We need to evaluate and decide what is important instead of note discriminately.

听力原文： "... We are not about to enter the Information Age, but instead are rather well into it." Present predictions are that by 1990, about thirty million jobs in the United States, or about thirty percent of the job market, will be computer-related. In 1980, only twenty-one percent of all United States high schools owned one or two computers for student use. A new survey revealed that half of United States secondary schools have fifteen or more computers for student use. And now educational experts, administrators, and even the general public are demanding that all students become "computer literate" By the year 2000 knowledge of computers will be necessary in over eighty percent of all occupations. Soon those people not educated in computer use will be compared to those who are print illiterate today.

What is "computer literacy"? The term itself seems to imply some extent of "knowing" about computers, but knowing what? The current opinion seems to be that this should include a general knowledge of what computers are, plus a little of their history and something of how they operate.

Therefore, it is vital that educators everywhere take a careful look not only at what is being done, but also at what should be done in the field of computer education. Today most adults are capable of utilizing a motor vehicle without the slightest knowledge of how the internal-combustion engine works. We effectively use all types of electrical equipment without being able to tell their histories or to explain how they work.

Business people for years have made good use of typewriters and adding machines, yet few have ever known how to repair them. Why, then, attempt to teach computers by teaching how or why they work? Rather, we first must concentrate on teaching the effective use of the computer as the tool is.

"Knowing how to use a computer is what's going be important. We don't talk about 'automobile literacy'. We just get in our cars and drive them."

In 1990, the number of jobs having nothing to do with computers in the Unite States will be reduced to ______.

A．79 million

B．100 million

C．30 million

D．70 million

An analyst at a furniture company has noted that the company loses approximately $2 million per year on its money-back guarantee, which stipulates that the company will return the purchase price to any customer whose furniture breaks within the first year, regardless of the way in which the furniture was broken. The analyst argues that the company could increase its net revenues (total revenues minus total costs) if it abolished the money-back guarantee. Which of the following, if true, provides the best reason for the company not to follow the analyst's advice?

A．A study has shown that only 25 percent of the broken furniture claims that the company has honored in the last five years were due to manufacturing defects.

B．The $2 million that the company expends on the money-back guarantee represents only 4 percent of the company's total costs.

C．A popular consumer magazine gave the furniture company its highest rating for overall quality of product.

D．The company's largest competitor has a more restrictive money-back guarantee that covers only furniture broken due to manufacturing defects within six months of purchase.

E．Customers cite the money-back guarantee as the primary reason they buy furniture from this company.

One fact was clearly demonstrated by the early sleep researchers: one part of the night is not just like another. As scientists began to compare the records of volunteers during the 1950s, they observed that human sleep follows a rhythmic schedule. They noted that not only was this schedule much the same in healthy persons of the same age with similar habits but, from night to night, each individual had an EEG record almost as consistent as a signature.

Sleep and wakefulness, once considered to be the light and dark of consciousness, no longer seem to differ so sharply. To sleep does not mean to drown in an ocean of darkness. Actually, sleep is not a unitary state; it involves many shades or degree of detachment from the surrounding world. While sleep may feel like a blanket of darkness punctuated by dreams—a time when the mind is asleep—nothing could be less true. All night long a person drifts down and up through different levels of consciousness, as if on waves. With laboratory methods, researchers have been able to chart the typical stages of the journey into sleep.

The journey starts while the subject is still awake but beginning to relax. His brain waves, which have been low, rapid, and irregular, begin to show a new pattern. This new pattern, which is known as alpha rhythm, is an even electrical pulsation of about nine to 12 cycles per second. Most people do not know what the alpha state feels like, but during the last few years researchers have been able to teach subjects how to recognize and control their alpha rhythm.

When their EEG shows an alpha rhythm, the subjects are notified, either by a sound or by the appearance of a color on a screen. Because the alpha state tends to be pleasant and relaxed, the ability to sustain it can help tense people ease their passage into sleep. A moment of tension, a loud noise, an attempt to solve a problem, however, and the alpha rhythm may vanish.

As the subject passes through the gates of the unconsciousness, his alpha waves grow smaller, and his eyes roll very slowly. For a moment, he may wake up during this early part of the descent, alerted by a sudden spasm that causes his body to jerk. Like the brain waves, this spasm is a sign of neural changes within. Known as the myoclonic jerk, it is caused by a brief burst of activity in the brain. Although it is related to epileptic seizures, the myoclonic jerk is normal in all human sleep. It is gone in a fraction of a second, after which descent continues. The subject has not felt the peculiar transformation, but now he is said to be truly asleep.

This passage states that a person is really asleep only

A．after dreaming has passed.

B．when his EEG reveals no alpha rhythm.

C．when his EEG begins to show an alpha rhythm.

D．after the completion of his alpha rhythm decline.

What is money? That is not so simple a question as might appear. In fact, money can only be defined in terms of the functions it performs—that is, by the need it fulfills. As Sir Ralph Hawtrey once noted, "Money is one of those concepts which, like a teaspoon or an umbrella, but unlike an earthquake or a buttercup, are definable primarily by the use or purpose which they serve." Money is anything, regardless of its physical or legal characteristics, that customarily and principally performs certain functions.

Three such functions are usually specified, corresponding to the three basic needs served by money—the need for a medium of exchange, the need for a unit of account, and the need for a store of value. Most familiar is the first, the function of a medium of exchange, whereby goods and services are paid for and contractual obligations discharged. In performing this role the key attribute of money is general acceptability in the settlement of debt. The second function of money, that of a unit of account, is to provide a medium of information—a common denominator or numeraire in which goods and services may be valued and debts expressed. In performing this role money is said to be a "standard of value" or "measure of value" in valuing goods and services and a "standard of deferred payment" in expressing debts. The third function of money, that of a store of value, is to provide a means of holding wealth.

The development of money was one of the most important steps in the evolution of human society, comparable in the words of one writer "with the domestication of animals, the cultivation of the land, and the harnessing of power". Before money there was only barter, the archetypical economic transaction, which required an inverse double coincidence of wants in order for exchange to occur. The two parties to any transaction each had to desire what the other was prepared to offer. This was an obviously inefficient system of exchange since large amounts of time had to be devoted to the necessary process of search and bargaining. Under even the most elemental circumstances barter was unlikely to exhaust all opportunities for advantageous trade.

Bartering is costly in ways too numerous to discuss. Among others, bartering requires an expenditure of time and the use of specialized skills necessary for judging the commodities that are being exchanged. The more advanced the specialization in production and the more complex the economy, the costlier it will be to undertake all the transactions necessary to make any given good reach its ultimate user by using barter.

The introduction of generalized exchange intermediaries cut the Gordian knot of barter by decomposing the single transaction of sale and purchase, thereby obviating the need for a double coincidence of wants. This served to facilitate multilateral exchange; the costs of transactions reduced, exchange ratios could be more efficiently equated with the demand and supply of goods and services. Consequently, specialization in production was promoted and the advantages of economic division of labor became attainable all because of the development of money.

The usefulness of money is inversely proportional to the number of currencies in circulation. The greater the number of currencies, the less is any single money able to perform. efficiently as a lubricant to improve resource allocation and reduce transaction costs. Diseconomies remain because of the need for multiple price quotations (diminishing the information savings derived from money's role as unit of account) and for frequent currency conversions (diminishing the stability and predictability of purchasing power derived from money's roles as medium of exchange and store of value). In all national societies there has been a clear historical tendency to limit the number of currencies, and eventually to standardize the domestic money on just a single cur

A．is common knowledge among informed people

B．is a section of a controversial economic theory

C．breaks new ground in economic thinking

D．is a comprehensive analysis of monetary policy

Allow me to share why you have to take art class.

First and most important,it stimulates creativity(激发创造力) Art schools encourage you to think outside the box and be creative enough to create something artistic.It can be used not only in art but in life,too.

Besides,it helps you make the right choice. In art class, you are usually free to do what you want. In every art class, you are required to make decisions that can determine what your painting will turn out to be.

In addition, students can learn the art of critical(批判性的) thinking as a skill of observation(观察). For example, art students find ways to imagine, That is a skill they need to beome better readers and problem settlers.

What is more,it is noted that the company&39;s bosses are actively looking for employees who can think creatively. Creative thinking is one of the most important skills that students can learn in art courses.

Finally, students who are trained in art class have interesting mental habits. They low to work on a task for a long time and how to continue to work even if they are discouraged. They are better for creating a link between the classroom and the outside world. In addition,children who do art work are able to look back on their work and make iudgments about themselves.

Why are art programs removed from many schools？

A.To make students have their own hobbies

B.To improve students’test scores and save money.

C.To help students master some job skills

D.To give students more free time

What is the most important quality students develop in art class？A.Determination

B.Carefulness

C.Creativity

D.Honesty

What can we learn from the text？A.Art students are easily employed.

B.Art programs may bring a lot of money.

C.Art class can help students in many ways.

D.Art teachers should pay more attention to tests.