According to a survey, which was based on the responses of over 188,000 students, today's traditional-age college freshmen are "more materialistic and less altruistic (利他主义的)" than at any time in the 17 years of the poll. Not surprising in these hard times, the student's major objective "is to be financially well off. Less important than ever is developing a meaningful philosophy of life." It follows then that today the most popular course is not literature or history but accounting. Interest in teaching, social service and the "altruistic" fields is at a low. On the other hand, enrollment in business programs, engineering and computer science is way up. That's no surprise either. A friend of mine (a sales representative for a chemical company) was making twice the salary of her college instructors her first year on the job—even before she completed her two-year associate degree. While it's true that we all need a career, it is equally true that our civilization has accumulated an incredible amount of knowledge in fields far removed from our own and that we are better for our understanding of these other contributions—be they scientific or artistic. It is equally true that, in studying the diverse wisdom of others, we learn how to think. More important, perhaps, education teaches us to see the connections between things, as well as to see beyond our immediate needs. Weekly we read of unions who went on strike for higher wages, only to drive their employer out of business. No company; no job. How shortsighted in the long run! But the most important argument for a broad education is that in studying the accumulated wisdom of the ages, we improve our moral sense. I saw a cartoon recently which shows a group of businessmen looking puzzled as they sit around a conference table; one of them is talking on the intercom (对讲机): "Miss Baxter," he says, "could you please send in someone who can distinguish right from wrong?" From the long-term point of view, that's what education really ought to be about.
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For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the saying "Happiness lies in contentment. " You can cite examples to illustrate their relationship. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.
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Topic Should Setting off Fireworks Be Forbidden? For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay based on the picture below. You should start your essay with a brief account of the practice of setting off fireworks and then express your views on whether this practice should be forbidden or not. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.
For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled Marks or Abilities by commenting on the saying, "Experience without learning is better than learning without experience. " You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.
信用卡
(credit card)在1985年引入中国。此后，信用卡的发卡量以惊人的速度增长，到2011年达到了2．85亿张。信用卡给消费者带来诸多好处。用卡付账时，持卡人不需要携带大量现金，还会经常得到一些额外的奖励。而且，持卡人还可以从发卡机构获得一定数额的贷款。然而，信用卡也常常使持卡人过度消费，购买一些他们并不真正需要的商品。
中国经济发展的规模和速度令人瞩目。然而，中国仍面临着巨大的挑战。官方数据显示，中国今年的物价跟去年相比上涨了6．4％。除了物价上涨导致的问题，经济结构上的问题也有待解决。随着中国社会的发展和人们
生活方式
(lifestyle)的改变，转变经济模式的需求开始显现。这将要求去发展新兴产业，特别是服务业。现在中国领导人已开始着手解决这些问题了。
Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteashortessay.Youshouldstartyouressaywithabriefaccountofhowoureducationsystemgenerallyjudgestudents,andthenexplainwhyacademicachievementisn'tanadequatewaytojudgeastudent.Youshouldwriteatleast120wordsbutnomorethan180words.
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Trawling (用拖网捕鱼) the seabed for fish is an environmental disaster; it wrecks ecosystems, destroys fish stocks and leaves behind a marine desert. Right? Environment campaigners say so. But there is growing evidence that the effect is sometimes very different, with trawling increasing fish stocks from the North Sea to the California coast. A new modeling study may for the first time have demonstrated why. Trawlers attach large nets to a metal beam dragged across the seabed to catch bottom-dwelling fish. Greenpeace compares it to "driving a huge bulldozer through a forest", leaving a flat, featureless desert on the seabed. Trawling clearly does remove fish, such as large crustaceans and shellfish, says Daniel van Denderen of the Wageningen Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem Studies in the Netherlands. But this is a lucky break for softer, smaller species lurking in the sandy seabed, such as worms. They survive and, with fewer rivals, flourish.And if, as is often the case, these smaller critters are the main food for fish, then the overall effect is to nurture more marine life. Imants Priede, director of Oceanlab at the University of Aberdeen, UK, says there is growing evidence that—while far from universal—the phenomenon is real. "On continental shelves such as the southern North Sea, where shifting sands and gravels are stirred up by strong tidal currents, even trawling more than once a year may be beneficial for some fish stocks," he says. In fact, studies going back 20 years have linked persistent trawling with increased fish stocks. The cause of this counter-intuitive finding has remained uncertain. Some have suggested that trawling stirs up the seabed, throwing potential food into the water column—rather like ploughing a field. Others think that discards from fish nets add to the food available on the sea floor. But van Denderen is the first to show how trawling can stimulate fisheries simply by drifting from ecosystems. "The findings are very important," says Priede.
BPart III Reading Comprehension/B
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随着电子商务的兴起和网购的流行，
快递业
(express delivery industry)应运而生。快递公司提供上门收件服务，收件后就会以尽可能快的速度送到顾客手上。然而，对快递延误的投诉却持续不断。为了提高投递服务质量，
国家标准化管理委员会
(the National Standardization Management Committee)实施了一套新标准。该标准规定，城际之间投递包裹的时间不得超过72小时，否则将被认定为延误，顾客即有权索赔。
近年来，随着中国政治及经济实力的不断提升，学中文的外国人越来越多。
每年随着中国高校开学日期临近，家长们就开始忙着为孩子购置各种物品。笔记本电脑、手机和银行卡是许多大学新生新学期的“
三件套
”(three-piece suit)。一些学生还准备了相机、游戏机和其他
时尚产品
(trendyproduct)。相关学者称这些学生花钱太大手大脚。也有一些家长表示，他们会满足孩子的基本需求，但是如果孩子想花更多钱或生活得更好，则需要他们自己去挣钱实现。
The inner voice of people who appear unconscious can now be heard. For the first time, researchers have struck up a conversation with a man diagnosed as being in a vegetative (植物的) state. All they had to do was monitor how his brain responded to specific questions. "They can now have some involvement in their destiny," says Adrian Owen of the University of Cambridge, who led the team doing the work. In an earlier experiment, Owen's team asked a woman previously diagnosed as being in a vegetative state to picture herself carrying out one of two different activities. The resulting brain activity suggested she understood the commands and was therefore conscious. Now Owen's team has taken the idea a step further. A man also diagnosed with VS was able to answer yes and no to specific questions by imagining himself engaging in the same activities. The results suggest that it is possible to give a degree of choice to some people who have no other way of communicating with the outside world. "We are not just showing they are conscious, we are giving them a voice and a way to communicate," says neurologist (神经病学家) Steven Laureys of the University of Liege in Belgium, Owen's partner. Doctors traditionally base these diagnoses on how someone behaves: for example, whether they can glance in different directions in response to questions. The new results show that you don't need behavioural indications to identify awareness and even a degree of cognitive proficiency. All you need to do is tap into brain activity directly. The work "changes everything", says Nicholas Schiff, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, who is carrying out similar work on patients with consciousness disorders. "Knowing that someone could persist in a state like this and not show evidence of the fact that they can answer yes/no questions should be extremely disturbing to our practice." One of the most difficult questions you might want to ask someone is whether they want to carry on living. But as Owen and Laureys point out, the scientific, legal and ethical challenges for doctors asking such questions are formidable.
BSection C/B