Car makers have long used sex to sell their products. Recently, however, both BMW and Renault have based their latest European marketing campaigns around the icon of modern biology.
BMW’s campaign, which launches its new 3-series sports saloon in Britain and Ireland, shows the new creation and four of its earlier versions zigzagging around a landscape made up of giant DNA sequences, with a brief explanation that DNA is the molecule responsible for the inheritance of such features as strength, power and intelligence. The Renault offering, which promotes its existing Laguna model, employs evolutionary theory even more explicitly. The company’s television commercials intersperse clips of the car with scenes from a lecture by Steve Jones, a professor of genetics at University of London.
BMW’s campaign is intended to convey the idea of development allied to heritage. The latest product, in other words, should be viewed as the new and improved scion of a long line of good cars. Renault’s message is more subtle. It is that evolution works by gradual improvements rather than sudden leaps (in this, Renault is aligning itself with biological orthodoxy). So, although the new car in the advertisement may look like the old one, the external form conceals a number of significant changes to the engine. While these alterations are almost invisible to the average driver, Renault hopes they will improve the car’s performance, and ultimately its survival in the marketplace.
Whether they actually do so will depend, in part, on whether marketers have read the public mood correctly. For, even if genetics really does offer a useful metaphor for automobiles, employing it in advertising is not without its dangers. That is because DNA’s public image is ambiguous. In one context, people may see it as the cornerstone of modern medical progress. In another, it will bring to mind such controversial issues as abortion, genetically modified foodstuffs, and the sinister subject of eugenics.
Car makers are probably standing on safer ground than biologists. But even they call make mistakes. Though it would not be obvious to the casual observer, some of the DNA which features in BMW’s ads for its nice, new car once belonged to a woolly mammoth—a beast that has been extinct for 10,000 years. Not, presumably, quite the message that the marketing department was trying to convey.
It can be inferred that biological orthodoxy favors

A:no change. B:step-by-step change. C:all-of-a-sudden change. D:radical change.

"The news hit the British High Commission in Nairobi at nine-thirty on a Monday morning. Sandy Woodrow took it like a bullet, jaw rigid, chest out, smack through his divided English heart." Crikey. So that’s how you take a bullet. Poor old Sandy. His English heart must be really divided now. This deliriously hardboiled opening sets the tone for what’s to come. White mischief Pshaw! White plague, more like it.
Sandy Woodrow is head of chancery at the British High Commission in Nairobi. The news that neatly subdivides his heart as the novel opens is the death of a young, beautiful and idealistic lawyer turned aid worker named Tessa Quayle. Tessa has been murdered for learning too much about the dishonest practices of a large pharmaceutical company operating in Africa. Her body is found at Lake Turkana, in northern Kenya near the border with Sudan. Tessa’s husband. Justin, is also a British diplomat stationed in Nairobi. Until now Justin has been an obedient civil servant, content to toe the official line—in short, a hard worker. But all that changes in the aftermath of his wife’s murder. Full of righteous anger, he resolves to get to the bottom of it, come what may.
"The Constant Gardener" has got plenty of tense moments and sudden twists and comes completely with shadowy figures lurking in the bush. There is a familiar tone of gentlemanly world- weariness to it all, which should keep Mr. le Carre’s fans happy. But the novel is also an impassioned attack on the corruption which allows Africa to be used as a sort of laboratory for the testing of new medicines. Elsewhere, Mr. le Carte has denounced the "corporate cam, hypocrisy, corruption and greed" of the pharmaceutical industry. This position is excitingly dramatized in his book, even if the abuses he rails against are not exactly breaking news.
In other respects "The Constant Gardener" is less satisfactory. Mr. le Carte can’t seem to make up his mind whether he’s writing a thriller or an expose. Ina recent article for the New Yorker he described his creative process as "a kind of deliberately twisted journalism, where nothing is quite what it is" and where any encounter may be "freely recast for its dramatic possibilities". Such is the method employed in "The Constant Gardener", whose heroine. Mr. le Carte says, was inspired by an old friend of his. One or two prominent real-life Kenyan politicians are mentioned often enough to become, in effect. "characters" in the story. And in a note at the end of the book Mr. le Cane thanks the various diplomats, doctors, pharmaceutical experts and old Africa hands who gave him advice and assistance, though in the same breath he insists that the staff of the British mission in Nairobi are no doubt all jolly good eggs who bear no resemblance whatsoever to the heartless scoundrels in his story.
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of artistic license, Of course. But Mr. le Carre’s equivocation about the novel’s relation to fact undermines its effectiveness as a work of social criticism, which is pretty clearly what it aspires to be. "The Constant Gardener" is a cracking thriller but a flawed exploration of a complicated set of political issues.
The thriller is always full of the following features EXCEPT ______.

A:tense instants B:truth-exposure C:frightening background D:sudden twists

That experiences influence subsequent behaviour is evidence of an obvious but nevertheless remarkable activity called remembering. Learning could not occur without the function popularly named memory. Constant practice has such an effect on memory as to lead to skilful performance on the piano, to recitation of a poem, and even to reading and understanding these words. So-called intelligent behaviour demands memory, remembering being a primary requirement for reasoning. The ability to solve any problem or even to recognize that a problem exists depends on memory. Typically, the decision to cross a street is based on remembering many earlier experiences. 　　Practice (or review) tends to build and maintain memory for a task or for any learned material. Over a period of no practice what has been learned tends to be forgotten; and the adaptive consequences may not seem obvious. Yet, dramatic instances of sudden forgetting can be seen to be adaptive. In this sense, the ability to forget can be interpreted to have survived through a process of natural selection in animals. Indeed, when one’’s memory of an emotionally painful experience leads to serious anxiety, forgetting may produce relief. Nevertheless, an evolutionary interpretation might make it difficult to understand how the commonly gradual process of forgetting survived natural selection. 　　In thinking about the evolution of memory together with all its possible aspects, it is helpful to consider what would happen if memories failed to fade. Forgetting clearly aids orientation in time, since old memories weaken and the new tend to stand out, providing clues for inferring duration. Without forgetting, adaptive ability would suffer; for example, learned behaviour that might have been correct a decade ago may no longer be. Cases are recorded of people who (by ordinary standards) forgot so little that their everyday activities were full of confusion. Thus forgetting seems to serve the survival of the individual and the species. 　　Another line of thought assumes a memory storage system of limited capacity that provides adaptive flexibility specifically through forgetting. In this view, continual adjustments are made between learning or memory storage (input) and forgetting (output). Indeed, there is evidence that the rate at which individuals forget is directly related to how much they have learned. Such data offer gross support of contemporary models of memory that assume an input-output balance. From the evolutionary point of view________________.

A:forgetting for lack of practice tends to be obviously inadaptive B:if a person gets very forgetful all of a sudden he must be very adaptive C:the gradual process of forgetting is an indication of an individual’’s adaptability D:sudden forgetting may bring about adaptive consequences

"The news hit the British High Commission in Nairobi at nine-thirty on a Monday morning. Sandy Woodrow took it like a bullet, jaw rigid, chest out, smack through his divided English heart." Crikey. So that’s how you take a bullet. Poor old Sandy. His English heart must be really divided now. This deliriously hardboiled opening sets the tone for what’s to come. White mischief Pshaw! White plague, more like it.
Sandy Woodrow is head of chancery at the British High Commission in Nairobi. The news that neatly subdivides his heart as the novel opens is the death of a young, beautiful and idealistic lawyer turned aid worker named Tessa Quayle. Tessa has been murdered for learning too much about the dishonest practices of a large pharmaceutical company operating in Africa. Her body is found at Lake Turkana, in northern Kenya near the border with Sudan. Tessa’s husband. Justin, is also a British diplomat stationed in Nairobi. Until now Justin has been an obedient civil servant, content to toe the official line—in short, a hard worker. But all that changes in the aftermath of his wife’s murder. Full of righteous anger, he resolves to get to the bottom of it, come what may.
"The Constant Gardener" has got plenty of tense moments and sudden twists and comes completely with shadowy figures lurking in the bush. There is a familiar tone of gentlemanly world- weariness to it all, which should keep Mr. le Carre’s fans happy. But the novel is also an impassioned attack on the corruption which allows Africa to be used as a sort of laboratory for the testing of new medicines. Elsewhere, Mr. le Carte has denounced the "corporate cam, hypocrisy, corruption and greed" of the pharmaceutical industry. This position is excitingly dramatized in his book, even if the abuses he rails against are not exactly breaking news.
In other respects "The Constant Gardener" is less satisfactory. Mr. le Carte can’t seem to make up his mind whether he’s writing a thriller or an expose. Ina recent article for the New Yorker he described his creative process as "a kind of deliberately twisted journalism, where nothing is quite what it is" and where any encounter may be "freely recast for its dramatic possibilities". Such is the method employed in "The Constant Gardener", whose heroine. Mr. le Carte says, was inspired by an old friend of his. One or two prominent real-life Kenyan politicians are mentioned often enough to become, in effect. "characters" in the story. And in a note at the end of the book Mr. le Cane thanks the various diplomats, doctors, pharmaceutical experts and old Africa hands who gave him advice and assistance, though in the same breath he insists that the staff of the British mission in Nairobi are no doubt all jolly good eggs who bear no resemblance whatsoever to the heartless scoundrels in his story.
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of artistic license, Of course. But Mr. le Carre’s equivocation about the novel’s relation to fact undermines its effectiveness as a work of social criticism, which is pretty clearly what it aspires to be. "The Constant Gardener" is a cracking thriller but a flawed exploration of a complicated set of political issues

The thriller is always full of the following features EXCEPT （　）

A:tense instants B:truth-exposure C:frightening background D:sudden twists

Passage 2
The medical views were as funny as they always are about anything. Whenever any new (71) is put forward, (72) for it and those against it can always find (73) men to approve or condemn. The anti-railway group produced doctors who said that (74) would be most dangerous to public health: they would produce colds, catarrhs and consumption. The deafening noise, the gloom, the glare of the engine fire, would have a (75) effect on the nerves. Further, being moved (76) the air at a high speed would do grave injury to delicate lungs. In those with high blood pressure, the movement of the (77) might produce apoplexy. The sudden plunging of a train into the (78) of a tunnel and the equally (79) rush into full daylight, would cause great damage to eyesight. But the pro-railway group was of course able to produce equally well-known doctors to say the (80) . They said that the speed and swing of the train would equalize the circulation, promote digestion, calm the nerves and ensure good sleep.

72（）

A:quick B:sudden C:noisy D:bad

{{B}}第二篇{{/B}}

What does "Such natural disasters" in the first paragraph refer to?

A:Sudden, heavy rainfall. B:Earthquakes. C:Water erosion. D:Landslides.

Why India Needs Its Dying Vultures The vultures in question may look ugly and threatening, but the sudden sharp decline in three species of India’s vultures is producing alarm rather than celebration, and it presents the world with a new kind of environmental problem. The dramatic (51) in vulture numbers is causing widespread disruption to people living in the (52) areas as the birds. It is also causing serious public health problems (53) the Indian sub-continent. While their reputation and appearance may be unpleasant to many Indians, vultures have (54) played a very important role in keeping towns and villages all over India (55) . It is because they feed on dead cows. In India, cows are sacred animals and are (56) left in the open when they die in their thousands upon thousands every year. The disappearance of the vultures has (57) an explosion in the numbers of wild dogs feeding on the remains of these (58) animals. There are fears that rabies may increase as a result. And this terrifying disease may ultimately affect humans in the region, (59) wild dogs are its main carriers. Rabies could also spread to other animal species, (60) an even greater problem in the future. The need for action is (61) , so an emergency project has been launched to find a solution to this serious vulture problem. Scientists are trying to (62) the disease causing the birds’ deaths and, if possible, develop a cure. Large-scale vulture (63) were first noticed at the end of the 1980s in India. A population survey at that time showed that the three species of vultures had declined (64) over 90 per cent. All three species are now listed as “critically endangered”. As most vultures lay only single eggs and (65) about five years to reach maturity, reversing their population decline will be a long and difficult exercise.

A:frequent B:regular C:urgent D:sudden

A device that provides early warning of a landslide by monitoring vibrations in soil is being tested by UK researchers. Tile device could save thousands of lives each year by warning when an area should be evacuated, the scientists say, "such natural disasters are common in countries that experience sudden, heavy rainfall, and can also be triggered by earthquakes and even water erosion".
Landslides start when a few particles of soil or rock within a slope start to move, but the early stages can be hard to spot. Following this initial movement, "slopes can become unstable in a matter of hours or minutes," says Nell Dixon at Loughborough University, UK. He says a warning system that monitors this movement "might be enough to evacuate a block of fiats or clear a road, and save lives."
The most common way to monitor a slope for signs of an imminent landslide is to watch for changes in its shape. Surveyors can do this by measuring a site directly, or sensors sunk into boreholes or fixed above ground can be used to monitor the shape of a slope. Slopes can, however, change shape without triggering a landslide, so either method is prone to causing false alarms. Now Dixon’s team has developed a device that listens for the vibrations caused when particles begin moving within a slope.
The device takes the form of a steel pipe dropped into a borehole in a slope. The borehole is filled in with gravel around the pipe to help transmit high-frequency vibrations generated by particles within the slope. These vibrations pass up the tube and are picked up by a sensor on the surface. Software analyses the vibration signal to determine whether a landslide may be imminent.
The device is currently being tested in a 6-metre-tall artificial clay embankment in Newcastle, UK. Early results suggest it should provide fewer false positives than existing systems. Once it has been carefully and thoroughly tested, the device could be used to create a complete early-warning system for dangerous slopes.
"Locations with a significant risk of landslides could definitely benefit from a machine like this," says Adam Poulter, an expert at the British Red Cross. "As long as it doesn’t cost too much." But, Poulter adds that an early-warning system may not be enough on its own. "You need to have the human communication," he says. "Making systems that get warnings to those who need them can be difficult./
What does "Such natural disasters" in the first paragraph refer to

A:Sudden, heavy rainfall. B:Earthquakes. C:Water erosion. D:Landslides.