The report also gives warning that biometric passports and identity cards would give fresh opportunities to fraudsters and terrorists to read remotely the data chips that they contain. It says that it could be possible to rig a bomb to go off in the presence of a certain person or someone of a particular nationality. The report proposes that the Information Commissioner should be given extended powers, and that stiffer penalties, including prison sentences, should be introduced for those who misuse personal data. The Commons Home Affairs Select Committee is expected to announce an inquiry into the growing use of surveillance.

单选题 Questions 15-18

单选题A $54m lawsuit over a pair of pinstriped trousers that went missing from a Washington, DC, cleaners was thrown out by a judge this week. It had attracted worldwide ridicule. The fact that the case was brought, not by a random loony, but by a former judge has added to the sense that something is wrong not just with America"s litigation laws, but with the kind of men and women Americans choose to sit in judgment over them. A whole series of judicial misdemeanors, ranging from the titillating to the outrageous, has emerged over the past year. Take the Florida state judge, John Sloop, who was ousted after complaints about his "rude and abusive" behavior. This included an order to strip-search and jail 11 defendants for arriving late in traffic court after being misdirected. Or the Californian judge, José Velasquez, sacked in April for a plethora of misconduct, including extending the sentences of defendants who dared question his rulings. Then there was the Albany city judge, William Carter, in New York, censored for his "utterly inexcusable" conduct after jumping down from the bench during a trial, shedding his robes and apparently challenging a defendant to a fist-fight. Another time, he suggested that the police "thump the shit out" of an allegedly disrespectful defendant. Mr. Carter wasn"t carrying a gun; many judges now do. In Florida, Charles Greene, chief criminal judge in Broward County, had to step down after describing a trial for attempted murder involving minority defendants and witnesses as "NHI" (No Humans Involved). More serious are the cases of corruption. On June 5th Gerald Garson, a former judge in Brooklyn, New York, was jailed for taking bribes to rig divorce cases. Another judge was convicted of accepting money to refer clients to a particular lawyer. Rumors of buying and selling of judgeships in the district abound. At one time, one in ten Brooklyn judges were said to be under investigation for sleaze. "To distrust the judiciary," said Honor6 de Balzac, "marks the beginning of the end of society." In Britain, judges are one of the most respected groups. But in America they tend to be held in low esteem, particularly at state level. For this many people blame low pay and the fact that judges are elected. In 39 states, some or all judges are elected for fixed terms. Federal judges, usually held in much higher esteem, are appointed on merit for life—as in Britain. Most states allow judicial candidates to raise campaign funds. Huge sums are often involved, leading to inevitable suspicions that, once on the bench, judges will pass judgments that favor their benefactors. In 2004 the two candidates in one Illinois district (with a population of just 1.3m) raised a staggering $ 9.4m between them. Some of the states with the highest levels of campaign spending—Texas, Louisiana and Alabama—are also those whose judges are most criticized. In the past, judicial candidates were banned from discussing controversial legal or political issues on the campaign trail. But in 2002 the Supreme Court ruled such bans to be unconstitutional, leading candidates to advertise freely their views on abortion and suchlike. Personal attacks have also become more common. Indeed, Sandra Day O"Connor, a former Supreme Court justice, fears that judicial elections have turned into "political prize-fights, where partisans and special interests seek to install judges who will answer to them instead of the law and the constitution." The meager salaries of judges, whether at state or federal level, do not help raise standards either. Federal judges have not had a real pay rise for 17 years; a district court judge earns $165,000 a year, about the same as a first-year associate in a top law firm. John Roberts, chief justice of the Supreme Court, earns just $ 212,000—half the salary of England"s top judge and one-fifth of the average income of a partner in the majority of America"s 100 top-grossing law firms. Around 40 judges have left the federal bench over the past five years. In his annual report to Congress in January, Mr. Roberts said that the issue of judges" pay had reached "the level of a constitutional crisis". It was threatening the judiciary"s strength and independence. In February, Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, promised legislation to fix it within the current session. The judges are still waiting. Meanwhile, state judges in New York are preparing to sue the state for their first pay rise since 1999. The battle is joined.

单选题Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following talk.

单选题Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following conversation.

单选题Right now, there's little that makes a typical American taxpayer more resentful than the huge bonuses being dispersed at Wall Street firms. The feeling that something went terribly wrong in the way the financial sector is run--and paid--is widespread. It's worth recalling that the incentive structures now governing executive pay in much of the corporate world were hailed as a miracle of human engineering a generation ago when they focused once-complacent ECOs with laser precision on steering companies toward the brightest possible futures. So now there's a lot of talk about making incentives smarter. That may improve the way companies or banks are run, but only temporarily. The inescapable flaw in incentives, as 35 years of research shows, is that they get you exactly what you pay for, but it never turns out to be what you want. The mechanics of why this happens are pretty simple. Out of necessity, incentives are often based on an index of the thing you care about--like sound corporate leadership--that is easily measured. Share price is such an index of performance. Before long, however, people whose livelihoods are based on an index will figure out how to manipulate it--which soon makes the index a much less reliable barometer. Once share price determines the pay of smart people, they'll find away to move it up without improving--and in some cases by jeopardizing--their company. Incentives don't just fail; they often backfire. Swiss economists Bruno Frey (University of Zurich) and Felix Oberholzer-Gee (Harvard Business School) have shown that when Swiss citizen sare offered a substantial cash incentive for agreeing to have a toxic waste dump in their community, their willingness to accept the facility falls by half. Uri Gneezy (U. C. San Diego's Rady School of Management) and Aldo Rustichini (University of Minnesota) observed that when Israeli day-carecenters fine parents who pick up their kids late, lateness increases. And James Heyman (University of St. Thomas) and Dan Ariely (Duke's Fuqua School of Business) showed that when people offer passers-by a token payment for help lifting a couch from a van, they are less likely to lend a hand than if they are offered nothing. What these studies show is that incentives tend to remove the moral dimension from decision-making. The day-care parents know they ought to arrive on time, but they come to view the fines as a fee for a service. Once a payoff enters the picture, the Swiss citizens and passersby ask, "What's in my best interest?" The question they ask themselves when money isn't part of the equation is quite different. "What are my responsibilities to my country and to other people?" Despite our abiding faith in incentives as a way to influence behavior in a positive way, they consistently do there verse. Some might say banking has no moral dimension to take away. Bankers have always been interested in making money, and they probably always will be, but they've traditionally been well aware of their responsibilities, too. Bankers worried about helping farmers get this year's seed into the ground. They worried about helping a new business get off to a strong start or a thriving one to expand. They worried about a couple in their 50s having enough to retire on, and about one in their30s taking on too big a mortgage. These bankers weren't saints, but they served the dual masters of profitability and community service. In case you think this style of banking belongs to a horse-and-buggy past, consider credit unionsand community development banks. Many have subprime mortgage portfolios that remain healthy to this day. In large part, that's because they approve loans they intend to keep on their books rather than securitizing and selling them to drive up revenue, which would in turn boost annual bonuses. And help bring the world economy to its knees. At the Group of 20 gathering in September, France and Germany proposed strict limits on executive pay. The U. S. Now has a pay czar, who just knocked down by half the compensation of136 executives. But the absolute amounts executives are paid may be inconsequential. Most people want to do right. They want their work to improve the lives of others. As Washington turns its sights on reforms for the financial sector, it just might consider nudging the industry's major player saway from the time-dishonored tradition of incentives and toward compensation structures that don't strip the moral dimension away from the people making big decisions.

单选题

单选题Questions 11-14

单选题[此试题无题干]

单选题In contrast to printing in South America, printing in North America ______.

单选题Directions: In this section, you will read several passages. Each passage is followed by several questions based on its content. You are to choose ANSWER BOOKLET best answer, (A), (B), (C) or (D), to each question. Answer all the questions following each passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage and write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET. Questions 1-5 It is hardly necessary for me to cite all the evidence of the depressing state of literacy. These figures from the Department of Education are sufficient- 27 million Americans cannot read at all, and a further 35 million read at a level that is less than sufficient to survive in our society. But my own worry today is less that of the overwhelming problem of elemental literacy than it is of the slightly more luxurious problem of the decline in the skill even of the middle-class reader, of his unwillingness to afford those spaces of silence, those luxuries of domesticity and time and concentration, that surround the image of the classic act of reading, it has been suggested that almost 80 percent of America's literate, educated teenagers can no longer read without an accompanying noise (music) in the background or a television screen flickering at the corner of their field of perception. We know very little about the brain and how it deals with simultaneous conflicting input, but every common-sense intuition suggests we should be profoundly alarmed. This violation of concentration, silence, solitude goes to the very heart of our notion of literacy; this new form of part-reading, of part-perception against background distraction, renders impossible certain essential acts of apprehension and concentration, let alone that most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves, which is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital. Under these circumstances, the question of what future there is for the arts of reading is a real one. Ahead of us lie technical, psychic, and social transformations probably much more dramatic than those brought about by Gutenberg, the German inventor in printing. The Gutenberg revolution, as we now know it, took a long time; its effects are still being debated. The information revolution will touch every fact of composition, publication, distribution, and reading. No one in the book industry can say with any confidence what will happen to the book as we've known it.