单选题 Thankfully, there is a way out of this trap-but it involves striking a subtle balance. Helping forests flourish as valuable "carbon sinks" longinto the future may require reducing their capacity to absorb carbon now. California is leading the way, as it does on so many climate efforts,in figuring out the details. The state's proposed Forest Carbon Plan aims to double efforts to thin out young trees and clear brush in parts of the forest. This temporarilylowers carbon-carrying capacity. But the remaining trees draw a greater share of the available moisture, so they grow and thrive, restoringthe forest's capacity to pull carbon from the air. Healthy trees are also better able to fend off insects. The landscape is rendered less easilyburnable. Even in the event of a fine, fewer trees are consumed. To maintain forests as valuable “carbon sinks,” we may need to_.

单选题 People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery. They worked until exhausted, lived with few protections and died young. Inthe West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that theirsouls were in danger and that they would someday be meat for worms. Given all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a bummer too. The word “bummer”(Sentence 4.most probably means something__.

单选题 In spite of “endless talk of difference," American society is an amazing machine for homogenizing people. There is "the democratizinguniformity of dress and discourse, and the casualness and absence of deference" characteristic of popular culture. People are absorbed into“a culture of consumption” launched by the 19th-century department stores that offered "vast arrays of goods in an elegant atmosphere.Instead of intimate shops catering to a knowledgeable elite," these were stores "anyone could enter, regardless of class or background. Thisturned shopping into a public and democratic act." The mass media, advertising and sports are other forces for homogenization. The word "homogenizing", (Paragraph 1.mostly probably means_________.

单选题 This top-down conception of the fashion business couldn't be more out of date or at odds with the feverish world described inOverdressed, Elizabeth Cline's three-year indictment of "fast fashion.” In the last decade or so, advances in technology have allowed mass-market labels such as Zara, H&M, and Uniqlo to react to trends more quickly and anticipate demand more precisely. Quicker turnaroundsmean less wasted inventory, more frequent releases, and more profit. These labels encourage style-conscious consumers to see clothes asdisposable--meant to last only a wash or two, although they don't advertise that--and to renew their wardrobe every few weeks. By offeringon-trend items at dirt-cheap prices, Cline argues, these brands have hijacked fashion cycles, shaking an industry long accustomed to aseasonal pace. According to Cline, mass-market labels urge consumers to

单选题 John Donahue at Harvard's Kennedy School points out that the norms of culture in Western civil services suit those who want to stay putbut is bad for high achievers. The only American public-sector workers who earn well above $250,000 a year are university sports coachesand the president of the United States. Bankers' fat pay packets have attracted much criticism, but a public-sector system that does notreward high achievers may be a much bigger problem for America. John Donahue's attitude towards the public-sector system is one of_

单选题 In December 2010 America's Federal Trade Commission (FTC.proposed adding a"do not track” (DNT.option to internet browsers, so thatusers could tell advertisers that they did not want to be followed. Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Apple's Safari both offer DNT; Google'sChrome is due to do so this year. In February the FTC and Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA.agreed that the industry would get cracking onresponding to DNT requests. "the industry" refers to__.

单选题 The company seems to have concluded that its reputation in Vermont is already so damaged that it has nothing left to lose by going to warwith the state. But there should be consequences. Permission to run a nuclear plant is a public trust. Entergy runs 11 other reactors in theUnited States, including Pilgrim Nuclear station in Plymouth. Pledging to run Pilgrim safely, the company has applied for federal permission tokeep it open for another 20 years. But as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC.reviews the company's application, it should keep inmind what promises from Entergy are worth. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that__.

单选题 “The Heart of the Matter,” the just-released report by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS., deserves praise for affirmingthe importance of the humanities and social sciences to the prosperity and security of liberal democracy in America. Regrettably, however,the report's failure to address the true nature of the crisis facing liberal education may cause more harm than good. According to Paragraph 1, what is the author's attitude toward the AAAS's report?

单选题 Indeed, there is something a little absurd in the state getting involved in the planning of such a fundamentally "grassroots" concept ascommunity sports associations. If there is a role for government, it should really be getting involved in providing common goods- makingsure there is space for playing fields and the money to pave tennis and netball courts, and encouraging the provision of all these activities inschools. But successive governments have presided over selling green spaces, squeezing money from local authorities and decliningattention on sport in education. Instead of wordy, worthy strategies, future governments need to do more to provide the conditions for sport tothrive. Or at least not make them worse. The author's attitude to what UK governments have done for sports is_