What an unforgettable experience! I’ll ...

 ---- How was the television debate last night?

   ---- Super! Rarely______ so much media attention.

A. a debate attracted                    B. did a debate attract

C. a debate did attract                   D. attracted a debate

偶像崇拜

  你们班英语课上进行了一场有关偶像崇拜的讨论，同学们提出了不同的看法，请根据下表的提示写一篇有关讨论的英语短文。

一些同学的看法 :

阅读下面对话，掌握其大意，并根据所给首字母的提示，在标有题号的右边横线上写出一个英语单词的完整、正确形式，使对话通顺。

A：Excuse me, sir, but I’m writing a report on what people prefer to do on holiday. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?

B：No, not at all. Please go (1.)a_______.

A：How often do you go on holiday?

B：I generally have two weeks’ holiday a year.

A：And what do you prefer to do when you are on holiday?

B：Well, I don’t usually visit my family. We live quite(2.) c_____ and I can see them any time. But I do like to visit museums, (3.)e__________ if there is a special exhibition on. I don’t like to stay at home, though my parents do. (4.)I________, I prefer to get away from the city and just (5.)e________ the peace of the country. You know, just sit under a tree, listen to the birds in the morning, or maybe go walking over the hills.

A：Have you ever (6.)t_________ abroad?

B：No, I haven’t .It’s too (7.)e__________ for me. But my wife loves to visit the coast, so if the (8.)w_________ is good we often go swimming in the sea, or maybe just lie on the (9.)b________ and bathe in the sun.

A：OK. Well, thank you very much for your time.

B：You are (10.)w_________.

下图反映的是当前一些学生在学习上的做法。请你根据对下面这幅漫画的理解用英语写一篇短文，描述一下这种做法并发表你的看法。

注意：1．词数150左右。开头已经写，不计入总词数。

          2．要适当发挥想象，不要做简单的描述。

          3．作文中不得提及考生所在学校和本人姓名。

参考词汇：缸vat；漏出来leak out；漏洞 loophole

In the picture, four people are trying to fill a vat with water. Two men are carrying water while two others are pouring water into the vat._______________________________________________________

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Computerised trading agents may help humans build better markets

THANKS to declining markets, investment banks are getting rid of many of their highly-paid traders. When markets recover, the banks might be tempted to replace them with rather cheaper talent. One alternative has been around for a while but has yet to catch on: autonomous trading agents-computers programmed to act like the human version without such annoying costs as holidays, lunch breaks or bonuses. Program trading has, of course, been done before; some blamed the 1987 stock market crash on computers instructed with simple decision-making rules. But robots can be smarter than that.

Dave Cliff, a researcher at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Bristol, England, has been creating trading robots for seven years. In computer simulations he lets them evolve "genetically", and so allows them to adapt and fit models of real-world financial markets. His experiments have suggested that a redesign of some markets could lead to greater efficiency. Last year, a research group at IBM showed that Mr Cliff's artificial traders could consistently beat the human variety, in various kinds of market. Nearly all take the shape of an auction(拍卖). One well-known type is the English auction, familiar to customers of the salesrooms(拍卖场)of Christie's and Sotheby's, where sellers keep mum on their offer price, and buyers increase their bids by stages until only one remains.

At the other extreme is the Dutch auction, familiar to 17th-century tulip-traders in the Netherlands as well as to bidders for American Treasury bonds. Here, buyers remain silent, and a seller reduces his price until it is accepted. Most markets for shares, commodities, foreign exchange and derivatives are a mixture of these two types: buyers and sellers can announce their bid or offer prices at any time, and deals are constantly being closed, a so-called "continuous double auction".

Mr Cliff's novel idea was to apply his evolutionary computer programs to marketplaces themselves. Why not, he thought, try and see what types of auction would let traders converge(趋同) most quickly towards a balance price? The results were surprising. In his models, auctions that let buyers and sellers bid at any time like most of today's financial exchanges were less efficient than ones that required relatively more bids from either buyers or sellers. These "evolved auctions" also withstood big market shocks, such as crashes and panics, better than today's real-world versions. Mr Cliff's most recent results, which will be presented in Sydney, Australia, on December 10th, show that the best type of auction for any market depends crucially on even slight differences in the number of buyers and sellers.

Bank of America has been investigating these new auctions, along with robotic traders, for possible use in electronic exchanges. The hope is that today's financial auctions and online marketplaces might work better by becoming more like their English and Dutch ancestors.

1.What is the passage mainly about?

A. A review of two kinds of auctions.       B. An introduction of trading robots.

C. A survey of the trading market.          D. About trading alternatives.

2.Which of the following is true according to the text?

A. Mr Cliff’s robot traders have now been used in real-world markets.

B. Robot traders can evolve like creatures.

C. There is room for improvement in efficiency in trading markets.

D. The English auction is the most popular trading form.

3.What can we infer from the text?

A. Existing auctions cannot withstand market shocks

B. The Dutch auction is better than the continuous double auction

C. It’s hard for traders to reach a balanced price

D. The best type of auction takes place when the number of the buyers is equal to that of sellers

4.What’s the author’s attitude toward robot traders?

 A. Prejudiced           B. Objective        C. Critical         D. Optimistic