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Which method of comparison and contrast does the author use in Para. 6 and Para.7?
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Part I Multiple-choice Directions: Listen to the whole passage and choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D. 1. The water is kept liquid by ________.
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The phrase “ students on the margins ” (Para. 2 ， L3) refers to ________ according to the passage.
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The sentence “Whenever you start learning a foreign language you become a new person.” (Para. 7， Line 2) means.
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What’s the main idea of Para. 7?
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Part I Multiple-choice Directions: Listen to the whole passage and choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D. 1. Who support(s) Obama most?
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Which of the following best exemplifies "an 'Aha!' experience" as it is presented in the passage？ (para.3)
A．A manager risks taking an action whose outcome is unpredictable to discover whether the action changes the problem at hand.
B．A manager performs well-learned and familiar behavior. patterns in creative and uncharacteristic ways to solve a problem.
C．A manager suddenly connects seemingly unrelated facts and experiences to create a pattern relevant to the problem at hand.
D．A manager rapidly identifies the methodology used to compile data yielded by systematic analysis.
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Look at the four squares that indicate where the following sentence could be added to paragraph 6 of the passage.So why did the Ice Man die？Where would the sentence best fit？
A．Square Ａ.
B．Square Ｂ.
C．Square Ｃ.
D．Square Ｄ.
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（Para. 3, Passage Two）
If we keep silent and profit from the clerk’s mistake, we would drive home with a sense of sneaky excitement
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The word "inhibited" (ParA．2) in this passage probably means（）
A. unable to have good manners
B. unable to express freely or relax
C. able to act properly
D. able to talk freely
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Directions: For each blank in the following passage, there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that is most suitable and mark your answer by blackening the corresponding letter on the answer sheet.
In fact, there was hardly any activity or social event that could not be set to Music. Weddings, births, christening, funerals, picnics, parades-- 21 had their musical accompaniment.
After the American Civil War (1860-1865), the Negroes had gained their freedom and were ready 22 a new type of music, 23 that would preserve their musical traditions but be fast and happy 24 their 25 freedom. They wanted something they could play as professional musicians for both black and white audiences. Jazz was the answer. It combined themes from Negro work songs, spirituals and blues, set to a fast beat, 26 the musicians improvising (即兴而作) as they went along, like the funeral marching bands. To be good, a musician had not only to remember his part but also 27 able to invent new variations on the spur (激励) of the moment.
Jazz 28 the people, but popular 29 is changed many times in form, style, and tempo. Each change added something 30 .
21.
A. which
B. that
C. all
D. those
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（Passage 2, Lines 1-2, Para. 5)While both groups did better than chance would predi
(Passage 2, Lines 1-2, Para. 5)
While both groups did better than chance would predict, nearly half the participants in each group made the wrong choice two or more times.
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The word "floundered"(Para. 7) implies______.
A．stumbled
B．snuggled
C．flustered
D．troubled
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Look at the four squares,A ,B ,C , and D, which indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage. Where would the sentence best fit？
Sophisticated plumbing was needed to service bathrooms and also to heat buildings with either steam or hot water.
A Skyscrapers differed from previous tall structures with their use of technical innovations such as cast iron and the elevator. The development of cast iron technology, in which molten iron is poured into a mold, made modem plumbing possible.B Cast iron pipes, fittings, and valves could deliver pressurized water to the many floors of tall buildings and drain wastewater out. The invention of the mechanical elevator made it possible to construct even taller buildings.C Before the elevator, office buildings were rarely more than four or five stories high. In 1857, the first passenger elevator equipped with safety brakes prevented the elevator from falling to the basement when a cable broke. The elevator made the upper floors as rentable as the first floor, liberating architecture from dependence on stairways and human muscle.D
A．Square Ａ.
B．Square Ｂ.
C．Square Ｃ.
D．Square Ｄ.
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Look at the four squares,A ,B ,C , and D , which indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage. Where would the sentence best fit？
The International Ladies Garment Workers Union increased its efforts to improve working conditions in factories.
A The ten-story Asch Building was a firetrap typical of the working conditions of the period, and the Triangle fire tragically illustrated that fire inspections and safety precautions were very inadequate.B The victims of the fire were trapped by the lack of fire escapes and by management's practice of locking the exit doors during work hours. The incident had a profound impact on women's unionism and job safety, affecting local and national politics in the process.C An era of progressive reform. began to sweep the nation, as people decided that government had a responsibility to ensure that private industry protected the welfare of workers.D There was a public outcry for laws to regulate workplace safety. The New York Factory Investigating Commission was formed to examine the conditions in factories throughout the state, and their report led to many new regulations in the years following the fire.
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By "dispense with all the preliminaries" （Line 7, Para. 1), the author most probably means
By "dispense with all the preliminaries" (Line 7, Para. 1), the author most probably means that
A. the snakes combine all the previous three steps.
B. the snakes give up all the previous three steps.
C. the snakes follow all the previous steps one by one.
D. the snakes reverse the order of all the previous steps.
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Passage Four：Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage.The decline in moral standards—which has long concerned social analysts—has at last captured the attention of average Americans. And Jean Bethke Elshtain, for one, is glad.
The fact the ordinary citizens are now starting to think seriously about the nation’s moral climate, says this ethics (伦理学) professor at the University of Chicago, is reason to hope that new ideas will come forward to improve it.
But the challenge is not to be underestimated. Materialism and individualism in American society are the biggest obstacles. “The thought that ‘I’m in it for me’ has become deeply rooted in the national consciousness,” Ms. Elshtain says.
Some of this can be attributed to the disintegration of traditional communities, in which neighbors looked out for one another, she says. With today’s greater mobility and with so many couples working, those bonds have been weakened, replaced by a greater emphasis on self.
In a 1996 poll of Americans, loss of morality topped the list of the biggest problems facing the U.S. and Elshtain says the public is correct to sense that: Data show that Americans are struggling with problems unheard of in the 1950s, such as classroom violence and a high rate of births to unmarried mothers.
The desire for a higher moral standard is not a lament (挽歌) for some nonexistent “golden age,” Elshtain says, nor is it a wishful (一厢情愿的) longing for a time that denied opportunities to women and minorities. Most people, in fact, favor the lessening of prejudice.
Moral decline will not be reversed until people find ways to counter the materialism in society, she says. “Slowly, you recognize that the things that matter are those that cant’ be bought.”
第36题：Professor Elshtain is pleased to see that Americans ________.
A) have adapted to a new set of moral standards
B) are longing for the return of the good old days
C) have realized the importance of material things
D) are awakening to the lowering of their moral standards
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In this passage, “out of sight and out of mind” （Lines 2-3, Para. 3） probably means ________.
A．being unable to think properly for lack of insight
B．being totally out of touch with business at home
C．missing opportunities for promotion when abroad
D．leaving all care and worry behind
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Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1. For questions 1-7, choose the best answer from the four choices marked A．,B．,C．andD．. For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.
Helicopter Moms vs. Free-Range KidsWould you let your fourth-grader ride public transportation without an adult？ Probably not. Still, when Lenore Skenazy, a columnist for the New York Sun, wrote about letting her son take the subway alone to get back to "Long story short:my son got home from a department store on the Upper East Side, she didn’t expect to get hit with a wave of criticism from readers.
“Long story short: My son got home, overjoyed with independence,” Skenazy wrote on April 4 in the New York Sun. “Long story longer: Half the people I’ve told this episode to now want to turn on in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and cell phone and careful watch is the right way to rear kids. It’s not. It’s debilitating (使虚弱)—for us and for them.”
Online message boards were soon full of people both applauding and condemning Skenazy’s decision to let her son go it alone. She wound up defending herself on CNN (accompanied by her son) and on popular blogs like the buffington post, where her follow-up piece was ironically headlined “More From America’s Worst Mom.”
The episode has ignited another one of those debates that divides parents into vocal opposing camps. Are Modern parents needlessly overprotective, or is the world a more complicated and dangerous place than it was when previous generations were allowed to wander about unsupervised？
From the “she’s an irresponsible mother” camp came: “Shame on you for being so careless about his safety,” in Comments on the buffongton post. And there was this from a mother of four: “How would you have felt if he didn’t come home？” But Skenazy got a lot of support, too, with women and men writing in with stories about how they were allowed to take trips all by them selves at seven or eight. She also got heaps of praise for bucking the “helicopter parent” trend: “Good for this Mom,” one commenter wrote on the buffongton post. “This is a much-needed reality check.”
Last week, encouraged by all the attention, Skenazy started her own blog—Free Range, kids—promoting the idea that modern children need some of the same independence that her generation had. In the good old days nine-year-old baby boomers rode their bikes to school, walked to the store, took buses—and even subways—all by themselves. Her blog, she says, is dedicated to sensible parenting. “At Free Range Kids, we believe in safe kids. We believe in car seats and safety belts. We do NOT believe that every time school-age children go outside, they need a security guard.”
So why are some parents so nervous about letting their children out of their sight？ Are cities and towns less safe and kids more vulnerable to crimes like child kidnap and sexual abuse than they were in previous generations？
Not exactly. New York City, for instance, is safer than it’s ever been; it’s ranked 36th in crime among all American cities. Nationwide, stringer kidnaps are extremely rare; there’s a one-in-a-million chance a child will be taken by a stranger, according to the Justice Department. And 90 percent of sexual abuse cases are committed by someone the child knows. Mortality rates from all causes, including disease and accidents, for American children are lower now than they were 25 years’ ago. According to Child Trends, a nonprofit research group, between 1980 and 2003 death rates dropped by 44 percent for children aged 5 to 14 and 32 percent for teens aged 15 to 19.
Then there’s the whole question of whether modern parents are more watchful and nervous about safety than previous generations. Yes, some are. Part of the problem is that with wall to wall Internet and cable news, every missing child case gets so much airtime that it’s not surprising even normal parental anxiety can be amplified. And many middle-class parents have gotten used to managing their children’s time and shuttling them to various enriching activities, so the idea of letting them out on their own can seem like a risk. Back in 1972, when many of today’s parents were kids, 87 percent of children who lived within a mile of school walked or biked every day. But today, the Centers for Disease Control report that only 13 percent of children bike, walk or otherwise t themselves to school.
The extra supervision is both a city and a suburb phenomenon. Parents are worried about crime, and they are worried about kids getting caught in traffic in a city that’s not used to pedestrians. On the other hand, there are still plenty of kids whose parents give them a lot of independence, by choice or by necessity. The After School Alliance finds that more than 14 million kids aged 5 to 17 are responsible for taking care of themselves after school. Only 6.5 million kids participate in organized programs. “Many children who have working parents have to take the subway or bus to get to school. Many do this by themselves because they have no other way to get to the schools,” says Dr. Richard Gallagher, director of the Parenting Institute at the New York University Child Study Center.
For those parents who wonder how and when they should start allowing their kids more freedom, there’s no clear-cut answer. Child experts discourage a one-size-fits-all approach to parenting. What’s right for Skenazy’s nine-year-old could be inappropriate for another one. It all depends on developmental issue, maturity, and the psychological and emotional makeup of that child. Several factors must be taken into account, says Gallagher. “The ability to follow parent guidelines, the child’s level of comfort in handling such situations, and a child’s general judgment should be weighed.”
Gallagher agrees with Skenazy that many nine-year-olds are ready for independence like taking public transportation alone. “At certain times of the day, on certain routes, the subways are generally safe for these children, especially if they have grown up in the city and have been taught how to be safe, how to obtain help if they are concerned for their safety, and how to avoid unsafe situations by being watchful and on their toes.”
But even with more traffic and fewer sidewalks, modern parents do have one advantage their parents didn’t: the cell phone. Being able to check in with a child anytime goes a long way toward relieving parental anxiety and may help parents loosen their control a little sooner. Skenazy got a lot of criticism because she didn’t give her kid her cell phone because she thought he’d lose it and wanted him to learn to go it alone without depending on mom—a major principle of free-range parenting. But most parents are more than happy to use cell phones to keep track of their kids.
And for those who like the idea of free-range kids but still struggle with their inner helicopter parent, there may be a middle way. A new generation of GPS cell phones with tracking software make it easier than ever to follow a child’s every movement via the Internet—without seeming to interfere or hover. Of course, when they go to college, they might start objecting to being monitored as they’re on parole (假释).
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。
1. When Lenore Skenazy’s son was allowed to take the subway alone, he ________.
A．was afraid that he might get lost
B．enjoyed having the independence
C．was only too pleased to take the risk
D．thought he was an exceptional child
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Normal 0 7.8 磅 0 2 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1. For questions 1-7, choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.
Bosses Say “Yes” to Home Work
Rising costs of office space, time lost to stressful commuting, and a slow recognition that workers have lives beyond the office—all are strong arguments for letting staff work from home.
For the small business, there are additional benefits too—staff are more productive, and happier, enabling firms to keep their headcounts (员工数) and their recruitment costs to a minimum. It can also provide competitive advantage, especially when small businesses want to attract new staff but don’t have the budget to offer huge salaries.
While company managers have known about the benefits for a long time, many have done little about it, sceptical of whether they could trust their employees to work to full capacity without supervision, or concerned about the additional expenses teleworking policies might incur as staff start charging their home phone bills to the business.
Yet this is now changing. When communications provider Inter-Tel researched the use of remote working solutions among small-and-medium-sized UK businesses in April this year, it found that 28% more companies claimed to have introduced flexible working practices than a year ago.
The UK network of Business Links confirms that it too has seen a growing interest in remote working solutions from small businesses seeking its advice, and claims that as many as 60-70% of the businesses that come through its doors now offer some form. of remote working support to their workforces.
Technology advances, including the widespread availability of broadband, are making the introduction of remote working a piece of cake.
“If systems are set up properly, staff can have access to all the resources they have in the office wherever they have an internet connection,” says Andy Poulton, e-business advisor at Business Link for Berkshire and Wiltshire. “There are some very exciting developments which have enabled this.”
One is the availability of broadband everywhere, which now covers almost all of the country (BT claims that, by July, 99.8% of its exchanges will be broadband enabled, with alternative plans in place for even the most remote exchanges). “This is the enabler,” Poulton says.
Yet while broadband has come down in price too, those service providers targeting the business market warn against consumer services masquerading (伪装) as business-friendly broadband.
“Broadband is available for as little as ￡15 a month, but many businesses fail to appreciate the hidden costs of such a service,” says Neil Stephenson, sales and marketing director at Onyx Internet, an internet service provider based in the north-east of England. “Providers offering broadband for rock-bottom prices are notorious for poor service, with regular breakdowns and heavily congested (拥堵的) networks. It is always advisable for businesses to look beyond the price tag and look for a business-only provider that can offer more reliability, with good support.” Such services don’t cost too much—quality services can be found for upwards of ￡30 a month.
The benefits of broadband to the occasional home worker are that they can access email in real time, and take full advantage of services such as internet-based backup or even internet-based phone services.
Internet-based telecoms, or VoIP (Voice over IP) to give it its technical title, is an interesting tool to any business supporting remote working. Not necessarily because of the promise of free or reduced price phone calls (which experts point out is misleading for the average business), but because of the sophisticated voice services that can be exploited by the remote worker—facilities such as voicemail and call forwarding, which provide a continuity of the company image for customers and business partners.
By law, companies must “consider seriously” requests to work flexibly made by a parent with a child under the age of six, or a disabled child under 18. It was the need to accommodate employees with young children that motivated accountancy firm Wright Vigar to begin promoting teleworking recently. The company, which needed to upgrade its IT infrastructure (基础设施) to provide connectivity with a new, second office, decided to introduce support for remote working at the same time.
Marketing director Jack O’Hern explains that the company has a relatively young workforce, many of whom are parents: “One of the triggers was when one of our tax managers returned from maternity leave. She was intending to work part time, but could only manage one day a week in the office due to childcare. By offering her the ability to work from home, we have doubled her capacity—now she works a day a week from home, and a day in the office. This is great for her, and for us as we retain someone highly qualified.”
For Wright Vigar, which has now equipped all of its fee-earners to be able to work at maximum productivity when away from the offices (whether that’s from home, or while on the road), this strategy is not just about saving on commute time or cutting them loose from the office, but enabling them to work more flexible hours that fit around their home life.
O’Hern says: “Although most of our work is client-based and must fit around this, we can’t see any reason why a parent can’t be on hand to deal with something important at home, if they have the ability to complete a project later in the day.”
Supporting this new way of working came with a price, though. Although the firm was updating its systems anyway, the company spent 10-15% more per user to equip them with a laptop rather than a PC, and about the same to upgrade to a server that would enable remote staff to connect to the company networks and access all their usual resources.
Although Wright Vigar hasn’t yet quantified the business benefits, it claims that, in addition to being able to retain key staff with young families, it is able to save fee-earners a substantial amount of “dead” time in their working days.
That staff can do this without needing a fixed telephone line provides even more efficiency savings. “With Wi-Fi (fast, wireless internet connections) popping up all over the place, even on trains, our fee-earners can be productive as they travel, and between meetings, instead of having to kill time at the shops,” he adds.
The company will also be able to avoid the expense of having to relocate staff to temporary offices for several weeks when it begins disruptive office renovations soon.
Financial recruitment specialist Lynne Hargreaves knows exactly how much her firm has saved by adopting a teleworking strategy, which has involved handing her company’s data management over to a remote hosting company, Datanet, so it can be accessible by all the company’s consultants over broadband internet connections.
It has enabled the company to dispense with its business premises altogether, following the realisation that it just didn’t need them any more. “The main motivation behind adopting home working was to increase my own productivity, as a single mum to an 11-year-old,” says Hargreaves. “But I soon realised that, as most of our business is done on the phone, email and at off-site meetings, we didn’t need our offices at all. We’re now saving ￡16,000 a year on rent, plus the cost of utilities, not to mention what would have been spent on commuting.”
1. What is the main topic of this passage？
A) How business managers view hi-tech.
B) Relations between employers and employees.
C) How to cut down the costs of small businesses.
D) Benefits of the practice of teleworking.
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（Para. 5, Passage Four）
Although reefs face other threats from pollution, industrial activities, and overfishing, it is global climate change that most concerns scientists
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As used in this passage, the word devised（Para. 2） probably means（）
A．understood
B．wrote
C．created
D．proved
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（Para. 2, Passage Two）
We should like to find out the customs of other races, so that they will not think us ill-mannered
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To live a completely sedentary life-style（Para.2） in the passage means（）
A．to live a decent life
B．to live an inactive life
C．to live a life of vice
D．to live a life with complete freedom
