单选题Questions 23—26

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单选题Questions 1～5 Have you ever wondered why some asanas seem to leave you feeling calm, still, centered, and balanced while others seem to leave you agitated, sore and off-centered? Take the case of a thirty-one-year-old woman who came for treatment for repeated neck pain and nervousness. She had been practicing yoga for six years and could not understand why she was having such difficulty. Our work with Ayurveda, the 5,000-year-old "knowledge of life", helped this woman to understand how the Yoga asanas she had been practicing affected the movement of energy in her body. She then learned new asanas, which was more in harmony with her unique energetic balance. With this new knowledge she was able to modify her practice and eliminate her neck pain and nervousness while bringing greater well-being to her body and mind. In addition to the profound dietary and lifestyle advice that Ayurveda is most known for, Ayurveda also sheds new light on the practice of yoga. Yoga and Ayurveda are in fact, two paths intertwined in such a close relationship that it is hard to imagine traveling down one of these paths without knowledge of the other. Yoga is the ancient path of preparing the body and mind for the eventual liberation and enlightenment of the soul. Ayurveda is the ancient art and science of keeping the body and heart healthy so that individuals can pursue the goals in life that they have set for themselves. The population of yoga in this country has been growing steadily since Swami Vivekananda first brought the idea of yoga to the West in 1893. While yoga found a welcome home in the West, its sister, Ayurveda, was left behind in India, a distant counterpart to these important Vedic teachings. Today, just over one hundred years later, Ayurveda has come to the West in search of its other half. Ayurveda does not come to this country empty-handed but bring with it many gifts. It brings with it the knowledge of how to keep the physical body healthy and how this relates to one"s spiritual journey. It brings a gift specific to the yogi. the knowledge of how asanas affect each of us. Ayurvda sheds new light on which asanas are best for each individual. The Vedas, the oldest known writings and teachings, are the origins of both these ancient arts. The Vedas are composed of five books. One of them, the Yajur Veda, is considered by scholars as the origins of the knowledge of yoga. Ayurveda has its root within the Rig Veda and Atharva Veda. According to Dr. David Frawley, Vedic scholar, "Yoga is the practical side of the Vedic teaching while Ayurveda is the healing side." In practice, both of these paths overlap a great deal. Classical yoga has, as a part of its traditions, an aspect which addresses health and health practices. It is not simply asanas for differing conditions, but purification as well. In some vein, Ayurveda is much more than dietary principals. Ayurveda can be seen as the science of understanding how we interact with our environment and how to alter our environment in such a way that it is harmonious with our deepest nature. Ayurveda is the science of how energies interact. As such, Ayurveda addresses our entire lifestyle including exercise and yoga. Ayurveda sees each individual"s path towards perfect health a unique path, hence Ayurveda can help us to understand which yoga asanas are best for each individual as well as understand how the different forms of Pranayama affect us.

单选题 Archaeology as a profession faces two major problems. First, it is the poorest of the poor. Only trifling sums are available for excavating and even less is available for publishing the results and preserving the sites once excavated. Yet archaeologists deal with priceless objects every day. Second, there is the problem of illegal excavation, resulting in museum- quality pieces being sold to the highest bidder. I would like to make an outrageous suggestion that would at one stroke provide funds for archaeology and reduce the amount of illegal digging. I would propose that scientific archeological expeditions and governmental authorities sell excavated artifacts on the open market. Such sales would provide substantial funds for the excavation and preservation of archaeological sites and the publication of results. At the same time, they would break the illegal excavator's grip on the market, thereby decreasing the inducement to engage in illegal activities. You might object that professionals excavate to acquire knowledge, not money. Moreover, ancient artifacts are part of our global cultural heritage, which should be available for all to appreciate, not sold to the highest bidder. I agree. Sell nothing that has unique artistic merit or scientific value. But, you might reply, everything that comes out of the ground has scientific value. Here we part company. Theoretically, you may be correct in claiming that every artifact has potential scientific value. Practically, you are wrong. I refer to the thousands of pottery vessels and ancient lamps that are essentially duplicates of one another. In one small excavation in Cyprus, archaeologists recently uncovered 2,000 virtually indistinguishable small jugs in a single courtyard. Even precious royal seal impressions known as melekh handles have been found in abundance—more than 4,000 examples so far. The basements of museums are simply not large enough to store the artifacts that are likely to be discovered in the future. There is not enough money even to catalogue the finds; as a result, they cannot be found again and become as inaccessible as if they had never been discovered. Indeed, with the help of a computer, sold artifacts could be more accessible than are the pieces stored in bulging museum basements. Prior to sale, each could be photographed and the list of the purchasers could be maintained on the computer. A purchaser could even be required to agree to return the piece if it should become needed for scientific purposes. It would be unrealistic to suggest that illegal digging would stop if artifacts were sold on the open market. But the demand for the clandestine product would be substantially reduced. Who would want an unmarked pot when another was available whose provenance was known, and that was dated stratigraphically by the professional archaeologist who excavated it?

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单选题Without regular supplies of some hormones our capacity to behave would be seriously impaired; without others we would soon die. Tiny amounts of some hormones can modify moods and actions, our inclination to eat or drink, our aggressiveness or submissiveness, and our reproductive and parental behavior. And hormones do more than influence adult behavior; early in life they help to determine the development of bodily form and may even determine an individual"s behavioral capacities. Later in life the changing outputs of some endocrine glands and the body"s changing sensitivity to some hormones are essential aspects of the phenomena of aging. Communication within the body and the consequent integration of behavior were considered the exclusive province of the nervous system up to the beginning of the present century. The emergence of endocrinology as a separate discipline can probably be traced to the experiments of Bayliss and Starling on the hormone secretion. This substance is secreted from cells in the intestinal walls when food enters the stomach; it travels through the bloodstream and stimulates the pancreas to liberate pancreatic juice, which aids in digestion. By showing that special cells secrete chemical agents that are conveyed by the bloodstream and regulate distant target organs or tissues. Bayliss and Starling demonstrated that chemical integration could occur without participation of the nervous system. The term "hormone" was first used with reference to secretion. Starling derived the term from the Greek hormone, meaning "to excite or set in motion". The term "endocrine" was introduced shortly thereafter. "Endocrine" is used to refer to glands that secrete products into the bloodstream. The term "endocrine" contrasts with "exocrine", which is applied to glands that secrete their products though ducts to the site of action. Examples of exocrine glands are the tear glands, the sweat glands, and the pancreas, which secrete pancreatic juice through a duct into the intestine. Exocrine glands are also called duct glands, while endocrine glands are called ductless glands.

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单选题Everybody loves a fat pay rise. Yet pleasure at your own can vanish if you learn that a colleague has been given a bigger one. Indeed, if he has a reputation for slacking, you might even be outraged. Such behaviour is regarded as "all too human", with the underlying assumption that other animals would not be capable of this finely developed sense of grievance. But a study by Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, which has just been published in Nature, suggests that it all too monkey, as well. The researchers studied the behaviour of female brown capuchin monkeys. They look cute. They are good-natured, co-operative creatures, and they share their food tardily. Above all, like their female human counterparts, they tend to pay much closer attention to the value of goods and services" than males. Such characteristics make them perfect candidates for Dr. Brosnan"s and Dr. de Waal"s study. The researchers spent two years teaching their monkeys to exchange tokens for food. Normally, the monkeys were happy enough to exchange pieces of rock for slices of cucumber. However, when two monkeys were placed in separate but adjoining chambers, so that each could observe what the other was getting in return for its rock, their became markedly different. In the world of capuchins grapes are luxury goods (and much preferable to cucumbers). So when one monkey was handed a grape in exchange for her token, the second was reluctant to hand hers over for a mere piece of cucumber. And if one received a grape without having to provide her token in exchange at all, the other either tossed her own token at the researcher or out of the chamber, or refused to accept the slice of cucumber. Indeed, the mere presence of a grape in the other chamber (without an actual monkey to eat it) was enough to reduce resentment in a female capuchin. The researches suggest that capuchin monkeys, like humans, are guided by social emotions, in the wild, they are a co-operative, groupliving species, Such co-operation is likely to be stable only when each animal feels it is not being cheated. Feelings of righteous indignation, it seems, are not the preserve of people alone, Refusing a lesser reward completely makes these feelings abundantly clear to other members of the group. However, whether such a sense of fairness evolved independently in capuchins and humans, or whether it stems from the common ancestor that the species had 35 million years ago, is, as yet, an unanswered question.

单选题 It was a cold, rainy and wholly miserable afternoon in Washington, and a hot muggy night in Miami. It was Sunday, and three games were played in the two cities. The people playing them and the people watching them tell us much about the ever-changing ethnic structure of the United States. Professional football in the United States is almost wholly played by native-born American citizens, mostly very large and very strong, many of them black. It is a game of physical strength. Linemen routinely weigh more than 300 pounds. Players are valued for their weigh and muscles, for how fast they can run, and how hard they can hit each other. Football draws the biggest crowds, but the teams play only once a week, because they get so battered. The 67,204 fans were in Miami for the final game of the baseball World Series. Baseball was once America's favorite game, but has lost that claim to basketball. Baseball is a game that requires strength, but not hugeness. Agility, quickness, perfect vision and quick reaction are more important than pure strength. Baseball was once a purely American game, but has spread around much of the New World. In that Sunday's final, the final hit of the extra inning game was delivered by a native of Columbia. The Most Valuable Player in the game was a native of Columbia. The rosters of both teams were awash with Hispanic names, as is Miami, which now claims the World Championship is a game that may be losing popularity in America, but has gained it in much of the rest of the world. Baseball in America has taken on a strong Hispanic flavor, with a dash of Japanese added for seasoning. Soccer, which many countries just call football, is the most widely enjoyed sport in the world. In soccer, which many countries just call football, the ethnic tide has been the reverse of baseball. Until recently, professional soccer in the United States has largely been an import, played by South Americans and Europeans. Now, American citizens in large numbers are finally taking up the most popular game in the world. Basketball, an American invention increasingly played around the world, these days draws large crowds back home. Likewise, hockey, a game largely imported to the United States from neighboring Canada. Lacrosse, a version of which was played by Native Americans before the Europeans arrived, is also gaining a keen national following. Sports of all kinds are winning support from American armchair enthusiasts from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.

单选题In Para. 1, "to drive welcome," suggests that suburban lawns ______.

单选题Christophe Petyt is sitting in a Paris caré, listing the adornments of his private art collection: several Van Goghs, and a comprehensive selection of the better impressionists. "I can," he says quietly, "really get to know any painting I like, and so can you. " Half an hour later I am sitting in his office with Degas" The Jockeys on my lap. If fine art looks good in a gallery, believe me, it feels even better in your hands. Petyt is the world"s leading dealer in fake masterpieces, a man whose activities provoke both admiration and exasperation in the higher levels of the art world. Name the painting and for as little as $1,000 he will deliver you a copy so well executed that even the original artist might have been taken in. Petyt"s company employs over eighty painters, each ordered in the style of a particular artist or school. "We choose them very carefully," he says. "They"re usually people with very good technique but not much creativity, who are unlikely to make it as artists in their own right. But they love the great works and have real insight into what"s gone into them. " Every work is individually ordered, using new canvases and traditional oil paints, before being artificially aged by a variety of simple but ingenious techniques. The notional value of the original is not the determining factor, however, when it comes to setting the retail value of Petyt"s paintings. This is actually linked to the amount of effort and expertise that has gone into producing the copy. An obscure miniature may therefore cost much more than a bigger, better-known painting by a grand master. The Degas I"m holding looks as though it came off the artist"s easel yesterday. Before being sold it has to be aged, and this, so to speak, is the real "art" of the copy. A few minutes in a hot oven can put years on a canvas, black tea apparently stains it beautifully and new frames can be buried underground, then sprayed with acid. The view when Petyt started out was that very little of this could be legal. He was pursued through the French courts by museums and by descendants of the artists. This concern was perhaps understandable in a country that has been rocked by numerous art fraud scandals. " The establishment was suspicious of us," huffs Petyt, "but for the wrong reasons, I think Some people want to keep all the best art for themselves. " He won the case and as the law now stands, the works and signatures of any artist who has been dead for seventy years can be freely copied. The main proviso is that the copy cannot be passed off to dealers as the real thing. To prevent this every new painting is indelibly marked on the back of the canvas, and as an additional precaution a tiny hidden piece of gold leaf is worked into the paint. Until he started the business ten years ago, Paetyt, a former business-school student, barely knew one artist from another. Then one particular painting by Van Gogh caught his eye. At $10 million, it was well beyond his reach so he came up with the iclea of getting an art-student friend to paint him a copy. In an old frame it looked absolutely wonderful, and Petyt began to wonder what market there might be for it. He picked up a coffee-table book of well-known paintings, earmarked a random selection of works and got his friend to knock them off. "Within a few months I had about twenty good copies. " he says, "so I organised an exhibition. In two weeks we"d sold the lot, and got commissions for sixty more. " It became clear that a huge and lucrative market existed for fake art.

单选题More than ten years ago, Ingmar Bergman announced that the widely acclaimed Fanny and Alexander would mark his last hurrah as a filmmaker. Although some critics had written him off as earnest but ponderous, others were saddened by the departure of an artist who had explored cinematic moods—from high tragedy to low comedy—during his four-decade career. What nobody foresaw was that Bergman would find a variety of ways to circumvent his own retirement—directing television movies, staging theater productions, and writing screenplays for other filmmakers to direct. His latest enterprise as a screenwriter, Sunday"s Children, completes a trilogy of family-oriented movies that began with Fanny and Alexander and continued with The Best Intentions written by Bergman and directed by Danish filmmaker Bille August. Besides dealing with members of Bergman"s family in bygone times—it begins a few years after The Best Intentions leaves off—the new picture was directed by Daniel Bergman, his youngest son. Although it lacks the urgency and originality of the elder Bergman"s greatest achievements, such as The Silence and Persona, it has enough visual and emotional interest to make a worthy addition to his body of work. Set in rural Sweden during the late 1920s, the story centers on a young boy named Pu, dearly modeled on Ingmar Bergman himself. Pu"s father is a country clergyman whose duties include traveling to the capital and ministering to the royal family. While this is an enviable position, it doesn"t assuage problems in the pastor"s marriage. Pu is young enough to be fairly oblivious to such difficulties, but his awareness grows with the passage of time. So do the subtle tensions that mar Pu"s own relationship with his father, whose desire to show affection and compassion is hampered by a certain stiffness in his demeanor and chilliness in his emotions. The film"s most resonant passages take place when Pu learns to see his father with new clarity while accompanying him on a cross-country trip to another parish. In a remarkable change of tone, this portion of the story is punctuated with flash-forwards to a time 40 years in the future, showing the relationship between parent and child to be dramatically reversed: The father is now cared for by the son, and desires a forgiveness for past shortcomings that the younger man resolutely refuses to grant. Brief and abrupt though they are, these scenes make a pungent contrast with the sunny landscapes and comic interludes in the early part of the movie. Sunday"s Children is a film of many levels, and all are skillfully handled by Daniel Bergman in his directional debut. Gentle scenes of domestic contentment are sensitively interwoven with intimations of underlying malaise. While the more nostalgic sequences are photographed with an eye-dazzling beauty that occasionally threatens to become cloying, any such result is foreclosed by the jagged interruptions of the flash-forward sequences—an intrusive device that few filmmakers are agile enough to handle successfully, but that is put to impressive use by the Bergman team. Henrik Linnros gives a smartly turned performance as young Pu, and Thommy Berggren—who starred in the popular Elvira Madigan years ago—is steadily convincing as his father. Top honors go to the screenplay, though, which carries the crowded canvas of Fanny and Alexander and the emotional ambiguity of The Best Intentions into fresh and sometimes fascinating territory.

单选题Schools hit by this summer"s education funding crisis were forced to lay off 21,000 teachers and support staff, a new study shows. Almost half the secondary schools surveyed and one in five primaries have increased class sizes as a result. The report, by Professor Alan Smithers and Dr Pamela Robinson from the University of Liverpool, shows the budget crisis is worse than thought. It also questions Government claims that the number of "loser" schools are in a minority, with an estimate that between 14,000 and 15,000 of the country"s 23,000 state schools suffered a budget cut in real terms. In all, 56 per cent of primary schools and 63 per cent of secondaries surveyed reported that this year"s budget was worse than last year. The funding cuts were the first since Labour came to power in 1997, pledging to make education a top priority. "The consequences for the majority of schools have been disastrous," Professor Smithers said. The report shows 8,800 teaching posts (5,502 in primary schools and 3,115 in secondaries) were cut along with 12,300 support staff. About 2,000 teachers were made redundant, compared with the 500 redundancies estimated by Prime Minister Tony Blair earlier in the summer. The report said some schools emerged as "winners", taking on teachers. But the net reduction in teachers" jobs was 4,537, putting the pressure on Labour"s election pledge to employ 10,000 extra teachers in its second term. Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, which commissioned the research, said ministers were "deliberately underfunding schools" so that heads were forced to employ cheaper classroom assistants. The union is opposed to a national agreement on reducing teachers" workload which allows classroom assistants to take control of lessons. "The impact on the pupils could be devastating," Mr. McAvoy said. "We don"t think this is happening by chance. It is a deliberate government policy." Professor Smithers said schools would struggle to avoid further redundancies, despite 800 million in funding pledged for the next two years. Many schools had slashed their reserves and could not protect teachers" jobs. He said class sizes were "nudging upwards" as a result of the funding cuts, and over 40 per cent of secondary schools said more classes would be taken by teachers not trained in the relevant subject. Primary schools said that head teachers and senior staff would have to do more teaching. "Primary schools were often planning to reduce the teachers" already very limited planning, preparation, marking and assessment time," the report said. Under the new teachers" contract, however, they should be guaranteed 10 per cent of time away from the classroom by 2005. The report was based on a survey of 980 primary schools and 368 secondaries. The Department of Education has questioned the findings, saying the report "appears to have lost touch with reality". "The scale of these figures, based on a very small sample, does not tally with assessments we have seen from other teachers unions," a spokesman said. Graham Lane, Labour education chairman of the Local Government Association, said: "In surveys like this, the schools that have got problems respond."

单选题 I have just come home after viewing some astonishing works of art that were recently discovered in Church Hole cave in Nottinghamshire. They are not drawings, as one would expect, but etchings, and they depict a huge range of wild animals. The artists who created them lived around 13,000 years ago, and the images are remarkable on a variety of counts. First of all, their sheer number is staggering, there are ninety all told. Moreover, fifty-eight of them are on the ceiling. This is extremely rare in cave art, according to a leading expert, Dr Wilbur Samson of Central Midlands University. Wall pictures are the norm, he says, "But more importantly, the Church Hole etchings are an incredible artistic achievement. They can hold their own in comparison with the best found in continental Europe." I am not a student of the subject, so I have to take his word for it. However, you do not have to be an expert to appreciate their beauty. In fact, it is the wider significance of the etchings that is likely to attract most attention in academic circles, since they radically alter our view of life in Britain during this epoch. It had previously been thought that ice-age hunters in this country were isolated from people in more central areas of Europe, but the Church Hole images prove that ancient Britons were part of a culture that had spread right across the continent. And they were at least as sophisticated culturally as their counterparts on the mainland. An initial survey of the site last year failed to reveal the presence of the etchings. The reason lies in the expectations of the researchers. They had been looking for the usual type of cave drawing or painting, which shows up best under direct light. Consequently, they used powerful torches, shining them straight onto the rock face. However, the Church Hole images are modifications of the rock itself, and show up best when seen from a certain angle in the natural light of early morning. Having been fortunate to see them at this hour, I can only say that I was deeply—and unexpectedly—moved. While most cave art often seems to have been created in a shadowy past very remote from us, these somehow convey the impression that they were made yesterday. Dr Samson feels that the lighting factor provides important information about the likely function of these works of art. "I think the artists knew very well that the etchings would hardly be visible except early in the morning. We can therefore deduce that the chamber was used for rituals involving animal worship, and that they were conducted just after dawn as a preliminary to the day's hunting." To which I can only add that I felt deeply privileged to have been able to view Church Hole. It is a site of tremendous importance culturally and is part of the heritage, not only of this country, but the world as a whole.

单选题 A $54m lawsuit over a pair of pinstriped trousers that went missing from a Washington, DC, cleaners was thrown out by a judge this week. It had attracted worldwide ridicule. The fact that the case was brought, not by a random loony, but by a former judge has added to the sense that something is wrong not just with America's litigation laws, but with the kind of men and women Americans choose to sit in judgment over them. A whole series of judicial misdemeanors, ranging from the titillating to the outrageous, has emerged over the past year. Take the Florida state judge, John Sloop, who was ousted after complaints about his "rude and abusive" behavior. This included an order to strip-search and jail 11 defendants for arriving late in traffic court after being misdirected. Or the Californian judge, José Velasquez, sacked in April for a plethora of misconduct, including extending the sentences of defendants who dared question his rulings. Then there was the Albany city judge, William Carter, in New York, censored for his "utterly inexcusable" conduct after jumping down from the bench during a trial, shedding his robes and apparently challenging a defendant to a fist-fight. Another time, he suggested that the police "thump the shit out" of an allegedly disrespectful defendant. Mr. Carter wasn't carrying a gun; many judges now do. In Florida, Charles Greene, chief criminal judge in Broward County, had to step down after describing a trial for attempted murder involving minority defendants and witnesses as "NHI" (No Humans Involved). More serious are the cases of corruption. On June 5th Gerald Garson, a former judge in Brooklyn, New York, was jailed for taking bribes to rig divorce cases. Another judge was convicted of accepting money to refer clients to a particular lawyer. Rumors of buying and selling of judgeships in the district abound. At one time, one in ten Brooklyn judges were said to be under investigation for sleaze. "To distrust the judiciary," said Honor6 de Balzac, "marks the beginning of the end of society." In Britain, judges are one of the most respected groups. But in America they tend to be held in low esteem, particularly at state level. For this many people blame low pay and the fact that judges are elected. In 39 states, some or all judges are elected for fixed terms. Federal judges, usually held in much higher esteem, are appointed on merit for life—as in Britain. Most states allow judicial candidates to raise campaign funds. Huge sums are often involved, leading to inevitable suspicions that, once on the bench, judges will pass judgments that favor their benefactors. In 2004 the two candidates in one Illinois district (with a population of just 1.3m) raised a staggering $ 9.4m between them. Some of the states with the highest levels of campaign spending—Texas, Louisiana and Alabama—are also those whose judges are most criticized. In the past, judicial candidates were banned from discussing controversial legal or political issues on the campaign trail. But in 2002 the Supreme Court ruled such bans to beunconstitutional, leading candidates to advertise freely their views on abortion and suchlike. Personal attacks have also become more common. Indeed, Sandra Day O'Connor, a former Supreme Court justice, fears that judicial elections have turned into "political prize-fights, where partisans and special interests seek to install judges who will answer to them instead of the law and the constitution." The meager salaries of judges, whether at state or federal level, do not help raise standards either. Federal judges have not had a real pay rise for 17 years; a district court judge earns $165,000 a year, about the same as a first-year associate in a top law firm. John Roberts, chief justice of the Supreme Court, earns just $ 212,000—half the salary of England's top judge and one-fifth of the average income of a partner in the majority of America's 100 top-grossing law firms. Around 40 judges have left the federal bench over the past five years. In his annual report to Congress in January, Mr. Roberts said that the issue of judges' pay had reached "the level of a constitutional crisis". It was threatening the judiciary's strength and independence. In February, Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, promised legislation to fix it within the current session. The judges are still waiting. Meanwhile, state judges in New York are preparing to sue the state for their first pay rise since 1999. The battle is joined.

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