单选题 They say that sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you. Yet childhood bullying really can damage your long-term health. Gone are the days when bullying was considered an inevitable and ultimately harmless part of growing up—just last month we learned that childhood bullying can lead to poorer mental health even into middle age. Now William Copeland at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and his colleagues have shown that it can have lingering physiological effects too. They tracked 1420 9-year-olds right through their teens. Each child was seen up to nine times during the study and quizzed about bullying. The team then measured levels of C-reactive protein in their blood. CRP is a marker of inflammation (炎症) linked to higher risk of cardiovascular disease (心血管疾病) and problems like diabetes. 'Because we were collecting biological samples throughout, we were able to look at CRP levels in subjects prior to their bullying involvement,' says Copeland. 'This really gives us an idea of the changes bullying brings about.' Although CRP levels naturally rise in everyone during adolescence, levels were highest in children who reported being tormented by bullies. Even at the ages of 19 and 21, children who had once been bullied had CRP levels about 1.4 times higher than peers who were neither perpetrators nor victims. In a cruel twist, the bullies had the lowest levels of all, suggesting they didn't suffer the same health risks. They may even see a benefit from their behavior, though Copeland stresses it doesn't vindicate (辩护) their actions. 'The goal would instead be to find other ways to produce this protective effect without it being at someone else's expense,' he says. Andrea Danese at King's College London has previously shown that maltreatment during childhood can lead to high levels of inflammation in adult life. 'This new study is a helpful addition in showing that these effects extend to another important childhood stressor,' he says. He suggests that care workers could monitor levels of CRP in children having psychotherapy to see if it is helping to soothe the stress of being bullied.

单选题 When families gather for Christmas dinner, some will stick to formal traditions dating back to Grandma's generation. Their tables will be set with the good dishes and silver, and the dress code will be Sunday best. But in many other homes, this china-and-silver elegance has given way to a stoneware (粗陶) and stainless informality, with dresses assuming an equally casual-Friday look. For hosts and guests, the change means greater simplicity and comfort. For makers of fine china in Britain, it spells economic hard times. Last week Royal Doulton, the largest employer in Stoke-on-Trent, announced that it is eliminating 1,000 jobs—one-fifth of its total workforce. That brings to more than 4,000 the number of positions lost in 18 months in the pottery (陶瓷) region. Wedgwood and other pottery factories made cuts earlier. Although a strong pound and weak markets in Asia play a role in the downsizing, the layoffs in Stoke have their roots in earthshaking social shifts. A spokesman for Royal Doulton admitted that the company 'has been somewhat slow in catching up with the trend' toward casual dining. Families eat together less often, he explained, and more people eat alone, either because they are single or they eat in front of television. Even dinner parties, if they happen at all, have gone casual. In a time of long work hours and demanding family schedules, busy hosts insist, rightly, that it's better to share a takeout pizza on paper plates in the family room than to wait for the perfect moment or a 'real' dinner party. Too often, the perfect moment never comes. Iron a fine-patterned tablecloth? Forget it. Polish the silver? Who has time? Yet the loss of formality has its down side. The fine points of etiquette (礼节) that children might once have learned at the table by observation or instruction from parents and grandparents ('Chew with your mouth closed.' 'Keep your elbows off the table.') must be picked up elsewhere. Some companies now offer etiquette seminars for employees who may be competent professionally but clueless socially.

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay on how to inherit the traditional culture. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.

单选题 When companies consider their benefits mix, coverage for medical care is often top-of-mind. Yet there may be another, even more powerful concern driving employee coverage preferences: vision care. Roughly 75% of adults in the United States require some type of vision correction, and 84 percent of adults believe that vision benefits are somewhat or very important to them. As a result, vision assistance is moving higher and higher on the list of sought-after employee benefits. What's driving the trend? One factor is the increasing power of eye examinations to detect systemic illness. In addition to identifying nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism, routine eye exams now play a role in diagnosing conditions such as diabetes, brain aneurysms (脑动脉瘤), liver disease and stroke risk. Early identification, in turn, translates into markedly lower expenditures for employers. In 2014, eye problems will cost companies an estimated $8 billion in reduced productivity. Making sure employees get the right eye care helps employers reduce these losses. At the same time, it boosts their ability to retain loyal workers. So what's the best way to get patients into the exam chair? One way is to provide a vision plan that lowers out-of-pocket (自己付费的) expenses. Indeed, research shows that out-of-pocket expense—not premiums—is the number-one factor employees consider when choosing a vision plan. 'And that's just smart,' says independent insurance broker Shannon Enders. 'Premiums make up only about 30 percent of total out-of-pocket expenses. So it pays to look beyond the premium and see the real cost of a plan.' A study conducted by Service Excellence Group Inc., a leading market research company, shows how the right vision insurance plan can result in across-the-board (全面的) savings for employees. The study compared the prices customers with different insurance plans paid for the same popular pair of eyeglasses at independent doctors and retail chains. It found that customers with insurance plans that were most successful at keeping out-of-pocket expenses low saved hundreds of dollars. With eyeglasses becoming as much of a fashion accessory (装饰品) as a vision aid, forward-thinking companies are beginning to take note. Enders says more of his clients are saying yes to vision care plans. 'Employees care about their eyes,' he says. 'And offering benefits packages with the features employees care most about will become an even more important corporate strategy going forward.'

单选题 中国中央电视台春节联欢晚会，简称为春晚，是每年农历除夕为庆祝农历新年而现场直播的重要晚会。自1983年首届春节联欢晚会在中央电视台播出以来，每年除夕之夜它都如期播出，这一传统一直延续至今。春晚在演出规模、演员阵容、播出时长和海内外收视率上创下了世界之最。春晚也成了大多数中国人每逢春节必看的电视节目，是中国除夕之夜的文化盛宴。

单选题 Most people can remember a phone number for up to thirty seconds. When this short amount of time elapses, however, the numbers are erased from the memory. How did the information get there in the first place? Information that makes its way to the short term memory (STM) does so via the sensory storage area. The brain has a filter which only allows stimuli that is of immediate interest to pass on to the STM, also known as the working memory. There is much debate about the capacity and duration of the short term memory. The most accepted theory comes from George A. Miller, a cognitive psychologist who suggested that humans can remember approximately seven chunks of information. A chunk is defined as a meaningful unit of information, such as a word or name rather than just a letter or number. Modern theorists suggest that one can increase the capacity of the short term memory by chunking, or classifying similar information together. By organizing information, one can optimize the STM, and improve the chances of a memory being passed on to long term storage. When making a conscious effort to memorize something, such as information for an exam, many people engage in 'rote rehearsal'. By repeating something over and over again, we are able to keep a memory alive. Unfortunately, this type of memory maintenance only succeeds if there are no interruptions. As soon as a person stops rehearsing the information, it has the tendency to disappear. When a pen and paper are not handy, you might attempt to remember a phone number by repeating it aloud. If the doorbell rings or the dog barks to come in before you get the opportunity to make your phone call, you will forget the number instantly. Therefore, rote rehearsal is not an efficient way to pass information from the short term to long term memory. A better way is to practice 'elaborate rehearsal'. This involves assigning semantic meaning to a piece of information so that it can be filed along with other pre-existing long term memories. Encoding information semantically also makes it more retrievable. Retrieving information can be done by recognition or recall. Humans can recall memories that are stored in the long term memory and used often. However, if a memory seems to be forgotten, it may eventually be retrieved by prompting. The more cues a person is given (such as pictures), the more likely a memory can be retrieved. This is why multiple choice tests are often used for subjects that require a lot of memorization.

单选题 有人说，阅读决定着一个民族思维的深度和广度，对文化传承、国家发展有着重要的意义。已有专家指出，如果仅仅满足于“浅阅读”，对于国家和人民将是灾难性的。这就是为什么在高科技浪潮中，很多网络发达的国家反而更强调传统式阅读。近年来，很多国家都把提倡阅读、提升阅读能力列为教育改革的重点，通过实施这些措施努力唤起“深阅读”。

单选题 Almost 150 years after photovoltaic (光电的) cells and wind turbines (涡轮机) were invented, they still generate only 7% of the world's electricity. Yet something remarkable is happening. From being secondary to the energy system just over a decade ago, they are now growing faster than any other energy source and their falling costs are making them competitive with fossil fuels. BP, an oil firm, expects renewables to account for half of the growth in global energy supply over the next 20 years. It is no longer far-fetched to think that the world is entering an era of clean, unlimited and cheap power. There is a problem, though. To get from here to there requires huge amounts of investment over the next few decades. Normally investors like putting their money into electricity because it offers reliable returns. Yet green energy has a dirty secret. The more it is used, the more it lowers the price of power from any source. That makes it hard to manage the transition to a carbon-free future, during which many generating technologies, clean and dirty, need to remain profitable if the lights are to stay on. Unless the market is fixed, subsidies to the industry will only grow. Policymakers are already seeing this inconvenient truth as a reason to put the brakes on renewable energy. In parts of Europe, investment in renewables is slowing as subsidies are cut back. However, the solution is not less wind and solar. It is to rethink how the world prices clean energy in order to make better use of it. At its heart, the problem is that government-supported renewable energy has been imposed on a market designed in a different era. For much of the 20th century, electricity was made and moved by vertically integrated, state-controlled monopolies. From the 1980s onwards, many of these were broken up, privatized and liberalized, so that market forces could determine where best to invest. Today only about 6% of electricity users get their power from monopolies. Yet everywhere the pressure to decarbonize power supply has brought the state creeping back into markets. This is disruptive for three reasons. The first is the subsidy system itself. The other two are inherent to the nature of wind and solar, their intermittency and their very low running costs. All three help explain why power prices are low and public subsidies are addictive.