单选题______A themselvesB friendsC strangersD others

With the increased use of high-tech communications equipment, business people __________.

Language exists to communicate whatever it can communicate. Some things it communicates so badly that we never attempt to communicate them by words if any other medium is available. Those who think they are testing a boy’s “elementary” command of English by asking him to describe in words how one ties one’s tie or what a pair of scissors is like, are far astray. For precisely what language can hardly do at all, and never does well, is to inform us about complex physical shapes and movements. Hence descriptions of such things in the ancient writers are nearly always unintelligible. Hence we never in real life voluntarily use language for this purpose; we draw a diagram or go through pantomimic gestures. The exercises which such examiners set are no more a test of “elementary” linguistic competence than the most difficult bit of trick—riding from the circus ring is a test of elementary horsemanship.　　Another grave limitation of language is that it cannot, like music or gesture, do more than one thing at once. However the words in a great poet’s phrase interanimate one other and strike the mind as quasi-instantaneous chord, yet, strictly speaking, each word must be read or heard before the next. That way, language is as unilinear as time. Hence, in narrative, the great difficulty of presenting a very complicated change which happens suddenly. If we do justice to the complexity, the time the reader must take over the passage will destroy the feeling of suddenness. If we get in the suddenness we shall not be able to get in the complexity.　　One of the most important and effective uses of language is the emotional. It is also, of course, wholly legitimate. We do not talk only in order to reason or to inform. We have to make love and quarrel, to propitiate and pardon, to rebuke, to console, intercede, and a rouse. “He that complains,” said Johnson, “acts like a man, like a social being.” The real objection lies not against the language of emotion as such, but against language which, being in reality emotional, masquerades—whether by plain hypocrisy or subtle self-deceit—as being something else.

To say that all Americans wear dazzlingly colored clothes is a generalization.

Is More Growth Really Better?　　A number of writers have raised questions about the desirability of faster economic growth as an end in itself, at least in the wealthier industrialized countries. Yet faster growth does mean more wealth, and to most people the desirability of wealth is beyond question. “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor—and I can tell you, rich is better,” a noted stage personality is said to have told an interviewer, and most people seem to have the same attitude about the economy as a whole. To those who hold this belief, a healthy economy is one that is capable of turning out vast quantities of shoes, food, cars, and TV sets. An economy whose capacity to provide all these things is not expanding is said to have succumbed to the disease of stagnation.　　Economists from Adam Smith to Karl Marx saw great virtue in economic growth. Marx argued that capitalism, at least in its earlier historical stages, was a vital form of economic organization by which society got out of the rut in which the medieval stage of history had trapped it. Marx believed that “the development of the productive powers of society... alone can form the real basis of a higher form of productive powers of society”. Marx went on to tell us that only where such great productive powers have been unleashed can one have “a society in which the full and free development of every individual forms the ruling principle.” In other words, only a wealthy economy can afford to give all individuals the opportunity for full personal satisfaction through the use of their special abilities in their jobs and through increased leisure activities.　　Yet the desirability of further economic growth for a society that is already wealthy has been questioned on grounds that undoubtedly have a good deal of validity. It is pointed out that the sheer increase in quantity of products has imposed an enormous cost on society in the form of pollution, crowding, proliferation of wastes that need disposal, and debilitating psychological and social effects. It is said that industry has transformed the satisfying and creative tasks of the artisan into the mechanical and dehumanizing routine of the assembly line. It has dotted our roadsides with junkyards, filled our air with smoke, and poisoned our food with dangerous chemicals. The question is whether the outpouring of frozen foods, talking dolls, radios, and headache remedies is worth its high cost to society. As one well-known economist put it:　　The continued pursuit of economic growth by Western Societies is more likely on balance to reduce rather than increase social welfare... Technological innovations may offer to add to men’s material opportunities. But by increasing the risks of their obsolescence it adds also to their anxiety. Swifter means of communications have the paradoxical effect of isolating people; increased mobility has led to more hours commuting; increased automobilization to increased separation; more television to less communication. In consequence, people know less of their neighbors than ever before.　　Virtually every economist agrees that these concerns are valid, though many question whether economic growth is their major cause. Nevertheless, they all emphasize that pollution of air and water, noise and congestion, and the mechanization of the work process are very real and very serious problems. There is every reason for society to undertake programs that grapple with these problems. 11

Which of the following is NOT true?

新型工业化　　我们要推进产业结构优化升级，坚持走新型工业化道路。依靠科技进步，围绕提高自主创新能力，推动产业结构调整。加快开发对经济增长有重大带动作用的高新技术，以及能够推动传统产业升级的共性技术和关键技术。抓紧制定若干重大领域关键技术创新的目标和措施，务求尽快取得新突破。完善鼓励创新的体制和政策体系。坚持引进先进技术和消化吸收创新相结合，增强自主开发能力。大力发展高新技术产业，积极推进国民经济和社会信息化。加快用高新技术改造提升传统产业。以重大工程为依托，推动装备制造业振兴。在专门项目指导下，继续加强能源、重要原材料等基础产业和水利、交通、通信等基础设施建设。积极发展现代配送、旅游、社区服务等第三产业。既要加快发展资金技术密集型产业，又要继续发展劳动密集型产业。

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The government is believed to be considering passed a law making it a crime to import any kind of weapons.

For children, playing is an automatic and integral component of growing up.

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The On-going Debate over Healthcare Reform　　It seems that the government’s so-called Blue Ribbon Commission has already decided what plan it will propose without undertaking any public consultation and is now merely engaged in a PR campaign to convince us they have the answer.　　This seems a little head over heels to us. Since it is our money and our health that is in question, shouldn’t we have been consulted at the break about which way we want to go?　　There are several models to achieve healthcare reform, and not all of them require us to hand more money over to keep government bureaucrats in big offices. Purely private healthcare may have big problems—but so does the socialised medicine the commission is recommending.　　For example, Canada’s universal system of socialised medicine is now busily engaged in transferring costs from the public to the private sector… by reducing covered expenses, by de-insuring some expenses and so on.　　Medical authorities are on record as saying that in an effort to manage costs, hospital stays are being shortened (or even dispensed with altogether).　　So while we in the Bahamas are citing universal ‘free’ health care as the answer to our problems, in Canada there is an uncoordinated scramble by the public system to reduce and offload the effects of rising health care costs. And we won’t even mention the litany of complaints from users who have to wait for poor service.　　But what mostly concerns us about the Blue Ribbon Commission is that they have plumped for social health insurance without determining the cost of their recommended programmer, or of the alternatives.　　And they do not seem to have taken into account the impact this plan will have on the fiscal deficit or on our individual pockets. Apparently, the position is that whatever the cost, this is the plan that will be presented to parliament.　　An initiative so far-reaching and so potentially damaging to our economy, should require more careful assessment of the alternatives in public. There is always more than one way to skin a cat. And we do not believe that a small group of consultants constitutes ‘the public’.

The whole region is rarely populated; our nearest neighbor lives ten miles away.

Mary's daughter, although only six years old, showed ingenuity in making a dress for her doll.

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中国的旅游业　　中国是一个地域辽阔，有着数千年悠久历史的多民族国家，有着秀丽的自然风光、众多的名胜古迹和丰富多彩的灿烂文化，旅游资源十分丰富。改革开放以来，中国经济以年平均近10％的速度持续增长，各项事业蓬勃发展，人民生活水平显著提高，为旅游业的兴旺奠定了坚实的基础。中国政治稳定，经济发展，市场繁荣，中国政府坚持对外开放积极发展与世界各国的关系，也为旅游业的发展创造了极为有利的条件。中国政府十分重视旅游业的发展，将旅游业作为第三产业的重点，不断开发旅游资源，改善旅游设施，提高服务质量，促进了国际国内旅游业的快速发展。随着中国人民生活水平的提高，我国到国外旅行的人数也逐年增多，为国际旅游业的发展增添了新的活力。

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It is not so much the language that the cultural background that makes the book difficult to understand.

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Since the Second World War, most urban growth in the United States has occurred on the outskirts of existing metropolitan areas.

幸福婚姻的秘密　　长久而幸福婚姻的秘密在于不要期望太多。　　美国的研究人员说，除非具备处理关系的高超技巧，否则你对美满婚姻的憧憬很可能会破灭。他们还说，最好降低期望保证自己不会失望。　　来自美国俄亥俄州和佛罗里达州各大学的研究人员对82对夫妻进行了研究。4年多来，他们询问了所有夫妇。他们拨现那些相信自己的伴侣会永远对自己好，永远爱着自己，同意自己每一句话的人会保持积极态度，因为他们能够宽恕并仁慈地解释伴侣的消极行为。然而，那些对婚姻期望太高却又不具备关系处理技巧的人，一旦心中的白马王子或自雪公主从神圣的光环中跌落，他们可能很快就被迫回到现实中。相反，研究人员说，用平常心来看待自己的爱人就意味着你不太会失望，所以也就会对婚姻更加满意。　　研究还发现，人们倾向于选择志趣相投的伴侣，他们相信这样能够维持一份稳定的婚姻。美国的研究人员说，寻找长期婚姻关系的人们应该选择与自己性格相近的伴侣而不是寻求最优秀的伴侣。

Spearmint is distilled for flavoring chewing gum and candy and used as a disguise for disagreeable tastes in medicine.

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