The Cold Places The Arctic is a polar region. It surrounds the North Pole. Like Antarctica, the Arctic is a land of ice and snow. Antarctica holds the record for a low temperature reading—125 Fahrenheit below zero. Readings of 85 degrees below zero are common in both the Arctic and Antarctica. Winter temperatures average 30 degrees below zero in the Arctic. At the South Pole the winter is about 73 degrees below zero. One thing alone makes it almost impossible for men to Jive in Antarctica and in parts of the Arctic. This one thing is the low temperature—the killing chili of the far North and the polar South. To survive, men must wear the warmest possible clothing. They must build windproof shelters. They must keep heaters going at all times. Not even for moment can they be unprotected against the below-zero temperature. Men have a way of providing for themselves. Polar explorers wrap themselves in warm coats and furs. The cold makes life difficult. But the explorers can stay alive. What about animals Can they survive Do we find plants Do we find life in the Arctic and the Antarctica Yes, we do. There is life in the oceans. There is life on land. Antarctica, as we have seen, is a cold place indeed. But this has not always been the case. Expedition scientists have discovered that Antarctica may have been much like our own. Explores have discovered coal in Antarctica. This leads them to believe that Antarctica at one time was a land of swamps and forests. Heat and moisture must have kept the trees in the forests alive. Polar explorers can stay alive without heaters and windproof shelters.
A. Right
B. Wrong
C. Not mentioned
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Even Intelligent People Can Fail1 The striking thing about the innovators who succeeded in making our modern world is how often they failed. Turn on a light, take a photograph, watch TV, search the Web, jet across the Pacific Ocean, talk on a cellphone (手机). The innovators who left us these things had to find the way to success through a maze (错综复杂) of wrong turns.2 We have just celebrated the 125th anniversary of American innovator Thomas Edison’s success in heating a thin line to white-hot heat for 14 hours in his lab in New Jersey, US. He did that on October 22, 1879, and followed up a month later by keeping a thread of common cardboard alight (点亮着的) in an airless space for 45 hours. Three years later he went on to light up half a square mile of downtown Manhattan, even though only one of the six power plants in his design worked when he turned it on, on September 4, 1882.3 "Many of life’s failures," the supreme innovator said, "are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." Before that magical moment in October 1879, Edison had worked out no fewer than 3,000 theories about electric light, but in only two cases did his experiments work.4 No one likes failure, but the smart innovators learn from it. Mark Gumz, the head of the camera maker Olympus America Inc, attributes some of the company’s successes in technology to understanding failure. His popular phrase is: "You only fail when you quit."5 Over two centuries, the most common quality of the innovators has been persistence. That is another way of saying they had the emotional ability to keep up what they were doing. Walt Disney, the founder of Disneyland, was so broke after a succession of financial failures that he was left shoeless in his office because he could not afford the US$1.50 to get his shoes from the repair shop. Pioneering car maker Henry Ford failed with one company and was forced out of another before he developed the Model T car.6 Failure is harder to bear in today’s open, accelerated world. Hardly any innovation works the first time. But an impatient society and the media want instant success. When American music and movie master David Geffen had a difficult time, a critic said nastily that the only difference between Geffen Records (Geffen’s company) and the Titanic (the ship that went down) was that the Titanic had better music. Actually, it wasn’t. After four years of losses, Geffen had so many hits (成功的作品) he could afford a ship as big as the Titanic all to himself. Before Henry Ford eventually developed the Model T car______
Cost as a Factor in SupplyIn a purely competitive market, the supplier of goods and services has no control over the market price, because he produces too little to influence market conditions. With no difference between his products and the products (51) his competitors, he will sell nothing if he charges above the market price and he will sell all if he charges at or (52) the market price. However, in considering the price, he must take the (53) of production into consideration. There are times when he may be willing to sell below his cost. This might happen when prices tumble for (54) he believes will be a short time. However, no business person can (55) to lose money for a prolonged period. He must be constantly (56) of his costs in relation to the market price if he is to compete successfully and earn a profit.Many people have the impression that as production increases, costs per unit decrease. (57) mass production has made this true in certain industries and at certain levels of production, (58) logic and practical experiences have shown that costs per unit begin to rise beyond a certain level of production. Some economists (59) to this principle as the law of increasing costs.The reason costs rise as production goes up is (60) . However, it is easy to recognize that as production goes up, the need for additional factors of production will also grow, (61) competitive bidding in the marketplace for the factors of production. If a producer needs (62) skilled labor to produce more, and none of this labor is unemployed, the producer will have to get (63) from other sources. This can be done by (64) higher wages. Higher bidding would also apply to the other factors of production. We must also recognize that not all labor is equally productive, (65) not all land is equally fertile and not all ore (矿石) is equally rich in the mineral wanted. 52().
A. below
B. beneath
C. over
D. above
Milosevic’ s Death Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic was found dead last Saturday in his cell at the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The 64-year-old had been on trial there since February 2002. Born in provincial Pozarevac in 1941, he was the second son of a priest and a school teacher. Both of his parents died when he was still a young adult. The young Milosevic was "untypical", says Slavoljub Djukic, his unofficial biographer. He was "not interested in sports, avoided excursions and used to come to school dressed in the old-fashioned way - white shirt and tie." One of his old friends said, he could "imagine him as a station-master or punctilious civil servant". Indeed that is exactly what he might have become, had he not married Mira. She was widely believed to be his driving force. At university and beyond he did well. He worked for various firms and was a communist party member. By 1986 he was head of Serbia’s Central Committer. But still he had not yet really been noticed. It was Kosovo that gave him his chance. An autonomous province of Serbia, Kosovo was home to an Albanian majority and a Serbian minority. In 1989, he was sent there to calm fears of Serbians who felt they were discriminated against. But instead he played the nationalist card and became their champion. In so doing, he changed into a ruthless and determined man. At home with Mira he plotted the downfall of his political enemies. Conspiring with the director of Serbian TV, he mounted a modern media campaign which aimed to get him the most power in the country. He was elected Serbian president in 1990. In 1997, he became president of Yugoslavia. The rest of the story is well-known: his nationalist card caused Yugoslavia’s other ethnic groups to fight for their own rights, power and lands. Yugoslavia broke up when four of the six republics declared independence in 1991. War started and lasted for years and millions died. Then Western countries intervened. NATO bombed Yugoslavia, and he eventually stepped down as state leader in 2000. Soon after this, Serbia’s new government, led by Zoran Djindjic, arrested him and sent him to face justice at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in the Hague. What happened in 1991
A. Yugoslavia broke up.
B. Western countries intervened.
C. NATO bombed Yugoslavia.
D. Milosevic was arrested.
Storms Sink Ships Rescuers have found the bodies of over 130 people killed in two ferry disasters in Bangladesh. The accidents happened during a storm that hit the country on April 21 Hundreds more are missing or feared dead. The two ferries sank in different rivers near the capital city of Dhaka as strong winds and rain hit the South Asian country. The government has since banned all ferries and other boats from travelling at night during the April-May stormy season. One of the ferries, MV Mitali, was carrying far more people than it was supposed to. About 400 passengers fitted into a space made for just 300, police said The second ferry carried about 100 passengers. "The number of deaths is certain to rise, " said an official in charge of the rescue work. "No one really knows how many people were on board the ferry or how many of them survived. " Ferries in Bangladesh don’t always keep passenger lists, making it difficult to determine the exact number of people on board. Besides the ferry accidents, at least 40 people were killed and 400 injured by lightning strikes, falling houses and trees and the sinking of small boats. Storms are common this time of year in Bangladesh, as are boating accidents. Ferry disasters take away hundreds of lives every year in a nation of 130 million people. Officials blame these river accidents on a lack of safety measures, too many passengers in boats and not enough checks on weather conditions. Ferries are a common means of transport in Bangladesh. It is a country covered by about 230 rivers. Some 20,000 ferries use the nation’s waterways(水路)every year. And many of them are dangerously overcrowded (过度拥挤). Since1977, more than 3,000 people have died in some 260 boating accidents. How many passengers was MV Mitali designed to carry
A. 440
B. 100
C. 400
D. 300