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In 1999, the price of oil hovered around $16 a barrel. By 2008, it had (1) the $100 a barrel mark. The reasons for the surge (2) from the dramatic growth of the economies of China and India to widespread (3) in oil-producing regions, including Iraq and Nigeria’s delta region. Triple-digit oil prices have (4) the economic and political map of the world, (5) some old notions of power. Oil-rich nations are enjoying historic gains and opportunities, (6) major importers — including China and India, home to a third of the world’s population — (7) rising economic and social costs.Managing this new order is fast becoming a central (8) of global politics. Countries that need oil are clawing at each other to (9) scarce supplies, and are willing to deal with any government, (10) how unpleasant, to do it.In many poor nations with oil, the profits are being, lost to corruption, (11) these countries of their best hope for development. And oil is fueling enormous investment funds run by foreign governments, (12) some in the west see as a new threat.Countries like Russia, Venezuela and Iran are well supplied with rising oil (13) , a change reflected in newly aggressive foreign policies. But some unexpected countries are reaping benefits, (14) costs, from higher prices. Consider Germany. (15) it imports virtually all its oil, it has prospered from extensive trade with a booming Russia and the Middle East. German exports to Russia (16) 128 percent from 2001 to 2006.In the United States, as already high gas prices rose (17) higher in the spring of 2008, the issue cropped up in the presidential campaign, with Senators McCain and Obama (18) for a federal gas tax holiday during the peak summer driving months. And driving habits began to (19) , as sales of small cars jumped and mass transport systems (20) the country reported a sharp increase in riders. Read the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1.9()

A. look for
B. lock up
C. send out
D. keep off

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Many people consider the wider use of biofuels a promising way of reducing the amount of surplus carbon dioxide (CO2) being pumped into the air by the world’s mechanized transport. The theory is that plants such as sugar cane, maize (corn, to Americans), oilseed rape and wheat take up CO2 during their growth, so burning fuels made from them should have no net effect on the amount of that gas in the atmosphere.Theory, though, does not always translate into practice, and just as governments have committed themselves to the greater use of biofuels, questions are being raised about how green this form of energy really is. The latest comes from the International Council for Science (ICSU) based in Paris.The ICSU report concludes that, so far, the production of biofuels has aggravated rather than ameliorated global warming. In particular, it supports some controversial findings published in 2007 by Paul Crutzen of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany. Dr. Crutzen concluded that most analyses had underestimated the importance to global warming of a gas called nitrous oxide (N2O). The amount of this gas released by farming biofuel crops such as maize and rape probably negates by itself any advantage offered by reduced emissions of CO2.Although N2O is not common in the Earth’s atmosphere, it is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 and it hangs around longer. The result is that, over the course of a century, its ability to warm the planet is almost 300 times that of an equivalent mass of CO2.N2O is made by bacteria that live in soil and water and, these days, their raw material is often the nitrogen-rich fertiliser that modern farming requires. Since the 1960s the amount of fertiliser used by farmers has increased sixfold, and not all of that extra nitrogen ends up in their crops. Maize, in particular, is described by experts in the field as a “nitrogen-leaky” plant because it has shallow roots and takes up nitrogen for only a few months of the year. This would make maize (which is one of the main sources of biofuel) a particularly bad contributor to global N2O emissions.But it is not just biofuels that are to blame. The ICSU report suggests N2O emissions in general are probably more important than had been realised. Previous studies, including those by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations-appointed body of experts, may have miscalculated their significance — and according to Adrian Williams of Cranfield University, in Britain, even the IPCC’s approach suggests that the global-warming potential of most of Britain’s annual crops is dominated by N2O emissions. Biofuels are appreciated by governments because()

A. burning biofuels does not add CO2 to the atmosphere.
B. biofuels can slow down the pace of global warming.
C. biofuels is a promising and profitable form of green energy.
D. burning biofuels discharges less N2O than burning oils.

In 1999, the price of oil hovered around $16 a barrel. By 2008, it had (1) the $100 a barrel mark. The reasons for the surge (2) from the dramatic growth of the economies of China and India to widespread (3) in oil-producing regions, including Iraq and Nigeria’s delta region. Triple-digit oil prices have (4) the economic and political map of the world, (5) some old notions of power. Oil-rich nations are enjoying historic gains and opportunities, (6) major importers — including China and India, home to a third of the world’s population — (7) rising economic and social costs.Managing this new order is fast becoming a central (8) of global politics. Countries that need oil are clawing at each other to (9) scarce supplies, and are willing to deal with any government, (10) how unpleasant, to do it.In many poor nations with oil, the profits are being, lost to corruption, (11) these countries of their best hope for development. And oil is fueling enormous investment funds run by foreign governments, (12) some in the west see as a new threat.Countries like Russia, Venezuela and Iran are well supplied with rising oil (13) , a change reflected in newly aggressive foreign policies. But some unexpected countries are reaping benefits, (14) costs, from higher prices. Consider Germany. (15) it imports virtually all its oil, it has prospered from extensive trade with a booming Russia and the Middle East. German exports to Russia (16) 128 percent from 2001 to 2006.In the United States, as already high gas prices rose (17) higher in the spring of 2008, the issue cropped up in the presidential campaign, with Senators McCain and Obama (18) for a federal gas tax holiday during the peak summer driving months. And driving habits began to (19) , as sales of small cars jumped and mass transport systems (20) the country reported a sharp increase in riders. Read the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1.11()

A. abolishing
B. depriving
C. destroying
D. eliminating

What’s your earliest memory Do you remember learning to walk The birth of a sibling Nursery school Adults rarely remember events from much before kindergarten, just as children younger than 3 or 4 seldom recall any specific experiences (as distinct from general knowledge). Psychologists have floated all sorts of explanations for this “childhood amnesia”. The reductionists appealed to the neurological, arguing that the hippocampus, the brain region responsible for forming memories, doesn’t mature until about the age of 2. But the reigning theory holds that since adults do not think like children, they cannot access childhood memories. Adults are struck with grown-up “schema”, the bare bones of narratives. (46)When they riffle through the mental filing cabinet in search of fragments of childhood memories to hang on this narrative skeleton, according to this theory, they don’t find any that fit. It’s like trying to find the French word in an English index.Now psychologist Katherine Nelson of the City University of New York offers a new explanation for childhood amnesia. (47)She argues that children don’t even form lasting, long-term memories of personal experiences until they learn to use someone else’s description of those experiences to turn their own short-term, fleeting recollections into permanent memories. In other words, children have to talk about their experiences and hear others talk about them — hear Mom recount that days’ trip to the dinosaur museum, hear Dad re- member aloud their trip to the amusement park.Why should memory depend so heavily on narrative Nelson marshals evidence that the mind structures remembrances that way. (48)Children whose mothers talk about the day’s activities as they wind down toward bedtime, for instance, remember more of the day’s special events than do children whose mothers don’t offer this novelistic framework. Talking about an event in a narrative way helps a child remember it. (49)And learning to structure memories as a long-running narrative, Nelson suggests, is the key to a permanent “autobiographical memory”, the specific remembrances that form one’s life story. (What you had for lunch yesterday isn’t part of it; what you ate on your first date with your future spouse may be.)Language, of course, is the key to such a narrative. Children learn to engage in talk about the past. The establishment of these memories is related to the experience of talking to other people about them. (50)In particular, a child must recognize that a retelling — of that museum trip, say — is just the trip itself in another medium, that of speech rather than experience. That doesn’t happen until the child is perhaps four or five. By the time she’s ready for kindergarten she’ll remember all sorts of things. And she may even, by then, have learned’ not to blurt them out in public. In particular, a child must recognize that a retelling — of that museum trip, say — is just the trip itself in another medium, that of speech rather than experience

“This is a really exciting time — a new era is starting,” says Peter Bazalgette, the chief creative officer of Endemol. He is referring to the upsurge of interest in mobile television, a nascent industry at the intersection of telecoms and media which offers new opportunities to device-makers, content producers and mobile-network operators. And he is far from alone in his enthusiasm.Already, many mobile operators offer a selection of television channels or individual shows, which are “streamed” across their third-generation (3G) networks. 41. ______.Meanwhile, Apple Computer, which launched a video-capable version of its iPod portable music-player in October, is striking deals with television networks to expand the range of shows that can be purchased for viewing on the device, including “Lost”, “Desperate Housewives” and “Law & Order”.42. ______. For a start, nobody really knows if consumers will pay for it, though surveys suggest they like the idea. Informa, a consultancy, says there will be 125m mobile-TV users by 2010. But many other mobile technologies inspired high hopes and then failed to live up to expectations. And even if people do want TV on the move, there is further uncertainty in two areas: technology and business models.At the moment, mobile TV is mostly streamed over 3G networks. But sending an individual data stream to each viewer is inefficient and will be unsustainable in the long run if mobile TV takes off. 43. ______.44. ______. That suggests that some shows (such as drama) better suit the download model, while others (such as live news, sports or reality shows) are better suited to real-time transmission. The two approaches will probably co-exist.Just as there are several competing mobile-TV technologies, there are also many possible business models. Mobile operators might choose to build their own mobile-TV broadcast networks; or they could form a consortium and build a shared network; or existing broadcasters could build such networks.The big question is whether the broadcasters and mobile operators can agree how to divide the spoils, assuming there are any. Broadcasters own the content, but mobile operators generally control the handsets, and they do not always see eye to eye. 45.Then there is the question of who will fund the production of mobile-TV content: broadcasters, operators or advertisers Again, the answer is probably “all of the above”.[A] So the general consensus is that 3G streaming is a prelude to the construction of dedicated mobile-TV broadcast networks, which transmit digital TV signals on entirely different frequencies to those used for voice and data. There are three main standards: DVB-H, favoured in Europe; DMB, which has been adopted in South Korea and Japan; and MediaFLO, which is being rolled out in America. Watching TV using any of these technologies requires a TV-capable handset, of course.[B] In contrast, watching downloaded TV programmes on an iPod or other portable video player is already possible today. And unlike a programme streamed over 3G or broadcast via a dedicated mobile-TV network, shows stored on an iPod can be watched on. an underground train or in regions with patchy network coverage.[C] In South Korea, television is also sent to mobile phones via satellite and terrestrial broadcast networks, which is far more efficient than sending video across mobile networks. In Europe, the Italian arm of 3, a mobile operator, recently acquired Channel 7, a television channel, with a view to launching mobile-TV broadcasts in Italy in the second half of 2006.[D] Despite all this activity, however, the prospects for mobile TV are unclear.[E] Assuming the technology and the business models can be sorted out, there is still the tricky matter of content.[F] In South Korea, a consortium of broadcasters launched a free-to-air DMB network last month, but the country’s mobile operators were reluctant to provide their users with handsets able to receive the broadcasts, since they were unwilling to undermine the prospects for their own subscription-based mobile-TV services.[G] The potential for mobile TV is vast, in short — but so is the degree of uncertainty over how it should actually be put into practice. 44

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