问答题Brains or beauty? Women are still in dilemma. A poll released Tuesday found 25 percent of those questioned would rather win the "America"s Next Top Model" TV show than the Nobel Peace Prize. And although 75 percent of women interviewed said they"d be willing to shave their heads to save the life of a stranger, more than a quarter of those taking part admitted they would make their best friend fat for life, if it meant they could be thin. The poll was made for U. S. television network Oxygen targeted at young women. And more than 2,000 women aged 18-34 were surveyed for the poll. It also found that 88 percent of 18- to 34-year-old women would happily give up their cell phone, jewelry and makeup to keep a friendship. This survey proves an interesting dissection of today"s woman and how she relates her personal image with what she values in her life. As shown in several results, women today are a complex combination of altruistic and materialistic, vain and insecure, loyal and self-serving. This survey highlights the dichotomy in all of us.

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问答题 Our modern understanding of the importance of workplace group dynamics dates to a series of experiments conducted in the 1920s and 1930s at a telephone-equipment plant in Cicero, IL. The Hawthorne studies, overseen by Harvard Business School professor Elton Mayo and named after the factory where they took place, set out to examine the relationship between working conditions—the amount of light in a room, say—and productivity. In one experiment, six women from the shop floor were put into a group and then observed while Mayo's researchers adjusted such variables as the number of rest breaks and their meals. Any change, it seemed, led to increased productivity, feeding the theory of the Hawthorne effect—that what really mattered was change itself and the experimenters' attention. But Mayo later wrote about the six women and offered a more nuanced explanation, things changed when the women started thinking about one another and not about the boss looming overhead. "What actually happened," Mayo wrote, "was that six individuals became a team." By illustrating the power of interpersonal relationships, the Hawthorne studies helped birth the field of industrial psychology and the obsession with teamwork that we feel every time we haul ourselve, s to a corporate retreat designed to help us better bond with co-workers. But the world of work has changed quite a bit during the past 80 years. The idea that the power of the group comes primarily from the group itself is as outdated as the rotary dial, according to Deborah Ancona, a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, and Henrik Bresman, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD, who have written a book, X-Teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate and Succeed. The authors harness decades of their research and conclude that external relationships are just as important as internal ones in predicting team success. A lot of the time that a team spends building trust and a collegial spirit, they find, would be better spent scouting for outside sources of new ideas, generating enthusiasm for what the team is doing among upper managers and communicating with everyone the group's work touches, from customers to tech support. Ancona started in the 1970s studying groups of professionals, including nurses, communications-equipment salesmen and drug researchers. She notes that the conventional wisdom about what makes a team work, such as clearly delineated roles and team spirit, tends to correspond to team-member satisfaction, but those variables often don't line up with financial metrics like sales revenue. "The internal model is burned into our brains," she says, "but research and the actual experience of many managers demonstrate that a team can function very well internally and still not deliver desired results. In the real world, good teams, according to our own definition, often fail." The nature of work has changed since Hawthorne, so teamwork alone isn't enough. Companies that thrive in the knowledge-driven global economy are spread out, with loose hierarchies, not rigid centralized structures. They depend on complex, constantly changing streams of information that can't be contained by any one source. And the tasks of groups within these firms link them to people within the company and without. The distributed-yet-interconnected character of contemporary work dictates reaching outward, but years of morale-building retreats and consultants persuade us to keep looking in. So Ancona and Bresman have laid out a framework for doing it another way. In X-Teams—their name for groups that get it right—the authors dive into the nitty-gritty details of engineering a better team: how to reach outward, build a support structure, be more flexible and navigate a corporate culture that might be less than enthusiastic about border crossing. They use examples from teams at Microsoft, Motorola, Toyota and Southwest Airlines and describe in depth how a team at Merrill Lynch created a distressed-equities desk that spanned debt and equity—something that had never been done before—one of some hundred X-team projects Ancona has helped foster. The authors don't entirely ignore the internal workings of teams. They acknowledge that what happens between team members is half the game but argue that it's the overemphasized, overanalyzed half. In their rendering, inner dynamics are best understood as they relate to the team's efforts to reach outward. That means shared timelines, transparent decision making and frequent meetings to integrate knowledge and efforts. And a bedrock for any successful team is a culture that supports frank discussion, even if it's about bad news or mistakes. How do you cultivate that sort of environment? Well, there might just be some use for corporate retreats after all.

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问答题A Mixed Economy: the United States System The economic system of the United States is principally one of private ownership. This system, often referred to as a "free enterprise system", can be contrasted with a socialist economic system, which depends heavily on government planning and public ownership of the means of production. It should be noted that although the United States operates a system of private enterprise, government has to some extent always been involved in regulating and guiding the U.S. economy. At the same time, U.S. citizens have always had the freedom to choose for whom they will work and what they will buy. Most important, they vote for officials who set economic policy. In the U.S. economic system, consumers, producers and government make economic decisions on a daily basis, mainly through the price system. The dynamic interaction of these three groups makes the economy function. The market"s primary force, however, is the interaction of producers and consumers. This has led analysts to dub the U.S. economic system a "market economy". As a rule, consumers look for the best values for what they spend while producers seek the best price and profit for what they have to sell. Government, at the federal, state, and local level, seeks to promote the public security, assure fair competition, and provide a range of services believed to be better performed by public rather than private enterprises. Some of these public services include education (although there are many private schools and training centers), the postal (but not the telephone) service, the road system, social statistical reporting and, of course, national defense. In the United States most people are simultaneously consumers and producers; they are also voters who help influence the decisions of government. The mixture among consumers, producers and members of government changes constantly, making a dynamic rather than a static economy. In recent years consumers have made their concern known, and government has responded by creating agencies to protect consumer interests and promote general public welfare. The U.S. economy has changed in other ways as well. The population and the labor force have moved dramatically from farms to cities, from fields to factories and, above a11, to service industries, thus providing more personal and public services. In today"s economy, these providers of services far outnumber producers of agricultural and manufactured goods. Statistics also reveal a rather startling shift away from self-employment to working for others. Generally, there are three kinds of businesses: (1)those started and managed personally by single owners or single entrepreneurs; (2)the partnership where two or more people share the risks and rewards of business, and(3)the corporation where shareholders as owners can buy or sell their shares at any time on the open market. This latter structure, by far the most important, permits the amassing of large sums of money by combining the investments of many people, making possible large-scale enterprises.

问答题Themainlightsourceofthefuturewillalmostsurelynotbeabulb.Itmightbeatable,awall,orevenafork.

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问答题Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear 2 passages in English. After you have heard each paragraph, interpret it into Chinese. Start interpreting at the signal ... and stop it at the signal ... You may take notes while you are listening. Remember you will hear the passages only once. Now let's begin Part A with the first passage.

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问答题There is a growing number of economists who believe today's brutally tough labor market is not a temporary American oddity. Falling wages, reduced benefits and rising job insecurity seem to be increasingly entrenched features of the job scene across most of Western Europe, the United States and other parts of the developed world. The number of insecure freelance positions is rising (as are working hours) while stable jobs with good benefits are being cut. Laid-off workers are much less likely to be rehired by their old companies and have to find new jobs or turn to self-employment. Those who still have jobs are working longer hours with little prospect of meaningful raises. The new labor market is shaped by growing global competition, spurred by the rise of cheap manufacturers in China, India and Eastern Europe, and the price-chopping effect of both the Internet and giant retailers led by Wal-Mart. These forces compel Western companies to exercise a growing restraint on prices and labor cost. One thing globalization clearly does is to exert a leveling effect on wages.

问答题What is the present situation of global stock markets? What consequences may it lead to?

问答题历史是一面镜子。以史为鉴，才能避免重蹈覆辙。对历史，我们要心怀敬畏、心怀良知。历史无法改变，但未来可以塑造。铭记历史，不是为了延续仇恨，而是要共同引以为戒。传承历史，不是为了纠结过去，而是要开创未来，让和平的薪火代代相传。 “大道之行也，天下为公。”和平、发展、公平、正义、民主、自由，是全人类的共同价值，也是联合国的崇高目标。目标远未完成，我们仍须努力。当今世界，各国相互依存、休戚与共。我们要继承和弘扬联合国宪章的宗旨和原则，构建以合作共赢为核心的新型国际关系，打造人类命运共同体。为此，我们需要作出共同努力。

问答题Questions 1～3 The Chinese doctoral student who breached security at the Newark Liberty International Airport in the United States will appear in the Newark municipal court on the morning of Jan. 28, a court official told China Daily on Tuesday. Jiang Haisong, 28, was arrested last Friday evening by US port authorities and released after hours of questioning. Jiang ducked a security barrier in the airport"s terminal C on Jan. 3 to bid farewell to his girlfriend after a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) guard stepped away from his post momentarily. The three terminals at the airport were subsequently shut down for six hours after a bystander who witnessed the incidence notified TSA officials. The shutdown reportedly caused numerous flights delays in and out of Newark, stranding thousands of passengers. Jiang, a molecular biosciences student who is set to graduate in May, had contacted the Chinese consulate in New York on Monday by phone, said Wang Bangfu, the consul for overseas Chinese affairs at the consulate. Wang told China Daily on Tuesday that the consulate is providing consular protection and assistance to Jiang after identifying him as a Chinese national. These include providing a list of lawyers, which Jiang is selecting for his case. Wang would not reveal more details because Jiang had requested for the content of their conversation to be kept private. But Wang said the consulate has been keeping a close eye on the development. Wang did not comment further on the case until final investigation results were out, implying that the consulate will work to ensure Jiang gets a fair trial and his legal rights are fully protected. Under the charge of defiant trespassing brought by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Jiang faces a 30-day imprisonment and a fine of $ 500. But New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg had earlier pushed for harsh punishment, threatening to lobby for severe federal criminal charges instead of a misdemeanor. Lautenberg also earlier mentioned visa revocation and deportation, but has since toned down his comments on the case in the last few days. The incidence has triggered strong reaction among people both in the US and China. A number of these have accused Jiang of a "stupid" blunder. Others have hailed him as a kind of hero for exposing a glaring airport security loophole. While more people on the Chinese mainland expressed their disappointment at Jiang for bringing disgrace to the Chinese community, his American neighbors and fellow colleagues at Rutgers University showed more understanding and described him in much nicer words.