- The health-care economy is filled with unusual and even unique economic relationships. One of the least understood involves the peculiar roles of producer or "provider" and purchaser or "consumer" in the typical doctor-patient relationship. In most sectors of the economy, it is the seller who attempts to attract a potential buyer with various inducements of price, quality, and utility, and it is the buyer who makes the decision. Such condition, however, does not prevail in most of the health-care industry. In the health-care industry, the doctor-patient relationship is the mirror image of the ordinary relationship between producer and consumer. Once an individual has chosen to see a physician -- and even then there may be no real choice -- it is the physician who usually makes all significant purchasing decisions: whether the patient should "return next Wednesday", whether X-rays are needed, whether drugs should be prescribed, etc... It is a rare and sophisticated patient who will challenge such professional decisions or raise in advance questions about price, especially when the disease is regarded as serious. This is particularly significant in relation to hospital care. The physician must certify the need for hospitalization, determine what procedures will be performed, and announce when the patient may be discharged. The patient may be consulted about some of these decisions, but in the main it is the doctor’s judgments that are final. Little wonder then that in the eye of the hospital it is the physician who is the real "consumer". As a consequence, the medical staff represents the "power center" in hospital policy and decision-making, not the administration. Although usually there are in this situation four identifiable participants -- the physician, the hospital, the patient, and the payer (generally an insurance carder or government ) -- the physician makes the essential decision for all of them. The hospital becomes an extension of the physician; the payer generally meets most of the bills generated by the physician/hospital, and for the most part the patient plays a passive role. We estimate that about 75 to 80 percent of healthcare expenditures are determined by physicians, not patients. For this reason, economy directed at patients or the general are relatively ineffective. It can be inferred from the passage that doctors are able to determine hospital policies because ______.
- Humanity’s primal (原始的) efforts to systematize the concepts of size, shapes, and number are usually regarded as the earliest mathematics. However, the concept of number and the counting process developed so long (67) the time of recorded history (there is archaeological (68) that counting was employed by humans as far back as 50,000 years ago) that the (69) of this development is largely conjectural (好推测的). Imaging how it probably came (70) is not difficult. The argument that humans, (71) in prehistoric times, had some number sense, at least (72) the extent of recognizing the concepts of more and less when some objects were (73) to or taken away from a small group, seems fair, for studies have shown that some animal possesses such a (74) . With the (75) evolution of society, simple counting became necessary. A tribe had to know how many members it had and how many enemies, and shepherd needed to know (76) the flock of sheep was decreasing in size. Probably the earliest way of keeping a count was by some simple tally (计算, 记录) method, (77) the principle of one-to-one corre-spondence. In (78) a count of sheep, for example, one finger per sheep could be (79) . Counts could also be (80) by making scratches in the dirt or on a stone, by cutting notches in a piece of wood, or by tying knots in a string. (81) , perhaps later, an assortment of vocal (82) was developed as a word tally against the number of objects in, a small group. And (83) later, with the development of writing, a set of (84) was invented to stand for these numbers. Such an imagined development is (85) by reports of anthropologists in their studies of present-day societies that are (86) to be similar to those of early humans.
- Humanity’s primal (原始的) efforts to systematize the concepts of size, shapes, and number are usually regarded as the earliest mathematics. However, the concept of number and the counting process developed so long (67) the time of recorded history (there is archaeological (68) that counting was employed by humans as far back as 50,000 years ago) that the (69) of this development is largely conjectural (好推测的). Imaging how it probably came (70) is not difficult. The argument that humans, (71) in prehistoric times, had some number sense, at least (72) the extent of recognizing the concepts of more and less when some objects were (73) to or taken away from a small group, seems fair, for studies have shown that some animal possesses such a (74) . With the (75) evolution of society, simple counting became necessary. A tribe had to know how many members it had and how many enemies, and shepherd needed to know (76) the flock of sheep was decreasing in size. Probably the earliest way of keeping a count was by some simple tally (计算, 记录) method, (77) the principle of one-to-one corre-spondence. In (78) a count of sheep, for example, one finger per sheep could be (79) . Counts could also be (80) by making scratches in the dirt or on a stone, by cutting notches in a piece of wood, or by tying knots in a string. (81) , perhaps later, an assortment of vocal (82) was developed as a word tally against the number of objects in, a small group. And (83) later, with the development of writing, a set of (84) was invented to stand for these numbers. Such an imagined development is (85) by reports of anthropologists in their studies of present-day societies that are (86) to be similar to those of early humans.
- Road courtesy is not only good manners, but good sense, too. It takes the most level-headed and good-tempered of drivers to resist the temptation to get their revenge when subjected to uncivilized behavior. On the other hand, a little courtesy goes a long way towards relieving the tensions and frustrations of motoring. A friendly nod or a wave of acknowledgement in response to an act of courtesy helps to create an atmosphere of good will and tolerance so necessary in modem traffic conditions. But such acknowledgements of courtesy are all too rare today. Many drivers nowadays don’t even seem able to recognize courtesy when they see it. Contrary to general opinion, young drivers (especially sports car owners, who take pride in their driving) have better manners than their seniors. But this attitude is short-lived in the world of modem driving where many drivers neither expect nor give any quarter. This may be a commendable trait on the battlefield but is out of place on the roads. Lorry drivers say they have almost abandoned the practice of signaling cars to overtake when the road is clear, because many of the cars took too long to pass. Their drivers couldn’t be bothered to select a lower gear. Others, after overtaking, slowed down again and hogged (多占) the road. Again, a motoring magazine has recently drawn attention to the increasing number of drivers who never wait for gaps. "They manufacture them by force, using their direction indicators as a threat rather than a warning." Slanging matches (互相谩骂) and even punch-ups are quite common. It can’t be long before we hear of pistols and knives being used: we can then call our dual carriageways "’duel carriageways", and solve a spelling problem in the process. Driving is essentially a state of mind. However technically skilled a driver may be, he can’t be an advanced motorist if he is always arrogant and aggressive. Ironically, misplaced courtesy can also be dangerous and selfish. Typical examples are the driver who brakes violently to allow a lone car to emerge from a side street at some hazard to following traffic, when a few seconds later the road would be clear anyway; or the man who waves a child across a pedestrian crossing into the path of oncoming vehicles that may be unable to stop in time. The same goes for encouraging old ladies to cross the road wherever and whenever they care to. It always amazes me that the highways are not littered with the corpses of these grannies. The word "them" (Line 5, Para. 3 ) refers to ______.
- Humanity’s primal (原始的) efforts to systematize the concepts of size, shapes, and number are usually regarded as the earliest mathematics. However, the concept of number and the counting process developed so long (67) the time of recorded history (there is archaeological (68) that counting was employed by humans as far back as 50,000 years ago) that the (69) of this development is largely conjectural (好推测的). Imaging how it probably came (70) is not difficult. The argument that humans, (71) in prehistoric times, had some number sense, at least (72) the extent of recognizing the concepts of more and less when some objects were (73) to or taken away from a small group, seems fair, for studies have shown that some animal possesses such a (74) . With the (75) evolution of society, simple counting became necessary. A tribe had to know how many members it had and how many enemies, and shepherd needed to know (76) the flock of sheep was decreasing in size. Probably the earliest way of keeping a count was by some simple tally (计算, 记录) method, (77) the principle of one-to-one corre-spondence. In (78) a count of sheep, for example, one finger per sheep could be (79) . Counts could also be (80) by making scratches in the dirt or on a stone, by cutting notches in a piece of wood, or by tying knots in a string. (81) , perhaps later, an assortment of vocal (82) was developed as a word tally against the number of objects in, a small group. And (83) later, with the development of writing, a set of (84) was invented to stand for these numbers. Such an imagined development is (85) by reports of anthropologists in their studies of present-day societies that are (86) to be similar to those of early humans.
- Humanity’s primal (原始的) efforts to systematize the concepts of size, shapes, and number are usually regarded as the earliest mathematics. However, the concept of number and the counting process developed so long (67) the time of recorded history (there is archaeological (68) that counting was employed by humans as far back as 50,000 years ago) that the (69) of this development is largely conjectural (好推测的). Imaging how it probably came (70) is not difficult. The argument that humans, (71) in prehistoric times, had some number sense, at least (72) the extent of recognizing the concepts of more and less when some objects were (73) to or taken away from a small group, seems fair, for studies have shown that some animal possesses such a (74) . With the (75) evolution of society, simple counting became necessary. A tribe had to know how many members it had and how many enemies, and shepherd needed to know (76) the flock of sheep was decreasing in size. Probably the earliest way of keeping a count was by some simple tally (计算, 记录) method, (77) the principle of one-to-one corre-spondence. In (78) a count of sheep, for example, one finger per sheep could be (79) . Counts could also be (80) by making scratches in the dirt or on a stone, by cutting notches in a piece of wood, or by tying knots in a string. (81) , perhaps later, an assortment of vocal (82) was developed as a word tally against the number of objects in, a small group. And (83) later, with the development of writing, a set of (84) was invented to stand for these numbers. Such an imagined development is (85) by reports of anthropologists in their studies of present-day societies that are (86) to be similar to those of early humans.
- Humanity’s primal (原始的) efforts to systematize the concepts of size, shapes, and number are usually regarded as the earliest mathematics. However, the concept of number and the counting process developed so long (67) the time of recorded history (there is archaeological (68) that counting was employed by humans as far back as 50,000 years ago) that the (69) of this development is largely conjectural (好推测的). Imaging how it probably came (70) is not difficult. The argument that humans, (71) in prehistoric times, had some number sense, at least (72) the extent of recognizing the concepts of more and less when some objects were (73) to or taken away from a small group, seems fair, for studies have shown that some animal possesses such a (74) . With the (75) evolution of society, simple counting became necessary. A tribe had to know how many members it had and how many enemies, and shepherd needed to know (76) the flock of sheep was decreasing in size. Probably the earliest way of keeping a count was by some simple tally (计算, 记录) method, (77) the principle of one-to-one corre-spondence. In (78) a count of sheep, for example, one finger per sheep could be (79) . Counts could also be (80) by making scratches in the dirt or on a stone, by cutting notches in a piece of wood, or by tying knots in a string. (81) , perhaps later, an assortment of vocal (82) was developed as a word tally against the number of objects in, a small group. And (83) later, with the development of writing, a set of (84) was invented to stand for these numbers. Such an imagined development is (85) by reports of anthropologists in their studies of present-day societies that are (86) to be similar to those of early humans.
- Susan has ______________________ ( 把她儿子夹克的肘部加固) with leather patches to make it more durable.
- Humanity’s primal (原始的) efforts to systematize the concepts of size, shapes, and number are usually regarded as the earliest mathematics. However, the concept of number and the counting process developed so long (67) the time of recorded history (there is archaeological (68) that counting was employed by humans as far back as 50,000 years ago) that the (69) of this development is largely conjectural (好推测的). Imaging how it probably came (70) is not difficult. The argument that humans, (71) in prehistoric times, had some number sense, at least (72) the extent of recognizing the concepts of more and less when some objects were (73) to or taken away from a small group, seems fair, for studies have shown that some animal possesses such a (74) . With the (75) evolution of society, simple counting became necessary. A tribe had to know how many members it had and how many enemies, and shepherd needed to know (76) the flock of sheep was decreasing in size. Probably the earliest way of keeping a count was by some simple tally (计算, 记录) method, (77) the principle of one-to-one corre-spondence. In (78) a count of sheep, for example, one finger per sheep could be (79) . Counts could also be (80) by making scratches in the dirt or on a stone, by cutting notches in a piece of wood, or by tying knots in a string. (81) , perhaps later, an assortment of vocal (82) was developed as a word tally against the number of objects in, a small group. And (83) later, with the development of writing, a set of (84) was invented to stand for these numbers. Such an imagined development is (85) by reports of anthropologists in their studies of present-day societies that are (86) to be similar to those of early humans.
- Some women ______________________ (本来在工作中能够有一份不错的收入) instead of staying home, but they decided not to work for the sake of the family.
- Humanity’s primal (原始的) efforts to systematize the concepts of size, shapes, and number are usually regarded as the earliest mathematics. However, the concept of number and the counting process developed so long (67) the time of recorded history (there is archaeological (68) that counting was employed by humans as far back as 50,000 years ago) that the (69) of this development is largely conjectural (好推测的). Imaging how it probably came (70) is not difficult. The argument that humans, (71) in prehistoric times, had some number sense, at least (72) the extent of recognizing the concepts of more and less when some objects were (73) to or taken away from a small group, seems fair, for studies have shown that some animal possesses such a (74) . With the (75) evolution of society, simple counting became necessary. A tribe had to know how many members it had and how many enemies, and shepherd needed to know (76) the flock of sheep was decreasing in size. Probably the earliest way of keeping a count was by some simple tally (计算, 记录) method, (77) the principle of one-to-one corre-spondence. In (78) a count of sheep, for example, one finger per sheep could be (79) . Counts could also be (80) by making scratches in the dirt or on a stone, by cutting notches in a piece of wood, or by tying knots in a string. (81) , perhaps later, an assortment of vocal (82) was developed as a word tally against the number of objects in, a small group. And (83) later, with the development of writing, a set of (84) was invented to stand for these numbers. Such an imagined development is (85) by reports of anthropologists in their studies of present-day societies that are (86) to be similar to those of early humans.
- Humanity’s primal (原始的) efforts to systematize the concepts of size, shapes, and number are usually regarded as the earliest mathematics. However, the concept of number and the counting process developed so long (67) the time of recorded history (there is archaeological (68) that counting was employed by humans as far back as 50,000 years ago) that the (69) of this development is largely conjectural (好推测的). Imaging how it probably came (70) is not difficult. The argument that humans, (71) in prehistoric times, had some number sense, at least (72) the extent of recognizing the concepts of more and less when some objects were (73) to or taken away from a small group, seems fair, for studies have shown that some animal possesses such a (74) . With the (75) evolution of society, simple counting became necessary. A tribe had to know how many members it had and how many enemies, and shepherd needed to know (76) the flock of sheep was decreasing in size. Probably the earliest way of keeping a count was by some simple tally (计算, 记录) method, (77) the principle of one-to-one corre-spondence. In (78) a count of sheep, for example, one finger per sheep could be (79) . Counts could also be (80) by making scratches in the dirt or on a stone, by cutting notches in a piece of wood, or by tying knots in a string. (81) , perhaps later, an assortment of vocal (82) was developed as a word tally against the number of objects in, a small group. And (83) later, with the development of writing, a set of (84) was invented to stand for these numbers. Such an imagined development is (85) by reports of anthropologists in their studies of present-day societies that are (86) to be similar to those of early humans.
- Humanity’s primal (原始的) efforts to systematize the concepts of size, shapes, and number are usually regarded as the earliest mathematics. However, the concept of number and the counting process developed so long (67) the time of recorded history (there is archaeological (68) that counting was employed by humans as far back as 50,000 years ago) that the (69) of this development is largely conjectural (好推测的). Imaging how it probably came (70) is not difficult. The argument that humans, (71) in prehistoric times, had some number sense, at least (72) the extent of recognizing the concepts of more and less when some objects were (73) to or taken away from a small group, seems fair, for studies have shown that some animal possesses such a (74) . With the (75) evolution of society, simple counting became necessary. A tribe had to know how many members it had and how many enemies, and shepherd needed to know (76) the flock of sheep was decreasing in size. Probably the earliest way of keeping a count was by some simple tally (计算, 记录) method, (77) the principle of one-to-one corre-spondence. In (78) a count of sheep, for example, one finger per sheep could be (79) . Counts could also be (80) by making scratches in the dirt or on a stone, by cutting notches in a piece of wood, or by tying knots in a string. (81) , perhaps later, an assortment of vocal (82) was developed as a word tally against the number of objects in, a small group. And (83) later, with the development of writing, a set of (84) was invented to stand for these numbers. Such an imagined development is (85) by reports of anthropologists in their studies of present-day societies that are (86) to be similar to those of early humans.
- Cable Television In the 1940s, there were four networks in the United States. Because of the frequencies allotted to television, the signals could only be received in a "line of sight" from the transmitting antenna. People living in remote areas couldn’t see the programs that were already becoming an important part of U. S. culture. In 1948, people living in remote valleys in Pennsylvania solved their reception problems by putting antennas on hills and running cables to their houses. These days, the same technology once used by remote villages and select cities allows viewers all over the country to access a wide variety of programs and channels that meet their individual needs and desires. By the early 1990s, cable television had reached nearly half the homes in the United States. Today, U. S. cable systems deliver hundreds of channels to some 60 million homes, while also providing a growing number of people with high-speed Internet access. Some cable systems even let you make telephone calls and receive new programming technologies! The earliest cable systems were, in effect, strategically placed antennas with very long cables connecting them to subscribers’ television sets. Because the signal from the antenna became Weaker as it traveled through the length of cable, cable providers had to insert amplifiers at regular intervals to boost the strength of the signal and make it acceptable for viewing. "In a cable system, the signal might have gone through 30 or 40 amplifiers before reaching your house, one every 1,000 feet or so," Wall says, "With each amplifier, you would get noise and distortion. Plus, if one of the amplifiers failed, you lost the picture. Cable got a reputation for not having the best quality picture and for not being reliable." In the late 1970s, cable television would find a solution to the amplifier problem. By then, they had also developed technology that allowed them to add more programming to cable service. In the early 1950s, cable systems began experimenting with ways to use microwave transmitting and receiving towers to capture the signals from distant stations. In some cases, this made television available to people who lived outside the range of standard broadcasts. In other cases, especially in the northeastern United States, it meant that cable customers might have access to several broadcast stations of the same network. For the first time, cable was used to enrich television viewing, not just make ordinary viewing possible. The addition of community antenna television stations and the spread of cable systems ultimately led manufacturers to add a switch to most new television sets. People could set their televisions to tune to channels, or they could set them for the plan used by most cable systems. In both tuning systems, each television station was given a 6-megahertz (MHz) slice of the radio spectrum. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) had originally devoted parts of the very high frequency (VHF) spectrum to 12 television channels. The channels weren’t put into a single block of frequencies, but were instead broken into two groups to avoid interfering with existing services. Later, when the growing popularity of television necessitated additional channels, the FCC allocated frequencies in the ultra-high frequency (UHF) portion of the spectrum. They established channels 14 to 69 using a block of frequencies between 470 MHz and 812 MHz. Because they used cable instead of antennas, cable television systems didn’t have to worry about existing services. Engineers could use the mid-band, those frequencies passed over by broadcast TV due to other signals, for channels 14-22. Channels 1 through 6 are at lower frequencies and the rest are higher. The "CATV \ Antenna" switch tells the television’s tuner whether to tune around the mid-band or to tune straight through it. While we’re on the subject of tuning, it’s worth considering why CATV systems don’t use the same frequencies for stations broadcasting on channels 1 to 6 that those stations use to broadcast over the airwaves. Cable equipment is designed to shield the signals carded on the cable from outside interference, and televisions are designed to accept signals only from the point of connection to the cable or antenna; but interference can still enter the system, especially at connectors. When the interference comes from the same channel that’s carded on the cable, there is a problem because of the difference in broadcast speed between the two signals. Radio signals travel through the air at a speed very close to the speed of light. In a coaxial (同轴的) cable that brings CATV signals to your house, radio signals travel at about two-thirds the speed of light. When the broadcast and cable signals get to the television tuner a fraction of a second apart, you see a double image called "ghosting". In 1972, a cable system in Wilkes-Barre, PA, began offering the first "pay-per-view" channel. The customers would pay to watch individual movies or sporting events. They called the new service Home Box Office, or HBO. It continued as a regional service until 1975, when HBO began transmitting a signal to a in geosynchronous (与地球的相对位置不变的) orbit and then down to cable systems. These early satellites could receive and retransmit up to 24 channels. The cable systems receiving the signals used dish antennas 10 meters in diameter, with a separate dish for each channel! As the number of program options grew, the bandwidth of cable systems also increased. Early systems operated at 200 MHz, allowing 33 channels. As technology progressed, the bandwidth increased to 300,400,500 and now 550 MHz, with the number of channels increasing to 91. Two additional advances in technology -- fiber optics and analog-to-digital conversion -- improved features and broadcast quality while continuing to increase the number of channels available. In 1976, a new sort of cable system debuted. This system used fiber-optic cable for the trunk cables that carry signals from the CATV head-end to neighborhoods. The head-end is where the cable system receives programming from various sources, assigns the programming to channels and retransmits it onto cables. By the late 1970s, fiber optics had progressed considerably and so were a cost. Effective means of carrying CATV signals over long distances. The great advantage of fiber-optic cable is that it doesn’t suffer the same signal losses as coaxial cable, which eliminated the need for so many amplifiers. Another benefit that came from the move to fiber-optic cable was greater customization. Since a single fiber-optic cable might serve 500 households, it became possible to target individual neighborhoods for messages and services. In 1989, General Instruments demonstrated that it was possible to convert an analog cable signal to digital and transmit it in a standard 6-MHz television channel. Using MPEG compression, CATV systems installed today can transmit up to 10 channels of video in the 6-MHz bandwidth of a single analog channel. When combined with a 550-MHz overall bandwidth, this allows the possibility of nearly 1,000 channels of video on a system. In addition, digital technology allows for error correction to ensure the quality of the received signal, also changed the quality of one of cable television’s most visible features: the scrambled channel. The first system to "scramble" a channel on a cable system was demonstrated in 1971. In the first scrambling system, one of the signals used to synchronize the television picture was removed when the signal was transmitted, then reinserted by a small device at the customer’s home. Later scrambling systems inserted a signal slightly offset from the channel’s frequency to interfere with the picture, then filtered the interfering signal out of the mix at the customer’s television. In both cases, the scrambled channel could generally be seen as a jagged, disarranged set of video images. In a digital system, the signal isn’t scrambled, but encrypted (加密的). The signal must be decoded with the proper key. Without the key, the digital-to-analog converter can’t turn the stream of bits into anything usable by the television’s tuner. When a "non-signal" is received, the cable system substitutes an advertisement or the familiar blue screen. What’s the purpose of the manufacturers’ adding a switch to most new television sets
- Many years ago a small elegant sailing boat was making its way slowly under an intense blue Mediterranean sky between the Greek islands of Ikaria and Naxos. The bow, that is, the forward part of the boat, was carved like a fish, or perhaps it was like a dolphin. The sail hung and fluttered in a faint wind and the sailors bent their brown backs over the oars. But all was not as peaceful as it seemed, for these sailors were planning to sell their passenger into slavery. He was obviously wellborn and rich, but what the villainous crew did not realize was that he was Dionysos, the Greeek God of Wine and Frenzy. When Dionysos realized their treachery he began to confound the sailors with magic: he turned their oars into snakes and filled the ship with vines and the sounds of flutes. The terrfied sailors dived into the sea to escape this madness and were transformed into dolphins by Nep-ture, the God of the Sea. Thus, according to Greek legend, dolphins were originally men, and this explains the friendship felt between man and these animals. This legend can be seen depictied on the Diony-sos cup which is still intact although it was made 540 years before the birth of Christ. Indeed, dolphins freqently appear in Greek legends and art, being found on walls and mosaic floors, on coins and statues. Poseidon, for example, was usually shown with dolphins, which often drew his seachariot, and it was he, according to legend, who put the dolphin constellation, in the sky where it can be seen in July. He did this out of gratitude to the dolphins for finding him his bride, Amphitrite, who was hiding from him in a sea cave. Later he had further reasons for gratitude to the dolphins since they rescued his son, Taras, from drowning. To the Greeks, and to the people of the Mediterranean lands where Greek culture spread, the dolphin became a symbol of swiftness, diligence and love. It became a god of protection for voyagers on sea and land, and also for those voyaging into the after life, so that the dead were buried with dolphin tokens in their hands. In addition to the legends about dolphin there are a number of stories in Greek writings which are prebablly at least partially true. These stories, told by many people including Aristotle, are the ones that came into such bad repute in the last century. But their stories of dolphins befriending children whom they allowed to ride on their backs, and of life-saying rescues, and human bodies brought to shore by dolphins have been paralleled so accurately, during this century, that we can no longer write off the Greek stories as merely sentimental fables. Let us look at the stories of rescue first. Taras, the son of the seagod, has already been mentioned, and Telemachos, son of the most famous adventurer of all time, Odysseus, is said to have been rescued in the same way, and for that reason Odysseus had a dolphin emblazoned on his shield and ring. Arion, a famous poet, musician and singer of his day, who was born on the island of Lesbos in 600 B. C., no doubt knew of these rescues and the legend of Dionysos and the dolphins. Perhaps he merely put them together to make a poem to sing as he accompanied himself on the harp. Certainly his dolphin story bears a striking resemblance to the Dionysos legend, but, who knows, it may be true. Here is the story. Arion, after a successful tour of Italy and Sicily, and loaded with money and prizes, took a ship for Corinth. He chose a corinthian ship rather than an Italian one for he trusted the Corinthians more. But evidently sailors were an untrustworthy lot, for very soon they were plotting to kill him and keep his treasures. Arion begged for his life, but they told him that he must either jump overboard or die by his own sword if he wished for a proper burial ashore. As a last favour, Arian pleaded to be allowed to sing, and, dressing himself in all his splendid clothes and weighed down in his riches, he stood in the stern and sang them the "Orthian", a high- pitched song addressed to the gods, and as he finished he leapt fully clothed in the sea. A dolphin, perhaps attracted by the shrill sounds, took Arian on its back and swam with him to Tainaron at the southern most tip of the Greek mainland. From there Arion made his way overland to Corinth to confront and bring to justice the greedy sailors. As a thank-coffering he placed a small bronze statue of a man on a dolphin in the temple at Tainaron where it was seen 700 years later by Pausanias, the Greek historian. According to Greek legend, what dolphins originally were
- Cable Television In the 1940s, there were four networks in the United States. Because of the frequencies allotted to television, the signals could only be received in a "line of sight" from the transmitting antenna. People living in remote areas couldn’t see the programs that were already becoming an important part of U. S. culture. In 1948, people living in remote valleys in Pennsylvania solved their reception problems by putting antennas on hills and running cables to their houses. These days, the same technology once used by remote villages and select cities allows viewers all over the country to access a wide variety of programs and channels that meet their individual needs and desires. By the early 1990s, cable television had reached nearly half the homes in the United States. Today, U. S. cable systems deliver hundreds of channels to some 60 million homes, while also providing a growing number of people with high-speed Internet access. Some cable systems even let you make telephone calls and receive new programming technologies! The earliest cable systems were, in effect, strategically placed antennas with very long cables connecting them to subscribers’ television sets. Because the signal from the antenna became Weaker as it traveled through the length of cable, cable providers had to insert amplifiers at regular intervals to boost the strength of the signal and make it acceptable for viewing. "In a cable system, the signal might have gone through 30 or 40 amplifiers before reaching your house, one every 1,000 feet or so," Wall says, "With each amplifier, you would get noise and distortion. Plus, if one of the amplifiers failed, you lost the picture. Cable got a reputation for not having the best quality picture and for not being reliable." In the late 1970s, cable television would find a solution to the amplifier problem. By then, they had also developed technology that allowed them to add more programming to cable service. In the early 1950s, cable systems began experimenting with ways to use microwave transmitting and receiving towers to capture the signals from distant stations. In some cases, this made television available to people who lived outside the range of standard broadcasts. In other cases, especially in the northeastern United States, it meant that cable customers might have access to several broadcast stations of the same network. For the first time, cable was used to enrich television viewing, not just make ordinary viewing possible. The addition of community antenna television stations and the spread of cable systems ultimately led manufacturers to add a switch to most new television sets. People could set their televisions to tune to channels, or they could set them for the plan used by most cable systems. In both tuning systems, each television station was given a 6-megahertz (MHz) slice of the radio spectrum. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) had originally devoted parts of the very high frequency (VHF) spectrum to 12 television channels. The channels weren’t put into a single block of frequencies, but were instead broken into two groups to avoid interfering with existing services. Later, when the growing popularity of television necessitated additional channels, the FCC allocated frequencies in the ultra-high frequency (UHF) portion of the spectrum. They established channels 14 to 69 using a block of frequencies between 470 MHz and 812 MHz. Because they used cable instead of antennas, cable television systems didn’t have to worry about existing services. Engineers could use the mid-band, those frequencies passed over by broadcast TV due to other signals, for channels 14-22. Channels 1 through 6 are at lower frequencies and the rest are higher. The "CATV \ Antenna" switch tells the television’s tuner whether to tune around the mid-band or to tune straight through it. While we’re on the subject of tuning, it’s worth considering why CATV systems don’t use the same frequencies for stations broadcasting on channels 1 to 6 that those stations use to broadcast over the airwaves. Cable equipment is designed to shield the signals carded on the cable from outside interference, and televisions are designed to accept signals only from the point of connection to the cable or antenna; but interference can still enter the system, especially at connectors. When the interference comes from the same channel that’s carded on the cable, there is a problem because of the difference in broadcast speed between the two signals. Radio signals travel through the air at a speed very close to the speed of light. In a coaxial (同轴的) cable that brings CATV signals to your house, radio signals travel at about two-thirds the speed of light. When the broadcast and cable signals get to the television tuner a fraction of a second apart, you see a double image called "ghosting". In 1972, a cable system in Wilkes-Barre, PA, began offering the first "pay-per-view" channel. The customers would pay to watch individual movies or sporting events. They called the new service Home Box Office, or HBO. It continued as a regional service until 1975, when HBO began transmitting a signal to a in geosynchronous (与地球的相对位置不变的) orbit and then down to cable systems. These early satellites could receive and retransmit up to 24 channels. The cable systems receiving the signals used dish antennas 10 meters in diameter, with a separate dish for each channel! As the number of program options grew, the bandwidth of cable systems also increased. Early systems operated at 200 MHz, allowing 33 channels. As technology progressed, the bandwidth increased to 300,400,500 and now 550 MHz, with the number of channels increasing to 91. Two additional advances in technology -- fiber optics and analog-to-digital conversion -- improved features and broadcast quality while continuing to increase the number of channels available. In 1976, a new sort of cable system debuted. This system used fiber-optic cable for the trunk cables that carry signals from the CATV head-end to neighborhoods. The head-end is where the cable system receives programming from various sources, assigns the programming to channels and retransmits it onto cables. By the late 1970s, fiber optics had progressed considerably and so were a cost. Effective means of carrying CATV signals over long distances. The great advantage of fiber-optic cable is that it doesn’t suffer the same signal losses as coaxial cable, which eliminated the need for so many amplifiers. Another benefit that came from the move to fiber-optic cable was greater customization. Since a single fiber-optic cable might serve 500 households, it became possible to target individual neighborhoods for messages and services. In 1989, General Instruments demonstrated that it was possible to convert an analog cable signal to digital and transmit it in a standard 6-MHz television channel. Using MPEG compression, CATV systems installed today can transmit up to 10 channels of video in the 6-MHz bandwidth of a single analog channel. When combined with a 550-MHz overall bandwidth, this allows the possibility of nearly 1,000 channels of video on a system. In addition, digital technology allows for error correction to ensure the quality of the received signal, also changed the quality of one of cable television’s most visible features: the scrambled channel. The first system to "scramble" a channel on a cable system was demonstrated in 1971. In the first scrambling system, one of the signals used to synchronize the television picture was removed when the signal was transmitted, then reinserted by a small device at the customer’s home. Later scrambling systems inserted a signal slightly offset from the channel’s frequency to interfere with the picture, then filtered the interfering signal out of the mix at the customer’s television. In both cases, the scrambled channel could generally be seen as a jagged, disarranged set of video images. In a digital system, the signal isn’t scrambled, but encrypted (加密的). The signal must be decoded with the proper key. Without the key, the digital-to-analog converter can’t turn the stream of bits into anything usable by the television’s tuner. When a "non-signal" is received, the cable system substitutes an advertisement or the familiar blue screen. In tuning system, the Federal Communications Commission had distributed parts of ______ spectrum to 12 television channels which were broken into two groups to avoid interference with existing services at the beginning.
- Cable Television In the 1940s, there were four networks in the United States. Because of the frequencies allotted to television, the signals could only be received in a "line of sight" from the transmitting antenna. People living in remote areas couldn’t see the programs that were already becoming an important part of U. S. culture. In 1948, people living in remote valleys in Pennsylvania solved their reception problems by putting antennas on hills and running cables to their houses. These days, the same technology once used by remote villages and select cities allows viewers all over the country to access a wide variety of programs and channels that meet their individual needs and desires. By the early 1990s, cable television had reached nearly half the homes in the United States. Today, U. S. cable systems deliver hundreds of channels to some 60 million homes, while also providing a growing number of people with high-speed Internet access. Some cable systems even let you make telephone calls and receive new programming technologies! The earliest cable systems were, in effect, strategically placed antennas with very long cables connecting them to subscribers’ television sets. Because the signal from the antenna became Weaker as it traveled through the length of cable, cable providers had to insert amplifiers at regular intervals to boost the strength of the signal and make it acceptable for viewing. "In a cable system, the signal might have gone through 30 or 40 amplifiers before reaching your house, one every 1,000 feet or so," Wall says, "With each amplifier, you would get noise and distortion. Plus, if one of the amplifiers failed, you lost the picture. Cable got a reputation for not having the best quality picture and for not being reliable." In the late 1970s, cable television would find a solution to the amplifier problem. By then, they had also developed technology that allowed them to add more programming to cable service. In the early 1950s, cable systems began experimenting with ways to use microwave transmitting and receiving towers to capture the signals from distant stations. In some cases, this made television available to people who lived outside the range of standard broadcasts. In other cases, especially in the northeastern United States, it meant that cable customers might have access to several broadcast stations of the same network. For the first time, cable was used to enrich television viewing, not just make ordinary viewing possible. The addition of community antenna television stations and the spread of cable systems ultimately led manufacturers to add a switch to most new television sets. People could set their televisions to tune to channels, or they could set them for the plan used by most cable systems. In both tuning systems, each television station was given a 6-megahertz (MHz) slice of the radio spectrum. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) had originally devoted parts of the very high frequency (VHF) spectrum to 12 television channels. The channels weren’t put into a single block of frequencies, but were instead broken into two groups to avoid interfering with existing services. Later, when the growing popularity of television necessitated additional channels, the FCC allocated frequencies in the ultra-high frequency (UHF) portion of the spectrum. They established channels 14 to 69 using a block of frequencies between 470 MHz and 812 MHz. Because they used cable instead of antennas, cable television systems didn’t have to worry about existing services. Engineers could use the mid-band, those frequencies passed over by broadcast TV due to other signals, for channels 14-22. Channels 1 through 6 are at lower frequencies and the rest are higher. The "CATV \ Antenna" switch tells the television’s tuner whether to tune around the mid-band or to tune straight through it. While we’re on the subject of tuning, it’s worth considering why CATV systems don’t use the same frequencies for stations broadcasting on channels 1 to 6 that those stations use to broadcast over the airwaves. Cable equipment is designed to shield the signals carded on the cable from outside interference, and televisions are designed to accept signals only from the point of connection to the cable or antenna; but interference can still enter the system, especially at connectors. When the interference comes from the same channel that’s carded on the cable, there is a problem because of the difference in broadcast speed between the two signals. Radio signals travel through the air at a speed very close to the speed of light. In a coaxial (同轴的) cable that brings CATV signals to your house, radio signals travel at about two-thirds the speed of light. When the broadcast and cable signals get to the television tuner a fraction of a second apart, you see a double image called "ghosting". In 1972, a cable system in Wilkes-Barre, PA, began offering the first "pay-per-view" channel. The customers would pay to watch individual movies or sporting events. They called the new service Home Box Office, or HBO. It continued as a regional service until 1975, when HBO began transmitting a signal to a in geosynchronous (与地球的相对位置不变的) orbit and then down to cable systems. These early satellites could receive and retransmit up to 24 channels. The cable systems receiving the signals used dish antennas 10 meters in diameter, with a separate dish for each channel! As the number of program options grew, the bandwidth of cable systems also increased. Early systems operated at 200 MHz, allowing 33 channels. As technology progressed, the bandwidth increased to 300,400,500 and now 550 MHz, with the number of channels increasing to 91. Two additional advances in technology -- fiber optics and analog-to-digital conversion -- improved features and broadcast quality while continuing to increase the number of channels available. In 1976, a new sort of cable system debuted. This system used fiber-optic cable for the trunk cables that carry signals from the CATV head-end to neighborhoods. The head-end is where the cable system receives programming from various sources, assigns the programming to channels and retransmits it onto cables. By the late 1970s, fiber optics had progressed considerably and so were a cost. Effective means of carrying CATV signals over long distances. The great advantage of fiber-optic cable is that it doesn’t suffer the same signal losses as coaxial cable, which eliminated the need for so many amplifiers. Another benefit that came from the move to fiber-optic cable was greater customization. Since a single fiber-optic cable might serve 500 households, it became possible to target individual neighborhoods for messages and services. In 1989, General Instruments demonstrated that it was possible to convert an analog cable signal to digital and transmit it in a standard 6-MHz television channel. Using MPEG compression, CATV systems installed today can transmit up to 10 channels of video in the 6-MHz bandwidth of a single analog channel. When combined with a 550-MHz overall bandwidth, this allows the possibility of nearly 1,000 channels of video on a system. In addition, digital technology allows for error correction to ensure the quality of the received signal, also changed the quality of one of cable television’s most visible features: the scrambled channel. The first system to "scramble" a channel on a cable system was demonstrated in 1971. In the first scrambling system, one of the signals used to synchronize the television picture was removed when the signal was transmitted, then reinserted by a small device at the customer’s home. Later scrambling systems inserted a signal slightly offset from the channel’s frequency to interfere with the picture, then filtered the interfering signal out of the mix at the customer’s television. In both cases, the scrambled channel could generally be seen as a jagged, disarranged set of video images. In a digital system, the signal isn’t scrambled, but encrypted (加密的). The signal must be decoded with the proper key. Without the key, the digital-to-analog converter can’t turn the stream of bits into anything usable by the television’s tuner. When a "non-signal" is received, the cable system substitutes an advertisement or the familiar blue screen. How did cable providers solve the problem of the earliest cable systems
- Questions 23 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
- Cable Television In the 1940s, there were four networks in the United States. Because of the frequencies allotted to television, the signals could only be received in a "line of sight" from the transmitting antenna. People living in remote areas couldn’t see the programs that were already becoming an important part of U. S. culture. In 1948, people living in remote valleys in Pennsylvania solved their reception problems by putting antennas on hills and running cables to their houses. These days, the same technology once used by remote villages and select cities allows viewers all over the country to access a wide variety of programs and channels that meet their individual needs and desires. By the early 1990s, cable television had reached nearly half the homes in the United States. Today, U. S. cable systems deliver hundreds of channels to some 60 million homes, while also providing a growing number of people with high-speed Internet access. Some cable systems even let you make telephone calls and receive new programming technologies! The earliest cable systems were, in effect, strategically placed antennas with very long cables connecting them to subscribers’ television sets. Because the signal from the antenna became Weaker as it traveled through the length of cable, cable providers had to insert amplifiers at regular intervals to boost the strength of the signal and make it acceptable for viewing. "In a cable system, the signal might have gone through 30 or 40 amplifiers before reaching your house, one every 1,000 feet or so," Wall says, "With each amplifier, you would get noise and distortion. Plus, if one of the amplifiers failed, you lost the picture. Cable got a reputation for not having the best quality picture and for not being reliable." In the late 1970s, cable television would find a solution to the amplifier problem. By then, they had also developed technology that allowed them to add more programming to cable service. In the early 1950s, cable systems began experimenting with ways to use microwave transmitting and receiving towers to capture the signals from distant stations. In some cases, this made television available to people who lived outside the range of standard broadcasts. In other cases, especially in the northeastern United States, it meant that cable customers might have access to several broadcast stations of the same network. For the first time, cable was used to enrich television viewing, not just make ordinary viewing possible. The addition of community antenna television stations and the spread of cable systems ultimately led manufacturers to add a switch to most new television sets. People could set their televisions to tune to channels, or they could set them for the plan used by most cable systems. In both tuning systems, each television station was given a 6-megahertz (MHz) slice of the radio spectrum. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) had originally devoted parts of the very high frequency (VHF) spectrum to 12 television channels. The channels weren’t put into a single block of frequencies, but were instead broken into two groups to avoid interfering with existing services. Later, when the growing popularity of television necessitated additional channels, the FCC allocated frequencies in the ultra-high frequency (UHF) portion of the spectrum. They established channels 14 to 69 using a block of frequencies between 470 MHz and 812 MHz. Because they used cable instead of antennas, cable television systems didn’t have to worry about existing services. Engineers could use the mid-band, those frequencies passed over by broadcast TV due to other signals, for channels 14-22. Channels 1 through 6 are at lower frequencies and the rest are higher. The "CATV \ Antenna" switch tells the television’s tuner whether to tune around the mid-band or to tune straight through it. While we’re on the subject of tuning, it’s worth considering why CATV systems don’t use the same frequencies for stations broadcasting on channels 1 to 6 that those stations use to broadcast over the airwaves. Cable equipment is designed to shield the signals carded on the cable from outside interference, and televisions are designed to accept signals only from the point of connection to the cable or antenna; but interference can still enter the system, especially at connectors. When the interference comes from the same channel that’s carded on the cable, there is a problem because of the difference in broadcast speed between the two signals. Radio signals travel through the air at a speed very close to the speed of light. In a coaxial (同轴的) cable that brings CATV signals to your house, radio signals travel at about two-thirds the speed of light. When the broadcast and cable signals get to the television tuner a fraction of a second apart, you see a double image called "ghosting". In 1972, a cable system in Wilkes-Barre, PA, began offering the first "pay-per-view" channel. The customers would pay to watch individual movies or sporting events. They called the new service Home Box Office, or HBO. It continued as a regional service until 1975, when HBO began transmitting a signal to a in geosynchronous (与地球的相对位置不变的) orbit and then down to cable systems. These early satellites could receive and retransmit up to 24 channels. The cable systems receiving the signals used dish antennas 10 meters in diameter, with a separate dish for each channel! As the number of program options grew, the bandwidth of cable systems also increased. Early systems operated at 200 MHz, allowing 33 channels. As technology progressed, the bandwidth increased to 300,400,500 and now 550 MHz, with the number of channels increasing to 91. Two additional advances in technology -- fiber optics and analog-to-digital conversion -- improved features and broadcast quality while continuing to increase the number of channels available. In 1976, a new sort of cable system debuted. This system used fiber-optic cable for the trunk cables that carry signals from the CATV head-end to neighborhoods. The head-end is where the cable system receives programming from various sources, assigns the programming to channels and retransmits it onto cables. By the late 1970s, fiber optics had progressed considerably and so were a cost. Effective means of carrying CATV signals over long distances. The great advantage of fiber-optic cable is that it doesn’t suffer the same signal losses as coaxial cable, which eliminated the need for so many amplifiers. Another benefit that came from the move to fiber-optic cable was greater customization. Since a single fiber-optic cable might serve 500 households, it became possible to target individual neighborhoods for messages and services. In 1989, General Instruments demonstrated that it was possible to convert an analog cable signal to digital and transmit it in a standard 6-MHz television channel. Using MPEG compression, CATV systems installed today can transmit up to 10 channels of video in the 6-MHz bandwidth of a single analog channel. When combined with a 550-MHz overall bandwidth, this allows the possibility of nearly 1,000 channels of video on a system. In addition, digital technology allows for error correction to ensure the quality of the received signal, also changed the quality of one of cable television’s most visible features: the scrambled channel. The first system to "scramble" a channel on a cable system was demonstrated in 1971. In the first scrambling system, one of the signals used to synchronize the television picture was removed when the signal was transmitted, then reinserted by a small device at the customer’s home. Later scrambling systems inserted a signal slightly offset from the channel’s frequency to interfere with the picture, then filtered the interfering signal out of the mix at the customer’s television. In both cases, the scrambled channel could generally be seen as a jagged, disarranged set of video images. In a digital system, the signal isn’t scrambled, but encrypted (加密的). The signal must be decoded with the proper key. Without the key, the digital-to-analog converter can’t turn the stream of bits into anything usable by the television’s tuner. When a "non-signal" is received, the cable system substitutes an advertisement or the familiar blue screen. In the United States, cable television had come to nearly fifty percent of the homes by ______.
- Humanity’s primal (原始的) efforts to systematize the concepts of size, shapes, and number are usually regarded as the earliest mathematics. However, the concept of number and the counting process developed so long (67) the time of recorded history (there is archaeological (68) that counting was employed by humans as far back as 50,000 years ago) that the (69) of this development is largely conjectural (好推测的). Imaging how it probably came (70) is not difficult. The argument that humans, (71) in prehistoric times, had some number sense, at least (72) the extent of recognizing the concepts of more and less when some objects were (73) to or taken away from a small group, seems fair, for studies have shown that some animal possesses such a (74) . With the (75) evolution of society, simple counting became necessary. A tribe had to know how many members it had and how many enemies, and shepherd needed to know (76) the flock of sheep was decreasing in size. Probably the earliest way of keeping a count was by some simple tally (计算, 记录) method, (77) the principle of one-to-one corre-spondence. In (78) a count of sheep, for example, one finger per sheep could be (79) . Counts could also be (80) by making scratches in the dirt or on a stone, by cutting notches in a piece of wood, or by tying knots in a string. (81) , perhaps later, an assortment of vocal (82) was developed as a word tally against the number of objects in, a small group. And (83) later, with the development of writing, a set of (84) was invented to stand for these numbers. Such an imagined development is (85) by reports of anthropologists in their studies of present-day societies that are (86) to be similar to those of early humans.
- Passage OneQuestions 26 to 28 are based on the passage you have just heard.
- Passage TwoQuestions 29 to 31 are based on the passage you have just heard.
- Questions 23 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
- Questions 19 to 22 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
- Questions 19 to 22 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
- Passage ThreeQuestions 32 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.
- Passage TwoQuestions 29 to 31 are based on the passage you have just heard.
- Questions 23 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
- Passage OneQuestions 26 to 28 are based on the passage you have just heard.
- Passage OneQuestions 26 to 28 are based on the passage you have just heard.
- Questions 19 to 22 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
- Cable Television In the 1940s, there were four networks in the United States. Because of the frequencies allotted to television, the signals could only be received in a "line of sight" from the transmitting antenna. People living in remote areas couldn’t see the programs that were already becoming an important part of U. S. culture. In 1948, people living in remote valleys in Pennsylvania solved their reception problems by putting antennas on hills and running cables to their houses. These days, the same technology once used by remote villages and select cities allows viewers all over the country to access a wide variety of programs and channels that meet their individual needs and desires. By the early 1990s, cable television had reached nearly half the homes in the United States. Today, U. S. cable systems deliver hundreds of channels to some 60 million homes, while also providing a growing number of people with high-speed Internet access. Some cable systems even let you make telephone calls and receive new programming technologies! The earliest cable systems were, in effect, strategically placed antennas with very long cables connecting them to subscribers’ television sets. Because the signal from the antenna became Weaker as it traveled through the length of cable, cable providers had to insert amplifiers at regular intervals to boost the strength of the signal and make it acceptable for viewing. "In a cable system, the signal might have gone through 30 or 40 amplifiers before reaching your house, one every 1,000 feet or so," Wall says, "With each amplifier, you would get noise and distortion. Plus, if one of the amplifiers failed, you lost the picture. Cable got a reputation for not having the best quality picture and for not being reliable." In the late 1970s, cable television would find a solution to the amplifier problem. By then, they had also developed technology that allowed them to add more programming to cable service. In the early 1950s, cable systems began experimenting with ways to use microwave transmitting and receiving towers to capture the signals from distant stations. In some cases, this made television available to people who lived outside the range of standard broadcasts. In other cases, especially in the northeastern United States, it meant that cable customers might have access to several broadcast stations of the same network. For the first time, cable was used to enrich television viewing, not just make ordinary viewing possible. The addition of community antenna television stations and the spread of cable systems ultimately led manufacturers to add a switch to most new television sets. People could set their televisions to tune to channels, or they could set them for the plan used by most cable systems. In both tuning systems, each television station was given a 6-megahertz (MHz) slice of the radio spectrum. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) had originally devoted parts of the very high frequency (VHF) spectrum to 12 television channels. The channels weren’t put into a single block of frequencies, but were instead broken into two groups to avoid interfering with existing services. Later, when the growing popularity of television necessitated additional channels, the FCC allocated frequencies in the ultra-high frequency (UHF) portion of the spectrum. They established channels 14 to 69 using a block of frequencies between 470 MHz and 812 MHz. Because they used cable instead of antennas, cable television systems didn’t have to worry about existing services. Engineers could use the mid-band, those frequencies passed over by broadcast TV due to other signals, for channels 14-22. Channels 1 through 6 are at lower frequencies and the rest are higher. The "CATV \ Antenna" switch tells the television’s tuner whether to tune around the mid-band or to tune straight through it. While we’re on the subject of tuning, it’s worth considering why CATV systems don’t use the same frequencies for stations broadcasting on channels 1 to 6 that those stations use to broadcast over the airwaves. Cable equipment is designed to shield the signals carded on the cable from outside interference, and televisions are designed to accept signals only from the point of connection to the cable or antenna; but interference can still enter the system, especially at connectors. When the interference comes from the same channel that’s carded on the cable, there is a problem because of the difference in broadcast speed between the two signals. Radio signals travel through the air at a speed very close to the speed of light. In a coaxial (同轴的) cable that brings CATV signals to your house, radio signals travel at about two-thirds the speed of light. When the broadcast and cable signals get to the television tuner a fraction of a second apart, you see a double image called "ghosting". In 1972, a cable system in Wilkes-Barre, PA, began offering the first "pay-per-view" channel. The customers would pay to watch individual movies or sporting events. They called the new service Home Box Office, or HBO. It continued as a regional service until 1975, when HBO began transmitting a signal to a in geosynchronous (与地球的相对位置不变的) orbit and then down to cable systems. These early satellites could receive and retransmit up to 24 channels. The cable systems receiving the signals used dish antennas 10 meters in diameter, with a separate dish for each channel! As the number of program options grew, the bandwidth of cable systems also increased. Early systems operated at 200 MHz, allowing 33 channels. As technology progressed, the bandwidth increased to 300,400,500 and now 550 MHz, with the number of channels increasing to 91. Two additional advances in technology -- fiber optics and analog-to-digital conversion -- improved features and broadcast quality while continuing to increase the number of channels available. In 1976, a new sort of cable system debuted. This system used fiber-optic cable for the trunk cables that carry signals from the CATV head-end to neighborhoods. The head-end is where the cable system receives programming from various sources, assigns the programming to channels and retransmits it onto cables. By the late 1970s, fiber optics had progressed considerably and so were a cost. Effective means of carrying CATV signals over long distances. The great advantage of fiber-optic cable is that it doesn’t suffer the same signal losses as coaxial cable, which eliminated the need for so many amplifiers. Another benefit that came from the move to fiber-optic cable was greater customization. Since a single fiber-optic cable might serve 500 households, it became possible to target individual neighborhoods for messages and services. In 1989, General Instruments demonstrated that it was possible to convert an analog cable signal to digital and transmit it in a standard 6-MHz television channel. Using MPEG compression, CATV systems installed today can transmit up to 10 channels of video in the 6-MHz bandwidth of a single analog channel. When combined with a 550-MHz overall bandwidth, this allows the possibility of nearly 1,000 channels of video on a system. In addition, digital technology allows for error correction to ensure the quality of the received signal, also changed the quality of one of cable television’s most visible features: the scrambled channel. The first system to "scramble" a channel on a cable system was demonstrated in 1971. In the first scrambling system, one of the signals used to synchronize the television picture was removed when the signal was transmitted, then reinserted by a small device at the customer’s home. Later scrambling systems inserted a signal slightly offset from the channel’s frequency to interfere with the picture, then filtered the interfering signal out of the mix at the customer’s television. In both cases, the scrambled channel could generally be seen as a jagged, disarranged set of video images. In a digital system, the signal isn’t scrambled, but encrypted (加密的). The signal must be decoded with the proper key. Without the key, the digital-to-analog converter can’t turn the stream of bits into anything usable by the television’s tuner. When a "non-signal" is received, the cable system substitutes an advertisement or the familiar blue screen. In 1948, people living in remote areas could see TV programs by ______ in the United States.
- Questions 19 to 22 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
- Passage ThreeQuestions 32 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.
- TEXT B Last summer, some twenty-eight thousand homeless people were offered shelter by the city of New York. Of this number, twelve thousand were children and six thousand were parents living together in families. The average child was six years old, the average parent twenty-seven. A typical homeless family included a mother with two or three children, but in about one-fifth of these families two parents were present. Roughly ten thousand single persons, then, made up the remainder of the population of the city’s shelter. These proportions vary somewhat from one area of the nation to another. In all areas, however, families are the fastest-growing sector of the homeless population, and in the Northeast they are by far the largest sector already. In Massachusetts, three-fourths of the homeless now are families with children; in certain parts of Massachusetts--Attleboro and Northhampton, for example--the proportion reaches 90 percent. Two-thirds of the homeless children studied recently in Boston were less than five years old. Of the estimated two to three million homeless people nationwide, about 500,000 are dependent children, according to Robert Hayes, counsel to the National Coalition for the Homeless. Including their parents, at least 750, 000 homeless people in America are family members. What is to be made, then, of the supposition that the homeless are primarily the former residents of mental hospitals, persons who were carelessly released during the 1970s Many of them are, to be sure. Among the older men and women in the streets and shelters, as many as one-third (some believe as many as one-half) may be chronically disturbed, and a number of these people left mental hospitals during the 1970s. But in a city like New York, where nearly half the homeless are small children with an average of six, to operate on the basis of such a supposition makes no sense. Their parents, with an average age of twenty-seven, are not likely to have been hospitalized in the 1970s, either. According to the passage, the author wants to tell us about ______.
- TEXT B Last summer, some twenty-eight thousand homeless people were offered shelter by the city of New York. Of this number, twelve thousand were children and six thousand were parents living together in families. The average child was six years old, the average parent twenty-seven. A typical homeless family included a mother with two or three children, but in about one-fifth of these families two parents were present. Roughly ten thousand single persons, then, made up the remainder of the population of the city’s shelter. These proportions vary somewhat from one area of the nation to another. In all areas, however, families are the fastest-growing sector of the homeless population, and in the Northeast they are by far the largest sector already. In Massachusetts, three-fourths of the homeless now are families with children; in certain parts of Massachusetts--Attleboro and Northhampton, for example--the proportion reaches 90 percent. Two-thirds of the homeless children studied recently in Boston were less than five years old. Of the estimated two to three million homeless people nationwide, about 500,000 are dependent children, according to Robert Hayes, counsel to the National Coalition for the Homeless. Including their parents, at least 750, 000 homeless people in America are family members. What is to be made, then, of the supposition that the homeless are primarily the former residents of mental hospitals, persons who were carelessly released during the 1970s Many of them are, to be sure. Among the older men and women in the streets and shelters, as many as one-third (some believe as many as one-half) may be chronically disturbed, and a number of these people left mental hospitals during the 1970s. But in a city like New York, where nearly half the homeless are small children with an average of six, to operate on the basis of such a supposition makes no sense. Their parents, with an average age of twenty-seven, are not likely to have been hospitalized in the 1970s, either. What is the author’s opinion on the supposition that the homeless are primarily the former residents of mental hospitals
- Fried foods have long been frowned upon. Nevertheless, the skillet(平底煎锅) is about our handiest and most useful piece of kitchen equipment. Sturdy lumberjacks(伐木工) and others engaged in active labor requiring 4,000 calories per day or more will take approximately one-third of their rations prepared in this fashion. Meat, eggs, and French toast cooked in this way are served in millions of homes daily. Apparently the consumers are not beset with more signs of indigestion than afflict those who insist upon broiling, roasting, or boiling. Some years ago one of our most eminent physiologists investigated the digestibility of fried potatoes. He found that the pan variety was more easily broken down for assimilation than when deep fat was employed. The latter, however, dissolved within the alimentary tract more readily than the boiled type. Furthermore, he learned, by watching the progress of the contents of the rate of digestion. Now all this is quite in contrast with "authority." Volumes have been written on nutrition, and everywhere the dictum has been accepted--no fried edibles of any sort for children. A few will go so far as to forbid this style of cooking wholly. Now and then an expert will be bold enough to admit that he uses them himself, the absence of discomfort being explained on the ground that he posses a powerful gastric apparatus. We can of course sizzle perfectly good articles to death so that they will be leathery and tough. But thorough heating, in the presence of shortening, is not the awful crime that it has been labeled. Such dishes stimulate rather than retard contractions of the gall bladder. Thus it is that bile mixes with the nutriment shortly after it leaves the stomach. We don’t need to allow our foodstuffs to become oil soaked, but other than that, there seems to be no basis for the widely heralded prohibition against this method. But notions become fixed. The first condemnation probably arose because an "oracle" suffered from dyspepsia(消化不良) which he ascribed to some fried item on the menu. The theory spread. Others agreed with him, and after a time the doctrine became incorporated in our textbooks. The belief is now tradition rather than proved fact. It should have been refuted long since, as experience has demonstrated its falsity. Apparently much fried food is eaten because ______.
- Passage TwoQuestions 29 to 31 are based on the passage you have just heard.
- TEXT E Someone once marked that the British and the Americans are two peoples separated by the same language. Most epigrams exaggerate for effect, and this one is no exception. But it is, nevertheless, undeniably true that some commonly used words mean different things in these two countries. Consider the seemingly simple term--"the government". To parliamentarians trained in British terminology "the government" means the cabinet: a group of the legislature’s own members, chosen by it to devise public policies, to manage the legislature’s major activities, and to exercise executive powers. In theory, at least, the government continues in office only so long as it commands the support of the legislature. Losing that support, it may be turned out of power at almost any moment. When Americans say "the government", they mean some thing quite different: It connotes the whole governmental structure-- executive, legislative and judicial. Americans assume a situation in which the branches of government are deliberately separated and in which the powers of each check and balance those of the other. Another difference between the U. S. and parliamentary systems concerns the concept of "political party". In the British tradition, a political party connotes a group relatively cohesive in ideology and disciplined in action. Playwright William S. Gilbert’s satirical line that remembers of parliament "vote just as their leaders tell ’em to" is not as accurate as it once was, but it is still close enough to the mark. In contrast, the two major U. S. political parties are vast, sprawling, decentralized conglomerations of varied ideological positions whose members do not feel obliged to vote the way the party leaders tell them to do. In fact, most members come to Congress as independent entrepreneurs, willing to go along with party policy only to the extent that it does not conflict with what they perceive to be the wishes and interests of their constituencies. The main ideas of the passage is that ______.
- TEXT E Someone once marked that the British and the Americans are two peoples separated by the same language. Most epigrams exaggerate for effect, and this one is no exception. But it is, nevertheless, undeniably true that some commonly used words mean different things in these two countries. Consider the seemingly simple term--"the government". To parliamentarians trained in British terminology "the government" means the cabinet: a group of the legislature’s own members, chosen by it to devise public policies, to manage the legislature’s major activities, and to exercise executive powers. In theory, at least, the government continues in office only so long as it commands the support of the legislature. Losing that support, it may be turned out of power at almost any moment. When Americans say "the government", they mean some thing quite different: It connotes the whole governmental structure-- executive, legislative and judicial. Americans assume a situation in which the branches of government are deliberately separated and in which the powers of each check and balance those of the other. Another difference between the U. S. and parliamentary systems concerns the concept of "political party". In the British tradition, a political party connotes a group relatively cohesive in ideology and disciplined in action. Playwright William S. Gilbert’s satirical line that remembers of parliament "vote just as their leaders tell ’em to" is not as accurate as it once was, but it is still close enough to the mark. In contrast, the two major U. S. political parties are vast, sprawling, decentralized conglomerations of varied ideological positions whose members do not feel obliged to vote the way the party leaders tell them to do. In fact, most members come to Congress as independent entrepreneurs, willing to go along with party policy only to the extent that it does not conflict with what they perceive to be the wishes and interests of their constituencies. According to British terminology, the following are the functions of the government EXCEPT ______.
- Passage ThreeQuestions 32 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.
- TEXT A In the United States, the fourth Thursday in November is called Thanksgiving Day. On this day, Americans give thanks for the blessing they have enjoyed during the year. Thanksgiving is usually a family day celebrated with big dinners and happy reunion. The first American Thanksgiving was held in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621. It was in September of 1620 that the Puritans, or Pilgrims as they called themselves, left England aboard the Mayflower in search of religious freedom. After 65 days at sea, they landed in Province town Harbor, inside the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. For about a month, the Pilgrims lived aboard ship and then sailed to Plymouth Harbor. The Pilgrims were not trained and equipped to cope with life in the wilderness. During their first winter, they suffered tremendously. Hard work, diseases, bitterly cold weather, and insufficient food killed about half of them. By the end of this terrible first winter, only about 50 Plymouth colonists remained alive. In spring 1621, the Indians of Massasoil’s tribe taught the Pilgrims how to hunt, fish, and grow food. They taught the Pilgrims to use fish for fertilizer when growing corn, pumpkins, and beans. Because of this help from the Indians, the Pilgrims had a good harvest. William Bradford, the governor chosen by the Pilgrims, was following an ancient tradition when, in the fall of 1621, he established a day of Thanksgiving to God. He invited Chief Massasoil and his men to share the Thanksgiving feast. The Indians gladly accepted and sent deer meat for the feast. The Pilgrim men went hunting and returned with turkey and other wild animals. The women of Plymouth prepared delicious dishes from corn, berries, squash and pumpkins. The first Thanksgiving dinner was cooked and served out-of- doors. Although it was late autumn, huge fires kept the hosts and guests warm. Many of the traditions of the modern American Thanksgiving come from that first Thanksgiving celebration. Today’s Thanks giving turkey is much like the ones that were hunted in the forests around Plymouth. Squash and corn, which were also harvested by the early Pilgrims, appear on the Thanksgiving table. Pumpkin pie is a traditional Thanksgiving dessert. Every year, about 500,000 Americans take a journey into early American history by visiting Plymouth, a modern city that respects its past. In Plymouth Harbor, sightseers tour Mayflower Ⅱ, a recently built ship similar to the original Mayflower. Then they spend a few hours walking through a reproduction of the original Pilgrim village. Modern Americans take great pride in these courageous ancestors who had so little by today’s standards, but who were thankful for receiving the things they valued most--a good harvest and the freedom to live and worship as they pleased. Which of the following statements is true
- The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower it is in arriving at maturity. A man reaches the maturity of his reasoning powers and mental faculties hardly before the age of twenty-eight; a woman at eighteen. And then, too, in the case of woman, it is only reason of a sort--very niggard in its dimensions. That is why women remain children their whole life long; never seeing anything but what is quite close to them, cleaving to the present moment, taking appearance for reality, and preferring trifles to matters of the first importance. For it is by virtue of his reasoning faculty that man does not live in the present only, like the brute, but looks about him and considers the past and the future; and this is the origin of prudence, as well as of that care and anxiety which so many people exhibit. Both the advantages and the disadvantages which this involves, are shared in by the woman to a small extent because of her weaker power of reasoning. She may, in fact, be described as intellectually shortsighted, because, while she has an intuitive understanding of what lies quite close to her, her field of vision is narrow and does not reach to what is remote; so that things which are absent, or past, or to come, have much less effect upon woman than upon men. This is the reason why women are more inclined to be extravagant, and sometimes carry their inclination to a length that borders upon madness. In their hearts, women think it is men’s business to earn money and theirs to spend it--if possible during their husband’s life, but, at any rate, after his death. The very fact that their husband hands them over his earning for purposes of housekeeping, strengthens them in this belief. However many disadvantages all this may involve, there is at least this to be said in its favor; that the woman lives more in the present than the man, and that, if the present is at all tolerable, she enjoys it more eagerly. This is the source of that cheerfulness which is peculiar to women, fitting her to amuse man in his hours of recreation, and, in case of need, to console him when he is borne down by the weight of his cares. The cause of women’s frivolity and cheerfulness is that ______.
- TEXT A In the United States, the fourth Thursday in November is called Thanksgiving Day. On this day, Americans give thanks for the blessing they have enjoyed during the year. Thanksgiving is usually a family day celebrated with big dinners and happy reunion. The first American Thanksgiving was held in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621. It was in September of 1620 that the Puritans, or Pilgrims as they called themselves, left England aboard the Mayflower in search of religious freedom. After 65 days at sea, they landed in Province town Harbor, inside the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. For about a month, the Pilgrims lived aboard ship and then sailed to Plymouth Harbor. The Pilgrims were not trained and equipped to cope with life in the wilderness. During their first winter, they suffered tremendously. Hard work, diseases, bitterly cold weather, and insufficient food killed about half of them. By the end of this terrible first winter, only about 50 Plymouth colonists remained alive. In spring 1621, the Indians of Massasoil’s tribe taught the Pilgrims how to hunt, fish, and grow food. They taught the Pilgrims to use fish for fertilizer when growing corn, pumpkins, and beans. Because of this help from the Indians, the Pilgrims had a good harvest. William Bradford, the governor chosen by the Pilgrims, was following an ancient tradition when, in the fall of 1621, he established a day of Thanksgiving to God. He invited Chief Massasoil and his men to share the Thanksgiving feast. The Indians gladly accepted and sent deer meat for the feast. The Pilgrim men went hunting and returned with turkey and other wild animals. The women of Plymouth prepared delicious dishes from corn, berries, squash and pumpkins. The first Thanksgiving dinner was cooked and served out-of- doors. Although it was late autumn, huge fires kept the hosts and guests warm. Many of the traditions of the modern American Thanksgiving come from that first Thanksgiving celebration. Today’s Thanks giving turkey is much like the ones that were hunted in the forests around Plymouth. Squash and corn, which were also harvested by the early Pilgrims, appear on the Thanksgiving table. Pumpkin pie is a traditional Thanksgiving dessert. Every year, about 500,000 Americans take a journey into early American history by visiting Plymouth, a modern city that respects its past. In Plymouth Harbor, sightseers tour Mayflower Ⅱ, a recently built ship similar to the original Mayflower. Then they spend a few hours walking through a reproduction of the original Pilgrim village. Modern Americans take great pride in these courageous ancestors who had so little by today’s standards, but who were thankful for receiving the things they valued most--a good harvest and the freedom to live and worship as they pleased. The present passage is probably taken from ______.
- The health-care economy is filled with unusual and even unique economic relationships. One of the least understood involves the peculiar roles of producer or "provider" and purchaser or "consumer" in the typical doctor-patient relationship. In most sectors of the economy, it is the seller who attempts to attract a potential buyer with various inducements of price, quality, and utility, and it is the buyer who makes the decision. Such condition, however, does not prevail in most of the health-care industry. In the health-care industry, the doctor-patient relationship is the mirror image of the ordinary relationship between producer and consumer. Once an individual has chosen to see a physician -- and even then there may be no real choice -- it is the physician who usually makes all significant purchasing decisions: whether the patient should "return next Wednesday", whether X-rays are needed, whether drugs should be prescribed, etc... It is a rare and sophisticated patient who will challenge such professional decisions or raise in advance questions about price, especially when the disease is regarded as serious. This is particularly significant in relation to hospital care. The physician must certify the need for hospitalization, determine what procedures will be performed, and announce when the patient may be discharged. The patient may be consulted about some of these decisions, but in the main it is the doctor’s judgments that are final. Little wonder then that in the eye of the hospital it is the physician who is the real "consumer". As a consequence, the medical staff represents the "power center" in hospital policy and decision-making, not the administration. Although usually there are in this situation four identifiable participants -- the physician, the hospital, the patient, and the payer (generally an insurance carder or government ) -- the physician makes the essential decision for all of them. The hospital becomes an extension of the physician; the payer generally meets most of the bills generated by the physician/hospital, and for the most part the patient plays a passive role. We estimate that about 75 to 80 percent of healthcare expenditures are determined by physicians, not patients. For this reason, economy directed at patients or the general are relatively ineffective. The author’s primary purpose in writing this passage is to ______.
- The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower it is in arriving at maturity. A man reaches the maturity of his reasoning powers and mental faculties hardly before the age of twenty-eight; a woman at eighteen. And then, too, in the case of woman, it is only reason of a sort--very niggard in its dimensions. That is why women remain children their whole life long; never seeing anything but what is quite close to them, cleaving to the present moment, taking appearance for reality, and preferring trifles to matters of the first importance. For it is by virtue of his reasoning faculty that man does not live in the present only, like the brute, but looks about him and considers the past and the future; and this is the origin of prudence, as well as of that care and anxiety which so many people exhibit. Both the advantages and the disadvantages which this involves, are shared in by the woman to a small extent because of her weaker power of reasoning. She may, in fact, be described as intellectually shortsighted, because, while she has an intuitive understanding of what lies quite close to her, her field of vision is narrow and does not reach to what is remote; so that things which are absent, or past, or to come, have much less effect upon woman than upon men. This is the reason why women are more inclined to be extravagant, and sometimes carry their inclination to a length that borders upon madness. In their hearts, women think it is men’s business to earn money and theirs to spend it--if possible during their husband’s life, but, at any rate, after his death. The very fact that their husband hands them over his earning for purposes of housekeeping, strengthens them in this belief. However many disadvantages all this may involve, there is at least this to be said in its favor; that the woman lives more in the present than the man, and that, if the present is at all tolerable, she enjoys it more eagerly. This is the source of that cheerfulness which is peculiar to women, fitting her to amuse man in his hours of recreation, and, in case of need, to console him when he is borne down by the weight of his cares. According to the author, the major difference between a man’s and a woman’s intellect is that ______.
- Questions 29 to 30 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the news. According to the internationally agreed measures, poor countries can ______ cheap copies of anti-AIDS drugs.
- The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower it is in arriving at maturity. A man reaches the maturity of his reasoning powers and mental faculties hardly before the age of twenty-eight; a woman at eighteen. And then, too, in the case of woman, it is only reason of a sort--very niggard in its dimensions. That is why women remain children their whole life long; never seeing anything but what is quite close to them, cleaving to the present moment, taking appearance for reality, and preferring trifles to matters of the first importance. For it is by virtue of his reasoning faculty that man does not live in the present only, like the brute, but looks about him and considers the past and the future; and this is the origin of prudence, as well as of that care and anxiety which so many people exhibit. Both the advantages and the disadvantages which this involves, are shared in by the woman to a small extent because of her weaker power of reasoning. She may, in fact, be described as intellectually shortsighted, because, while she has an intuitive understanding of what lies quite close to her, her field of vision is narrow and does not reach to what is remote; so that things which are absent, or past, or to come, have much less effect upon woman than upon men. This is the reason why women are more inclined to be extravagant, and sometimes carry their inclination to a length that borders upon madness. In their hearts, women think it is men’s business to earn money and theirs to spend it--if possible during their husband’s life, but, at any rate, after his death. The very fact that their husband hands them over his earning for purposes of housekeeping, strengthens them in this belief. However many disadvantages all this may involve, there is at least this to be said in its favor; that the woman lives more in the present than the man, and that, if the present is at all tolerable, she enjoys it more eagerly. This is the source of that cheerfulness which is peculiar to women, fitting her to amuse man in his hours of recreation, and, in case of need, to console him when he is borne down by the weight of his cares. The author’s attitude toward women can best be described as
- Fried foods have long been frowned upon. Nevertheless, the skillet(平底煎锅) is about our handiest and most useful piece of kitchen equipment. Sturdy lumberjacks(伐木工) and others engaged in active labor requiring 4,000 calories per day or more will take approximately one-third of their rations prepared in this fashion. Meat, eggs, and French toast cooked in this way are served in millions of homes daily. Apparently the consumers are not beset with more signs of indigestion than afflict those who insist upon broiling, roasting, or boiling. Some years ago one of our most eminent physiologists investigated the digestibility of fried potatoes. He found that the pan variety was more easily broken down for assimilation than when deep fat was employed. The latter, however, dissolved within the alimentary tract more readily than the boiled type. Furthermore, he learned, by watching the progress of the contents of the rate of digestion. Now all this is quite in contrast with "authority." Volumes have been written on nutrition, and everywhere the dictum has been accepted--no fried edibles of any sort for children. A few will go so far as to forbid this style of cooking wholly. Now and then an expert will be bold enough to admit that he uses them himself, the absence of discomfort being explained on the ground that he posses a powerful gastric apparatus. We can of course sizzle perfectly good articles to death so that they will be leathery and tough. But thorough heating, in the presence of shortening, is not the awful crime that it has been labeled. Such dishes stimulate rather than retard contractions of the gall bladder. Thus it is that bile mixes with the nutriment shortly after it leaves the stomach. We don’t need to allow our foodstuffs to become oil soaked, but other than that, there seems to be no basis for the widely heralded prohibition against this method. But notions become fixed. The first condemnation probably arose because an "oracle" suffered from dyspepsia(消化不良) which he ascribed to some fried item on the menu. The theory spread. Others agreed with him, and after a time the doctrine became incorporated in our textbooks. The belief is now tradition rather than proved fact. It should have been refuted long since, as experience has demonstrated its falsity. The author strongly implies that the public should ______.
- Fried foods have long been frowned upon. Nevertheless, the skillet(平底煎锅) is about our handiest and most useful piece of kitchen equipment. Sturdy lumberjacks(伐木工) and others engaged in active labor requiring 4,000 calories per day or more will take approximately one-third of their rations prepared in this fashion. Meat, eggs, and French toast cooked in this way are served in millions of homes daily. Apparently the consumers are not beset with more signs of indigestion than afflict those who insist upon broiling, roasting, or boiling. Some years ago one of our most eminent physiologists investigated the digestibility of fried potatoes. He found that the pan variety was more easily broken down for assimilation than when deep fat was employed. The latter, however, dissolved within the alimentary tract more readily than the boiled type. Furthermore, he learned, by watching the progress of the contents of the rate of digestion. Now all this is quite in contrast with "authority." Volumes have been written on nutrition, and everywhere the dictum has been accepted--no fried edibles of any sort for children. A few will go so far as to forbid this style of cooking wholly. Now and then an expert will be bold enough to admit that he uses them himself, the absence of discomfort being explained on the ground that he posses a powerful gastric apparatus. We can of course sizzle perfectly good articles to death so that they will be leathery and tough. But thorough heating, in the presence of shortening, is not the awful crime that it has been labeled. Such dishes stimulate rather than retard contractions of the gall bladder. Thus it is that bile mixes with the nutriment shortly after it leaves the stomach. We don’t need to allow our foodstuffs to become oil soaked, but other than that, there seems to be no basis for the widely heralded prohibition against this method. But notions become fixed. The first condemnation probably arose because an "oracle" suffered from dyspepsia(消化不良) which he ascribed to some fried item on the menu. The theory spread. Others agreed with him, and after a time the doctrine became incorporated in our textbooks. The belief is now tradition rather than proved fact. It should have been refuted long since, as experience has demonstrated its falsity. This passage focuses on ______.
- TEXT E Someone once marked that the British and the Americans are two peoples separated by the same language. Most epigrams exaggerate for effect, and this one is no exception. But it is, nevertheless, undeniably true that some commonly used words mean different things in these two countries. Consider the seemingly simple term--"the government". To parliamentarians trained in British terminology "the government" means the cabinet: a group of the legislature’s own members, chosen by it to devise public policies, to manage the legislature’s major activities, and to exercise executive powers. In theory, at least, the government continues in office only so long as it commands the support of the legislature. Losing that support, it may be turned out of power at almost any moment. When Americans say "the government", they mean some thing quite different: It connotes the whole governmental structure-- executive, legislative and judicial. Americans assume a situation in which the branches of government are deliberately separated and in which the powers of each check and balance those of the other. Another difference between the U. S. and parliamentary systems concerns the concept of "political party". In the British tradition, a political party connotes a group relatively cohesive in ideology and disciplined in action. Playwright William S. Gilbert’s satirical line that remembers of parliament "vote just as their leaders tell ’em to" is not as accurate as it once was, but it is still close enough to the mark. In contrast, the two major U. S. political parties are vast, sprawling, decentralized conglomerations of varied ideological positions whose members do not feel obliged to vote the way the party leaders tell them to do. In fact, most members come to Congress as independent entrepreneurs, willing to go along with party policy only to the extent that it does not conflict with what they perceive to be the wishes and interests of their constituencies. The author elaborates the term of "the government" ______.
- Questions 27 to 28 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the news. What do Europeans think of the custom of wearing hijab
- Questions 22 to 23 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions, Now listen to the news. What is the attitude of Arab militias towards black Sudanese
- TEXT B Last summer, some twenty-eight thousand homeless people were offered shelter by the city of New York. Of this number, twelve thousand were children and six thousand were parents living together in families. The average child was six years old, the average parent twenty-seven. A typical homeless family included a mother with two or three children, but in about one-fifth of these families two parents were present. Roughly ten thousand single persons, then, made up the remainder of the population of the city’s shelter. These proportions vary somewhat from one area of the nation to another. In all areas, however, families are the fastest-growing sector of the homeless population, and in the Northeast they are by far the largest sector already. In Massachusetts, three-fourths of the homeless now are families with children; in certain parts of Massachusetts--Attleboro and Northhampton, for example--the proportion reaches 90 percent. Two-thirds of the homeless children studied recently in Boston were less than five years old. Of the estimated two to three million homeless people nationwide, about 500,000 are dependent children, according to Robert Hayes, counsel to the National Coalition for the Homeless. Including their parents, at least 750, 000 homeless people in America are family members. What is to be made, then, of the supposition that the homeless are primarily the former residents of mental hospitals, persons who were carelessly released during the 1970s Many of them are, to be sure. Among the older men and women in the streets and shelters, as many as one-third (some believe as many as one-half) may be chronically disturbed, and a number of these people left mental hospitals during the 1970s. But in a city like New York, where nearly half the homeless are small children with an average of six, to operate on the basis of such a supposition makes no sense. Their parents, with an average age of twenty-seven, are not likely to have been hospitalized in the 1970s, either. According to the statistics, among the homeless in New York there were ______.
- Questions 24 to 26 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the news. Congo is accused of ______.
- TEXT E Someone once marked that the British and the Americans are two peoples separated by the same language. Most epigrams exaggerate for effect, and this one is no exception. But it is, nevertheless, undeniably true that some commonly used words mean different things in these two countries. Consider the seemingly simple term--"the government". To parliamentarians trained in British terminology "the government" means the cabinet: a group of the legislature’s own members, chosen by it to devise public policies, to manage the legislature’s major activities, and to exercise executive powers. In theory, at least, the government continues in office only so long as it commands the support of the legislature. Losing that support, it may be turned out of power at almost any moment. When Americans say "the government", they mean some thing quite different: It connotes the whole governmental structure-- executive, legislative and judicial. Americans assume a situation in which the branches of government are deliberately separated and in which the powers of each check and balance those of the other. Another difference between the U. S. and parliamentary systems concerns the concept of "political party". In the British tradition, a political party connotes a group relatively cohesive in ideology and disciplined in action. Playwright William S. Gilbert’s satirical line that remembers of parliament "vote just as their leaders tell ’em to" is not as accurate as it once was, but it is still close enough to the mark. In contrast, the two major U. S. political parties are vast, sprawling, decentralized conglomerations of varied ideological positions whose members do not feel obliged to vote the way the party leaders tell them to do. In fact, most members come to Congress as independent entrepreneurs, willing to go along with party policy only to the extent that it does not conflict with what they perceive to be the wishes and interests of their constituencies. In the opinion of the Americans, the government ______.
- TEXT A In the United States, the fourth Thursday in November is called Thanksgiving Day. On this day, Americans give thanks for the blessing they have enjoyed during the year. Thanksgiving is usually a family day celebrated with big dinners and happy reunion. The first American Thanksgiving was held in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621. It was in September of 1620 that the Puritans, or Pilgrims as they called themselves, left England aboard the Mayflower in search of religious freedom. After 65 days at sea, they landed in Province town Harbor, inside the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. For about a month, the Pilgrims lived aboard ship and then sailed to Plymouth Harbor. The Pilgrims were not trained and equipped to cope with life in the wilderness. During their first winter, they suffered tremendously. Hard work, diseases, bitterly cold weather, and insufficient food killed about half of them. By the end of this terrible first winter, only about 50 Plymouth colonists remained alive. In spring 1621, the Indians of Massasoil’s tribe taught the Pilgrims how to hunt, fish, and grow food. They taught the Pilgrims to use fish for fertilizer when growing corn, pumpkins, and beans. Because of this help from the Indians, the Pilgrims had a good harvest. William Bradford, the governor chosen by the Pilgrims, was following an ancient tradition when, in the fall of 1621, he established a day of Thanksgiving to God. He invited Chief Massasoil and his men to share the Thanksgiving feast. The Indians gladly accepted and sent deer meat for the feast. The Pilgrim men went hunting and returned with turkey and other wild animals. The women of Plymouth prepared delicious dishes from corn, berries, squash and pumpkins. The first Thanksgiving dinner was cooked and served out-of- doors. Although it was late autumn, huge fires kept the hosts and guests warm. Many of the traditions of the modern American Thanksgiving come from that first Thanksgiving celebration. Today’s Thanks giving turkey is much like the ones that were hunted in the forests around Plymouth. Squash and corn, which were also harvested by the early Pilgrims, appear on the Thanksgiving table. Pumpkin pie is a traditional Thanksgiving dessert. Every year, about 500,000 Americans take a journey into early American history by visiting Plymouth, a modern city that respects its past. In Plymouth Harbor, sightseers tour Mayflower Ⅱ, a recently built ship similar to the original Mayflower. Then they spend a few hours walking through a reproduction of the original Pilgrim village. Modern Americans take great pride in these courageous ancestors who had so little by today’s standards, but who were thankful for receiving the things they valued most--a good harvest and the freedom to live and worship as they pleased. The Americans celebrate Thanksgiving Day to show their gratitude to ______.
- Questions 27 to 28 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the news. Who have launched a campaign to defend the right of wearing hi jab
- Fried foods have long been frowned upon. Nevertheless, the skillet(平底煎锅) is about our handiest and most useful piece of kitchen equipment. Sturdy lumberjacks(伐木工) and others engaged in active labor requiring 4,000 calories per day or more will take approximately one-third of their rations prepared in this fashion. Meat, eggs, and French toast cooked in this way are served in millions of homes daily. Apparently the consumers are not beset with more signs of indigestion than afflict those who insist upon broiling, roasting, or boiling. Some years ago one of our most eminent physiologists investigated the digestibility of fried potatoes. He found that the pan variety was more easily broken down for assimilation than when deep fat was employed. The latter, however, dissolved within the alimentary tract more readily than the boiled type. Furthermore, he learned, by watching the progress of the contents of the rate of digestion. Now all this is quite in contrast with "authority." Volumes have been written on nutrition, and everywhere the dictum has been accepted--no fried edibles of any sort for children. A few will go so far as to forbid this style of cooking wholly. Now and then an expert will be bold enough to admit that he uses them himself, the absence of discomfort being explained on the ground that he posses a powerful gastric apparatus. We can of course sizzle perfectly good articles to death so that they will be leathery and tough. But thorough heating, in the presence of shortening, is not the awful crime that it has been labeled. Such dishes stimulate rather than retard contractions of the gall bladder. Thus it is that bile mixes with the nutriment shortly after it leaves the stomach. We don’t need to allow our foodstuffs to become oil soaked, but other than that, there seems to be no basis for the widely heralded prohibition against this method. But notions become fixed. The first condemnation probably arose because an "oracle" suffered from dyspepsia(消化不良) which he ascribed to some fried item on the menu. The theory spread. Others agreed with him, and after a time the doctrine became incorporated in our textbooks. The belief is now tradition rather than proved fact. It should have been refuted long since, as experience has demonstrated its falsity. The author’s main idea is that ______.
- TEXT B Last summer, some twenty-eight thousand homeless people were offered shelter by the city of New York. Of this number, twelve thousand were children and six thousand were parents living together in families. The average child was six years old, the average parent twenty-seven. A typical homeless family included a mother with two or three children, but in about one-fifth of these families two parents were present. Roughly ten thousand single persons, then, made up the remainder of the population of the city’s shelter. These proportions vary somewhat from one area of the nation to another. In all areas, however, families are the fastest-growing sector of the homeless population, and in the Northeast they are by far the largest sector already. In Massachusetts, three-fourths of the homeless now are families with children; in certain parts of Massachusetts--Attleboro and Northhampton, for example--the proportion reaches 90 percent. Two-thirds of the homeless children studied recently in Boston were less than five years old. Of the estimated two to three million homeless people nationwide, about 500,000 are dependent children, according to Robert Hayes, counsel to the National Coalition for the Homeless. Including their parents, at least 750, 000 homeless people in America are family members. What is to be made, then, of the supposition that the homeless are primarily the former residents of mental hospitals, persons who were carelessly released during the 1970s Many of them are, to be sure. Among the older men and women in the streets and shelters, as many as one-third (some believe as many as one-half) may be chronically disturbed, and a number of these people left mental hospitals during the 1970s. But in a city like New York, where nearly half the homeless are small children with an average of six, to operate on the basis of such a supposition makes no sense. Their parents, with an average age of twenty-seven, are not likely to have been hospitalized in the 1970s, either. Which of the following statements is true
- Questions 29 to 30 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the news. What is President Chirac’s attitude toward bilateral trade deals
- 将文件夹下的BRPWN文件夹的只读属性撤消，并设置为隐藏属性。2．将文件夹下的BRUST文件移动到文件夹下TURN文件夹中，并改名为FENG。3．将文件夹下FIP文件夹中的文件BEER.AVE复制到文件夹下CHENG文件夹中，并命名为BEER2.BPX。4．将文件夹下DSK文件夹中的文件BRAND.BPF删除。5．在文件夹下LUY文件夹中建立一个名为BRAIN的文件夹。
- The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower it is in arriving at maturity. A man reaches the maturity of his reasoning powers and mental faculties hardly before the age of twenty-eight; a woman at eighteen. And then, too, in the case of woman, it is only reason of a sort--very niggard in its dimensions. That is why women remain children their whole life long; never seeing anything but what is quite close to them, cleaving to the present moment, taking appearance for reality, and preferring trifles to matters of the first importance. For it is by virtue of his reasoning faculty that man does not live in the present only, like the brute, but looks about him and considers the past and the future; and this is the origin of prudence, as well as of that care and anxiety which so many people exhibit. Both the advantages and the disadvantages which this involves, are shared in by the woman to a small extent because of her weaker power of reasoning. She may, in fact, be described as intellectually shortsighted, because, while she has an intuitive understanding of what lies quite close to her, her field of vision is narrow and does not reach to what is remote; so that things which are absent, or past, or to come, have much less effect upon woman than upon men. This is the reason why women are more inclined to be extravagant, and sometimes carry their inclination to a length that borders upon madness. In their hearts, women think it is men’s business to earn money and theirs to spend it--if possible during their husband’s life, but, at any rate, after his death. The very fact that their husband hands them over his earning for purposes of housekeeping, strengthens them in this belief. However many disadvantages all this may involve, there is at least this to be said in its favor; that the woman lives more in the present than the man, and that, if the present is at all tolerable, she enjoys it more eagerly. This is the source of that cheerfulness which is peculiar to women, fitting her to amuse man in his hours of recreation, and, in case of need, to console him when he is borne down by the weight of his cares. The author is probably a ______.
- Questions 24 to 26 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the news. The international organization has decided to ______.
- Questions 17 to 20 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 20 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the passage. The speaker suggests the "Enigma Variations" because it is ______.
- Humanity’s primal (原始的) efforts to systematize the concepts of size, shapes, and number are usually regarded as the earliest mathematics. However, the concept of number and the counting process developed so long (67) the time of recorded history (there is archaeological (68) that counting was employed by humans as far back as 50,000 years ago) that the (69) of this development is largely conjectural (好推测的). Imaging how it probably came (70) is not difficult. The argument that humans, (71) in prehistoric times, had some number sense, at least (72) the extent of recognizing the concepts of more and less when some objects were (73) to or taken away from a small group, seems fair, for studies have shown that some animal possesses such a (74) . With the (75) evolution of society, simple counting became necessary. A tribe had to know how many members it had and how many enemies, and shepherd needed to know (76) the flock of sheep was decreasing in size. Probably the earliest way of keeping a count was by some simple tally (计算, 记录) method, (77) the principle of one-to-one corre-spondence. In (78) a count of sheep, for example, one finger per sheep could be (79) . Counts could also be (80) by making scratches in the dirt or on a stone, by cutting notches in a piece of wood, or by tying knots in a string. (81) , perhaps later, an assortment of vocal (82) was developed as a word tally against the number of objects in, a small group. And (83) later, with the development of writing, a set of (84) was invented to stand for these numbers. Such an imagined development is (85) by reports of anthropologists in their studies of present-day societies that are (86) to be similar to those of early humans.
- Questions 22 to 23 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions, Now listen to the news. What is Chad worried about
- Questions 4 to 6 are based on the following conversation. At the end of the conversation, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the conversation. What will the man probably do before he departs for Beijing
- Questions 11 to 13 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the passage. The part of the statue that we can see on the outside was made by ______.
- Questions 17 to 20 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 20 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the passage. How will the students decide on the new music
- Questions 4 to 6 are based on the following conversation. At the end of the conversation, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the conversation. Which flight will the man probably take
- Questions 14 to 16 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the passage. In total darkness, doves
- Questions 14 to 16 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the passage. The experiment with the dove indicates that some birds can ______.
- Questions 11 to 13 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the passage. A good title for this passage is ______.
- SECTION A CONVERSATIONS In this section you will hear several conversations. Listen to the conversations carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 1 to 3 are based on the following conversation. At the end of the conversation, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the conversation. What’s the girl’s problem
- Questions 11 to 13 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the passage. The statue was built ______.
- Questions 14 to 16 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the passage. The reason why birds don’t get lost on long flights ______.
- Questions 7 to 10 are based on the following conversation. At the end of the conversation, you will be given 20 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the conversation. Why does the man object to the idea of going for a walk
- Questions 4 to 6 are based on the following conversation. At the end of the conversation, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the conversation. What is the man doing
- Questions 7 to 10 are based on the following conversation. At the end of the conversation, you will be given 20 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the conversation. Why does the man suggest going to the library together
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