问答题Nearly half of the houses in Britain are owned by the people who live in them. About 1/3 are owned by the local authorities and the rest are rented from private owners.

问答题The relative decline of American education at the elementary-and high-school levels has long been a national embarrassment as well as a threat to the nation's future. Once upon a time, American students tested better than any other students in the world. Now, ranked against European schoolchildren, America does about as well as Poland, behind at least 10 other nations. Within the United States, the achievement gap between white students and poor and minority students stubbornly persists. For much of the last half century professional educators believed that if they could only find the right pedagogy, the right method of instruction, all would be well. Yet in recent years researchers have discovered something that may seem obvious, but for many reasons was overlooked or denied. What really makes a difference, what matters more than the class size or the textbook, the teaching method or the technology, is the quality of the teacher. Much of the ability to teach is innate-an ability to inspire young minds as well as control unruly classrooms that some people instinctively possess and some people definitely do not.

问答题 中国的对外开放 实行对外开放，是中国推进现代化建设的一项重大决策，也是中国一项长期的基本国策。 三十年来，中国全方位对外开放的格局已基本形成，开放型经济迅速发展。中国同世界各国各地区的经济技术交流与合作广泛开展。这不仅对中国的经济社会发展发挥了有力的推动作用，也为各国各地区企业到中国寻找商机、进行合作创造了有利条件。 当今世界，任何国家都难以在封闭的状态下得到发展。中国将坚定不移地实行对外开放政策，有步骤地扩大商品和服务贸易领域的对外开放，为国内外企业创造公开、公平、平等竞争的条件，建立和健全符合国际经济通行规则、符合中国国情的对外经济贸易体制，为国外企业来华进行经贸合作提供更多、更稳定的市场准入机会。 中国的发展离不开世界，同样世界的繁荣需要中国。中国顺应经济全球化的发展趋势，坚持在更大范围、更广领域和更高层次上参与国际经济技犬合作，积极推动经济全球化向有利于各国共同繁荣的方向发展。互利共赢是当今国际贸易发展的主流。中国坚持实行互利共赢的对外开放战略，坚持在平等、互利、互惠的基础上同世界各国发展经贸关系，不断为全球贸易持续增长作出贡献。

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问答题Questions 1～3 Lincoln expected that America would become a nation doubtful about its heroes and its history. In his astonishing address to the Young Men"s Lyceum of Springfield, Ⅲ., on Jan. 27, 1838, on "the perpetuation of our political institutions", the 28-year-old Lincoln foresaw the inevitable rise in a modern democracy like ours of skepticism and worldliness. Indeed, he worried about the fate of free institutions in a maturing nation no longer shaped by a youthful, instinctive and (mostly) healthy patriotism. Such patriotism is natural in the early years after a revolutionary struggle for independence. To the generation that experienced the Revolution and the children of that generation, Lincoln explained, the events of the Revolution remained "living history", and those Americans retained an emotional attachment to the political institutions that had been created. But the living memories of the Revolution and the founding could no longer be counted on. Those memories "were a fortress of strength; but what invading foemen could never do, the silent artillery of time has done; the leveling of its walls". So, Lincoln concluded, the once mighty "pillars of the temple of liberty" that supported our political institutions were gone. Lincoln implored his fellow citizens in 1838 to replace those old pillars with new ones constructed by "reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason". He knew that such a recommendation—such a hope—was problematic. In politics, cold, calculating reason has its limits. In the event, it was Lincoln"s foreboding of trouble, not his hope for renewal, that turned out to be correct. The nation held together for only one more generation. Twenty-three years after Lincoln"s speech, the South seceded, and civil war came. Lincoln managed, of course, in a supreme act of leadership, to win that war, preserve the union and end slavery. He was also able to interpret that war as producing a "new birth of freedom," explaining its extraordinary sacrifices in a way that provided a renewed basis for attachment to a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Perhaps the compromises made by the founding generation with the institution of slavery would have proved fatal in any case. Still, the fact is that the US was unable to perpetuate its political institutions peacefully after those who had lived through the Revolution died and even secondhand memories of America"s founding faded. Now we find ourselves in a situation oddly similar to the one Lincoln faced in 1838. Lincoln delivered his Lyceum Address 62 years after the Declaration of Independence. We are now the same time span from the end of World War II. Our victory in that war—followed by our willingness to quickly assume another set of burdens in the defense of freedom against another great tyranny— marked the beginning of the US"s role as leader of the free world. Through all the ups and downs of the cold war and through the 1990s and this decade, the memories of World War II have sustained the US, as it did its duty in helping resist tyranny and expand the frontiers of freedom in the world. The generation of World War II is mostly gone. The generation that directly heard tell of World War II from its parents is moving on. We have exhausted, so to speak, the moral capital of that war. Now we face challenges almost as daunting as those confronting the nation when Lincoln spoke. The perpetuation of freedom in the world is no more certain today than was the perpetuation of our free institutions then. Of course, we have the example of Lincoln to guide us. And Ferguson"s wry and sardonic account of the ways we remember him is heartening and even inspiring, almost despite itself or despite ourselves. But the failures of leadership of the 1840s and 1850s should also chasten us. Nations don"t always rise to the occasion. And the next generation can pay a great price when the preceding one shirks its responsibilities.

问答题Wal-Mart will be offering some online specials as early as 8:00 a.m. on Thanks giving. Some of the in-store deals will also be available online, but others will be Internet-only specials.

问答题Scientists are preparing to boot up the world"s most powerful supercomputer, a machine with the power of 500,000 PCs and a thirst for electricity that will leave its owners with an annual bill of ￡25m. The computer, called Titan, will use graphics processors similar to those in PlayStation gaming consoles to tackle some of the toughest tasks in science. Until now most supercomputers have used normal processors souped-up versions of those in laptops and PCs. Decoding new flu strains—one of the most demanding jobs in computing—is one task that engineers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee might set Titan. The supercomputer could also design vaccines to stop the flu bugs before they can spread. Sumit Gupta, a senior engineer at Nvidia, the company that is making the Titan processors, said: "Computer simulations can explore lm different drug [vaccine] candidates within weeks or months." Titan will carry out 20,000 trillion calculations a second, about 4,000 trillion calculations a second faster than Sequoia, the world"s current fastest computer, which is used to simulate nuclear explosions. A typical PC carries out 40 billion calculations a second. "Oak Ridge is in the race to have the fastest supercomputer in the world," the laboratory said in a statement. Supercomputing has been one of the fastest and most revolutionary of technological trends. As with ordinary computers, its history goes back to the 1930s and 1940s when the first digital computers were built, with the first transistor-based machine being produced in 1956. The development of supercomputers owes much to the work of Seymour Cray, an electrical engineer who realized the potential of linking processors together to create much faster machines. Experts differ on which of his machines should be called the first supercomputer but Cray-1, built in 1976, is commonly cited. Back then its ability to perform 160m calculations a second was seen as revolutionary. Nowadays that machine would have a fraction of the computing power of a smartphone. "Computers like these have revolutionized science," said Paul Calleja, director of the high-performance computing centre at Cambridge University. "In the past, researchers devised theories and then they carried out experiments. What supercomputers do is offer us a third way—computer modelling. We can devise a theory about, say, the way atoms and molecules or materials might behave, and then build a computer model to see if it works." Such approaches are now standard throughout science and engineering. In the aviation industry, for example, where engineers once tested the effects of bird strikes on aircraft by throwing or firing a dead chicken into a jet turbine, they now have vast databases on the composition of chickens and their behaviour when they hit spinning turbines. Similarly, car designers use computer models to test how vehicles will crumple in a crash and what injuries the occupants might sustain. In the past, such tests could be conducted only by using real cars occupied by dummies or even dead bodies. Computer modelling has sharply cut the need for such testing. Titan will be made available to scientists in various fields. One programme will tackle climate change and how rising greenhouse gas emissions might affect different parts of the world. Another will study the way fuel burns in diesel engines spinning thousands of times a minute, to find ways of boosting efficiency. "These types of calculations require massive computing power," said Calleja, whose own supercomputer at Cambridge has been used to design America"s Cup sailing boats. "The pressure to build even more powerful machines is huge." Supercomputers are no longer the preserve of the military or academic establishments, however. Many high-street companies, from supermarkets to banks and insurance firms, own them. Tesco, for example, is investing in a ￡65m supercomputing system in Watford, Hertfordshire, to underpin its online retail and banking businesses. Such computing power, combined with data extracted from loyalty cards and other sources, means supermarkets can build models of consumer behaviour to predict what they will want to buy even before their customers know it. Walmart, the American owner of Asda, has been using a supercomputer for several years and has even combined it with weather forecasts to work out what products will be needed in stores when storms or other events arise. Researchers at Cambridge are now working on perhaps the most ambitious computing project of all—to build a machine 150 times faster than Titan to help search for planets capable of supporting life. The computer, capable of between 2m trillion and 3m trillion calculations a second, will be hooked up to the Square Kilometre Array, a giant radio telescope made up of thousands of radio dishes that is under construction across South Africa and Australia. Calleja said the supercomputer"s key task would be to collate and analyse all the data captured by each dish. "It is the most ambitious project we have ever attempted," he said.

问答题The word, friend, covers a wide range of meanings. It can be a nodding acquaintance, a comrade, a confidant, a partner, a playmate, an intimate colleague, etc. Everyone needs friendship. No one can sail the ocean of life single-handed. We need help from, and also give help to, others. In modern society, people attach more importance to relations and connections. A man of charisma has many friends. His power lies in his ability to give. As life is full of strife and conflict, we need friends to support and help us out of difficulties. Our friends give us warnings against danger. Our friends offer us advice with regard to how to deal with various situations. True friends share not only our joys but also our sorrows. I will never forget my old friends, and I'll keep making new friends. I will not be cold and indifferent to my poor friends, and I will show concern for them, even if it is only a comforting word.

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问答题Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear 5 sentences in English. You will hear the sentences only once. After you have heard each sentence, translate it into Chinese and write your version in the corresponding space on your Answer Sheet.

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问答题Since Darwin, biologists have been firmly convinced that nature works without plan or meaning, pursuing no aim by the direct road of design. But today we see that this conviction is a fatal error. Why should evolution, exactly as Darwin knew it and described it, be planless and irrational? Do not aircraft design engineers work, at precisely that point where specific calculations and plans give out, according to the same principle of evolution, when they test the serviceability of a great number of statistically determined forms in the wind tunnel, in order to choose the one that functions best? Can we say that there is no process of natural selection when nuclear physicists, through thousands of computer operations, try to find out which materials, in which combinations and with what structural form, are best suited to the building of an atomic reactor? They also practise no designed adaptation, but work by the principle of selection. But it would never occur to anyone to call their method planless and irrational.

问答题Controversy has been aroused about the works of Jin Yong, a famous martial-arts fiction writer in China, being used in the students' Chinese textbooks. Some experts in the field of education welcome the practice, while others are strongly against it. Topic: Should martial-arts fictions be integrated into the Chinese textbook? Questions for Reference: 1. Some people think the martial-arts fictions full of violence and romance are not suitable for the students. What's your opinion? 2. What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of Jin Yong's martial-arts fictions as textbook material? 3. What are the possible negative effects and how can we reduce them?

问答题Which developed economies will gain most from the emerging economies' new economic muscle? Conventional wisdom has it that America's economy is coping much better than Europe's with competition from emerging economies, thanks to its flexible labor and product markets. According to this view, Europe is having a tough time dealing with globalization, burdened by high minimum wages, extensive job protection, high taxes and generous welfare benefits. But conventional wisdom may have got it wrong. Since 1997 employment in the euro area has grown slightly faster than in America. Over the past decade, European firms have been much more successful than America's in holding down unit labor costs and thus remaining competitive. And since 2000 the euro area's share of world export markets has risen slightly to 1770, whereas America's share has slumped from 14% to 10X. Thus, by many measures of competitiveness, Europe appears to be coping better with the emerging economies than America.

问答题Why does the author mention the story of Frederick Winslow Taylor at the beginning of the passage?

问答题关于克隆人的争论 自从1997年世界上第一只克隆绵羊多利诞生以后，每年都有不少新的克隆动物问世。最近，美国和意大利两位科学家宣布他们将联手尝试克隆人，用来帮助不育夫妇获得后代。这个爆炸性的新闻一公布，就立即引起了世界各国的强烈反响，赞成者有之，反对者更多。许多国家早就立法或者曾经下令予以禁止。能不能够克隆人、是否应该允许克隆人，越来越成为人们关注的一个问题。 科学界、政治界和宗教界内反对克隆人的呼声非常强烈。他们认为克隆人在技术上成功率不高，其后果是破坏人的伦理道德，给社会造成灾难。 在主流的反对声中，还有一种微弱的声音认为，克隆人的是非需要等待历史来验证。他们认为，克隆技术确实与原子能技术等一样，既能造福人类，也可祸害无穷。但“技术恐惧”的实质，是对错误运用技术的人的恐惧，而不是对技术本身的恐惧。历史上输血技术、器官移植等，都曾经带来极大的伦理争论。而当第一位试管婴儿于1978年在英国出生时，更是掀起了轩然大波，但现在全世界已经有300多万试管婴儿。某项科技进步最终是否真正有益于人类，关键在于人类如何对待和应用它。 然而，多数人对于克隆人的反对立场并没有影响克隆作为一项科学技术的迅速发展。一些科学家认为，克隆人的尝试必将进行下去，人们所要做的是学会怎么去控制它。 今天，人类拥有空前丰富的信息、工具和资源，科学的发展已进入信息时代、核能时代、航天时代和生命科学时代，如何使科学造福而不是祸害人类和地球，是人们应该关注和警觉的问题。

问答题Questions 1～3 Europeans have mixed feelings about class. They deplore the idea that people may remain mired in poverty, and they have large welfare program to help them move up. They also resent the sight of rich families staying at the top for generations, and so impose high taxes to redistribute wealth and income. On the other hand, compared with Americans, Europeans cling to a somewhat static view of society. They dislike the extremes of wealth and poverty that accompany America"s supposed free-for-all meritocracy. They look askance at "excessive" job mobility, which breeds insecurity. Polls show that, compared with Americans, Europeans are more likely to dislike unfettered market competition and to believe that success is outside their own control. With some exceptions (e.g. Dick Whittington), they lack the equivalent of Horatio Alger"s myth of rags to riches. In short, in the European view, social stability is desirable, and if a certain amount of inflexibility is needed to underpin it, that is a price worth paying to avoid the restless uncertainties of America" s market-driven model. Yet the curious thing is that European society—at least in the Nordic countries—is far less stable than America"s. Two new research papers confirm that, if one compares the incomes of children with those of their parents, or considers how long people in one income group stay there, Nordic countries emerge far more mobile than America. Britain shows more class stability than its northern neighbors, but it is still a lot closer to them than it is to America. The authors rank countries on a scale from one to zero, with one meaning no mobility at all (i. e. a child"s income is identical to its parents") and zero meaning perfect mobility (i. e. a child"s income bears no relation to its parents"). The Nordic countries score around 0.2 for sons, Britain scores 0.36, and America 0.54 (meaning that a son"s earnings are more closely related to his father"s in America). These figures are roughly in line with the conclusions of other studies, though they have the advantage of using standardized data, thereby minimizing problems of definition that usually bedevil cross-country comparisons. The biggest finding of the studies is not, however, about overall social mobility, but about mobility at the bottom. This is the most distinctive feature of. Nordic societies, and it is also perhaps the most significant difference with America. Around three quarters of sons born into the poorest fifth of the population in Nordic countries in the late 1950s had moved out of that category by the time they were in their early 40s. In contrast, only just over half of American men born at the bottom later moved up. This is another respect in which Britain is more like the Nordics than like America. some 70% of its poorest sons escaped from poverty within a generation. The Nordic countries are distinctive in one further way. the sons born at the bottom (into the poorest fifth) earn roughly the same as those born a rung above them (the second-poorest fifth). In other words, Nordic countries have almost completely snapped the link between the earnings of parents and children at and near the bottom. That is not at all true of America. Social mobility at middle-income levels is more similar everywhere (it is a bit higher in most European countries, but not by much). That may partly explain why Americans think their society is more mobile than it is (the middle classes tend to set the political agenda, and mobility is genuine enough for them). It may also explain why few Europeans appreciate quite how much movement up and down the income ladder there is, because much of it takes place off the radar screen of the politically influential. The obvious explanation for greater mobility in the Nordic countries is their tax and welfare systems, which (especially when compared with America"s) deliberately try to help the children of the poor to do better than their parents. One might expect social mobility and economic flexibility to go together—in fact, to be two sides of the same coin. But to the extent that redistribution is an explanation, it implies the opposite: that social mobility is a product of high public spending, a bit like the low incidence of poverty or longer life expectancy (on both of which Europe also does better than America). But greater public spending tends also to be associated with less economic flexibility—which is why Nordic countries have sought to limit the more arthritis-inducing features of their tax-and-spend programs. Yet redistributive fiscal policies cannot be all there is to it. If they were, Nordic countries would not do as well as they do (their welfare states are not appreciably more generous than Britain"s). The other part of the explanation seems to be their superior education systems. Education has long been recognized as the most important single trigger of social mobility—and all four Nordic countries do unusually well in the school-appraisal system developed by the OECD. That in turn may explain why the bigger continental European countries, notably France, Germany, Italy, are not as mobile as Nordic ones. With relatively poor education systems, they are bound to perform more like Britain. But that still makes them socially (if not economically) more flexible than the land of the free. For Europe, the secrets of greater social mobility are, first, tough redistribution policies that particularly benefit those at the bottom; and, especially in Nordic countries, a suppler and less class-ridden education system, running from top to bottom. America could learn something from that.

问答题技术进步和全球化经济改变了雇主的需求，研究生院正在改革它们的课程，以使学生具有市场竞争力。举例来说，商学院已经制定出新的重点研究领域——电子商务、保健、品牌管理，这些领域能培养学生把理论应用到工作中去。法学院则按常规使学生接触国际法，因为众多的商业交易和各种法律案件如今都是跨国界的。即使最受欢迎的工程师们最终也需要接受继续教育，因此，工程学院正在设置远程教育课程。这样，那些工作着的学生可以利用业余时间上因特网学习。 随着教育机会的日益增多，研究生课程选择便需要自我斟酌并做大量的研究。那些已进入医学院或法学院学习的人显然十分渴望获取学位，但是，他们也需要作出新的决定：选学什么能使他们未来的职业更好。拥有理科博士学位的人因为具备独立工作和解决复杂问题的能力，现在往往被招聘到投资银行业、管理咨询业和制药业；英语毕业生则在出版业找到机会。