【每日阅读训练第二期——速度越障1系列】【1-16】

starking0410

因为上周考T，拜托另一位战友发了帖，导致我今天发帖 感觉已经过了很久了 虽然考完了 但还是要继续跟上 找机会再刷个分！大家也加油啦！

速度
计时1
For the longest time, people have collected things, just for fun. Butterflies. Buttons. Beer bottles. String wrapped into balls.
Umbrellas, matchbooks, model airplanes. You name it, somebody probably collects it. It's not just an American thing, but we go a little nuts with it.
Surely the first prize for fanatical collecting goes to a fellow in New York City who calls himself "Inspector Collector." On an Internet website by that name, he shows photos and tells little stories about the many, many things he hangs onto.
Menus from Chinese restaurants, for instance. Rubber bands, pencils, scissors and bottle caps. And there's more! He also collects spoons, paper clips, maps, drinking straws, shopping bags, postcards, hockey sticks, transit tokens, marbles, dice, security badges, airline tags, citrus peelers, and toothpicks.
Speaking of toothpicks, there are entire organizations of collectors, including the Toothpick Holder Collectors Society, 700 members strong.
These groups exist, in part, because collectors have a problem: their love of toothpaste tubes or bubble-gum machines is quite often not shared by their spouses or children. So when they pass on to that great knickknack cabinet in the sky, their precious assortment of teacups could end up in the garbage, a street sale, or at an auction site on the Internet.
Collectors' club members keep in touch, even checking on each other's health. If the unfortunate happens, a member passes away, and the family has no interest in his or her ivory needles or miniature buses or vacuum cleaners, the clubs ensure that someone will eagerly step forward to save the collection from the trash heap.
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As the U.S. economy continues to struggle, Gap, one of the largest U.S. clothing retailers, will soon close 20 percent of its stores. Meanwhile, a major Japanese clothing retailer - with merchandise very similar to Gap's - is heading in the opposite direction. Instead of being deterred by the grim economic outlook, Uniqlo plans to open hundreds of stores in the United States.
Uniqlo has been selling reasonably priced, casual clothing in Japan since the 1980s, but sales have been flat recently. So the company is looking overseas for growth. Most of its new stores are opening in Asia, but the United States plays a big role in its expansion strategy.
Uniqlo opened its first U.S. stores in New Jersey shopping malls in 2005, but they didn't do well and closed within a year. The CEO of Uniqlo USA says the company moved too fast and that Americans were unfamiliar with their brands then.
VOA - A. Milne-Tyte
Uniqlo now has three stores in New York.
Shin Odake believes the company's vast new flagship store on New York City's fashionable 5th Avenue should change that. "If you are to be recognized as a global brand, we need to have a huge store in the center of New York City."
Uniqlo has had a store in Manhattan for several years and it is now the company's most successful outlet. Anxious to build on that success, the company just opened a third store on 34th Street, down the block from Macy's department store.
Both new Uniqlo outlets are three stories high. They're crowded with stacks of jeans at 80 percent off the usual price. Piles of cashmere sweaters in virtually every imaginable color - three shades of green, and blues from navy to periwinkle - are on sale for $50 and $60. Most cashmere sweaters sell for at least $100 and, often, far more.
Experts believe the range of colors lures consumers into buying more than one item.
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"Especially when the value is good, they think, ‘O.K., I'll buy two for me, but you know I think I'd like to get this new color for my husband,'" says Roseanne Morrison, a fashion consultant with The Doneger Group, a fashion industry consulting firm. "And that's really the secret."
Just before opening day in late October, hundreds of employees scurried about the 34th Street store setting up displays while the checkout staff lined up behind their cash registers, practicing their friendliness and timeliness.
VOA - A. Milne-Tyte
Cashmere sweaters - usually priced at over $100 - selling for about $60 at Uniqlo in New York.
Attention to detail is one of the things the company hopes will differentiate Uniqlo from rivals like H&M, Zara and Gap.
Odake believes innovation is another advantage. He says the company studies its clothing with the eyes of an engineer.
"We approach the basic product and then we try to improve it every year, similar to the car manufacturer trying to improve the make of the car. So that's the approach that we have, which is quite different from, I think, the other brands."
That Japanese engineering is what brought shopper Irme Chan to Uniqlo. She purchased one of the company's signature products; its "Heattech" thermal underwear.
"Owned it for years. Have to keep buying it because my sister or my family will steal it," says Chan, who likes the quality and value here compared to similar stores.
That combination could give Uniqlo an edge in a slow economy, according to retail sales consultant Patricia Pao.
"Fundamentally, we are a nation that is born to shop," says Pao. "You can only restrain yourself for so long. People are going to buy things that are of good value. They're not going to buy things just because they're cheap."
Uniqlo USA CEO Odake wants to eventually open 1,600 stores in the United States, almost twice the number of Uniqlo outlets in Japan.
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Russia has been trying to join the World Trade Organization since 1993. Now Russian officials are saying they hope to become a member by the end of this year.
The 153-member World Trade Organization (WTO) is the agency overseeing the rules of international trade. It was founded in 1995, replacing an organization known as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Experts say to become a WTO member is a complex procedure. First, a country has to accept a whole series of agreements. They include a ceiling on tariff levels governments can impose on various imported goods and another dealing with the protection of intellectual property. In addition to accepting all the WTO rules, a country then has to settle bilateral trade agreements with all the countries that so desire. And finally, a country has to change many of its economic and trade laws to make them conform to international standards.
The last country to join the Geneva-based WTO was Ukraine in 2008. Russia has been negotiating for 18 years.
David Christy, a lawyer [with the firm Thompson Hine] and trade expert who has helped governments with their WTO bids, says a country that wants to join and is serious in meeting WTO requirements can become a member within three to four years.
"When a country like Russia or China joins, it generally takes longer because the economy is so much more complex, but also because they are negotiating hard to minimize the obligations that they will be forced to undertake," said Christy. "And Russia was willing to put off its accession in order to ensure that the package of obligations it eventually accepts is as light as possible. And in that regard, kudos to them and their negotiators - I think they have done an excellent job. They have an exceedingly forceful negotiating style that tends to wear down other delegations. And so they are willing to keep the negotiating process going for year, after year, after year," Christy added.
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Anders Aslund, a Russia expert with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, says Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is a forceful advocate of Russia's WTO accession.
"He has been pushing it and substantial progress has been made in the last two years," said Aslund. "And the other period when there was substantial progress was the years 2000 to 2003 - President [Vladimir] Putin's first term. But in between, say between 2003 and 2010, very little progress was made."
Experts say one major obstacle remains to Russia's WTO membership and that is Georgia's opposition to it. Under WTO rules, any member can block a new country from joining simply by vetoing it, because the organization operates by consensus.
Georgia has always strongly opposed Russia's support for the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Moscow and Tbilisi fought a brief war over them in 2008. Russia now considers the two independent states, a status not accepted by the international community.
Anders Aslund says Georgia's opposition to Moscow's bid has to do with customs procedures between Russia and the two separatist regions.
"What the Georgians are demanding is that there is some kind of multilateral control over trade flows through these two territories, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. And Russia has resisted it," Aslund noted.
David Christy says the real issue is that Russia is treating the breakaway regions as being completely separate from Georgia - which is strongly opposed by Tbilisi.
"So that trade, in Russia's view, would be flowing from Russia through South Ossetia [and Abkhazia] and then into Georgia," said Christy. "Whereas from Georgia's view, as soon as it crosses out of Russia, it's in Georgia as a matter of international law, even if Georgia doesn't fully control that territory."
The United States has backed Russia's entry into the WTO while at the same time saying it will not pressure Georgia to change its view. Experts are divided as to whether Russia will be able to resolve its differences with Georgia by the December 15-17 WTO ministerial meeting in Geneva.
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越障
The craze for flat taxes
Republican candidates are competing to race to the lowest point
“ZERO-zero-zero is better than nine-nine-nine,” claims Rick Santorum, a Republican presidential candidate, trying to outbid the tax plan of his rival Herman Cain. Mr Santorum’s is not the only effort at one-upmanship: “I’ll bump plans with you, brother,” Rick Perry, another contender, told Mr Cain before unveiling a proposal for a flat tax this week (see above). Yet another of the candidates, Newt Gingrich, does not want to be left out. “Bump plans w/ me,” he implored Mr Perry by tweet.
It has been more or less compulsory for Republican presidential candidates to promise a tax cut of some sort—or at least indefatigable opposition to tax increases—ever since Ronald Reagan pledged a 10% reduction in marginal rates every year for three years during the campaign of 1980. Over time, the proposals have been getting bolder. Mike Huckabee, the runner-up for the nomination last time around, suggested replacing the entire federal tax code with a 30% federal sales tax, deftly if misleadingly branded as the “fair tax”. John McCain, the nominee, advocated a two-tier system. Taxpayers could either stick with the present code or switch to a massively simplified alternative, with much lower rates but few exemptions or deductions.
This time around the smorgasbord of tax plans on offer is even more radical. Most undertake not just to lower bills, but to dispense with whole tomes of the 3.4m-word code. Mr Santorum, for example, wants manufacturing firms to pay no corporate tax at all (one of his three zeroes). Ron Paul, a libertarian candidate, wants to do away with federal income tax altogether. Mr Cain denounces the current tax code as “the twenty-first-century version of slavery”. There is a consensus among all the candidates that the federal corporate tax rate of 35%, the highest in the rich world, must be slashed. Most candidates would like to put an end to taxes on capital gains and dividends as well.
Meanwhile, negotiations over a “grand bargain” to eliminate America’s gaping deficits seem to hinge on sweeping tax reform. What with Occupy Wall Street’s protesters railing against the power of America’s plutocrats, and Barack Obama’s insistence that the wealthy must pay more, a row about tax seems likely to dominate the campaign.
Messrs Cain, Gingrich and Perry are all hawking flat taxes, whereby individuals would all pay the same rate, with few exemptions and deductions. The idea is not new: Steve Forbes, a publishing magnate, made a flat tax the centrepiece of two presidential bids, in 1996 and 2000—both resounding flops. But Mr Cain has garnered lots of attention, and a lead in some polls, with his relentless refrain of 9-9-9. He wants to cut personal and corporate income taxes to 9%, abolish most other federal taxes, and make up for the lost revenue with a 10% sales tax (billed as 9% thanks to a mathematical sleight of hand). “If 10% is good enough for God”, he quips, “then 9% should be just fine for the federal government.”
That, by all reckonings but Mr Cain’s, would provide the rich with a whopping tax break (chiefly because tax on capital gains and dividends would be eliminated), paid for by higher taxes on everyone else. It was concerns about how regressive the switch to a flat tax would be that caused Mr Forbes’s campaigns to founder. At the time, a certain Mitt Romney called it “a tax cut for fat cats”.
This time around, however, raising taxes on the poor seems to be a point of pride among Republican candidates, although Mr Cain has modified his original plan slightly to make it less regressive. In launching his campaign, Mr Perry expressed dismay at “the injustice” that 47% of Americans do not pay any federal income taxes. Most of the people Mr Perry is referring to live below the poverty line, and still pay payroll taxes on what little they earn. Yet an indignant campaign called “We are the 53%” has sprung up online, to complain about the loafing remainder. Most of the Republican candidates, including Mr Romney, the erstwhile scourge of the fat cats, argue that more of the poor should pay at least some income tax. Mr Gingrich goes even further, accusing both Mr Perry and Mr Romney of “class warfare” for putting upper limits on certain tax breaks in their plans.
Mr Cain’s rivals do worry, though, that his scheme will introduce a new federal revenue stream, in the form of a sales tax. That would come on top of the already hefty sales taxes levied by many cities and states, they point out, and would inevitably rise over time, much as income tax did until Presidents Kennedy and Johnson in the 1960s cut the top rate by 21 percentage points. Doing without a sales tax obliges Messrs Gingrich and Perry to propose higher flat taxes, of 15% and 20% respectively. Moreover, both would make their plans optional, like Mr McCain’s, and retain a few cherished tax breaks, on mortgage interest and donations to charity, presumably in an effort to placate suspicious primary voters.
Judging by the polls, such efforts are likely to fall flat. Only 3% of participants in the latest Economist/YouGov sounding said they would leave the tax code as it is, whereas 62% agreed that a big overhaul is needed. But there was no consensus as to what shape reforms should take. Flat taxes, including the 9-9-9 plan, seem to put off far more voters than they attract. Even Mr Romney’s much more modest call to cut the corporate tax rate and extend income-tax cuts dating from George Bush junior’s presidency generates more dismay than enthusiasm among voters.
In fact, the only tax scheme that wins approval from most Americans is the one pushed by Mr Obama and other Democrats, to raise rates for the rich. In support of the idea, Democrats point to studies such as one out this week from the Congressional Budget Office, which found that the share of national income accruing to the richest 1% of Americans has doubled over the past 30 years, to over 20%.
A clear majority supports higher taxes on those earning more than $1m a year to pay for job-creation schemes; a narrower one supports tax increases for those earning more than $200,000. Mr Obama won the presidency while campaigning on a similar proposal, but did not get it enacted when Congress was under Democratic control, and now faces implacable opposition to the idea from Republicans, who dismiss it, as usual, as class warfare. The received wisdom in Washington is that the two parties are so divided on tax that only an election can resolve the impasse. At any rate, Mr Obama says his desire to raise taxes on the rich will be a prominent part of his campaign for re-election.
Yet both parties profess to believe that the tax code should be simplified and the base broadened, chiefly by eliminating most loopholes. This holds out the prospect both of lowering rates, a notion dear to Republicans, and raising revenue, which pleases Democrats.
The idea appeals to populists on the left and the right, as a blow to special interests and corporate welfare. It is the crux of all deficit-reduction schemes that enjoy bipartisan support, and is thought to feature prominently in the discussions of the “super-committee” charged by Congress with deflating the deficit. It was also the basis of the last big overhaul of the tax code, under Reagan. Catchy campaign slogans, in other words, can sometimes evolve into sensible policy.


OG
Passage 24 (24/63)
All of the cells in a particular plant start out with the same complement of genes. How then can these cells differentiate and form structures as different as roots, stems, leaves, and fruits? The answer is that only a small subset of the genes in a particular kind of cell are expressed, or turned on, at a given time. This is accomplished by a complex system of chemical messengers that in plants include hormones and other regulatory molecules. Five major hormones have been identified: auxin, abscisic acid,cytokinin, ethylene, and gibberellin. Studies of plants have now identified a new class of regulatory molecules called oligosaccharins.
Unlike the oligosaccharins, the five well-known plant hormones are pleiotropic rather than specific; that is, each has more than one effect on the growth and development of plants. The five has so many simultaneous effects that they are not very useful in artificially controlling the growth of crops. Auxin, for instance, stimulates the rate of cell elongation, causes shoots to grow up and roots to grow down, and inhibits the growth of lateral shoots. Auxin also causes the plant to develop a vascular system, to form lateral roots, and to produce ethylene.
The pleiotropy of the five well-studied plant hormones is somewhat analogous to that of certain hormones in animal. For example, hormones from the hypothalamus in the brain stimulate the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland (pituitary gland: n to synthesize and release many different hormones, one of which stimulates the release of hormones from the adrenal cortex.These hormones have specific effects on target organs all over the body. One hormone stimulates the thyroid gland, for example, another the ovarian follicle cells, and so forth. In other words, there is a hierarchy of hormones. Such a hierarchy may also exist in plants. Oligosaccharins are fragments of the cell wall released by enzymes: different enzymes release different oligosaccharins. There are indications that pleiotropic plant hormones may actually function by activating the enzymes that release these other, more specific chemical messengers from the cell wall.
1. According to the passage, the five well-known plant hormones are not useful in controlling the growth of crops because
(A) it is not known exactly what functions the hormones perform
(B) each hormone has various effects on plants
(C) none of the hormones can function without the others
(D) each hormone has different effects on different kinds of plants
(E) each hormone works on only a small subset of a cell’s genes at any particular time
2. The passage suggests that the place of hypothalamic hormones in the hormonal hierarchies of animals is similar to the place of which of the following in plants?
(A) Plant cell walls
(B) The complement of genes in each plant cell
(C) A subset of a plant cell’s gene complement
(D) The five major hormones
(E) The oligosaccharins
3. The passage suggests that which of the following is a function likely to be performed by an oligosaccharin?
(A) To stimulate a particular plant cell to become part of a plant’s root system
(B) To stimulate the walls of a particular cell to produce other oligosaccharins
(C) To activate enzymes that release specific chemical messengers from plant cell walls
(D) To duplicate the gene complement in a particular plant cell
(E) To produce multiple effects on a particular subsystem of plant cells
4. The author mentions specific effects that auxin has on plant development in order to illustrate the
(A) point that some of the effects of plant hormones can be harmful
(B) way in which hormones are produced by plants
(C) hierarchical nature of the functioning of plant hormones
(D) differences among the best-known plant hormones
(E) concept of pleiotropy as it is exhibited by plant hormones
5. According to the passage, which of the following best describes a function performed by oligosaccharins?
(A) Regulating the daily functioning of a plant’s cells
(B) Interacting with one another to produce different chemicals
(C) Releasing specific chemical messengers from a plant’s cell walls
(D) Producing the hormones that cause plant cells to differentiate to perform different functions
(E) Influencing the development of a plant’s cells by controlling the expression of the cells’ genes
6. The passage suggests that, unlike the pleiotropic hormones, oligosaccharins could be used effectively to
(A) trace the passage of chemicals through the walls of cells
(B) pinpoint functions of other plant hormones
(C) artificially control specific aspects of the development of crops
(D) alter the complement of genes in the cells of plants
(E) alter the effects of the five major hormones on plant development
7. The author discusses animal hormones primarily in order to
(A) introduce the idea of a hierarchy of hormones
(B) explain the effects that auxin has on plant cells
(C) contrast the functioning of plant hormones and animals hormones
(D) illustrate the way in which particular hormones affect animals
(E) explain the distinction between hormones and regulatory molecules
答案：BDAEECA（答案拖动可见）

starking0410

如果有什么值得改进的地方，可以告诉我！~

xeyyxzty

1'23''1'27''
1'29''
1'32''
1'38''

越障
这种政治类的文章最不喜欢了~~~
这类单词还记不住


就是读了一遍，没过脑~
不总结了~偷个懒

starking0410

刚补完昨天的！！！
今天的又出来了

应该是16 吧

-- by 会员 xeyyxzty (2011/10/28 21:30:01)

已修改

bananazoo

占位~睡觉~
明天回归~好久不来了~诶~

Sophia001

2‘02
2’12
2‘26
2’31

fox0923

1'04"
1'30"
1'27"
1'33"
1'37"

sophia这么晚还在练习呢！好努力！

fox0923

今天的tax越障竟然奇迹般的看懂了，是不是因为没有生词的原因？小开心一下~~
- The US governors debate on the issue of the tax rate reduction and increase.
1. There are two plans, 9-9-9 and 0-0-0. McCain proposed that 9-9-9 is to cut the tax rate to 9% for millionaires, and increase the sales tax for people. 0-0-0 is a flat rate that a republican names S., he proposed that one zero of his three is to cut off the tax rate for manufacture industry.
2. Even though republicans themselves and democrats hold the different opinions, they all agree that the 35% of tax rate is the highest in the world and that the rate should be regulated.
- However, the point of raising the tax rates seem to be the main concern among republicans. Some republicans do claim to raise tax rates of poor, since some of them don't pay the federal tax, but for those who pay tax rates, their state and federal tax rates will become a burden for them.
- Therefore, the republicans are afraid that McCain's 9-9-9 plan will have adverse effect.
- A majority of people agree to raise tax rates of riches making over $1M, and some agree to do so by raising the rates of riches making over $200K. but there's no consensus on this issue.
- Obama's influence
1. Obama proposed to raise tax rate of millionaires when he was elected, and he still holds this proposal, however, he didn't make it happen before the republicans took over the control, and now he has to face all these difficulties made by these republican opponents.
2. Obama will still hold this idea for his next re-election.
- The debate of tax issue has becoming more controversial ever since the Ronald Regon's regime, since it determines the American's future and corporate' welfare.

小狮子要发奋

1‘14
1’38
1‘25
1’54
第五个忘记记了
越障讲的民主党共和党在纳税方面的问题，提到了占领华尔街~~~

xzybx

1'
1'01
1'02
1'23
1'24

越障：6‘46
共和党的候选人纷纷提出减税的要求，或者是反对税率继续上升。大家一致同意，美国现行的35%的税率太高。
C说21世纪的美国税收就是一种奴役制。S认为应该将企业和个人的税率控制在9%，国家的税收收入应该占10%
奥巴马和民主党主张对富人征税，在过去的30年里，富人所占的收入从1%扩大到20%。