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单选题American no longer expect public figures, whether in speech or in writing, to command the English language with skill and gift. Nor do they aspire to such command themselves. In his latest book, Doing Our Own Thing. The Degradation of language and Music and why we should like, care, John McWhorter, a linguist and controversialist of mixed liberal and conservative views, sees the triumph of 1960s counter-culture as responsible for the decline of formal English. But the cult of the authentic and the personal, "doing our own thing", has spelt the death of formal speech, writing, poetry and music. While even the modestly educated sought an elevated tone when they put pen to paper before the 1960s, even the most well regarded writing since then has sought to capture spoken English on the page. Equally, in poetry, the highly personal, performative genre is the only form that could claim real liveliness. In both oral and written English, talking is triumphing over speaking, spontaneity over craft. Illustrated with an entertaining array of examples from both high and low culture, the trend that Mr. McWhorter documents is unmistakable. But it is less clear, to take the question of his subtitle, why we should, like care. As a linguist, he acknowledges that all varieties of human language, including non-standard ones like Black English, can be powerfully expressive-there exists no language or dialect in the world that cannot convey complex ideas. He is not arguing, as many do, that we can no longer think straight because we do not talk proper. Russians have a deep love for their own language and carry large chunks of memorized poetry in their heads, while Italian politicians tend to elaborate speech that would seem old-fashioned to most English-speakers. Mr. McWhorter acknowledges that formal language is not strictly necessary, and proposes no radical education reforms-he is really grieving over the loss of something beautiful more than useful. We now take our English "on paper plates instead of china". A shame, perhaps, but probably an inevitable one.

单选题 Questions 21-25 Apple is hardly alone in the high-tech industry when it comes to duff gadgets and unhelpful call centers, but in other respects it is highly unusual. In particular, it inspires an almost religious fervor among its customers. That is no doubt helped by the fact that its corporate biography is so closely bound up with the mercurial Mr. Jobs, a rare showman in his industry. Yet for all its flaws and quirks, Apple has at least four important wider lessons to teach other companies. The first is that innovation can come from without as well as within. Apple is widely assumed to be an innovator in the tradition of Thomas Edison or Bell Laboratories, locking its engineers away to cook up new ideas and basing products on their moments of inspiration. In fact, its real skill lies in stitching together its own ideas with technologies from outside and then wrapping the results in elegant software and stylish design. The idea for the iPod, for example, was originally dreamt up by a consultant whom Apple hired to run the project. It was assembled by combining off-the-shelf parts with in-house ingredients such as its distinctive, easily used system of controls. And it was designed to work closely with Apple's iTunes jukebox software, which was also bought in and then overhauled and improved. Apple is, in short, an orchestrator and integrator of technologies, unafraid to bring in ideas from outside but always adding its own twists. This approach, known as "network innovation", is not limited to electronics. It has also been embraced by companies such as Procter ＆ Gamble, BT and several drugs giants, all of which have realized the power of admitting that not all good ideas start at home. Making network innovation work involves cultivating contacts with start-ups and academic researchers, constantly scouting for new ideas and ensuring that engineers do not fall prey to "not invented here" syndrome, which always values in-house ideas over those from outside. Second, Apple illustrates the importance of designing new products around the needs of the user, not the demands of the technology. Too many technology firms think that clever innards are enough to sell their products, resulting in gizmos designed by engineers for engineers. Apple has consistently combined clever technology with simplicity and ease of use. The iPod was not the first digital-music player, but it was the first to make transferring and organizing music, and buying it online, easy enough for almost anyone to have a go. Similarly, the iPhone is not the first mobile phone to incorporate a music-player, web browser or e-mail software. But most existing "smartphones" require you to be pretty smart to use them. Apple is not alone in its pursuit of simplicity. Philips, a Dutch electronics giant, is trying a similar approach. Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, perhaps the most Jobsian of Europe's geeks, took an existing but fiddly technology, internet telephony, to a mass audience by making it simple, with Skype; they hope to do the same for internet television. But too few technology firms see "ease of use" as an end in itself.

单选题 Question 16-20 The founders of the Republic viewed their revolution primarily in political rather than economic or social terms. And they talked about education as essential to the public good--a goal that took precedence over knowledge as occupational training or as a means to self-fulfillment or self- improvement. Over and over again the Revolutionary generation, both liberal and conservative in outlook, asserted its conviction that the welfare of the Republic rested upon an educated citizenry and that schools, especially free public schools, would be the best means of educating the citizenry in civic values and the obligations required of everyone in a democratic republican society. All agreed that the principal ingredients of a civic education were literacy and the inculcation of patriotic and moral virtues, some others adding the study of history and the study of principles of the republican government itself. The founders, as was the case of almost all their successors, were long on exhortation and rhetoric regarding the value of civic education, but they left it to the textbook writers to distill the essence of those values for school children. Texts in American history and government appeared as early as in the 1790s. The textbook writers turned out to be very largely of conservative persuasion, more likely Federalist in outlook than Jeffersonian, and almost universally agreed that political virtue must rest upon moral and religious precepts. Since most textbook writers were New Englander, this meant that the texts were infused with Protestant and, above all, Puritan outlooks. In the first half of the Republic, civic education in the schools emphasized the inculcation of civic values and made little attempt to develop participatory political skills. That was a task left to incipient political parties, town meetings, churches and the coffee or ale houses where men gathered for conversation. Additionally as a reading of certain Federalist papers of the period would demonstrate, the press probably did more to disseminate realistic as well as partisan knowledge of government than the schools. The goal of education, however, was to achieve a higher form of unum (one out of many used on the Great Seal of the U. S. and on several U. S. coins) for the new Republic. In the middle half of the nineteenth century, the political values taught in the public and private schools did not change substantially from those celebrated in the first fifty years of the Republic. In the textbooks of the day their rosy hues if anything became golden. To the resplendent values of liberty, equality, and a benevolent Christian morality were now added the middle-class virtues--especially of New England--of hard work, honesty and integrity, the rewards of individual effort, and obedience to parents and legitimate authority. But of all the political values taught in school, patriotism was preeminent; and whenever teachers explained to school children why they should love their country above all else, the idea of liberty assumed pride of place.

单选题Questions 16～20 The law firm Patrick worked for before he died filed for bankruptcy protection a year after his funeral. After his death, the firm"s letterhead properly included him- Patrick S. Lanigan, 1954～1992. He was listed up in the right-hand corner, just above the paralegals. Then the rumors got started and wouldn"t stop. Before long, everyone believed he had taken the money and disappeared. After three months, no one on the Gulf Coast believed that he was dead. His name came off the letterhead as the debts piled up. The remaining partners in the law firm were still together, attached unwillingly at the hip by the bondage of mortgages and the bank notes, back when they were rolling and on the verge of serious wealth. They had been joint defendants in several unwinnable lawsuits; thus the bankruptcy. Since Patrick"s departure, they had tried every possible way to divorce one another, but nothing would work. Two were raging alcoholics who drank at the office behind locked doors, but never together. The other two were in recovery, still teetering on the brink of sobriety. He took their money. Their millions money. They had already spent long before it arrived, as only lawyers can do, money for their richly renovated office building in downtown Biloxi, money for new homes, yachts, condos in the Caribbean. The money was on the way, approved, the papers signed, orders entered; they could see it, almost touch it when their dead partner—Patrick—snatched it at the last possible second. He was dead. They buried him on February 11, 1992. They had consoled the widow and put his rotten name on their handsome letterhead. Yet six weeks later, he somehow stole their money. So Bogan took his share of the blame. At forty-nine, he was the oldest of the four, and, at the moment, the most stable. He was also responsible for hiring Patrick nine years earlier, and they had brawled over who was to blame. Charles Bogan, the firm"s senior partner and its iron hand, had insisted the money be wired from its source into a new account offshore, and this made sense after some discussion. It was ninety million bucks, a third of which the firm would keep, and it would be impossible to hide that kind of money in Biloxi, population fifty thousand. Someone at the bank would talk. Soon everyone would know. All four vowed secrecy, even as they made plans to display as much of their new wealth as possible. There had even been talk of a firm jet, a six-seater, and for this he had received no small amount of grief. Doug Vitrano, the litigator, had made the fateful decision to recommend Patrick as the fifth partner. The other three had agreed, and when Patrick Lanigan was added to the firm name, he had access to virtually every file in the office—Bogan, Rapley, Vitrano, Havarac, and Lanigan, Attorneys and Counselors-at-Law. A large ad in the yellow pages claimed "Specialists in Offshore Injuries." Specialists or not, like most firms they would take almost anything if the fees were lucrative. Lots of secretaries and paralegals, big overhead, and the strongest political connections on the Coast, they were all in their mid-to-late forties. Havarac had been raised by his father on a shrimp boat. His hands were still proudly calloused, and he dreamed of choking Patrick until his neck snapped. Rapley was severely depressed and seldom left his home, where he wrote briefs in a dark office in the attic.

单选题Questions 11～15 Of all the troubles that US troops may face when they come home, getting their old jobs back should not be one. Uncle Sam supposedly took care of that with a law saying civilians turned soldiers cannot be fired for serving their country—or denied the right to sue in federal court. That is why returning veterans should hear the story of Michael Garrett. Thirteen years ago, Captain Garrett of the US Marine Corps traded his camouflage utility uniform for the business-casual dress of a Circuit City service manager. The electronics company was booming, and Garrett could still get his dose of a soldier"s life as a member of the Marine Reserve. For almost a decade, Garrett ascended the company"s ranks. But in October 2002, with war in Iraq near certain, his bosses asked whether he would go on active duty, according to Garrett. He said it was possible, and within weeks, the sniping began, his department took too long with repairs, one boss said, and its work was sometimes shoddy. Then, on March 17—two days before the US invaded Iraq—Garrett got fired. The company declined to comment, saying only that it "supported the mission and values of the United States Armed Forces". But Garrett said the timing was no coincidence, he lost his job because of his military status. If true, that would violate a 1994 federal law. So Garrett sued Circuit City, only to see it spring yet another surprise. Garrett, the company said, had to take his case to private arbitration, a quasi-legal process offering sharply limited rights. Garrett acknowledged that his employment contract required arbitration, but he argued that the 1994 Act overrode the contract. A federal judge in Dallas agreed in 2004, just before Garrett was activated for a 10-month tour in the Horn of Africa. Last year, though, the US Court of Appeals in New Orleans reversed that decision, becoming the first court to rule that a contract crafted to help employers trump the law designed to protect the rights of veterans. "That just blows me away," says Garrett, whose case heads for arbitration. No one knows how many veterans are in a similar bind, but the numbers are substantial—and will grow as more troops return home. Complaints under the 1994 Act have increased steadily, to more than 1,500 in 2006 from about 800 in 2001. Some have become lawsuits, and employers may have tried to steer many toward arbitration, since about one-fifth of US companies require the procedure for workplace disputes. In defense of employers, it"s not easy reserving jobs for workers called to active duty. But Congress judged that the cost was worth the peace of mind of citizen soldiers, willing to sacrifice their time and perhaps lives to the military. Like predecessor statutes dating from 1940, the 1994 Act"s broad protections rest on the promise of a federal jury trial—with rights to evidence, a fair hearing and an appeal—if an employer fails to comply. Companies like Circuit City say binding arbitration is faster and cheaper than going to court, though studies have cast doubt on both claims. What really bugs employees are the rights they lose in arbitration—and the apparent bias of arbitrators. There are strict limits on gathering evidence for arbitration hearings, and it is virtually impossible to appeal them. Arbitrators don"t necessarily have to follow the law, and studies suggest they favor companies that regularly hire them. Still, the courts generally uphold arbitration clauses unless a law makes absolutely clear that the employee can go to court, arbitration be damned. That pretty much describes the 1994 Act, as three federal courts have ruled. But the magic of law is that even federal judges can give it surprising twists, as the court of appeals judges did in Garrett"s case. Sure, they explained, the Act says the rights it grants can"t be limited. But the judges said that referred to "substantive rights" like the guarantee of a job. Whether such rights are enforced in court or arbitration, the judges thought, is just a matter of process. It"s hard to believe, though, that Congress thought a second-class justice system like arbitration was just as good as the federal courts for veterans. As Bob Goodman, Garrett"s lawyer, says, "Taking away the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial is no way to treat the troops." Or to welcome them home.

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.

单选题Questions 23—26

单选题 Questions 23～26

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

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单选题 Questions 11-15 I am one of the many city people who are always saying that given the choice we would prefer to live in the country away from the dirt and noise of a large city. I have managed to convince myself that if it weren't for my job I would immediately head out for the open spaces and go back to nature in some sleepy village buried in the country. But how realistic is the dream? Cities can be frightening places. The majority of the population lives in massive tower blocks, noisy, dirty and impersonal. The sense of belonging to a community tends to disappear when you live fifteen floors up. All you can see from your window is sky, or other blocks of flats. Children become aggressive and nervous--cooped up at home all day, with nowhere to play; their mothers feel isolated from the rest of the world. Strangely enough, whereas in the past the inhabitants of one street all knew each other, nowadays people on the same floor in tower blocks don't even say hello to each other. Country life, on the other hand, differs from this kind of isolated existence in that a sense of community generally binds the inhabitants of small villages together. People have the advantage of knowing that there is always someone to turn to when they need help. But country life has disadvantages too. While it is true that you may be among friends in a village, it is also true that you are cut off from the exciting and important events that take place in cities. There's little possibility of going to a new show or the latest movie. Shopping becomes a major problem, and for anything slightly out of the ordinary you have to go on an expedition to the nearest large town. The city- dweller who leaves for the country is often oppressed by a sense of unbearable stillness and quiet. What, then, is the answer? The country has the advantage of peace and quiet, but suffers from the disadvantage of being cut off. the city breeds a feeling of isolation, and constant noise batters the senses. But one of its main advantages is that you are at the centre of things, and that life doesn't come to an end at half-past nine at night. Some people have found (or rather bought) a compromise between the two.. they have expressed their preference for the "quiet life" by leaving the suburbs and moving to villages within commuting distance of large cities. They generally have about as much sensitivity as the plastic flowers they leave behind--they are polluted with strange ideas about change and improvement which they force on to the unwilling original inhabitants of the villages. What then of my dreams of leaning on a cottage gate and murmuring "morning" to the locals as they pass by. I'm keen on the idea, but you see there's my cat, Toby. I'm not at all sure that he would take to all that fresh air and exercise in the long grass. I mean, can you see him mixing with all those hearty males down the farm? No, he would rather have the electric imitation-coal fire any evening.

单选题Dick compares the notion of extraterrestrial life to Copernicus' declaration in order to ______.

单选题St John's Hospital in Bath was established in 1180 to provide healing and homes by the bubbling spa springs for the poor and infirm. The charity is still there 830 years later: a much valued health and care service for the elderly. This demonstrates our country's great charitable tradition in health. The Government's desire to put citizens and patients first is both core to the current health reforms and a guiding mission for the country's great charities and social enterprises. The words of the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, "no decision about me, without me", are our driving passion. We have a dual role. to deliver health services, undertake research and provide care and compassion to those most in need; and to act as an advocate and adviser. We are sometimes a challenger of the health establishment and always a doughty champion for patients. For these reforms to be a success we must ensure a much stronger role for the third sector. That is why we strongly support the policy of "any willing provider". The previous Government was profoundly mistaken in pursuing a policy of the NHS as "preferred provider", which implied that services from our sector were less valued than the State's. In fact, through a big expansion of the role of charities and social enterprises in providing care, we can provide more cost-effective and citizen-focused services. This is not about privatisation. What matters is what is delivered, not who delivers it. This must be at the heart of health service reform. Charities can offer a better deal in so many ways. In 2008 the NHS spent just over 0. 05 per cent of its healthcare budget through charities. In other words this is a virtually untapped resource waiting to be used. To me, competition in the NHS means British Red Cross volunteers being able to help more people to adapt to life at home after a lengthy spell in hospital, so preventing the need for readmission. Those who get this support are often aged over 65 and have experienced a fall. Volunteers bring them home, settle them in, advise neighbours or relatives of their return, check on pets, help to prepare a meal and make a further visit to ensure that they are safe and well. Such schemes can save the typical NHS commissioner up to ￡1 million a year. Competition in the NHS would also mean an environmental charity such as BTCV running more "green gyms", which give people a physical workout while taking part in environmental projects. So far, more than 10,000 people--often referred by GPs--have taken part. An evaluation found that the positive impact on mental and physical health, not to mention the acquisition of new skills, means that the State saves $153 for every $100 it invests. On top of that, it has a positive impact on local communities and the environment. Do we want less of this or more? I suspect that for most of us the answer is obvious. Those who rely most on the NHS are the vulnerable, the very people charities were set up to help, precisely because they were being let down by the status quo. If groups such as the Red Cross and BTCV can do a better job than the NHS, we should let them. Promoting wellbeing and preventing ill health have for too long been neglected aspects of the NHS's role. These reforms rightly put emphasis on public health. Giving a role in health back to local councils is long overdue. The new health and wellbeing boards may provide the opportunity to get more resources behind public health as well as, for the first time, giving elected councillors the chance to scrutinise NHS resources. Preventing diabetes through better education, diet and exercise is always a better approach than picking up the costs of a growing number of people with diabetes. Charities such as Diabetes UK, working with councils and GPs, are critical to achieving that. Of course there are challenges in introducing reforms. Of course proper funding is crucial. We want to ensure that there is a strategic approach to commissioning, including national guidelines. We want the new GP consortia to take full advantage of the opportunity to expand their work with our sector. The challenge we face as a country is to build on the sure foundations of our NHS to provide service that recognises and expands the work of charities, promotes partnerships between State, third and private sectors and moves on from arcane arguments over privatisation.

单选题 A new catastrophe faces Afghanistan. The American bombing campaign is conspiring with years of civil conflict and drought to create an environmental crisis. Humanitarian and political concerns are dominating the headlines. But they are also masking the disappearance of the country's once rich habitat and wildlife, which are quietly being crushed by war. The UN is dispatching a team of investigators to the region next month to evaluate the damage. "A healthy environment is a prerequisite for rehabilitation," says Klaus Topfer, head of the UN environment Programme. Much of south-east Afghanistan was once lush forest watered by monsoon rains. Forests now cover less than 2 per cent of the country. "The Worst deforestation occurred during Taliban rule, when its timber mafia denuded forests to sell to Pakistani markets," says Usman Qazi, an environmental consultant based in Quetta, Pakistan. And the intense bombing intended to flush out the last of the Taliban troops is destroying or burning much of what remains. The refugee crisis is also wrecking the environment, anti much damage may be irreversible. Forests and vegetation are being cleared for much-needed farming, but the gains are likely to be short-term. "Eventually the land will be unfit for even the most basic form of agriculture,' warns Hammed Naqi of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Pakistan. Refugees—around 4 million as the last county—are also cutting into forests for firewood. The hail of bombs falling on Afghanistan is making life particularly bard for the country's wildlife. Birds such as the pelican and endangered Siberian crane cross eastern Afghanistan as they follow one of the world's great migratory thoroughfares from Siberia to Pakistan and India. But the number of the birds flying across the region has dropped by a staggering 85 per cent. "Cranes are very sensitive and they do not use file route if riley see any danger," says Ashiq Ahgmad, an environmental scientist for file WWF in Peshawar, Pakistan, who has tracked the collapse of the birds' migration this winter. The rugged mountains also usually provide a safe haven for mountain leopards, gazelles, bears and Marco Polo sheep—the world's largest species. "The same terrain that allows fighters to strike and disappear back into the frills has also historically enabled wild life to survive," says Peter Zahler of the Wildlife Conservation society, based in New York. But he warns they are now under intense pressure from file bombing and invasions of refugees and fighters. For instance, some refugees are hunting rare snow leopards to buy a safe passage across the border, A single fur can fetch $2,000 on the black market, says Zahler. Only 5,000 or so snow leopards are thought to survive in central Asia, and less than 100 in Afghanistan, their numbers already decimated by extensive hunting, and smuggling into Pakistan before the conflict." Timber, falcons and medicinal plants are also being smuggled across the border. The Taliban once controlled much of this trade, but the recent power vacuum could exacerbate the problem. Bombing will also leave its mark beyond file obvious craters. Defence analysts say that while depleted uranium has been used less in Afghanistan than in file Kosovo conflict, conventional explosives will litter the country with pollutants. They contain toxic compounds such as cyclonite, a carcinogen, and rocket propellants contain perchlorates, which damage thyroid glands.

单选题 Questions 26-30 Most people can remember a phone number for up to thirty seconds. When this short amount of time elapses, however, the numbers are erased from the memory. How did the information get there in the first place? Information that makes its way to the short term memory (STM). does so via the sensory storage area. The brain has a filter which only allows stimuli that is of immediate interest to pass on to the STM, also known as the working memory. There is much debate about the capacity and duration of the short term memory. The most accepted theory comes from George A. Miller, a cognitive psychologist who suggested that humans can remember approximately seven chunks of information. A chunk is defined as a meaningful unit of information, such as a word or name rather than just a letter or number. Modern theorists suggest that one can increase the capacity of the short term memory by chunking, or classifying similar information together. By organizing information, one can optimize the STM, and improve the chances of a memory being passed on to long term storage. When making a conscious effort to memorize something, such as information for an exam, many people engage in "rote rehearsal". By repeating something over and over again, we are able to keep a memory alive. Unfortunately, this type of memory maintenance only succeeds if there are no interruptions. As soon as a person stops rehearsing the information, it has the tendency to disappear. When a pen and paper are not handy, you might attempt to remember a phone number by repeating it aloud. If the doorbell rings or the dog barks to come in before you get the opportunity to make your phone call, you will forget the number instantly. Therefore, rote rehearsal is not an efficient way to pass information from the short term to long term memory. A better way is to practice "elaborate rehearsal". This involves assigning semantic meaning to a piece of information so that it can be filed along with other pre-existing long term memories. Encoding information semantically also makes it more retrievable. Retrieving information can be done by recognition or recall. Humans can recall memories that are stored in the long term memory and used often. However, if a memory seems to be forgotten, it may eventually be retrieved by prompting. The more cues a person is given (such as pictures. , the more likely a memory can be retrieved. This is why multiple choice tests are often used for subjects that require a lot of memorization.

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

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单选题Quick quiz: Who has a more vitriolic relationship with the U.S.? The French or the British. If you guessed the French, consider this: Paris newspaper polls show that 72 percent of the French hold a favorable impression of the United States. Yet U.K. polls over the past decade show a lower percentage of the British have a favorable impression of the United States. Britain"s highbrow newspaper, The Guardian , sets the U.K."s intellectual tone. On any given day you can easily read a handful of stories sniping at the U.S. and things American. The BBC"s Radio 4, which is a domestic news and talk radio station, regularly laments Britain"s social warts and follows them up with something that has become the national mantra, "Well, at least we"re not as bad as the Americans." This isn"t a new trend: British abhorrence of America antedates George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq. On 9/11 as the second plane was slamming into the World Trade Center towers my wife was on the phone with an English friend of many years. In the background she heard her friend"s teenage son shout in front of the TV, "Yeah! The Americans are finally getting theirs." The animosity may be unfathomable to those raised to think of Britain as "the mother country" for whom we fought two world wars and with whom we won the cold war. So what"s it all about? I often asked that during the years I lived in London. One of the best answers came from an Englishwoman with whom I shared a table for coffee. She said, "It"s because we used to be big and important and we aren"t any more. Now it"s America that"s big and important and we can never forgive you for that." A detestation of things American has become as dependable as the tides on the Thames rising and falling four times a day. It feeds a flagging British sense of national self-importance. A new book documenting the virulence of more than 30 years of corrosive British animosity reveals how deeply rooted it has become in the U.K."s national psyche. "[T] here is no reasoning with people who have come to believe America is now a "police state" and the USA is a "disgrace across most of the world"," writes Carol Gould, an American expatriate novelist and journalist, in her book Don"t Tread on Me. A brief experience shortly after George W. Bush"s invasion of Iraq illustrates that. An American I know was speaking on the street in London one morning. Upon hearing his accent, a British man yelled, "Take your tanks and bombers and go back to America." Then the British thug punched him repeatedly. No wonder other American friends of mine took to telling locals they were from Canada. The local police recommended prosecution. But upon learning the victim was an American, crown prosecutors dropped the case even though the perpetrator had a history of assaulting foreigners. The examples of this bitterness continue: I recall my wife and I having coffee with a member of our church. The woman, who worked at Buckingham Palace, launched a conversation with, "Have you heard the latest dumb American joke?" which incidentally turned out to be a racial slur against blacks. It"s common to hear Brits routinely dismiss Americans as racists (even with an African-American president), religious nuts, global polluters, warmongers, cultural philistines, and as intellectual Untermenschen. The United Kingdom"s counterintelligence and security agency has identified some 5,000 Muslim extremists in the U.K. but not even they are denounced with the venom directed at Americans. A British office manager at CNN once informed me that any English high school diploma was equal to an American university degree. This predilection for seeing evil in all things American defies intellect and reason. By themselves, these instances might be able to be brushed off, but combined they amount to British bigotry. Oscar Wilde once wrote, "The English mind is always in a rage." But the energy required to maintain that British rage might be better channeled into paring back what The Economist (a British news magazine) calls "an overreaching, and inefficient state with unaffordable aspirations around the world." The biggest problem is that, as with all hatred, it tends to be self-destructive. The danger is that as such, it perverts future generations. The U.K. public"s animosity doesn"t hurt the United States if Americans don"t react in kind. This bigotry does hurt the United Kingdom, however, because there is something sad about a society that must denigrate and malign others to feed its own self-esteem. What Britain needs to understand is that this ill will has poisoned the enormous reservoir of good will Britain used to enjoy in America. And unless the British tweak their attitude, they stand to become increasingly irrelevant to the American people.

单选题The author's analysis of cosmetic surgery supports the proposition that ______.