题目内容
（请给出正确答案）
the steady improvement in the means of travel.
A) has witnessed B) was witnessed C) witnessed D) is witnessed
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更多“The last half of the nineteent…”相关的问题
A．have witnessed
B．was witnessed
C．witnessed
D．is witnessed
1.()half an hour
2.()last year
3.()noon
4.()one month
5.() yesterday
6.()three days
7.()I started the job
8.()decades
The two men walked happily for half an hour, 【64】 then one of them said to the other, "That's a 【65】 beautiful girl. "
"Where can you see a beautiful girl？" said the 【66】 "I can't see one anywhere. I can see two young 【67】 They're walking towards us. "
"The girl's walking behind us. " 【68】 the first man quietly.
"But how can you see her 【69】 ？" asked his friend.
The first man smiled and said. "I 【70】 see her. but I can see the two young men's eyes. "
(61)
A．in
B．on
C．of
D．with
A century ago,【C2】______than five percent of all people lived in cities.【C3】______the middle of this century it could be seventy percent, or【C4】______six and a half billion people. Already three-fourths of people in【C5】______countries live in cities. Now most urban population【C6】______is in the developing world.
Urbanization can【C7】______to social and economic progress, but also put【C8】______on cities to provide housing and【C9】______. The new report says almost two hundred thousand people move【C10】______cities and towns each day. It says worsening inequalities,【C11】______by social divisions and differences in【C12】______, could result in violence and crime【C13】______cities
plan better.
Another issue is urban sprawl(无序扩展的城区). This is where cities【C14】______quickly into rural areas, sometimes【C15】______a much faster rate than urban population growth.
Sprawl is【C16】______in the United States. Americans move a lot. In a recent study, Art Hall at the University of Kansas found that people are moving away from the【C17】______cities to smaller ones. He sees a【C18】______toward "de-urbanization" across the nation.
【C19】______urban economies still provide many【C20】______that rural areas do not.
【C1】
A．came on
B．came off
C．came over
D．came out
A leading cause of the【7】divorce rate (more than half of all marriages end in divorce) is the failure of husbands and wives to【8】effectively. They don't listen to each other. Neither person【9】to the actual message sent by the other.
In【10】fashion, political scientists report that a growing number of people believe that their elected and【11】officials are out of【12】with the constituents they are supposedly【13】Why？ Because they don't believe that they listen to them. In fact, it seems that sometimes our politicians don't even listen to themselves. The following is a true story: At a national【14】conference held in Albuquerque some years ago, then Senator Joseph Montoya was【15】a copy of a press release by a press aide shortly before he got up before the audience to【16】a speech. When he rose to speak,【17】the horror of the press aide and the【18】of his audience, Montoya began reading the press release, not his speech. He began, "For immediate release. Senator Joseph M. Montoya, Democrat of New Mexico, last night told the National... " Montoya read the entire six page release,【19】with the statement that he "was repeatedly【20】by applause. "
(1)
A．scarce
B．little
C．rare
D．poor
Among American financial commentators, it is almost universally accepted that shares always rise over the long run. And one ought to expect shares (which are risky) to deliver a higher return than risk free assets such as government bonds.
Nevertheless, investors ought also to remember the world's second largest economy, Japan. Its most popular stock-market average, the Nikkei 225, peaked at 38,915 on the last trading day of the 1980s; this week, nearly 18 years later, it is still only around 17,000, less than half its peak. Buying on the dips did not work either.
Professionals of the London Business School examined the record of 16 stock markets which were in continuous operation over the course of the 20th century. In itself, this selection showed survivorship bias by excluding the likes of Russia and China. The academies found that only three other countries could match the American record of having no 20-year periods with negative real returns.
Other investors were far less lucky. Japanese, French, German and Spanish investors all suffered instances where they had to wait 50—60 years to earn a positive real return. It was no good following the famous advice to "put the shares in a drawer and forget about them"; the furniture would not have lasted that long.
Besides survivorship bias, there is another problem with the belief that stock markets must always go up. Investors will keep buying until prices reach stratospheric(稳定的) levels. That clearly happened in Japan in the late 1980s, and after seven years, it is still not much more than half its peak level.
A significant proportion of the return from equities in the second half of the 20th century came from a re-rating of shares; investors were willing to pay a higher multiple for profits. But re-rating cannot continue forever.
If investors want a simple parallel with share prices, they need only mm to the American housing market. Back in 2005 an economic adviser to the president said", we've never had a decline in housing prices on a nationwide basis. What I think is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize".
Lots of people took the same view and were willing to borrow (and lend) on a vast scale on the grounds that higher house prices would always bail them out. They are now counting their losses. Investors in equities should beware of over-committing themselves on the basis of a similar belief Just ask the Japanese.
The word "dips" (Line 1, Paragraph 1) means that ______.
A．a place where the surface of something reaches its climax.
B．a place where the surface of something goes up suddenly and rapidly.
C．a place where the surface of something goes down suddenly then goes up again.
D．a place where the surface of something reaches its lowest point then goes up.
Companies have embarked on what looks like the beginnings of a re-run of the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) wave that defined the second bubbly half of the 1990s. That period, readers might recall, was characterized by a collective splurge that saw the creation of some of the most indebted companies in history, many of which later went bankrupt or were themselves broken up. Wild bidding for telecoms, internet and media assets, not to mention the madness that was Daimler's $40 billion motoring takeover in 1998—1999 of Chrysler or the Time-Warner/AOL megs-merger in 2000, helped to give mergers a thoroughly bad name. A consensus emerged that M&A was a great way for investment banks to reap rich fees, and a sure way for ambitious managers to betray investors by trashing the value of their shares.
Now M&A is back. Its return is a global phenomenon, but it is perhaps most striking in Europe, where so far this year there has been a stream of deals worth more than $600 billion in total, around 40% higher than in the same period of 2004. The latest effort came this week when France's Saint-Gobain, a building-materials firm, unveiled the details of its 3.6 billion ($6.5 billion) hostile bid for BPB, a British rival. In the first half of the year, cross-border activity was up threefold over the same period last year. Even France Telecom, which was left almost bankrupt at the end of the last merger wave, recently bought Amena, a Spanish mobile operator.
Shareholder's approval of all these deals raises an interesting question for companies everywhere: are investors right to think that these mergers are more likely to succeed than earlier ones.'？ There are two answers. The first is that past mergers may have been judged too harshly. The second is that the present rash of European deals does look more rational, but—and the caveat is crucial—only so far. The pattern may not hold.
M&A's poor reputation stems not only from the string of spectacular failures in the 1990s, but also from studies that showed value destruction for acquiring shareholders in 8.0% of deals. But more recent studies by economists have introduced a note of caution. Investors should look at the number of deals that succeed or fail (typically measured by the impact on the share price), rather than (as you might think) weighing them by size. For example, no one doubts that the Daimler-Chrysler merger destroyed value. The combined market value of the two firms is still below that of Daimler alone before the deal. This single deal accounted for half of all German M&A activity by value in 1998 and 1999, and probably dominated people's thinking about mergers to the same degree. Throw in a few other such monsters and it is no wonder that broad studies have tended to find that mergers are a bad idea. The true picture is more complicated.
According to the text, a collective opinion on the mergers and acquisitions also concentrates on______.
A．economic recession
B．value destruction
C．potential hazards
D．asset proposition
Policymakers and industry have four options: reduce vehicle use, increase the efficiency and reduce the emissions of conventional gasoline-powered vehicles, switch to less harmful fuels, or find less polluting driving systems. The last of these -- in particular the introduction of vehicles powered by electricity -- is ultimately the only sustainable option. The other alternatives are attractive in theory but in practice are either impractical or offer only marginal improvements. For example, reduced vehicle use could solve traffic problems and a host of social and environmental problems, but evidence from around the world suggests that it is very difficult to make people give up their cars to any significant extent. In the US, mass transit ridership and carpooling have declined since World War Ⅱ. Even in western Europe, with fuel prices averaging more than $1 a liter (about $ 4 a gallon) and with easily accessible mass transit and dense populations, cars still account for 80 percent of all passenger travel.
Improved energy efficiency is also appealing, but automotive fuel economy has barely made any progress in 10 years. Alternative fuels such as natural gas, burned in internal-combustion engines, could be introduced at relatively low cost, but they would lead to only marginal reductions in pollution and greenhouse emissions (especially because oil companies are already spending billions of dollars every year to develop less polluting types of gasoline).
From the passage we know that the increased use of cars will ______.
A．consume half of the oil produced in the world
B．have serious consequences for the well-being of all nations
C．widen the gap between the developed and developing countries
D．impose an intolerable economic burden on residents of large cities
Mark trouble spots with bright tapes.The first and last steps on stairs are usually high-risk accident areas.Applying bright tapes and using bright light in these areas would make these spots easier to see.
Put grab bars(扶手) in the bathroom.A large number of falls occur in the bathroom.This is unfortunate(不幸的) because it's easy to make the area safe from accidents.Putting grab bars in the bathroom gives people something to hang on to.
Invest in a personal alarm.A personal alarm can be started if a person falls or otherwise gets in trouble.With the push of a button, the alarm automatically sends a signal, which gets someone to call and see if the person needs help.
21.By making some very simple changes at home, old people _____.
A.are free from home accidents
B.can improve their health
C.are likely to live longer
D.can live more safely
22.Last Steps on stairs may become a high-risk accident area if they are _____.
A.not painted in a different color
B.not marked with bright tapes
C.fixed with grab bars
D.very brightly lit
23.Falls in the bathroom are considered to be unfortunate because _____.
A.they can easily be avoided
B.old people seldom fall in bathrooms
C.grab bars do not help to prevent falls
D.bathroom accidents are difficult to prevent
24.A personal alarm is designed for old people to _____.
A.detect safety conditions at home
B.avoid falls in the bathroom
C.send out signals for help
D.make phone calls easily
25.The purpose of this passage is to tell people that _____.
A.most old people die from accidents at home
B.up to half of home accidents could be prevented
C.falls at home can be avoided by taking some simple measures
D.protection of old people should be the first concern for the public
Part A
Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)
The idea of humanoid robots is not new, of course. They have been part of the imaginative landscape ever since Karl Capek, a Czech writer, first dreamed them up for his 1921 play "Rossum's Universal Robots". (The word "robot" comes from the Czech word for drudgery, robota.) Since then, Hollywood has produced countless variations on the theme, from the sultry False Maria in Fritz Lang's silent masterpiece "Metropolis" to the wittering C-3PO in "Star Wars" and the ruthless assassin of "Terminator". Humanoid robots have walked into our collective subconscious, colouring our views of the future.
But now Japan's industrial giants are spending billions of yen to make such robots a reality. Their new humanoids represent impressive feats of engineering: when Honda introduced Asimo, a four-foot robot that had been in development for some 15 years, it walked so fluidly that its white, articulated exterior seemed to conceal a human. Honda continues to make the machine faster, friendlier and more agile. Last October, when Asimo was inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh, it walked on to the stage and accepted its own plaque.
At two and a half feet tall, Sony's QRIO is smaller and more toy-like than Asimo. It walks, understands a small number of voice commands, and can navigate on its own. If it falls over, it gets up and resumes where it left off. It can even connect wirelessly to the Internet and broadcast what its camera eyes can see. In 2003, Sony demonstrated an upgraded QRIO that could run. Honda responded last December with a version of Asimo that runs at twice the speed.
In 2004, Toyota joined the fray with its own family of robots, called Partner, one of which is a four-foot humanoid that plays the trumpet. Its fingers work the instrument's valves, and it has mechanical lungs and artificial lips. Toyota hopes to offer a commercial version of the robot by 2010. This month, 50 Partner robots will act as guides at Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan.
Despite their sudden proliferation, however, humanoids are still a mechanical minority. Most of the world's robots are faceless, footless and mute. They are bolted to the floors of factories, stamping out car parts or welding pieces of metal, machines making more machines. According to the United Nations, business orders for industrial robots jumped 18% in the first half of 2004. They may soon be outnumbered by domestic robots, such as self-navigating vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers and window washers, which are selling fast. But neither industrial nor domestic robots are humanoid.
In Paragraph I the author introduces his topic by relating______.
A．the idea of humanoid robots
B．Karl Capek's creation of robots
C．Hollywood's production of robot films
D．the origin of and popular films about robots
