The commission has to determine if it would discourage competition for companies to only dish up data for corporate networks.

Credit, in commerce and finance, term used to denote transactions involving the transfer of money or other property on promise of repayment, usually at a fixed future date. The transferor thereby becomes a creditor, and the transferee, a debtor; hence credit and debt are simply terms describing the same operation viewed from opposite standpoints.

The principal classes of credit are as follows: (1) mercantile or commercial credit, which merchants extend to one another to finance production and distribution of goods; (2) investment credit, used by business firms to finance the acquisition of plant and equipment and represented by corporate bonds, long-term notes, and other proofs of indebted ness; (3) bank credit, consisting of the deposits, loans, and discounts of depository institutions; (4) consumer or personal credit, which comprises advances made to individuals to enable them to meet expenses or to purchase, on a deferred payment basis, goods or service for personal consumption; (5) real-estate credit, composed of loans secured by land and buildings; (6) public or government credit, represented by the bond issues of national, state, and municipal governments; and (7) international credit, which is extended to particular governments by other governments, by the nationals of foreign countries, or by international banking institutions, such as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The principal function of credit is to transfer property from those who own it to those who wish to use it, as in the granting of loans by banks to individuals who plan to initiate or expand a business venture. The transfer is temporary and is made for a price, known as interest, which varies with the risk involved and also with the demand for, and supply of, credit.

Credit transactions have been indispensable to the economic development of the modern world. Credit puts to use property that would otherwise lie idle, thus enabling a country to more fully employ its resources. One of the most significant differences between some nations of Africa, Asia, and South America and the advanced Western nations is the extent to which the use of credit permits the latter to keep their savings continuously at work. The presence of credit institutions rests on the readiness of people to trust one another and of courts to enforce business contracts. The lack of adequate credit facilities makes it natural and necessary for inhabitants of developing countries to hoard their savings instead of putting them to productive and profitable use. Without credit, the tremendous investments required for the development of the large-scale enterprise on which the high riving standards of the West are based would have been impossible.

The use of credit also makes feasible the performance of the complex operations involved in modern business with out the constant handling of money. Credit operations are carried out by means of documents known as credit instruments, which include bills of exchange, money orders, checks, drafts, promissory notes, and bonds. These instruments are usually negotiable; they may legally be transferred in the same way as money. When the party issuing the instrument desires to prevent its use by anyone other than the party to whom it is issued, he or she may do so by inscribing the words ,not negotiable" on the instrument.

Creditors sometimes require no other assurance of repayment than the debtor's credit standing, that is, one's record of honesty in fulfilling financial obligations and one's current ability to fulfill similar obligations. Sometimes more tangible security, such as the guarantee of a third party, is required. Also, the debtor may be obliged to assign the rights to some other property, which is at least equal in value to the loan, as collateral security for payment. Bonds placed on sale by a corpotation are often secured by a mortgage on the corporation's property or so

A．hire

B．save up

C．put aside

D．store

Medical consumerism -- like all sorts of consumerism, only more menacingly -- is designed to be unsatisfying. The prolongation of life and the search for perfect health (beauty, youth, happiness) are inherently self-defeating. The law of diminishing returns necessarily applies. You can make higher percentages of people survive into their eighties and nineties. But, as any geriatric ward shows, that is not the same as to confer enduring mobility, awareness and autonomy. Extending life grows medically feasible, but it is often a life deprived of everything, and one exposed to degrading neglect as resources grow over-stretched and politics turn mean.

What an ignominious destiny for medicine if its future turned into one of bestowing meagre increments of unenjoyed life! It would mirror the fate of athletics, in which disproportionate energies and resources -- not least medical ones, like illegal steroids -- are now invested to shave records by milliseconds. And, it goes without saying, the logical extension of longevism -- the "abolition" of death -- would not be a solution but only an exacerbation. To air these predicaments is not anti-medical spleen, but simply to face the growing reality of medical power not exactly without responsibility but with dissolving goals.

Hence medicine's finest hour becomes the dawn of its dilemmas. For centuries, medicine was impotent and hence unproblematic. 'From the Greeks to the Great War, its job was simple: to struggle with lethal diseases and gross disabilities, to ensure live births, and to manage pain. It performed these uncontroversial tasks by and large with meagre success. Today, with mission accomplished, medicine's triumphs are dissolving in disorientation. Medicine has led to vastly inflated expectations, which the public has eagerly swallowed. Yet as these expectations grow unlimited, they become unfulfillable. The task facing medicine in the twenty-first century will be to redefine its limits even as it extends its capacities.

In the author's opinion, the prolongation of life is equal to

A．mobility.

B．deprivation.

C．autonomy.

D．awareness.

1 Medical consumerism — like all sorts of consumerism, only more menacingly — is designed to be unsatisfying. The prolongation of life and the search for perfect health (beauty, youth, happiness) are inherently self-defeating. The law of diminishing returns necessarily applies. You can make higher percentages of people survive into their eighties and nineties. But, as any geriatric ward shows that is not the same as to confer enduring mobility, awareness and autonomy. Extending life grows medically feasible, but it is often a life deprived of everything, and one exposed to degrading neglect as resources grow over- stretched and politics turn mean.

2 What an ignominious destiny for medicine if its future turned into one of bestowing meagre increments of unenjoyed life! It would mirror the fate of athletics, in which disproportionate energies and resources — not least medical ones, like illegal steroids — are now invested to shave records by milliseconds. And, it goes without saying, the logical extension of longevism — the "abolition" of death — would not be a solution but only an exacerbation. To air these predicaments is not anti-medical spleen — a churlish reprisal against medicine for its victories — but simply to face the growing reality of medical power not exactly without responsibility but with dissolving goals.

3 Hence medicine's finest hour becomes the dawn of its dilemmas. For centuries, medicine was impotent and hence unproblematic. From the Greeks to the Great War, its job was simple, to struggle with lethal diseases and gross disabilities, to ensure live births, and to manage pain. It performed these uncontroversial tasks by and large with meagre success. Today, with mission accomplished, medicine's triumphs are dissolving in disorientation. Medicine has led to vastly inflated expectations, which the public has eagerly swallowed. Yet as these expectations grow unlimited, they become unfulfillable. The task facing medicine in the twenty-first century will be to redefine its limits even as it extends its capacities.

In the author's opinion, the prolongation of life is equal to

A．mobility.

B．deprivation.

C．autonomy.

D．awareness.

Mr. Chairman, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I should like, first of all, to once again thank the Norwegian Nobel Committee for the award they have made to the United Nations Peace-Keeping Operations. Their decision has been acclaimed all over the world. I take this opportunity also to express once again my deep gratitude to the countries, which have contributed troops or provided logistical support to these operations. It is to their willing cooperation that we owe the success of this great experiment in conflict control.

Peace--the word evokes the simplest and most cherished dream of humanity. Peace is, and has always been, the ultimate human aspiration. And yet our history shows that while we speak incessantly of peace, our actions tell a very different story. Peace is an easy word to say in any language. As Secretary-General of the United Nations, I hear it so frequently from so many different mouths and different sources, that it sometimes seems to me to be a general incantation more or less deprived of practical meaning.

What do we really mean by peace? Human nature being what it is, peace must inevitably be a relative condition. The essence of life is struggle and competition, and to the extent perfect peace is an almost meaningless abstraction. Struggle and competition are stimulating, but when they degenerate into conflict they are usually both destructive and disruptive. The aim of political institutions like the UN is to draw the line between struggle and conflict and to make it possible for nations to stay on the right side of the line. Peace-keeping operations are one very practical means of doing this.

What we are trying to create in the LIN is a world where nations recognize at the same time the ultimate futility of war and the collective responsibility that men and women everywhere share for ensuring a decent future. All human experience seems to show that in international, as in national, affairs, rule of law is an essential objective for any society wishing to survive in reasonable conditions. We now recognize that all humanity--the whole population of this planet--has in many respects become, through the revolutionary force of technological and other changes, a single society. The evolution of international law and international authority may well be decisive in determining whether this global society is going to survive in reasonable conditions. In a larger perspective, we must work towards a time when war will cease to be an acceptable option of national policy or a possible means of settling disputes, and when a reliable international system will take its place. From this perspective, the development of international peacekeeping has an essential place, just as the concept of a civil police was essential to the development of rule of law within nation states. I hope that the attention now being given to peacekeeping, which is symbolized by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize, will not only strengthen our capacity to conduct the affairs of nations but also stimulate a wider effort to consider the new means and the new institutions needed to ensure a better common future. Thank you.

听力原文：W: I was talking to one of my teachers today, lie thinks I'm university material.

M: Does he? And how do you feel about that?

W: Well, I'm not quite sure. Perhaps I'm not good enough.

M: What makes you say that?

W: Oh, it's just that the universities are setting their entrance requirements higher and higher. There is a tremendous amount of competition to get in.

M: Hmm. You've got a very good chance of getting them, haven't you?

W: I'll need at least three A-levels. And that will take another two years at school.

M: But it would be worth it, wouldn't it?

W: I just don't know. Sometimes I think it would be better ff I left school this summer and got some kind of job. ~ all, I can't expect you and mum to support me for the rest of my life, can I?

M: Look, don't worry about money. Your mother and I are both earning enough. Just think of your future instead.

W: But that's what I am thinking of. And I just don't know ff I want to spend the rest of my life studying.

M: It isn't the test of your life. It's just another five years. Two years for your A-levels. And then, with any luck, after another three years at university, you'd get a degree.

W: Well, thanks for your encouragement, Dad. But I'm still not sure.

What is the daughter's attitude towards going to university?

A．She is very keen on going to university.

B．She thinks she is university material.

C．She thinks it too competitive to go to university.

D．She thinks it quite easy to go to university.

Football

Football is, I suppose, the most popular game in England: one has only to go to one of the important matches to see this. Rich and poor, young and old, one can see them all there, shouting and cheering for one side or the other.

One of the most surprising things about football in England to a stranger is the great knowledge of the game which even the smallest boy seems to have. He can tell you the names of the players in most of the important teams. He has photographs of them and knows the results of a large number of matches. He will tell you, with a great air of authority, who he expects will win such and such a match, and his opinion is usually as valuable as that of men three or four times his age.

Most schools in England take football seriously--much more seriously than nearly all European schools, where lessons are all-important (至关重要的), and games are left for private arrangements. In England, it is believed that education is not only a matter of filling a boy's mind with facts in a classroom; education also means character training. One of the best ways of training character is by means of games, especially team games, where the boy has to learn to work with others for his team, instead of working selfishly(自私的) for himself alone. The school therefore arranges games and matches for its pupils. Football is a good team game, it is good exercise for the body, it needs skill and a quick brain, it is popular and it is cheap. As a result, it is the school's favorite game in the winter.

In England football is a game enjoyed ______.

A．only by young people

B．only by rich people

C．only by boys

D．by people of all ages and classes