单项选择题

听力原文： In New Zealand, where sheep outnumber people 15 to one, folks know how to party. This weekend's bash promises to be the biggest in long while. Five top chefs have been dispatched across the fjords and through the forests to find the best ingredients for a massive feast. A renowned glassmaker--who sometimes crafts custom windshields for Ferraris and lamps for Arabian palaces--has created 450 dessert plates just for the occasion. Maori tribesmen will dance. But even so, this feast could flop. That's because the annual summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum rarely generates much excitement.
APEC was founded in 1989, when Asia was a place of miracles, but much has changed in the decade since. Japan's stock market is still worth less than half its peak at the end of 1989, and much of the rest of the region is still trying to recover from the financial turmoil that began in the summer of 1997. Even now, with the South Korean and Thai economies expected to grow this year and Japan's economy showing signs of life, the International Monetary Fund warns that Asia's recovery is 'precarious'.
You'd think that the Asian crisis might have given APEC a sense of mission. But think again. The leaders are likely to avoid ideological lectures redevelopment that have stirred East-West tensions at previous meetings. MIT economist Paul Krugman recently declared APEC 'an empty shell', and even APEC's own Business Advisory Council delivered a harsh assessment just last month. 'APEC has at times lost sight of its own goals,' the business executives charged, noting that member countries had been sluggish in pursuing free trade and investment.
On specific, substantive issues--like liberalization of sectors including food and autos--APEC has foisted responsibility on the WTO. That's partly because the WTO makes binding decisions on trade issues, while APEC 'is not an organization really structured for action, says Charles E. Morrison, president of the East-West Center in Hawaii. Unlike the European Union, which makes majority decisions, APEC is a much looser grouping that adopts nonbinding measures.
The need for consensus makes it even harder to expect anything dazzling from Auckland. APEC leaders might endorse financial transparency and more efficient investment, and they'll try to agree on priorities for the upcoming WTO ministerial talks. But if those talks fizzle, what then? Bored officials can always turn their attention to New Zealand's 36,000 flocks of sheep--and rest up for the meatier WTO conference in November.
From the passage we can see, the author is quite ______ with the prospect of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

A．optimistic
B．pessimistic
C．excited
D．puzzled

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单项选择题

A scientist who wants to predict the way in which consumers (消费者) will spend their money must study consumer behavior. He must obtain data both on the resources of consumers and on the motives that tend to encourage or discourage money spending.
(3) If an economist were asked which of three groups borrow most--people with rising incomes, stable incomes, or decreasing incomes, his probable answer would be those with decreasing incomes. Actually, in the years 1947-1950, the answer was people with rising incomes. People with decreasing incomes were next and people with stable incomes borrowed the least. This shows us that traditional assumptions (假设) about earning and spending are not always reliable. Another traditional assumption is that if people who have money expect prices to go up they will hasten to buy. If they expect prices to go down, they will postpone buying. But research surveys have shown that this is not always true. The expectations of price increases may not stimulate buying. One typical attitude was expressed by the wife of a mechanic in an interview at a time of rising prices. 'In a few months,' she said, 'we'll have to pay more for meat and milk; we'll have less to spend on other things. 'Her family had been planning to buy a new car but they postponed this purchase. Furthermore, the rise in prices that has already taken place may be disliked and buyer's resistance may be produced. This is shown by the following typical comment. 'I just don't pay these prices; they are too high.'
The investigations mentioned above were carried out in America. The condition most helpful to spending appears to be price stability. If prices have been stable and people consider that they are reasonable, they are likely to buy. Thus, it appears that the common business policy of maintaining stable prices is based on a correct understanding of consumer psychology (心理学).

A．rely
E.try
F.carry
G.do

单项选择题

Task 2
Directions: This task is the same as Task 1. The 5 questions or unfinished statements are numbered 41 through 45.
Scientists have established that influenza viruses taken from man can cause the disease in animals. In addition, man can catch the disease from animals. In fact, a great number of wild birds seem to carry the virus without showing an evidence of illness. Some scientists concluded that a large family of influenza viruses may have evolved in the bird kingdom, a group that has been on the earth 100 million years and is able to carry the virus without contracting the disease. There is even convincing evidence to show that virus strains are transmitted from place to place and from continent to continent by migrating birds.
It's known that two influenza viruses can recombine when both are present in an animal at the same time, the result of such recombination is a great variety of strains containing different H and N spikes. This raises the possibility that a human influenza virus can recombine with an influenza virus from a low animal to produce an entirely new spike. Research is underway to determine if that is the way that major new strains come into being, another possibility is that two animal influenza strains may recombine in a pig, for example, to produce a new strain which is transmitted to man.

A．cause
E.do
F.are
G.change