题目内容
They may not be the richest, but Africans remain the world’s staunchest optimists. An annual survey by Gallup International, a research outfit, shows that, when asked whether this year will be better than last, Africa once again comes out on top. Out of 52 000 people interviewed all over the world, under half believe that things are looking up. But in Africa the proportion is close to 60% almost twice as much as in Europe.Africans have some reasons to be cheerful. The continent’s economy has been doing fairly well with South Africa, the economic powerhouse, growing steadily over the past few years. Some of Africa’s long-running conflicts, such as the war between the north and south in Sudan and the civil war in Congo, have ended. Africa even has its first elected female head of state, in Liberia.Yet there is no shortage of downers too. Most of Africa remains dirt poor. Crises in places like Cote d’ Ivoire, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe are far from solved. And the democratic credentials of Ethiopia and Uganda, once the darlings of western donors, have taken a bad knock. AIDS killed over gm Africans in 2005, and will kill more this year.So is it all just a case of irrational exuberance Meril James of Gallup argues that there is, in fact, usually very little relation between the survey’s optimism rankings and reality. Africans, this year led by Nigerians, are consistently the most upbeat, whether their lot gets better or not. On the other hand, Greece--hardly the worst place on earth--tops the gloom and doom chart, followed closely by Portugal and France.Ms James speculates that religion may have a lot to do with it. Nine out of ten Africans are religious, the highest proportion in the world. But cynics argue that most Africans believe that 2006 will be golden because things have been so bad that it is hard to imagine how they could possibly get worse. This may help explain why places that have suffered recent misfortunes, such as Kosovo and Afghanistan, rank among the top five optimists. Moussaka for thought for those depressed Greeks. The tone of the author in discussing African status can be defined as being （）
查看答案
搜索结果不匹配？点我反馈
更多问题
The last-minute victory of the Texas Longhorns in this year’s Rose Bowl--America’s college football championship--was the kind of thing that stays with fans forever. Just as well, because many had paid vast sums to see the game. Rose Bowl tickets officially sold for＄175 each. On the internet, resellers were hawking them for as much as ＄ 3,000 a pop. "Nobody knows how to control [this]," observed Mitch Dorger, the tournament’s chief executive.Re-selling tickets for a profit, known less politely as scalping in America or touting in Britain, is booming. In America alone, the "secondary market" for tickets to sought-after events is worth over ＄10 billion, reckons Jeffrey Fluhr, the boss of StubHub, an online ticket market. Scalping used to be about burly men lurking outside stadiums with fistfuls of tickets. Cries of "Tickets here, tickets here" still ring out before kick off. But the internet has created a larger and more efficient market. Some internet-based ticket agencies, such as tickco, com and dynamiteticketz, com act as traditional scalpers, buying up tickets and selling them on for a substantial mark-up. But others like StubHub have a new business mode — bring together buyers and sellers, and then take a cut. For each transaction, StubHub takes a juicy 25%.Despite its substantial commission—far higher than those charged by other online intermediaries including eBay or Craigslist—StubHub is flourishing. The firm was set up in 2000 and this year’s Rose Bowl was its biggest event ever. The Super Bowl in early February will bring another nice haul, as have U2 and Rolling Stones concerts. Unlike eBay, which is the largest online trader in tickets, StubHub guarantees each transaction, so buyers need not worry about fraud. The company’s revenues, now around ＄ 200m, are tripling annually (despite its start in the dotcom bust). And there is plenty more room to grow. Mr. Fluhr notes that the market remains "highly fragmented", with tiny operations still flourishing and newspaper classifieds not yet dead.But there are risks. Some events are boosting prices to cut the resale margins; others are using special measures to crack down. This summer, tickets to the soccer World Cup in Germany will include the name and passport number of the original purchaser and embedded chips that match the buyer to the tickets.Then there are legal worries. In America, more than a dozen states have anti-scalping laws of various kinds. New Mexico forbids the reselling of tickets for college games; Mississippi does so for all events on government-owned property. Such laws are often ignored, but can still bite. In Massachusetts, where reselling a ticket for more than ＄ 2 above face value is unlawful, one fan brought a lawsuit last autumn against 16 companies (including StubHub) over his pricey Red Sox tickets. In both the second and the third paragraphs, the author employs which of the following writing device()
In the span of 18 months, Isaac Newton invented calculus, constructed a theory of optics, explained how gravity works and discovered his laws of motion. As a result, 1665 and the early months of 1666 are termed his annus mirabilis. (46) It was a sustained sprint of intellectual achievement that no one thought could ever be equaled. But in a span of a few years just before 1900, it all began to unravel. One phenomenon after another was discovered which could not be explained by the laws of classical physics. (47) The theories of Newton, and of James Clerk Maxwell who followed him in the mid-19th century by crafting a more comprehensive account of electromagnetism, were in trouble.Then, in 1905, a young patent clerk named Albert Einstein found the way forward. In five remarkable papers, he showed that atoms are real (it was still controversial at the time), presented his special theory of relativity, and put quantum theory on its feet. It was a different achievement from Newton’s year, but Einstein’s annus mirabilis was no less remarkable. He did not, like Newton, have to invent entirely new forms of mathematics. However, he had to revise notions of space and time fundamentally. (48) And unlike Newton, who did not publish his results for nearly 20 years, so obsessed was he with secrecy and working out the details, Einstein released his papers one after another, as a fusillade of ideas.For Einstein, it was just a beginning--he would go on to create the general theory of relativity and to pioneer quantum mechanics. While Newton came up with one system for explaining the world, Einstein thus came up with two. Unfortunately, his discoveries-- relativity and quantum theory contradict one another. Both cannot be true everywhere, although both are remarkably accurate .in their respective domains of the very large and the very small. Einstein would spend the last years of his life attempting to reconcile the two theories, and failing. (49) But then, no one else has succeeded in fixing the problems either, and Einstein was perhaps the one who saw them most clearly.When Einstein was awarded a Nobel prize, in 1921, it was for the first of his papers of 1905, which proved the existence of photons--particles of light. (50) Up until that paper, completed on March 17th and published in Annalen der Physik (as were the other 1905 papers), light had been supposed to be a wave, since this explains the interference patterns created when it passes through a grating. Einstein, however, began from a different premise, by considering the so called "black-body experiment". It was a sustained sprint of intellectual achievement that no one thought could ever be equaled
Back when we were kids, the hours spent with friends were too numerous to count. There were marathon telephone conversations; all-night studying and giggling sessions. Even after boyfriends entered the pictured our best friends remained irreplaceable. And time was the means by Which we nurtured those friendships. Now as adult women we never seem to have enough time for anything. Husbands, kids, careers and avocations--all require attention; too often, making time for our friends comes last on the list of priorities. And yet, ironically, we need our friends as much as ever in adulthood. A friendship network is absolutely crucial for our well being as adults. We have to do the hard work of building and sustaining the network. Here are some important ways for accomplishing this.Let go of your less central friendships.Many of our friendships were never meant to last a lifetime. It’s natural that some friendships have time limits. Furthermore, now everyone has a busy social calendar, so pull back from some people that you don’t really want to draw close to and give the most promising friendship a fair chance to grow.(41) Be willing to "drop everything" when you’re truly needed.You may get a call from a friend who is really depressed over a certain problem when you are just sitting down to enjoy a romantic dinner with your husband. This is just one of those instances when a friend’s needs mattered more.(42) Take advantage of the mails.Nearly all of us have pals living far away--friends we miss very much. Given the limited time available for visits and the high price of phone calls, writing is a fine way to keep in touch and makes both sender and receiver feel good.(43) Risk expressing negative feelings.When time together is tough to come by, it’s natural to want the mood during that time to be upbeat. And many people fear that others will think less of you if you express the negative feelings like anger and hurt.(44) Don’t make your friends’ problems your own.Sharing your friend’s grief is the way you show deep friendship.Never underestimate the value of loyalty.Loyalty has always been rated as one of the most desired qualities in friends. True loyalty can be a fairly subtle thing. Some people feel it means that, no matter what, your friend will always take you side. But real loyalty is being accepting the person, not necessarily of certain actions your friend might take.(45) Give the gift of time as often as time allows.Time is what we don’t have nearly enough of--and yet, armed with a little ingenuity, we can make it to give it to our friends.The last but not the least thing to keep a friendship alive is to say to your friends "I miss you and love you." Saying that at the end of a phone conversation, or a visit, or writing it on a birthday card, can sustain your friendship for the times you aren’t together.[A] But taking on your friend’s pain doesn’t make that pain go away. There’s a big difference between empathy or recognizing a friend’s pain, and over identification, which makes the sufferer feel even weaker-- "I must be in worse pain than I even thought, because the person I’m confiding in is suffering so much!" Remember troubled people just need their friends to stay grounded in their own feelings.[B] Remember honesty is the key to keeping a friendship real. Sharing your pain will actually deepen a friendship.[C] Besides, letters, cards and postcards have the virtue of being tangible--friends can keep them and reread them for years to come.[D] The trick is remembering that a little is better than none and that you can do two things at Once. For instance, if you both go for a weekly aerobics, go on the same day. If you both want to go on vocation, schedule the same destination.[E] Careful listening, clear writing, close reading, plain speaking, and accurate description- will be invaluable. In tomorrow’s fast-paced business environment there will be precious little time to correct any misunderstandings. Communications breakdown may well become a fatal corporate disease.[F] Sometimes, because of our unbreakable commitments or other circumstances, we simply can’t give a needy friend the time we’d like. If you can’t be there at that given moment, say something like, "I wish I could be with you I can hear that you’re in pain. May I call you tomorrow" Be sure your friend knows she’s cared about. 45
Menorca or Majorca It is that time of the year again. The brochures are piling up in travel agents while newspapers and magazines bulge with advice about where to go. But the traditional packaged holiday, a British innovation that provided many timid natives with their first experience of warm sand, is not what it was. Indeed, the industry is anxiously awaiting a High Court ruling to find out exactly what it now is.Two things have changed the way Britons research and book their holidays: low-cost airlines and the internet. Instead of buying a ready made package consisting of a flight, hotel, car hire and assorted entertainment from a tour operator’s brochure, it is now easy to put together a trip using an online travel agent like Expedia or Travelocity, which last July bought Lastminute. com for ￡577m (＄1 billion), or from the proliferating websites of airlines, hotels and car-rental firms.This has led some to sound the death knell for high street travel agents and tour operators. There have been upheavals and closures, but the traditional firms are starting to fight back, in part by moving more of their business online. First Choice Holidays, for instance, saw its pre tax profit rise by 16% to ￡114m ( ＄196m) in the year to the end of October. Although the overall number of holidays booked has fallen, the company is concentrating on more valuable long-haul and adventure trips. First Choice now sells more than half its trips directly, either via the internet, over the telephone or from its own travel shops. It wants that to reach 75% within a few years.Other tour operators are showing similar hustle. MyTravel managed to cut its loss by almost half in 2005. Thomas Cook and Thomson Holidays, now both German owned, are also bullish about the coming holiday season. Highstreet travel agents are having a tougher time, though, not least because many leading tour operations have cut the commissions they pay.Some high-street travel agents are also learning to live with the internet, helping people book complicated trips that they have researched online, providing advice and tacking on other services: This is seen as a growth area. But if an agent puts together separate flights and hotel accommodation, is that a package, tooThe Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says it is and the agent should hold an Air Travel Organisers- Licence, which provides financial guarantees to repatriate people and provide refunds. The scheme dates from the early 1970s, when some large British travel firms went bust, stranding customers on the Costas. Although such failures are less common these days, the CAA had to help out some 30,000 people last year. The Association of British Travel Agents went to the High Court in November to argue such bookings are not traditional packages and so do not require agents to acquire the costly licences. While the court decides, millions of Britons will happily click away buying online holidays, unaware of the difference. According to the text, the shift in the method of holiday booking in UK is associated with （）
微信支付 
支付宝支付