It was a brief, shining moment in Egypt's history--a time of epochal change presided over by a Pharaoh named Akhenaten and his beautiful wife Nefertiti. During his 17-year reign the old gods were cast aside, monotheism was introduced, and the arts liberated from their stifling rigidity. Even Egypt's capital was moved to a new city along the Nile called Akhetaten (modern Amarna). But like Camelot, it was short-lived, and its legacy was buried in the desert sands.

Now Akhenaten's 3,400-year-old world has been brilliantly recalled in an exhibit titled "Pharaohs of the Sun: Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Tutankhamen," which opens this week at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Part of the city's eight-month tribute to ancient Egypt (operas, ballet and an IMAX film), it is a unique assemblage of more than 250 objects from Egypt's 18th dynasty, some of which have languished unseen in storerooms and private collections for decades. They range from larger-than-life statues of Akhenaten to exquisitely sculpted reliefs and dazzling jewelry to such poignant reminders of everyday life as a perfectly preserved child's sandal.

The exhibit illuminates a murky period in Egyptian history that curator Rita Freed describes as having "all the elements of a soap opera." When Amenhotep IV, as he was originally called, ascended the throne in 1353 B.C., Egypt was a flourishing empire, at peace with its neighbors. Yet there were troubling signs. His father Amenhotep III had already challenged the powerful priesthood by proclaiming the sun god Aten as foremost among Egyptian deities and himself as his living incarnation.

His son shook things up even more, not only changing his name to honor the new god (Akhenaten means "one who serves Aten") but also banishing the older gods, especially the priestly favorite Amen. Some scholars believe Akhenaten's monotheism, a historic first, inspired the Hebrew prophets, but it had the more immediate effect of freeing Egypt's artists. They could now portray the Pharaoh and the voluptuous Nefertiti (who may have shared the throne with him) in a far more casual, realistic way. Akhenaten's cone-shaped head, elongated face, fingers and toes, pot belly and flaring hips have led some scholars to suggest that he had hydrocephalus or Marfan's syndrome.

He was certainly a revolutionary, propelled either by madness or by great vision. Still, his changes did not endure. After his death, his son-in-law (and perhaps son) Tutankhamen moved the political and religious capitals back to Memphis and Thebes respectively and reinstated the old gods. Egyptian art returned to its classic, ritualized style. And like Camelot, Akhenaten's once bustling capital became only a mythic memory. "Pharaohs of the Sun" will remain in Boston until February, then travel to Los Angeles, Chicago and Leiden, the Netherlands.

[HJQ=550,923]326[/HJQ]

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难句突破
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温馨提示：
1.谢绝灌水！谢绝二次编帖！做不出答案，也要写答案！
2.答题时请隐藏答案 —— 只需在“所以回复人可见“打勾，方便回答了问题的朋友讨论。
3.积极参与学习者， 有沪元奖励哦！

注：本节目阅读理解材料选自《新东方考研英语阅读理解精读100篇》

论坛帖子:http://www.hjbbs.com/dispbbs.asp?boardID=20&ID=371134

做题技巧：
大家在阅读文章第一遍时，应该首先把握住文章的核心内容和每段的核心内容。
做题时，找到该题对应的原句，然后结合原句所属的段落大意，找到正确答案。

Some of the concerns surrounding Turkey’s application to join the European Union, to be voted on by the EU’s Council of Ministers on December 17th, are economic-in particular, the country’s relative poverty. Its GDP per head is less than a third of the average for the 15 pre-2004 members of the EU. But it is not far off that of one of the ten new members which joined on May 1st 2004 (Latvia), and it is much the same as those of two countries, Bulgaria and Romania, which this week concluded accession talks with the EU that could make them full members on January 1st 2007.
Furthermore, the country’s recent economic progress has been, according to Donald Johnston, the secretary-general of the OECD, "stunning". GDP in the second quarter of the year was 13.4% higher than a year earlier, a rate of growth that no EU country comes close to matching. Turkey’s inflation rate has just fallen into single figures for the first time since 1972, and this week the country reached agreement with the IMF on a new three-year, $10 billion economic programme that will, according to the IMF’s managing director, Rodrigo Rato, "help Turkey... reduce inflation toward European levels, and enhance the economy’s resilience".

Resilience has not historically been the country’s economic strong point. As recently as 2001, GDP fell by over 7%. It fell by more than 5% in 1994, and by just under 5% in 1999. Indeed, throughout the 1990s growth oscillated like an electrocardiogram recording a violent heart attack. This irregularity has been one of the main reasons (along with red tape and corruption) why the country has failed dismally to attract much-needed foreign direct investment. Its stock of such investment (as a percentage of GDP) is lower now than it was in the 1980s, and annual inflows have scarcely ever reached $1 billion (whereas Ireland attracted over $25 billion in 2003, as did Brazil in every year from 1998 to 2000).

One deterrent to foreign investors is due to disappear on January 1st 2005. On that day, Turkey will take away the right of virtually every one of its citizens to call themselves a millionaire. Six noughts will be removed from the face value of the lira; one unit of the local currency will henceforth be worth what 1m are now-ie, about €0.53 ($0.70). Goods will have to be priced in both the new and old lira for the whole of the year, but foreign bankers and investors can begin to look forward to a time in Turkey when they will no longer have to juggle mentally with indeterminate strings of zeros.

1.What is Turkey’s economic situation now?（模仿2004年真题text 1第1题）

A.Its GDP per head is far lagging behind that of the EU members.
B.Its inflation rate is still rising.
C.Its economy grows faster than any EU member.
D.Its economic resilience is very strong.

2.We can infer from the second paragraph that__________.（模仿2001年真题text 1第2题）

A.Turkey will soon catch the average GDP level of the 15 pre-2004 EU members
B.inflation rate in Turkey used to be very high
C.Turkey’s economy will keep growing at present rate
D.IMF’s economic program will help Turkey join the EU

3.The word “oscillated” (Line 3, Paragraph 3) most probably means_________.（模仿2004年真题text 1第3题）

A.fell
B.climbed
C.developed
D.swang

4.Speaking of Turkey’s foreign direct investment, the author implies that_________.（模仿1999年真题text 2第2题）

A.it’s stock is far less than that of other countries
B.it does not have much influence on Turkey’s economic progress
C.steady GDP growth will help Turkey attract more foreign direct investment
D.Turkey’s economic resilience relies on foreign direct investment

5.We can draw a conclusion from the text that__________.（模仿2002年真题text 3第4题）

A.foreign investment environment in Turkey will become better
B.Turkey’s citizens will suffer heavy loss due to the change of the face value of the lira
C.the local currency will depreciate with the removal of six noughts from the face value
D.prices of goods will go up

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难句突破
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温馨提示：
1.谢绝灌水！谢绝二次编帖！选不出答案，也要写答案！
2.答题时请隐藏答案 —— 只需在“回复只有楼主可见“打勾，方便回答了问题的朋友讨论。
3.积极参与学习者， 有沪元奖励哦！

注：本节目阅读理解材料选自《新东方考研英语阅读理解精读100篇》

The Prospects for Cancer Treatment

（1994.4）

①“I have great confidence that by the end of the decade we’ll know in vast detail how cancer cells arise,” says microbiologist Robert Weinberg, and expert on cancer. “But,” he cautions, “some people have the idea that once one understands the causes, the cure will rapidly follow. Consider Pasteur. He discovered the causes of many kinds of infections, but it was fifty of sixty years before cures were available.”

This year, 50 percent of the 910,000 people who suffer from cancer will survive at least five years. In the year 2000, the National Cancer Institute estimates, that figure will be 75 percent. For some skin cancers, the five-year survival rate is as high as 90 percent. But other survival statistics are still discouraging – 13 percent for lung cancer, and 2 percent for cancer of the pancreas.

With as many as 120 varieties in existence, discovering how cancer works is not easy. The researchers made great progress in the early 1970s, When they discovered that oncogenes, which are cancer-causing genes, are inactive in normal cells. Anything from cosmic rays to radiation to diet may activate a dormant oncogene, but how remains unknown. If several oncogenes are driven into action, the cell, unable to turn them off, becomes cancerous.

The exact mechanisms involved are still mysterious, but the likelihood that many cancers are initiated at the level of genes suggests that we will never prevent all cancers. “Changes are a normal part of the evolutionary process,” says oncologist William Hayward. Environmental factors can never be totally eliminated; as Hayward points out, “We can’t prepare a medicine against cosmic rays.”

②The prospects for cure, though still distant, are brighter.

“First, we need to understand how the normal cell controls itself. Second, we have to determine whether there are a limited number of genes in cells which are always responsible for at least part of the trouble. If we can understand how cancer works, we can counteract its action.”

名人名言：
________________________________________________________

Life is compared to voyage

Look before you leap, for snake among sweet flower do creep

A good conscience is a soft pillow

Time is like the water in sponge; if you squeeze, you can always get some.

Distance is naught while heart with heart can meet.

翻译句子
________________________________________________________

①“I have great confidence that by the end of the decade we’ll know in vast detail how cancer cells arise,”

我非常有信心，十年以后，我们会对癌细胞的产生有更多的了解。

②The prospects for cure, though still distant, are brighter.

治疗前景，尽管很遥远，但是很光明。

Google ready to test rival to Ebay’s Paypal

谷歌拟推出Gbuy网络支付系统

Shares in Ebay fell almost 4 per cent yesterday amid speculation that Google, the world’s biggest search engine group, is set to unveil a test version of a new online payment system to rival PayPal, the online auction site’s lucrative payment system.

 eBay股价昨日下跌近4%，因为人们猜测，全球最大的搜索引擎公司谷歌(Google)即将公布一款新型网络支付系统的测试版，与在线拍卖网站eBay利润颇丰的支付系统PayPal展开竞争。

The move, which has been expected for months, comes at a time of upheaval in the sector as the world’s biggest internet companies adjust their strategies to better compete with Google.

市场对谷歌推出新型支付系统的预期已有数月之久，此举恰逢该行业剧变，全球一些最大的互联网公司纷纷调整战略，以便更好地与谷歌竞争。

The payment service, called Gbuy, would mark Google’s latest expansion into businesses traditionally dominated by companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo and Ebay.

这项名为Gbuy的支付服务，标志着谷歌最新的业务扩张，进入传统上由微软(Microsoft)、雅虎(Yahoo)和Ebay等企业主导的领域。

注释：

lucrative adj.有利的

version n.版本

upheaval n.剧变

Is It Safe to Buy Online?

Is it safe to buy online? This is one of the most common questions I hear from new visitors to the World Wide Wed.

Sure, there are a lot of tempting goods for sale online. But electronic commerce (ecommoerce) is so new that most people have yet to try it. According to Forrester Research, only 10% of us bought online last year.

That first online purchase can be intimidating. Will my credit card be protected from hackers? Fortunately, online shopping is actually very safe.

Password Protection: If you shop using any up-to-date Internet browser like Microsoft’s Internet Explorer of America Online, your credit card number is well protected. Each shopping site will ask you to create a unique user name and password to identify yourself. ①Use some numbers and punctuation makes in your password to foil attempts to guess your password.

Encryption Security: Your browser scrambles important data before sending it. This “encryption” is so hard to crack that the government doesn’t allow the strongest encryption to be sold overseas. You can tell that your data has been protected, because the browser puts a small image of a key or lock in the lower corner. It will also pop up a reminder that you have just entered a secure connection. When you finally send your credit card number out into cyberspace, only the site where you are shopping has the key to unscramble it.

Government Guarantee: Even if your credit card number falls into the wrong hands, you are still protected by the Fair Credit Billing Act. Your credit card company cannot charge you any more than $50 of an illicit purchase made with your card (as long as you report the incorrect billing within 60 days). You also don’t have to pay while the credit card company investigates. And now, most major credit card companies tell me they have changed their policies so you don’t have to pay that & 50, even if you report a bogus charge months or years later.

Go ahead. Give it a try. You might just like it.

名人名言：
________________________________________________________

②Repentance is good, but innocence is better.

Many lords, many laws.

③Beauty, unaccompanied by virtue, is as a flower without perfume.

Suspicion is the poison of friendship.

Books are the ever-burning lamps of accumulated wisdom.

翻译句子
________________________________________________________

①    Use some numbers and punctuation makes in your password to foil attempts to guess your password.

在你的密码中加入一些数字和标点，可以防止被人猜出密码。

②Repentance is good, but innocence is better.

及时悔过很好，但保持清白更好。

③Beauty, unaccompanied by virtue, is as a flower without perfume.

有美德的人没有追随者，就像美丽的花没有香味。

Indian bill to impose regulation on media

印度拟立法监管传媒

India’s politically influential media empires will be forced to restructure under proposed legislation designed to cut down to size the country’s broadcasting monopolies.

根据一项拟议的法律，印度有政治影响力的传媒帝国将被迫重组。这部立法旨在削弱该国广播行业垄断者的规模。

The bill, a copy of which has been obtained by the Financial Times, will for the first time place the fast-growing broadcasting industry within a regulatory framework.

 《金融时报》已获得这部法律议案的副本，该法案将首次把迅速发展的广播行业置于监管框架之中。

The bill is aimed mainly at domestic media giants. However, it contains mandatory conditions for local programming that will also affect foreign broadcasters such as Sony and Star, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and the biggest foreign broadcaster in India.

议案主要针对国内传媒巨头。但是，有关本国节目的强制条件，同样会影响索尼(Sony)和星空(Star)等外国广播公司。星空属于鲁珀特·默多克(Rupert Murdoch)的新闻集团(News Corp)，也是印度最大的外国广播公司。

注释：

bill vi.宣布

mandatory adj.强制的

Don’t Try to Clone Humans

（1999.4）

When a Scottish research team startled the world by revealing 3 months ago that it had cloned an adult sheep, President Clinton moved swiftly. Declaring that he was opposed to using this unusual animal husbandry technique to clone humans, he ordered that federal funds not be used for such an experiment – although no one had proposed to do so – and asked an independent panel of experts chaired by Princeton President Harold Shapiro to report back to the White House in 90 days with recommendations for a national policy on human cloning. ①That group – the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) – has been working feverishly to put its wisdom on paper, and at a meeting on 17 May, members agreed on a near-final draft of their recommendations.

NABC will ask that Clinton’s 90-day ban on federal funds for human cloning be extended indefinitely, and possibly that it be made law. But NBAC members are planning to word the recommendation narrowly to avoid new restrictions on research that involves the cloning of human DNA or cells – routine in molecular biology. The panel has not yet reached agreement on a crucial question, however, whether to recommend legislation that would make it a crime for private funding to be used for human cloning.

In a draft preface to the recommendations, discussed at the 17 May meeting, Shapiro suggested that the panel had found a broad consensus that it would be “morally unacceptable to attempt to create a human child by adult nuclear cloning.” Shapiro explained during the meeting that the moral doubt stems mainly from fears about the risk to the health of the child. The panel then informally accepted several general conclusions, although some details have not been settled.

NBAC plans to call for a continued ban on federal government funding for any attempt to clone body cell nuclei to create a child. Because current federal law already forbids the use of federal funds to create embryos (the earliest stage of human offspring before birth) for research of to knowingly endanger an embryo’s life, NBAC will remain silent on embryo research.

NBAC members also indicated that they will appeal to privately funded researchers and clinics not to try to clone humans by body cell nuclear transfer. ②But they were divided on whether to go further by calling for a federal law that would impose a complete ban on human cloning. Shapiro and most members favored an appeal for such legislation, but in a phone interview, he said this issue was still “up in the air”

翻译句子
________________________________________________________

①    That group has been working feverishly to put its wisdom on paper,

那个小组努力的工作，将他们的观点写成论文。

②    But they were divided on whether to go further by calling for a federal law that would impose a complete ban on human cloning.

但是，他们对于是否进一步要求制定一条联邦法律来强制禁止人类克隆的问题上有分歧。

Oil and gas groups trail in wake of hurricane damage

美能源公司仍未修复去年飓风造成的损坏

Oil and gas companies are still scrambling to repair billions of dollars worth of hurricane-related damage to Gulf of Mexico energy infrastructure, even as this year’s hurricane season gets under way.

尽管今年的飓风季已经拉开序幕，但美国的石油和天然气企业仍在忙着修复去年的飓风对墨西哥湾能源基础设施造成的破坏，这些破坏带来的损失高达几百亿美元。

Last season's triple hit – from hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma – cost the industry an estimated $31bn in damage, some of which will never be fixed. Chevron, for example, recently sank its Typhoon platform instead of investing in costly repairs.

上个飓风季的三场飓风——卡特里娜(Katrina)、丽塔(Rita)和威尔玛(Wilma)——给该行业带来估计高达310亿美元的破坏，其中有些破坏永远无法修复。例如，雪佛龙公司(Chevron)最近沉没了它的“台风号”(Typhoon)钻井平台，放弃对它进行成本高昂的修复。

It could take years to restore all the production companies plan to bring back online.

各家公司可能需要数年时间，才能完全恢复产能。

注释：

sink vt.使下沉

There is More We Can Do

After last week’s deadly shootings, President Clinton provided written answers to questions from NEWSWEEK’S Debra Rosenberg.

NEWSWEEK: Why not register all guns?

CLINTON: We have licenses for driving and for hunting; I think we should have them too for buying new handguns. Under my plan, new handgun purchasers would first have to get a state-issued photo license showing that they passed the Brady background check and a gun-safety training requirement.

NEWSWEEK: Is there any chance Congress will pass your plan this year?

CLINTON: It’s always tough to break the stranglehold the gun lobby has on the leaders of this Congress. But we’ve taken on the gun lobby before and won. The Brady Law is a great example.

NEWSWEEK: In 1998 you celebrated the fact that several major gun companies agreed to ship guns with safety locks. But now this doesn’t seem to be enough. What do you say to those who see your efforts as the first step toward an outright ban on gun ownership?

CLINTON: I applaud the responsible leaders in the gun industry who agreed to ship guns with child safety locks, but there is clearly more we can do. I fired my first 22 when I was just a boy. I grew up in a state where half the people have a hunting of fishing license. This isn’t about infringing on the ability of hunters and sportsman to get their firearms. It’s about saving lives. Some say that no law could have kept this handgun out of a 6-year-old’s hands. We can never know if any one proposal could have prevented these tragedies. I’ve proposed $ 10 million fund the development and expansion of “smart gun” technology that can limit a gun’s use to the proper adult owner. ①I’ve offered legislation to punish adults who recklessly let children have access to deadly weapons. A dozen children a day are killed by gunfire.

NEWSWEEK: What else can Americans do to end the sort of violent episodes that we witnessed last week?

CLINTON: Last week’s deadly incidents differed in many ways, but they shared one key element: guns in the wrong hands. So Congress can do its part by sending me commonsense legislation that can help keep guns away from criminals, children and others who should not have them. The media and entertainment industries can help change a culture that too often glorifies violence. ②And most fundamentally, parents can talk to their children, teach them to resolve their conflicts peacefully, raise them with the right values. In spite of last week’s awful events, I still believe we can make this the safest big country in the world.

翻译句子
________________________________________________________

①    I’ve offered legislation to punish adults who recklessly let children have access to deadly weapons.

我已经出台了惩罚成年人鲁莽的让孩子接近致命武器的法案。

②    And most fundamentally, parents can talk to their children, teach them to resolve their conflicts peacefully, raise them with the right values.

最根本的，家长应该教育他的孩子，用和平方式来处理冲突，为他们树立正确的价值观。

All parties in serious attempt to complete the Doha round

各方为多哈回合谈判“付出最后努力”

The troubled Doha round of global trade talks is witnessing the most serious attempt yet by the European Union, the US and developing countries to reach compromise on the contentious issues of farm trade that have brought it close to collapse.

在陷入困境的多哈回合全球贸易谈判中，欧盟(EU)、美国和发展中国家正在作出迄今为止最认真的一次努力，希望就有争议的农产品贸易问题达成妥协。这些问题已使多哈回合谈判濒临破裂的边缘。

Ahead of a crucial meeting of trade ministers at the World Trade Organisation in Geneva next week, President George W. Bush’s signal of strong political support for the talks has raised hopes the US will accept more constraints on its farm subsidies and moderate demands for access to foreign agricultural markets.

在世界贸易组织(WTO)下周于日内瓦举行至关重要的贸易部长会议之前，美国总统布什(George W. Bush)对谈判表示出的强有力的政治支持，加大了人们的希望，即美国也许将接受对其农产品补贴的更多限制，并降低进入外国农业市场的要求。

At this stage negotiators stressed they remained far apart and it was still far from clear a deal could be done. A first draft of a final agriculture agreement circulated yesterday by Crawford Falconer, the New Zealander who chairs the farm talks, contained 760 pairs of square brackets where consensus had yet to been reached – almost twice as many as the equivalent draft in the run-up to the disastrous Seattle WTO meeting in 1999.

在目前阶段，谈判各方强调，他们的分歧仍然很大，能否达成协议，前景仍很不明朗。农业谈判小组主席、新西兰的克劳福德·法尔科内(Crawford Falconer)昨日分发了最终农业协议的首份草案，其中尚未达成一致、用方括号括起来的地方达到760处，几乎达到1999年糟糕的西雅图世贸组织会议预备阶段同类草案的两倍。

But a spokesman for Peter Mandelson, EU trade commissioner, said Mr Mandelson had been impressed with Mr Bush’s determination during the EU-US summit this week to get a deal done.

但欧盟贸易专员彼得·曼德尔森(Peter Mandelson)的发言人表示，在本周欧美峰会期间，布什总统表示出的达成协议的决心，给曼德尔森留下了深刻印象。

Pascal Lamy, director-general of the WTO, said big emerging markets such as Brazil had shown a willingness to reduce tariff protection for their manufacturers, while the EU had signalled it could accept bigger cuts in farm tariffs than its initial bid of 39 per cent.

世贸组织总干事帕斯卡·拉米(Pascal Lamy)表示，巴西等大型新兴市场已表示愿意降低对制造商的关税保护，而欧盟也表示，可以接受较最初提出的39%更大幅度的农业关税削减。

“We have got political signals of flexibility on three sides of the triangle but more precision about exactly how much flexibility on two of those sides than the third,” he said. “We are now all waiting to see if the words of Mr Bush will be reflected in the US position at the negotiations.”

 “三角关系中的三方均已发出了可灵活变通的政治信号，其中两方比另一方更明确地说明了灵活的程度，”他说。“我们目前都在观望，布什总统的话是否会反映在美国的谈判立场中。”

“You don’t get a convergence unless people converge,” said a senior US trade official yesterday. “Everybody needs to move and we recognise that.”

 “除非开会的人聚在一起开会，否则无法达成一致，”美国一位高层贸易官员昨日表示。“每个人都需要采取行动，我们承认这一点。”

Mr Lamy said a compromise 54 per cent cut in average farm tariffs proposed by the group of 20 developing countries would provide a “landing zone” for the final deal.

拉米表示，20国集团(G20)提出的将农业关税平均削减54%的折衷方案，将为最终协议提供一个“着陆区”。

 注释：

contentious adj.有争议的

subsidy n.补助金, 津贴

constraint n.约束

signall v.以信号告知