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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. France is mentioned in the text with the aim to（）
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The Californian coastline north and south of Silicon Valley is a trend-setting sort of place. Increasingly, the home interiors of the well-heeled there tend toward one of two (1) . Houses are (2) light flooded, sparse and vaguely Asian in (3) , with perhaps a Zen fountain in one corner, a Yoga area in another. Or they resemble electronic control rooms with all sorts of (4) , computers, routers, antennae, screens and remote controls. Occasionally, both elements are (5) . "She" may have the living room and’public areas, (6) "he" is banished with his toys up or down the stairs.Currently, the gadget lovers have powerful allies. Many of the largest companies in the consumer-electronics, computer, telecoms and internet industries have made a strategic decision to (7) visions of a "digital home", "eHome", or "connected home". Doubting that (8) from corporate customers will ever (9) to the boom levels of the late 1990s, Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Verizon, Comcast, Hewlett-Packard, Apple and others see the consumer (10) their best chance for growth and will be throwing a bewildering (11) of home "solutions" at (12) in the coming months and years.To understand what the (13) ultimately have in (14) it is best to visit the (15) homes that most have built on their campuses or at trade shows. (16) cosy and often intimidating, these feature flat screens almost everywhere, (17) electronic picture frames in the bedroom from the large TV-substitute in the living room. Every (18) has a microchip and can be (19) to, typed into or clicked onto. Everything is (20) to a central computer through wireless links. Read the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1.17（）
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". 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
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. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that （）
The Californian coastline north and south of Silicon Valley is a trend-setting sort of place. Increasingly, the home interiors of the well-heeled there tend toward one of two (1) . Houses are (2) light flooded, sparse and vaguely Asian in (3) , with perhaps a Zen fountain in one corner, a Yoga area in another. Or they resemble electronic control rooms with all sorts of (4) , computers, routers, antennae, screens and remote controls. Occasionally, both elements are (5) . "She" may have the living room and’public areas, (6) "he" is banished with his toys up or down the stairs.Currently, the gadget lovers have powerful allies. Many of the largest companies in the consumer-electronics, computer, telecoms and internet industries have made a strategic decision to (7) visions of a "digital home", "eHome", or "connected home". Doubting that (8) from corporate customers will ever (9) to the boom levels of the late 1990s, Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Verizon, Comcast, Hewlett-Packard, Apple and others see the consumer (10) their best chance for growth and will be throwing a bewildering (11) of home "solutions" at (12) in the coming months and years.To understand what the (13) ultimately have in (14) it is best to visit the (15) homes that most have built on their campuses or at trade shows. (16) cosy and often intimidating, these feature flat screens almost everywhere, (17) electronic picture frames in the bedroom from the large TV-substitute in the living room. Every (18) has a microchip and can be (19) to, typed into or clicked onto. Everything is (20) to a central computer through wireless links. Read the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1.7（）
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