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Increasingly, historians are blaming diseases imported from the Old World for the staggering disparity between the indigenous population of America in 1492—new estimates of which jump as high as 100 million, or approximately one-sixth of the human race at that time—and the few million full-blooded Native Americans alive at the end of the nineteenth century. There is no doubt that chronic disease was an important factor in the precipitous decline, and it is highly probable that the greatest killer was epidemic disease, especially as manifested in virgin-soil epidemics. Virgin-soil epidemics are those in which the populations at risk have had no previous contact with the diseases that strike them and are therefore immunologically almost defenseless. That virgin-soil epidemics were important in American history is strongly indicated by evidence that a number of dangerous maladies—smallpox, measles, malaria, yellow fever, and undoubtedly several more—were unknown in the pre-Columbian New World. The effects of their sudden introduction are demonstrated in the early chronicles of America, which contain reports of horrendous epidemics and steep population declines, confirmed in many cases by recent quantitative analyzes of Spanish tribute records and other sources. The evidence provided by the documents of British and French colonies is not as definitive because the conquerors of those areas did not establish permanent settlements and began to keep continuous records until the seventeenth century, by which time the worst epidemics had probably already taken place. Furthermore, the British tended to drive the native populations away, rather than to enslave them as the Spaniards did, so that the epidemics of British America occurred beyond the range of colonists’ direct observation. Even so, the surviving records of North America do contain references to deadly epidemics among the native population. In 1616—1619 an epidemic, possibly of pneumonic plague, swept coastal New England, killing as many as nine out of ten. During the 1630’s smallpox, the disease most fatal to the Native American people, eliminated half the population of the Huron and Iroquois confederations. In the 1820’s fever devastated the people of the Columbia River area, killing eight out of ten of them. Unfortunately, the documentation of these and other epidemics is slight and frequently unreliable, and it is necessary to supplement what little we do know with evidence from recent epidemics among Native Americans. For example, in 1952 an outbreak of measles among the Native American inhabitants of Ungava Bay, Quebec, affected 99 percent of the population and killed 7 percent, even though some had the benefit of modern medicine. Cases such as this demonstrate that even diseases that are not normally fatal can have destroying consequences when they strike an immunologically defenseless community.According to the text, virgin-soil epidemics can be distinguished from other catastrophic outbreaks of disease in that virgin-soil epidemics

A．recur more frequently than chronic diseases.
B．involve populations with no prior exposure to a disease.
C．usually involve a number of interacting diseases.
D．are less responsive to medical treatment than are other diseases.
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单项选择题

Increasingly, historians are blaming diseases imported from the Old World for the staggering disparity between the indigenous population of America in 1492—new estimates of which jump as high as 100 million, or approximately one-sixth of the human race at that time—and the few million full-blooded Native Americans alive at the end of the nineteenth century. There is no doubt that chronic disease was an important factor in the precipitous decline, and it is highly probable that the greatest killer was epidemic disease, especially as manifested in virgin-soil epidemics. Virgin-soil epidemics are those in which the populations at risk have had no previous contact with the diseases that strike them and are therefore immunologically almost defenseless. That virgin-soil epidemics were important in American history is strongly indicated by evidence that a number of dangerous maladies—smallpox, measles, malaria, yellow fever, and undoubtedly several more—were unknown in the pre-Columbian New World. The effects of their sudden introduction are demonstrated in the early chronicles of America, which contain reports of horrendous epidemics and steep population declines, confirmed in many cases by recent quantitative analyzes of Spanish tribute records and other sources. The evidence provided by the documents of British and French colonies is not as definitive because the conquerors of those areas did not establish permanent settlements and began to keep continuous records until the seventeenth century, by which time the worst epidemics had probably already taken place. Furthermore, the British tended to drive the native populations away, rather than to enslave them as the Spaniards did, so that the epidemics of British America occurred beyond the range of colonists’ direct observation. Even so, the surviving records of North America do contain references to deadly epidemics among the native population. In 1616—1619 an epidemic, possibly of pneumonic plague, swept coastal New England, killing as many as nine out of ten. During the 1630’s smallpox, the disease most fatal to the Native American people, eliminated half the population of the Huron and Iroquois confederations. In the 1820’s fever devastated the people of the Columbia River area, killing eight out of ten of them. Unfortunately, the documentation of these and other epidemics is slight and frequently unreliable, and it is necessary to supplement what little we do know with evidence from recent epidemics among Native Americans. For example, in 1952 an outbreak of measles among the Native American inhabitants of Ungava Bay, Quebec, affected 99 percent of the population and killed 7 percent, even though some had the benefit of modern medicine. Cases such as this demonstrate that even diseases that are not normally fatal can have destroying consequences when they strike an immunologically defenseless community.According to the text, virgin-soil epidemics can be distinguished from other catastrophic outbreaks of disease in that virgin-soil epidemics

A．recur more frequently than chronic diseases.
B．involve populations with no prior exposure to a disease.
C．usually involve a number of interacting diseases.
D．are less responsive to medical treatment than are other diseases.
单项选择题

It seems that fear is the dominant mood of the moment. Hurricanes, tidal waves, floods, earthquakes and terrorism this year have all brought with them not only appalling scenes of devastation, death and suffering, but also outrage at the lack of preparations to avoid or cope with these disasters. Now even the birds of the air are a threat, we are told. That migrating flock visible on the horizon at sunset, once a consoling reminder of the eternal rhythms of nature, could be carrying the virus which might soon kill tens of millions of people. Given the many fingers pointed at governments in the wake of other disasters this year, it is not surprising at all that they are scrambling to respond to the threat posed by avian influenza. After confirmation this week that the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has been spreading quickly in Asia, had been discovered in Romania and perhaps Greece, European Union foreign ministers convened an emergency meeting. President George Bush, still smarting from a torrent of criticism of his government’s inefficient response to Hurricane Katrina, has promised to rush out emergency plans for coping with an outbreak of pandemic flu which have been stalled for years. Countries around the world are hurrying to stockpile the only current antiviral drug, Tamiflu, which might be effective in saving lives in any pandemic or curbing its spread. The World Health Organisation is calling for an internationally co-ordinated effort. Health ministers from around the globe are due to meet next week in Canada to discuss what measures to take. Is any of this effort justified Or are politicians simply helping to feed public panic, and then covering themselves by promising to spend lavishly against a threat which may never materialize and to reduce a risk which they do not understand To ask these questions is not to counsel complacency, but to apply the kind of test which is required in any kind of disaster planning, not least because the world is an inherently dangerous place and it is impossible to plan against every possible disaster. With the media full of warnings of impending mass death, an overreaction is all too possible.It can be inferred from the first paragraph that

A．strong resentment resulted from the lack of preparations to deal with recent disasters.
B．the dominant mood of the moment resulted in the appalling scenes of devastation.
C．tens of millions of people could carry the virus on the horizon.
D．reminder of the eternal rhythms of nature emerged at sunset to avoid these disasters.
单项选择题

Companies have embarked on what looks like the beginnings of a re-run of the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) wave that defined the second bubbly half of the 1990s. That period was characterized by a collective splurge that saw the creation of some of the most indebted companies in history. Many of them later went bankrupt or were themselves broken up. Wild bidding for telecoms, internet and media assets, not to mention the madness that was Daimler’s $40 billion motoring takeover in 1998-1999 of Chrysler or the Time-Warner/AOL mega-merger in 2000, helped to give mergers a thoroughly bad name. A consensus emerged that M&A was a great way for investment banks to reap rich fees, and a sure way for ambitious managers to betray investors by trashing the value of their shares. Now M&A is back. Its return is a global phenomenon, but it is probably most striking in Europe, where so far this year there has been a stream of deals worth more than $600 billion in total, around 40% higher than in the same period of 2004. The latest effort came this week when France’s Saint-Gobain, a building-materials firm, unveiled the details of its ￡3.6 billion hostile bid for BPB, a British rival. In the first half of the year, cross-border activity was up threefold over the same period last year. Even France Telecom, which was left almost bankrupt at the end of the last merger wave, recently bought Amena, a Spanish mobile operator. Shareholder’s approval of all these deals raises an interesting question for companies everywhere: are investors right to think that these mergers are more likely to succeed than earlier ones There are two answers. The first is that past mergers may have been judged too harshly. The second is that the present rash of European deals does look more rational, but—and the caveat is crucial—only so far. The pattern may not hold. M&A’s poor reputation stems not only from the string of spectacular failures in the 1990s, but also from studies which showed value destruction for acquiring shareholders in 80% of deals. But more recent studies by economists have introduced a note of caution. Investors should look at the number of deals that succeed or fail (typically measured by the impact on the share price), rather than (as you might think) weighing them by size. For instance, no one doubts that the Daimler-Chrysler merger destroyed value. The combined market value of the two firms is still below that of Daimler alone before the deal. This single deal accounted for half of all German M&A activity by value in 1998 and 1999, and probably dominated people’s thinking about mergers to the same degree. Throw in a few other such monsters and it is no wonder that broad studies have tended to find that mergers are a bad idea. The true picture is more complicated.The text suggests that a collective opinion on the mergers and acquisitions also concentrates on

A．economic recession.
B．value destruction.
C．potential hazards.
D．asset proposition.
单项选择题

It may be just as well for Oxford University’s reputation that this week’s meeting of Congregation, its 3,552-strong governing body, was held in secret, for the air of civilized rationality that is generally supposed to pervade donnish conversation has lately turned fractious. That is because the vice-chancellor, the nearest thing the place has to a chief executive, has proposed the most fundamental reforms to the university since the establishment of the college system in 1249; and lots of the dons and colleges don’t like it. The trouble with Oxford is that it is unmanageable. Its problems—the difficulty of recruiting good dons and of getting rid of bad ones, concerns about academic standards, severe money worries at some colleges—all spring from that. John Hood, who was recruited as vice-chancellor from the University of Auckland and is now probably the most-hated antipodean in British academic life, reckons he knows how to solve this, and has proposed to reduce the power of dons and colleges and increase that of university administrators. Mr. Hood is right that the university’s management structure needs an overhaul. But radical though his proposals seem to those involved in the current row, they do not go far enough. The difficulty of managing Oxford stems only partly from the nuttiness of its system of governance; the more fundamental problem consists in its relationship with the government. That’s why Mr. Hood should adopt an idea that was once regarded as teetering on the lunatic fringe of radicalism, but these days is discussed even in polite circles. The idea is independence. Oxford gets around 5,000 per undergraduate per year from the government. In return, it accepts that it can charge students only ￡1,150 (rising to ￡3,000 next year) on top of that. Since it probably costs at least ￡10,000 a year to teach an undergraduate, that leaves Oxford with a deficit of ￡4, 000 or so per student to cover from its own funds. It would lose the ￡52m undergraduate subsidy at least if Oxford declared independence. Could it fill the hole Certainly. America’s top universities charge around ￡20,000 per student per year. The difficult issue would not be money alone: it would be balancing numbers of not-so-brilliant rich people paying top whack with the cleverer poorer ones they were cross-subsidising. America’s top universities manage it: high fees mean better teaching, which keeps competition hot and academic standards high, while luring enough donations to provide bursaries for the poor. It should be easier to extract money from alumni if Oxford were no longer state-funded.It can be inferred from the text that the author’s attitude toward John Hood is one of

A．strong disapproval.
B．reserved consent.
C．enthusiastic support.
D．slight contempt.
单项选择题

Increasingly, historians are blaming diseases imported from the Old World for the staggering disparity between the indigenous population of America in 1492—new estimates of which jump as high as 100 million, or approximately one-sixth of the human race at that time—and the few million full-blooded Native Americans alive at the end of the nineteenth century. There is no doubt that chronic disease was an important factor in the precipitous decline, and it is highly probable that the greatest killer was epidemic disease, especially as manifested in virgin-soil epidemics. Virgin-soil epidemics are those in which the populations at risk have had no previous contact with the diseases that strike them and are therefore immunologically almost defenseless. That virgin-soil epidemics were important in American history is strongly indicated by evidence that a number of dangerous maladies—smallpox, measles, malaria, yellow fever, and undoubtedly several more—were unknown in the pre-Columbian New World. The effects of their sudden introduction are demonstrated in the early chronicles of America, which contain reports of horrendous epidemics and steep population declines, confirmed in many cases by recent quantitative analyzes of Spanish tribute records and other sources. The evidence provided by the documents of British and French colonies is not as definitive because the conquerors of those areas did not establish permanent settlements and began to keep continuous records until the seventeenth century, by which time the worst epidemics had probably already taken place. Furthermore, the British tended to drive the native populations away, rather than to enslave them as the Spaniards did, so that the epidemics of British America occurred beyond the range of colonists’ direct observation. Even so, the surviving records of North America do contain references to deadly epidemics among the native population. In 1616—1619 an epidemic, possibly of pneumonic plague, swept coastal New England, killing as many as nine out of ten. During the 1630’s smallpox, the disease most fatal to the Native American people, eliminated half the population of the Huron and Iroquois confederations. In the 1820’s fever devastated the people of the Columbia River area, killing eight out of ten of them. Unfortunately, the documentation of these and other epidemics is slight and frequently unreliable, and it is necessary to supplement what little we do know with evidence from recent epidemics among Native Americans. For example, in 1952 an outbreak of measles among the Native American inhabitants of Ungava Bay, Quebec, affected 99 percent of the population and killed 7 percent, even though some had the benefit of modern medicine. Cases such as this demonstrate that even diseases that are not normally fatal can have destroying consequences when they strike an immunologically defenseless community.It can be inferred from the text about Spanish tribute records that

A．they were being kept prior to the seventeenth century.
B．they mention only epidemics of smallpox.
C．they provide quantitative and qualitative evidence about Native American populations.
D．they prove that certain diseases were unknown in the pre-Columbian New World.
问答题

[A] The role of natural selection in this colorful world[B] The delicate hierarchy of the natural system[C] The agency of selection can account for more cases[D] The impotence of creationism[E] Natural selection acts by competition [F] No leaps in natural evolution As each species tends by its geometrical rate of reproduction to increase excessively in number; and as the modified descendants of each species will be enabled to increase by as much as they become more diversified in habits and structure, so as to be able to seize on many and widely different places in natural selection to preserve the most divergent offspring of any one species. Hence, during a long-continued course of modification, the slight differences characteristic of varieties of the same species, tend to be augmented into the greater differences characteristic of the species of the same genus.【C1】______ New and improved varieties will inevitably displace and destroy the older, less improved, and intermediate varieties; and thus species are rendered to a large extent defined and distinct objects. Dominant species belonging to the larger groups within each class tend to give birth to new and dominant forms; so that each large group tends to become still larger, and at the same time more divergent in character. But as all groups cannot thus go on increasing in size, for the world would not hold them, the more dominant groups beat the less dominant.【C2】______ This tendency in the large groups to go on increasing in size and diverging in character, together with the inevitability of much extinction, explains the arrangement of all the forms of life in groups subordinate to groups, all within a few great classes, which has prevailed throughout all time. This grand fact of the grouping of all organic beings under what is called the Natural System, is utterly unexplainable on the theory of creation.【C3】______ As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favorable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modifications; it can act only by short and slow steps. We can see why throughout nature the same general end is gained by an almost infinite diversity of means, for every peculiarity when once acquired in long inherited, and structures already modified in many different ways have to be adapted for the same general purpose. We can, in short, see why nature is extravagant in variety, though not generous in innovation. But why this should be a law of nature if each species has been independently created no man can explain.【C4】______ Many other facts are, as it seems to me, explicable on this theory. How strange it is that a bird, under the form of a woodpecker, should prey on insects on the ground and that upland geese which rarely or never swim, should possess webbed feet, and so in endless other cases. But on the view of each species constantly trying to increase in number, with natural selection always ready to adapt the slowly varying descendants of each to any unoccupied or ill-occupied place in nature, these facts cease to be strange, or might even have been anticipated.【C5】______ We can to a certain extent understand how it is that there is so much beauty throughout nature; for this may be largely attributed to the agency of selection. That beauty, according to our sense of it, is not universal, must be admitted by every one who will look at some hideous bats with a distorted resemblance to the human face. Sexual selection has given the most brilliant colors, elegant patterns, and other ornaments to the males. With birds it has often rendered the voice of the male musical to the female, as well as to our ears. Flowers and fruit have been rendered conspicuous by brilliant colors in contrast with the green foliage, in order that the flowers may be readily seen, visited and fertilized by insects. As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts and improves the inhabitants of each country only in relation to their co-inhabitants; so that we need feel no surprise at the species of any one country being beaten and supplanted by the naturalized productions from another land. The wonder indeed is, on the theory of natural selection, that more cases of the want of absolute perfection have not been detected. The long and progressive reign of Queen Victoria came to a climax at a time of peace and plenty when the British Empire seemed to be at the summit of its power and security. Of the discord that soon followed we shall here note only two factors which had large influence on contemporary English literature.【C1】
答案： 正确答案：E
单项选择题

It seems that fear is the dominant mood of the moment. Hurricanes, tidal waves, floods, earthquakes and terrorism this year have all brought with them not only appalling scenes of devastation, death and suffering, but also outrage at the lack of preparations to avoid or cope with these disasters. Now even the birds of the air are a threat, we are told. That migrating flock visible on the horizon at sunset, once a consoling reminder of the eternal rhythms of nature, could be carrying the virus which might soon kill tens of millions of people. Given the many fingers pointed at governments in the wake of other disasters this year, it is not surprising at all that they are scrambling to respond to the threat posed by avian influenza. After confirmation this week that the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has been spreading quickly in Asia, had been discovered in Romania and perhaps Greece, European Union foreign ministers convened an emergency meeting. President George Bush, still smarting from a torrent of criticism of his government’s inefficient response to Hurricane Katrina, has promised to rush out emergency plans for coping with an outbreak of pandemic flu which have been stalled for years. Countries around the world are hurrying to stockpile the only current antiviral drug, Tamiflu, which might be effective in saving lives in any pandemic or curbing its spread. The World Health Organisation is calling for an internationally co-ordinated effort. Health ministers from around the globe are due to meet next week in Canada to discuss what measures to take. Is any of this effort justified Or are politicians simply helping to feed public panic, and then covering themselves by promising to spend lavishly against a threat which may never materialize and to reduce a risk which they do not understand To ask these questions is not to counsel complacency, but to apply the kind of test which is required in any kind of disaster planning, not least because the world is an inherently dangerous place and it is impossible to plan against every possible disaster. With the media full of warnings of impending mass death, an overreaction is all too possible.According to the text, American emergency plans for dealing with an outbreak of pandemic flu

A．have been stipulated.
B．have been enacted.
C．have been abolished.
D．have been delayed.
单项选择题

Companies have embarked on what looks like the beginnings of a re-run of the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) wave that defined the second bubbly half of the 1990s. That period was characterized by a collective splurge that saw the creation of some of the most indebted companies in history. Many of them later went bankrupt or were themselves broken up. Wild bidding for telecoms, internet and media assets, not to mention the madness that was Daimler’s $40 billion motoring takeover in 1998-1999 of Chrysler or the Time-Warner/AOL mega-merger in 2000, helped to give mergers a thoroughly bad name. A consensus emerged that M&A was a great way for investment banks to reap rich fees, and a sure way for ambitious managers to betray investors by trashing the value of their shares. Now M&A is back. Its return is a global phenomenon, but it is probably most striking in Europe, where so far this year there has been a stream of deals worth more than $600 billion in total, around 40% higher than in the same period of 2004. The latest effort came this week when France’s Saint-Gobain, a building-materials firm, unveiled the details of its ￡3.6 billion hostile bid for BPB, a British rival. In the first half of the year, cross-border activity was up threefold over the same period last year. Even France Telecom, which was left almost bankrupt at the end of the last merger wave, recently bought Amena, a Spanish mobile operator. Shareholder’s approval of all these deals raises an interesting question for companies everywhere: are investors right to think that these mergers are more likely to succeed than earlier ones There are two answers. The first is that past mergers may have been judged too harshly. The second is that the present rash of European deals does look more rational, but—and the caveat is crucial—only so far. The pattern may not hold. M&A’s poor reputation stems not only from the string of spectacular failures in the 1990s, but also from studies which showed value destruction for acquiring shareholders in 80% of deals. But more recent studies by economists have introduced a note of caution. Investors should look at the number of deals that succeed or fail (typically measured by the impact on the share price), rather than (as you might think) weighing them by size. For instance, no one doubts that the Daimler-Chrysler merger destroyed value. The combined market value of the two firms is still below that of Daimler alone before the deal. This single deal accounted for half of all German M&A activity by value in 1998 and 1999, and probably dominated people’s thinking about mergers to the same degree. Throw in a few other such monsters and it is no wonder that broad studies have tended to find that mergers are a bad idea. The true picture is more complicated."The pattern" in the third paragraph most probably denotes

A．the complicated documents combined markets.
B．the global phenomenon of the craze of wild bidding for media assets.
C．the seeming rationality of the latest cycle of European mergers.
D．the striking necessity of European caveat.
单项选择题

It may be just as well for Oxford University’s reputation that this week’s meeting of Congregation, its 3,552-strong governing body, was held in secret, for the air of civilized rationality that is generally supposed to pervade donnish conversation has lately turned fractious. That is because the vice-chancellor, the nearest thing the place has to a chief executive, has proposed the most fundamental reforms to the university since the establishment of the college system in 1249; and lots of the dons and colleges don’t like it. The trouble with Oxford is that it is unmanageable. Its problems—the difficulty of recruiting good dons and of getting rid of bad ones, concerns about academic standards, severe money worries at some colleges—all spring from that. John Hood, who was recruited as vice-chancellor from the University of Auckland and is now probably the most-hated antipodean in British academic life, reckons he knows how to solve this, and has proposed to reduce the power of dons and colleges and increase that of university administrators. Mr. Hood is right that the university’s management structure needs an overhaul. But radical though his proposals seem to those involved in the current row, they do not go far enough. The difficulty of managing Oxford stems only partly from the nuttiness of its system of governance; the more fundamental problem consists in its relationship with the government. That’s why Mr. Hood should adopt an idea that was once regarded as teetering on the lunatic fringe of radicalism, but these days is discussed even in polite circles. The idea is independence. Oxford gets around 5,000 per undergraduate per year from the government. In return, it accepts that it can charge students only ￡1,150 (rising to ￡3,000 next year) on top of that. Since it probably costs at least ￡10,000 a year to teach an undergraduate, that leaves Oxford with a deficit of ￡4, 000 or so per student to cover from its own funds. It would lose the ￡52m undergraduate subsidy at least if Oxford declared independence. Could it fill the hole Certainly. America’s top universities charge around ￡20,000 per student per year. The difficult issue would not be money alone: it would be balancing numbers of not-so-brilliant rich people paying top whack with the cleverer poorer ones they were cross-subsidising. America’s top universities manage it: high fees mean better teaching, which keeps competition hot and academic standards high, while luring enough donations to provide bursaries for the poor. It should be easier to extract money from alumni if Oxford were no longer state-funded.The third paragraph implies that

A．reliance upon official subsidy has bred the current predicament of Oxford.
B．an overhaul of Oxford management structure is urgently needed.
C．the nuttiness of Oxford system of governance may be easily removed.
D．the current row is essential to many in polite circle.
单项选择题

Increasingly, historians are blaming diseases imported from the Old World for the staggering disparity between the indigenous population of America in 1492—new estimates of which jump as high as 100 million, or approximately one-sixth of the human race at that time—and the few million full-blooded Native Americans alive at the end of the nineteenth century. There is no doubt that chronic disease was an important factor in the precipitous decline, and it is highly probable that the greatest killer was epidemic disease, especially as manifested in virgin-soil epidemics. Virgin-soil epidemics are those in which the populations at risk have had no previous contact with the diseases that strike them and are therefore immunologically almost defenseless. That virgin-soil epidemics were important in American history is strongly indicated by evidence that a number of dangerous maladies—smallpox, measles, malaria, yellow fever, and undoubtedly several more—were unknown in the pre-Columbian New World. The effects of their sudden introduction are demonstrated in the early chronicles of America, which contain reports of horrendous epidemics and steep population declines, confirmed in many cases by recent quantitative analyzes of Spanish tribute records and other sources. The evidence provided by the documents of British and French colonies is not as definitive because the conquerors of those areas did not establish permanent settlements and began to keep continuous records until the seventeenth century, by which time the worst epidemics had probably already taken place. Furthermore, the British tended to drive the native populations away, rather than to enslave them as the Spaniards did, so that the epidemics of British America occurred beyond the range of colonists’ direct observation. Even so, the surviving records of North America do contain references to deadly epidemics among the native population. In 1616—1619 an epidemic, possibly of pneumonic plague, swept coastal New England, killing as many as nine out of ten. During the 1630’s smallpox, the disease most fatal to the Native American people, eliminated half the population of the Huron and Iroquois confederations. In the 1820’s fever devastated the people of the Columbia River area, killing eight out of ten of them. Unfortunately, the documentation of these and other epidemics is slight and frequently unreliable, and it is necessary to supplement what little we do know with evidence from recent epidemics among Native Americans. For example, in 1952 an outbreak of measles among the Native American inhabitants of Ungava Bay, Quebec, affected 99 percent of the population and killed 7 percent, even though some had the benefit of modern medicine. Cases such as this demonstrate that even diseases that are not normally fatal can have destroying consequences when they strike an immunologically defenseless community.Which of the following can be inferred from the text concerning the Native American inhabitants of Ungava Bay

A．They could scarcely ward off the fatal attack by the 1952 epidemic.
B．They were immunologically defenseless against measles.
C．They were the last native people to be struck by a virgin-soil epidemic.
D．They did not come into frequent contact with White Americans until the 20th century.
问答题

[A] The role of natural selection in this colorful world[B] The delicate hierarchy of the natural system[C] The agency of selection can account for more cases[D] The impotence of creationism[E] Natural selection acts by competition [F] No leaps in natural evolution As each species tends by its geometrical rate of reproduction to increase excessively in number; and as the modified descendants of each species will be enabled to increase by as much as they become more diversified in habits and structure, so as to be able to seize on many and widely different places in natural selection to preserve the most divergent offspring of any one species. Hence, during a long-continued course of modification, the slight differences characteristic of varieties of the same species, tend to be augmented into the greater differences characteristic of the species of the same genus.【C1】______ New and improved varieties will inevitably displace and destroy the older, less improved, and intermediate varieties; and thus species are rendered to a large extent defined and distinct objects. Dominant species belonging to the larger groups within each class tend to give birth to new and dominant forms; so that each large group tends to become still larger, and at the same time more divergent in character. But as all groups cannot thus go on increasing in size, for the world would not hold them, the more dominant groups beat the less dominant.【C2】______ This tendency in the large groups to go on increasing in size and diverging in character, together with the inevitability of much extinction, explains the arrangement of all the forms of life in groups subordinate to groups, all within a few great classes, which has prevailed throughout all time. This grand fact of the grouping of all organic beings under what is called the Natural System, is utterly unexplainable on the theory of creation.【C3】______ As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favorable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modifications; it can act only by short and slow steps. We can see why throughout nature the same general end is gained by an almost infinite diversity of means, for every peculiarity when once acquired in long inherited, and structures already modified in many different ways have to be adapted for the same general purpose. We can, in short, see why nature is extravagant in variety, though not generous in innovation. But why this should be a law of nature if each species has been independently created no man can explain.【C4】______ Many other facts are, as it seems to me, explicable on this theory. How strange it is that a bird, under the form of a woodpecker, should prey on insects on the ground and that upland geese which rarely or never swim, should possess webbed feet, and so in endless other cases. But on the view of each species constantly trying to increase in number, with natural selection always ready to adapt the slowly varying descendants of each to any unoccupied or ill-occupied place in nature, these facts cease to be strange, or might even have been anticipated.【C5】______ We can to a certain extent understand how it is that there is so much beauty throughout nature; for this may be largely attributed to the agency of selection. That beauty, according to our sense of it, is not universal, must be admitted by every one who will look at some hideous bats with a distorted resemblance to the human face. Sexual selection has given the most brilliant colors, elegant patterns, and other ornaments to the males. With birds it has often rendered the voice of the male musical to the female, as well as to our ears. Flowers and fruit have been rendered conspicuous by brilliant colors in contrast with the green foliage, in order that the flowers may be readily seen, visited and fertilized by insects. As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts and improves the inhabitants of each country only in relation to their co-inhabitants; so that we need feel no surprise at the species of any one country being beaten and supplanted by the naturalized productions from another land. The wonder indeed is, on the theory of natural selection, that more cases of the want of absolute perfection have not been detected. The long and progressive reign of Queen Victoria came to a climax at a time of peace and plenty when the British Empire seemed to be at the summit of its power and security. Of the discord that soon followed we shall here note only two factors which had large influence on contemporary English literature.【C2】
答案： 正确答案：B
单项选择题

Companies have embarked on what looks like the beginnings of a re-run of the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) wave that defined the second bubbly half of the 1990s. That period was characterized by a collective splurge that saw the creation of some of the most indebted companies in history. Many of them later went bankrupt or were themselves broken up. Wild bidding for telecoms, internet and media assets, not to mention the madness that was Daimler’s $40 billion motoring takeover in 1998-1999 of Chrysler or the Time-Warner/AOL mega-merger in 2000, helped to give mergers a thoroughly bad name. A consensus emerged that M&A was a great way for investment banks to reap rich fees, and a sure way for ambitious managers to betray investors by trashing the value of their shares. Now M&A is back. Its return is a global phenomenon, but it is probably most striking in Europe, where so far this year there has been a stream of deals worth more than $600 billion in total, around 40% higher than in the same period of 2004. The latest effort came this week when France’s Saint-Gobain, a building-materials firm, unveiled the details of its ￡3.6 billion hostile bid for BPB, a British rival. In the first half of the year, cross-border activity was up threefold over the same period last year. Even France Telecom, which was left almost bankrupt at the end of the last merger wave, recently bought Amena, a Spanish mobile operator. Shareholder’s approval of all these deals raises an interesting question for companies everywhere: are investors right to think that these mergers are more likely to succeed than earlier ones There are two answers. The first is that past mergers may have been judged too harshly. The second is that the present rash of European deals does look more rational, but—and the caveat is crucial—only so far. The pattern may not hold. M&A’s poor reputation stems not only from the string of spectacular failures in the 1990s, but also from studies which showed value destruction for acquiring shareholders in 80% of deals. But more recent studies by economists have introduced a note of caution. Investors should look at the number of deals that succeed or fail (typically measured by the impact on the share price), rather than (as you might think) weighing them by size. For instance, no one doubts that the Daimler-Chrysler merger destroyed value. The combined market value of the two firms is still below that of Daimler alone before the deal. This single deal accounted for half of all German M&A activity by value in 1998 and 1999, and probably dominated people’s thinking about mergers to the same degree. Throw in a few other such monsters and it is no wonder that broad studies have tended to find that mergers are a bad idea. The true picture is more complicated.The case of Daimler-Chrysler mentioned in the text serves as

A．an illustration of an evaluation criterion.
B．an explanation of a spectacular failure.
C．a discussion of a mobile operator.
D．a guarantee of a harsh judgement.
单项选择题

It seems that fear is the dominant mood of the moment. Hurricanes, tidal waves, floods, earthquakes and terrorism this year have all brought with them not only appalling scenes of devastation, death and suffering, but also outrage at the lack of preparations to avoid or cope with these disasters. Now even the birds of the air are a threat, we are told. That migrating flock visible on the horizon at sunset, once a consoling reminder of the eternal rhythms of nature, could be carrying the virus which might soon kill tens of millions of people. Given the many fingers pointed at governments in the wake of other disasters this year, it is not surprising at all that they are scrambling to respond to the threat posed by avian influenza. After confirmation this week that the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has been spreading quickly in Asia, had been discovered in Romania and perhaps Greece, European Union foreign ministers convened an emergency meeting. President George Bush, still smarting from a torrent of criticism of his government’s inefficient response to Hurricane Katrina, has promised to rush out emergency plans for coping with an outbreak of pandemic flu which have been stalled for years. Countries around the world are hurrying to stockpile the only current antiviral drug, Tamiflu, which might be effective in saving lives in any pandemic or curbing its spread. The World Health Organisation is calling for an internationally co-ordinated effort. Health ministers from around the globe are due to meet next week in Canada to discuss what measures to take. Is any of this effort justified Or are politicians simply helping to feed public panic, and then covering themselves by promising to spend lavishly against a threat which may never materialize and to reduce a risk which they do not understand To ask these questions is not to counsel complacency, but to apply the kind of test which is required in any kind of disaster planning, not least because the world is an inherently dangerous place and it is impossible to plan against every possible disaster. With the media full of warnings of impending mass death, an overreaction is all too possible.Which of the following remarks on our available antiviral medication would the author make

A．Effective but poisonous.
B．Harmful but populous.
C．Meager and not reliable.
D．Affordable and palatable.
单项选择题

It may be just as well for Oxford University’s reputation that this week’s meeting of Congregation, its 3,552-strong governing body, was held in secret, for the air of civilized rationality that is generally supposed to pervade donnish conversation has lately turned fractious. That is because the vice-chancellor, the nearest thing the place has to a chief executive, has proposed the most fundamental reforms to the university since the establishment of the college system in 1249; and lots of the dons and colleges don’t like it. The trouble with Oxford is that it is unmanageable. Its problems—the difficulty of recruiting good dons and of getting rid of bad ones, concerns about academic standards, severe money worries at some colleges—all spring from that. John Hood, who was recruited as vice-chancellor from the University of Auckland and is now probably the most-hated antipodean in British academic life, reckons he knows how to solve this, and has proposed to reduce the power of dons and colleges and increase that of university administrators. Mr. Hood is right that the university’s management structure needs an overhaul. But radical though his proposals seem to those involved in the current row, they do not go far enough. The difficulty of managing Oxford stems only partly from the nuttiness of its system of governance; the more fundamental problem consists in its relationship with the government. That’s why Mr. Hood should adopt an idea that was once regarded as teetering on the lunatic fringe of radicalism, but these days is discussed even in polite circles. The idea is independence. Oxford gets around 5,000 per undergraduate per year from the government. In return, it accepts that it can charge students only ￡1,150 (rising to ￡3,000 next year) on top of that. Since it probably costs at least ￡10,000 a year to teach an undergraduate, that leaves Oxford with a deficit of ￡4, 000 or so per student to cover from its own funds. It would lose the ￡52m undergraduate subsidy at least if Oxford declared independence. Could it fill the hole Certainly. America’s top universities charge around ￡20,000 per student per year. The difficult issue would not be money alone: it would be balancing numbers of not-so-brilliant rich people paying top whack with the cleverer poorer ones they were cross-subsidising. America’s top universities manage it: high fees mean better teaching, which keeps competition hot and academic standards high, while luring enough donations to provide bursaries for the poor. It should be easier to extract money from alumni if Oxford were no longer state-funded.The term "bursaries" (Paragraph 5) most probably denotes

A．free stationery and accommodation.
B．sheltering and meals.
C．preferential policies.
D．scholarship or grant.
单项选择题

Increasingly, historians are blaming diseases imported from the Old World for the staggering disparity between the indigenous population of America in 1492—new estimates of which jump as high as 100 million, or approximately one-sixth of the human race at that time—and the few million full-blooded Native Americans alive at the end of the nineteenth century. There is no doubt that chronic disease was an important factor in the precipitous decline, and it is highly probable that the greatest killer was epidemic disease, especially as manifested in virgin-soil epidemics. Virgin-soil epidemics are those in which the populations at risk have had no previous contact with the diseases that strike them and are therefore immunologically almost defenseless. That virgin-soil epidemics were important in American history is strongly indicated by evidence that a number of dangerous maladies—smallpox, measles, malaria, yellow fever, and undoubtedly several more—were unknown in the pre-Columbian New World. The effects of their sudden introduction are demonstrated in the early chronicles of America, which contain reports of horrendous epidemics and steep population declines, confirmed in many cases by recent quantitative analyzes of Spanish tribute records and other sources. The evidence provided by the documents of British and French colonies is not as definitive because the conquerors of those areas did not establish permanent settlements and began to keep continuous records until the seventeenth century, by which time the worst epidemics had probably already taken place. Furthermore, the British tended to drive the native populations away, rather than to enslave them as the Spaniards did, so that the epidemics of British America occurred beyond the range of colonists’ direct observation. Even so, the surviving records of North America do contain references to deadly epidemics among the native population. In 1616—1619 an epidemic, possibly of pneumonic plague, swept coastal New England, killing as many as nine out of ten. During the 1630’s smallpox, the disease most fatal to the Native American people, eliminated half the population of the Huron and Iroquois confederations. In the 1820’s fever devastated the people of the Columbia River area, killing eight out of ten of them. Unfortunately, the documentation of these and other epidemics is slight and frequently unreliable, and it is necessary to supplement what little we do know with evidence from recent epidemics among Native Americans. For example, in 1952 an outbreak of measles among the Native American inhabitants of Ungava Bay, Quebec, affected 99 percent of the population and killed 7 percent, even though some had the benefit of modern medicine. Cases such as this demonstrate that even diseases that are not normally fatal can have destroying consequences when they strike an immunologically defenseless community.The 1952 measles outbreak is mentioned so as to

A．demonstrate the impact of modern medicine on epidemic disease.
B．refute allegations of unreliability made against the historical record of colonial America.
C．advocate new research into the continuing problem of epidemic disease.
D．confirm the documentary evidence of epidemic disease in colonial America.
问答题

[A] The role of natural selection in this colorful world[B] The delicate hierarchy of the natural system[C] The agency of selection can account for more cases[D] The impotence of creationism[E] Natural selection acts by competition [F] No leaps in natural evolution As each species tends by its geometrical rate of reproduction to increase excessively in number; and as the modified descendants of each species will be enabled to increase by as much as they become more diversified in habits and structure, so as to be able to seize on many and widely different places in natural selection to preserve the most divergent offspring of any one species. Hence, during a long-continued course of modification, the slight differences characteristic of varieties of the same species, tend to be augmented into the greater differences characteristic of the species of the same genus.【C1】______ New and improved varieties will inevitably displace and destroy the older, less improved, and intermediate varieties; and thus species are rendered to a large extent defined and distinct objects. Dominant species belonging to the larger groups within each class tend to give birth to new and dominant forms; so that each large group tends to become still larger, and at the same time more divergent in character. But as all groups cannot thus go on increasing in size, for the world would not hold them, the more dominant groups beat the less dominant.【C2】______ This tendency in the large groups to go on increasing in size and diverging in character, together with the inevitability of much extinction, explains the arrangement of all the forms of life in groups subordinate to groups, all within a few great classes, which has prevailed throughout all time. This grand fact of the grouping of all organic beings under what is called the Natural System, is utterly unexplainable on the theory of creation.【C3】______ As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favorable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modifications; it can act only by short and slow steps. We can see why throughout nature the same general end is gained by an almost infinite diversity of means, for every peculiarity when once acquired in long inherited, and structures already modified in many different ways have to be adapted for the same general purpose. We can, in short, see why nature is extravagant in variety, though not generous in innovation. But why this should be a law of nature if each species has been independently created no man can explain.【C4】______ Many other facts are, as it seems to me, explicable on this theory. How strange it is that a bird, under the form of a woodpecker, should prey on insects on the ground and that upland geese which rarely or never swim, should possess webbed feet, and so in endless other cases. But on the view of each species constantly trying to increase in number, with natural selection always ready to adapt the slowly varying descendants of each to any unoccupied or ill-occupied place in nature, these facts cease to be strange, or might even have been anticipated.【C5】______ We can to a certain extent understand how it is that there is so much beauty throughout nature; for this may be largely attributed to the agency of selection. That beauty, according to our sense of it, is not universal, must be admitted by every one who will look at some hideous bats with a distorted resemblance to the human face. Sexual selection has given the most brilliant colors, elegant patterns, and other ornaments to the males. With birds it has often rendered the voice of the male musical to the female, as well as to our ears. Flowers and fruit have been rendered conspicuous by brilliant colors in contrast with the green foliage, in order that the flowers may be readily seen, visited and fertilized by insects. As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts and improves the inhabitants of each country only in relation to their co-inhabitants; so that we need feel no surprise at the species of any one country being beaten and supplanted by the naturalized productions from another land. The wonder indeed is, on the theory of natural selection, that more cases of the want of absolute perfection have not been detected. The long and progressive reign of Queen Victoria came to a climax at a time of peace and plenty when the British Empire seemed to be at the summit of its power and security. Of the discord that soon followed we shall here note only two factors which had large influence on contemporary English literature.【C3】
答案： 正确答案：F
单项选择题

Companies have embarked on what looks like the beginnings of a re-run of the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) wave that defined the second bubbly half of the 1990s. That period was characterized by a collective splurge that saw the creation of some of the most indebted companies in history. Many of them later went bankrupt or were themselves broken up. Wild bidding for telecoms, internet and media assets, not to mention the madness that was Daimler’s $40 billion motoring takeover in 1998-1999 of Chrysler or the Time-Warner/AOL mega-merger in 2000, helped to give mergers a thoroughly bad name. A consensus emerged that M&A was a great way for investment banks to reap rich fees, and a sure way for ambitious managers to betray investors by trashing the value of their shares. Now M&A is back. Its return is a global phenomenon, but it is probably most striking in Europe, where so far this year there has been a stream of deals worth more than $600 billion in total, around 40% higher than in the same period of 2004. The latest effort came this week when France’s Saint-Gobain, a building-materials firm, unveiled the details of its ￡3.6 billion hostile bid for BPB, a British rival. In the first half of the year, cross-border activity was up threefold over the same period last year. Even France Telecom, which was left almost bankrupt at the end of the last merger wave, recently bought Amena, a Spanish mobile operator. Shareholder’s approval of all these deals raises an interesting question for companies everywhere: are investors right to think that these mergers are more likely to succeed than earlier ones There are two answers. The first is that past mergers may have been judged too harshly. The second is that the present rash of European deals does look more rational, but—and the caveat is crucial—only so far. The pattern may not hold. M&A’s poor reputation stems not only from the string of spectacular failures in the 1990s, but also from studies which showed value destruction for acquiring shareholders in 80% of deals. But more recent studies by economists have introduced a note of caution. Investors should look at the number of deals that succeed or fail (typically measured by the impact on the share price), rather than (as you might think) weighing them by size. For instance, no one doubts that the Daimler-Chrysler merger destroyed value. The combined market value of the two firms is still below that of Daimler alone before the deal. This single deal accounted for half of all German M&A activity by value in 1998 and 1999, and probably dominated people’s thinking about mergers to the same degree. Throw in a few other such monsters and it is no wonder that broad studies have tended to find that mergers are a bad idea. The true picture is more complicated.The conclusion reached by general researches is that mergers are not

A．a valuable demonstration.
B．a wise plan.
C．an invisible pitfall.
D．a worst depravity.
单项选择题

It seems that fear is the dominant mood of the moment. Hurricanes, tidal waves, floods, earthquakes and terrorism this year have all brought with them not only appalling scenes of devastation, death and suffering, but also outrage at the lack of preparations to avoid or cope with these disasters. Now even the birds of the air are a threat, we are told. That migrating flock visible on the horizon at sunset, once a consoling reminder of the eternal rhythms of nature, could be carrying the virus which might soon kill tens of millions of people. Given the many fingers pointed at governments in the wake of other disasters this year, it is not surprising at all that they are scrambling to respond to the threat posed by avian influenza. After confirmation this week that the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has been spreading quickly in Asia, had been discovered in Romania and perhaps Greece, European Union foreign ministers convened an emergency meeting. President George Bush, still smarting from a torrent of criticism of his government’s inefficient response to Hurricane Katrina, has promised to rush out emergency plans for coping with an outbreak of pandemic flu which have been stalled for years. Countries around the world are hurrying to stockpile the only current antiviral drug, Tamiflu, which might be effective in saving lives in any pandemic or curbing its spread. The World Health Organisation is calling for an internationally co-ordinated effort. Health ministers from around the globe are due to meet next week in Canada to discuss what measures to take. Is any of this effort justified Or are politicians simply helping to feed public panic, and then covering themselves by promising to spend lavishly against a threat which may never materialize and to reduce a risk which they do not understand To ask these questions is not to counsel complacency, but to apply the kind of test which is required in any kind of disaster planning, not least because the world is an inherently dangerous place and it is impossible to plan against every possible disaster. With the media full of warnings of impending mass death, an overreaction is all too possible.The phrase "not least" in the last but one sentence of the text means

A．at most.
B．not at all.
C．marginally.
D．particularly.
单项选择题

It may be just as well for Oxford University’s reputation that this week’s meeting of Congregation, its 3,552-strong governing body, was held in secret, for the air of civilized rationality that is generally supposed to pervade donnish conversation has lately turned fractious. That is because the vice-chancellor, the nearest thing the place has to a chief executive, has proposed the most fundamental reforms to the university since the establishment of the college system in 1249; and lots of the dons and colleges don’t like it. The trouble with Oxford is that it is unmanageable. Its problems—the difficulty of recruiting good dons and of getting rid of bad ones, concerns about academic standards, severe money worries at some colleges—all spring from that. John Hood, who was recruited as vice-chancellor from the University of Auckland and is now probably the most-hated antipodean in British academic life, reckons he knows how to solve this, and has proposed to reduce the power of dons and colleges and increase that of university administrators. Mr. Hood is right that the university’s management structure needs an overhaul. But radical though his proposals seem to those involved in the current row, they do not go far enough. The difficulty of managing Oxford stems only partly from the nuttiness of its system of governance; the more fundamental problem consists in its relationship with the government. That’s why Mr. Hood should adopt an idea that was once regarded as teetering on the lunatic fringe of radicalism, but these days is discussed even in polite circles. The idea is independence. Oxford gets around 5,000 per undergraduate per year from the government. In return, it accepts that it can charge students only ￡1,150 (rising to ￡3,000 next year) on top of that. Since it probably costs at least ￡10,000 a year to teach an undergraduate, that leaves Oxford with a deficit of ￡4, 000 or so per student to cover from its own funds. It would lose the ￡52m undergraduate subsidy at least if Oxford declared independence. Could it fill the hole Certainly. America’s top universities charge around ￡20,000 per student per year. The difficult issue would not be money alone: it would be balancing numbers of not-so-brilliant rich people paying top whack with the cleverer poorer ones they were cross-subsidising. America’s top universities manage it: high fees mean better teaching, which keeps competition hot and academic standards high, while luring enough donations to provide bursaries for the poor. It should be easier to extract money from alumni if Oxford were no longer state-funded.We can learn from the available statistics that

A．the current financial status of Oxford results from its being state-funded.
B．radical reforms concentrate on Oxford management structure.
C．Oxford independence might become a barrier to its recruiting good dons.
D．notorious reputation results in Oxford meeting of Congregation held this week.
单项选择题

Increasingly, historians are blaming diseases imported from the Old World for the staggering disparity between the indigenous population of America in 1492—new estimates of which jump as high as 100 million, or approximately one-sixth of the human race at that time—and the few million full-blooded Native Americans alive at the end of the nineteenth century. There is no doubt that chronic disease was an important factor in the precipitous decline, and it is highly probable that the greatest killer was epidemic disease, especially as manifested in virgin-soil epidemics. Virgin-soil epidemics are those in which the populations at risk have had no previous contact with the diseases that strike them and are therefore immunologically almost defenseless. That virgin-soil epidemics were important in American history is strongly indicated by evidence that a number of dangerous maladies—smallpox, measles, malaria, yellow fever, and undoubtedly several more—were unknown in the pre-Columbian New World. The effects of their sudden introduction are demonstrated in the early chronicles of America, which contain reports of horrendous epidemics and steep population declines, confirmed in many cases by recent quantitative analyzes of Spanish tribute records and other sources. The evidence provided by the documents of British and French colonies is not as definitive because the conquerors of those areas did not establish permanent settlements and began to keep continuous records until the seventeenth century, by which time the worst epidemics had probably already taken place. Furthermore, the British tended to drive the native populations away, rather than to enslave them as the Spaniards did, so that the epidemics of British America occurred beyond the range of colonists’ direct observation. Even so, the surviving records of North America do contain references to deadly epidemics among the native population. In 1616—1619 an epidemic, possibly of pneumonic plague, swept coastal New England, killing as many as nine out of ten. During the 1630’s smallpox, the disease most fatal to the Native American people, eliminated half the population of the Huron and Iroquois confederations. In the 1820’s fever devastated the people of the Columbia River area, killing eight out of ten of them. Unfortunately, the documentation of these and other epidemics is slight and frequently unreliable, and it is necessary to supplement what little we do know with evidence from recent epidemics among Native Americans. For example, in 1952 an outbreak of measles among the Native American inhabitants of Ungava Bay, Quebec, affected 99 percent of the population and killed 7 percent, even though some had the benefit of modern medicine. Cases such as this demonstrate that even diseases that are not normally fatal can have destroying consequences when they strike an immunologically defenseless community.The primary purpose of the text is to

A．provide support for a hypothesis.
B．reconcile opposing viewpoints.
C．refute a common misconception.
D．analyze an argument in detail.
单项选择题

Companies have embarked on what looks like the beginnings of a re-run of the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) wave that defined the second bubbly half of the 1990s. That period was characterized by a collective splurge that saw the creation of some of the most indebted companies in history. Many of them later went bankrupt or were themselves broken up. Wild bidding for telecoms, internet and media assets, not to mention the madness that was Daimler’s $40 billion motoring takeover in 1998-1999 of Chrysler or the Time-Warner/AOL mega-merger in 2000, helped to give mergers a thoroughly bad name. A consensus emerged that M&A was a great way for investment banks to reap rich fees, and a sure way for ambitious managers to betray investors by trashing the value of their shares. Now M&A is back. Its return is a global phenomenon, but it is probably most striking in Europe, where so far this year there has been a stream of deals worth more than $600 billion in total, around 40% higher than in the same period of 2004. The latest effort came this week when France’s Saint-Gobain, a building-materials firm, unveiled the details of its ￡3.6 billion hostile bid for BPB, a British rival. In the first half of the year, cross-border activity was up threefold over the same period last year. Even France Telecom, which was left almost bankrupt at the end of the last merger wave, recently bought Amena, a Spanish mobile operator. Shareholder’s approval of all these deals raises an interesting question for companies everywhere: are investors right to think that these mergers are more likely to succeed than earlier ones There are two answers. The first is that past mergers may have been judged too harshly. The second is that the present rash of European deals does look more rational, but—and the caveat is crucial—only so far. The pattern may not hold. M&A’s poor reputation stems not only from the string of spectacular failures in the 1990s, but also from studies which showed value destruction for acquiring shareholders in 80% of deals. But more recent studies by economists have introduced a note of caution. Investors should look at the number of deals that succeed or fail (typically measured by the impact on the share price), rather than (as you might think) weighing them by size. For instance, no one doubts that the Daimler-Chrysler merger destroyed value. The combined market value of the two firms is still below that of Daimler alone before the deal. This single deal accounted for half of all German M&A activity by value in 1998 and 1999, and probably dominated people’s thinking about mergers to the same degree. Throw in a few other such monsters and it is no wonder that broad studies have tended to find that mergers are a bad idea. The true picture is more complicated.To which of the following statements would the author most probably agree

A．M&A’s poor reputation deserves a thorough analysis by telecoms and internet.
B．the typical note of caution is always overlooked in terms of controversial debate.
C．the latest cycle of European mergers will not produce better results.
D．the unveiling of hostile bid in Europe will help relieve enterprises of their financial dilemma.
问答题

[A] The role of natural selection in this colorful world[B] The delicate hierarchy of the natural system[C] The agency of selection can account for more cases[D] The impotence of creationism[E] Natural selection acts by competition [F] No leaps in natural evolution As each species tends by its geometrical rate of reproduction to increase excessively in number; and as the modified descendants of each species will be enabled to increase by as much as they become more diversified in habits and structure, so as to be able to seize on many and widely different places in natural selection to preserve the most divergent offspring of any one species. Hence, during a long-continued course of modification, the slight differences characteristic of varieties of the same species, tend to be augmented into the greater differences characteristic of the species of the same genus.【C1】______ New and improved varieties will inevitably displace and destroy the older, less improved, and intermediate varieties; and thus species are rendered to a large extent defined and distinct objects. Dominant species belonging to the larger groups within each class tend to give birth to new and dominant forms; so that each large group tends to become still larger, and at the same time more divergent in character. But as all groups cannot thus go on increasing in size, for the world would not hold them, the more dominant groups beat the less dominant.【C2】______ This tendency in the large groups to go on increasing in size and diverging in character, together with the inevitability of much extinction, explains the arrangement of all the forms of life in groups subordinate to groups, all within a few great classes, which has prevailed throughout all time. This grand fact of the grouping of all organic beings under what is called the Natural System, is utterly unexplainable on the theory of creation.【C3】______ As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favorable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modifications; it can act only by short and slow steps. We can see why throughout nature the same general end is gained by an almost infinite diversity of means, for every peculiarity when once acquired in long inherited, and structures already modified in many different ways have to be adapted for the same general purpose. We can, in short, see why nature is extravagant in variety, though not generous in innovation. But why this should be a law of nature if each species has been independently created no man can explain.【C4】______ Many other facts are, as it seems to me, explicable on this theory. How strange it is that a bird, under the form of a woodpecker, should prey on insects on the ground and that upland geese which rarely or never swim, should possess webbed feet, and so in endless other cases. But on the view of each species constantly trying to increase in number, with natural selection always ready to adapt the slowly varying descendants of each to any unoccupied or ill-occupied place in nature, these facts cease to be strange, or might even have been anticipated.【C5】______ We can to a certain extent understand how it is that there is so much beauty throughout nature; for this may be largely attributed to the agency of selection. That beauty, according to our sense of it, is not universal, must be admitted by every one who will look at some hideous bats with a distorted resemblance to the human face. Sexual selection has given the most brilliant colors, elegant patterns, and other ornaments to the males. With birds it has often rendered the voice of the male musical to the female, as well as to our ears. Flowers and fruit have been rendered conspicuous by brilliant colors in contrast with the green foliage, in order that the flowers may be readily seen, visited and fertilized by insects. As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts and improves the inhabitants of each country only in relation to their co-inhabitants; so that we need feel no surprise at the species of any one country being beaten and supplanted by the naturalized productions from another land. The wonder indeed is, on the theory of natural selection, that more cases of the want of absolute perfection have not been detected. The long and progressive reign of Queen Victoria came to a climax at a time of peace and plenty when the British Empire seemed to be at the summit of its power and security. Of the discord that soon followed we shall here note only two factors which had large influence on contemporary English literature.【C4】
答案： 正确答案：C
单项选择题

It seems that fear is the dominant mood of the moment. Hurricanes, tidal waves, floods, earthquakes and terrorism this year have all brought with them not only appalling scenes of devastation, death and suffering, but also outrage at the lack of preparations to avoid or cope with these disasters. Now even the birds of the air are a threat, we are told. That migrating flock visible on the horizon at sunset, once a consoling reminder of the eternal rhythms of nature, could be carrying the virus which might soon kill tens of millions of people. Given the many fingers pointed at governments in the wake of other disasters this year, it is not surprising at all that they are scrambling to respond to the threat posed by avian influenza. After confirmation this week that the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has been spreading quickly in Asia, had been discovered in Romania and perhaps Greece, European Union foreign ministers convened an emergency meeting. President George Bush, still smarting from a torrent of criticism of his government’s inefficient response to Hurricane Katrina, has promised to rush out emergency plans for coping with an outbreak of pandemic flu which have been stalled for years. Countries around the world are hurrying to stockpile the only current antiviral drug, Tamiflu, which might be effective in saving lives in any pandemic or curbing its spread. The World Health Organisation is calling for an internationally co-ordinated effort. Health ministers from around the globe are due to meet next week in Canada to discuss what measures to take. Is any of this effort justified Or are politicians simply helping to feed public panic, and then covering themselves by promising to spend lavishly against a threat which may never materialize and to reduce a risk which they do not understand To ask these questions is not to counsel complacency, but to apply the kind of test which is required in any kind of disaster planning, not least because the world is an inherently dangerous place and it is impossible to plan against every possible disaster. With the media full of warnings of impending mass death, an overreaction is all too possible.We can draw a conclusion from the last paragraph of the text that

A．strong and intense response derive from the mass media.
B．the attempts to be made can no longer be justified by their intention.
C．public panic would be diluted by politicians’ promise.
D．the only remedy is to spend lavishly against a threat.
单项选择题

It may be just as well for Oxford University’s reputation that this week’s meeting of Congregation, its 3,552-strong governing body, was held in secret, for the air of civilized rationality that is generally supposed to pervade donnish conversation has lately turned fractious. That is because the vice-chancellor, the nearest thing the place has to a chief executive, has proposed the most fundamental reforms to the university since the establishment of the college system in 1249; and lots of the dons and colleges don’t like it. The trouble with Oxford is that it is unmanageable. Its problems—the difficulty of recruiting good dons and of getting rid of bad ones, concerns about academic standards, severe money worries at some colleges—all spring from that. John Hood, who was recruited as vice-chancellor from the University of Auckland and is now probably the most-hated antipodean in British academic life, reckons he knows how to solve this, and has proposed to reduce the power of dons and colleges and increase that of university administrators. Mr. Hood is right that the university’s management structure needs an overhaul. But radical though his proposals seem to those involved in the current row, they do not go far enough. The difficulty of managing Oxford stems only partly from the nuttiness of its system of governance; the more fundamental problem consists in its relationship with the government. That’s why Mr. Hood should adopt an idea that was once regarded as teetering on the lunatic fringe of radicalism, but these days is discussed even in polite circles. The idea is independence. Oxford gets around 5,000 per undergraduate per year from the government. In return, it accepts that it can charge students only ￡1,150 (rising to ￡3,000 next year) on top of that. Since it probably costs at least ￡10,000 a year to teach an undergraduate, that leaves Oxford with a deficit of ￡4, 000 or so per student to cover from its own funds. It would lose the ￡52m undergraduate subsidy at least if Oxford declared independence. Could it fill the hole Certainly. America’s top universities charge around ￡20,000 per student per year. The difficult issue would not be money alone: it would be balancing numbers of not-so-brilliant rich people paying top whack with the cleverer poorer ones they were cross-subsidising. America’s top universities manage it: high fees mean better teaching, which keeps competition hot and academic standards high, while luring enough donations to provide bursaries for the poor. It should be easier to extract money from alumni if Oxford were no longer state-funded.According to the text, the author would agree that

A．the contribution from alumni won’t lure ample donation by the wealthy.
B．the civilized rationality is gradually spoiled by fractious nature.
C．the row going on in Oxford is passionate but beside the point.
D．American’s top universities are somewhat apprehensive of their current status but over-confident of their prospect.
问答题

[A] The role of natural selection in this colorful world[B] The delicate hierarchy of the natural system[C] The agency of selection can account for more cases[D] The impotence of creationism[E] Natural selection acts by competition [F] No leaps in natural evolution As each species tends by its geometrical rate of reproduction to increase excessively in number; and as the modified descendants of each species will be enabled to increase by as much as they become more diversified in habits and structure, so as to be able to seize on many and widely different places in natural selection to preserve the most divergent offspring of any one species. Hence, during a long-continued course of modification, the slight differences characteristic of varieties of the same species, tend to be augmented into the greater differences characteristic of the species of the same genus.【C1】______ New and improved varieties will inevitably displace and destroy the older, less improved, and intermediate varieties; and thus species are rendered to a large extent defined and distinct objects. Dominant species belonging to the larger groups within each class tend to give birth to new and dominant forms; so that each large group tends to become still larger, and at the same time more divergent in character. But as all groups cannot thus go on increasing in size, for the world would not hold them, the more dominant groups beat the less dominant.【C2】______ This tendency in the large groups to go on increasing in size and diverging in character, together with the inevitability of much extinction, explains the arrangement of all the forms of life in groups subordinate to groups, all within a few great classes, which has prevailed throughout all time. This grand fact of the grouping of all organic beings under what is called the Natural System, is utterly unexplainable on the theory of creation.【C3】______ As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favorable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modifications; it can act only by short and slow steps. We can see why throughout nature the same general end is gained by an almost infinite diversity of means, for every peculiarity when once acquired in long inherited, and structures already modified in many different ways have to be adapted for the same general purpose. We can, in short, see why nature is extravagant in variety, though not generous in innovation. But why this should be a law of nature if each species has been independently created no man can explain.【C4】______ Many other facts are, as it seems to me, explicable on this theory. How strange it is that a bird, under the form of a woodpecker, should prey on insects on the ground and that upland geese which rarely or never swim, should possess webbed feet, and so in endless other cases. But on the view of each species constantly trying to increase in number, with natural selection always ready to adapt the slowly varying descendants of each to any unoccupied or ill-occupied place in nature, these facts cease to be strange, or might even have been anticipated.【C5】______ We can to a certain extent understand how it is that there is so much beauty throughout nature; for this may be largely attributed to the agency of selection. That beauty, according to our sense of it, is not universal, must be admitted by every one who will look at some hideous bats with a distorted resemblance to the human face. Sexual selection has given the most brilliant colors, elegant patterns, and other ornaments to the males. With birds it has often rendered the voice of the male musical to the female, as well as to our ears. Flowers and fruit have been rendered conspicuous by brilliant colors in contrast with the green foliage, in order that the flowers may be readily seen, visited and fertilized by insects. As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts and improves the inhabitants of each country only in relation to their co-inhabitants; so that we need feel no surprise at the species of any one country being beaten and supplanted by the naturalized productions from another land. The wonder indeed is, on the theory of natural selection, that more cases of the want of absolute perfection have not been detected. The long and progressive reign of Queen Victoria came to a climax at a time of peace and plenty when the British Empire seemed to be at the summit of its power and security. Of the discord that soon followed we shall here note only two factors which had large influence on contemporary English literature.【C5】
答案： 正确答案：A
问答题

Within economic theory, there are in any case quite different assumptions about individual behaviour. Some neoclassical models assume that individuals’ expectations are rational, that is, they draw economically optimal conclusions from available information. In other models, expectations are more slowly "adaptive", or there is uncertainty about the future. Yet experimental research shows that most people are remarkably bad at assessing their own economic best interest, even when they are given clear information and time to learn. Faced with a simple economic dilemma, people are quite likely to make the wrong decision because of "bounded rationality" (the effect of misleading preconceptions or emotions) or basic computational mistakes (the inability to calculate probabilities and discount rates). Psychologists have also identified the phenomenon of "myopic discounting": our tendency to prefer a large reward later to a small reward soon—a preference we then switch as the small reward becomes irresistibly imminent. 【F1】 Prospect theorists have shown that people are risk-averse when choosing between a certain gain and a possible bigger gain—they will choose the certain but smaller gain—but not when offered a choice between a certain loss and a possible bigger loss. Most economic institutions, if they depend on credit, also depend in some measure on credibility. But credibility can be based on credulity. 【F2】 In late nineteenth-century France, Therese Humbert enjoyed a glittering career on the basis of a chest supposedly containing a hundred million francs in bearer bonds, which it was claimed she had inherited from her natural father, a mysterious Portuguese (later American) millionaire named Crawford. Borrowing against these securities, she and her husband were able to buy a luxurious hotel in the avenue de la Grande Armee, to gain a controlling interest in a Parisian newspaper and to engineer his election as a socialist deputy. Ten thousand people gathered outside the house when the box was finally opened in May 1902. It was found to contain "nothing but an old newspaper, an Italian coin and a trouser button." 【F3】 Even when we are not miscalculating—as the Humberts’ creditors plainly did—our economic calculations are often subordinated to our biological impulses: the desire to reproduce, rooted(according to neo-Darwinian theories) in our "selfish genes", the capacity for violence against rivals for mates and sustenance—to say nothing of the erotic or morbid forms of behaviour analysed by Freud, which cannot always be explained by evolutionary biology. Man is a social animal whose motivations are inseparable from his cultural milieu. 【F4】 As Max Weber argued, even the profit motive has its roots in a not wholly rational asceticism, a desire to work for its own sake which is as much religious as economic. Under different cultural conditions, human beings may prefer leisure to toil. Or they may win the esteem of their fellows by economically irrational behaviour; for social status is seldom the same as mere purchasing power. And man is also a political animal. The groups into which human beings divide themselves—kinship groups, tribes, faiths, nations, classes and parties ( not forgetting firms)—satisfy two fundamental needs: the desire for security (safety, both physical and psychological, in numbers) and what Nietzsche called the will to power: the satisfaction that comes from dominating other weaker groups. No theory has adequately described this phenomenon, not least because individuals are plainly capable of sustaining multiple, overlapping identities; and of tolerating the proximity of quite different groups, and indeed co-operating with them. 【F5】 Only occasionally, and for reasons which seem historically specific, are people willing to accept an exclusive group identity. Only sometimes-but often enough-does the competition between groups descend into violence.【F1】
答案： 正确答案：研究未来的理论家们证明，人们在既定收益和可能的更大收益之间取舍时往往回避风险，总会选择确定性大但数量较小的收益...
问答题

Within economic theory, there are in any case quite different assumptions about individual behaviour. Some neoclassical models assume that individuals’ expectations are rational, that is, they draw economically optimal conclusions from available information. In other models, expectations are more slowly "adaptive", or there is uncertainty about the future. Yet experimental research shows that most people are remarkably bad at assessing their own economic best interest, even when they are given clear information and time to learn. Faced with a simple economic dilemma, people are quite likely to make the wrong decision because of "bounded rationality" (the effect of misleading preconceptions or emotions) or basic computational mistakes (the inability to calculate probabilities and discount rates). Psychologists have also identified the phenomenon of "myopic discounting": our tendency to prefer a large reward later to a small reward soon—a preference we then switch as the small reward becomes irresistibly imminent. 【F1】 Prospect theorists have shown that people are risk-averse when choosing between a certain gain and a possible bigger gain—they will choose the certain but smaller gain—but not when offered a choice between a certain loss and a possible bigger loss. Most economic institutions, if they depend on credit, also depend in some measure on credibility. But credibility can be based on credulity. 【F2】 In late nineteenth-century France, Therese Humbert enjoyed a glittering career on the basis of a chest supposedly containing a hundred million francs in bearer bonds, which it was claimed she had inherited from her natural father, a mysterious Portuguese (later American) millionaire named Crawford. Borrowing against these securities, she and her husband were able to buy a luxurious hotel in the avenue de la Grande Armee, to gain a controlling interest in a Parisian newspaper and to engineer his election as a socialist deputy. Ten thousand people gathered outside the house when the box was finally opened in May 1902. It was found to contain "nothing but an old newspaper, an Italian coin and a trouser button." 【F3】 Even when we are not miscalculating—as the Humberts’ creditors plainly did—our economic calculations are often subordinated to our biological impulses: the desire to reproduce, rooted(according to neo-Darwinian theories) in our "selfish genes", the capacity for violence against rivals for mates and sustenance—to say nothing of the erotic or morbid forms of behaviour analysed by Freud, which cannot always be explained by evolutionary biology. Man is a social animal whose motivations are inseparable from his cultural milieu. 【F4】 As Max Weber argued, even the profit motive has its roots in a not wholly rational asceticism, a desire to work for its own sake which is as much religious as economic. Under different cultural conditions, human beings may prefer leisure to toil. Or they may win the esteem of their fellows by economically irrational behaviour; for social status is seldom the same as mere purchasing power. And man is also a political animal. The groups into which human beings divide themselves—kinship groups, tribes, faiths, nations, classes and parties ( not forgetting firms)—satisfy two fundamental needs: the desire for security (safety, both physical and psychological, in numbers) and what Nietzsche called the will to power: the satisfaction that comes from dominating other weaker groups. No theory has adequately described this phenomenon, not least because individuals are plainly capable of sustaining multiple, overlapping identities; and of tolerating the proximity of quite different groups, and indeed co-operating with them. 【F5】 Only occasionally, and for reasons which seem historically specific, are people willing to accept an exclusive group identity. Only sometimes-but often enough-does the competition between groups descend into violence.【F2】
答案： 正确答案：在19世纪末的法国，特莉莎.亨伯尔靠着一个小匣子而拥有风光的事业。据说这个匣子里有一亿法郎持票人债券，人们说这...
问答题

Within economic theory, there are in any case quite different assumptions about individual behaviour. Some neoclassical models assume that individuals’ expectations are rational, that is, they draw economically optimal conclusions from available information. In other models, expectations are more slowly "adaptive", or there is uncertainty about the future. Yet experimental research shows that most people are remarkably bad at assessing their own economic best interest, even when they are given clear information and time to learn. Faced with a simple economic dilemma, people are quite likely to make the wrong decision because of "bounded rationality" (the effect of misleading preconceptions or emotions) or basic computational mistakes (the inability to calculate probabilities and discount rates). Psychologists have also identified the phenomenon of "myopic discounting": our tendency to prefer a large reward later to a small reward soon—a preference we then switch as the small reward becomes irresistibly imminent. 【F1】 Prospect theorists have shown that people are risk-averse when choosing between a certain gain and a possible bigger gain—they will choose the certain but smaller gain—but not when offered a choice between a certain loss and a possible bigger loss. Most economic institutions, if they depend on credit, also depend in some measure on credibility. But credibility can be based on credulity. 【F2】 In late nineteenth-century France, Therese Humbert enjoyed a glittering career on the basis of a chest supposedly containing a hundred million francs in bearer bonds, which it was claimed she had inherited from her natural father, a mysterious Portuguese (later American) millionaire named Crawford. Borrowing against these securities, she and her husband were able to buy a luxurious hotel in the avenue de la Grande Armee, to gain a controlling interest in a Parisian newspaper and to engineer his election as a socialist deputy. Ten thousand people gathered outside the house when the box was finally opened in May 1902. It was found to contain "nothing but an old newspaper, an Italian coin and a trouser button." 【F3】 Even when we are not miscalculating—as the Humberts’ creditors plainly did—our economic calculations are often subordinated to our biological impulses: the desire to reproduce, rooted(according to neo-Darwinian theories) in our "selfish genes", the capacity for violence against rivals for mates and sustenance—to say nothing of the erotic or morbid forms of behaviour analysed by Freud, which cannot always be explained by evolutionary biology. Man is a social animal whose motivations are inseparable from his cultural milieu. 【F4】 As Max Weber argued, even the profit motive has its roots in a not wholly rational asceticism, a desire to work for its own sake which is as much religious as economic. Under different cultural conditions, human beings may prefer leisure to toil. Or they may win the esteem of their fellows by economically irrational behaviour; for social status is seldom the same as mere purchasing power. And man is also a political animal. The groups into which human beings divide themselves—kinship groups, tribes, faiths, nations, classes and parties ( not forgetting firms)—satisfy two fundamental needs: the desire for security (safety, both physical and psychological, in numbers) and what Nietzsche called the will to power: the satisfaction that comes from dominating other weaker groups. No theory has adequately described this phenomenon, not least because individuals are plainly capable of sustaining multiple, overlapping identities; and of tolerating the proximity of quite different groups, and indeed co-operating with them. 【F5】 Only occasionally, and for reasons which seem historically specific, are people willing to accept an exclusive group identity. Only sometimes-but often enough-does the competition between groups descend into violence.【F3】
答案： 正确答案：即使我们没有像亨伯尔的债主们一样打错算盘，我们的经济盘算也往往受制于我们的生理冲动。
问答题

Within economic theory, there are in any case quite different assumptions about individual behaviour. Some neoclassical models assume that individuals’ expectations are rational, that is, they draw economically optimal conclusions from available information. In other models, expectations are more slowly "adaptive", or there is uncertainty about the future. Yet experimental research shows that most people are remarkably bad at assessing their own economic best interest, even when they are given clear information and time to learn. Faced with a simple economic dilemma, people are quite likely to make the wrong decision because of "bounded rationality" (the effect of misleading preconceptions or emotions) or basic computational mistakes (the inability to calculate probabilities and discount rates). Psychologists have also identified the phenomenon of "myopic discounting": our tendency to prefer a large reward later to a small reward soon—a preference we then switch as the small reward becomes irresistibly imminent. 【F1】 Prospect theorists have shown that people are risk-averse when choosing between a certain gain and a possible bigger gain—they will choose the certain but smaller gain—but not when offered a choice between a certain loss and a possible bigger loss. Most economic institutions, if they depend on credit, also depend in some measure on credibility. But credibility can be based on credulity. 【F2】 In late nineteenth-century France, Therese Humbert enjoyed a glittering career on the basis of a chest supposedly containing a hundred million francs in bearer bonds, which it was claimed she had inherited from her natural father, a mysterious Portuguese (later American) millionaire named Crawford. Borrowing against these securities, she and her husband were able to buy a luxurious hotel in the avenue de la Grande Armee, to gain a controlling interest in a Parisian newspaper and to engineer his election as a socialist deputy. Ten thousand people gathered outside the house when the box was finally opened in May 1902. It was found to contain "nothing but an old newspaper, an Italian coin and a trouser button." 【F3】 Even when we are not miscalculating—as the Humberts’ creditors plainly did—our economic calculations are often subordinated to our biological impulses: the desire to reproduce, rooted(according to neo-Darwinian theories) in our "selfish genes", the capacity for violence against rivals for mates and sustenance—to say nothing of the erotic or morbid forms of behaviour analysed by Freud, which cannot always be explained by evolutionary biology. Man is a social animal whose motivations are inseparable from his cultural milieu. 【F4】 As Max Weber argued, even the profit motive has its roots in a not wholly rational asceticism, a desire to work for its own sake which is as much religious as economic. Under different cultural conditions, human beings may prefer leisure to toil. Or they may win the esteem of their fellows by economically irrational behaviour; for social status is seldom the same as mere purchasing power. And man is also a political animal. The groups into which human beings divide themselves—kinship groups, tribes, faiths, nations, classes and parties ( not forgetting firms)—satisfy two fundamental needs: the desire for security (safety, both physical and psychological, in numbers) and what Nietzsche called the will to power: the satisfaction that comes from dominating other weaker groups. No theory has adequately described this phenomenon, not least because individuals are plainly capable of sustaining multiple, overlapping identities; and of tolerating the proximity of quite different groups, and indeed co-operating with them. 【F5】 Only occasionally, and for reasons which seem historically specific, are people willing to accept an exclusive group identity. Only sometimes-but often enough-does the competition between groups descend into violence.【F4】
答案： 正确答案：正如马克斯.韦伯所论证的那样，甚至是追求利润的动机也来源于并非完全理性的禁欲主义，即一种为工作而工作的欲望，这...
问答题

Within economic theory, there are in any case quite different assumptions about individual behaviour. Some neoclassical models assume that individuals’ expectations are rational, that is, they draw economically optimal conclusions from available information. In other models, expectations are more slowly "adaptive", or there is uncertainty about the future. Yet experimental research shows that most people are remarkably bad at assessing their own economic best interest, even when they are given clear information and time to learn. Faced with a simple economic dilemma, people are quite likely to make the wrong decision because of "bounded rationality" (the effect of misleading preconceptions or emotions) or basic computational mistakes (the inability to calculate probabilities and discount rates). Psychologists have also identified the phenomenon of "myopic discounting": our tendency to prefer a large reward later to a small reward soon—a preference we then switch as the small reward becomes irresistibly imminent. 【F1】 Prospect theorists have shown that people are risk-averse when choosing between a certain gain and a possible bigger gain—they will choose the certain but smaller gain—but not when offered a choice between a certain loss and a possible bigger loss. Most economic institutions, if they depend on credit, also depend in some measure on credibility. But credibility can be based on credulity. 【F2】 In late nineteenth-century France, Therese Humbert enjoyed a glittering career on the basis of a chest supposedly containing a hundred million francs in bearer bonds, which it was claimed she had inherited from her natural father, a mysterious Portuguese (later American) millionaire named Crawford. Borrowing against these securities, she and her husband were able to buy a luxurious hotel in the avenue de la Grande Armee, to gain a controlling interest in a Parisian newspaper and to engineer his election as a socialist deputy. Ten thousand people gathered outside the house when the box was finally opened in May 1902. It was found to contain "nothing but an old newspaper, an Italian coin and a trouser button." 【F3】 Even when we are not miscalculating—as the Humberts’ creditors plainly did—our economic calculations are often subordinated to our biological impulses: the desire to reproduce, rooted(according to neo-Darwinian theories) in our "selfish genes", the capacity for violence against rivals for mates and sustenance—to say nothing of the erotic or morbid forms of behaviour analysed by Freud, which cannot always be explained by evolutionary biology. Man is a social animal whose motivations are inseparable from his cultural milieu. 【F4】 As Max Weber argued, even the profit motive has its roots in a not wholly rational asceticism, a desire to work for its own sake which is as much religious as economic. Under different cultural conditions, human beings may prefer leisure to toil. Or they may win the esteem of their fellows by economically irrational behaviour; for social status is seldom the same as mere purchasing power. And man is also a political animal. The groups into which human beings divide themselves—kinship groups, tribes, faiths, nations, classes and parties ( not forgetting firms)—satisfy two fundamental needs: the desire for security (safety, both physical and psychological, in numbers) and what Nietzsche called the will to power: the satisfaction that comes from dominating other weaker groups. No theory has adequately described this phenomenon, not least because individuals are plainly capable of sustaining multiple, overlapping identities; and of tolerating the proximity of quite different groups, and indeed co-operating with them. 【F5】 Only occasionally, and for reasons which seem historically specific, are people willing to accept an exclusive group identity. Only sometimes-but often enough-does the competition between groups descend into violence.【F5】
答案： 正确答案：人们只是偶尔因为一些似乎历史特有的原因，才愿意接受一种排外的群体身份。
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