Last weekend, sportsmen and women of an unusually hardy disposition descended on Sherborne, a pretty Dorset town. There, they swam twice around Sherborne Castle’s lake, cycled 180kin and then ran a marathon. The winners of this gruelling race--Britain’s inaugural Ironman triathlon—were rewarded with a spot in a prestigious race in Hawaii, where yet more pain awaits.
For a sport barely known in Britain five years ago, triathlon has grown at a sprinter’s pace. This year the British Triathlon Association, the governing body, will sanction some 450 triathlons, duathlons (running and biking) and aquathlons (running and swimming). These vary from tough races aimed at endurance junkies to shorter events designed to lure newcomers. By far the most successful is the London triathlon, which, three weeks ago, brought 8 000--half of them first-timers--to the Royal Victoria Dock in east London. That made it the world’s biggest.
There are echoes of the jogging craze of the early 1980s. Both sports are American exports; both have grown partly thanks to television coverage. Inclusion in the Olympic and Commonwealth games has conferred credibility and state funding on triathlon. Even better, Britain’s professional triathletes are doing rather well on the international circuit.
There are practical reasons for the growth of the sport, too. Nick Rusling, event director of the London triathlon, points out that established events such as the London marathon and Great North Run are hugely over-subscribed (this year the marathon received 98 500 applications for 36 000 places). Triathlon offers a more reliable route to exhaustion, and a fresh challenge to athletes who are likely to cross-train anyway.
The sport will not soon supplant "the great suburban Everest", as Chris Brasher, founder of the London marathon, described his event. The sport’s tripartite nature means that putting on events is fiendishly complex, a fact reflected in high entry fees: competitors at last weekend’s Ironman race forked out ￡220. Shorter events are cheaper, but participants must still provide their own bicycles and wetsuits and pay for training. Compared with the inhabitants of Newham, the London borough where this year’s London triathlon was held, competitors appeared overwhelmingly white and middle class.
Another drag on growth is a shortage of suitable venues in a small island--a problem exacerbated by safety fears. But that ought to be less of a hindrance in future. Two court decisions, in 2003 and earlier this year, have firmly established that the owners of large bodies of water may not be held responsible when adults injure themselves as a result of extravagant sporting actions.
It can be learned from the second paragraph of the text that ______.

A:triathlon is a fast-growing sport in UK B:Britain used to be barely known C:triathlon is a prestigious race in USA D:Hawaii used to be a spot of pains

Text 4
The good news is that after last year’s precipitous decline, worldwide demand for microchips is rising again. The not-so-good news is that the recovery is likely to be more muted than the industry had hoped. In fact, it could be years before the market makes up fully for 2001’ s record fall of 32% in chip sales. The latest figures from World Semiconductor Trade Statistics, an industry body, suggest that demand will creep up this year by 2.3% (to $142 billion) and by a healthier 16.6% or so in 2003. Se it could still be 2004 or beyond before the market for chips regains its former heights.
Why is the recovery so weak The main reason is that sales of personal computers(PCs), which run on such chips and which dominate the market for them, are still struggling to recover from last year’ s collapse in demand. Gartner Dataquest, a research firm, says worldwide sales of PCs rose by 5.8% year-on-year in the three months to the end of September. Don’t be misled: although this is a welcome return to growth, the increase recovers barely half the ground lost last year when the market for new PCs slumped after the bursting of the technology bubble; the September 11th terrorist attacks further depressed the market.
The uncertain outlook for the world economy is encouraging companies to postpone their spending on information technology (IT). In better times, companies would usually begin to replace outdated equipment during the third quarter. This time around, says Gartner Dataquest, the IT industry will probably have to wait until the middle of next year to see any real improvement in sales. Slowest to recover are likely to be sales in Latin America and Japan, where shipments of new PCs actually fell during the third quarter of this year.
Dan Niles of Lehman Brothers, an investment bank, is optimistic that, beginning next year, overall spending on IT will recover. He believes corporate expenditure in the United States is "slowly beginning to stabilize and to pick up". He predicts single-digit growth in America, followed by an improvement elsewhere later in the year. A noted pessimist for the past two years or so, Mr. Niles points to the declining level of inventories as a sign that the market is close to a recovery. Stocks of PCs and electronics goods have fallen every month, year-on-year, for the past 12’ months, he says.
A recovery in demand cannot come too soon for some. Chartered Semiconductor, one of the world’s largest producers of custom-made chips, said recently that it plans to cut its workforce in Singapore by 7%. Reporting its seventh consecutive quarterly loss, the company said it expected sales to fall again during the current period. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, one of Chartered’ s main rivals, is also expecting a tough end to the year.
The gloom is not shared by all. Intel, the world’ s biggest chip producer, saw its share of total sales rise significantly during the third quarter--to 87% of the worldwide market, the highest it has been for four years. Intel’s gain came mainly at the expense of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), an American rival. Like others in the industry, AMD has suffered from falling orders as customers used up the excess stocks of chips overhanging the market. Worse, the soft market has also forced down the prices of its chips, squeezing its profit margins.

The decline of PC market last year was triggered by（）

A:the collapse of chip market B:the bursting of IT bubble C:the 9. 11 terrorist attacks D:the barely recovered loss market

Last weekend, sportsmen and women of an unusually hardy disposition descended on Sherborne, a pretty Dorset town. There, they swam twice around Sherborne Castle’s lake, cycled 180kin and then ran a marathon. The winners of this gruelling race--Britain’s inaugural Ironman triathlon—were rewarded with a spot in a prestigious race in Hawaii, where yet more pain awaits.
For a sport barely known in Britain five years ago, triathlon has grown at a sprinter’s pace. This year the British Triathlon Association, the governing body, will sanction some 450 triathlons, duathlons (running and biking) and aquathlons (running and swimming). These vary from tough races aimed at endurance junkies to shorter events designed to lure newcomers. By far the most successful is the London triathlon, which, three weeks ago, brought 8 000--half of them first-timers--to the Royal Victoria Dock in east London. That made it the world’s biggest.
There are echoes of the jogging craze of the early 1980s. Both sports are American exports; both have grown partly thanks to television coverage. Inclusion in the Olympic and Commonwealth games has conferred credibility and state funding on triathlon. Even better, Britain’s professional triathletes are doing rather well on the international circuit.
There are practical reasons for the growth of the sport, too. Nick Rusling, event director of the London triathlon, points out that established events such as the London marathon and Great North Run are hugely over-subscribed (this year the marathon received 98 500 applications for 36 000 places). Triathlon offers a more reliable route to exhaustion, and a fresh challenge to athletes who are likely to cross-train anyway.
The sport will not soon supplant "the great suburban Everest", as Chris Brasher, founder of the London marathon, described his event. The sport’s tripartite nature means that putting on events is fiendishly complex, a fact reflected in high entry fees: competitors at last weekend’s Ironman race forked out ￡220. Shorter events are cheaper, but participants must still provide their own bicycles and wetsuits and pay for training. Compared with the inhabitants of Newham, the London borough where this year’s London triathlon was held, competitors appeared overwhelmingly white and middle class.
Another drag on growth is a shortage of suitable venues in a small island--a problem exacerbated by safety fears. But that ought to be less of a hindrance in future. Two court decisions, in 2003 and earlier this year, have firmly established that the owners of large bodies of water may not be held responsible when adults injure themselves as a result of extravagant sporting actions.

It can be learned from the second paragraph of the text that （　）

A:triathlon is a fast-growing sport in UK B:Britain used to be barely known C:triathlon is a prestigious race in USA D:Hawaii used to be a spot of pains

Last weekend, sportsmen and women of an unusually hardy disposition descended on Sherborne, a pretty Dorset town. There, they swam twice around Sherborne Castle’s lake, cycled 180km and then ran a marathon. The winners of this gruelling race—Britain’s inaugural Ironman triathlon—were rewarded with a spot in a prestigious race in Hawaii, where yet more pain awaits.
For a sport barely known in Britain five years ago, triathlon has grown at a sprinter’s pace. This year the British Triathlon Association, the governing body, will sanction some 450 triathlons, duathlons (running and biking ) and aquathlons (running and swimming). These vary from tough races aimed at endurance junkies to shorter events designed to lure newcomers. By far the most successful is the London triathlon, which, three weeks ago, brought 8,000—half of them first-timers—to the Royal Victoria Dock in east London. That made it the world’s biggest.
There are echoes of the jogging craze of the early 1980s. Both sports are American exports; both have grown partly thanks to television coverage. Inclusion in the Olympic and Commonwealth games has conferred credibility and state funding on triathlon. Even better, Britain’s professional triathletes are doing rather well on the international circuit.
There are practical reasons for the growth of the sport, too. Nick Rusling, event director of the London triathlon, points out that established events such as the London marathon and Great North Run are hugely over-subscribed (this year the marathon received 98500 applications for 36000 places). Triathlon offers amore reliable route to exhaustion, and a fresh challenge to athletes who are likely to cross-train anyway.
The sport will not soon supplant "the great suburban Everest", as Chris Brasher, founder of the London marathon, described his event. The sport’s tripartite nature means that putting on events is fiendishly complex, a fact reflected in high entry fees: competitors at last weekend’s Ironman race forked out ￡ 220. Shorter events are cheaper, but participants must still provide their own bicycles and wetsuits and pay for training. Compared with the inhabitants of Newham, the London borough where this year’s London triathlon was held,competitors appeared overwhelmingly white and middle class.
Another drag on growth is a shortage of suitable venues in a small island—a problem exacerbated by safety fears. But that ought to be less of a hindrance in future. Two court decisions, in 2003 and earlier this year, have firmly established that the owners of large bodies of water may not be held responsible when adults injure themselves as a result of extravagant sporting actions.
It can be learned from the second paragraph of the text that______.

A:triathlon is a fast-growing sport in UK B:Britain used to be barely known C:triathlon is a prestigious race in USA D:Hawaii used to be a spot of pains

Large modern cities are too big to control. They impose their own living conditions on the people who inhabit them. City-dwellers are obliged by their environment to adopt a wholly unnatural way of life. They lose touch with the land and rhythm of nature. It is possible to live such an air-conditioned existence in a large city that you are barely conscious of the seasons. A few flowers in a public park (if you have time to visit it) may remind you that it is spring or summer. A few leaves clinging to the pavement may remind you that it is autumn. Beyond that, what is going on in nature seems totally irrelevant. All the simple, good things of life like sunshine and fresh air are at a premium(珍贵). Tall buildings blot out the sun. Traffic fumes pollute the atmosphere.
Even the distinction between day and night is lost. The flow of traffic goes on unceasingly and the noise never stops.

If you want to know what season it is,（）

A:it is advisable for you to cling to the pavement B:you'd better visit a public park C:you can remind yourself that it is spring or summer D:you should be barely conscious of the seasons

I had been working in the trauma unit at a local hospital for about a year. You get used to families thinking that a "coma" patient is moving their hand or doing something that they were asked to do. "Following commands" is what we call it. Often it’s "wishful thinking" on the Families’ Nurses can easily become callous to it.
On this particular night during visiting hours, my patient’s wife came in. I had taken care of him for several nights. I was very familiar with his care and what he was able to do. Actually, he didn’t do anything. He barely moved at all, even when something would obviously hurt him, such as suctioning.
His wife was very short, about 5 feet tall. She had to stand on a stool to lean over him, so that she could see his face and talk to him. She climbed up on the stool. I spoke to her for a few minutes, and then stepped out to tend to see my other patients. A few minutes later, she came running out of the room. In an excited voice, she said, "Donna, he’s moving his hand!"
I immediately thought that it was probably her imagination, and that he had not actually done it on purpose. He had been there about a month at the time and had never made any movements on purpose. I asked her what had happened and she said, "I asked him to squeeze my hand and he did !"
This led me to another train of questioning. "But, did he let go when you asked him to" She said yes, that he had done exactly what she asked.
I went into the room with her, not really believing that I would see anything different than I had always seen. But I decided that it would be better to pacify her than to make her think I didn’t believe her or that she was somehow mistaken.
She asked him to squeeze her hand, which he did. I said, "Well, ask him to let go." He continued to squeeze for a moment, so that when he finally did let go, I really still didn’t believe that he had done it on purpose. So, I said, "Ask him to hold up one finger." He did as asked.
Well, hmm, this was starting to get my attention. I looked at him, his face still somewhat swollen and his eyes still closed. "Stick out your tongue!" I said. He did it. I almost fell on the floor. It was the first time I had ever seen anyone "wake up".
What was the condition of the patient before that particular night

A:He talked only with his wife. B:He barely moved at all. C:He moved only when hurt. D:He was too lazy to do anything at all.

I had been working in the trauma unit at a local hospital for about a year. You get used to families thinking that a "coma" patient is moving their hand or doing something that they were asked to do. "Following commands" is what we call it. Often it’s "wishful thinking" on the Families’ part. Nurses can easily become callous to it.
On this particular night during visiting hours, my patient’s wife came in. I had taken care of him for several nights. I was very familiar with his care and what he was able to do. Actually, he didn’t do anything. He barely moved at all, even when something would obviously hurt him, such as suctioning.
His wife was very short, about 5 feet tall. She had to stand on a stool to lean over him, so that she could see his face and talk to him. She climbed up on the stool. I spoke to her for a few minutes, and then stepped out to tend to my other patient. A few minutes later, she came running out of the room. In an excited voice, she said, "Donna, he’s moving his hand!"
I immediately thought that it was probably her imagination, and that he had not actually done it on purpose. He had been there about a month at the time and had never made any movements on purpose. I asked her what had happened and she said, "I asked him to squeeze my hand and he did !"
This led me to another train of questioning. "But, did he let go when you asked him to" She said yes, that he had done exactly what she asked.
I went into the room with her, not really believing that I would see anything different than I had always seen. But I decided that it would be better to pacify her than to make her think I didn’t believe her or that she was somehow mistaken.
She asked him to squeeze her hand, which he did. I said, "Well, ask him to let go." He continued to squeeze for a moment, so that when he finally did let go, I really still didn’t believe that he had done it on purpose. So, I said, "Ask him to hold up one finger." He did as asked.
Well, hmm, this was starting to get my attention. I looked at him, his face still somewhat swollen and his eyes still closed. "Stick out your tongue!" I said. He did it. I almost fell on the floor. It was the first time I had ever seen anyone "wake up./
What was the condition of the patient before that particular night

A:He talked only with his wife. B:He barely moved at all. C:He moved only when hurt. D:He was too lazy to do anything at all.

{{B}}第一篇{{/B}}

What was the condition of the patient before that particular night?

A:He talked only with his wife. B:He barely moved at all. C:He moved only when hurt. D:He was too lazy to do anything at all.

{{B}}第二篇{{/B}}

What condition had the patient been in before that particular night?

A:He had talked only with his wife B:He had moved only when hurt C:He had been too lazy to do anything D:He had barely moved at all