阅读理解What will your competitors react at the very beginning of your business?.

阅读理解 I have just returned from Mexico, where I visited a factory making medical masks. Faced with fierce competition, the owner has cut his costs by outsourcing some of his production. Scores of people work for him in their homes, threading elastic into masks by hand. They are paid below the minimum wage, with no job security and no healthcare provision. Users of medical masks and other laboratory gear probably give little thought to where their equipment comes from. That needs to change. A significant proportion of these products are made in the developing world by low-paid people with inadequate labor fights. This leads to human misery on a tremendous scale. Take lab coats. Many are made in India, where most cotton farmers are paid an unfair price for their crops and factory employees work illegal hours for poor pay. One-fifth of the world's surgical instruments are made in northern Pakistan. When I visited a couple of a years ago I found most worker toiling 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for less than a dollar a day, exposed to noise, metal dust and toxic chemicals. Thousands of children, some as young as 7, work in the industry. To win international contracts, factory owners must offer rock-bottom prices, and consequently drive down wages and labor conditions as far as they can. We laboratory scientists in the developed world may unwittingly be encouraging this: we ask how much our equipment will cost, but which of us asks who made it and how much they were paid? This is no small matter. Science is supposed to benefit humanity, but because of the conditions under which their tools are made, many scientists may actually be causing harm. What can be done? A knee-jerk boycott of unethical goods is not the answer; it would just make things worse for workers in those manufacturing zones. What we need is to start asking suppliers to be transparent about where and how their products are manufactured and urge them to improve their manufacturing practices. It can be done. Many universities are committed to fair trade in the form of ethically sourced tea, coffee or bananas. That model should be extended to laboratory goods. There are signs that things are moving. Over the past few years I have worked with health services in the IK and in Sweden. Both have recently instituted ethical procurement practices. If science is truly going to help humanity, it needs to follow suit.

阅读理解Thirty-one million Americans are over 60 years of age, and twenty-nine million of them are healthy, busy, productive citizens. By the year 2030, one in every five people in the United States will be over 60. people are members of the fastest-growing minority in this country. Many call this the "graying of America". In 1973, a group called the "Gray Panthers" was organized. This group is made up of young and old citizens. They are trying to deal with the special problems of growing old in America. The Gray Panthers know that many elderly people have health problems; some cannot walk well, others cannot see or hear well. Some have financial problems; prices are going up so fast that the elderly can''t afford the food, clothing, and housing they need. Some old people are afraid and have safety problems. Others have emotional problems. Many elderly are lonely because of the death of a husband or a wife. The Gray Panthers know another fact, too. Elderly people want to be as independent as possible. So, the Gray Panthers are looking for ways to solve the special problems of the elderly. The president of the Gray Panthers is Maggie Kuhn, an active woman in her late 70s. She travels across the United States, educating both young and old about the concerns of elders. One of the problems she talks about is where and how elders live. She says that Americans do not encourage elders to live with younger people. As far as Maggie Kuhn is concerned, only elders who need constant medical care should be in nursing homes. Maggie Kuhn knows that elders need education, too. She spends lots of time talking to groups of older Americans. She encourages them to continue to live in their own houses if it is possible. She also tells them that it is important to live with younger people and to have children around them. This helps elders to stay young at heart.

阅读理解Questions 31-33 Kidnappings for ransom, drug-smuggling, fake invoicing and extortion are just a few of the ways in which terrorists raise cash for their nefarious deeds

阅读理解Passage 1 For centuries the most valuable of African resources for Europeans were the slaves, but these could be obtained atcoastal ports, without any need for going deep inland

阅读理解Passage 1 Smartphones may soon displace some of the estimated 1 billion credit and debit cards in American wallets

阅读理解U.S. prisons are filled with drug offenders; the number of prisoners tripled over the past 20 years to nearly 2 million, with 60 to 70 per cent testing positive for substance abuse on arrest. The country has spent billions of dollars attacking the problem at its roots. But there is growing consensus that the "war on drug" has been lost. The United States is still the world''s largest consumer of illegal substances; cocaine continues to pour over the border from Mexico. "Traffic" taps into the national frustration, depicting the horrors of both drugs and the drug war. Without taking sides, the film illuminates the national debate and poses on alternative that Americans seem increasingly willing to consider: finding new ways to treat, rather than merely punish, drug abuse. 　　Policy revolutions―like legalizing narcotics (drugs producing sleep or insensibility) ―remain a distant dream. But there is growing public awareness that the money and energy wasted on trying to check the flow of drugs into the United States might be better spent on trying to control demand instead. Voters in several states are far ahead of the politicians, approving ballot initiatives that offer more treatment opinions. "Drugs courts" that allow judges to use carrots and sticks to compel substance-abuse treatment have grown fifty-fold since the mid-1990s, part of a new understanding that, even with frequent relapses( returns to a formal state), treatment is much less expensive for society than jail and ban. 　　Drug addiction is increasingly being viewed as more a disease than a crime. Science is yielding clues about the "hedonic (of pleasure ) region" of the brain, while breakthrough medications and greater understanding of the mental-health problems that underlie many addictions are giving therapists new tools. 　　Officials across the Continent have already begun shifting their focus from preventing drug flow to rehabilitating (making able to live a normal life again) drug users. The new European Union Drugs Strategy for 2000-2004 makes a commitment to increasing the number of successfully treated addicts. Gemany, Italy and Luxembourg have transferred responsibility for drug policy from their Ministries of the Interior to the Ministries of Health or Social Affairs. In Britain, the government has set up a National Treatment Agency to coordinate the efforts of social-service agencies and the Department of Health. And drug-prevention and support agencies there are getting about 30 percent more funding this year. Changing the main national strategy from attacking drug pushers to rehabilitating addicts won''t come easy. But slowly, steadily, Americans, like Europeans, seem determined to try.

阅读理解Make a list of what you have to do, and put them ________ with the most important at the top

阅读理解 Why do people always want to get up and dance when they hear music? The usual explanation is that there is something embedded in every culture—that dancing is a 'cultural universal'. A researcher in Manchester thinks the impulse may be even more deeply rooted than that. He says it may be a reflex reaction. Neil Todd, a psychologist at the University of Manchester, told that he first got an inkling that biology was the key after watching people dance to deafeningly loud music. 'There is a compulsion about it,' he says. He reckoned there might be a more direct, biological, explanation for the desire to dance, so he started to look at the inner ear. The human ear has two main functions: hearing and maintaining balance. The standard view is that these tasks are segregated so that organs for balance, for instance, do not have an acoustic function. But Todd says animal studies have shown that the sacculus, which is part of the balance-regulating vestibular system, has retained some sensitivity to sound. The sacculus is especially sensitive to extremely loud noise, above 70 decibels. 'There's no question that in a contemporary dance environment, the sacculus will be stimulated,' says Todd. The average rave, he says, blares music at a painful 110 to 140 decibels. But no one really knows what an acoustically stimulated sacculus does. Todd speculates that listening to extremely loud music is a form of 'vestibular self-stimulation': it gives a heightened sensation of motion. 'We don't know exactly why it causes pleasure,' he says. 'But we know that people go to extraordinary lengths to get it.' He lists bungee jumping, playing on swings or even rocking to and fro in a rocking chair as other examples of pursuits designed to stimulate the sacculus. The same pulsing that makes us feel as though we are moving may make us get up and dance as well, says Todd. Loud music sends signals to the inner ear which may prompt reflex movement. 'The typical pulse rate of dance music is around the rate of locomotion,' he says. 'It's quite possible you're triggering a spinal reflex.'

阅读理解Passages 2 My dad was a plumber for the public works department in our town, so from time to time he came into my school

阅读理解Questions 91 to 100 are based on the following passage

阅读理解We sometimes hear that essays are an old-fashioned form. that so-and-so is the "last essayist", but the facts of the marketplace argue quite otherwise. Essays of nearly any kind are so much easier than short stories for a writer to sell, so many more see print, it''s strange that though two fine anthologies (collections)remain that publish the year''s best stories, no comparable collection exists for essays. Such changes in the reading public''s taste aren''t always to the good, needless to say. The art of telling stories predated even cave painting, surely; and if we ever find ourselves living in caves again, it (with painting and drumming)will be the only art left, after movies, novels, photography, essays ,biography, and all the rest have gone down the drain―the art to build from. 　　Essays, however, hang somewhere on a line between two sturdy poles: this is what I think, and this is what I am. Autobiographies which aren''t novels are generally extended essays, indeed. A personal essay is like the human voice talking, its order being the mind''s natural flow, instead of a systematized outline of ideas. Though more changeable or informal than an article or treatise, somewhere it contains a point which is its real center, even if the point couldn''t be uttered in fewer words than the essayist has used. Essays don''t usually boil down to a summary, as articles do, and the style of the writer has a "nap" to it, a combination of personality and originality and energetic loose ends that stand up like the nap( 绒毛)on a piece of wool and can''t be brushed flat. Essays belong to the animal kingdom, with a surface that generates sparks, like a coat of fur, compared with the flat, conventional cotton of the magazine article writer, who works in the vegetable kingdom, instead. But, essays, on the other hand, may have fewer "levels" than fiction, because we are not supposed to argue much about their meaning. In the old distinction between teaching and storytelling, the essayist, however cleverly he tries to conceal his intentions, is a bit of a teacher or reformer, and an essay is intended to convey the same point to each of us. 　　An essayist doesn''t have to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth; he can shape or shave his memories, as long as the purpose is served of explaining a truthful point. A personal essay frequently is not autobiographical at alt, but what it does keep in common with autobiography is that, through its tone and tumbling progression, it conveys the quality of the author''s mind. Nothing gets in the way. Because essays are directly concerned with the mind and the mind''s peculiarity, the very freedom the mind possesses is conferred on this branch of literature that does honor to it, and the fascination of the mind is the fascination of the essay.

阅读理解The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon sporting event hosted by the city of Boston, Massachusetts, on Patriots’ Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897 and inspired by the success of the first modern-day marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics, the Boston Marathon is the world’s oldest annual marathon and ranks as one of the world’s most well-known road racing events. The marathon is one of five members of the World Marathon Majors.The event attracts an average of about 20,000 registered participants each year. In the 100th running of the Boston Marathon in 1996, the number of participants reached 38,000. While there are cash prizes awarded to the winners of the marathon, most of the runners participate for the accomplishment of having run the race at all.The Boston Marathon was originally a local event, but its fame and status have attracted runners from all over the world. For most of its history, the Boston Marathon was a free event, and the only prize awarded for winning the race was a wreath woven from olive branches. However, corporate-sponsored cash prizes began to be awarded in the 1980s, when professional athletes began to refuse to run the race without cash awards. The first cash prize for winning the marathon was awarded in 1986.Women were not allowed to enter the Boston Marathon officially until 1972. Roberta (Bobbi) Gibb is recognized as the first woman to run the entire Boston Marathon (in 1966). In 1967, Kathrine Switzer, who had registered as “K. V. Switzer”, was the first woman to run with a race number. She finished, despite a celebrated incident in which race official Jock Semple tried to rip off her numbers and eject her from the race. In 1996 the B.A.A retroactively recognized as champions the unofficial women’s leaders of 1966 through 1971.In recent years, critics have pointed to the dominance of foreign-born athletes in the event (especially runners from Kenya) to back their arguments that American professional running is lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of producing quality athletes. However, foreign dominance of the race is nothing new. Between 1946 and 1967 only one American (John J. Kelley in 1957) won the marathon in an era when Finland and Japan were the distance powerhouses.The Boston Marathon is open to all runners, male and female, from any nation, but they must meet certain qualifying standards. To qualify, a runner must first complete a standard marathon course certified by a national governing body affiliated with the International Association of Athletics Federations within a certain period of time before the date of the desired Boston Marathon (usually within approximately 18 months prior). Prospective runners in the age range of 18-34 must run a time of no more than 3:10:59 (3 hours and 10 minutes) if male, or 3:40:59 (3 hours and 40 minutes) if female; the qualifying time is adjusted upward as age increases. For example, a 40-44 year old male can still qualify with a time of 3:20:59. An exception to the qualification requirement is awarded to 1,250 runners who raise a pre-determined level of sponsorship for officially designated local charities.Besides the Olympic trials and the Olympic marathons, Boston is the only major American marathon that requires a qualifying time. Thus for many marathoners to qualify for Boston (to “BQ”) is a goal and achievement in itself, making it a “people’s Olympic event”.

阅读理解What does the author think of his current job?

阅读理解Directions: There are 3 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A., B., C. and D.. You should decide on the best choice and write the answer on the Answer Sheet.Passage OneFor gathering data about individuals or groups at different developmental levels, researchers can use two related research designs: longitudinal and cross-sectional.A longitudinal study is one that measures a behavior or a characteristic of an individual over a period of time, perhaps decades. An example of such a study is the Berkeley Growth Study begun in 1928 by Nancy Bayley. The study focused on a group of 74 white, middle-class newborns. As they grew older, extensive measures of their intellectual, personality, and motor development were recorded. The subjects were studied for more than thirty years.The longitudinal research design is a powerful technique for seeking understandings of the effects of early experiences on later development. Also, differences in or stability of behaviors or characteristics at different ages can be determined. Longitudinal studies, however, are expensive to conduct, time-consuming, and heavilycontingenton the patience and persistence of the researchers. The findings of a longitudinal study may be jeopardized by relocation of subjects to another part of the country and by boredom or irritation at repeated testing. Another disadvantage is that society changes from one time to another and the subjects participating in the study reflect to some degree such changes. The methods of study or the questions guiding the researchers may also change from one time to another. If properly conducted, however, longitudinal studies can produce useful, direct information about development.A cross-sectional study is one in which subjects of differing ages are selected and compared on a specific behavior or characteristic. They are alike with respect to socioeconomic status, sex, or educational level. For example, a researcher may be interested in looking at changes in intelligence over a thirty-year period. Three groups of subjects, ages ten, twenty, and thirty, may be selected and tested. Conclusions are drawn from the test data.The cross-sectional research design has the clear advantage of being less expensive to conduct and certainly less time-consuming. The major disadvantage is that different individuals who make up the study sample have not been observed over time. No information about past influences on development or about age-related changes is secured. Like longitudinal studies, the cross-sectional methods cannot erase the generational influence that exists when subjects studied are born at different time. Psychologists are now beginning to use an approach that combines longitudinal and cross-sectional research methods.

阅读理解BI remember the day during our first week of class when we were informed about our semester（学期） project of volunteering at a non-profit organization．When the teacher introduced us to the different organizations that needed our help，my last choice was Operation Iraqi Children （OIC）．My first impression of the organization was that it was not going to make enough of a difference with the plans I had in mind．Then，an OIC representative gave us some details，which somewhat interested me．After doing some research， I believed that we could really do something for those kids．When I went online to the OIC website，I saw pictures of the Iraqi children．Their faces were so powerful in sending a message of their despair（绝望） and need that I joined this project without hesitation．We decided to collect as many school supplies as possible，and make them into kits——one kit，one child．The most rewarding day for our group was project day，when all the efforts we put into collecting the items finally came together．When I saw the various supplies we had collected，it hit me that every kit we were to build that day would eventually be in the hands of an Iraqi child．Over the past four months，I had never imagined how I would feel once our project was completed．While making the kits，I realized that I had lost sight of the true meaning behind it．I had only focused on the fact that it was another school project and one I wanted to get a good grade on．When the kits were completed，and ready to be sent overseas，the warm feeling I had was one I would never forget．In the beginning，I dared myself to make a difference in the life of another person．Now that our project is over，I realize that I have affected not only one life，but ten．With our efforts，ten young boys and girls will now be able to further their education．How did the author feel about joining the OIC project in the beginning？

阅读理解Passage 4 The kids are hanging out

阅读理解 In the idealized version of how science is done, facts about the world are waiting to be observed and collected by objective researchers who use the scientific method to can'y out their work. But in the everyday practice of science, discovery frequently follows an ambiguous and complicated route. We aim to be objective, but we cannot escape the context of our unique life experience. Prior knowledge and interest influence what we experience, what we think our experiences mean, and the subsequent actions we take. Opportunities for misinterpretation, error, and self-deception abound. Consequently, discovery claims should be thought of as protoscience. Similar to newly staked mining claims, they are lull of potential. But it takes collective scrutiny and acceptance to transform a discovery claim into a mature discovery. This is the credibility process, through which the individual researcher's me, here, now becomes the community's anyone, anywhere, anytime. Objective knowledge is the goal, not the starting point. Once a discovery claim becomes public, the discoverer receives intellectual credit. But, unlike with mining claims, the community takes control of what happens next. Within the complex social structure of the scientific community, researchers make discoveries; editors and reviewers act as gatekeepers by controlling the publication process; other scientists use the new finding to suit their own purposes; and finally, the public (including other scientists) receives the new discovery and possibly accompanying technology. As a discovery claim works it way through the community, the interaction and confrontation between shared and competing beliefs about the science and the technology involved transforms an individual's discovery claim into the community's credible discovery. Two paradoxes exist throughout this credibility process. First, scientific work tends to focus on some aspect of prevailing Knowledge that is viewed as incomplete or incorrect. Little reward accompanies duplication and confirmation of what is already known and believed. The goal is new-search, not re-search. Not surprisingly, newly published discovery claims and credible discoveries that appear to be important and convincing will always be open to challenge and potential modification or refutation by future researchers. Second, novelty itself frequently provokes disbelief. Nobel Laureate and physiologist Albert Azent-Gy6rgyi once described discovery as 'seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.' But thinking what nobody else has thought and telling others what they have missed may not change their views. Sometimes years are required for truly novel discovery claims to be accepted and appreciated. In the end, credibility 'happens' to a discovery claim—a process that corresponds to what philosopher Annette Baier has described as the commons of the mind. 'We reason together, challenge, revise, and complete each other's reasoning and each other's conceptions of reason.'

阅读理解 When it is sunny in June, my father gets in his first cutting of hay. He starts on the creek; meadows, which are flat, sandy, and hot. They are his driest land. This year, vacationing from my medical practice, I returned to Vermont to help him with the haying. The heft of a bale (大捆) through my leather gloves is familiar: the tautness of the twine, the heave of the bale, the sweat rivers that run through the hay chaff on my arms. This work has the smell of sweet grass and breeze. I walk behind the chug and clack of the baler, moving the bales into piles so my brother can do the real work of picking them up later. As hot as the air is, my face is hotter. I am surprised at how soon I get tired, I take a break and sit in the shade, watching my father bale, tying not to think about how old he is, how the heat affects his heart, what might happen. This is not my usual work, of course. My usual work is to sit with patients and listen to them. Occasionally I touch them, and am glad that my hands are soft. I don't think my patients would like farmer calluses and dirty hands on their tender spots. Reluctantly I feel for lumps in breasts and testicles, hidden swellings of organs and joints, and probe all the painful places in my patients' lives. There are many. Perhaps I am too soft, to stand calluses of a different sort. I feel heavy after a day's work, as if all my patients were inside me, letting me carry them. I don't mean to. But where do I put their stories? The childhood beatings, ulcers from stress, incapacitating depression, fears, illness? These are not my experiences, yet I feel them and carry them with me. I search out these stories in my patients, try to reorganize them, try to find healthier meanings. I spent the week before vacation crying. The hay field is getting organized. Piles of three and four bales are scattered around the field. They will be easy to pick up. Dad climbs, tired and lame, from the tractor. I hand him a jar of ice water, and he looks with satisfaction on his job just done. I'll stack a few more bales and maybe drive the truck for my brother. My father will have some appreciative customers this winter, as he sells his bales of hay. I've needed to feel this heaviness in my muscles, the heat on my face. I am taunted by the simplicity of this work, the purpose and results, the definite boundaries of the fields, the dimensions of the bales, for illness is not defined by the boundaries of bodies; it spills into families, homes, schools, and my office, like hay tumbling over the edge of the cutter bar. I feel the rough stubble left in its wake. I need to remember the stories I've helped reshape, new meanings stacked against the despair of pain. I need to remember the smell of hay in June.

阅读理解 You've spent 90 percent of your life inside. What have you been breathing in that whole time? Conversations about pollution tend to focus on the outdoors—the exhaust from cars and buses, the contaminant smog that comes wheezing out of smokestacks and factories. But we're missing what's right in front of our noses, what we breathe in for most of our lives: indoor air. Indoor air pollution is 'an area that's relatively unexplored compared to other fields in public health,' says Dr. Joseph Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings Program at Harvard's Center for Health and the Global Environment. Despite the fact that indoor air is sometimes more polluted than outdoor air, 'we haven't dedicated comparable resources to it.' The issue of indoor air pollution was all but unspoken until the 1970s, when buildings started to get sealed with energy-conscious insulation. That's when so-called 'sick building syndrome' started to pop up nationwide, with huge numbers of tenants complaining about sickness and discomfort. Their symptoms were mostly caused by indoor pollutants, particularly what scientists call volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. VOCs are especially harmful in indoor spaces because they easily evaporate; formaldehyde, for instance, boils at-2 degrees Fahrenheit, meaning it will sublimate in any indoor environment that isn't a deep freezer. VOCs are everywhere, in some of the most common materials and products of home and office—there is benzene in art supplies, formaldehyde comes in paint, perchloroethylene comes in fabric-, wood-, and shoe-cleaning products. They present a whole host of health threats, as do other types of indoor chemicals and pollutants, including the risk of causing cancer and 'damage to the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system,' according to the National Institutes of Health. WHAT CAN WE DO to protect ourselves? Allen says the solution may lie in the people responsible for making buildings, who have the power to control and monitor indoor air quality. And while the bigger solution may lie in ground-up renovations, everyone can help improve the air we breathe by looking for toxic chemicals on the labels on the products we buy, keeping up regular cleaning routines, and making sure to monitor and purify indoor air quality. 'We must understand that the indoor environment influences your health,' Allen says. 'When people start thinking about where we spend our time and all that's around us, I think things will start to change.'