Perhaps only a small boy trained to be a wizard at the -找考题网

Perhaps only a small boy trained to be a wizard at the Hogwarts School of Magic could cast a spell so powerful as to create the biggest book launch ever. Wherever in the World the clock strikes midnight on June 20th, his followers will flock to get their paws on one of more than 10m copies of 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'. Bookshops will open in the middle of the night and delivery firms are drafting in extra staff and bigger trucks. Related toys, games, DVDs and other merchandise will be everywherE.There will be no escaping Potter maniA.
Yet Mr. Potter's world is a curious one, in which things are often not what they appear. While an excitable media (hereby including The Economist, happy to support such a fine example of globalization) is helping to hype the launch of J.K. Rowling's fifth novel, about the most adventurous thing that the publishers have organized is a reading by Ms. Rowling in London's Royal Albert Hall, to be broadcast as a live web cast.
Hollywood, which owns everything else to do with Harry Potter, says it is doing even less. Incredible as it may seem, the guardians of the brand say that, to protect the Potter franchise, they are trying to maintain a low profilE.Well, relatively low.
Ms. Rowling signed a contract in 1998 with Warner Brothers, part of AOL Time Warner, giving the studio exclusive film, licensing and merchandising rights in return for what now appears to have been a steal: some $500,000. Warner licenses other firms to produce goods using Harry Potter characters or images, from which Ms. Rowling gets a big enough cut that she is now wealthier than the queen—if you believe Britain's Sunday Times rich list. The process is self-generating: each book sets the stage for a film, which boosts book sales, which lifts sales of Potter products.
Globally, the first four Harry Potter books have sold some 200m copies in 55 languages; the two movies have grossed over $1.8 billion at the box officE.
This is a stunning success by any measure, especially as Ms Rowling has long demanded that Harry Potter should not be over-commercializeD.In line with her wishes, Warner says it is being extraordinarily careful, at least by Hollywood standards, about what it licenses and to whom. It imposed tough conditions on Coca-Cola,. insisting that no Harry Potter images should appear on cans, and is now in the process of making its licensing programmed even more restrictivE.Coke may soon be considered too mass market to carry the brand at all.
The deal with Warner ties much of the merchandising to the films alonE.There are no officially sanctioned products relating to 'Order of the Phoenix'; nor yet for 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban', the film of the third book, which is due out in June 2004. Warner agrees that Ms. Rowling's creation is a different sort of commercial property, one with long-term potential that could be damaged by a typical Hollywood marketing blitz, says Diane Nelson, the studio's global brand manager for Harry Potter. It is vital, she adds, that with more to come, readers of the books are not alienateD.'The evidence from our market research is that enthusiasm for the property by fans is not warning'.
When the author says 'there will be no escaping Potter mania', he implies that _____.
A.Harry Potter's appeal for the readers is simply irresistiblE.
B.it is somewhat irrational to be so crazy about the magic boy.
C.craze about Harry Potter will not be over in the near futurE.
D.Hogwarts school of magic will be the biggest attraction world over.

A.B.K.
C.
D.
E.
F.8
G.
H.
I.
When
J.
A.Harry
K.
B.it
L.
C.craze
M.
D.Hogwarts

【参考答案】

A
解析：句意题。第一段描述了波特迷们的世界性狂热。

未分类题Humans are forever forgetting that they can't control naturE.Exactly 20 years ago, a Time magazine cover story announced that 'scientists are on the verge of being able to predict the time, place, and even the size of earthquakes.' The people of the quake-hit area, Kobe learned last week how wrong that the claim was.None of the methods worked out two decades ago can give a uniform. warning before the quakes, let alone discover any sign that would tell whether the coming earthquake is mild or a killer. Earthquake formation can be triggered by many factors, says Hiroo Kanamori, an expert at the California Institute of Technology. So, finding one all-purpose warning sign is impossiblE.One reason is that earthquakes start deep in the earth, so scientists can't study them directly. If a quake precursor were found, it would still be impossible to warn humans in advance of all dangerous quakes. Places like Japan and California are full of hundreds, if not thousands, of minor faults.Prediction would be less important if scientists could easily build structures to withstand tremors. While the science has improved dramatically in the past 10 to 15 years, every new quake reveals unexpected weakness in quake-resistant structures, says Terry Tullis, a geophysicist at Brown University.In Kobe, for example, a highway that opened only last year was damageD.In the Northridge earthquake, on the other hand, well-built structures generally did not collapsE.A recent report in Science adds yet more anxiety about life on the faulty lines. Researchers ran computer simulations(模拟) to see how quake-resistant buildings would fall in a moderate-size earthquake, taking into account that much of a quake's energy travels in a large 'pulse' of focused shaking. The results: both steel-framE.buildings and buildings that sit on insulating(隔离的) rubber pads suffered severe damagE.More research will help experts design stronger structures and possibly find quake precursors, but it is still a certainty that the next earthquake will prove once again that every fault cannot be monitored and every high way cannot be completely quake prooF.We can infer from the first paragraph that______.A.scientists can never predict earthquakesB.the ability to predict earthquakes is overstatedC.quite a few scientific claims are groundlessD.earthquake predictions are accurate