单选题The Panorama is not the first model of New York. In 1845 E. Porter Belden, a savvy local who had written the best city guide of its day, set 150 artists, craftsmen, and sculptors to work on what an advertisement in his guide described as "a perfect facsimile of New York, representing every street, lane, building, shed, park, fence, bee, and every other object in the city." This "Great w0rk of art," Belden said, distilled "over 200, 000 buildings, including Houses, Stores and Rear-Buildings" and two and a half million windows and doors into a twenty-by-twenty-four-foot miniature that encompassed the metropolis below Thirty-second Street and parts of Brooklyn and Governors Island, all basking under a nearly fifteen-foot-high Gothic canopy decorated with 0il paintings of "the leading business establishments and places of note in the city." Alas, every trace of it has vanished. Of course Belden"s prodigy was far from the first display of model buildings. Since antiquity architects and builders have used miniatures m solve design problems and win support from patrons and public. A recent show at die National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., featured fourteen models created by Renaissance architects, including the six-ton, fifteen-foot-high model of St. Peter"s that Antonio da Sangallo the Younger built for the pope. Beyond their uses as design tools and propaganda, models have always possessed a curious power to enchant and excite. The sculptor Teremy Lebensohn was describing architectural models but could have been characterizing all miniatures when he wrote, "The model offers us a Gulliver"s view of a Lilliputian world, its seduction of scale reinforcing the sense of our powers to control the environment, whether it be unbroken countryside, a city block or the interior of a room." A model 0fthe 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition presented to the city in 1889 is unique in that some of the buildings and details are made of brass and that it is still on display in the basement of what was the Liberal Arts Building at the fair in Philadelphia"s Fairmont Park. The San Francisco World"s Fair of 1915 featured another New York City model, 550 feet square and complete with a lighting system that highlighted the city"s major features. City models have also miniaturized Denver, San Diego, and San Francisco, the Denver one built during the 1930s with WPA funding. A re-creation of the city as it appeared in 1860, it includes figures of men, women, and children in period costumes, along with animals and assorted wagons, and is now on display at the Colorado History Museum in Denver. San Diego"s model, in Old Town State Historic Park, was built by Jo Toigo and completed in the 1970s and depicts that city"s Old Town section as it looked a century earlier. Like the Denver model, it includes people, animals and vehicles. A model of San Francisco is in the Environmental Simulation Laboratory in Berkeley, California. Not a realistic model in the true sense of the word, it represents the buildings and land contours of the city and has been used to study patterns of sunlight and shadow and the flower of wind caused by San Francisco"s many hills. The computer"s ability to simulate the same effects has diminished the model"s importance, and its future is uncertain. New materials and techniques have now brought the craft of architectural models to an impressive level. Computer-controlled lasers and photo-etching (the process invented to create the Panorama"s bridges) allow model makers to create presentations pieces of astonishing realism.

单选题 {{B}}Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following conversation.{{/B}}

单选题 {{B}}Questions 23—26{{/B}}

单选题At the tail end of the 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche suggested that natural history—which he saw as a war against fear and superstition—ought to be narrated "in such a way that everyone who hears it is irresistibly inspired to strive after spiritual and bodily health and vigour", and he grumbled that artists had yet to discover the right language to do this. "None the less," Nietzsche admitted, "the English have taken admirable steps in the direction of that ideal ... the reason is that they [natural history books] are written by their most distinguished scholars—whole, complete and fulfilling natures." The English language tradition of nature writing and narrating natural history is gloriously rich, and although it may not make any bold claims to improving health and wellbeing, it does a good job—for readers and the subjects of the writing. Where the insights of field naturalists meet the legacy of poets such as Clare, Wordsworth, Hughes and Heaney, there emerges a language as vivid as any cultural achievement. That this language is still alive and kicking and read every day in a newspaper is astounding. So to hold a century"s worth of country diaries is, for an interloper like me, both an inspiring and humbling experience. But is this the best way of representing nature, or is it a cultural default? Will the next century of writers want to shake loose from this tradition? What happens next? Over the years, nature writers and country diarists have developed an increasingly sophisticated ecological literacy of the world around them through the naming of things and an understanding of the relationships between them. They find ways of linking simple observations to bigger issues by remaining in the present, the particular. For writers of my generation, a nostalgia for lost wildlife and habitats and the business of bearing witness to a war of attrition in the countryside colours what we"re about. The anxieties of future generations may not be the same. Articulating the "wild" as a qualitative character of nature and context for the more quantitative notion of biodiversity will, I believe, become a more dynamic cultural project. The re-wilding of lands and seas, coupled with a re-wilding of experience and language, offers fertile ground for writers. A response to the anxieties springing from climate change, and a general fear of nature answering our continued environmental injustices with violence, will need a reassessment of our feelings for the nature we like—cultural landscapes, continuity, native species—as well as the nature we don"t like—rising seas, droughts, "invasive" species. Whether future writers take their sensibilities for a walk and, like a pack of wayward dogs unleashed, let them loose in hills and woods to sniff out some fugitive truth hiding in the undergrowth, or choose to honestly recount the this-is-where-I-am, this-is-what-I-see approach, they will be hitched to the values implicit in the language they use. They should challenge these. Perhaps they will see our natural history as a contributor to the commodification of nature and the obsessive managerialism of our times. Perhaps they will see our romanticism as a blanket thrown over the traumatised victim of the countryside. But maybe they will follow threads we found in the writings of others and find their own way to wonder.

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单选题Congress can pass laws, regulators can beef up enforcement, and shareholders can demand more accountability. But when it comes right down to it, making sure a company is operating well is really an inside job. That"s where internal auditing comes in. It doesn"t sound glamorous, but it"s an expanding field beckoning to people with a lot of pent up we-can-do-better energy. Internal auditors keep an eye on a company"s "controls"—not just financial systems, but all sorts of functions designed to make the business run smoothly and protect the interests of shareholders. The recent string of corporate scandals provided a rude awakening to the importance of these internal checks. In the case of WorldCom, it was internal auditor Cynthia Cooper who blew the whistle on the company for inflating profits by $3.8 billion. She didn"t intend to be a hero, she said to Time magazine when it named her one of its Persons of the Year. She was just doing her job. A lot more of those jobs are opening up as companies turn to internal auditors for help in complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Top executives of publicly held companies now have to sign off on their financial statements and vouch for the effectiveness of internal controls. "Up until now, CEOs and CFOs have been going to bed and sleeping well at night, knowing that they"ve got good controls or financial reporting because they"ve got good people ... But what"s missing is the documentation that really supports that gut feel," says Trent Gazzaway, the national director of corporate governance advisory services for Grant Thornton, an accounting and business consultancy firm. "I cannot think of a time in history when there"s been a greater opportunity to enter the internal-audit field," he adds. Job postings on the website of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) in Altamonte Springs, Fla., have more than doubled in the past year, says IIA president William Bishop III. And in the organization"s survey for 2002, half the internal-audit directors said they planned to make one or more new hires that year. People who can assess computerized systems are especially in demand. Privately held companies are voluntarily adding more scrutiny, as well. In a recent survey that drew responses from 1,400 CFOs in such businesses, 58 percent said they are responding to new corporate-governance standards. Of those, 36 percent are creating or expanding internal auditing, according to Robert Half Management Resources. An American company with $3 billion to $4 billion in revenue typically has about 16 internal auditors. The job is often a training ground for future management positions, but those who stay in the field and become directors earn an average of just under $100,000. The IIA offers certification for internal auditors, but many firms do not require it. Assessing "the tone at the top"—the culture and the ethical environment of a company—is one of the key charges for internal auditors, Mr. Bishop says. But their effectiveness depends on the resources and independence senior managers give them. As auditors have a perspective that encompasses every aspect of the company, executives sometimes want to hear their recommendations for improving systems. But their main goal is to make sure the systems already in place are working properly. The balancing act can be tricky. "If I make a recommendation ... and then I come and evaluate it, I"m not going to be criticizing it," says Parveen Gupta, who teaches corporate governance and accounting at Lehigh University. Ideally, the internal auditor should be an extra set of eyes, a consultant who knows the company well but has enough independence to give honest feedback. Regulations "are pushing internal auditors to become a bit more policeman-oriented," he says, "but if employees perceive it as someone second-guessing them, that is very dangerous." One tool designed to avoid that adversarial feeling is "control self-assessment". The auditor sets up discussions among employees to find out, for instance, if a written ethics policy is being implemented, or if workers are feeling such intense pressures that they might be prompted to push ethical boundaries. The power of the new laws can go only so far. "This entire issue of corporate governance—trying to run the company as if you were managing your own money—is a matter of heart and soul," Dr. Gupta says. And guts. Anyone considering a career in internal auditing, he says, "should have the guts to speak out, to tell the truth."

单选题 {{B}}Questions 23-26{{/B}}

单选题Journalists who write about families as well as social and cultural issues can count on receiving an annual barrage of public relations pitches for Valentine"s Day. The PR blitz begins right after Christmas and continues almost until the big day itself. Daily, sometimes hourly, e-mails pop up on my computer screen, as publicity agents propose stories on a variety of love-rated subjects. Some suggest traditional topics. How about interviewing the author of a new book on how to find the perfect mate? Or what about a story offering ideas on the best gifts to give to your heartthrob? Other suggestions take a thoroughly modern approach to romance. Publicists would be happy to provide information about the newest matchmaking website or the hottest dating coach. There"s even a "psychic medium" who promises to tell radio and television audiences about their "current and future relationships". Individually, these story promotions could be taken for what they are. just another day, another client, another dollar in the life of publicity agents. But collectively, they signal more than simply a desire to capitalize on a holiday that has mushroomed into a $17 billion industry. In their varied forms, these promotions reflect the urgency of the quest for love and companionship in a society where one-quarter of all households now consist of single people. These pitches also serve as a measure of how much Valentine"s Day itself has changed. They can impel long-married observers to look back with a certain nostalgia to a time several decades ago when Feb. 14 didn"t carry such intensity—and when courtship didn"t cost quite so much. That was a time before men were expected to spend two months" worth of their salary for an engagement ring, before men and women decided they would settle for nothing less than a "soul mate", and before it was necessary to seek advice from an army of self-help gurus bearing titles such as "relationship and interpersonal communication expert". That was also an era when many hopeful Prince Charmings could show their love with a card or a heart-shaped box of drugstore chocolates, and when even a single rose could melt a young woman"s heart. What a contrast to today, when anything less than a dozen long-stemmed roses can risk making a sender appear frugal, and when an ardent suitor who wants to make an impression will buy chocolates from Belgium, whatever the cost. This year the average man will spend $120 and the average woman $ 85, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF). Is this love, or obligation? For some men, it might even include a bit of guilt. As Tracy Mullin, CEO of the NRF, notes, presumably with tongue planted firmly in cheek, some men "may be looking at Valentine"s Day as a way to make up for that HDTV they splurged on for the Super Bowl". As one public radio station announcer put it during a Valentine"s Day fundraiser offering long-stemmed roses. "This is a perfect way to fulfill your Valentine"s obligations." Another host making a similar appeal urged listeners to "take care of your Valentine"s Day duties". And if you don"t? One relationship expert quoted in a Valentine"s Day press release offers the stern warning that "if a guy doesn"t come through on Valentine"s Day, it means he doesn"t care about you," so just say goodbye and move on. But assuming he does care, another PR firm suggests a high-tech approach to the day. "This year, think outside the box and send a Video Valentine!" the e-mail pitch begins. "Too shy to say those three little words in person? Profess your love on video! Or use your cellphone to record yourself shopping for the perfect gift." Diamonds, anyone? Whatever the approach, couples might do well to follow the advice of a group of husbands in Japan who say they know the answer to wedded bliss. In an effort to communicate better with their wives, they offer Three Principles of Love: Say "sorry" without fear, say "thank you" without hesitation, and say "I love you" without shame. It"s a trio of sentiments that women could adopt as well. Tomorrow all the unsold Valentines with their declarations of love and affection will disappear from card racks, to be replaced by Easter messages featuring eggs and bunnies. Long stemmed roses will begin to open, boxes of chocolate will be nibbled away, and cards with sentimental messages will be propped on desks and dressers. Whatever hopes and expectations are fulfilled—or not—today, the celebration offers a touching reminder that when it comes to matters of the heart, the approaches might change, but the yearning for love and companionship doesn"t. Above all, it offers this comforting reassurance: Cupid lives.

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单选题It's not much, but it's home. Francis Chan, an engineer, lives in Hampstead, north Lon don, in a flat that's just 4ft wide by 21ft long. He loves it. Tiny though it is, it has got all the comforts. Peter Baynes, Chan's architect(建筑师), has achieved a clever piece of design, according to architectural experts. The Chan mini-house was built on what was once a path down the side of a big Victorian house. Not an inch of space is wasted. When you step in through the front door, you're standing in the shower, on Britain's only self-cleansing doormat(自动清洁门垫). A door opens on to an equally tiny toilet with washbasin. Two steps further in comes the kitchen, complete with full-sized cooker and fridge, and washer/ drier. A worktop folds down from the wall. Another step and you're into the dining/office area. Four people can sit here for dinner, says Chan as he sets the table-top into place. He even has a fold-down drawing-board for when he's working at home. The bed is hidden under a cover board fight at the back. "I don't even have to make the bed," Chan says. "I just put the cover down. " Chan's business suits hang neatly on the wall over the bed. Daylight comes in through the skylight. The house feels like a very small boat and Chan admits he toyed with the idea of naming it the "boat-house". "It cost around ￡ 4,700 to build last year. Now it's been valued at ￡ 30,000. It proves that good design doesn't need to cost more. It just needs a lot of care," says Chan.

单选题Years ago, when I first started building websites for newspapers, many journalists told me that they saw the Internet as the end of reliable journalism. Since anyone could publish whatever they wanted online, "real journalism" would be overwhelmed, they said. Who would need professional reporters and editors if anyone could be a reporter or an editor? I would tell them not to worry. While my personal belief is that anyone can be a reporter or editor, I also know that quality counts. And that the "viral" nature of the Internet means that when people find quality, they let other people know about it. Even nontraditional media sites online will survive only if the quality of their information is trusted. The future of online news will demand more good reporters and editors, not fewer. So I was intrigued when Newsweek recently published a story called Revenge of the Expert. It argued that expertise would be the main component of "Web 3.0". "The wisdom of the crowds has peaked," says Jason Calacanis, founder of the Maholo "people-powered search engine" and a former AOL executive. "Web 3.0 is taking what we've built in Web 2.0—the wisdom of the crowds—and putting an editorial layer on it of truly talented, compensated people to make the product more trusted and refined." Well, yes and no. Sure, it is important for people to trust the information they find online. And as the Newsweek article argues, the need for people to find trusted information online is increasing, thus the need for more expertise. But the article fails to mention the most important feature of the world of digital information. It's not expertise—it's choice. In many cases the sites that people come to trust are built on nontraditional models of expertise. Look at sites like Digg. com, Reddit. com, or Slashdot. com. There, users provide the expertise on which others depend. When many users select a particular story, that story accumulates votes of confidence, which often lead other users to choose that story. The choices of the accumulated community are seen as more trustworthy than the "gatekeeper" model of traditional news and information. Sometimes such sites highlight great reporting from traditional media. But often they bring forward bits of important information that are ignored (or missed) by "experts". It's sort of the "open source" idea of information—a million eyes looking on the Web for information is better than a few. Jay Rosen, who writes the PressThink blog, says in an e-mail that he's seen this kind of story before, calling it a "kind of pathetic" trend reporting. "I said in 2006, when starting NewAssignment. Net, that the strongest editorial combinations will be pro-am. I still think that. Why? Because for most reporters covering a big sprawling beat, it's still true what Dan Gillmor said. 'My readers know more than I do.' And it's still the case that tapping into that knowledge is becoming more practical because of the Internet." J. D. Lasica, a social-media strategist and former editor, also says he sees no departure from the "wisdom of the crowds" model. "I've seen very little evidence that the sweeping cultural shifts we've seen in the past half dozen years show any signs of retreating," Mr. Lasica says. "Young people now rely on social networks...to take cues from their friends on which movies to see, books to read... And didn't 'Lonely Planet Guide' explore this terrain for travel and Zagat's for dining back in the '90s?" In many cases, traditional media is still the first choice of online users because the reporters and editors of these media outlets have created a level of trust for many people— but not for everyone. When you combine the idea of expertise with the idea of choice, you discover nontraditional information sites that become some of the Internet's most trusted places. Take SCOTUSblog. com, written by lawyers about cases in the Supreme Court. It has become the place to go for other lawyers, reporters, and editors to find in-depth information about important cases. The Internet also allows individuals to achieve this level of trust. For instance, the Scobleizer. corn blog written by Robert Scoble. Mr. Scoble, a former Microsoft employee and tech expert, is widely seen as one of the most important people to read when you want to learn what's happening in the world of technology. He built his large audience on the fact that people trust his writing. To me, it's the best of all possible information worlds.

单选题 {{B}}Questions 15-18{{/B}}

单选题Question 23-26

单选题Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following interview.

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单选题Christopher Columbus was the son of a weaver. He was very interested in the discovery of new lands. His brother Bartholomew was a chart maker in Lisbon, Portugal. Columbus studied chart making with his brother. He believed that the world was round, and he wanted to travel the seas to prove it. At that time, spice merchants were looking for a new route to Asia. Asia was a large trading area, but it was very difficult to reach by land. Columbus requested support from many people to help him travel the seas. Finally, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain granted his request, and gave him three ships for his voyage. On August 3, 1492, Columbus and ninety men set sail on the Santa Maria along with two other ships, the Nina and the Pinta. The voyage was hard and many men were sick and tired. On October 11, at ten o'clock at night, Columbus saw a light. The Pinta sailed ahead and reported that they had reached land. Since Columbus thought they had reached India, they expected to see people that were Indians. Even when they found out that they were not in Asia, they were happy to have found a new place that they could trade with. Columbus named the area where they landed "San Salvador", and claimed the area for Spain. Today Columbus Day is celebrated in the United States on the second Monday in October. Banks and government offices are closed to honor the man who was the first European to have discovered the New World of the Americas.

单选题Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following interview.

单选题Questions 23-26

单选题 What is the role of human resources as the world goes through turmoil, and what is its future as so many industries face extreme change? Effendi Ibnoe, Bali, Indonesia Talk about timing. Your question arrived in our in-box the same day that we received a note from an acquaintance who had just been let go from his job in publishing, certainly one of the industries that is facing, as you put it, "extreme change". He described his layoff as a practically Orwellian experience in which he was ushered into a conference room to meet with an outplacement consultant who, after dispensing with logistics, informed him that she would call him at home that evening to make sure everything was all right. "I assured her I had friends and loved ones and a dog," he wrote, "and since my relationship with her could be measured in terms of seconds, they could take care of that end of things." "Memo to HR: Instead of saddling dismissed employees with solicitous outplacement reps," he noted wryly, "put them in a room with some crockery for a few therapeutic minutes of smashing things against a wall." While we enjoy our friend's sense of humor, we'd suggest a different memo to HR. "Layoffs are your moment of truth," it would say, "when your company must show departing employees the same kind of attentiveness and dignity that was showered upon them when they entered. Layoffs are when HR proves its mettle and its worth, demonstrating whether a company really cares about its people." Look, we've written before about HR and the game-changing role we believe it can—and should—play as the engine of an organization's hiring, appraisal, and development processes. We've asserted that too many companies relegate HR to the mundane busy-work of newsletters, picnics, and benefits, and we've made the case that every CEO should elevate his head of HR to the same stature as the CFO. But if there was ever a time to underscore the importance of HR, it has arrived. And, sadly, if there was ever a time to see how few companies get HR right, it has arrived, too, as our acquaintance's experience shows. So, to your question: What is HR's correct role now—especially in terms of layoffs? First, HR has to make sure people are let go by their managers, not strangers. Being fired is dehumanizing in any event, but to get the news from a "hired gun" only makes matters worse. That's why HR must ensure that managers accept their duty, which is to be in on the one conversation at work that must be personal. Pink slips should be delivered face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball. Second, HR's role is to serve as the company's arbiter of equity. Nothing raises hackles more during a layoff than the sense that some people—namely the loudmouths and the litigious—are getting better deals than others. HR can mitigate that dynamic by making sure across units and divisions that severance arrangements, if they exist, are appropriate and evenhanded. You simply don't want people to leave feeling as if they got you-know-what. They need to walk out saying: "At least I know I was treated fairly." Finally, HR's role is to absorb pain. In the hours and days after being let go, people need to vent, and it is HR's job to be completely available to console. At some point, an outplacement consultant can come into the mix to assist with a transition, but HR can never let "the departed" feel as if they've been sent to a leper colony. Someone connected to each let-go employee—either a colleague or HR staffer—should check in regularly. And not just to ask, "Is everything O.K.?" but to listen to the answer with an open heart, and when appropriate, offer to serve as a reference to prospective employers. Three years ago, we wrote a column called, "So Many CEOs Get This Wrong", and while many letters supported our stance that too many companies undervalue HR, a significant minority pooh-poohed HR as irrelevant to the "real work" of business. Given the state of things, we wonder how those same HR-minimalists feel now. If their company is in crisis—or their own career—perhaps at last they've seen the light. HR matters enormously in good times. It defines you in the bad.