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

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单选题 Every generation has its emblematic boy's toy. Once upon a time there was the golf cart: a little toy car specifically designed for middle-aged men too rich to care about looking ridiculous. Later came the beach buggy, a briefly fashionable, wildly impractical, single-terrain vehicle. One might include the motorcycle or the snowmobile on this list, were they not, in certain contexts, quite useful, but there is no doubt which pointless recreational vehicle has captured the imagination of the landed, middle-aged celebrity: it's the quad bike. What is it about this squat, ungainly, easy-to-flip machine that celebrities love so much? As recreational vehicles go, the quad bike is hardly sophisticated. They are to the countryside what the jet-ski is to Lake Windermere. "There's nothing cool about a quad", says Simon Tiffin, editor of a well-known magazine. "It's a strange thing to want to hare round beautiful bits of the country in a petrol-guzzling machine." But celebrities love quad bikes. Musicians, comedians, DJs, actors and sportsmen have all been photographed aboard quads. "They're the latest rich person's toy", says Tiffin. "Spoilt children get them for Christmas." Provided you~ ye got a large estate to go with it, however, the quad bike can remain a secret indulgence. You can go out and tear up your own piece of countryside without anyone knowing you're doing it. The quad bike's nonsensical name—"quad" means four, but "bike" is an abbreviation of "bicycle", which means two—that comes to six—hints at its odd history. Originally the ATV, or all-terrain vehicle, as quads are sometimes known, was developed in Japan as a three-wheeled farm vehicle, an inexpensive mini-tractor that could go just about anywhere. In the 1980s the more stable four-wheeled quad was officially introduced—enthusiasts had been converting their trikes for some time—again primarily for farming, but its recreational appeal soon became apparent. At the same time a market for racing models was developing. Paul Anderson, a former British quad racing champion, says the quad's recreational appeal lies in its potential to deliver a safe thrill. It's a mix between a motorbike and driving a car; when you turn a corner, you've got to lean into the corner, and then if the ground's greasy, the rear end slides out, he says. "Plus they're much easier to ride than a two-wheeled motorcycle." The quad bike, in short, provides middle-aged excitement for men who think a Harley might be a bit dangerous. Anderson is keen to point out that quad bikes are, in his experience, much safer than motorcycles. "With quad racing it's very rare that we see anybody having an accident and getting injured," he says. "In the right hands, personally, I think a quad bike is a very safe recreational vehicle", he adds. Outside of racing, quad bikes are growing in popularity and injuries have trebled in the last five years. Although retailers offer would-be purchasers basic safety instructions and recommend that riders wear gloves, helmets, goggles, boots and elbow pads, there is no licence required to drive a quad bike and few ways to encourage people to ride them wisely. Employers are required to provide training to workers who use quad bikes, but there is nothing to stop other buyers hurting themselves. For the rest of the world, quad bikes are here to stay. They feature heavily in the programmes of holiday activity centres, they have all but replaced the tractor as the all-purpose agricultural workhorse and now police constables ride them while patrolling the Merseyside coastline. It has more or less usurped the beach buggy, the dirt bike and the snowmobile, anywhere they can go the quad bike can. They even race them on ice. You can't drive round Lake Windermere on one, or at least nobody's tried it yet. Just wait.

单选题Which of the following best explains the sentence "Increasingly, size is a matter of vanity not of measurement" in Paragraph 2?

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单选题 {{B}}Questions 11-14{{/B}}

单选题 The period of adolescence, i.e. , the person between childhood and adulthood, may be long or short, depending on social expectations and on society's definition as to what constitutes maturity and adulthood. In primitive societies adolescence is frequently a relatively short period of time, while in industrial societies with patterns of prolonged education coupled with laws against child labor, the period of adolescence is much longer and may include most of the second decade of one's life. Furthermore, the length of the adolescent period and the definition of adulthood status may change in a given society as social and economic conditions change. Examples of this type of change are the disappearance of the frontier in the latter part of the nineteenth century in the United States, and more universally, the industrialization of an agricultural society. In modern society, ceremonies for adolescence have lost their formal recognition and symbolic significance and there no longer is an agreement as to what constitutes initiation ceremonies. Social ones have been replaced by a sequence of steps that lead to increased recognition and social status. For example, grade school graduation, high school graduation and college graduation constitute such a sequence, and while each step implies certain behavioral changes and social recognition, the significance of each depends on the socio- economic status and the educational ambition of the individual. Ceremonies for adolescence have also been replaced by legal definitions of status roles, right, privileges and responsibilities. It is during the nine years from the twelfth birthday to the twenty-first that the protective and restrictive aspects of childhood and minor status are removed and adult privileges and responsibilities are granted. The twelve-year-old is no longer considered a child and has to pay full fare for train, airplane, theater and movie tickets. Basically, the individual at this age loses childhood privileges without gaining significant adult rights. At the age of sixteen the adolescent is granted certain adult rights, which increases his social status by providing him with more freedom and choices. He now can obtain a driver's license; he can leave public schools; and he can work without the restrictions of child labor laws. At the age of eighteen the law provides adult responsibilities as well as rights; the young man can now be a soldier, but he also can marry without parental permission. At the age of twenty-one the individual obtains his full legal rights as an adult. He now can vote, he can buy liquor, he can enter into financial contracts, and he is entitled to run for public office. No additional basic rights are acquired as a function of age after majority status has been attained. None of these legal provisions determine at what point adulthood has been reached but they do point to the prolonged period of adolescence.

单选题Questions 23-26

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单选题Questions 27-30

单选题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.

单选题 In the information technology industry, it is widely acknowledged that how well IT departments of the future can fulfill their business goals will depend not on the regular updating of technology, which is essential for them to do, but on how well they can hold on to the people skilled at manipulating the newest technology. This is becoming more difficult. Best estimates of the current shortfall in IT staff in the UK are between 30,000 and 50,000, and growing. And there is no end to the problem in sight. A severe industry-wide lack of investment in training means the long-term skills base is both ageing and shrinking. Employers are chasing experienced staff in ever-decreasing circles, and, according to a recent government report, 250,000 new IT jobs will be created over the next decade. Most employers are confining themselves to dealing with the immediate problems. There is little evidence, for example, that they are stepping up their intake of raw recruits for in-house training, or retraining existing staff from other functions. This is the course of action recommended by the Computer Software Services Association, but research shows its members are adopting the short-term measure of bringing in more and more consultants on a contract basis. With IT professionals increasingly attracted to the financial rewards and flexibility of consultancy work, average staff turnover rates are estimated to be around 15%. While many companies in the financial services sector are managing to contain their losses by offering skilled IT staff "golden handcuffs" — deferred loyalty bonuses that tie them in until a certain date — other organizations, like local governments, are unable to match the competitive salaries and perks on offer in the private sector and contractor market, and are suffering turnover rates of up to 60% a year. But while loyalty bonuses have grabbed the headlines, there are other means of holding on to staff. Some companies are doing additional IT pay reviews in the year and paying market premiums. But such measures can create serious employee relations problems among those excluded, both within and outside IT departments. Many industry experts advise employers to link bonuses to performance wherever possible. However, employers are realising that bonuses will only succeed if they are accompanied by other incentives such as attractive career prospects, training, and challenging work that meets the individual's long-term ambitions.

单选题It is necessary that he______. [A] gives up trying [B] give up trying [C] would give up trying [D] is going to give up trying

单选题 {{B}}Questions 27-30{{/B}}

单选题A.PleasebuymesomepaperwhenI'mmakingthephonecall.B.Pleasereadthepaperandcallmelater.C.Pleaseletmeknowwhat'sthepaperwritingabout.D.Pleasewaitformeawhile.

单选题Questions 16～20 The cars, SUVs and pickups people will buy in the years ahead are likely to use less fuel, and many will rely on ethanol or household electricity instead of gasoline. The energy legislation pushed through the Senate this week provides a roadmap to the future, demanding higher automobile fuel economy, mandating huge increases in ethanol as a motor fuel and supporting more research into building "plug-in" hybrid-electric vehicles. While Senate Republicans complained that the bill does nothing to increase domestic oil production, Democrats said that"s because the nation must move energy policy away from its heavy reliance on oil. The House is preparing its own version. The Senate bill requires automakers to increase fuel economy to 35 miles per gallon, about a 40 percent increase over what cars, SUVs and small trucks are required to achieve now. It would lump all the vehicles under a single regulation, but also give manufacturers flexibility so large SUVs wouldn"t have to meet the same requirements as smaller cars. It requires a yearly increase of ethanol production to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, a sevenfold increase from today. By 2015 half of the new vehicles offered to buyers—as many as 10 million—will have to be capable of running on 85 percent ethanol, biodiesel or some other alternative energy source. And for the first time, the president must find ways to cut oil demand by 20 percent of what it is expected to be in 2017—a target President Bush has embraced—and attain further reductions after that. Gasoline demand is expected to grow 13 percent to 261 billion gallons a year by 2017 without some fuel saving measures. But will auto showrooms provide the same selection of vehicles? Will they be as big, as powerful, as safe? "I would expect them to look a lot like they do today, the same size, the same acceleration and the same or even better safety," says David Friedman, director of the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He maintains they will have better technology, better engines, more efficient transmissions and stronger aluminum bodies. They"ll cost a little more but use much less gasoline. "The goal is to replace fossil fuels with alternative fuels and use conservation," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. , who was involved in the discussions on many of the auto fuel economy and motor fuel issues that ended up in the bill. What has changed from a few years ago, she said, is there no longer is "a fear factor that you"re going to be in itty bitty cars" if the government requires automakers to make more fuel efficient vehicles. In addition to making conventional cars more fuel efficient, the bill seeks to boost research into use of lithium-ion batteries—like those used in laptop computers and cameras—in vehicles. Should ways be found to make them more durable in a vehicle environment, cars could be plugged into an electric socket at home, relying only rarely on gasoline, says Friedman. Some studies have estimated the fuel cost—mostly the cost of electricity and a small amount of gasoline— would be equivalent to about $1 a gallon, said Cantwell. Automakers, lobbying hard against the fuel economy provision in the Senate bill, expressed continued concern Friday about their ability to meet the new requirements without changing the mix of cars they will be able to provide in the showrooms of 2020. "There"s no way you can get those numbers without a dramatic shift in consumer choice," insisted Mark LaNeve, General Motors" vice president of North America sales, service and marketing. "We don"t know how it"s attainable. " Eric Ridenour, chief operating officer at Chrysler Group, where three of every four vehicles are built on truck frames, said the company will have to decide whether to keep selling some of its larger vehicles. "Clearly the larger family-sized vehicles will be the ones that will be most at risk," said Ridenour. "The end result will be lighter, smaller vehicles in general. " He envisioned generally smaller cars and more of them running on diesel. Ford Motor Co. is committed to increasing auto fuel economy, said Alan Mulally, the company"s chief executive. "It"s what customers want. It"s what they value." But is it possible technically to meet the proposed 35 mpg fleet requirements even with a new way of calculating compliance taking into account vehicles size? "That"s the only debate," said Mulally on Friday at a Ford assembly plant in Chicago where the company was introducing its new Taurus model, one that travels 28 mpg on the open road.

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

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单选题 Imagine a bacterium that, when injected into the bloodstream, would travel to the site of a tumor, insert itself into the cancer cell, and then produce a cancer-killing compound. That's exactly what scientists at the University of California, Berkeley(UCB) and University of California, San Francisco(UCSF) have set out to do. Traditional cancer therapies are limited for two key reasons: little of the drag actually reaches the tumor and the drug is toxic to both cancerous and healthy tissues. Bacteria, however, have the potential to precisely target cells. "In a way, bacteria are the ultimate in smart drugs," says George Church, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston (he was not involved in the current work, but will collaborate on the project in the future). "It's hard to pack a lot of intelligence into a small molecule or protein; but bacteria can have sensors and actuators and can drill into a cell, like a submarine." To build a cancer-killing bacterium, biologists must create organisms that can perform a series of complicated functions--namely, when in the bloodstream, they have to sense and respond to the tumor environment. Once inside the tumor, the bacteria must infiltrate the cancer cell, and then--and only then--start producing a tumor-killing toxin. The researchers plan to engineer such super-organisms by co-opting parts from different types of bacteria and inserting them into Escherichia coli, a bacterium commonly used in research. Tumor tissue has unique characteristics, including lower oxygen and higher lactic acid concentrations than surrounding tissue. To create a bacterium that can sense a tumor, Christopher Anderson, a postdoctoral researcher at UCB and UCSF, and colleagues took an oxygen sensor from E. coli and linked it to a special protein, called invasin, from another type of bacteria, which allows the organism to invade cancer cells. In a paper published earlier this year in the Journal of Molecular Biology, the researchers showed in a test tube that the engineered bacterium selectively invades tumor cells. Anderson and colleagues are now working on making the system even more specific. To ensure that the bacteria invade only tumor cells, they will create a genetic mechanism that allows the invasin protein to be expressed only when two conditions are met, such as when both the oxygen and lactic acid concentrations are at a certain level. Essentially, it's a genetic version of what's known in engineering terms as an AND gate--a regulatory circuit that's turned on only if two conditions are met. "By using multiple cues, we can garner a great deal of specificity," says Adam Arkin, a bioengineer at UCB and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a TR100 recipient in 1999, and one of the senior scientists on the project. "After the bacteria sense the cues, they turn on the rest of the apparatus to do the job."