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"Deep reading"—as opposed to the often superficial reading we do on the Web—is an endangered practice, one we ought to take steps to preserve as we would a historic building or a significant work of art. Its disappearance would jeopardize the intellectual and emotional development of generations growing up online, as well as the preservation of a critical part of our culture: the novels, poems and other kinds of literature that can be appreciated only by readers whose brains, quite literally, have been trained to understand them. Recent research in cognitive science and psychology has demonstrated that deep reading—slow, immersive, rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexity—is a distinctive experience, different in kind from the mere decoding of words. Although deep reading does not, strictly speaking, require a conventional book, the built-in limits of the printed page are uniquely helpful to the deep reading experience. A book's lack of hyperlinks(超链接) , for example, frees the reader from making decisions—Should I click on this link or not? —allowing her to remain fully immersed in the narrative. That immersion is supported by the way the brain handles language rich in detail, indirect reference and figures of speech: by creating a mental representation that draws on the same brain regions that would be active if the scene were unfolding in real life. The emotional situations and moral dilemmas that are the stuff of literature are also vigorous exercise for the brain, propelling us inside the heads of fictional characters and even, studies suggest, increasing our real-life capacity for empathy (认同) . None of this is likely to happen when we're browsing through a website. Although we call the activity by the same name, the deep reading of books and the information-driven reading we do on the Web are very different, both in the experience they produce and in the capacities they develop. A growing body of evidence suggests that online reading may be less engaging and less satisfying, even for the "digital natives" to whom it is so familiar. Last month, for example, Britain's National Literacy Trust released the results of a study of 34,910 young people aged 8 to 16. Researchers reported that 39% of children and teens read daily using electronic devices, but only 28% read printed materials every day. Those who read only onscreen were three times less likely to say they enjoy reading very much and a third less likely to have a favorite book. The study also found that young people who read daily only onscreen were nearly two times less likely to be above-average readers than those who read daily in print or both in print and onscreen.

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For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay on holiday economy. Your essay should express your own opinion of the phenomenon and provide the reasons to support your argument. You are required to write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a composition entitled People Are Becoming Isolated from Each Other. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words and you should base your composition on the outline below. 1．尽管科技的发展使世界变小，人与人之间的关系却越来越疏远。 2．人们彼此疏远的原因。 3．你的结论。

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Latino youths need better education for Arizona to take full advantage of the possibilities their exploding population offers. Arizona's fast-growing Latino population offers the state tremendous promise and a challenge. Even more than the aging of the baby boomers, the Latino boom is fundamentally reorienting the state' s economic and social structure. Immigration and natural increase have added 600,000 young Latino residents to the state's population in the past decade. Half of the population younger than 18 in both Phoenix and Tucson is now Latino. Within 20 years, Latinos will make up half of the homegrown entry-level labour pool in the state' s two largest labour markets. What is more, Hispanics are becoming key economic players. Most people don't notice it, but Latinos born in Arizona make up much of their immigrant parents' economic and educational deficits. For example, second-generation Mexican-Americans secure an average of 12 grades of schooling where their parents obtained less than nine. That means they erase 70 percent of their parents' lag behind third-generation non-Hispanic Whites in a single generation. All of this hands the state a golden opportunity. At a time when many states will struggle with labour shortages because of modest population growth, Arizona has a priceless chance to build a populous, hardworking and skilled workforce on which to base future prosperity. The problem is that Arizona and its Latino residents may not be able to seize this opportunity. Far too many of Arizona ' s Latinos drop out of high school or fail to obtain the basic education needed for more advanced study. As a result, educational deficits are holding back many Latinos—and the state as well. To be sure, construction and low-end service jobs continue to absorb tens of thousands of Latino immigrants with little formal education. But over the long term, most of Arizona's Latino citizens remain ill-prepared to prosper in an increasingly demanding knowledge economy. For the reason, the educational uplift of Arizona' s huge Latino population must move to the centre of the state's agenda. After all, the education deficits of Arizona's Latino population will severely cramp the fortunes of hardworking people if they go unaddressed and could well undercut the state' s ability to compete in the new economy. At the entry level, slower growth rates may create more competition for low-skill jobs, displacing Latinos from a significant means of support. At the higher end, shortages of Latinos educationally ready to move up will make it that much harder for knowledge-based companies staff high-skill positions.

儒家思想 (Confucianism)有时候被当作一种宗教，但它更是一种伦理体系。孔子是儒家思想的创始人。 孟子 (Mencius)和荀子都是先秦时期儒家学说的代表人物，都对儒学的发展做出过巨大贡献。儒家思想的核心是“ 仁 ”(benevolence)，主张仁爱人之心是处理人际关系的有效方法。孟子认为统治者应爱护人民，保障人民权利。荀子强调社会秩序和个人的努力。作为中国古代传统思想的主要流派，儒家思想对中国人的思想观念，特别是价值观念，有着极其深远的影响。

The Frontier Heritage The Impact of the American Frontier [A]Although American civilization took over and replaced the frontier more than a century ago, the heritage of the frontier is still very much alive in the United States today. The idea of the frontier still stirs the emotions and imaginations of the American people. Americans continue to be fascinated by the frontier because it has been a particularly important force in shaping their national value. [B]The frontier experience began when the first colonists settled on the east coast of the continent in the 1600s. It ended in about 1890 when the last western lands were settled. [C]The American, frontier consisted of the relatively unsettled regions of the United States, usually found in the western part of the country. Here, both land and life were more rugged and primitive than in the more settled eastern part As one frontier area was settled, people began moving farther west into the next unsettled area. By settling one frontier area after another, Americans moved across an entire continent, 2,700 miles wide. How did this movement, which lasted more than two centuries, help to shape American values? [D]Americans have tended to see the frontier, its life, and its people as the purest examples of their basic values. This has been the impact of the frontier on the American mind. For example, the frontier provided many inspiring examples of hard work as forests were turned into towns, and towns into large cities. The race for competitive success was rarely more colorful or adventurous than on the western frontier. The rush for gold in California, for silver in Montana, and for fertile land in all the western territories provided endless stories of high adventure, When it was announced that almost two million acres of good land in Oklahoma would be opened for settlement in April 1889, thousands of settlers gathered on the border waiting for the exact time to be announced. When it was, they literally raced into the territory in wagons and on horseback to claim the best land they could find for themselves. [E]Individualism, self-reliance, and equality of opportunity have perhaps been the values most closely associated with the frontier heritage of America Throughout their history, Americans have tended to view the frontiersman as the model of the free individual. This is probably because there was less control over the individual on the frontier than anywhere else in the United States. There were few laws and few established social or political institutions to confine people living on the frontiers. In the United States, where freedom from outside social controls is so highly valued, the frontier has been idealized, and it still serves as a basis for a nostalgic(怀旧的)view of the purity of the early United States, which was lost when the country became urbanized and more complex. Self-Reliance and the Rugged Individualist [F]Closely associated with the frontier ideal of the free individual is the ideal of self-reliance. If the people living on the frontier were free of many of society's rules, they were also denied many of society's comforts and conveniences. They had to be self-reliant. They often constructed their own houses, hunted, tended their own gardens, and made their own clothing and household items. [G]The self-reliant frontiersman has been idealized by Americans who have made him the model of the classic American hero with "rugged individualism". This hero is a man who has been made physically tough and rugged by the conditions of frontier life. He is skilled with guns and other weapons. He needs no help from others. He usually has no strong tie or obligations to women and children. He is kind and polite to them, but he prefers "to go his own way" and not be tied down by them. Standing alone, he can meet all the dangers which life on the frontier brings. He is strong enough to extend his protection beyond himself to others. [H]There are two types of this heroic rugged individualist drawn from two different stages of life on the frontier. In the early frontier, which existed before the Civil War of the 1860s, the main struggle was one of man against the wilderness. Daniel Boone is probably the best-known hero of this era. Boone explored the wilderness country of Kentucky in the 1760s and 1770s. On one trip he stayed in the wilderness for two years, successfully matching his strength and skills against the dangers of untamed nature and hostile Indians. In 1778 Boone was captured by Indians, who were so impressed with his physical strength and skills that they made him a member of their tribe. Later he succeeded in making a daring escape. Boone's heroic strength is seen primarily in his ability to master the harsh challenges of the wilderness. Although he had to fight against Indians from time to time, he is admired mainly as a survivor and conqueror of the wilderness, not as a fighter. [I]The second type of heroic rugged individualist is drawn from the last phase of the western frontier, which lasted from the 1860s until the 1890s. By this time the wilderness was largely conquered. The struggle now was no longer man against nature, but man against man. Cattlemen and cowboys fought against farmers, outlaws, Indians, and each other for control of the remaining western lands. The traditions of law and order were not yet well established, and physical violence was frequent. The frontier became known as "the Wild West". Equality of Opportunity [J]In addition to viewing the frontier as an expression of individual freedom and self-reliance in their purest forms, Americans have also seen the frontier as a pure expression of the ideal of equality of opportunity. On the western frontier there was more of a tendency for people to treat each other as social equals than in the more settled eastern regions of the country. On the frontier, the highest importance was placed on what a person could do in the present, and hardly any notice was taken of who his dead ancestors were. Frontiersmen were fond of saying, "what's above the ground is more important than what's beneath the ground." [K]Because so little attention was paid to a person's family background, the frontier offered the chance of a new beginning for many Americans who were seeking new opportunities to advance themselves. One English visitor to the United States in the early 1800s observed that if Americans experienced disappointment or failure in business, in politics, or even in love, they moved west to the frontier to make a new beginning. The frontier offered millions of Americans a source of hope for a fresh start in the competitive race for success and for a better life. On the frontier there was a continuing need for new farmers, new skilled laborers, new merchants, new lawyers, and new political leaders. [L]The differences in wealth between rich and poor on the frontier were generally smaller than those found in the more settled regions of the nation. People lived, dressed, and acted more alike on the frontier than in other parts of the United States. The feeling of equality was shared by hired helpers who refused to be called "servants" or to be treated as such. One European visitor observed: "The clumsy gait(步态)and bent body of our peasant is hardly ever seen here... Everyone walks erect and easy." Wealthy travelers to the frontier were warned not to show off their wealth or to act superior to others if they wished to be treated politely. [M]The American frontier may not be "the key" to American development, as Frederick Jackson Turner said, but it is certainly one major factor. The frontier provided the space and conditions which helped to strengthen the American ideals of individual freedom, self-reliance, and equality of opportunity. On the frontier, these ideals were enlarged and made workable. Frontier ideas and customs were continuously passed along to the more settled parts of the United States as newer frontier regions took the place of older ones during a westward march of settlers which lasted more than two centuries. In this way, many of the frontier values became national values.

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BPart III Reading Comprehension/B

Eating Our Young[A] At Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences, a middle school in a poor neighborhood of Philadelphia, the school year began chaotically as budget cuts took effect. With the cuts meaning no school nurse or counselor, teachers fill the gaps, disrupting lessons to help students in distress. And the problems are not small: A boy was stabbed in the head with a pencil by a fellow student; a girl reported sexual assault by an uncle; another refused to speak after the brutal murder of a parent. And that was just the start of the school year. To make matters worse, budget cuts are hurting essential academic programs.[B] Across the United States, whether it's schools, food stamps, health care or entry-level jobs, the young are feeling the force of government cutbacks. This year, the young and vulnerable especially have been hit hard through automatic federal spending cuts to programs like Head Start, nutrition assistance, and child welfare. Financial crises in cities like Philadelphia and Detroit have meant another wave of school budget cutbacks. And title weak job market is hurting the youngest workers most, with youth unemployment more than double the national jobless rate.[C] This is not just an American problem. In Europe, too, rigid budgets are squeezing even basic education and health needs. As governments strain to cover budget shortfalls and appease (缓解) debt fears, the young are losing out. "We're underinvesting in our children," said Julia Isaacs, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and a child policy expert "Looking at future budget trends and the fact that Congress doesn't want to raise taxes, I can see children's programs continuing to be squeezed." [D] That has implications for long-term economic growth. Cutting back on the young is like eating the seed com: satisfying a momentary need but leaving no way to grow a prosperous future. [E] Is America overspending on its young? Public spending in the U.S. on children came to $12,164 per child in 2008, in current dollars, according to Kids' Share, an annual report published by the Urban Institute. Of that total, about a third came from the federal government and two thirds from state and local governments. Compare that to what we spend on the elderly, which primarily comes from the federal government. According to the Urban Institute, public spending on the elderly, in current dollars! was $27,117 per person in 2008, more than double the spending on children.[F] The trend is the same across the developed world. Julia Lynch, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania, studied 20 countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development between 1985 and 2000 and found each spent more public funds on the elderly than on the young. But there were large differences among them. She found the most youth-oriented welfare states were the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, and in Scandinavia, while the most elderly-oriented were Japan, Italy, Greece, the U.S., Spain, and Austria. Somewhere in the middle were Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Portugal.[G] Since the 1960s, federal spending on kids in the U.S. had been rising. That trend ended in 2011, when it dropped by $2 billion to $377 billion. A year later the figure plunged even more—by $28 billion. And spending on kids is planned to shrink further over the next decade. The Urban Institute has forecast that federal spending on kids will decrease from 10 percent of the federal budget today to 8 percent by 2023. That decline will occur even as federal spending is expected to increase by $1 trillion over the same period.[H] So, what is the federal government spending on? The budget can be roughly divided in the following way: 41 percent goes to the elderly and disabled portions of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; 20 percent to defense; 10 percent to children; 6 percent to interest payments on the debt; and 23 percent to all other government functions. So if spending on kids does fall to 8 percent of the federal budget, and if interest payments rise along with higher interest rates over the same period, the federal government soon will be spending more on interest payments on the debt than on children.[I] What's driving government cutbacks? Much can be tied to fears of rising national debt. Paradoxically, advocates of debt reduction claim they are acting in the interest of the young; our debts seem be too heavy for the next generation. But in a super competitive global economy, nations investing today in the well-being and education of the young are writing the success stories of tomorrow.[J] Of course, the U.S. is investing in education. Roughly 65 percent of all public spending on kids is on education, and that's done primarily through state and local governments. But whether it's early childhood education, elementary, middle, or high schools, or universities and colleges, fewer resources are going into public education. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of teachers employed in kindergarten through year 12th grade, principals, superintendents and support staff, fell 2 percent between 2009 and 2011 while enrollment was steady.[K] The trend of putting fewer resources into public education is even more striking at the college level. Take the University of California for example: The average annual student charges for resident undergraduates have increased 275 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1990 to 1991, while the university's average per-student expenditures have decreased 25 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars over the same period. So as California students pay much more for their education than their parents did, they're getting less.[L] Throughout the current downturn, unemployment has tailed the workforce. The hardest hit has been the young. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment for 16-to-24-year-olds in July was 16.3 percent. That compares with our national jobless rate of 7.3 percent. And there are also large numbers of the young who are underemployed. Gallup recently found that only 43.6 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 to 29 had a full-time job in June 2013.[M] High youth unemployment has implications for future earnings power. Economists who study the labor market have found that people who graduate from school without a job are likely to have lower wages in their career.[N] Even when the young land a job, investment in young workers isn't what it used to be. Training and education used to be part of any full-time job. Now, while global companies like Google advertise staff training, they tend to be the exception. Most companies have cut back over the years as corporate budgets are reduced and companies believe they can buy talent rather than grow it.[O] Whether because of government cutbacks or falling business investment, the young are facing tougher prospects than did their parents. And that raises irritating questions about the future. Starting with the youngest, without solid nutrition and basic health care, children can't become engaged and active students. Without resources to teach and a secure support system, public schools can't turn out educated, smart kids. With the costs of college rising beyond the reach of many, large groups are being left behind. And with entry-level jobs and training scarcer than ever, the human capital necessary to grow America's huge economy isn't being developed. The burden on today's young to support an aging society will grow—even as the resources they are provided don't.

移动互联网(mobile Internet)的出现改变了我们的生活，智能手机的普及则颠覆了传统的支付方式。随着移动智能手机的普及，手机变身“移动钱包”。如今，中国大部分城市的居民几乎都在使用智能手机支付。作为一种以手机为主要工具对所消费的商品或服务进行支付的服务方式，移动支付之所以能够得到迅速发展，与其便携化且不受时间和地点限制有很大的关系。微信(WeChat)和支付宝(Alipay)等第三方手机支付软件发展迅猛，开启了移动支付的新时代。

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Smokers in the "land of the free" are finding themselves increasingly less free to pursue their habit. New York City officials are the latest to consider banning smoking in their parks and outside spaces. The possibility of extending smokefree legislation was【C1】______in a public health policy document. However the mayor, Michael Bloomberg—who has【C2】______anti-smoking programmes but is up for reelection—appeared to qualify the extent of the【C3】______. He wanted "to see if smoking in parks has a【C4】______impact on people's health", the New York Times reported recently, suggesting it "might not be【C5】______possible to enforce a ban across thousands of acres." Cigarette makers Phillip Morris USA did not like the idea at all. "We believe that smoking should be permitted outdoors except in very particular【C6】______, such as outdoor areas primarily【C7】______for children," a company spokesman said. But the ban plan from the city's health commissioner, Thomas Farley, won some backing from the council's speaker, Christine Quinn. Fines should be【C8】______, she said, but "conceptually, that's an idea I'm very interested in and open to." Such bans remain【C9】______but are increasing, with California in the vanguard(前锋). State legislators there have【C10】______smoking in all state parks and on parts of beaches, two years after Los Angeles extended its existing ban on playgrounds and beaches to parks. Chicago still allows smoking in many of its parks, but bans it at beaches and playgrounds. A)occurrences B)modest C)negative D)evacuated E)championed F)circumstances G)outlined H)mild I)logistically J)designated K)provoked L)rare M)analytically N)prohibited O)restrictions

中国学习英语的人口数量全球最多。数据显示，中国有4亿多人在学英语，约占全国总人口的1／3。目前，中国的小学，甚至幼儿园都开设英语课程。英语学习贯穿中国学生的整个学习生涯。英语是中国学生必须学习的一门科目。中国是世界上对英语学习最狂热的国家之一，“英语热”在中国的持续也引发了激烈的争论。很多人认为应该在高考中降低英语考试的分值，突出语文的重要性，让更多的人关注自己的母语。

In the first year or so of Web business, most of the action has revolved around efforts to tap the consumer market. More recently, as the Web proved to be more than a fashion, companies have started to buy and sell products and services with one another. Such business-to-business sales make sense because business people typically know what product they're looking for. Nonetheless, many companies still hesitate to use the Web because of doubts about its reliability. "Businesses need to feel they can trust the pathway between them and the supplier," says senior analyst Blane Erwin of Forrester Research. Some companies are limiting the risk by conducting online transactions only with established business partners who are given access to the company's private intranet. Another major shift in the model for Internet commerce concerns the technology available for marketing. Until recently, Internet marketing activities have focused on strategies to "pull" customers into sites. In the past year, however, software companies have developed tools that allow companies to "push" information directly out to consumers, transmitting marketing messages directly to targeted customers. Most notably, the PointCast Network uses a screen saver to deliver a continually updated stream of news and advertisements to subscribers' computer monitors. Subscribers can customize the information they want to receive and proceed directly to a company's Web site. Companies such as Virtual Vineyards are already starting to use similar technologies to push messages to customers about special sales, product offering, or other events. But push technology has earned the contempt of many Web users. Online culture thinks highly of the notion that the information flowing onto the screen comes there by specific request. Once commercial promotion begins to fill the screen uninvited, the distinction between the Web and television fades. That's a prospect that horrifies Net purists. But it is hardly inevitable that companies on the Web will need to resort to push strategies to make money. The examples of Virtual Vineyards, Amazon.com, and other pioneers show that a Web site selling the right kind of products with the right mix of interactivity, hospitality, and security will attract online customers. And the cost of computing power continues to free fall, which is a good sign for any enterprise setting up shop in silicon. People looking back 5 or 10 years from now may well wonder why so few companies took the online plunge.

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a letter to your foreign language teacher to invite him/her to attend the Christmas party. You should write at least 150 words following the outline given below.

诸葛亮是 三国时期 (the Three Kingdoms Period)杰出的军事家和政治家。他帮助刘备打了一系列的战争，联合盟友，不断扩张刘备的领地、增强刘备的实力。 蜀国 (the Shu State)建立后，他被任命为 丞相 (Prime Minister)，管理政务、军事、民族交流和农业生产等事务。诸葛亮也是一位著名的艺术家，爱好 书法 (calligraphy)、绘画和音乐。他还发明或改造了一些运输工具和传统兵器，是一位优秀的发明家。中国人认为诸葛亮是个非常有智慧的人，他的传奇故事至今仍广泛流传。中国很多的传统习语都与他有关。