单选题Questions 1~5
We had been wanting to expand our children"s horizons by taking them to a place that was unlike anything we"d been exposed to during our travels in Europe and the United States. In thinking about what was possible from Geneva, where we are based, we decided on a trip to Istanbul, a two-hour plane ride from Zurich.
We envisioned the trip as a prelude to more exotic ones, perhaps to New Delhi or Bangkok later this year, but thought our 11-and 13-year-olds needed a first step away from manicured boulevards and pristine monuments.
What we didn"t foresee was the reaction of friends, who warned that we were putting our children "in danger," referring vaguely, and most incorrectly, to disease, terrorism or just the unknown. To help us get acquainted with the peculiarities of Istanbul and to give our children a chance to choose what they were particularly interested in seeing, we bought an excellent guidebook and read it thoroughly before leaving.
Friendly warnings didn"t change our planning, although we might have more prudently checked with the U. S. State Department"s list of trouble spots. We didn"t see a lot of children among the foreign visitors during our six-day stay in Istanbul, but we found the tourist areas quite safe, very interesting and varied enough even to suit our son, whose oft-repeated request is that we not see "every single" church and museum in a given city.
Vaccinations weren"t needed for the city, but we were concerned about adapting to the water for a short stay. So we used bottled water for drinking and brushing our teeth, a precaution that may seem excessive, but we all stayed healthy.
Taking the advice of a friend, we booked a hotel a 20-minute walk from most of Istanbul"s major tourist sites. This not only got us some morning exercise, strolling over the Karakoy Bridge, but took us past a colorful assortment of fishermen, vendors and shoe shiners.
From a teenager and pre-teen"s view, Istanbul street life is fascinating since almost everything can be bought outdoors. They were at a good age to spend time wandering the labyrinth of the Spice Bazaar, where shops display mounds of pungent herbs in sacks. Doing this with younger children would be harder simply because the streets are so packed with people; it would be easy to get lost.
For our two, whose buying experience consisted of department stores and shopping mall boutiques, it was amazing to discover that you could bargain over price and perhaps end up with two of something for the price of one. They also learned to figure out the relative value of the Turkish lira, not a small matter with its many zeros.
Being exposed to Islam was an important part of our trip. Visiting the mosques, especially the enormous Blue Mosque, was our first glimpse into how this major religion is practiced. Our children"s curiosity already had been piqued by the five daily calls to prayer over loudspeakers in every corner of the city, and the scarves covering the heads of many women.
Navigating meals can be troublesome with children, but a kebab, bought on the street or in restaurants, was unfailingly popular. Since we had decided this trip was not for gourmets, kebabs spared us the agony of trying to find a restaurant each day that would suit the adults" desire to try something new amid children"s insistence that the food be served immediately. Gradually, we branched out to try some other Turkish specialties.
Although our son had studied Islam briefly, it is impossible to be prepared for every awkward question that might come up, such as during our visits to the Topkapi Sarayi, the Ottoman Sultans" palace. No guides were available so it was do-it-yourself, using our guidebook, which cheated us of a lot of interesting history and anecdotes that a professional guide could provide. Next time, we resolved to make such arrangements in advance. On his trip, we wandered through the magnificent complex, with its imperial treasures, its courtyards and its harem. The last required a bit of explanation that we would have happily left to a learned third party.
单选题Stratford-on-Avon, as we all know, has only one industry-William Shakespeare-but there are two distinctly separate and increasingly hostile branches. There is the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), which presents superb productions of the plays at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre on the Avon. And there are the townsfolk who largely live off the tourists who come, not to see the plays, but to look at Anne Hathaway"s Cottage, Shakespeare"s birthplace and the other sights.
The worthy residents of Stratford doubt that the theatre adds a penny to their revenue. They frankly dislike the RSC"s actors, them with their long hair and beards and sandals and noisiness. It"s all deliciously ironic when you consider that Shakespeare, who earns their living, was himself an actor (with a beard) and did his share of noise-making.
The tourist streams are not entirely separate. The sightseers who come by bus-and often take in Warwick Castle and Blenheim Palace on the side—don"t usually see the plays, and some of them are even surprised to find a theatre in Stratford. However, the playgoers do manage a little sight-seeing along with their playgoing. It is the playgoers, the RSC contends, who bring in much of the town"s revenue because they spend the night (some of them four or five nights) pouring cash into the hotels and restaurants. The sightseers can take in everything and get out of town by nightfall.
The townsfolk don"t see it this way and local council does not contribute directly to the subsidy of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Stratford cries poor traditionally. Nevertheless every hotel in town seems to be adding a new wing or cocktail lounge. Hilton is building its own hotel there, which you may be sure will be decorated with Hamlet Hamburger Bars, the Lear Lounge, the Banquo Banqueting Room, and so forth, and will be very expensive.
Anyway, the townsfolk can"t understand why the Royal Shakespeare Company needs a subsidy. (The theatre has broken attendance records for three years in a row. Last year its 1, 431 seats were 94 percent occupied all year long and this year they"ll do better. ) The reason, of course, is that costs have rocketed and ticket prices have stayed low.
It would be a shame to raise prices too much because it would drive away the young people who are Stratford"s most attractive clientele. They come entirely for the plays, not the sights. They all seem to look alike (though they come from all over)—lean, pointed, dedicated faces, wearing jeans and sandals, eating their buns and bedding down for the night on the flagstones outside the theatre to buy the 20 seats and 80 standing-room tickets held for the sleepers and sold to them when the box office opens at 10.30 a.m.
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单选题What will the weather be______tomorrow? [A] seem [B] becoming [C] like [D] look like
单选题Whydidthemengettosleepsolate?[A]Heisdoingsomemedicineresearch.[B]Hetalkedwithhisfriend.[C]Hefeltpain.
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单选题In its everyday life, Italy is very much the man"s world. However, because of the Italian"s understanding of foreigners, the woman tourist is able to invade many of the male places that are prohibited to Italian women. These places include the caffe and the wine shop.
In the large cities the caffe is a combination of club and office. Here, for the price of a coffee, an Italian can read all the newspapers brought to him. And he can transact business, with the waiter producing pen, ink, and stamps as needed. Or if he wants, he can sit outside under a canvas covering before the door and enjoy the sight of beautiful women passing by.
The wine shop, as a rule, is a more vigorous place than the caffe, and is filled almost exclusively with men. Wandering singers, generally in groups of two or three, add to the noise of these places with their songs and music. Many of the songs are of a political character and make fun of the leading statesmen of Italy, America, England, France, and Russia. But the songs are generally showing off a spirit of mischief. And when the criticism is about America, the American tourists find themselves laughing as much as anyone else. The Italian is a master at making fun of you and making you like it.
The Italian men are deep-rooted gamblers. They have been brought up to it as children, but they are cautious gamblers and never go too much in it. The national lottery used to be one of the most popular forms of gambling. But later a football stake had taken away much of the interest in the lottery. But here the important thing is that gambling, the same as drinking, seldom goes to an Italian"s head and his bets are not really dangerous risks. Even at cards the Italian plays for low stakes, generally for a cup of coffee or wine.
In this world of the Italian male it would be careless if the romanticism of the Italian were neglected. The Italian might well be described as the world"s greatest romanticist. From any boat in Venice to any member of the government in Rome, the Italian is always aware of romance, of love and of the importance of being a good lover.
On the beaches of Italy, the visitor is aware that the Italian really lives for romance. His manners, his compliments, his charm and his general way of behaving are those of a romanticist. Almost every Italian you meet is convinced that he is another Casanova.
Romance is as much a part of Italy as its art and its history. Perhaps the feeling of romance that wells up in you when you come to Italy is one of the greatest things that Italy has to offer a world that is tired of war and political intrigue. It is the ideal place for a honeymoon because hotel managers and waiters make you conscious of your own love and stress it in such a way that you feel more in love in this country than in any other.
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There is a basic hypothesis that the
majority of serious motoring offences are derived from accidents, and there is
nothing in the offender's personality or background that predisposes him to
break the law. If an accident is a chance event that happens so quickly and
suddenly that it is beyond anyone's control to prevent it, then it is clear that
this hypothesis is disproved. For only about 14 per cent of the 653 offences
considered in a recent survey could possibly be called inadvertent accidents in
this sense, and even this estimate is stretching credulity to its limits. In the
great majority of cases the offences were largely of the offenders' own making.
In 11 per cent of the 653 cases and 21 per cent of 43 offenders who were
interviewed there was evidence of selfish, and even ruthless, self-interest, but
it was not possible to infer personality disturbance in more than 25 per cent of
the 653 and 39 per cent of the 43 offenders. Though the inferences with regard
to personality traits may be an overestimate in the interpretation of
qualitative data, they could equally be an underestimate, since so very little
was ever recorded about the offenders themselves. The lack of data is a
consequence of the almost total lack of interest in motoring offenders as
persons. It must be assumed, therefore, in the absence of evidence to the
contrary that the majority of serious motoring offenders considered in the
survey were normal people, who succumbed to temptation when circumstances were
favourable and it was expedient to take a chance, so perhaps there is something
in the normal personality that predisposes a driver to break the law. Whatever
it is, its presence is much more evident in males than in females, since the
analysis of the national statistics shows a predominance of males over females
of between 18:1 and 22:1. The real significance of these figures
is hard to assess, because the relative proportions of each sex at risk are
unknown. One research worker produced a ratio of six males to one female from
his sample of insurance policy holders, but this is almost certainly an
underestimate since many females — probably more than males — are likely to be
driving on someone else's policy. A ration of three to one is probably nearer to
the real state of affairs. Females reached noticeable proportions only among the
hit-and-run drivers, and there seems to be some justification for calling this
the feminine offence. The difference between the sexes in their relative
propensity to break the law on the roads is important, because it shows that
motoring offenders have a characteristic in common with offenders in other
fields of criminal activity, where males predominate to a marked degree. One
motor insurance underwriter recently announced his intention to offer discounts
on premiums where the policy holder or the named driver was a woman.
The basic hypothesis is further disproved by the very high incidence,
among the offences studied, of failing to insure against third-party risks. Yet
accidents brought to light only a very small percentage of this kind of crime.
Moreover, it could not possibly be said that this, the most common of the
serious offences, was brought about by providence. On the contrary, it can be
regarded as a typical form of economic crime, which, although sometimes
committed through inadvertence, is more usually quite deliberate and
calculated.
单选题Whatsportsaretheytalkingabout?[A]Skiing.[B]Basketball.[C]Diving.
单选题The farm is a major marketplace for millions of tons of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and for advanced machinery and the fuel required to run it. The modern superfarm, large and highly capitalized, is resource dependent compared with the diversified small farms that were once dominant. On diversified farms, major energy needs may be supplied by resident humans and animals. Soil fertility may be maintained by alternating cash crops and restorative crops, and also by returning animal manure to the soil. This fanning model of relatively self-sufficient agriculture, and the way of life associated with it, are still economically viable, as demonstrated by prosperous Amish farmers and other practitioners of "alternative" agriculture. Particularly relevant to today"s mainstream agriculture are the energy-saving practices on large "organic" farms, which are thoroughly mechanized but which minimize the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.
By comparison, mainstream American agriculture has until lately been careless in its use of energy, water, and land. When fossil energy was cheap, applications of fertilizers and pesticides paid large dividends, so farmers were encouraged to use these products. Soon most farmers used too much fertilizer and pesticide. Farmers in dry regions enjoyed an era of cheap water, obtained from publicly subsidized irrigation systems or from pumping groundwater using inexpensive energy. The soil too was expendable as demand grew for U.S. agricultural products.
The period of extraordinary profligacy in the use of soil, water, and fossil fuels may well be at an end. The new structure of large farms is quite sensitive to cost factors. These adaptive farms, whose development was assisted by public tax, subsidy and research policies, have access to capital, technologies, and management skills, enabling them to switch relatively quickly to resource-conserving practices—for example, to low-tillage system that requires less fuel, that shepherds soil moisture, and that may reduce soil erosion. It seems likely that federal programs that have enlarged our farms, therefore, have had a further result of creating the potential for a more conserving agriculture. With respect to energy use. for example, energy costs per unit of output are lower for large farms, mainly because these farms quickly economized on energy as costs rose. In the future, according to one authoritative assessment, "agricultural production is likely to use capital and land more intensively but energy, fertilizer and labor less intensively".
单选题"The FAA demonstration" in para. 2 refers to ______.
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单选题Which of the following about the "green tag" is NOT true?
单选题Questions 15-18
单选题Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following interview.
单选题Questions 19-22
单选题The author implies that the "normalizing images" (Para. 5) we are surrounded with have the effect of______.
单选题When the British artist Paul Day unveiled his nine metre-high bronze statue of two lovers locked in an embrace at London's brand new St Pancreas International Station last year it was lambasted as "kitsch", "overblown" and "truly horrific". Now, a brief glimpse of a new frieze to wrap around a plinth for The Meeting Place statue has been revealed, depicting "dream-like" scenes inspired by the railways. Passengers arriving from the continent will be greeted with a series of images including a Tube train driven by a skeleton as a bearded drunk sways precariously close to the passing train Another shows the attempted suicide of a jilted lover under a train reflected in the sunglasses of a fellow passenger. Another section reveals a woman in short skirt with her legs wrapped round her lover while they wait for the next train. Other less controversial parts of the terracotta draft frieze depicts soldiers leaving on troop trains for the First World War and the evacuation of London's underground network after the terror attacks of 7 July 2005. Until the unveiling of The Meeting Place last year, Day, who lives in France, was best known for the Battle of Britain memorial on Embankment. His new frieze looks set to be a return to the sort of crammed bronze montages that has made him so well known Day said he wanted the new plinth to act as the ying to the larger statue's yang. "For me this sculpture has always been about how our dreams collide with the real world," he said. "The couple kissing represent an ideal, a perfect dream reality that ultimately we cannot obtain. The same is true of the railways. They were a dream come true, an incredible feat of engineering but they also brought with them mechanized warfare, Blitzkrieg and death. " Day is still working on the final bronze frieze which will be wrapped around the bottom of the plinth in June next year but he says he wants the 50 million passengers that pass through St Pancras every year to be able to get up close and personal with the final product. "The statue is like a signpost to be seen and understood from far away," he said. "Its size is measured in terms of the station itself. The frieze, on the other hand, is intended to capture the gaze of passers-by and lead them on a short journey of reflections about travel and change that echoes their presence in St Pancras, adding a very different experience to The Meeting Place sculpture. " Brushing aside some of the criticism leveled at his work that has compared it to cartoons or comic strips, Day said he believed his work would stand the test of time. "All the crap that was hurled at the sculpture was just that, crap," he said "The reaction from the critics was so strangely hostile but I believe time will tell whether people, not the art press, will value the piece. "When people criticise my reliefs for looking like comic strips they have got the wrong end of the stick. Throughout the ages, man has been telling stories through a series of pictures, whether it’s stained glass windows, sculptures or photojournalism. My friezes are part of that tradition " Stephen Jordan, from London and Continental Railways, which commissioned the piece, said: " The Meeting Place seeks to challenge and has been well received by visitors who love to photograph it. In addition, it performs an important role within the station, being visible from pretty much anywhere on the upper level of St Pancras International and doing exactly what was planned, making the perfect meeting place for friends. /
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