题目内容
（请给出正确答案）
An auction catalogue gives prospective buyers ______.
A．the current market values of the goods
B．details of the goods to be sold
C．the order in which goods must be sold
D．free admission to the auction sale
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更多“An auction catalogue gives pro…”相关的问题
What will the woman do during the fair？
A．Play in a band
B．Work at the auction
C．Sell refreshments
A. While
B. If that
C. When
D. Which
Auctions（拍卖) are public sales of goods, conducted by an officially approved auctioneer.
Auctions(拍卖) are public sales of goods, conducted by an officially approved auctioneer. He asked the crowd to gather in the auction room to bid for various items on sale. He encourages buyers to bid higher figures and finally names the highest bidder as the buyer of the goods. This is called “knocking down” the goods, for the bidding ends when the auctioneer bangs a small hammer on a raised platform.
The ancient Romans probably invented sales by auction and the English word comes from the Latin "autic", meaning "increase". The Romans usually sold in this way the spoils taken in war; these sales were called "sub hasta", meaning "under the spear", a spear being stuck in the ground as a signal for a crowd to gather. In England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries goods were often sold "by the candle"; a short candle was lit by the auctioneer and bids could be made while it was burning. Practically all goods can be sold by auction. Among these are coffee, skins, wool, tea, cocoa, furs, fruit, vegetables and wines. Auction sales are also usual for land and property, antique furniture, pictures, rare books, old china and works of art. The auction rooms at Chritie's and Sotheby's in London and New York are world famous.
An auction is usually advertised beforehand with full particulars of the articles to be sold and where and when they can be viewed by the buyers. If the advertisement cannot give full details, catalogues are printed, and each group of goods to be sold together, called a "lot", is usually given a number. The auctioneer need not begin with lot one and continue the numerical order; he may wait until he notices the fact that certain buyers are in the room and then produce the lots they are likely to be interested in. The auctioneer's services are paid for in the form. of a percentage of the price the goods are sold for. The auctioneer therefore has a direct interest in pushing up the bidding.
Auctioned goods are sold（）.
A.for the highest price offered
B.at fixed prices
C.at prices lower than their true value
D.at prices offered by the auctioneer
Museums work constantly to improve their collections and ways of displaying them. All museums are always on the watch for new additions to their collections. Works of art are bought from art dealers and private collectors or at auction (拍卖) sales. Museums also accept gifts and bequests (遗物), but the large museums no longer accept everything that is offered to them. They accept only objects or collections that meet their high standards.
What is to be gained from visiting museums？ Museum exhibits can teach us about the world in which we live--the materials it is made of, the trees and plants that cover it, and the animals that have lived on it since its beginning. We can learn about the activities of man--his history and development and his accomplishments in arts and crafts.
Christie's chairman【27】reporters after the sale, "it's a rare picture." A spokesman for the firm added, "It's fantastic." Not【28】who was at the auction agreed. One commented, "More money【29】sense."
Many people do【30】uneasy that a picture could be auctioned for such an unbelievable sum. They find distasteful the contrast【31】this sort of money and the impoverished life of the painter【32】Van Gogh, once a lay preacher among the miners of Belgium, was more【33】in producing work that dignified labor than he was in selling for a profit. Depressive, poor, unrecognized and【34】suicidal, he remains a romantic figure in the public【35】.
(41)
A．bought
B．sold
C．displayed
D．shown
Passage Four Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage.
In 1854 my great-grandfather, Morris Marable, was sold on an auction block in Georgia for $500. For his white slave master, the sale was just “business as usual.” But to Morris Marable and his heirs, slavery was a crime against our humanity. This pattern of human rights violations against enslaved African-Americans continued under racial segregation for nearly another century.
The fundamental problem of American democracy in the 21st century is the problem of “structural racism” the deep patterns of socio-economic inequality and accumulated disadvantage that are coded by race, and constantly justified in public speeches by both racist stereotypes and white indifference. Do Americans have the capacity and vision to remove these structural barriers that deny democratic rights and opportunities to millions of their fellow citizens？
This country has previously witnessed two great struggles to achieve a truly multicultural democracy.
The First Reconstruction (1865-1877) ended slavery and briefly gave black men voting rights, but gave no meaningful compensation for two centuries of unpaid labor. The promise of “40 acres and a mule (骡子)”was for most blacks a dream deferred (尚未实现的).
The Second Reconstruction (1954-1968), or the modern civil rights movement, ended legal segregation in public accommodations and gave blacks voting rights. But these successes paradoxically obscure the tremendous human costs of historically accumulated disadvantage that remain central to black Americans’ lives.
The disproportionate wealth that most whites enjoy today was first constructed from centuries of unpaid black labor. Many white institutions, including some leading universities, insurance companies and banks, profited from slavery. This pattern of white privilege and black inequality continues today.
Demanding reparations (赔偿) is not just about compensation for slavery and segregation. It is, more important, an educational campaign to highlight the contemporary reality of “racial deficits” of all kinds, the unequal conditions that impact blacks regardless of class. Structural racism’s barriers include “equity inequity.” the absence of black capital formation that is a direct consequence of America’s history. One third of all black households actually have negative net wealth. In 1998 the typical black family’s net wealth was $16,400, less than one fifth that of white families. Black families are denied home loans at twice the rate of whites.
Blacks remain the last hired and first fired during recessions. During the 1990-91 recession, African-Americans suffered disproportionately. At Coca-Cola, 42 percent of employees who lost their jobs were blacks. At Sears, 54 percent were black, Blacks have significantly shorter life spans, in part due to racism in the health establishment. Blacks are statistically less likely than whites to be referred for kidney transplants or early-stage cancer surgery.
36. To the author, the auction of his great-grandfather is a typical example of ________.
A) crime against humanity
B) unfair business transaction
C) racial conflicts in Georgia
D) racial segregation in America
Instant Expert: Mental Health
When the heart breaks down, it beats irregularly or not at all. A bone can chip or snap. But when the complex network of neurons in our brain fails to function normally, the result can be a near-endless variety and combinations of mental illnesses.
It's normal to sometimes be sad, happy, anxious, confused, forgetful or fearful, but when a person's emotions, thoughts or behavior. frequently trouble them, or disrupt their lives, they may be suffering from mental illness. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 450 million people worldwide are affected by mental, neurological or behavioral problems at any time.
However, determining that someone has a mental illness, and which one, is one of the challenges psychiatrists face. One effort to catalogue these afflictions is the "psychiatrists' bible", the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders--the latest edition fills nearly one thousand pages and lists over 400 disorders.
Diversity of disorders
Among the best known and most common mental illnesses is depression-a prolonged, weakening sad- ness, sometimes accompanied by a feeling of hopelessness and thoughts of suicide. Seasonal affective disorder is a type of depression that affects some people in the autumn and winter and is triggered by the disappearing hours of daylight and colder temperatures. In bipolar disorder (双极性障碍), a person changes from depression to episodes of excessive enthusiasm where they are unrealistically confident in their abilities.
Personality disorders are behavior. patterns that are destructive to the person themselves or those around them. In dissociative disorders, someone experiences a sudden change in consciousness or their concept of self. In dissociative amnesia, for example, the result is a loss of part or all of their memories. Samson, the Biblical strongman, may have suffered from the earliest recorded case of antisocial personality disorder.
Anxiety disorders are characterized by powerful feelings of stress and physical signs of fear-sweating, a racing heart-due to some cue in the environment, or for no obvious reason at all. These include post-traumatic (创伤后的) stress disorder, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, anger disorders, hypochondria, social phobia, and other phobias including agoraphobia (open spaces), claustrophobia (small spaces), acrophobia (heights), and arachnophobia (spiders).
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder is among the most common mental illnesses diagnosed in children, affecting their ability to focus and associated with high levels of activity and impulsiveness.
Eating disorders involve an unhealthy relationship to food. A sufferer of anorexia nervosa (神经性厌食症) will strive for thinness to the point of starvation, due to a distorted perception of their bodies and dissatisfaction in their sense of control. They engage in cycles of gorging(feed greedily) themselves and then purging through vomiting or the use of some drugs. Muscle dysmorphia is sometimes thought of as a "reverse" form. of anorexia that affects bodybuilders. Sufferers constantly worry that they are too weak despite being extremely strong.
Enormous cost
Mental illnesses are quite common. As many as one in five people are thought to suffer from mental illness, at least temporarily, each year. Suicide--often the result of untreated mental illness--claims 873000 lives around the world each year. The economic costs of these conditions are also enormous and growing. According to the WHO, depression is expected to account for more lost years of healthy life than any other disease by 2030, except for HIV/AIDS.
Even so, the mentally ill face disgrace and discrimination. Studies find people are reluctant to admit they have at mental illness, to seek help, or to stick with treatment. Others are eager to reject the label of a mental
A．irregularity of heart
B．snapped bones
C．the malfunction of the neural network in brain
D．the malfunction of the brain
One summer day my father sent me to buy some wire and fencing to put around our barn to pen up the bull. At 16, I liked nothing better than getting behind the wheel of our truck and driving into town on the old mill road. Water from the mill's wheel sprayed in the sunshine making a rainbow over the canal and I often stopped there on my way to bathe and cool off for a spell—natural air conditioning. The sun was so hot, I did not need a towel as I was dry by the time I climbed the clay banks and crossed the road ditch to the truck. Just before town, the road shot along the sea where I would collect seashells or gather seaweed beneath the giant crane unloading the ships. This trip was different, though. My father had told me I'd have to ask for credit at the store.
It was 1976, and the ugly shadow of racism was still a fact of life. I'd seen my friends ask for credit and then stand, head down, while a storeowner enquired into whether they were "good for it". Many store clerks watched black youths with the assumption that they were thieves every time they even went into a grocery.
My family was honest. We paid our debts. But just before harvest, all the money flowed out. There were no new deposits at the bank. Cash was short. At Davis Brothers' General Store, Buck Davis stood behind the register, talking to a middle-aged farmer. Buck was a tall, weathered man in a red hunting shirt and I nodded as I passed him on my way to the hardware section to get a container of nails, a coil of binding wire and fencing. I pulled my purchases up to the counter and placed the nails in the tray of the scale, saying carefully, "I need to put this on credit." My brow was moist with nervous sweat and I wiped it away with the back of my arm.
The farmer gave me an amused, cynical look, but Buck's face didn't change. "Sure," he said easily, reaching for his booklet where he kept records for credit. I gave a sigh of relief. "Your daddy is always good for it." He turned to the farmer. "This here is one of James Williams' sons. They broke the mold when they made that man."
The farmer nodded in a neighborly way. I was filled with pride. "James Williams' son." Those three words had opened a door to an adult's respect and trust.
As I heaved the heavy freight into the bed of the truck, I did so with ease, feeling like a stronger man than the one that left the farm that morning. I had discovered that a good name could furnish a capital of good will of great value. Everyone knew what to expect from a Williams: a decent person who kept his word and respected himself too much to do wrong. My great grandfather may have been sold as a slave at auction, but this was not an excuse to do wrong to others. Instead my father believed the only way to honor him was through hard work and respect for all men.
We children—eight brothers and two sisters--could enjoy our good name, unearned, unless and until we did something to lose it. We had an interest in how one another behaved and our own actions as well, lest we destroy the name my father had created. Our good name was and still is the glue that holds our family tight together.
The desire to honor my father's good name spurred me to become the first in our family to go to university. I worked my way through college as a porter at a four-star hotel. Eventually, that good name provided the initiative to start my own successful public relations firm in Washington, D.C．America needs to restore a sense of shame in its neighborhoods. Doing drugs, spending all your money at the liquor store, stealing, or getting a young woman pregnant with no intent to marry her should induce a deep sense of embarrassment. But it doesn't. Nearly one out of three births in America is to a single mother. Many of these children will grow up without the security and guidance they need to become honorable members of society.
Once the social ties and mutual obligations of the family melt away, communities fall apart. While the population has increased only 40 percent since 1960, violent crime in America has increased a staggering 550 percent —and we've become exceedingly used to it. Teen drug use has also risen. In one North Carolina County, police arrested 73 students from 12 secondary schools for dealing drugs, some of them right in the classroom.
Meanwhile, the small signs of civility and respect that hold up civilization are vanishing from schools, stores and streets. Phrases like "yes, ma'am", "no, sir", "thank you" and "please" get a yawn from kids today who are encouraged instead by cursing on television and in music. They simply shrug off the rewards of a good name.
The good name passed on by my father and maintained to this day by my brothers and sisters and me is worth as much now as ever. Even today, when I stop into Buck Davis' shop or my hometown barbershop for a haircut, I am still greeted as James Williams' son. My family's good name did pave the way for me.
