试题库在线考试题库-历年真题模拟试题及答案-考博英语在线试题测试中心-希赛网

西南林业大学

European Union environmental officials have determined that two kinds of genetically modified corn could harm butterflies, affect food chains and disturb life in rivers and streams, and they have proposed a ban on the sale of the seeds, which are made by DuPont Pioneer, Dow Agrosciences and SyngentA.The preliminary decisions are circulating within the European Commission, which has the final say. Some officials there are skeptical of a ban that would upset the powerful biotechnology industry and could exacerbate tensions with important trading partners like the United States. The seeds are not available on the European market for cultivation.In the decisions, the environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, contends that the genetically modified com, or maize could affect certain butterfly species, specifically the monarch, and other beneficial insects. For instance, research this year indicates that larvae of the monarch butterfly exposed to the genetically modified com “behave differently than other larvae.” In the decision concerning the corn seeds produced by Dow and Pioneer, Mr. Dimas calls “potential damage on the environment irreversible.” In the decision on Syngenta’s com, he says that “the level of risk generated by the cultivation of this product for the environment is unacceptable.”A decision by the European Union to bar cultivation of the genetically modified crops would be the first of its kind in the trade bloc, and would intensify the continuing battle over genetically modified corn. Banning the applications for corn crops also would mark a bold new step for European environmental authorities, who are already aggressively pursuing regulations on emissions from cars and aircraft, setting it at odds with the United States and angering industries.“These products have been grown in the U.S. and other countries for years,” said Stephen Norton, a spokesman for the United States trade representative, “We are not aware of any other case when a product has been rejected after having been reviewed and determined safe by European food safety authorities,” he said.Barbara Helfferich, a spokeswoman for Mr. Dimas, declined to comment on the specifics of the procedure because commissioners had not yet made a final decision. But she said that the European Union was within its rights to make decisions based on the “precautionary principle” even when scientists had found no definitive evidence proving products can cause harm. She said that the decisions by Mr. Dimas could go before the commission within a few weeks, but she said that no date had been set. In the decisions, Mr. Dimas cited recent research showing that consumption of genetically modified “com byproducts reduced growth and increased mortality of non-target stream insects” and that these insects “are important prey for aquatic and riparian predators” and that this could have “unexpected ecosystem-scale consequences.”Although still preliminary, his decisions could drastically tilt the policy against future approvals of genetically modified crops, said Nathalie Moll, a spokeswoman for Europabio, an industry group with 80 members including Syngenta, Pioneer and Dow. Europabio says that the crops grown using the genetically modified com are already imported into several European countries, including France and Germany, where they are used to feed animals like cows and chickens.Rob Gianfranceschi, spokesman at the United States mission to the European Union in Brussels, said it was too early to comment on a decision that had not yet been formalizeD.But he made clear that the United States remained frustrated with European policies on genetically modified crops.1. The preliminary decisions are made by ______ .2. To the decisions, the European Commission officials’ attitudes are ______.3. About the decisions, which one of the following statements is TRUE?4. Mr. Dimas cited many researches on the genetically modified corn in his decision in order to ______.5. The word “tilt” in ParA.6 most probably means ______.

Learning disabilities are very common. They affect perhaps 10 percent of all children. Four times as many boys as girls have learning disabilities.Since about 1970, new research has helped brain scientists understand these problems better. Scientists now know there are many different kinds of learning disabilities and that they are caused by many different things. There is no longer any question that all learning disabilities result from differences in the way the brain is organized.You cannot look at a child and tell if he or she has a learning disability. There is no outward sign of the disorder. So some researchers began looking at the brain itself to learn what might be wrong.In one study, researchers examined the brain of a learning-disabled person who had died in an accident. They found two unusual things. One involved cells in the left side of the brain, which control language. These cells normally are white. In the learning-disabled person, however, these cells were gray. The researchers also found that many of the nerve cells were not in a line the way they should have been. The nerve cells were mixed together.The study was carried out under the guidance of Norman Geschwind, an early expert on learning disabilities. Doctor Geschwind proposed that learning disabilities resulted mainly from problems in the left side of the brain. He believed this side of the brain failed to develop normally. Probably, he said, nerve cells there did not connect as they shoulD.So the brain was like an electrical device in which the wires were crossed.Other studies did not examine brain tissue. Instead, they measured the brain’s electrical activity and made a man of the electrical signals.Frank Duffy experimented with his techniques at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston. Doctor Duffy said his research is evidence that reading disabilities involve damage to a wide area of the brain, not just the left side.1. Scientist found that the brain cells of a learning-disabled person differ from those of a normal person in ______. 2. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage?3. All of the following statements are true EXCEPT that ______.4. Doctor Duffy believed that ______.5. According to the passage we can conclude that further research should be made ______.

Three labour economists suggest that effort at work is correlated with race. After rejecting a number of 1 explanations for why this might be, they finally 2 the discrepancy to unexplained “cultural differences”. Acutely 3 of the sensitivity of these findings, they delayed publication until after the 4 election. The paper may yet be 5 on by those who are keen to root out “political correctness” and are unhappy with current anti-discrimination laws. The study’s method is straightforwarD.The data come from nearly 36,000 “daily diaries”, self-reporting on how Americans spent their working hours, 6 from 2003 to 2012. Relying on the 7 that workers are equally honest in admitting sloth, the authors calculate the fraction of time spent not working while on the job-spent-relaxing or eating, say- and find that it varies by race to a small but 8 significant degree. The gap remains, albeit in weaker form, even with the addition of extensive controls for geography, 9 and union status, among others. Non-white male workers spend an 10 1.1% of the day not working while on the job, or an extra five minutes per day.

The shell-covered animals without backbones have a nasty tendency to devour their neighbors.

Since the 1950s, conservation efforts — including stricter hunting rules and measures like trapping the birds and then releasing them into healthy forests — helped restore wild turkey populations.

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