A small percentage of the grain ______ ruined by the prolonged rain. A. was B. wer
A small percentage of the grain ______ ruined by the prolonged rain.
A. was
B. were
C. is
D. are
A small percentage of the grain ______ ruined by the prolonged rain.
A. was
B. were
C. is
D. are
After 10 o'clock in the evening the small town ______.
A.be still busy for the next day's business
B.becomes no longer quiet
C.becomes more beautiful
D.stops its business hours
A.Just the small restaurant downstairs
B.I go to a park
C.At 12 o’clock
D.I go with my friend
The basic source of most water vapor is the ocean, evaporation, vapor transport, and precipitation (陈雨) make up the continuous movement of water from ocean to atmosphere to land and back to the sea. Rivers return water the sea. In an underground arc (弧) of the cycle, flowing bodies of water discharge some water directly into rivers and some directly to the sea.
What might have been discussed before this passage?
A.The ocean.
B.The earth.
C.The rainfall.
D.The atmosphere.
The role of women in Britain has changed a lot in this century, () in the last twenty years. The main change has been () giving women greater equality with men. Up to the beginning of this century, women seem to have had () rights. They could not vote and were kept at home. () , as far as we know, most women were happy with this situ ation. Today, women in Britain certainly () more rights than they used to. They were () the vote in 1919. In 1970 a law was passed to give them an equal () of wealth in the case of divorce, () the Equal Pay Act gave them the right of equal pay with men for work of equal value in the same year. Yet () these changes, there are still great difference in status between men and women. Many employers seem to () the Equal Pay Act, and the average working women is () to earn only about half that a man earns for the same job. () a survey, at present, only one-third of the country’s workers are () women. This small percentage is partly () a shortage of nurseries. If there were () nurseries, twice as many women might well go out to work
A.but
B.and
C.because
D.although
American Dreams
There is a common response to America among foreign writers:the US is a land of extremes where the best of things qre just as easily found as the worst.This is a cliche(陈词滥调).
In the land of black and white,people should not be too surprised to find some of the biggest gaps between the rich and the poor in the world.But the American Dream offers a way out to everyone.(46) No class system or govemment stands in the way.
Sadly,this old argument is no longer true.Over the past few decades there has been a fundamental shift in the structure of the American economy.
The gap between the rich and the poor has widened and widened.(47)
Over the past 25 years the median US family income has gone up 18 per cent.For the top 1 per cent,however,it has gone up 200 per cent.Twenty-five years ago the top fifth of Americans had an average income 6.7 times that of the bottom fifth.(48)
Inequalities have grown worse in different regions.In California,incomes for lower class families have fallen by 4 per cent since 1969.(49) This has led to an economy hugely in favor of a small group of very rich Americans.The wealthiest 1 per cent of households now control a third of the national wealth.There are now 37 million Americans living in poverty.At 12.7 per cent of the population,it is the highest percentage in the developed world.
Yet the tax burden on America’s rich is falling,not growing.(50) There was an economic theory holding that the rich spending more would benefit everyone as a whole.But clearly that theory has not worked in reality.
A.Nobody is poor in the US.
B.The top 0.01 per cent of households has seen its tax bite fall by a full 25 percentage points since 1980.
C.For upper class families they have risen 41 per cent.
D.Now it is 9.8 times.
E.As it does so,the possibility to cross that gap gets smaller and smaller.
F.All one has to do is to work hard and climb the ladder towards the top.
A.until 12 o'clock in the evening
B.until early next morning
C.all day and all night
D.until after 12 o'clock in the evening
In agriculture, the transformation was marked by the emergence of the grain elevators, the cotton presses, the warehouses, and the commodity exchanges that seemed to so many of the nation's farmers the visible sign of a vast conspiracy against them. In manufacturing, the transformation was marked by the emergence of a "new factory system" in which plants became larger, more complex, and more systematically organized and managed. And in distribution, the transformation was marked by the emergence of the jobber(中间商), the wholesaler, and 'the mass retailer(零售商). These changes radically altered the nature of work during the half century between 1870 and 1920.
To be sure, there were still small workshops, where skilled craftspeople manufactured products ranging from newspapers to cabinets to plumbing fixtures. There were the sweatshops in city tenements, where groups of men and women in household settings manufactured clothing or cigars on a piecework basis. And there were factories in occupations such as metalwork where individual contractors presided over what were essentially handicraft proprietorships that coexisted within a single building. But as the number of wage earners in manufacturing rose from 2.7 million in 1888 to 4.5 million in 1900 to 8.4 million in 1920, the number of huge plants like the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia burgeoned (迅速成长), as did the size of average plant. (The Baldwin Works had 600 employees in 1855, 3,000 in 1875, and 8,000 in 1900.) By 1920, at least in the northeastern United States where most of the nation's manufacturing wage earners were concentrated, three-quarters of those worked in factories with more than 100 employees and 30 percent worked in factories with more than 100 employees.
What can be inferred from the passage about the agricultural sector of the economy after the Civil War?______
A.New technological developments had little effect on farmers
B.The percentage of the total population working in agriculture declined
C.Many farms destroyed in the war were rebuilt after the war
D.Farmers achieved new, prosperity because of better rural transportation
2 Shop-lifters can be divided into three main categories: the professionals, the deliberate amateurs, and the people who just can't help themselves. The professionals do not pose much of a problem for the store detectives, who, assisted by closed circuit television, two way mirrors and various other technological devices, can usually cope with them. The professionals tend to go for high value goods in parts of the shops where security measures are tightest. And, in any case, they account for only a small percentage of the total losses due to shop-lifting.
3 The same applies to the deliberate amateur who is, so to speak, a professional in training. Most of them get caught sooner or later, and they are dealt with severely by the courts.
4 The real problem is the person who gives way to a sudden temptation and is in all other respects an honest and law-abiding citizen. Contrary to what one would expect, this kind of
shop-lifter is rarely poor. He does not steal because he needs the goods and cannot afford to pay for them. He steals because he simply cannot stop himself. And there are countless others who, because of age, sickness or plain absent-mindedness, simply forget to pay for what they take from the shops. When caught, all are liable to prosecution, and the decision whether to send for the police or not is in the hands of the store manager.
5 In order to prevent the quite incredible growth in shop-lifting offences, some stores, in fact, are doing their best to separate the thieves from the confused by prohibiting customers from taking bags into the store. However, what is most worrying about the whole problem is, perhaps, that it is yet another instance of the innocent majority being penalized and inconvenienced because of the actions of a small minority. It is the aircraft hijack situation in another form. Because of the possibility of one passenger in a million boarding an aircraft with a weapon, the other 999,999 passengers must subject themselves to searches and delays. Unless the situation in the shops improves, in ten years' time we may all have to subject ourselves to a body-search every time we go into a store to buy a tin of beans!
Why does the honest public have to pay higher prices when they go to the shops?
A.There is a "shrinkage" in market values.
B.Many goods are not available.
C.Goods in many shops lack variety.
D.There are many cases of shop-lifting.
2 Shop-lifters can be divided into three main categories: the professionals, the deliberate amateurs, and the people who just can't help themselves. The professionals do not pose much of a problem for the store detectives, who, assisted by closed circuit television, two way mirrors and various other technological devices, can usually cope with them. The professionals tend to go for high value goods in parts of the shops where security measures are tightest. And, in any case, they account for only a small percentage of the total losses due to shop-lifting.
3 The same applies to the deliberate amateur who is, so to speak, a professional in training. Most of them get caught sooner or later, and they are dealt with severely by the courts.
4 The real problem is the person who gives way to a sudden temptation and is in all other respects an honest and law-abiding citizen. Contrary to what one would expect, this kind of
shop-lifter is rarely poor. He does not steal because he needs the goods and cannot afford to pay for them. He steals because he simply cannot stop himself. And there are countless others who, because of age, sickness or plain absent-mindedness, simply forget to pay for what they take from the shops. When caught, all are liable to prosecution, and the decision whether to send for the police or not is in the hands of the store manager.
5 In order to prevent the quite incredible growth in shop-lifting offences, some stores, in fact, are doing their best to separate the thieves from the confused by prohibiting customers from taking bags into the store. However, what is most worrying about the whole problem is, perhaps, that it is yet another instance of the innocent majority being penalized and inconvenienced because of the actions of a small minority. It is the aircraft hijack situation in another form. Because of the possibility of one passenger in a million boarding an aircraft with a weapon, the other 999,999 passengers must subject themselves to searches and delays. Unless the situation in the shops improves, in ten years' time we may all have to subject ourselves to a body-search every time we go into a store to buy a tin of beans!
Why does the honest public have to pay higher prices when they go to the shops?
A.There is a "shrinkage" in market values.
B.Many goods are not available.
C.Goods in many shops lack variety.
D.There are many cases of shop-lifting.
Samuel Preston, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, studied how the American family is changing. He reported that by the time the average American couple reaches about 40 years of age, their parents are usually still alive. The statistics show the change in lifestyles and responsibilities of aging (老龄化) Americans. The average middle-aged couple can look forward to caring for elderly parents sometime after their own children have grown up. Moreover, because people today live longer after an illness than people did years ago, family members must provide long-term care. These facts also mean that after caregivers provide for their elderly parents, who will eventually die, they will be old and may require care too. When they do, their spouses (配偶) will probably take care of them because they have had fewer children than their parents did.
Because Americans are living longer than ever, more social workers have begun to study ways of caregiving to improve the care of the elderly. They have found that all caregivers share a common characteristic; They believe that they are the best people for the job. The social workers have also discovered three basic reasons why the caregivers take on the responsibility of caring for an elderly, dependent relative. Many caregivers believe they had an obligation (职责) to help their relatives. Some think that helping others makes them feel more useful. Others hope that by helping someone now, they will deserve care when they become old and dependent.
Samuel Preston's study shows that______.
A.lifestyles and responsibilities of the elderly are not changing
B.most American couples over 40 have no living parents
C.middle-aged Americans have to take care of their children and parents at the same time
D.elderly people may need care for a long time because they live longer after an illness