考研201英語(yǔ)（一）在線題庫(kù)每日一練（九十二）

本文提供考研201英語(yǔ)（一）在線題庫(kù)每日一練，以下為具體內(nèi)容

1、Over the past decade, thousands of patents have been granted for what are called business methods. Amazon.com received one for its “one-click” online payment system. Merrill Lynch got legal protection for an asset allocation strategy. One inventor patented a technique for lifting a box.Now the nation's top patent court appears completely ready to scale back on business-method patents, which have been controversial ever since they were first authorized 10 years ago. In a move that has intellectual-property lawyers abuzz, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said it would use a particular case to conduct a broad review of business-method patents. In re Bilski, as the case is known , is “a very big deal”, says Dennis D. Crouch of the University of Missouri School of Law. It “has the potential to eliminate an entire class of patents.”Curbs on business-method claims would be a dramatic about-face, because it was the Federal Circuit itself that introduced such patents with its 1998 decision in the so-called State Street Bank case, approving a patent on a way of pooling mutual-fund assets. That ruling produced an explosion in business-method patent filings, initially by emerging Internet companies trying to stake out exclusive rights to specific types of online transactions. Later, more established companies raced to add such patents to their files, if only as a defensive move against rivals that might beat them to the punch. In 2005, IBM noted in a court filing that it had been issued more than 300 business-method patents, despite the fact that it questioned the legal basis for granting them. Similarly, some Wall Street investment firms armed themselves with patents for financial products, even as they took positions in court cases opposing the practice.The Bilski case involves a claimed patent on a method for hedging risk in the energy market. The Federal Circuit issued an unusual order stating that the case would be heard by all 12 of the court's judges, rather than a typical panel of three, and that one issue it wants to evaluate is whether it should “reconsider” its State Street Bank ruling.The Federal Circuit's action comes in the wake of a series of recent decisions by the Supreme Court that has narrowed the scope of protections for patent holders. Last April, for example, the justices signaled that too many patents were being upheld for “inventions” that are obvious. The judges on the Federal Circuit are “reacting to the anti-patent trend at the Supreme Court”, says Harold C. Wegner, a patent attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.1.Business-method patents have recently aroused concern because of（  ）. 2.Which of the following is true of the Bilski case?3.The word “about-face” (Line 1, Para 3) most probably means （  ）.   4.We learn from the last two paragraphs that business-method patents （  ）.   5.Which of the following would be the subject of the text?

問(wèn)題1

A、their limited value to businesses

B、their connection with asset allocation

C、the possible restriction on their granting

D、the controversy over their authorization

問(wèn)題2

A、Its ruling complies with the court decisions.

B、It involves a very big business transaction.

C、It has been dismissed by the Federal Circuit.

D、It may change the legal practices in the U.S.

問(wèn)題3

A、loss of good will

B、increase of hostility

C、change of attitude

D、enhancement of dignity

問(wèn)題4

A、are immune to legal challenges

B、are often unnecessarily issued

C、lower the esteem for patent holders

D、increase the incidence of risks

問(wèn)題5

A、A looming threat to business-method patents.

B、Protection for business-method patent holders.

C、A legal case regarding business-method patents.

D、A prevailing trend against business-method patents.

2、Bankers have been blaming themselves for their troubles in public. Behind the scenes, they have been taking aim at someone else: the accounting standard-setters. Their rules, moan the banks, have forced them to report enormous losses, and it's just not fair. These rules say they must value some assets at the price a third party would pay, not the price managers and regulators would like them to fetch.Unfortunately, banks' lobbying now seems to be working. The details may be unknowable, but the independence of standard-setters, essential to the proper functioning of capital markets, is being compromised. And, unless banks carry toxic assets at prices that attract buyers, reviving the banking system will be difficult.After a bruising encounter with Congress, America's Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rushed through rule changes. These gave banks more freedom to use models to value illiquid assets and more flexibility in recognizing losses on long-term assets in their income statements. Bob Herz, the FASB's chairman, cried out against those who “question our motives.” Yet bank shares rose and the changes enhance what one lobbying group politely calls “the use of judgment by management.”European ministers instantly demanded that the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) do likewise. The IASB says it does not want to act without overall planning, but the pressure to fold when it completes its reconstruction of rules later this year is strong. Charlie McCreevy, a European commissioner, warned the IASB that it did “not live in a political vacuum” but “in the real world” and that Europe could yet develop different rules.It was banks that were on the wrong planet, with accounts that vastly overvalued assets. Today they argue that market prices overstate losses, because they largely reflect the temporary illiquidity of markets, not the likely extent of bad debts. The truth will not be known for years. But banks' shares trade below their book value, suggesting that investors are skeptical. And dead markets partly reflect the paralysis of banks which will not sell assets for fear of booking losses, yet are reluctant to buy all those supposed bargains.To get the system working again, losses must be recognized and dealt with. America's new plan to buy up toxic assets will not work unless banks mark assets to levels which buyers find attractive. Successful markets require independent and even combative standard-setters. The FASB and IASB have been exactly that, cleaning up rules on stock options and pensions, for example, against hostility from special interests. But by giving in to critics now they are inviting pressure to make more concessions.1.Bankers complained that they were forced to（  ）.2.According to the author, the rule changes of the FASB may result in （  ）.  3.According to Paragraph 4, McCreevy objects to the IASB's attempt to （  ）.  4.The author thinks the banks were “on the wrong planet” in that they （  ）.  5.The author's attitude towards standard-setters is one of（  ）.

問(wèn)題1

A、follow unfavorable asset evaluation rules

B、collect payments from third parties

C、cooperate with the price managers

D、reevaluate some of their assets

問(wèn)題2

A、the diminishing role of management

B、the revival of the banking system

C、the banks' long-term asset losses

D、the weakening of its independence

問(wèn)題3

A、keep away from political influences

B、evade the pressure from their peers

C、act on their own in rule-setting

D、take gradual measures in reform

問(wèn)題4

A、misinterpreted market price indicators

B、exaggerated the real value of their assets

C、neglected the likely existence of bad debts

D、denied booking losses in their sale of assets

問(wèn)題5

A、satisfaction

B、skepticism

C、objectiveness

D、sympathy

3、Come on—Everybody's doing it. That whispered message, half invitation and half forcing, is what most of us think of when we hear the words peer pressure. It usually leads to no good—drinking, drugs and casual sex. But in her new book Join the Club, Tina Rosenberg contends that peer pressure can also be a positive force through what she calls the social cure, in which organizations and officials use the power of group dynamics to help individuals improve their lives and possibly the word. Rosenberg, the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, offers a host of example of the social cure in action: In South Carolina, a state-sponsored antismoking program called Rage Against the Haze sets out to make cigarettes uncool. In South Africa, an HIV-prevention initiative known as LoveLife recruits young people to promote safe sex among their peers. The idea seems promising, and Rosenberg is a perceptive observer. Her critique of the lameness of many pubic-health campaigns is spot-on: they fail to mobilize peer pressure for healthy habits, and they demonstrate a seriously flawed understanding of psychology. "Dare to be different, please don't smoke!” pleads one billboard campaign aimed at reducing smoking among teenagers-teenagers, who desire nothing more than fitting in. Rosenberg argues convincingly that public-health advocates ought to take a page from advertisers, so skilled at applying peer pressure. But on the general effectiveness of the social cure, Rosenberg is less persuasive. Join the Club is filled with too much irrelevant detail and not enough exploration of the social and biological factors that make peer pressure so powerful. The most glaring flaw of the social cure as it's presented here is that it doesn't work very well for very long. Rage Against the Haze failed once state funding was cut. Evidence that the LoveLife program produces lasting changes is limited and mixed. There's no doubt that our peer groups exert enormous influence on our behavior. An emerging body of research shows that positive health habits—as well as negative ones—spread through networks of friends via social communication. This is a subtle form of peer pressure: we unconsciously imitate the behavior we see every day. Far less certain, however, is how successfully experts and bureaucrats can select our peer groups and steer their activities in virtuous directions. It's like the teacher who breaks up the troublemakers in the back row by pairing them with better-behaved classmates. The tactic never really works. And that's the problem with a social cure engineered from the outside: in the real world, as in school, we insist on choosing our own friends. 1.According to the first paragraph, peer pressure often emerges as（  ）.2.Rosenberg holds that public advocates should （  ）.  3.In the author's view, Rosenberg's book fails to （  ）.  4.Paragraph 5 shows that our imitation of behaviors （  ）.  5.The author suggests in the last paragraph that the effect of peer pressure is（  ）.

問(wèn)題1

A、a supplement to the social cure

B、a stimulus to group dynamics

C、an obstacle to school progress

D、a cause of undesirable behaviors

問(wèn)題2

A、recruit professional advertisers

B、learn from advertisers' experience

C、stay away from commercial advertisers

D、recognize the limitations of advertisements

問(wèn)題3

A、adequately probe social and biological factors

B、effectively evade the flaws of the social cure

C、illustrate the functions of state funding

D、produce a long-lasting social effect

問(wèn)題4

A、is harmful to our networks of friends

B、will mislead behavioral studies

C、occurs without our realizing it

D、can produce negative health habits

問(wèn)題5

A、harmful

B、desirable

C、profound

D、questionable

4、“The Heart of the Matter,” the just-released report by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), deserves praise for affirming the 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.In 2010, leading congressional Democrats and Republicans sent letters to the AAAS asking that it identify actions that could be taken by “federal, state and local governments, universities, foundations, educators, individual benefactors and others” to “maintain national excellence in humanities and social scientific scholarship and education.” In response, the American Academy formed the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences. Among the commission's 51 members are top-tier-university presidents, scholars, lawyers, judges, and business executives, as well as prominent figures from diplomacy, filmmaking, music and journalism.The goals identified in the report are generally admirable. Because representative government presupposes an informed citizenry, the report supports full literacy; stresses the study of history and government, particularly American history and American government; and encourages the use of new digital technologies. To encourage innovation and competition, the report calls for increased investment in research, the crafting of coherent curricula that improve students' ability to solve problems and communicate effectively in the 21st century, increased funding for teachers and the encouragement of scholars to bring their learning to bear on the great challenges of the day. The report also advocates greater study of foreign languages, international affairs and the expansion of study abroad programs.Unfortunately, despite 2% years in the making, “The Heart of the Matter” never gets to the heart of the matter: the illiberal nature of liberal education at our leading colleges and universities. The commission ignores that for several decades America's colleges and universities have produced graduates who don't know the content and character of liberal education and are thus deprived of its benefits. Sadly, the spirit of inquiry once at home on campus has been replaced by the use of the humanities and social sciences as vehicles for publicizing “progressive,” or left-liberal propaganda.Today, professors routinely treat the progressive interpretation of history and progressive public policy as the proper subject of study while portraying conservative or classical liberal ideas—such as free markets and self-reliance—as falling outside the boundaries of routine, and sometimes legitimate, intellectual investigation.The AAAS displays great enthusiasm for liberal education. Yet its report may well set back reform by obscuring the depth and breadth of the challenge that Congress asked it to illuminate. 1.According to Paragraph 1, what is the author's attitude toward the AAAS's report?2.Influential figures in the Congress required that the AAAS report on how to（  ）.3.According to Paragraph 3, the report suggests （  ）.  4.The author implies in Paragraph 5 that professors are （  ）.  5.Which of the following would be the best title for the text? 

問(wèn)題1

A、Critical.

B、Appreciative.

C、Contemptuous.

D、Tolerant.

問(wèn)題2

A、safeguard individuals' rights to education

B、define the government's role in education

C、retain people's interest in liberal education

D、keep a leading position in liberal education

問(wèn)題3

A、an exclusive study of American history

B、a greater emphasis on theoretical subjects

C、the application of emerging technologies

D、funding for the study of foreign languages

問(wèn)題4

A、supportive of free markets

B、biased against classical liberal ideas

C、cautious about intellectual investigation

D、conservative about public policy

問(wèn)題5

A、Illiberal Education and “The Heart of the Matter”.

B、The AAAS's Contribution to Liberal Education.

C、Ways to Grasp “The Heart of the Matter”.

D、Progressive Policy vs. Liberal Education.

5、Two years ago, Rupert Murdoch's daughter, Elisabeth, spoke of the “unsettling dearth of integrity across so many of our institutions.” Integrity had collapsed, she argued, because of a collective acceptance that the only “sorting mechanism” in society should be profit and the market. But “it's us, human beings, we the people who create the society we want, not profit.’’Driving her point home, she continued: “It’s increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose, of a moral language within government, media or business could become one of the most dangerous goals for capitalism and freedom.” This same absence of moral purpose was wounding companies such as News International, she thought, making it more likely that it would lose its way as it had with widespread illegal telephone hacking.As the hacking trial concludes—finding guilty one ex-editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson, for conspiring to hack phones, and finding his predecessor, Rebekah Brooks, innocent of the same charge—the wider issue of dearth of integrity still stands. Journalists are known to have hacked the phones of up to 5,500 people. This is hacking on an industrial scale, as was acknowledged by Glenn Mulcaire, the man hired by the News of the World in 2001 to be the point person for phone hacking. Others await trial. This long story still unfolds.In many respects, the dearth of moral purpose frames not only the fact of such widespread phone hacking but the terms on which the trial took place. One of the astonishing revelations was how little Rebekah Brooks knew of what went on in her newsroom, how little she thought to ask and the fact that she never inquired how the stories arrived. The core of her successful defence was that she knew nothing.In today's world, it has become normal that well-paid executives should not be accountable for what happens in the organisations that they run. Perhaps we should not be so surprised. For a generation, the collective doctrine has been that the sorting mechanism of society should be profit. The words that have mattered are efficiency, flexibility, shareholder value, business-friendly, wealth generation, sales, impact and, in newspapers, circulation. Words degraded to the margin have been justice, fairness, tolerance, proportionality and accountability.The purpose of editing the News of the World was not to promote reader understanding, to be fair in what was written or to betray any common humanity. It was to ruin lives in the quest for circulation and impact. Ms Brooks may or may not have had suspicions about how her journalists got their stories, but she asked no questions, gave no instructions—nor received traceable, recorded answers. 1.According to the first two paragraphs, Elisabeth was upset by（  ）.2.It can be inferred from Paragraph 3 that （  ）.  3.The author believes that Rebekah Brooks's defence （  ）.  4.The author holds that the current collective doctrine shows （  ）.  5.Which of the following is suggested in the last paragraph?

問(wèn)題1

A、the consequences of the current sorting mechanism

B、companies' financial loss due to immoral practices

C、governmental ineffectiveness on moral issues

D、the wide misuse of integrity among institutions

問(wèn)題2

A、Glenn Mulcaire may deny phone hacking as a crime

B、phone hacking will be accepted on certain occasions

C、Andy Coulson should be held innocent of the charge

D、more journalists may be found guilty of phone hacking

問(wèn)題3

A、revealed a cunning personality

B、centered on trivial issues

C、was hardly convincing

D、was part of a conspiracy

問(wèn)題4

A、generally distorted values

B、unfair wealth distribution

C、a marginalized lifestyle

D、a rigid moral code

問(wèn)題5

A、The quality of writings is of primary importance.

B、Moral awareness matters in editing a newspaper.

C、Common humanity is central to news reporting.

D、Journalists need stricter industrial regulations.