问答题Graduates from under-privileged backgrounds are to challenge the elitism of the barristers" profession, under plans outlined today. Reforms aimed at challenging the dominance of the rich and privileged classes which are disproportionately represented among the membership of the Bar will tackle the decline in students from poorer backgrounds joining the profession. They include financial assistance as well as measures to end the "intimidating environment" of the barristers" chambers which young lawyers must join if they want to train as advocates. The increasing cost of the Bar and a perception that it is run by a social elite has halted progress in the greater inclusion of barristers from different backgrounds. A number of high-profile barristers, including the prime minister"s wife, Cherie Booth QC, have warned that without changes, the Bar will continue to be dominated by white, middle-class male lawyers. In a speech to the Social Mobility Foundation think tank in London this afternoon, Geoffrey Vos QC, Bar Council chairman, will say: "The Bar is a professional elite, by which I mean that the Bar"s membership includes the best-quality lawyers practicing advocacy and offering specialist legal advice in many specialist areas. That kind of elitism is meritocratic, and hence desirable." "Unfortunately, however, the elitism which fosters the high-quality services that the Bar stands for has also encouraged another form of elitism. That is elitism in the sense of exclusivity, exclusion, and in the creation of a profession which is barely accessible to equally talented people from less privileged backgrounds." Last month, Mr. Vos warned that the future of the barristers" profession was threatened by an overemphasis on posh accents and public school education. Mr. Vos said then that people from ordinary backgrounds were often overlooked in favour of those who were from a "snobby" background. People from a privileged background were sometimes recruited even though they were not up to the job intellectually, he added. In his speech today, Mr. Vos will outline the "barriers to entry", to a career at the Bar and some of the ways in which these may be overcome. The Bar Council has asked the law lord, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, to examine how these barriers can be overcome, and he will publish his interim report and consultation paper before Easter. He is expected to propose a placement programme to enable gifted children from state schools to learn about the Bar, the courts and barristers at first hand. The Bar Council is also working towards putting together a new package of bank loans on favourable terms to allow young, aspiring barristers from poorer backgrounds to finance the Bar vocational course year and then have the financial ability to establish themselves in practice before they need to repay. These loans would be available alongside the Inns of Court"s scholarship and awards programmes. Mr. Vos will say today: "I passionately believe that the professions in general, and the Bar in particular, must be accessible to the most able candidates from any background, whatever their race, gender, or socioeconomic group. The Bar has done well in attracting good proportions of women and racial minorities and we must be as positive in attracting people from all socioeconomic backgrounds."

问答题 If I wanted to, I could come up with a dozen excuses. I was fired after a long day of work. Or maybe I was hungry. The simple truth is, when I walked into the living room and my 12-year-old son looked up at me and said. "I love you," I didn't know what to say. For several long seconds all I could do was standing there and staring down at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He must need help with his homework was my first thought. Or he's going to hit me up for an advance on his allowance. Or he's assassinated his brother—I always knew it would happen someday—and he's trying to prepare me gently for the news. Finally I asked, "What do you want?" He laughed, and started to run from the room. But I called him back. "Hey, what was that all about?" I demanded. " Nothing," he said, grinning, "My health teacher said we should, tell our parents that we love them and see what they say. It's sort of an experiment. " The next day I called his teacher to find out more about this "experiment. " And, to be truthful, to find out how the other parents had reacted. "Basically, most of the fathers had the same reaction you did," my son's teacher said. "When I first suggested we try this, I asked the kids what they thought their parents would say. They all laughed. A couple of them figured their folks would have heart attacks. " Some parents, I suspect, resented what the teacher had done. After all, a junior-high-school health teacher's job is to teach children how to eat balanced diets and brush their teeth properly. What does saying "I love you" have to do with that? It is, after all, a personal thing between parents and their children, nobody else's business. "The point is," the teacher explained, "feeling loved is an important part of health. It's something all human beings require. What I'm trying to tell the kids is that it's too bad we don't all express those feelings. Not just parents to children and not just boys to girls. A boy should be able to tell his buddy that he loves him. " The teacher, a middle-aged man, understands how difficult it is for some of us to say the things that would be good for us to say. His father never said those things to him, he admits. And he never said them to his father — not even when his father was about to die. There are a lot of us like that. Men and women, who were raised by parents who loved us but never really said so. It is a common reason for the way many of us behave. But as an excuse it is starting to wear thin. Our generation has devoted a great deal of attention to getting in touch with our feelings and verbalizing our emotions. We know, or should know, that our children — sons as well as daughters — need more from us than food on the table and clothes in the closet. We know, or should know, that a father's kiss will fit as comfortably on the cheek of a son as on that of a daughter. So when my son came to me that evening for his bedtime kiss—a kiss that seems to be getting briefer every night—I held on to him for an extra second. And just before he pulled away, I said in my deepest, most manly voice, "Hey, I love you too. " I don't know if saying that made either of us healthier, but it did feel pretty good. Maybe next time when one of my kids says, "I love you," it won't take me a whole day to think of the right answer.

问答题The regular use of text messages and e-mails can lower the IQ more than twice as much as smoking marijuana. That is the claim of psychologists who have found that tapping away on a mobile phone or computer keypad or checking them for electronic messages temporarily knocks up to 10 points off the user"s IQ. This rate of decline in intelligence compares unfavourably with the four-point drop in IQ associated with smoking marijuana, according to British researchers, who have labelled the fleeting phenomenon of enhanced stupidity as "infomania". The noticeable drop in IQ is attributed to the constant distraction of "always on" technology when employees should be concentrating on what they are paid to do. Furthermore, infomania is having a negative effect on work colleagues, increasing stress and dissenting feelings. Nine out of ten polled thought that colleagues who answered e-mails or messages during a face-to-face meeting were extremely rode. Yet one in three Britons believes that it is not only acceptable, but actually diligent and efficient to do so.

问答题During the term of this Contract, all technical documentation, including but not limited to manufacturing technologies, procedures, methods, formulas, data, techniques and know-how, to be provided by one Party to the other shall be treated by the recipient as "Confidential Information". Each Party agrees to use Confidential Information received from the other party only for the purpose contemplated by this Contract and for no other purposes. Confidential Information provided is not to be reproduced in any form except as required to accomplish the intent of, and in accordance with the terms of, this Contract. Title to such information and the interest related thereto shall remain with the provider all the time.

问答题Directions: Read the following passages and then answer IN COMPLETE SENTENCES the questions which follow each passage. America's population hit the 300 million mark yesterday—at 7:46 a.m. Eastern time, according to Census Bureau estimates. Nobody knows exactly who became America's 300 millionth citizen. But demographers are summing up the milestone as a turning point that signals several trends to watch as the U.S.—in contrast with Europe and Japan—deals with a steadily growing population. Politically and demographically, experts say, the shifts will begin to have an impact on regions of the country not yet used to the new diversity provided by the influx of Hispanics and Asians, which has already transformed California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, and New York. In coming years, Midwesterners, those in the Great Plains, rural areas, and small towns everywhere will begin to deal with the challenges of new ethnic and racial residents, says William Frey, a population expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. And the country as a whole will begin to be more dominated by a young/ old divide than the current liberal/conservative model that dominates political discourse. "This means we are going to transform the current, red/blue political dichotomy to one where the nation is separated by age ... young vs. old," says Mr. Frey. "The issues of younger generations dealing with children and opportunities for minorities will clash with those of the aging baby boomers whose voters are concerned with issues of aging and Social Security and Medicare," he adds. "Both parties will have to adjust to this new dichotomy." The new milestone hasn't generated much hoopla. That's in sharp contrast to 1967, when President Johnson hailed the 200 millionth American, and Life magazine dispatched a cadre of photographers to find a baby born at the exact moment. One reason is that population growth has become controversial, especially in an election year when immigration is a hot-button issue and politicians are wary. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez says the Bush administration is not playing down the milestone, though he had no plans for Tuesday. "I would hate to think that we are going to be low-key about this," he says, since growth helps the economy. While it's hard to prove that population growth spurs economic growth, the two often go hand in hand, according to experts quoted in the Monitor's recently published series: "U.S. population: 300 million. " For example: a nation with a rising population can support its retirees far more easily than one with a declining population. That's an advantage for the U.S., which is virtually the only developed nation expected to grow this century. But population growth has less rosy implications, the Monitor series points out. Some experts worry that the land can't sustain the extra 100 million people expected by 2043. Another challenge is sprawl, the dominant model of development, which gobbles up forest and prairie.

问答题Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear 2 passages in English. You will hear the passages ONLY ONCE. After you have heard each passage, translate it into Chinese and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET. You may take notes while you are listening.

问答题What is a novel? I say: an invented story. At the same time a story which, though invented, has the power to ring true. True to what? True to life as the reader knows life to be or, it may be, feels life to be. And I mean the adult, the grown-up reader. Such a reader has outgrown fairy tales, and we do not want the fantastic and the impossible. So I say to you that a novel must stand up to the adult tests of reality. You may say: "If one wants truth, why not go to the literally true book? Biography or documentary, these amazing accounts of amazing experiences which people have." Yes, but I am suggesting to you that there is a distinction between truth and so-called reality. What these people write in their accounts of happenings is not confining itself to what happened. The novel does not simply recount experience; it adds to experience. I hope you will see what I mean. It is not news at all, not anything sensational or spectacular. And here comes in what is the actual livening spark of the novel: the novelist"s imagination has a power of its own. It does not merely invent, it perceives. It intensifies, therefore it gives power, extra importance, greater truth and greater inner reality to what may well be ordinary and everyday things. So much is art—the art that, in common with poetry, drama, painting, and music, does, we all know, enter into the novel. But not less and absolutely joined with the art is craft, and craft—craftsmanship—is absolutely and surely an essential for the writing of a novel. I have said the novel is a story. It is the story aspect that I am talking about first and now, and the craft of the novelist does lie first of all in story telling. Would you or I, as readers, be drawn into a novel if our interest was not pegged to the personalities and outlooks and the actions of the people whom we encounter inside the story? They are the attractive elements in the book. This being so, which comes first actually into the mind of the novelist when he begins to work: the people, or character, or the plot? Do not think it strange when I say that the plot comes first. The actual idea or outline of a book is there—the possibilities of a situation—and then the novelist thinks, "what would be the kind of person who would perform such an action? What would be the other kind of person who would react in a particular way?" I think to myself "I need a proud man," or "I need a woman so idiotically romantic in temperament that she will do unwise things." or "I need perhaps an almost excessively innocent or ignorant young person." In that sense the characters are called into existence by the demands of the plot; but I do not want you to feel that the characters are merely invented to formula. That is not so at a11. Their existence having begun, they take into themselves a most extraordinary and imperative reality. And their relation with plot is a dual one because, though to an extent the demands of the plot control them, the plot also serves to give them force and purpose. And, because of the plot, those characters are so shown and so brought into action that as little as possible of them shall go to waste. The people, the characters in a novel, must carry with them into the book their own kind of inevitability. We are conscious when we meet the people involved in a story that they have something within them which will probably take them towards some inevitable fate or end. If that inevitability breaks down—if the characters are compelled by the author to do what we instinctively know they would not do—then I think we feel that there is a flaw in the reality of the novel.

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问答题If one believed that the universe had a beginning, the obvious question was: What happened before the beginning? What was God doing before He made the world? Was He preparing Hell for people who asked such questions? The problem of whether or not the universe had a beginning was a great concern to the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. He felt there were logical contradictions, or Antinomies, either way. If the universe had a beginning, why did it wait an infinite time before it began? He called that file thesis. On the other hand, if the universe had existed forever, why did it take an infinite time to reach the present stage? He called that the antithesis. Both the thesis, and the antithesis, depended on Kant"s assumption, along with almost everyone else, that time was Absolute. That is to say, it went from the infinite past, to the infinite future, independently of any universe that might or might not exist in this background.

问答题We know that more is to be gained when great powers cooperate than when they collide. That is a lesson that human beings have learned time and again, and that is the example of the history between our nations. And I believe strongly that cooperation must go beyond our government. It must be rooted in our people--in the studies we share, the business that we do, the knowledge that we gain, and even in the sports that we play. And these bridges must be built by young men and women just like you and your counterparts in America. That's why I'm pleased to announce that the United States will dramatically expand the number of our students who study in China to 100,000. And these exchanges mark a clear commitment to build ties among our people, as surely as you will help determine the destiny of the 21st century. And I'm absolutely confident that America has no better ambassadors to offer than our young people. For they, just like you, are filled with talent and energy and optimism about the history that is yet to be written.

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问答题Questions 4～6 Marriage really is good for you, with a major international study finding it reduces the risks of depression and anxiety, but these disorders are more likely to plague people once the relationship is over. The study of 34,493 people across 15 countries was led by clinical psychologist Kate Scott from New Zealand"s University of Otago, and is based on the WHO World Mental Health (WMH) surveys conducted over the past decade. It found that ending marriage through separation, divorce or death is linked to an increased risk of mental health disorders, with women more likely to resort to substance abuse and men more likely to become depressed. "What makes this investigation unique and more robust is the sample that is so large and across so many countries and the fact that we have data not only on depression... but also on anxiety and substance use disorders," Scott said in a statement. "In addition, we were able to look at what happens to mental health in marriage, both in comparison with never getting married, and with ending marriage." Scott said that the study found that getting married, compared to not getting married, was good for the mental health of both genders, not just women, as previous studies had found. The study, however, did find that men are less likely to become depressed in their first marriage than women, a factor Scott said was probably linked to the traditional gender roles at home, as other WMH surveys have shown that as women get better educated, depression rates tend to fall. The other gender difference the study found is that getting married reduces risk of substance use disorders more for women than for men Scott said this may be explained by the fact that women are usually the primary caregiver for young children. However, the downside of marriage, the University of Otago study shows, is that ending it has a negative impact on both genders. "What our study points to is that the marital relationship offers a lot of mental health benefits for both men and women, and that the distress and disruption associated with ending marriage can make people vulnerable to developing mental disorders," Scott said. The study was recently published in the British journal Psychological Medicine. It was conducted in association with the World Health Organization, Harvard University and a number of other international organizations.

问答题有两个大款附庸风雅，参加一个冷餐会，与会者自然不乏真正的名流学者。席间，一个学者与其中的大款甲闲聊，话题不知怎么扯到莎士比亚身上。学者问大款甲：“先生是否对莎士比亚最感兴趣？”大款甲顿了顿，随即正色说：“相比之下，还是威士忌合我口味。”这时，大家都暗自窃笑。大款乙也看出了苗头，悻悻然走开。在回来的小车上，大款乙教训大款甲说：“你真一点都不懂，莎士比亚是饮料，你怎么把它当洋酒了！”

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问答题We may not yet be conscious of the implications of the coming technological revolution in self-driving cars. But auto manufacturers and technology companies predict that by 2020, self-driving cars will be navigating public roads in countries such as the US, UK and Finland. Most autonomous vehicles will not be owned by individuals but by companies, and rented out to travelers by the hour. Self-driving is known as a way of improving traffic flows and decreasing road accidents. Advocates of this technology think that they can remove fallible and inattentive humans from behind the steering wheel. If car ownership diminishes in the age of self-driving cars, the days of car parks are numbered. Despite the upsides of this technology, some people are worried about its downsides. Hacking will be a menace. Individuals will try to dismantle their cars" software, causing accidents. Organized hackers and terrorists will seek to cause large accidents. What"s more, chaos will occur when autonomous car operators fail to charge their cars sufficiently and run out of power on busy roads.

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问答题Why do millions of people say "no" to the Internet?