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For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled On Foreign Language Learning at An Early Age following the outline given below．You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words． 1．如今，很多家长让低龄孩子学习外语 2．对此现象，人们看法不一 3．你的观点是……

舞龙体现了中国人团结、奋进的精神，是中华民族宝贵的文化遗产，中国文化的标志之一。

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It's 10 pm. You may not know where your child is, but the chip does. The chip will also know if your child has fallen and needs immediate help. Once doctors arrive, the chip will also be able to tell them which drugs are not suitable for little Johnny or Janie. At the hospital, the chip will tell doctors his or her complete medical history. And of course, when you arrive to pick up your child, settling the hospital bill with your health insurance policy will be a simple matter of waving your own chip—the one embedded in your hand. To some, this may sound unbelievable. But the technology for such chips is no longer the stuff of science fiction. And it may soon offer many other benefits besides locating lost children or elderly patients. It could be used as credit cards and people won't have to carry wallets anymore. On the other hand, some are already wondering what this sort of technology may do to the sense of personal privacy and liberty. "Any technology of this kind could result in abuse of personal privacy," says Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "If a kid can be tracked, do you want other people to be able to track your kid? It's a double-edged sword." Applied Digital Solutions, Inc. in Palm Beach, Florida, says it has recently applied to the Food and Drug Administration for permission to begin testing its device in humans. About the size of a grain of rice, the microchip can be encoded (编码) with bits of information and embedded in humans under a layer of skin. When scanned by a nearby reader, the embedded chip gives the data. Most embedded chip designs are so-called passive chips, which give information only when scanned by a nearby reader. But active chips—such as the proposed Digital Angel of the future—will give out information all the time. And that means designers will have to develop some sort of power source that can provide a continuous source of energy, yet be small enough to be embedded with the chips. In addition to technical problems, many suspect that all sorts of legal and privacy issues would have to be cleared as well.

The word Yoga itself comes from an ancient Sanskrit word meaning "union". What kind of union do you think the word refers to? Why would people want to have this kind of experience? Students of Yoga often study for as long as 20 years before becoming【C1】______, or Yogis. They learn many different【C2】______exercises. These exercises are designed to put the students in good physical condition. Then they can concentrate on deep religious thoughts without physical【C3】______. Many Yoga exercises【C4】______putting the body into difficult position. Some of them are very hard to learn. Have you ever tried to【C5】______your legs over one another? This is one of the【C6】______Yoga positions. It is called the lotus position. Most people find it difficult to stay in that position for even a few minutes. But Yogis train themselves to remain in the lotus position for hours or even days. They are taught to【C7】______the physical discomforts of holding these positions. Other exercises and【C8】______teach concentration. Yogis feel this is the key to【C9】______inner peace. This kind of concentration is called meditation. Yogis and many other people practice meditation They claim that it makes them feel relaxed and【C10】______. Some people say that it makes them feel better—just as good exercise does. But other people say that meditation helps them feel much closer to God. A. discomforts B. basic C. finding D. peaceful E. rules F. overcome G. physical H. enforcing I. involve J. intimate K. masters L. external M. fold N. interaction O. elaborately

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中国的铁路建设始于 清朝 (the Qing Dynasty)末年。自新中国成立后，中国的铁路得到了飞速发展。目前中国拥有仅次于美国和俄罗斯的全球第三大铁路网。在中国，铁路是国家重要的 基础设施 (infrastructure)、大众化的交通工具。每逢寒暑假、节假日，总会出现“一票难求”的现象。据报道，中国将优先发展西部地区，特别是贫困地区的铁路，引导当地人民走向致富之路。

Saving Nature, But Only ManEnvironmental Necessities and Environmental LuxuriesA)Environmental sensitivity is now as required an attitude in polite society as is, say, belief in democracy or aversion to nylon. But now that everyone has claims to love Mother Earth, how are we to choose among the dozens of conflicting proposals, restrictions, projects, regulations and laws advanced in the name of the environment? Clearly not everything with an environmental claim is worth doing. How to choose?B)There is a simple way. First, distinguish between environmental luxuries and environmental necessities. Luxuries are those things that would be nice to have if costless. Necessities are those things we must have regardless. Then apply a rule. Call it the fundamental principle of sensible environmentalism: Combating ecological change that directly threatens the health and safety of people is an environmental necessity. All else is luxury. For example: preserving the atmosphere, by both protecting the ozone layer and halting the greenhouse effect, is an environmental necessity. In April scientists reported that ozone damage is far worse than previously thought. Ozone reduction not only causes skin cancer and eye cataracts(白内障), it also destroys plankton(浮游生物), the beginning of the food chain on top which we humans sit.C)The reality of the greenhouse effect is more speculative, though its possible consequences are far deadlier: melting ice caps, flooded coastlines, disturbed climate, dried up plains and, ultimately, empty breadbaskets. The American Midwest feeds the world. Are we prepared to see Iowa acquire Albuquerque's climate? And Siberia acquire Iowa's? Ozone reduction and the greenhouse effect are human disasters. They happen to occur in the environment. But they are urgent because they directly threaten man. A sensible environmentalism, the only kind of environmentalism that will win universal public support, begins by unashamedly declaring that nature is here to serve man. A sensible environmentalism is entirely man-centered: it calls for man to preserve nature, but on the grounds of self-preservation.A Sensible Environmentalism Does Not Sentimentalize the EarthD)A sensible environmentalism does not sentimentalize the earth. It does not ask people to sacrifice in the name of other creatures. After all, it is hard enough to ask people to sacrifice in the name of other humans.(Think of the public resistance to foreign aid and welfare.)Ask hardworking voters to sacrifice in the name of snail darter(蜗牛鱼), and, if they are feeling polite, they will give you a shrug.E)Of course, this man-centeredness runs against the grain of a contemporary environmentalism that worships the earth to the point of excess. One scientific theory—Gaia theory—actually claims that Earth is a living organism. This kind of environmentalism likes to consider itself spiritual. It is nothing more than sentimental. It takes, for example, a highly selective view of the kindliness of nature. My nature worship stops with the May storms that killed more than 125,000 Bengalis and left 10 million homeless.F)A non-sentimental environmentalism is one founded on Protagoras principle that " Man is the measure of all things". Such a principle helps us to fight our way through the jungle of environmental argument. Take the current debate raging over oil drilling in a corner of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Environmentalists, fighting against a bill working its way through Congress to permit such exploration, argue that we should be conserving energy instead of drilling for it. This is a false either/or proposition. The country does need a substantial energy tax to reduce consumption. But it needs more production, too. Government estimates indicate a nearly fifty-fifty chance that under the ANWR lies one of the five largest oil fields ever discovered in America.G)We have just come through a war fought in part over oil: Energy dependence costs Americans not just dollars but lives. It is a ridiculous sentimentalism that would deny ourselves oil that is peacefully attainable because it risks disrupting the breeding grounds of Arctic reindeer(驯鹿). I like the reindeer as much as the next man. And I would be rather sorry if their mating patterns are disturbed. But you cannot have everything. And if the choice is between the welfare of reindeer and reducing oil dependence that gets people killed in wars, I choose man over reindeer every time.H)Similarly the spotted owl. I am no enemy of the owl. If it could be preserved at no or little cost, I would agree: the variety of nature is a good, a high aesthetic(美学的)good. But it is no more than that. And sometimes aesthetic goods have to be sacrificed to the more fundamental ones. If the cost of preserving the spotted owl is the loss of livelihood for 30,000 logging families, I choose family over owl. Man Is the Master of NatureI)The important distinction is between those environmental goods that are fundamental and those that are merely aesthetic. Nature is our charge. It is not our master. It is to be respected and even cultivated. But it is man's world. And when man has to choose between his well-being and that of nature, nature will have to accommodate.J)Man should accommodate only when his fate and that of nature are bound up together. The most urgent accommodation must be made when the very integrity of man's environment—e. g. : atmospheric ozone— is threatened. When the threat to man is of a lesser order(say, the pollutants form coal- and oil-fired generators that cause death from disease but not fatal damage to the ecosystem), a more moderate accommodation that balances economic against health concerns is in order. But in either case the principle is the same: protect the environment—because it is man's environment. The sentimental environmentalists will call this saving nature with a totally wrong frame of mind. Exactly. A sensible—a humanistic—environmentalism does it not for nature's sake but for our own.

这是一个需要再三考虑的重要决定。

When Mom and Dad Grow Old A)The prospect of talking to increasingly fragile parents about their future can be "one of the most difficult challenges adult children will ever face, " says Clarissa Green, a Vancouver therapist. "People often tell me they don't want to raise sensitive issues with their parents about bringing in caregivers or moving, " she says. "They'll say, 'I don't want to see dad cry.'" But Green usually responds, "What' s wrong with that?" Adult children, she says, need to try to join their parents in grieving their decline, acknowledge their living arrangements may no longer work and, if necessary, help them say goodbye to their beloved home. "It' s sad. And it' s supposed to be. It's about death itself." B)There are almost four million men and women over age 65 in Canada. Nearly two thirds of them manage to patch together enough support—from family, friends, private and government services—to live independently until virtually the day they die, according to Statistics Canada. C)Of the Canadian seniors who live to 85 and over, almost one in three end up being moved— sometimes kicking—to group living for the last years of their lives. Even in the best-case scenarios(可能出现的情况), such dislocations can bring sorrow. "Often the family feels guilty, and the senior feels abandoned" says Charmaine Spencer, a professor in the gerontology department of Simon Fraser University. Harassed with their own careers and children, adult children may push their parents too fast to make a major transition. D)Val MacDonald, executive director of the B.C. Seniors Services Society, cautions adult children against imposing their views on aging parents. "Many baby boomers can be quite patronizing(高人一等的), " she says. Like many who work with seniors, Macdonald suggests adult children devote many conversations over a long period of time to collaborating on their parents' future, raising feelings, questions and options—gently, but frankly. However, many middle-aged adults, according to the specialists, just muddle(应付)through with their aging parents. E)When the parents of Nancy Woods of Mulmur Hills, Ont., were in their mid-80s, they made the decision to downsize from their large family home to an apartment in Toronto. As Wood' s parents, George and Bernice, became frailer(更虚弱的), she believed they knew she had their best interests at heart. They agreed to her suggestion to have meals on Wheels start delivering lunches and dinners. However, years later, after a crisis, Woods discovered her parents had taken to throwing out the prepared meals. Her dad had appreciated them, but Bernice had come to believe they were poisoned. "My father was so loyal, " says Woods, "he had hid that my mother was overwhelmed by paranoia(偏执狂)." To her horror, Woods discovered her dad and mom were "living on crackers and oatmeal porridge" and were weakening from the impoverished diet. Her dad was also falling apart with the stress of providing for Bernice—a common problem when one spouse tries to do everything for an ailing partner. "The spouse who' s being cared for might be doing well at home, " says Spencer, "but often the other spouse is burned out and ends up being hospitalized." F)Fortunately, outside help is often available to people struggling through the often-distressing process of helping their parents explore an important shift. Sons and daughters can bring in brochures or books on seniors' issues, as well as introduce government health-care workers or staff at various agencies, to help raise issues and open up discussions, says Val Macdonald, whose nonprofit organization responds to thousands of calls a year from British Columbians desperate for information about how to weave through the dizzying array of seniors services and housing options. The long list of things to do, says MacDonald, includes assessing their ability to live independently: determining your comfort level with such things as bathing a parent: discussing with all household members whether it would be healthy for an elderly relative to move in: monitoring whether, out of pure duty, you're overcommitting yourself to providing a level of care that could threaten your own well-being. G)The shock phone call that flung Nancy Woods and her parents into action came from her desperate dad. "I got this call from father that he couldn't cope anymore. My mother was setting fires in the apartment, " she says. "He didn't want to see it for what it was. Up to then he'd been in denial." Without knowing she was following the advice of experts who recommend using outside sources to stimulate frank discussion with parents, Woods grabbed a copy of The 36-Hour Day: a family guide to caring for persons with Alzheimer disease, related dementing illness, and memory loss in later life. She read sections of the book to her dad and asked him, "Who does that sound like? " Her father replied, "It' s mother. It' s dementia(痴呆)." At that point, Woods said, her dad finally recognized their tragic plight(困境). She told her father she would help them move out of their apartment. "He nodded. He didn't yell or roar. He took it on the chin(忍受痛苦)." H)Woods regrets that she "had not noticed small details signaling mom's dementia." But she's satisfied her dad accepted his passage into a group residence, where he and his wife could stay together in a secure unit where staff were trained to deal with patients with dementia. "From the moment they moved into the Toronto nursing home, their physical health improved. On the other hand, it was the beginning of the end in terms of their mental abilities. Perhaps they couldn't get enough stimulation. Perhaps it was inevitable." I)After my father died in 2002, the grim reality of my mother's sharply declining memory set in starkly. With her expanding dementia, mom insisted on staying in her large North Shore house, even though she was confused about how to cook, organize her day or take care of herself. For the next three years we effectively imposed decisions on her, most of them involving bringing in caregivers, including family members. In 2005 mom finally agreed, although she barely knew what was happening, to move to a nearby nursing home, where, despite great confusion, she is happier. As Spencer says, the sense of dislocation that comes with making an important passage can be "a very hard adjustment for a senior at the best of times. But it' s worse if it' s not planned out."

目前，全球变暖是一个热门话题，但是有关全球变暖的各项证据似乎还有些不同的声音。人们现在已经知道，地球的发展经历了很多 周期 (cycle)，尽管在历史上还未出现过像今天这样的时代，即高度 工业化 (industrialization)产生如此多的污染。全球变暖主要是由于 二氧化碳气体 (carbon dioxide)的增多。

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吉利数字(auspicious number)在中国文化一直起着重要的作用。不少人认为数字6、8、9吉利，因为它们跟一些具有积极含义的汉字发音相同或相近。如8与“发”的发音相似，象征着繁荣和财富；9与“久”发音一样，意为“长长久久”。因此，很多人在选择手机号码和车牌号码(license plate number)时会不惜花钱去选取这些数字。相反，没有人会选4，因为4与“死”发音一致，是不吉利的数字(inauspicious number)。

七夕节(Double Seventh Festival)是中国最具浪漫色彩的传统节日。每年农历(lunar calendar)七月初七就是七夕节，亦称“乞巧节”。七夕节起源于中国古代牛郎(Cowherd)和织女(Weaver Maid)的爱情神话，他们的故事感动了一代又一代的中国人。许多有情男女会在七夕的晚上祈祷自己的姻缘美满，期望“有情人终成眷属”。近年来，越来越多的都市青年男女把这个节日当作“中国情人节”(Chinese Valentine's Day)来过。

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