问答题Middle-class teenagers are less intelligent than a generation ago due to the dumbing down of youth culture and school tests, a new study suggests. IQ tests show that scores for the average 14- year-old have dropped by more than two points between 1980 and 2008. For those in the upper half of the intelligence scale--a group typically dominated by the children of middle-class families-- average IQ scores were six points down on 28 years ago. It is the first time IQ scores have fallen for any age group during the past century. Leisure time is increasingly taken up with playing computer games and watching TV instead of reading and holding conversations. Education experts said a growing tendency in schools to "teach to the test" was affecting youngsters" ability to think laterally. Other studies have shown how pervasive teenage youth culture is, and what we see is parents" influence on IQ slowly diminishing with age. Previous studies have claimed that using text messages and email can temporarily reduce IQ by causing concentration to drop, while smoking marijuana has also been linked with a decline in IQ.

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问答题If there were an Oscar for most consistently profitable Hollywood studio, it probably would go to 20th Century Fox. Hollywood is a hit-driven business, and most studios bounce from box-office hit to dud with depressing regularity. But for the past seven years, Fox has scored with both blockbusters (Alvin and the Chipmunks) and indie hits (Juno) that have generated the kind of double-digit return on investment you might expect from a business making widget' s, not films. Tom Pollick, a former Universal Pictures chairman who produces movies for Fox and other studios, says. "Fox is simply the best-run studio in town. " You were expecting anything less from Rupert Murdoch's guys? At Fox, the mantra is "to be creatively driven but fiscally astute," says James N. Gianopulos, who co-chairs the studio with Thomas Rothman of Fox Filmed Entertainment. Translation. to be almost pathologically obsessed with costs. Not that the co-chairs run from risk. They outbid most of Hollywood in 2004 for the script to the apocalyptic The Day After Tomorrow, but made it for $100 million, relatively cheap for a special-effects picture. It grossed more than half a billion dollars worldwide. Double-digit profits are rare in Hollywood. Yet for the past six years, Fox has delivered 12% to 18% operating margins. Halfway through its fiscal year, it earned operating income of $ 765 million on nearly $ 3.6 billion in revenues—a 21.5% operating margin. And that doesn't include Horton Hears a Who!, which grossed a hefty $ 45 million on its Mar. 14 opening weekend and was made for just over $ 85 million, nearly half what an animated Pixar Animation Studios film costs. "No one in Hollywood negotiates tougher than these guys," says producer John Davis, who made I, Robot and Carfield: A Tale of Two Kitties for Fox. The hardballing starts with development, which Davis says typically costs Fox 10% to 15% less than usual because it holds the line on costly rewrites. On top of that, Fox rarely gives anyone but the biggies— Steven Spielberg, say—a piece of the profits. It also sets tough budgets and sticks with them. For his Lord of the Rings-esque Eragon, Davis had a $100 million budget, which forced him to cut some special effects and limit stars such as John Malkovich to cameos. It earned just $ 75 million domestically but did well globally. Special effects often eat up an action film's budget. Not at Fox. The studio learned its lesson 10 yeas ago with Titanic, which cost Fox and Paramount Pictures a then-unthinkable $ 200 million to make. After Titanic, Fox hired an in-house effects czar, whose main job is riding herd on special effects houses, often playing them against each other to get the best price. "They beat you over the head," says X-Men producer Avi Arad. "If it costs $ 30 million, they'll ask why it can't cost $ 20 million. " To keep downtime to a minimum, Arad used several shops on Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Fox's biggest hits are its smallest films. Peter Rice runs the studio's independent unit, Fox Searchlight Pictures, which is in the business of finding tiny films, like Little Miss Sunshine, that were made on a shoestring. Rice's limit: $15 million. His latest triumph: Juno. It cost $ 7. 5 million to produce and pulled in $135 million-plus in the U. S. alone. Which brings us to marketing, an expense that has been known to account for one-third of a film's overall budget. While executives say they pay full freight for ads on Foxe’s farflung global properties, their stars pop up all over. Samudl L. Jackson, who starred in the flick Jumper, walked the carpet at the Super Bowl on the Fox Network. And wasn't that Jim Carrey, who provided Horton's voice, recently grinning insanely in the audience of Fox's megahit American Idol? Fox has stumbled before. Its 2005 picture Kingdom of Heaven bombed in the U. S and cost a very unFoxlike $130 million to make. But even then, Fox turned things around. It had loaded the film with international stars, including Orlando Bloom, so it made enough outside the U.S. to break even.

问答题 Flight attendants, who start as low as $ 12,000 per year, are paid meagerly. No question. But for all the rhetoric stirred by last month's strike against American Airlines, few have dared to breathe perhaps the key question—a 60-year-old question. Are flight attendants indispensable guardians of passengers' safety and well-being? Or, are they flying waitresses (85% are women) and waiters who are becoming less important to passengers willing to sacrifice frills for cheap fares? Fright attendants find the second suggestion repugnant. "We're very highly trained in first aid and CPR," says Wendy Palmer, an American Air fines flight attendant based in Nashville, "Our goal is to evacuate an airplane in a minute or less. That's what we're there for. In the meantime, we do serve drinks and food. " "But maybe the time has come to let the free market determine if passengers value flight attendants enough to pay for them," says Thomas Moore, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Customers willing, there's no reason airlines can't hand out sandwiches and soft drinks as passengers board. Then they could be on their way with, perhaps, one safety expert on board. "I'd suspect some people would be willing to pay dirt-cheap fares," says Bill Winter, spokesman for the Libertarian Party, an opponent of government regulation, "Other (airlines) would go in the opposite direction and there would be three attendants for each flier. " Already millions of passengers have shown an eagerness to sacrifice service for lower fares. Southwest Airlines, which doesn't offer meals or assigned seating, has been the fastest-growing and most profitable airline in the industry. Southwest never staffs a jet with more attendants than the Federal Aviation Administration requires. The FAA requires at least one flight attendant for every 50 seats. A 122-seat Boeing 737 must have three flight attendants even if it's flying only a few passengers. Union contracts often require more. Among its demands, American Airlines wants the option of staffing its jets at the FAA minimum. No other form of transportation falls under such rigid government control. Passengers aboard Amtrak and Greyhound aren't even required to wear seat belts. But climb aboard a Boeing 757, and you not only have to be strapped in, but four specialists are there to supervise a rare evacuation. The National Safety Council estimates that 1 in 2.2 million people are killed in airline crashes each year. There are about 90,000 airline flight attendants employed by U. S. carriers. They cost the airlines $ 2.7 billion a year, assuming they average $ 30,000 per year in salary and benefits. If they save 100 lives per year, each life costs $ 27 million. Dee Maki, National president of the Association of Flight Attendants, says 100 saved lives is a gross underestimate. No one tracks the actual number, but Maki says more than 100 heart-attack victims are saved each year by attendants. Maybe one on-board attendant is all that's needed for safety, says Moore, an opponent of government regulation. "I don't know. But the FAA undoubtedly makes the wrong decision. Government always makes the wrong decision because they don't have the right information. John Adams, former vice president of human resources for Continental Airlines, doubts that deaths would increase much if the number of flight attendants were cut in half. "Flying is very safe. It's much safer than riding a bus or a train," he says. No one doubts that flight attendants have a tough job. They make about 20% what pilots make and often less than baggage handlers. Stuck in a metal tube for hours with cramped passengers battling nicotine fits, they are constantly being driven to go the extra mile for customer service. They have to worry about policies concerning theft weight, height and eyesight. And when a jet does crash, even heroic flight attendants say they face agonizing depression as they rehash what more they might have done. A 1992 FAA study of airline accidents did find examples where flight attendants performed heroically. But the FAA also found cases in which they were unable to locate and operate emergency equipment because of rusty skills. American flight attendant Todd Peters says he's never had to evacuate a jet, but once had to tackle a deranged passenger who tried to open an exit door as a flight from Newark, N. J. , to Miami was taking off. "The public thinks we're up there serving Cokes and Sprites," Peters says. "But if there was an emergency, passengers would be seeking us out, waiting for our instruction. " Safety is the repeated theme. But airlines say that when they hire attendants, they don't look for backgrounds in nursing or safety. They want outgoing applicants with experience in customer relations. The history of flight attendants is rooted in safety, but safety usually has taken a back seat to promotion. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, attendants were required to be registered nurses because of fears about the health consequences of flying at high speed and altitude. But by hiring young women instead of men in the 1930s, they were signaling to the public that planes were safe. When flying caught on in the 1960s, airlines staffed their male-laden planes with pretty single women who were forced to retire at 32. It was titillation, says John Nance, author and airline-safety analyst. Braniff even promoted an "air strip", its stewardesses disappearing for a few minutes before returning in a different uniform. One commercial asked: "Does your wife know you're flying Braniff?" No one knows how many flight attendants airlines would use if FAA minimums were eliminated, says Winter of the Libertarian Party. But he trusts a market free of government interference. Union president Maki says an end to FAA minimums probably would mean fewer flight attendants on short flights. However, for safety reasons, getting rid of FAA minimums is "crazy", she says.

问答题News report: 17 campers who were rescued last autumn after having become trapped in the Changtanhe Nature Reserve in Guangxi have been fined 1,000yuan each for entering the reserve without permission. In the rescue operation, 100 policemen and firefighters, 200 government workers and civilians, more than 40 doctors and nurses and 300 logistics personnel were dispatched and more than 80 vehicles in addition to steamboats were mobilized. Some netizens have demanded that the campers involved should also pay compensation for the expenses incurred in the rescue. Topic: Should the public pay for tourists" recklessness?? Questions for Reference: 1. Some people hold that in life-and-death situations, public rescue authorities should not calculate costs and gains. What do you think of this opinion? 2. The other view holds that rights and obligations should go hand in hand, so the adventure tourists should pay for the cost of rescue missions, if any. What is your comment over this view? 3. What is your opinion of those adventure tourists? Do you agree that the spirit of bravery they have displayed should be admired and praised?

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问答题Some critics believe that the very concept of intellectual property is mistaken. Unlike physical property, ideas are non-rivalrous goods that can be used by many people at the same time without making them any less useful. The term "intellectual property" was widely adopted only in the 1960s, as a way to bundle trademarks, copyrights and patents. Those critics argue that today's rights are too strict and make the sharing of knowledge too expensive. The paradox about intellectual property in IT and telecommunications is that it eases the exchange of technology and acts as a bottleneck for innovation at the same time. The whole system is in a stage of transformation. "Markets require institutions, and institutions take a long time to develop. Today, the institutions for a 'market for technology' are not well developed, and it is costly to use this market," says a specialist. Ideas are to the information age what the physical environment was to the industrial one: the raw material of economic progress. Just as pollution or an irresponsible use of property rights threatens land and climate, so an overly stringent system of intellectual-property rights risks holding back technological progress. Disruptive innovation that threatens the existing order must be encouraged, but the need to protect ideas must not be used as an excuse for greed. Finding the fight balance will test the industry, policymakers and the public in the years ahead.

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问答题Topic. Should the National Museum hold trademark shows? Questions for Reference： 1. What do you think should be the major mission of the National Museum of China? 2. Do you agree with the view that showing a commercial brand in our national museum is a humiliation to Chinese culture? Why or why not? 3. Some people hold that the showing of a luxury brand can be a perfect combination of art and business, and it will make the museum more lively, modern and inclusive. What is your comment?

问答题A friend of mine, who"s a little over 50, met with a big firm about a job recently. The good news was that they loved his ideas. But they said he would have to get someone else to present all his great ideas to clients. In other words, someone who can wear a hoodie to work without irony. Like a business body double. A millennial beard. That way, the company could keep looking young while still benefiting from his deep knowledge of the business and, well, human nature. The concept isn"t as unfair as it sounds. As a late boomer, I have high hopes for this arrangement. We are increasingly codependent generations. Millennials need boomers and older Gen X-ers so they know what to improve on. And we need millennials to get our ideas across. Just ask anyone who"s tried pitching a startup to investors without a 20-something on her team. Even middle-aged people don"t trust anyone over 30. That"s why 40-and 50-somethings fall all over themselves in meetings to show who can most enthusiastically agree with a millennial"s idea. It"s a little desperate, our bid for relevance by association. But we oldsters feel insecure without a 20-something as backup, especially when it comes to anything involving the word content. Or Snapchat. Or any kind of sharing that doesn"t involve food or money. More important, millennials are now the largest, hardest-working sector of the workforce and the most desirable market for most businesses, and we don"t want them to turn on us. At Google, where the median employee age is about 29, the company has a support group for people over 40 called Greyglers. In the blurb about Greyglers, the company notes that they hope to promote "age diversity awareness" at Google and foster the success of their "elders." Yes, middle age is now a special-interest group. This is perhaps why 28-year-old tech gurus fret about losing their jobs to college interns who are cheaper and more current. It"s also why Botox is booming in the Valley among some older engineers. Closely related is a new corporate trend called "reverse mentorship." That"s when millennials take older employees under their wing to teach them how most corporate revenue problems can be solved with a few social-media tricks, and why you shouldn"t ever leave voice mails for anyone. Nonetheless, I"m all for millennial mentors. (And I agree about voice mail.) I used to run TIME"s editorial technology department, back when people used dial-up modems. Since then I"ve learned to make deals in advance with a millennial to ensure support before I suggest anything vaguely technical in a meeting. You need a millennial front person for an idea to succeed. Partly because when they believe in something, they will put in 7,000 thankless hours to make it happen. Plus, life is so much better when it"s infused with the energy of people who aren"t hobbled by the memory of what didn"t work "the last time we tried that." Turns out, tech knowledge is a lot like online celebrity. It"s highly perishable. And that"s where we boomers can come in handy for millennials. We"ve already done all that reckoning. We learned a long time ago that there is always someone younger, thinner and more digital waiting right behind you. Remember, back in the 20th century, we were the smartest kids in the room. But then we had kids ourselves, and the stakes got higher when it came to careers and relationships. We couldn"t just keep trading up or moving on; we had to learn to hold on instead. And work started bleeding into our nights and weekends, thanks to the very technology that everyone still struggles to keep ahead of now. Time was no longer limitless, and it stretched thin faster than we expected. This new generation will face all that soon enough. Even Mark Zuckerberg, who famously said that "young people are just smarter," might not feel so smart now that his first child has arrived. Babies can do that. Family is the one variable you can"t control for. You can"t scrap them for a new version. There"s no A/B testing or product road map, and the people in your life will be unfailingly unpredictable. You"ll often decide to choose their happiness over your ambitions. And they will get sick or die when you don"t expect it. Life is inherently disruptive. You just have to adapt. There"s no secret hack, no work-around, no pro tip for that. Except maybe this: to manage the personal hurricanes that will blow your way, you"ll need aid and comfort from the people where you work. And that"s when a little intergenerational codependence can be a very good thing.

问答题Questions 1～3 Toward the end of every calendar year, Ian Robertson puts his small arsenal of expensive fountain pens into overdrive. That's when Rolls-Royce Motor Cars sends a yearbook to customers who have purchased a Rolls since Jan. 1,2003, when production began under the German automaker BMW. As head of Rolls-Royce, Robertson personally signs each book's accompanying cover letter. The bespoke touch is appreciated by the company's superrich clientele—which numbered 2,800 when Robertson performed the task last year. "With that many customers," he says, "I could just about do it. " This year Robertson may need an autopen. The iconic British car company is expecting already rising sales to soar, relatively speaking. This is, after all, a company whose ambition is to sell a mere 1,000 cars a year. That's a goal within reach, thanks to upcoming expansions of the product line, increasing numbers of extremely rich potential buyers and fast-growing Asian markets. Last year Rolls sold 805 Phantoms, its main model, slightly more than the previous year. Revenues were also up—the company won't say by how much—largely because of the newly introduced extended- wheelbase Phantom, which has a base price of $403,000, or $ 63,000 more than the standard version. Garel Rhys, emeritus professor of automotive economics at Cardiff Business School in Wales, applauds the company's performance since its acquisition by BMW: "You couldn't expect much better." In July, it rolled out the Drophead Coupe, a two-door convertible Phantom starting at $ 407,000. Overall, Robertson predicts, the firm should enjoy double-digit sales growth this year. The company began life in 1904, when Charles Rolls, an aristocratic automobile aficionado and dealership owner, joined forces with fledgling carmaker Henry Royce. Then and now, the company's cars were big, powerful, stately and silent. In 1931, Roils acquired the more sporty, slightly less expensive rival Bentley. When Roll—which also made aircraft engines—went bust in 1971, the auto and aerospace units became separate companies. After a variety of owners, BMW took over. It now builds the cars at a plant in Sussex, England, operating one line and one shift that turns out four or five hand-built cars a day. The 550 employees include craftsmen—skilled cabinet—and saddle makers, for example. Most Rolls are made to order; on average, customers pay $ 20,000 to have their car customized. The company is adding a second line next year and a second shift in 2009 to handle (at the same careful pace) both the Drophead and other planned new cars. For its first Rolls, BMW opted to resurrect the Phantom—a big sedan limousine that all but begs to be chauffeur-driven. That meant targeting the very rich, whose legions are growing fast. Rolls wants to increase its market share while still remaining at the price pinnacle. Next year it's introducing a hardtop coupe version of the Phantom and launching a smaller, as-yet-unnamed sedan. So who is willing to pay a small ransom to own a Roller? Buyers tend to be entrepreneurs, show-business celebrities or sports stars; few are corporate executives. One factor working for Rolls in developing economies: showing off one's megabucks is culturally acceptable in China. That helps explain why China is now Rolls' third largest and fastest-growing market, accounting for 10% of sales. (The U.S. still accounts for 45%.) It was a Beijing property developer who last year paid a record $ 2.3 million for a superstretch Phantom. BMW will certainly be happy to see Rolls generating profits, given the $1.2 billion Rhys estimates it put into the company. Rolls won't budge Beemer's bottom line, given the parent Company's $ 65 billion in sales. But owning Rolls-Royce gives BMW prestige and bragging rights. It proves it can sell cars that sweep the breadth of the market, from budget to budget-busting. Should the world's economy sputter and car sales drop off a cliff, "Rolls-Royce would probably be the first thing to go," Rhys says. But for now, like that iconic spirit of ecstasy that makes up its hood ornament, Rolls-Royce looks poised to speed ahead.1.What can we learn from Ian Robertson's experience at the beginning of the passage?

问答题For a company that looked doomed a decade ago, it has been quite a comeback. Today Apple is literally an iconic company. Some of the power of its brand comes from the extraordinary story of a computer company rescued from near-collapse by its co-founder, Steve Jobs, who returned to Apple in 1997 after years of exile, reinvented it as a consumer-electronics firm and is now taking it into the billion-unit-a-year mobile-phone industry. But mostly Apple's zest comes from its reputation for inventiveness. From its first computer in 1977 to the iPhone now, which goes on sale in America this month, Apple has prospered by keeping just ahead of the times. The company, however, is not without its critics. The firm has come under attack for refusing to make its operating-system and music-protection software available to others (a price worth paying, Apple responds, for greater reliability and consistency). And there are grumbles about manufacturing defects and customer service. Apple is hardly alone in the high-tech industry when it comes to duff gadgets and unhelpful call centers, but in other respects it is highly unusual. In particular, it inspires an almost religious fervor among its customers. That is no doubt helped by the fact that its corporate biography is so closely bound up with the mercurial Mr. Jobs, a rare showman in his industry.

问答题Disparaging comments by adults about a children's presenter have led to an angry backlash in support of Cerrie Burnell, the 29-year-old CBeebies host who was born missing the lower section of her right arm. One man said that he would stop his daughter from watching the BBC children's channel because Burnell would give his child nightmares. Parents even called the broadcaster to complain after Burnell, with Alex Winters, took over the ehannel's popular Do and Discover slot and The Bedtime Hour programme last month, to complain about her disability. And some of the vitriolic comments on the "Grown Up" section of the channel' s website were so nasty that they had to be removed. "Is it just me, or does anyone else think the new woman presenter on CBeebies may scare the kids because of her disability?" wrote one adult on the CBeebies website. Other adults claimed that their children were asking difficult questions as a result. "I didn't want to let my children watch the filler bits on The Bedtime Hour last night because I know it would have played on my eldest daughter's mind and possibly caused sleep problems," said one message. The BBC received nine other complaints by phone. While charities reacted angrily to the criticism of the children's presenter, calling the comments disturbing, other parents and carers labeled the remarks as disgraceful, writing in support of Burnell and setting up a "fight disability prejudice" page on the social networking site Facebook. "I think that it is great that Cerrie is on CBeebies. She is an inspiration to children and we should not underestimate their ability to understand and accept that all of us have differences-some visible and some not," wrote "Surfergirlboosmum". Other websites were flooded with equally supportive comments. "I feel we should all post counter complaints to the BBC and I'm sure they will receive more complaints about the fact they have even considered accepting these complaints," wrote Scott Tostevin on Facebook. "It's a disgrace that people still have snch negative views against people who are 'different'”, he added. Burnell, who described her first television presenting role as a "dream job", has also appeared in EastEnders and Holby City and has been feted for performances in the theatre while also worked as a teaching assistant at a special needs school in London. She also has a four-year-old child. "I think the negative comments from those few parents are indicative of a wider problem of disabled representation in the media as a whole, which is why it's so important for there to be more disabled role models in every area of the media," she said in response yesterday. "The support that I've received ... has been truly heartening. It's brilliant that parents are able to use me as a way of talking about disability with their children and for children who are similarly disabled to see what really is possible in life and for their worlds to be represented in such a positive, high profile manner. " Charities said that much still needed to be done to change perceptions in society. "In some way it is a pretty sad commentary on the way society is now and that both parents and children see few examples of disabled people. The sooner children are exposed to disability in mainstream education the better," said Mark Shrimpton at Radar, the UK's largest disability campaigning organisation. "She is a role model for other disabled people. " Rosemary Bolinger, a trustee at Scope, a charity for people with cerebral palsy, said: "It is disturbing that some parents have reacted in this way ... Unfortunately disabled people are generally invisible in the media and wider society. /1.Who is Cerrie Burnell? Give a brief introduction of Cerrie Burnell.

问答题人生能有几回搏!生命有限，竞技生命更是短暂的。运动员比任何人更深刻地认识到时光易逝机会难得。他会珍惜并利用每一分钟，抓住任何一个机会。他付出许多，也得到许多，不仅为自己，也为祖国赢得荣誉。 参与并取胜，这就是奥林匹克精神。它表现在弱者敢于向强者挑战，也表现在强者力争取得更好的成绩。胜而又胜，优而更优，这种理想一直鼓舞着运动员奋力前进。他会尽其所能，永不松懈，永不罢休。有人说竞技者终究会是失败者，即使是最佳运动员也终将被更强者淘汰。成千上万个强者才涌现一个胜利者，这个胜利者最终仍将被取代，挤出光荣榜——这就是竞技运动的规律。

问答题 Questions 7～10 It is with a queasy feeling that the world's bankers enter 2008. Within 12 months, they have seen record profits crumble, once-booming debt businesses blighted by write—owns, and the troubles of some former high-flyers in the mortgage industry threaten the soundness of the financial system. Fresh obstacles loom in 2008, including a new regulatory regime, known as Basel 2, whose shortcomings have emerged even before it has been officially born. More worrying still would be a slowdown in the world economy. That is not all. The maelstrom in credit markets in 2007 exposed flaws in a banking model that has transformed the finance industry: the banks' ability to sell loans that they don't want to keep to investors hungry for high-yielding assets. This "U-Haul" model of distributed risk had been widely considered one of the marvels of modern finance, until trouble hit. The ability of American banks to turn their loans, via Wall Street's alchemists, into packages of high-yielding securities and sell them to investors was supposed to have enabled banks to diversify their exposure to credit risk. Bank failures had for years been minimal, even during the Asian and Russian debt crises of 1997 and 1998 and the dotcom collapse. By keeping fewer loans on their balance sheets, banks reported stronger returns on their assets, helping to generate bumper earnings. The coming year will test how much of that risk has indeed been spread, and how much of the diversification was illusory. Did banks simply replace the risk of lending on their own doorstep with exposures from outside their sphere of expertise? Some lenders appear to have bamboozled naive borrowers into taking on mortgages they couldn't afford, knowing they could sell the unsound loans into the market with few questions asked. Others made themselves vulnerable by financing long- term loans in the short-term money markets, rather than from depositors or through issuance of bonds. They were strangled when the money markets seized up. Taking such risks will be far harder in 2008, because everyone has been sharply reminded of the maturity mismatch between assets and liabilities that is at the heart of banking. So banks will have to court depositors, not the capital markets. When they make loans, they will have to keep them, monitor them and ensure repayment, rather than passing them on like hot potatoes. "There will be a mad rush back to traditional banking," predicts Dick Bove, banking analyst at Punk Ziegel. The process will not be smooth. Politicians, especially in the American Congress, may tie up lenders with red tape. And Basel 2, with its new capital-adequacy framework for banks, will be roiled out across the European Union from January (it will affect some American banks in 2009). At least for less sophisticated banks, it leans heavily on rating agencies as arbiters of credit quality. But their credibility has been damaged by the over-optimistic assessments they made of some of the riskier debt instruments. Basel 2 also focuses on credit risk, and largely skates over the fickleness of liquidity that bedevilled markets in 2007. It has been a long time since banks have faced such torments, but their business has always been a cyclical one and only the foolish will have forgotten that. (As the saying goes, a banker is someone who lends you an umbrella when it is sunny, and asks for it back when it rains.) To tide them over, all those profits have left banks with plenty of capital in the vaults. Should that run out, central bankers in America and Europe have also shown a remarkable willingness to provide liquidity to the financial system to prevent panic. Tougher conditions are also reducing competition from non-bank financial players, which had flourished in the easy-money era. Aggressive mortgage banks, such as Countrywide in America and Northern Rock in Britain, have revealed their frailties. The big American banks—such as Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase—have retail-banking franchises that may expand by acquiring stricken competitors. The same holds true for well-capitalised retail banks in Europe. Investment banks that falter may find nationwide American banks offering to buy them; or European banks such as Italy's UniCredit taking audacious advantage of their hour of need. Lurking in the background is another potential source of support, deep-pocketed governments in China and the Middle East, keen to invest part of their wealth in Western banks' assets and expertise. According to Morgan Stanley, sovereign-wealth funds spent $ 26 billion in the six months to October 2007 on big financial firms such as Barclays, a British bank, Blackstone, a private-equity group, and the London Stock Exchange. Banks, for their part, covet access to big emerging markets, and a strategic stake sold to the Chinese government, say, may ease the way to a strategic stake in a Chinese bank. But government ownership of banks is always tricky. That should not be forgotten just because an injection of yuan, roubles or petrodollars might provide a quick and easy way to keep a bad bank on life support.

问答题So many of the productions currently to be seen on the London stage are concerned with the more violent aspects of life that it is surprising to meet a play about ordinary people caught up in ordinary events. Thomas Sackville's The Visitor is just such a play--at least, on the surface. It seems to stand well outside the mainstream of recent British drama. In fact the surface is so bland that attention is constantly focused on the care with which the play has been put together, and the clarity with which its argument develops; it seems natural to discuss it in terms of the notion of "the well-wrought play". The story is about an unremarkable family evening in middle-class suburbia. The husband and wife have invited a friend to dinner. The friend turns up in due course and they talk about their respective lives and interests. During this conversation, in which the author shows a remarkable talent for writing dialogue which is entertaining and witty without being so sparkling as to draw too much attention to itself; the characters are carefully fleshed out and provided with a set of credible--if unremarkable--motives. Through innumerable delicate touches in the writing they emerge. pleasant, humorous, ordinary, and ineffectual. And if they are never made vibrantly alive in terms of the real world, one feels that this is deliberate; that the author is content to give them a the atricalexistence of their own, and leave it at that.

问答题近几年掀起的“公务员热”使国家公务员考试成为中国竞争最激烈的考试之一。自1995年国家公务员考试推行以来，报考公务员日渐升温，这两年更是热得发烫。《中国青年报》和腾讯网联合开展的一项最新在线调查显示，73%以上的年轻人愿意当公务员。在17330名调查对象中，约83%的人说，他们主要看重公务员工作稳定、医疗和养老都有保障。此外，55%的人说，当公务员能获得“切实利益”。国家公务员之所以如此有诱惑力，不仅是因为收入稳定、医疗有保障，风险小、权力大、实惠多也是其中的重要原因。