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

单选题Questions 15-18

单选题 Concrete is probably used more widely than any other substance except water, yet it remains largely unappreciated. "Some people view the 20th century as the atomic age, the space age, the computer age—but an argument can be made that it was the concrete age," says cement specialist Hendrik van Oss. "It's a miracle material." Indeed, more than a ton of concrete is produced each year for every man, woman and child on Earth. Yet concrete is generally ignored outside the engineering world, a victim of its own ubiquity and the industry's conservative pace of development. Now, thanks to environmental pressures and entrepreneurial innovation, a new generation of concretes is emerging. This high-tech assortment of concrete confections promises to be stronger, lighter, and more environmentally friendly than ever before. The concretes they will replace are, for the most part, strong and durable, but with limitations. Concrete is sound under compression but weak under tension. Steel rebars are used as reinforcement, but make recycling difficult when concrete breaks down—and break down it inevitably will. Cracks caused by stress grow larger over time, with water forcing them open and corroding the rebars within. "When you put enough stress on it, concrete doesn't work like we want it to. We're asking too much of it now," says Mr. van Oss. Concrete is also a climate-change villain. It is made by mixing water with an aggregate, such as sand or gravel, and cement. Cement is usually made by heating limestone and clay to over 2,500 degrees F. The resulting chemical reaction, along with fuel burned to heat the kiln, produces between 7 and 10 percent of global carbon-dioxide emissions. "When we have to repeatedly regenerate these materials because they're not durable, we release more emissions," says Victor Li, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of Michigan. Dr. Li has created a concrete suffused by synthetic fibers that make it stronger, more durable, and able to bend like a metal. Li's creation does not require reinforcement, a property shared by other concretes that use chemical additives called plasticizers to reduce the amount of water in their composition. Using less water makes concrete stronger, but until the development of plasticizers, it also made concrete sticky, dry, and hard to handle, says Christian Meyer, a civil engineering professor at Columbia University. "The engineer would specify a certain strength, a certain amount of water—and as soon as a supervisor turned his back, in would go a bucket of water," says Dr. Meyer of the time before plasticizers. Making stronger concretes, says Li, allows less to be used, reducing waste and giving architects more freedom. "You can have such futuristic designs if you don't have to put rebar in there, or structural beams," says van Oss. "You can have things shooting off into space at odd angles. Many possibilities are opened up." A more directly "green" concrete has been developed by the Australian company TecEco. They add magnesium to their cement, forming a porous concrete that actually scrubs carbon dioxide from the air. "The planet's been through several episodes of global warming before, and nature put carbon away as coal, petroleum, and carbonate sediments," says TecEco manager John Harrison. "Now we're in charge, and we need to do the same. We can literally 'put away' carbon in our own built environment." Another modification to the built environment is the carbon fiber-reinforced concrete of Deborah Chung, a materials scientist at the State University of New York at Buffalo. By running an electrical current through concrete, Dr. Chung says, tiny deformations caused by minute pressures can be detected. "You can monitor room occupancy in real-time, controlling lighting, ventilation, and cooling in relation to how many people are there," says Chung. While experts agree that these new concretes will someday be widely used, the timetable is uncertain. Concrete companies are responsive to environmental concerns and are always looking to stretch the utility of their product, but the construction industry is slow to change. "When you start monkeying around with materials, the governing bodies, the building departments, are very cautions before they let you use an unproven material," Meyer says. In the next few decades, says van Oss, building codes will change, opening the way for innovative materials. But while new concretes may be stronger and more durable, they are also more expensive—and whether the tendency of developers and the public to focus on short-term rather than long-term costs will also change is another matter.

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单选题 Code switching is when people switch, or change, from one language to another while speaking. They might begin a conversation in one language and then, later in the conversation, switch to another. They might also begin a sentence in one language but end it in another. Or they might insert a word or phrase from another language. When and why people code switch depends on the speakers and the situation. One reason people code switch is to show social closeness. Imagine that two women meet at a party in New York. Gabriela is Brazilian, and Pamela is British. In their conversation, Pamela asks. Pamela: Where are you from? Gabriela: Rio. Pamela: Really? Uma cidade muito bonita [A beautiful city] I was there last year. Gabriela: Oh, do you speak Portuguese? Pamela: Um pouco [only a little]… Here, Pamela uses a little Portuguese in order to show closeness or friendliness to Gabriela. On the other hand, people also code switch to create social distance. Sometimes this happens in immigrant homes in the United States where the children can speak English, but the parents understand only the language of their native country. Children can code switch to keep their parents from understanding everything they say. Likewise, parents may code switch when they share a language that their children do not understand. One final reason that people code switch is lack of knowledge about a language or lack of attention to one's language. Imagine a teenage girl living in a Latino community in Los Angeles. Talking with her friends, she says. "Esperate [Wait a minute] What did you just say?" It is possible that the teenager was not trying to show social closeness or distance. Perhaps she didn't know how to express the second idea in Spanish. Most likely, she may simply have switched to English without paying much attention to which language she was using. Code switching occurs between people who share more than one common language; however, it can also occur between people who share a language and a dialect, or variation, of that language. A person may use one dialect at home and then switch to another dialect at school or work. One example is the way teenagers use slang when talking to their friends. For instance, a teen might say to his friend, "Gotta bounce. Me 'n' the crew're goin' shoppin' for some mad phat gear." Gotta bounce means "I have to leave". "The crew" means "my friends" and "mad phat gear" means "nice clothes". Therefore, the teen is saying, "I'm going shopping with friends". But only speakers of both English and this teen dialect can understand. Teens use their dialect because it helps them to show that they fit in with their friends. It also shows that they are separate from their parents. Regardless of the situation, there are two important rules for code switching. First, the speakers have to know both languages or dialects—at least well enough to follow the changes. More importantly, the switches have to be grammatical. For example, the sentence "Tengo que do my homework" follows the "subject+verb+object" grammar rules in both Spanish and English. One day you may be riding on a train, listening to the people next to you having a conversation. If you can understand only 50 percent of what they are saying, perhaps they are code switching—to show each other closeness, or perhaps to stop you from listening in on their conversation!

单选题Over lunch, a writer outlined a new book idea to his editor. It was to be a niche concern but promised much. The writer left the restaurant with a glow and decided to get an outline over soon. But days and weeks of being too busy turned to months and then, eventually, came the shocking discovery that his editor has been rather elusive of late for a reason: he has been busy crafting a book based on the writer's idea, and it was now in the shops. An apocryphal tale, maybe, but it will send shivers down any writer's spine. What's more, if the writer were to turn to the law in such a dread scenario, the law would be of no use to him at all. Phil Sherrell, a media lawyer with Eversheds, explains: "Intellectual property law protects the expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves." Sherrell agrees that "the distinction is not always satisfactory," but says that there needs to be a limit to the protection conferred on creativity by the law. "To extend the ambit of copyright protection to embrace ideas would be difficult in practice—how would the artist prove that they have conceived the idea if it has not been reduced to a tangible form? It would also open the door to undesirably wide monopolies." But copyright's 300-year pedigree might be a cause for concern rather than veneration. The means by which we communicate has changed out of all recognition from the time when copyright was invented. Today, in the post-modernist world, what constitutes an artistic, literary or musical work is radically different, not least in the field of conceptual art. Here, copyright's time-honoured reluctance to protect ideas is of dubious merit, according to Hubert Best, a media lawyer with Best ＆ Soames. "If you look at Martin Creed's [art installation] Work No. 227, The Lights Going On and Off, where is the work?" asks Best. "Is it in the fact that a light bulb goes on and off, or in the concept? I suspect it's the latter. But old-fashioned copyright law does not cover this kind of thing." Creed's Work No. 227 was an empty room in which the lights periodically switched on and off. It won the Turner Prize in 2001 to a predictable chorus of controversy. This goes with the territory in conceptual art, but other artists have found their work inspires not merely lively debate but accusations of plagiarism. Last year, three weeks after he unveiled his diamond-encrusted, ? 50m skull, Damien Hirst was alleged to have stolen the idea for the work from another artist, John LeKay. In 2006, Robert Dixon, a graphics artist, said that Hirst's print, Valium, was too close for comfort to one of his circular designs in The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Geometry. Hirst had another brush with intellectual property law when Norman Emms complained about a ? 1m bronze torso which, he said was copied from a ? 14. 99 plastic anatomical toy. Emms later received a "goodwill payment" from the artist. As one of the world's wealthiest artists, Hirst is well-placed to fight such battles, but due allowance should be given for art's intertextual essence. Writers borrow plots and embed allusions to their forebears, artists adapt well-known motifs, musicians play each other's songs and sample existing riffs and melodies. But there is a fine line between plagiarism, and creative allusion, and it was considered by the courts in the case of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. The Court of Appeal upheld the initial ruling that Brown had not reproduced substantial content from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. The decision was also widely seen as confirming English law's disinclination to protect ideas. Yet if ideas can't be protected, where does that leave the writer aggrieved by the appearance of his idea in another's book? "It sounds harsh," says Sherrell, "but unless a writer has gone some way to creating the work—by way of an outline and perhaps a chapter or two—there is no remedy if the same idea appears under another author's name. However, given that everything is done on computers these days, it would be relatively easy to prove first creation by looking at the hard drive. Other than that, anyone in the creative arena should keep full and dated records to evidence their work. " There is another thing that can be done. "You can impose a confidentiality obligation on those with whom you want to discuss your idea," says Best. "Non disclosure agreements (NDAs) are often used in the corporate world to give a contractual remedy for breach of confidence if an idea is stolen. But the trouble is that a writer, musician or artist who comes into a meeting wielding an NDA isn't likely to make friends. It's a fairly aggressive way to proceed." Best is doubtless correct when he says. "You've just got to get on with it and do it. Once your work exists, in material form, you can sue if anyone steals it./

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单选题Lord Percy of Newcastle, Britain"s minister of education in 1924-29, was no fan of the fad for happy-clappy "progressive" education that spread among the country"s schools on his watch. He declared that it was all nonsense: "a child ought to be brought up to expect unhappiness." This columnist feels the same suspicion of the fashion for happy clappy progressive management theory that is rushing through the world"s companies and even some governments. The leading miscreant is Zappos, an online shoe shop. The firm expects staff to be in a state of barely controlled delirium when they sell shoes. Air stewards are trained to sound mellifluous but those at Virgin Atlantic seem on the verge of breaking out into a song-and-dance routine. Google until recently had an in-house "jolly good fellow" to spread mindfulness and empathy. A weird assortment of gurus and consultancies is pushing the cult of happiness. Shawn Achor, who has taught at Harvard University, now makes a living teaching big companies around the world how to turn contentment into a source of competitive advantage. One of his rules is to create "happiness hygiene". Zappos is so happy with its work on joy that it has spun off a consultancy called Delivering Happiness. It has a chief happiness officer (CHO), a global happiness navigator, a happiness hustler, a happiness alchemist and, for philosophically minded customers, a happiness owl. Plasticity Labs, a technology firm, says it is committed to supporting a billion people on their path to happiness. The trend is not confined to the private sector. Several governments now publish for the benefit of their citizens regular reports on levels of national well-being. Businesspeople have long known there is money to be made in the field. Dale Carnegie, a leadership guru, said the best way to win friends and influence people was to seem upbeat. Disneyland is still "the happiest place on earth". One of the sharpest books published on the phenomenon is "The Managed Heart", in which sociologist Arlie Hochschild noted that many employers demanded "emotional labour" from workers in the form of smiles with "positive emotion". Firms are keen to extract still more happiness from their employees as the service sector plays an ever greater role in the economy. Run-of-the-mill service firms are fighting for their lives against discounters. As customers, most people prefer their service with a smile rather than a snarl. Some firms are trying to create some wellbeing, too, showering their employees with mindfulness courses, yoga lessons and anything else that proves that managers are interested in "the whole person". Only happy fools would take that at face value. Management theorists note that a big threat to corporate performance is widespread disengagement among workers. Happy people are more engaged and productive, say psychologists. Gallup claimed in 2013 that the "unhappiness" of employees costs the American economy $500 billion a year in lost productivity. One problem with tracking happiness is that it is such a vague metric: it is difficult to prove or disprove Gallup"s numbers since it is not entirely clear what is being measured. Companies would be much better off forgetting wishy-washy goals like encouraging contentment. They should concentrate on eliminating specific annoyances, such as time-wasting meetings and pointless memos. Instead, they are likely to develop ever more sophisticated ways of measuring the emotional state of their employees. They might even start measuring workplace euphoria via apps, cameras and voice recorders. The idea of companies employing jolly good fellows and "happiness alchemists" may be cringe-making, but is there anything else really wrong with it? Various academic studies suggest that "emotional labour" can bring significant costs. The more employees are obliged to fix their faces with a rictus smile or express joy at a customer"s choice of shoes, the more likely they are to suffer problems of burnout. And the contradiction between companies demanding more displays of contentment from workers, even as they put them on miserably short-term contracts, is becoming more stark. But the biggest problem with the cult of happiness is that it is an unacceptable invasion of individual liberty. Many companies are already overstepping the mark. A large American health-care provider, Ochsner Health System, introduced a rule that workers must make eye contact and smile whenever they walk within ten feet of another person in the hospital. Pret A Manger sends in mystery shoppers to visit every outlet regularly to see if they are greeted with the requisite degree of joy. Pass the test and the entire staff gets a bonus—a powerful incentive for workers to turn themselves into happiness police. Companies have a right to ask their employees to be polite when they deal with members of the public. They do not have a right to try to regulate their workers psychological states and turn happiness into an instrument of corporate control.

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单选题Question 26-30 Which is safer--staying at home, traveling to work on public transport, or working in the office? Surprisingly, each of these carries the same risk, which is very low: However, what about flying compared to working in the chemical industry? Unfortunately, the former is 65 times riskier than the latter! In fact, the accident rate of workers in the chemical industry is less than that of almost any of human activity, and almost as safe as staying at home. The trouble with the chemical industry is that when things go wrong they often cause death to those living nearby. It is this which makes chemical accidents so newsworthy. Fortunately, they are extremely rare. The most famous ones happened at Texas City (1947), Flixborough (1974), Seveso (1976), Pemex (1984) and Bhopal (1984). Some of these are always in the minds of the people even though the loss of life was small. No one died at Seveso, and only 28 workers at Flixborough. The worst accident of all was Bhopal, where up to 3,000 were killed. The Texas City explosion of fertilizer killed 552. The Pemex fire at a storage plant for natural gas in the suburbs of Mexico City took 542 lives, just a month before the unfortunate event at Bhopal. Some experts have discussed these accidents and used each accident to illustrate a particular danger. Thus the Texas City explosion was caused by tons of ammonium nitrate, which is safe unless stored in great quantity. The Flixborough fireball was the fault of management, which took risks to keep production going during essential repairs. The Seveso accident shows what happens if the local authorities lack knowledge of the danger on their doorstep. When the poisonous gas drifted over the town, local leaders were incapable of taking effective action. The Pemex fire was made worse by an overloaded site in an overcrowded suburb. The fire set off a chain reaction of exploding storage tanks. Yet, by a miracle, the two largest tanks did not explode. Had these caught fire, then 3,000 strong rescue team and fire fighters would all have died.

单选题"They treat us like mules," the guy installing my washer tells me, his eyes narrowing as he wipes his hands, I had just complimented him and his partner on the speed and assurance of their work. He explains that it"s rare that customers speak to him this way. I know what he"s talking about. My mother was a waitress all her life, in coffee shops and fast-paced chain restaurants. It was hard work, but she liked it, liked "being among the public", as she would say. But that work had its sting, too—the customer who would treat her like a servant or, her biggest complaint, like she was not that bright. There"s a lesson here for this political season: the subtle and not-so-subtle insults that blue-collar and service workers endure as part of their working lives. And those insults often have to do with intelligence. We like to think of the United States as a classless society. The belief in economic mobility is central to the American Dream, and we pride ourselves on our spirit of egalitarianism. But we also have a troubling streak of aristocratic bias in our national temperament, and one way it manifests itself is in the assumptions we make about people who work with their hands. Working people sense this bias and react to it when they vote. The common political wisdom is that hot-button social issues have driven blue-collar voters rightward. But there are other cultural dynamics at play as well. And Democrats can be as oblivious to these dynamics as Republicans—though the Grand Old Party did appeal to them in St. Paul. Let"s go back to those two men installing my washer and dryer. They do a lot of heavy lifting quickly—mine was the first of 15 deliveries—and efficiently, to avoid injury. Between them there is ongoing communication, verbal and nonverbal, to coordinate the lift, negotiate the tight fit, move in rhythm with each other. And all the while, they are weighing options, making decisions and solving problems—as when my new dryer didn"t match up with the gas outlet. Think about what a good waitress has to do in the busy restaurant: remember orders and monitor them, attend to a dynamic, quickly changing environment, prioritize tasks and manage the flow of work, make decisions on the fly. There"s the carpenter using a number of mathematical concepts—symmetry, proportion, congruence, the properties of angles—and visualizing these concepts while building a cabinet, a flight of stairs, or a pitched roof. The hairstylist"s practice is a mix of technique, knowledge about the biology of hair, aesthetic judgment, and communication skill. The mechanic, electrician, and plumber are troubleshooters and problem solvers. Even the routinized factory floor calls for working smarts. When has any of this made its way into our political speeches? From either party. Even on Labor Day. Last week, the GOP masterfully invoked some old cultural suspicions: country folk versus city and east-coast versus heartland education. But these are symbolic populist gestures, not the stuff of true engagement. Judgments about intelligence carry great weight in our society, and we have a tendency to make sweeping assessments of people"s intelligence based on the kind of work they do. Political tributes to labor over the next two months will render the muscled arm, sleeve rolled tight against biceps. But few will also celebrate the thought bright behind the eye, or offer an image that links hand and brain. It would be fitting in a country with an egalitarian vision of itself to have a truer, richer sense of all that is involved in the wide range of work that surrounds and sustains us. Those politicians who can communicate that sense will tap a deep reserve of neglected feeling. And those who can honor and use work in explaining and personalizing their policies will find a welcome reception.

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.

单选题According to the passage, why is the inequality-adjusted income per head in France higher than in America?

单选题 Questions 23-26

单选题Questions 19-22

单选题According to Mike Wallace, there will be fewer problems _______.

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单选题In Idaho's Snake River Valley, where potato farmers depend on electric pumps to water their crops, the state's largest power company hopes to stand tradition on its head and profit by selling farmers less, not more, electricity. To do that, Idaho Power is vastly expanding its energy-efficiency programs for 395,000 residential customers, small businesses, and farmers. Usually the more customers save, the less utilities make. But under an innovative deal with state regulators in March, Idaho Power gets paid for its plants and equipment and boosts profits by winning incentive payments for reducing electric demand. It's an idea that appears to be catching on as legislatures fret about global warming and utilities scramble to meet rising demand without the increasing harassment and cost of building new power plants. Idaho is among 13 states whose regulators have either adopted or proposed measures in the past year to decouple utility profit from electricity production. Decoupling is advancing even faster for natural-gas utilities, with 25 states either adopting or proposing decoupling plans in recent years. "This wave toward 'decoupling' is clearly gathering momentum," says Martin Kushler of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy in Washington. "More states seem to be calling every week to find out about this." Although California pioneered the idea 25 years ago—and strengthened incentives and penalties last month—interest is picking up again because of global warming, experts say. The main idea is that by rearranging the incentive structure, regulators can give utilities clear incentives to push energy efficiency and conservation without hurting their bottom lines. Under the new rules in California, for example, electric utilities could make as much as $150 million extra if they can persuade Californians to save some $2 billion worth of power, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. "This is a vital step in the global-warming fight," says Audrey Chang, an NRDC researcher. "It represents, we hope, a historic shift toward decoupling that is going to help bend the energy demand curve downwards." Beside Idaho, states that this year adopted decoupling for some or all of its electric power industry include New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. At least nine other states have seen major decoupling proposals this year. Idaho Power is happy that its key fixed costs—plants and equipment—are now separated from variable costs of electricity sales such as fuel. Regulators annually readjust those fixed rates—up or down—a maximum of 3 percent to ensure that the company gets no more or less than it has been regulated to receive. But customers should benefit, too, as utility efficiency programs cut energy use and energy bills—something the company is trying hard to do so it can win a bonus if it meets or exceeds energy—cutting goals. "Before there was almost a disincentive to go hard at efficiency because we weren't recovering our fixed costs," says Mike Youngblood, an analyst for Idaho Power. "Now the anticipation is that we will recover our fixed cost, no more or less. And our customers will see their bill go down if they invest in energy efficiency." One key reason utilities are often willing to decouple or even leading proponents of the proposals is because the costs of building a power plant has risen dramatically. A 500- megawatt coal-fired plant that cost $1 billion just a few years ago might cost $1.5 billion today, industry experts say. Add to that growing uncertainty about future costs. Global- warming legislation could put a price of $ 30 per ton on carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants. That could make coal, the cheapest power today, more costly. Another factor is the rising community opposition to coal-fired power plant construction. In North Carolina, where regulators recently refused a Duke Energy Corp. proposal to build a power plant, the company has instead put forward a controversial decoupling proposal. The plan would pay the company to meet efficiency standards, although consumer advocates and even environmental groups question whether it's a good deal for ratepayers. In fact, some consumer advocates have major reservations about decoupling overall. "Unfortunately, we're seeing utilities trying to use decoupling as a blank check," says Charles Acquard, executive director of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates in Silver Spring, Md. "We're not absolutely opposed to decoupling. It's how you do it that's critical./

单选题 "Museum" is a slippery word. It first meant ( in Greek) anything consecrated to the Muses: a hill, a shrine, a garden, a festival or even a textbook. Both Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum had a mouseion, a muses' shrine. Although the Greeks already collected detached works of art, many temples--notably that of Hera at Olympia (before which the Olympic flame is still lit)--had collections of objects, some of which were works of art by well-known masters, while paintings and sculptures in the Alexandrian Museum were incidental to its main purpose. The Romans also collected and exhibited art from disbanded temples, as well as mineral specimens, exotic plants, animals; and they plundered sculptures and paintings (mostly Greek) for exhibition. Meanwhile, the Greek word had slipped into Latin by transliteration (though not to signify picture galleries, which were called pinacothecae) and museum still more or less meant "Muses' shrine". The inspirational collections of precious and semi-precious objects were kept in larger churches and monasteries--which focused on the gold-enshrined, bejewelled relics of saints and martyrs. Princes, and later merchants, had similar collections, which became the deposits of natural curiosities: large lumps of amber or coral, irregular pearls, unicorn horns, ostrich eggs, fossil bones and so on. They also included coins and gems-- often antique engraved ones--as well as, increasingly, paintings and sculptures. As they multiplied and expanded, to supplement them, the skill of the fakers grew increasingly refined. At the same time, the 15th century, visitors could admire the very grandest paintings and sculptures in the churches, palaces and castles; they were not "collected" either, but "site-specific", and were considered an integral part both of the fabric of the buildings and of the way of life which went on inside them--and most of the buildings were public ones. In the 17th century, scientific and prestige collecting became so widespread that three or four collectors independently published directories to museums all over the known world. But it was the age of revolutions and industry which produced the next sharp shift in the way the institution was perceived: the fury against royal and church monuments prompted antiquarians to shelter them in asylum-galleries, of which the Musee des Monuments Francais was the most famous. Then, in the first half of the 19th century, museum funding took off, allied to the rise of new wealth: London acquired the National Gallery and the British Museum, the Louvre was organized, the Museum-Insel was begun in Berlin, and the Munich galleries were built. In Vienna, the huge Kunsthistorisches and Naturhistorisches Museums took over much of the imperial treasure. Meanwhile, the decline of craftsmanship (and of public taste with it) inspired the creation of "improving" collections. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London was the most famous, as well as perhaps the largest of them.

单选题 Question 26-30 Which is safer--staying at home, traveling to work on public transport, or working in the office? Surprisingly, each of these carries the same risk, which is very low: However, what about flying compared to working in the chemical industry? Unfortunately, the former is 65 times riskier than the latter! In fact, the accident rate of workers in the chemical industry is less than that of almost any of human activity, and almost as safe as staying at home. The trouble with the chemical industry is that when things go wrong they often cause death to those living nearby. It is this which makes chemical accidents so newsworthy. Fortunately, they are extremely rare. The most famous ones happened at Texas City (1947), Flixborough (1974), Seveso (1976), Pemex (1984) and Bhopal (1984). Some of these are always in the minds of the people even though the loss of life was small. No one died at Seveso, and only 28 workers at Flixborough. The worst accident of all was Bhopal, where up to 3,000 were killed. The Texas City explosion of fertilizer killed 552. The Pemex fire at a storage plant for natural gas in the suburbs of Mexico City took 542 lives, just a month before the unfortunate event at Bhopal. Some experts have discussed these accidents and used each accident to illustrate a particular danger. Thus the Texas City explosion was caused by tons of ammonium nitrate, which is safe unless stored in great quantity. The Flixborough fireball was the fault of management, which took risks to keep production going during essential repairs. The Seveso accident shows what happens if the local authorities lack knowledge of the danger on their doorstep. When the poisonous gas drifted over the town, local leaders were incapable of taking effective action. The Pemex fire was made worse by an overloaded site in an overcrowded suburb. The fire set off a chain reaction of exploding storage tanks. Yet, by a miracle, the two largest tanks did not explode. Had these caught fire, then 3,000 strong rescue team and fire fighters would all have died.