Inthepasttenyears,America’sNat-优题课

Global warming is causing more than 300,000 deaths and about $125 billion in economic losses each year, according to a report by the Global Humanitarian Forum, an organization led by Annan, the former United Nations secretary general.
The report, to be released Friday, analyzed data and existing studies of health, disaster, population and economic trends. It found that human-influenced climate change was raising the global death rates from illnesses including malnutrition (营养不良) and heat-related health problems.
But even before its release, the report drew criticism from some experts on climate and risk, who questioned its methods and conclusions.
Along with the deaths, the report said that the lives of 325 million people, primarily in poor countries, were being seriously affected by climate change. It projected that the number would double by 2030.
Roger Pielke Jr., a political scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who studies disaster trends, said the Forum’s report was “a methodological embarrassment” because there was no way to distinguish deaths or economic losses related to human-driven global warming amid the much larger losses resulting from the growth in populations and economic development in vulnerable (易受伤害的) regions. Dr. Pielke said that “climate change is an important problem requiring our utmost (极度的) attention.” But the report, he said, “will harm the cause for action on both climate change and disasters because it is so deeply flawed (有瑕疵的).”
However, Soren Andreasen, a social scientist at Dalberg Global Development Partners who supervised the writing of the report, defended it, saying that it was clear that the numbers were rough estimates. He said the report was aimed at world leaders, who will meet in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a new international climate treaty.
In a press release describing the report, Mr. Annan stressed the need for the negotiations to focus on increasing the flow of money from rich to poor regions to help reduce their vulnerability(弱点) to climate hazards(危害)while still curbing (限制) the emissions of the heat-trapping gases. More than 90% of the human and economic losses from climate change are occurring in poor countries, according to the report.
What is the finding of the Global Humanitarian Forum?

A．Global temperatures affect the rate of economic development.

B．Rates of death from illnesses have risen due to global warming.

C．Malnutrition has caused serious health problems in poor countries.

D．Economic trends have to do with population and natural disasters.

What do we learn about the Forum’s report from the passage?

A．It was challenged by some climate and risk experts.

B．It aroused a lot of interest in the scientific circles.

C．It was warmly received by environmentalists.

D．It caused a big stir in developing countries.

What does Dr. Pielke say about the Forum’s report?

A．Its statistics look embarrassing.

B．It is invalid in terms of methodology.

C．It deserves our closest attention.

D．Its conclusion is purposely exaggerated.

What is Soren Andreasen’s view of the report?

A．Its conclusions are based on carefully collected data.

B．It is vulnerable to criticism if the statistics are closely examined.

C．It will give rise to heated discussions at the Copenhagen conference.

D．Its rough estimates are meant to draw the attention of world leaders.

What does Kofi Annan say should be the focus of the Copenhagen conference?

A．How rich and poor regions can share responsibility in curbing global warming.

B．How human and economic losses from climate change can be reduced.

C．How emissions of heat-trapping gases can be reduced on a global scale.

D．How rich countries can better help poor regions reduce climate hazards.

You never see him, but they’re with you every time you fly. They record where you are going, how fast you’re traveling and whether everything on your airplane is functioning normally. Their ability to withstand almost any disaster makes them seem like something out of a comic book. They’re known as the black box.
　When planes fall from the sky, as a Yemeni airliner did on its way to Comoros Islands in the India ocean June 30, 2009, the black box is the best bet for identifying what went wrong. So when a French submarine (潜水艇) detected the device’s homing signal five days later, the discovery marked a huge step toward determining the cause of a tragedy in which 152 passengers were killed.
　In 1958, Australian scientist David Warren developed a flight-memory recorder that would track basic information like altitude and direction. That was the first mode for a black box, which became a requirement on all U.S. commercial flights by 1960. Early models often failed to withstand crashes, however, so in 1965 the device was completely redesigned and moved to the rear of the plane – the area least subject to impact – from its original position in the landing wells (起落架舱). The same year, the Federal Aviation Authority required that the boxes, which were never actually black, be painted orange or yellow to aid visibility.
　Modern airplanes have two black boxes: a voice recorder, which tracks pilots’ conversations, and a flight-data recorder, which monitors fuel levels, engine noises and other operating functions that help investigators reconstruct the aircraft’s final moments. Placed in an insulated (隔绝的) case and surrounded by a quarter-inch-thick panels of stainless steel, the boxes can withstand（抵挡）massive force and temperatures up to 2,000℉. When submerged（潜入水中）, they’re also able to emit signals from depths of 20,000 ft. Experts believe the boxes from Air France Flight 447, which crashed near Brazil on June 1,2009, are in water nearly that deep, but statistics say they’re still likely to turn up. In the approximately 20 deep-sea crashes over the past 30 years, only one plane’s black boxes were never recovered.
What does the author say about the black box?

A．It ensures the normal functioning of an airplane.

B．The idea for its design comes from a comic book.

C．Its ability to ward off disasters is incredible.

D．It is an indispensable device on an airplane.

. What information could be found from the black box on the Yemeni airliner?

A．Data for analyzing the cause of the crash.

B．The total number of passengers on board.

C．The scene of the crash and extent of the damage.

D．Homing signals sent by the pilot before the crash.

Why was the black box redesigned in 1965?

A．New materials became available by that time.

B．Too much space was needed for its installation.

C．The early models often got damaged in the crash.

D．The early models didn’t provide the needed data.

What do we know about the black boxes from Air France Flight 447?

A．There is still a good chance of their being recovered.

B．There is an urgent need for them to be reconstructed.

C．They have stopped sending homing signals.

D．They were destroyed somewhere near Brazil.

DONALD SLOAN
Gates Hall University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 66045 913-243-1682	After May 2009: 46 Clayton Drive St. Louis, MO 63130 314-726-8840
Objective	To work with the client (委托人) population in a social service position.
Education	B.A., University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 2009 Major: Social Services Minor: Applied Psychology
Experience	Assistant Activities Supervisor, Fairview Nursing Home, Lawrence, KS, November 2006-present. Help organize and implement recreational activities for nursing home residents. Activities include crafts, dances, day trips, sing-alongs, and visiting performers. Hotline Volunteer. Teen Crisis Center, Lawrence, KS, September 2006- May 2007. Handled crisis calls from teenagers in the community. Dealt with drug use, unwanted pregnancies, failing grades, and the breakdown of parent-teen relationships. Nurse’s Aide, Danyers General Hospital, St. Louis, MO, Summer 2006. Assisted nurses in patient care. Took histories, updated charts, and helped prepare patients for surgery.
Activities	University Concert Board. Work with other board members to plan and implement on-campus concerts. Senior Gift Campaign. Help manage the campaign to raise funds for the senior class gift to the university. Residence Hall Programming Board. Planned social events for Eggar Residence Hall.
Skills	Fluent in French. Water safety instructor. Skilled at working with people.
Interests	Skiing, softball, classical music, and guitar.

This passage is most probably ______.

A．an advertisement for enrolling new employees

B．a school report at the end of an academic year

C．a self-introduction meant to apply for a job

D．a part of a recommendation letter from a university

According to the “Experience” section, we can infer that Donald Sloan can be _____.

A．a wise leader	B．a skillful performer
C．a gifted scientist	D．a good social worker

From the passage we can learn that Donald Sloan ______.

A．is good at singing and dancing	B．is about to graduate from a university
C．has an interest in being a surgeon	D．specializes in psychology

For six hours we shot through the landscape of the Karoo desert in South Africa. Just rocks
and sand and baking sun. Knowing our journey was ending, Daniel and I just wanted to remember all we had seen and done. He used a camera. I used words. I had already finished three notebooks and was into the fourth, a beautiful leather notebook I’d bought in a market in Mozambique.
Southern Africa was full of stories. And visions. We were almost drunk on sensations. The roaring of the water at Victoria Falls, the impossible silence of the Okavango Delta in Botswana . And then the other things: dogs in the streets, whole families in Soweto living in one room, a kilometre from clean water.
As we drove towards the setting sun, a quietness fell over us. The road was empty -- we hadn’t seen another car for hours. And as I drove, something caught my eye, something moving next to me. I glanced in the mirror of the car; I glanced sideways to the right, and that was when I saw them. Next to us, by the side of the road, thirty, forty wild horses were racing the car, a cloud of dust rising behind them -- brown, muscular horses almost close enough to touch them, to smell their hot breath. I didn’t know how long they had been there next to us.
I shouted to Dan: “Look!”, but he was in a deep sleep, his camera lying useless by his feet. They raced the car for a few seconds, then disappeared far behind us, a memory of heroic forms in the red landscape. When Daniel woke up an hour later I told him what had happened.
“Wild horses?” he said. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I tried. But they were gone after a few seconds.”
“Are you sure you didn’t dream it?”
“You were the one who was sleeping!”
Typical, he said. “The best photos are the ones we never take.”
We checked into a dusty hotel and slept the sleep of the dead.
During their journey in Africa, the two travelers______.

A．made friends with local residents

B．complained about the poor living conditions

C．enjoyed the sunset in the Karoo desert most

D．recorded their experiences in different ways

What did Daniel think when he woke up and was told what had happened?

A．He always missed out on the best thing.

B．He had already taken beautiful pictures.

C．A sound sleep was more important.

D．The next trip would be better.

What is the passage mainly about?

A．How to view wildlife in Africa.

B．Running into wildlife in Africa.

C．Tourist attractions in southern Africa.

D．Possible dangers of travelling in the desert.

Bill Gates, the billionaire Microsoft chairman without a single earned university degree, is by his success raising new doubts about the worth of the business world’s favorite academic title: the MBA (Master of Business Administration).
The MBA, a 20^th century product, always has borne the mark of lowly commerce and greed on the tree-lined campuses ruled by purer disciplines such as philosophy and literature.
But even with the recession(经济萎缩) apparently cutting down the hiring of business school graduates, about 79,000 people are expected to receive MBAs in 1993. This is nearly 16 times the number of business graduates in 1960.
“If you are going into the corporate world it is still a disadvantage not to have one,” said Donald Morrison, professor of marketing and management science. “But in the last five years or so, when someone says, ‘Should I attempt to get an MBA?’ the answer a lot more is: It depends.”
The success of Bill Gates and other non-MBAs, such as the late Sam Walton of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., has helped inspire self-conscious debates on business school campuses over the worth of a business degree and whether management skills can be taught.
The Harvard Business Review printed a lively, fictional exchange of letters to dramatize complaints about business degree holders. The article called MBA hires “extremely disappointing” and said “MBAs want to move up too fast, they don’t understand politics and people, and they aren’t able to function as part of a team until their third year. But by then, they’re out looking for other jobs.”
The problem, most participants in the debate acknowledge, is that the MBA has acquired an aura (光环) of future riches and power far beyond its actual importance and usefulness.
Business people who have hired or worked with MBAs say those with the degrees of ten know how to analyze systems but are not so skillful at motivating people. “They don’t get a lot of grounding in the people side of the business”, said James Shaffer, vice-president and principal of the Towers Perrin management consulting firm.
According to paragraph 2, what is the general attitude towards business on campuses ruled by purer disciplines?

A．Envious(嫉妒的).	B．Realistic.
C．Scornful(蔑视的).	D．Appreciative.

. It seems that the argument over the value of MBA degrees had been fueled mainly by ___.

A．the complaints from various employers

B．the success of many non-MBAs

C．the criticism from the scientists of purer disciplines

D．the poor performance of MBAs at work

. What is the major weakness of MBA holders according to the Harvard Business Review?

A．They are usually self-centered.

B．They are aggressive and greedy.

C．They keep complaining about their jobs.

D．They are not good at dealing with people.

. From the passage we know that most MBAs ________.

A．can climb the corporate ladder fairly quickly

B．quit their jobs once they are familiar with their workmates

C．receive salaries that do not match their professional training

D．cherish unrealistic expectations about their future

What is the passage mainly about?

A．Why there is an increased enrollment in MBA programs.

B．The necessity of reforming MBA programs in business schools.

C．Doubts about the worth of holding an MBA degree.

D．A debate held recently on university campuses.