| Paris: Thanks to a French insurance
company, brides and bridegrooms with cold feet no longer face financial disaster
from a canceled wedding. For a small premium, they can take out a policy
protecting them from love gone away or anything else that threatens to rain on
their big day. Despite France’s economic woes, the amount of money spent on weddings is rising 5-10 per cent a year. And people in the Paris region now dish out an average of 60,000 francs on tying the knot. But life is unpredictable and non-refundable, so French insurers have stepped in to ease the risk, finding their own little niche in the business of love. They join colleagues in Britain, where insurers say wedding cancellation policies have been around for about a decade. About 5 per cent of insured weddings there never make it A. To thank a French insurance company for what has been done. B. To explain how a French insurance company works. C. To tell brides and bridegrooms what to do before getting married. D. To ask husband and wife-to-be to take out an insurance policy. [单项选择]
{{B}}TEXT F{{/B}} Fortunately there are still a few tasty things for us gourmands to enjoy in relative security. Their numbers, however, are depleted almost daily, it seems, by ruthless proclamations from the ever-vigilant Food and Drug Administration and its allies, our doctors. The latest felon to face prosecution is the salt of life, sodium chloride. Ostensible, overuse of salt causes high blood pressure and hypertension, the cause of half the deaths in the United States every year. A few years ago the anti-salt campaigners raised such a rumpus that salt was banned from baby food. Currently pressure is being ap- plied to food manufacturers to oblige them to label their products to show sodium content. Because doing so would cost mercenary manufacturers money, they argue that they have no idea how much salt remains on such things as potato chips and how much sticks to the bag. Furthermore, salt isn’t the only harmful ingredi A. they disagree with the FDA B. salt doesn’t stick to potato chips C. they would have to spend more money D. it isn’t important to single out salt [单项选择]
{{B}}TEXT F{{/B}} {{B}}How are jigsaw puzzles made {{/B}} The method of making a jigsaw puzzle hasn’t changed much since its invention in the late 18th century: an image is mounted on solid material and cut into a bunch of pieces. The first puzzles were made of wood and cut with a jigsaw, hence the name of the game. You can still buy puzzles made Of wood, but the type you’re probably most familiar with is die-cut cardboard. The die-cut press, in wide use in the United States by the 1930s, according to puzzle historian Anne D. Williams, exerts 500 tons of pressure to hold a board in place while a steel-rule die cuts it into pieces. The die consists of pieces of metal that have been shaped to form each piece in the puzzle — much like a cookie cutter punches out a shape in dough. Recent innovations include the use of lasers and computer-contro11ed water jets to cut puzzle pieces. Some manufacturers still have their A. Not earlier than 1800. B. 1930’s. C. 1750 to 1799. D. Not known. [单项选择]
{{B}}TEXT F{{/B}} The energy contained in rock within the earth’s crust represents a nearly unlimited energy source, but until recently commercial retrieval has been limited to underground hot water and/ or steam recovery systems. These systems have been developed in areas of recent volcanic activity, where high rates of heat flow cause visible eruption of water in the form of geysers and hot springs. In other areas, however, hot rock also exists near tile surface but there is insufficient water present to produce eruptive phenomena. Thus a potential hot dry rock (HDR) reservoir exists whenever the amount of spontaneously produced geothermal fluid has been judged inadequate for existing commercial systems. As a result of the recent energy crisis, new concepts for creating HDR recovery systems— which involve drilling holes and connecting them to artificial reservoirs placed deep within the crust—are being developed. In all atte A. alert readers to the existence of HDR’s as an available energy source B. document the challenges that have been surmounted in the effort to recover energy from HDR’s C. warn the users of coal and oil that HDR’s are not an economically feasible alternative D. encourage the use of new techniques for the recovery of energy from underground hot water and steam [单项选择]
{{B}}TEXT F{{/B}} That Louise Nevelson is believed by many critics to be the greatest twentieth-century sculptor is all the more remarkable because the greatest resistance to women artists has been, until recently, in the field of sculpture. Since Neolithic times, sculpture has been considered the prerogative of men, partly, perhaps, for purely physical reasons: it was erroneously assumed that women were not suited for the hard manual labor required in sculpting stone, carving wood, or working in metal. It has been only during the twentieth century that women sculptors have been recognized as major artists, and it has been in the United States, especially since the decades of the fifties and sixties, that women sculptors have shown the greatest originality and creative power. Their rise to prominence parallels the development of sculpture itself in the United States; while there had been a few talented sculptors in the United St A. a general tendency in twentieth-century art. B. the work of a particular artist. C. the artistic influences on women sculptors. D. critical responses to twentieth-century sculptors. [单项选择]
{{B}}TEXT F{{/B}} Sociology is defined as the study of human groups. In the broadest sense, sociology is concerned with understanding patterns of human relationships, their causes and their effects. Unlike psychology, sociology does not attempt to explain the behavior of a particular individual under certain circumstances. Rather, sociology focuses on social trends or other influences that affect whole groups or categories of people. Thus, while a psychologist might counsel an individual who feels worthless after retiring from a long and successful career, a sociologist would be more likely to examine societal attitudes that may contribute to the loss of self-esteem experienced by many retired persons in our society. The emphasis that sociology places on human groups rather than individuals stems directly from the work of Emile Durkheim, a pioneering sociologist of the nineteenth century. Durkheim likened the nature of a socia A. one of two or more alternative styles B. an artist’s subject C. a small copy of an object D. a plan to be imitated 我来回答: 提交
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