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【简答题】
Glass, in one form or another, has long been in noble service to humans. As one of the most widely used of manufactured materials, and certainly the most versatile, it can be as imposing as a telescope mirror the width of a tennis court or as small and as a marble rolling across dirt.
41. ______
The uses of this adaptable material have been broadened dramatically by new technologies: glass fiber optics—more than eight million miles—carrying telephone and television signals across nations; glass ceramics serving as the nose cones of missiles and as crowns for teeth; tiny glass beads taking radiation doses inside the body to specific organs; even a new type of glass fashioned of nuclear waste in order to dispose of that unwanted material.
42. ______
On the horizon are optical computers. These could store programs and process information by means of light—pulses from tiny lasers—rather than electrons. And the pulses would travel over glass fibers, not copper wire. These machines could function hundreds of times faster than today’s electronic computers and hold vastly more information. Today fiber optics are used to obtain a clearer image of smaller and smaller objects than ever before—even bacterial viruses. Anew generation of optical instruments is emerging that can provide detailed imaging of the inner workings of cells. It is the surge in fiber optic use and in liquid crystal displays that has set the U. S. glass industry (a 16 billion dollar business employing some 150, 000 workers) to building new plants to meet demand.
43. ______
But not all the glass technology that touches our lives is ultra-modem. Consider the light bulb; at the turn of the century most light bulbs were hand blown, and the cost of one was equivalent to half a day’s pay for the average worker. In effect, the invention of the ribbon machine by Coming in the 1920s lighted a nation. The price of a bulb plunged. Small wonder that the machine has been called one of the great mechanical achievements of all time. Yet it is very : a narrow ribbon of molten glass travels over a moving belt of steel in which there are holes. The glass sags through the holes and into waiting moulds. Puffs of compressed air then shape the glass. In this way, the envelope of a light bulb is made by a single machine at the rate of 66,000 an hour, as compared with 1,200 a day produced by a team of four glassblowers.
44. ______
The secret of the versatility of glass lies in its interior structure. Although it is rigid, and thus like a solid, the atoms are arranged in a random disordered fashion, characteristic of a liquid. In the melting process, the atoms in the raw materials are disturbed from their normal position in the molecular structure; before they can find their way back to crystalline arrangements the glass cools. This looseness in molecular structure gives the material what engineers call tremendous "formability" which allows technicians to tailor glass to whatever they need.
45. ______
Today, scientists continue to experiment with new glass mixtures and building designers test their imaginations with applications of special types of glass. A London architect, Mike Davies, sees even more dramatic buildings using molecular chemistry. "Glass is the great building material of the future, the ’dynamic skin’," he said." Think of glass that has been treated to react to electric currents going through it, glass that will change from clear to opaque at the push of a button, that gives you instant curtains."
Think of how the tall buildings in New York could perform a symphony of colours as the glass in them is made to change colours instantly. Glass as instant curtains is available now, but the cost is exorbitant. As for the glass changing colours instantly, that may come true. Mike Davies’s vision may indeed be on the way to fulfillment.
[A] What makes glass so adaptable
[B] Architectural experiments with glass
[C] Glass art galleries flourish
[D] Exciting innovations in fiber optics
[E] A former glass technology
[F] New uses of glass
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【单选题】1（） A. rather than B. let alone C. much less D. so as to
A.
Digital photography is still new enough that most of us have yet to form an opinion about it (1) develop a point of view. But this hasn’t stopped many film and computer fans from agreeing (2) the early conventional wisdom about digital cameras — they’re neat (3) for your PC, but they’re not suitable for everyday picture taking.
B.
The fans are wrong. More than anything else, digital cameras are radically (4) what photography means and what it can be. The venerable medium of photography (5) we know, it is beginning to seem out of (6) with the way we live. In our computer and camcorder (7) , saving pictures as digital (8) and watching them on TV is no less practical — and in many ways more (9) than fumbling with rolls of film that must be sent off to be (10) .
C.
Paper is also terribly (11) . Pictures that are incorrectly framed, (12) , or lighted are nonetheless committed to film and ultimately processed into prints.
D.
The digital medium changes the (13) . Still images that are (14) digitally can immediately be shown on a computer (15) , a TV screen, or a small liquid crystal display (LCD) built right into the camera. And since the points of light that (16) an image are saved as a series of digital bits in electronic memory, (17) being permanently etched onto film, they can be erased, retouched, and transmitted (18) .
E.
What’s it like to (19) with one of these digital cameras It’s a little like a first date — exciting, confusing and fraught with (20) .
【单选题】Cooperative cooperation. Competitive cooperation. Confused Airline alliances have travelers scratching their heads over what’’s going on in the skies. Some folks view alliances as a blessing to travel...
A.
Travelers who fly frequently economy class.
B.
Travelers who fly frequently business class.
C.
Travelers who fly occasionally during holidays.
D.
Travelers who fly economy class once in a while.
【单选题】How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight10（） A. They must try to keep constructive conflict over issues from turning into nonfunctional interpersonal conflict. B. Executives Often failed to cooperat...
A.
How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight
B.
Top managers often find it very difficult to manage conflict. They know that conflict over issues is natural and even necessary. Reasonable people，making decisions under conditions of uncertainty，are likely to have honest disagreements over the best path for their company’s future. Management teams whose members challenge one another’s thinking develop a more complete understanding of the choices, cerate a richer range of options. Ultimately they are able to make the kinds of effective decisions necessary in today’s competitive environments. But, unfortunately, healthy conflict can quickly turn unproductive. A comment meant as a substantive remark can be interpreted as a personal attack. (8) Personalities frequently become closely connected with issues. Because most executives are proud of their ability to make rational decisions，they find it difficult even to acknowledge—let alone manage—this emotional，irrational dimension of their behavior.
C.
The challenge is familiar to anyone who has ever been part of a management team. (9) The managers should be encouraged to argue without destroying their ability to work as a team.
D.
In a study，in 4 of the 12 companies，there was little or no substantive disagreement over major issues and therefore little conflict to observe. But the other 8 companies experienced considerable conflict. In 4 of them，the top-management teams handled conflict in a way that avoided interpersonal hostility or discord. (10) They described the way they work as a team as‘open’，‘fun’，and ‘productive’. The executives vigorously debated the issues，but they wasted little time on carefully considering and posturing. As one put it, ’I really don’t have time. ’Another said, ’We don’t gloss over the issues：we hit them straight on. But we’re not political, ’ Still another observed of her company’s management team, ’We scream a lot，then laugh，and then resolve the issue. ’
E.
The other four companies in which issues were contested were less successful at avoiding interpersonal conflict. Their top teams were plagued by intense hostility. (11) When executives described their colleagues to us，they used words such as‘manipulative’, ‘secretive’.‘burned out’，and‘political’. The teams with minimal interpersonal conflict were able to separate substantive issues from those based on personalities. (12) How did they do that After analyzing the observations of the teams’ behavior, the experts found that their companies used the same tactics for managing interpersonal conflict. For instance，team members worked with more, rather than less, information and debated on the basis of facts.
【单选题】The author asserts that Stem’s picture about the possibility of conquering global warming（） A. is too pessimistic B. is oversimplified C. is very imaginative D. ignores the efforts by rich countries
A.
It seems impossible to have an honest conversation about global warming. I say this after diligently perusing the British government’s huge report released last week by Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank and now a high civil servant. The report is a masterpiece of misleading public relations. It foresees dire consequences if global warming isn’t curbed: a worldwide depression and flooding of many coastal cities. Meanwhile, the costs of minimizing these awful outcomes are small: only 1 percent of world economic output in 2050.
B.
No sane person could fail to conclude that we should conquer global warming instantly, if not sooner. Who could disagree Well, me. Stem’s headlined conclusions are intellectual fictions. They’re essentially fabrications to justify an aggressive anti-global-warming agenda. The danger of that is that we’d end up with the worst of both worlds: a program that harms the economy without much cutting of greenhouse gases.
C.
Let me throw some messy realities onto Stern’s tidy picture. In the global-warming debate, there’s a big gap between public rhetoric and public behavior. Greenhouse emissions continue to rise despite many earnest pledges to control them. Just last week, the United Nations reported that of the 41 countries it monitors (not including most developing nations), 34 had increased greenhouse emissions from 2000 to 2004. These include most countries committed to reducing emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.
D.
Why is this In rich democracies, policies that might curb greenhouse gases require politicians and the public to act in exceptionally "enlightened" ways. They have to accept "pain" now for benefits that won’t materialize for decades, probably after they’re dead. And even if rich countries cut emissions, it won’t make much difference unless poor countries do likewise and so far, they’ve refused because that might jeopardize their economic growth and poverty-reduction efforts.
E.
The notion that there’s only a modest tension between suppressing greenhouse gases and sustaining economic growth is highly dubious. Stern arrives at his trivial costs—that 1 percent of world GDP in 2050—by essentially assuming them. His estimates presume that, with proper policies, technological improvements will automatically reconcile declining emissions with adequate economic growth. This is a heroic leap. To check warming, Stern wants annual emissions 25 percent below current levels by 2050. The IEA projects that economic growth by 2050 would more than double emissions. At present, we can’t bridge that gap.
F.
The other great distortion in Stern’s report involves global warming’s effects. No one knows what these might be, because we don’t know how much warming might occur, when, where, or how easily people might adapt. Stern’s horrific specter distills many of the most terrifying guesses, including some imagined for the 22nd century, and implies they’re imminent. The idea is to scare people while reassuring them that policies to avert calamity, if started now, would be fairly easy and inexpensive.