单选题 6. A.The Federal Reserve cut interest rates to 4.75 percent.B.The reduction of interest rate is offering help to the economy of the United States.C.The discount rate was reduced by a bold half point.D.The Federal Reserve lowered the discount rate to lubricate credit market. A B C D B[解析] 6-10 Washington The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a modest quarter-percentage point on Tuesday, disappointing Wall Street hopes for bolder action but offering a bit more help to an economy facing credit strains and a deep housing slump. The central bank"s decision takes the bellwether federal funds rate, which governs overnight lending between banks, down to 4.25 percent. While the action was widely expected, some economists had thought the Fed might offer a bolder half-point reduction. In a related move, the Fed trimmed the discount rate it charges for direct loans to banks by a matching quarter point. Here too, some market participants were dissatisfied. Many had thought the Fed would lower the discount rate by more than the federal funds rate to lubricate tight credit markets. San Juan, Puerto Rico Subtropical Storm Olga knocked out power and caused widespread flooding in Puerto Rico on Tuesday and threatened the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with torrential downpours and mudslides. Olga was a relatively weak storm with top sustained winds of 45 mph and forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted strong winds in the upper atmosphere would start to tug it apart on Wednesday. They said Olga"s greatest threat was its torrential rains. "These rains have already produced life-threatening flash floods and mudslides in Puerto Rico," the forecasters said in an advisory. Tropical storm warnings and watches were issued for parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola, and for the Turks and Caicos islands and the southeastern Bahamas. Paris New passenger car registrations in the European Union in November fell 1.3 percent to 1.217 million vehicles from a year ago but were up 0.9 percent over the first 11 months, the ACEA European car association said on Friday. Total European sales were down 1.1 percent in November and rose 1.1 percent for the 11 months. ACEA said private demand in most of the countries of western Europe was damped by sharp rises in fuel prices, loss of purchasing power and regulatory changes. Among car makers, Volkswagen Group remained the market leader for the 11 months, but its market share slipped to 19.7 percent from 20.1 percent. London The European Medicines Agency said on Friday that new warnings for doctors and patients were needed to increase awareness of cases of suicidal thoughts linked to Pfizer Inc"s new smoking cessation pill. Pfizer has been asked to submit changes to the marketing information for the product— sold as Champix in Europe and Chantix in the United States—before Dec. 19. The move follows similar action by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which issued a warning last month about Chantix, amid reports of suicidal thoughts and behaviour, and at least one death potentially linked to the medication. Pfizer said there was no scientific evidence establishing a causal relationship between its medicine and these reported events, adding it was working closely with the European watchdog to review case histories. New York Amazon.com Inc, the Web retailer known for selling books, said it had paid about $ 4 million to buy a handwritten, illustrated book of wizardry by "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling. Sotheby"s on Thursday held an auction for the book called "The Tales of Beedle the Bard", which was mentioned in the last Potter book as having been left to Harry"s friend Hermione by their teacher, Albus Dumbledore. London dealer Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox had the winning bid of 1. 95 million pounds ( $ 3.98 million) on behalf of Amazon. com. All proceeds from the sale will go to the Children"s Voice, a charity Rowling co-founded in 2005 to help vulnerable children across Europe. Amazon. com has posted several pictures of the book—which it handles with white gloves—and a review of one tale called "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot" on the Web site. The company plans to post reviews of all five tales.6: According to the report, which of the following statements is true? 7. A.Torrential rains and mudslides led to heavy casualties.B.Storm Olga caused a failure of electrical power and flooded the area.C.Strong winds in the upper atmosphere tugged Storm Olga apart.D.Tropical storm warnings and watches were issued. A B C D B[解析] What happened in Puerto Rico on Tuesday? 8. A.It has fallen down compared with the previous year.B.Total European sales were down over the first 11 months.C.Private demand in most western European countries were depressed for a number of reasons.D.Volkswagen Group was no longer the market leader since its market share dropped. A B C D A[解析] What can we find about the new passenger car registration in the European Union? 9. A.That there was scientific evidence proving the causal relationship between a certain kind of medicine and suicidal cases.B.That healthcare worker should pay more attention to cases of suicidal thoughts linked to a new smoking cessation pill.C.That it would warn against the clinical application of a new smoking cessation pill.D.That it would ask Pfizer Inc to submit changes to the marketing information. A B C D B[解析] What did the European Medicines Agency say on Friday? 10. A.It paid $ 4 million for a handwritten, illustrated version of "Harry Porter".B.It donated money to a charity co-founded by J. K. Rowling.C.It won the bid in an auction for a book written by J. K. Rowling.D.It posted reviews of all the tales on the Website. A B C D C[解析] According to the report, what did the web retailer, Amazon. com do?

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} In this section, you will read several passages. Each passage is followed by several questions based on its content. You are to choose {{B}}ONE{{/B}} best answer to each question. Answer all the questions following each passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage and write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your {{B}}ANSWER BOOKLET{{/B}} Researchers have known that secondhand smoke can be just as dangerous for nonsmokers as smoking is for smokers, but now there's fresh evidence quantifying just how hazardous the after-burn from cigarettes can be, and how quickly it affects your body. Scientists at the Oregon Department of Health documented for the first time an hourly buildup of a cancer- causing compound from cigarette smoke in the blood of nonsmokers working in bars and restaurants in the state. Reporting in the American Journal of Public Health, the researchers found that waitstaff and bartenders working a typical night shift gradually accumulated higher levels of NNK, a carcinogen in cigarette smoke, at the rate of 6% each hour they worked. NNK is known to be involved in inducing lung cancer in both lab rats and smokers. "We were somewhat surprised by the immediacy of the effect and the fact that we could measure the average hourly increase," says Michael Stark, the lead author of the study and a principal investigator at the Mulmomah County Health Department in Oregon. The authors are confident that the increases in NNK in the workers they tested most likely came from their exposure to smoke—the study included a control group of similar subjects in restaurants where no smoking was allowed. "There is experimental evidence from studies where you put nonsmokers in a room, blow smoke into the room and measure their artery function, that you see the platelets get sticky, which can cause clots and lead to a heart attack, and the ability of the arteries to dilate decreases very rapidly," says Dr. Matthew McKenna, director of the office on smoking and public health for the Centers for Disease Control. All of which could mean more time loitering outside buildings and in alleyways for smokers intent on grabbing a puff. Thirteen states now prohibit smoking in restaurants altogether (most of these include bars as well), and while 11 states still put no restrictions on lighting up, individual cities within those states—such as Austin in Texas, for example have passed legislation banning smoking in eating establishments and other public areas. It's just getting harder to refute the scientific evidence; in a study done in Scotland several months after that nation instituted a ban on smoking in public places, researchers found that following the ban, bar patrons showed stronger lung capacity and reduced levels of inflammation (a red flag for a number of chronic diseases, including heart disease and asthma). "We made it pretty clear that the science on this is pretty irrefutable," says McKenna. And if smokers have fewer places to smoke, that message may finally get heard.

单选题I am ______ by his ______ attitude after hearing his words. [A] puzzled; puzzled [B] puzzling; puzzling [C] puzzled; puzzling [D] puzzling; puzzled

单选题The expression "The claim is as ambitious as it is pessimistic." can be best paraphrased as which of the following?

单选题

单选题 {{B}}Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following talk.{{/B}}

单选题Questions 1-5 In the case of mobile phones, change is everything. Recent research indicates that the mobile phone is changing not only our culture, but our very bodies as well. First, let's talk about culture. The difference between the mobile phone and its parent, the fixed-line phone, you get whoever answers it. This has several implications. The most common one, however, and perhaps the thing that has changed our culture forever, is the "meeting" influence. People no longer need to make firm plans about when and where to meet. Twenty years ago, a Friday night would need to be arranged in advance. You needed enough time to allow everyone to get from their place of work to the first meeting place. Now, however, a night out can be arranged on the run. It is no longer "see you there at 8", but "text-me around 8 and we'll see where we all are". Texting changes people as well. In their paper, "Insights into the Social and Psychological Effects of SMS Text Messaging", two British researchers distinguished between two types of mobile phone users: the "talkers" and the "texters"--those who prefer voice to text message and those who prefer text to voice. They found that the mobile phone's individuality and privacy gave texters the ability to express a whole new outer personality. Texters were likely to report that their family would be surprised if they were to read their texts. This suggests that texting allowed texters to present a self-image that differed from the one familiar to those who knew them well. Another scientist wrote of the changes that mobiles have brought to body language. There are two kinds that people use while speaking on the phone. There is the "speakeasy": the head is held high, in a self-confident way, chatting away. And there is the "spacemaker': these people focus on themselves and keep out other people. Who can blame them? Phone meetings get cancelled or reformed and camera-phones intrude on people's privacy. So, it is understandable if your mobile makes you nervous. But perhaps you needn't worry so much. After all, it is good to talk.

单选题

单选题My former school is now very different from ______ it was when I was there. [A] what [B] where [C] that [D] which

单选题

单选题 Questions 6-10 The Guidford Four, freed last week after spending 15 years in prison for crimes they did not commit, would almost certainly have been executed for the pub bombing they were convicted of. They had the death penalty been in force at the time of their trial. They may now be a decent interval before the pro-hanging lobby, which has the support of the Prime Minister, makes another attempt to reintroduce the noose. Reflections along these lines were about the only kind of consolation to be derived from this gross miscarriage of justice which is now to be the subject of a judicial inquiry. In the meantime, defense lawyers are demanding compensation and have in mind about half a million pounds for each of their clients. The first three to be released--Mr. Gerald Conlon, Mr. Paddy Armstrong and Ms. Carole Richardson--left prison with the 34 pounds which is given to all departing inmates. The fourth, Mr. Paul Hill, was not released immediately but taken to Belfast, where he lodged an appeal against his conviction for the murder of a former British soldier. Since this conviction, too, was based on the now discredited statements allegedly made to the Survey police, he was immediately let out on bail. But he left empty-handed. The immediate reaction to the scandal was renewed demand for the re-examination of the case against the Birmingham Six, who are serving life sentences for pub bombings in that city. Thus far the Home Secretary, Mr. Douglas Hurd, is insisting that the two cases are not comparable; that what is now known about the Guilford investigation has no relevance to what happened in Birmingham. Mr. Hurd is right to the extent that there was a small--though flimsy and hotly-contested-- amount of crime evidence in the Birmingham case. The disturbing similarity is that the Birmingham Six, like the Guilford Four, claim that police officers lied and fabricated evidence to secure a conviction. Making scapegoats of a few rogue police officers will not be sufficient to eliminate the Guilford miscarriage of justice. There are already demands that the law should be changed; first to make it impossible to convict on "confessions" alone; and secondly to require that statements from accused persons should only be taken in the presence of an independent third party to ensure they are not made under punishment. It was also being noted this week that the Guilford Four owe their release more to the persistence of investigative reporters than to the diligence of either the judiciary or the police. Yet investigative reports--particularly on television--have recently been a particular target for the condemnation of Mrs. Thatcher and some of her ministers who seem to think that TV should be muzzled in the public interest and left to get on with soap operas and quiz shows.

单选题 BQuestions 11-14/B

单选题It can be learned from the passage that ______.

单选题[此试题无题干]

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

单选题Much new knowledge is admittedly remote from the immediate interests of the ordinary man in the street. He is not intrigued or impressed by the fact that a noble gas like xenon can form compounds—something that until recently most chemists swore was impossible. While even this knowledge may have an impact on him when it is embodied in new technology, until then, he can afford to ignore it. A good bit of new knowledge, on the other hand, is directly related to his immediate concerns, his job, his politics, his family life, even his sexual behavior. A poignant is the dilemma that parents find themselves in today as a consequence of successive radical changes in the image of the child in society and in our theories of childrearing. At the turn of the century in the United States, for example, the dominant theory reflected the prevailing scientific belief in the importance of heredity in determining behavior. Mothers who had never heard of Darwin or Spencer raised their babies in ways consistent with the world views of these thinkers. Vulgarized and simplified, passed from person to person, these world views were reflected in the conviction of millions of ordinary people that "bad children are a result of bad stock", that "crime is hereditary", etc. In the early decades of the century, these attitudes fell back before the advance of environmentalism. The belief that environment shapes personality, and that the early years are the most important, created a new image of the child. The work of Watson and Pavlov began to creep into the public ken. Mothers reflected the new behaviorism, refusing to feed infants on demand, refusing to pick them up when they cried, weaning early to avoid prolonged dependency. A study by Martha Wolfenstein has compared the advice offered parents in seven successive editions of INFANT CARE, a handbook issued by the United Stats Children"s Bureau between 1914 and 1951. She found distinct shifts in the preferred methods for dealing with weaning and thumb-sucking. It is clear from this study that by the late thirties still another image of the child had gained ascendancy. Freudian concepts swept in like a wave and revolutionized childrearing practices. Suddenly, mothers began to hear about "the rights of infants" and the need for "oral gratification". Permissiveness became the order of the day.

单选题Questions 11—14

单选题Middle born children will tell you that they usually didn"t feel all that special while growing up. The first born had his spot- carrier of the family banner and responsible for everything. The last born had his comfy little role, but the middle born had no distinctive place to call his own. Middle-borns just seem to be easily overlooked, and maybe that"s why there are so few pictures of them in the family photo album. There may be hundreds, seemingly thousands, of pictures of the firstborn. For some strange reason, however, which I have confirmed by polling middle-born children around the world, there are seldom many pictures of the middle child, and what photos there are have him included with the others—squeezed again between the older sibling and the younger sibling. Another thing that can be said of many middle-born children is that they typically place great importance on their peer group. The middle child is well known for going outside the home to make friends faster than anybody else in the family. When a child feels like a fifth wheel at home, friends become very important; as a result, many middle children (but not all, of course) tend to be the social lions of the family. While firstborns, typically, have fewer friends, middle children often have many. Middle children have a propensity to leave home first and live farther away from the family than anyone else. I observed a dramatic illustration of this tendency while I was a guest on Oprah Winfrey"s show. The subject that day was sibling rivalry. Three charming young women, all sisters, were among the guests, and we quickly learned that the firstborn and the last born were residents of the Eastern state where they had grown up. They had settled down near their parents and other family members. But the middle child had moved to the West Coast. I suppose she could have gotten another two thousand miles farther away by moving to Hawaii, but her point was still well made. Middle children are the ones who will most often physically distance themselves from the rest of the family. It"s not necessarily because they"re on the outs with everyone else. They simply like to do their own thing, make their own friends, and live their own lives. All of this is not to say that middle children totally ignore their siblings or the rest of the family. One common characteristic of the middle child is that she is a good mediator or negotiator. She comes naturally into this role because she"s often right in the middle, between big brother and little sister, whatever the case may be. And because she can"t have Mom or Dad all to herself, she learns the fine art of compromise. Obviously, these skills are assets in adult life, and middle children often become the best adjusted adults in the family.

单选题Imagine you are in a department store to buy a carry-on suitcase. As you walk through the store, you notice the hefty price tag on a luxury watch on display. You have no interest in the watch, which sells for $2,000, but does its high price affect how much you would be willing to fork out for the suitcase? Would that amount be any different, if, instead, you had noticed a much lower price on a display of bath towels? Most people, believing they are rational shoppers, would say no. Yet we have found that this is not necessarily the case. Marketers have long known that consumers do not have fixed ideas about what things characteristically cost, or ought to cost. In fact, exposure to comparison prices for the same product and the same brand, and for items within the same category, can influence how much a customer is willing to pay. That is why many companies try to shift perceptions about prevailing market prices upward by presenting inflated "regular" prices for similar or identical goods. But consumers are on to this game and rarely see list prices as indicative of what they should pay. Managers, therefore, must come up with something new. Recent research suggests that incidental prices—prices for unrelated goods encountered during the purchase process—can do the job. Customers are exposed to such prices without consciously making judgements about them. But these encounters, whether accidental or planned by the seller, can inflate or deflate a buyer"s willingness to pay the asking price for a given product, though most shoppers would deny this. To test the effect of incidental prices, we analysed sales data from one of the largest automobile auctioneers in the USA. The company"s classic car auction each year attracts some 125,000 enthusiasts, all of whom have access to historical prices and book values on site. For this study, we looked at sales records for 1,477 automobiles auctioned off between 1995 and 2000. Our findings are compelling: price differentials between pairs of successive cars offered at auction systematically affected the maximum bid for the second car. When the highest bid on the first car in a pair was 100% to 200% higher than the book value of the one that followed it, the second car fetched an average of 39% more than its book value. The larger the differential, the stronger the effect. The implications of these results are far-reaching. In another study, we sold copies of a popular music CD, essentially a commodity for which the price is relatively fixed, along the boardwalk in Venice Beach, California. We found that significantly more holidaymakers were willing to pay out $20 asking price when sweatshirts on sale nearby were priced at $80 than when the same sweatshirts were priced at $10—even when the shoppers said they had no interest in buying the sweatshirt. None of the participants interviewed after the study believed the incidental price of the sweatshirt affected his or her decision, but clearly it did.

单选题 The biggest danger facing the global airline industry is not the effects of terrorism, war, SARS and economic downturn. It is that these blows, which have helped ground three national flag carriers and force two American airlines into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, will divert attention from the inherent weaknesses of aviation, which they have worsened. As in the crisis that attended the first Gulf war, many airlines hope that traffic will soon bounce back, and a few terrible years will be followed by fuller planes, happier passengers and a return to profitability. Yet the industry's problems are deeper—and older—than the pain of the past two years implies. As the 100th anniversary of the first powered flight approaches in December, the industry it launched is still remarkably primitive. The car industry, created not long after the Wright Brothers made history, is now a global industry dominated by a dozen firms, at least half of which make good profits. Yet commercial aviation consists of 267 international carriers and another 500-plus domestic ones. The world's biggest carrier, American Airlines, has barely 7% of the global market, whereas the world's biggest carmaker, General Motors, has (with its associated firms) about a quarter of the world's automobile market. Aviation has been incompletely deregulated, and in only two markets: America and Europe. Everywhere else deals between governments direction who flies under what roles. These aim to preserve state-owned national flag-carriers, run for prestige rather than profit. And numerous restrictions on foreign ownership make cross-border airline mergers impossible. In America, the big network carriers face barriers to exit, which have kept their route networks too large. Trade unions resisting job cuts and Congressmen opposing route closures in their territory conspire to block change. In Europe, liberalization is limited by bilateral deals that prevent, for instance, British Airways (BA) flying to America from Frankfurt or Pads, or Lufthansa offering transatlantic flights from London's Heathrow. To use the car industry analogy, it is as if only Renaults were allowed to drive on French motorways. In airlines, the optimists are those who think that things are now so bad that the industry has no option but to evolve. Frederick Reid, president of Delta Airlines, said earlier this year that events since the 911 attacks are the equivalent of a meteor strike, changing the climate, creating a sort of nuclear winter and leading to a "compressed evolutionary cycle". So how, looking on the bright side, might the industry look after five years of accelerated development?