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What Your iPad Knows About You[A] You've finally finished the book your co-worker recommended, so what to read next? If it is 5 a,m., chances are that you're reaching for a romance novel—especially if you're in Texas or Georgia. By early morning, thrillers might start to look more appealing. And if Philip K. Dick is your favorite author, books about beer are probably more up your taste than anything about wine or liquor.[B] These are some of the insights from Scribd Inc. and Oyster, two startups that offer unlimited e-book rentals for a monthly subscription fee. Scribd, Oyster and Entitle Books—which just launched in December—are tracking reader behavior in hopes of figuring out recommendations of exactly what you'll want to pick up next.[C] About 50% of the U.S. population owns a dedicated e-reader, according to a Pew Research study released last month. In addition, 28% read an e-book last year, up from 23% the previous year. The services are expanding. Scribd, a San Francisco-based site that started selling monthly e-book subscriptions last October, announced this month that its app is available on Amazon's Kindle Fire and Kindle Paperwhite. After running exclusively on Apple's operating system, New York-based Oyster plans to expand to Android later this year. And Entitle is considering adding an all-you-can-read feature to complement its current "book of the month"-style subscription service. Subscription services are popular because they "reduce the emotional burden" of purchasing, says Julie Haddon, Scribd vice president of marketing. Buying a book creates pressure to finish and get your money's worth, she adds. In addition, people might try to save money by buying a cheaper book instead of the one they really want.[D] Brian Konash, 34, who works at Web startup Squarespace in Manhattan, joined Oyster two months ago because it didn't cause the buyers' sense of guilty he experienced when purchasing Kindle e-books. "You've already paid for the service, so you can read as much as you want," he says. "With other models, there's that little financial bite each time you want to buy a book and you worry that it's going to be worthless." Mr. Konash, who has been picking books based on the site's suggestions, predicts he'll read up to 10 more books a year beyond his usual 25.[E] An all-access subscription "lowers the activation energy for reading," says Oyster CEO Eric Stromberg. Reading often has a high "activation energy" because there's a time gap between wanting to read a book and then actually getting your hands on it, he says. "When you can order a book and instantly get it on your tablet, you can hear about the book and then read it right there," says Willem van Lancker, Oyster's chief product officer.[F] "From the publishing perspective, the biggest problem is how to get people to care about a new book," says Otis Chandler, CEO of Goodreads, a site where people share what they're reading and post recommendations. Goodreads, which was acquired by Amazon in March, uses an algorithm (运算法则 ) that recommends books that users with similar taste have enjoyed.[G] Oyster and Scribd ask readers to rate books, what they call an "active signal." They also track "passive signals," such as the percentage of a book that a reader finishes and the click rate, or how many people who are shown a book click through to learn more. The companies use that information among other factors to recommend books. Active signals represent what we wish we read, while passive signals are more honest, says Jared Friedman, Scribd chief technology officer. A lot of people give a 5-star rating to "The Great Gatsby," while they read greedily, but don't necessarily rate, thrillers like "The Da Vinci Code," for example.[H] Other findings: Self-help might be a popular market, yet only about 20% of people who start such a book finish it. More than 80% of people who crack the pages of a mystery novel will find out who did it. People read through biographies at 20 pages per hour, while they read at three times that speed for erotica (色情作品). And higher "acceleration factor"—or how much readers speed up as they get closer to finishing—correlates with higher average rating for a book. One of the highest acceleration factors comes from Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle," which readers start speeding through at the halfway mark, Mr. Friedman says. All three companies allow users to hide their reading behavior from other customers, but users can't opt out of their behavior being collected by the company itself. Entitle, however, says it keeps track of browsing and download information only.[I] Personalized recommendations drive 10 times more browsing traffic than lists based on themes such as "globe-trotting memoirs" or "bad role models" that copy racks at the front of bookstores, Scribd's Mr. Friedman says. The company is interested in combining algorithms with lists to create a list of best sellers that someone would, based on past reading behavior, find interesting. Another possible approach is to suggest different books or genres depending on time of day to take advantage of what the company knows about time-based preferences.[J] The algorithm doesn't just analyze behavior signals, but "reads" through a book's text to pull out different topics, genres and subjects, says Bryan Batten, chief executive of Entitle. There's also a patent-pending (申请专利中的) service called "if these books had a baby," where users can input two books and find a third with similar themes. For example, the "baby" of Joseph Heller's "Catch-22" and Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" is Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" but the product of "Catch-22" and Steve Jobs biography is a book called "Dealers of Lightning," about engineers at Xerox Corp.[K] Entitle operates on a tiered model: two books for $9.99 a month (the most popular plan), three for $14.99, and so on. For customers, the upside is being able to keep the e-books, even if they cancel the service. The services, of course, compete with the library. But libraries have had limited e-book offerings and there are often waits for the books. Robert Wolven, co-chair of the American Library Association's Digital Content Working Group, says demand has increased significantly in the past 18 months. He says he doesn't see the startups as a threat.[L] While libraries' budget for e-books has been growing, licensing restrictions mean that popular titles often aren't available, says Laura Girmscheid, research manager for the trade publication Library Journal, which recently released its fourth annual report on e-books in libraries. This, combined with holds on e-books, is the largest hurdle preventing people from using library e-books more. "It's just not convenient for instant access," Ms. Girmscheid says.

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled How to Protect Consumers’ Rights? following the outline given below．You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words． 1．消费者的权益经常受到侵害，如…… 2．保护消费者权益可以从几个方面做起

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When anti-globalization protesters took to the streets of Washington last weekend, they blamed globalization for everything from hunger to the destruction of home-grown cultures. And globalization meant the United States. The critics call it Coca-Colonization, and French sheep farmer Jose Bove has become a cult(狂热分子)figure since destroying a McDonald's restaurant in 1999. Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, globalization is neither homogenizing(使......同化)nor Americanizing the cultures of the world. To understand why not, we have to step back and put the current period in a larger historical perspective. Although they are related, the long-term historical trends of globalization and modernization are not the same. While modernization has produced some common traits, such as large cities, factories and mass communications, local cultures have by no means been erased. The appearance of similar institutions in response to similar problems is not surprising, but it does not lead to homogeneity. In the first half of the 20th century, for example, there were some similarities among the industrial societies of Britain, Germany, America and Japan, but there were even more important differences. When China, India and Brazil complete their current processes of industrialization and modernization, we should not expect them to be exact copies of Japan, Germany or the United States. Take the current information revolution as an example. The United States is at the forefront of this great movement of change, so the uniform social and cultural habits produced by television viewing or Internet use, for instance, are often attributed to Americanization. But correlation is not cause. Since the United States does exist and is at the leading edge of the information revolution, there is a degree of Americanization at present, but it is likely to decrease over the course of the 21st century as technology spreads and local cultures modernize in their own ways. Historical proof that globalization does not necessarily mean homogenization can be seen in the case of Japan. In the mid-19th century, it became the first Asian country to embrace globalization and to borrow successfully from the world without losing its uniqueness. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japan searched broadly for tools and innovations that would allow it to become a major power rather than a victim of Western imperialism. The lesson that Japan has to teach the rest of the world is that even a century and a half of openness to global trends does not necessarily assure destruction of a country's separate cultural identity.

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BSection B/B

和亲 (peace-making marriage)政策可以追溯到 西汉时期 (the Western Han Dynasty)。当时西汉政府为了缓和与匈奴的关系，将公主嫁给 匈奴部落 (Xiongnu tribes)的首领。人们对和亲一直有着不同的看法。有人对和亲持肯定态度，因为和亲可以停止战争，与少数民族建立和平友好的关系。而另一些人则认为和亲政策是一种妥协和投降。总的来说，和亲政策有利有弊，应放在当时的历史环境下来考虑。

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay on the topic Due Attention Should Be Given to the Study of Chinese. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words following the outline given below:1．近年来在学生中出现了忽视中文学习的现象。2．出现这种现象的原因和后果。3．为了改变这种状况，你认为……

A "memory pill" that could aid exam revision and help to prevent people forgetting important anniversaries may soon be available over the counter. The medicine has been designed originally to help treat Alzheimer's disease, a disease marked by progressive loss of mental capacity resulting from degeneration of the brain cells, but could be adapted and licensed for sale in a weaker form within the next few years. One brand of memory-enhancing pill is being developed by the multinational company AstraZeneca in collaboration with Targacept, an American company, while Epix Pharmaceuticals, also from the US, is developing another. Both have "cognitive-enhancing effects" which are aimed at treating patients with age-related memory loss. Steven Ferris, a neurologist and former committee member of the Food and Drug Administration in the US, has predicted that a milder version will be available for healthy consumers as a "lifestyle pill" available over the counter. Dr Ferris said: "My view is that one could gain approval, provided you showed the drugs to be effective and safe. It could be a huge market." There is evidence that mind-improving drugs are already being taken in Britain by healthy users. Provigil, which was used to treat narcolepsy, is being taken by some students to help them stay awake, while Adderall XR and Ritalin, treatments for attention deficit disorder, are being used to help promote concentration. A spokesman of Adderall XR said: "We get a lot of calls from college campuses asking about it". "There are risks though. It can raise blood pressure, people shouldn't do it." The Department of Health said it was not illegal to buy the medicines over the Internet, but it was not recommended. Barbara Sahakian, professor of clinical neuropsychology at Cambridge, said: "It's hard to quantify the scale of the phenomenon but it's definitely catching on." "The reality is we are not always at our best. After being up at night looking after the kids or travelling, many people would love to have something to refresh them. It's not prohibited to drink Red Bull. The principle with cognition enhancers is not so different."

BPart II Listening Comprehension/B

新中国成立后，中国政府一直致力于提高女性的社会地位。经过多年的努力，女性群体在社会各个领域产生了不可忽视的力量。近年来，越来越多的女性在政府部门任职，参与的国家政务活动也明显增多。据最近的一份调查数据显示，大约每3位企业中高层管理者中就有1位是女性。此外，女性在家庭决策中也扮演着越来越重要的角色。

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脸谱(facial makeup)是指中国传统戏剧——京剧里男演员脸部的彩色化妆。它在色彩、形式和类型上有一定的格式。脸谱运用红色、黄色、白色、黑色、紫色、绿色和银色代表不同的人物性格。各角色的脸谱由油漆、粉和油彩画成，基本形式是整脸、三块瓦脸(San Kuai Wa Lian)和碎脸。这些脸谱类型被广泛用于代表将军、官员、英雄、神灵和鬼魅。通过眼睛和鼻子周围形状各异的白色小块，可以辨别出丑角(Chou actors)。有时这些小块以黑色勾勒，常称小花脸(Xiao Hua Lian)。

Some marriages seem to collapse so suddenly that you'd need a crystal ball to predict their demise (灭亡). In other【C1】______, though, the seeds of marital dissolution are not only easier to see but they may be planted even before the honeymoon bills come【C2】______. According to UCLA psychologist Thomas Bradbury, Ph. D., the way a newlywed【C3】______when his or her spouse is facing a personal problem-work stress, say, or a recent weight gain—is a【C4】______good window into their marital future. Bradbury and Lauri Pasch, Ph. D., invited 57 couples, all married less than six months, to【C5】______a difficulty that each partner was having. While some couples proved to be superstars at providing emotional support, others were woefully inept (笨拙的). You just cringed (退缩) when you watched them, Bradbury says. Two years later, nine of the couples had already【C6】______and five other marriages were intact but hanging by a thread. These 14 couples, it turned out, had been far less likely to provide support to one another as newlyweds than the other 43 couples whose marriages were【C7】______. Bradbury thinks a couple's inability to help each other through【C8】______times is what often blossoms into full-fledged marital discord (不和谐)—and ultimately divorce. All of which suggests an obvious antidote (轶事) to'the sky-high divorce rate: if couples can learn how to provide emotional support before they marry, they【C9】______a better chance of staying together. The trouble, Bradbury says, is that couples who go for premarital counseling—where they can learn such skills—【C10】______to be the ones with a lesser risk for marital problems in the first place. A. thriving B. comments C. tough D. tend E. committing F. cases G. stand H. intends I. due J. reacts K. surprisingly L. durable M. split N. regularly O. discuss

明清两朝 (the Ming and Qing Dynasties)是中国小说的繁荣时期。从思想和主题方面来说，这个时代的小说包含了传统文化的精神，充分显示出其文学价值和社会作用。在文学史上，明清小说具有与 唐诗、宋词、元曲 (Tang Shi，Song Ci and Yuan Qu)一样重要的地位。中国 文学四大名著 (Four Great Works of Litera-ture)都是明清时期的代表作品。这些享有世界声誉的作品都已经被改编成影视剧，受到中外观众的喜爱。

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科学家们很早就发现，地球绕着太阳转。