北京 胡同 (Hutong)指的是北京市内典型的小巷或比较小的街道，始建于元朝。北京胡同的命名，有各种来源。有的胡同以人物命名；有的以巷子内的标志性建筑命名；有的按形状命名。如张自忠路是以抗日名将张自忠的名字命名的胡同； 国子监街 (Guozijian Street)的得名是因为这条胡同是中国古代教育体系中的最高学府国子监的所在地。北京胡同不但是北京普通老百姓的生活场所，它更是北京独特的文化名片，代表着北京的 草根 (grassroots)文化。

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Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteanessaybasedonthepicturebelow.Youshouldstartyouressaywithabriefdescriptionofthepictureandthendiscussshouldweentirelydependononlineshopping.Youcangiveexamplestoillustrateyourpoint.WriteyouressayonAnswerSheet1.Youshouldwriteatleast150wordsbutnomorethan200words.

基于人才市场竞争日益激烈，工作岗位供不应求，很多大学生毕业后选择继续深造而不是就业。

老子姓李名耳，是 春秋时期 (the Spring and Autumn Period)伟大的哲学家、思想家，道家思想(Taoism)的创始人。他撰写的经典著作《 道德经 》(Tao Te Ching)。虽然只有五千多个字，却包含着朴素的 辩证思想 (dialectic thinking)。他的作品充满着智慧，对后人的思想产生了深远的影响。 儒家思想 (confucianism)代表人物 孔子 (Confucius)就曾拜访过老子。并把老子比作“龙”，认为老子的思想非常深奥。老子反对物欲，重视精神生活，主张争取精神的自由和解放。在现代社会，他的哲学思想仍然具有重大的意义。

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{{B}}Part II Listening Comprehension{{/B}}

Feeding the Masses a Load of Manure The Green Revolution Myth, Norman Borlaug, and World Hunger [A]Most people don't know Norman Borlaug. He's the guy who is widely recognized as the father of the "Green Revolution"—the system of farming that combined hybrid seeds with chemical pesticides and fertilizers to grant the world significantly increased crop yields, especially yields of "cereal crops" like wheat, corn, and soybeans. [B]Mr. Borlaug has been heard recently reproaching "extreme greenies" for promoting organic, sustainable agriculture, saying that such a move either would require the conversion of millions more acres of meadow and forest land into farm land or would mean mass starvation due to what he claims are lower yields from organic farms. With all due respect, we think Stormin' Norman B. is out in left field playing scarecrow, spouting off about nothing more than the Green Revolution Myth. Food, World Hunger, and Population Growth [C]First, there is an obvious question about the logic of Borlaug's assertion that the increased yield from Green Revolution farming arrived just in time to save hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of earth's swelling human masses from starvation in the 20th century. One could just as easily frame the issue the other way around: Might it have been the suddenly increased availability of cheap food that itself allowed the global population to rise so quickly? Remember the old saying about "tasks expand to fill the amount of time allowed them"? A version of that may apply here. [D]Another way to look at the question is whether the Green Revolution has been successful at eliminating hunger. It hasn't. Since the Green Revolution kicked into high gear in the 1960s, there has been only a modest reduction in the number of people starving or chronically hungry. In 1970, there were an estimated 942 hundred million people in that category; in 2002, the United Nations reported that the number was 842 million. This modest reduction has been almost entirely due to lower levels of hunger among the Chinese population, with the number of hungry people increasing in most other areas of the world. [E]It is true, of course, that a few billion more people are being fed today compared to half a century ago. But it's far too simplistic to give the Green Revolution the credit. Two of the main factors that do deserve credit are improvements in seeds via hybridization and major increases in the use of irrigation, including the unsustainable over-pumping of groundwater. These factors plus the chemicals of the Green Revolution combined to put plant growth into overdrive. The Downside of the Green Revolution [F]So, if the Green Revolution did help increase total food output, what's not to like? Plenty. The technologies of the Green Revolution should be looked at as the plant equivalent of steroid use in human athletes. A jock that uses steroids will gain muscle and strength faster and have a competitive advantage. But the big boost is not sustainable over a long period of time, and the negative side effects are well known and often catastrophic to the athlete. [G]In the case of Green Revolution farming, the chemicals used pollute our land, air, and water; the switch from heavily rotated multiple crops to mono-cropping or dual-cropping reduces total soil fertility and the nutritional value of our food; and the lower number of seed varieties used reduces the genetic diversity found in crops, thus endangering the stability of farm output in the future. The side effects related to soil fertility and genetic diversity will ultimately take their toll. Indeed, yield increases in today's farm fields have generally leveled off and, in cases such as rice and wheat, yields are beginning to decline in some areas. [H]Let's be a little more specific about the problems associated with Green Revolution farming:(1)Farmers, farm workers, and all of us are continually exposed to chemical pesticides due to their widespread use, with each of us carrying a body burden of the toxins.(2)Countless numbers of streams, rivers, and drinking water sources are degraded due to pesticide and fertilizer runoff.(3)Major portions of bays and gulfs are oxygen-starved coastal dead zones due to algal blooms that are fed by fertilizer runoff.(4)Wildlife suffer from genetic mutations due to the farming chemicals that contaminate their ponds and swamps. Notable examples: Genetic mutations in frogs and abnormal genitalia in alligators.(5)State advisories for locally caught fish are chock-full of warnings about fish species contaminated with pesticides. Would Food Production Drop Without the Green Revolution? [I]Now to the real point—would we starve if we transitioned back to sustainable agriculture and a-bandoned the chemicals we've come to accept as a normal part of farming? No, not at all. Multiple studies, including work by the US National Research Council and a 23-year study by the Rodale Institute, found total food output from "alternative" farms to be equivalent to Green Revolution farms—and sometimes higher. [J]Cuba provides a real-life, working model to test the conclusions of such research. When the US trade embargo was imposed on Cuba in the late 1980s, the country's access to Green Revolution "inputs" was suddenly severely restricted. Cuba began to reorient its agriculture back to sustainable approaches based on traditional farming practices and smaller farming operations. Within a decade, the country had solved its food problem, with the added benefit of freeing itself from the cost and toxic pollution associated with imported farming chemicals. Wrap up... and GMOs [K]As Lt. Columbo was fond of saying, just one last thing... The big agribusiness companies that brought you the hollow promises of the chemical-based Green Revolution I are now busy cooking up the genetically engineered(GE)Green Revolution II. Again they promise to save the world from hunger, but as before, their real goal is to reap bountiful profits. Not only do some GE technologies, such as "herbicide tolerance", not increase yield and farmer profits, they have been documented to have the opposite effect. In such cases, the only people benefiting are the GE seed and pesticide companies and their shareholders. [L]There is a place for research and technology in farming, but we should stop trying to conquer nature's complex, inexorable forces and instead should focus on approaches that work with the power of nature. A lot of research dollars went into developing Green Revolution and GE technologies. If instead we had invested in better sustainable-agriculture methods, we would have increased yields, retained healthier fanning practices, and greatly lessened the huge loss of small and medium-sized farms. In fact, demonstration projects have shown that increases in total food output of up to 100% are possible by using advanced sustainable agriculture techniques. Such approaches also reduce costs and avoid the chemical pollutants and potentially dangerous GE strains that are now upon us. [M]We won't be able to simply flip a switch and suddenly convert all the farming acreage on the planet back to smaller, more sustainable farms overnight. But it can be done gradually, without causing mass starvation. Indeed, better health for more people would be the overall result. We in the developed countries of the world should ask our elected representatives to begin a major shift in farm policy to foster such change. We can also directly support the effort by eating organic and/or locally grown food.[N]The solution to global hunger is to solve problems related to democracy and distribution of income and food in the Third World. We should also ensure that the right to be self-sufficient when it comes to producing one's food is not trumped by free-trade agreements. The solution to world hunger is not to develop expensive, unneeded technologies that endanger the entire food system. Just say "no"... to G-M-O... and the Green Revolution.

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The concept of obtaining fresh water from icebergs that are towed to populated areas and arid regions of the world was once treated as a joke more appropriate to cartoons than real life. But now it is being【C1】______quite seriously by many nations, especially since scientists have warned that the human race will【C2】______its fresh water supply faster than it runs out of food. Glaciers are a possible【C3】______of fresh water that has been overlooked until recently. Three-quarters of the Earth's fresh water supply is still tied up in glacial ice, a reservoir of 【C4】______fresh water so immense that it could【C5】______all the rivers of the world for 1,000 years. Floating on the oceans every year are 7,659 trillion metric tons of ice encased in 10,000 icebergs that break away from the polar ice caps, more than ninety percent of them from Antarctica. Huge glaciers that【C6】______over the shallow continental shelf give birth to icebergs throughout the year. Icebergs are not like sea ice, which is formed when the sea itself freezes, rather, they are formed【C7】______on land, breaking off when glaciers spread over the sea. As they drift away from the polar region, icebergs sometimes move mysteriously in a direction【C8】______to the wind, pulled by subsurface currents. Because they melt more slowly than smaller pieces of ice, icebergs have been known to drift as far north as 35 degrees south of the equator in the Atlantic Ocean. To control them and【C9】______them to parts of the world where they are needed would not be too difficult. Even if the icebergs lost half of their volume in towing, the water they could provide would be far cheaper than that produced by desalinization (脱盐), or【C10】______salt from water.A) removing I) approximatelyB) stretch J) consideredC) deriving K) similarD) entirely L) sourceE) untapped M) ensuredF) resource N) sustainG) outgrow O) steer H) opposite

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled The Damage of E-waste. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words following the outline given below. 1．随着电子设备的增多，电子垃圾也越来越多。 2．电子垃圾的危害很多。 3．为此，我们应该……

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If you asked me to describe the rising philosophy of the day, I'd say it is data-ism. We now have the ability to gather huge amounts of data. This ability seems to carry with it certain cultural assumptions—that everything that can be measured should be measured; that data is a transparent and reliable lens that allows us to filter out emotionalism and ideology; that data will help us do remarkable things—like foretell the future. Over the next year, I'm hoping to get a better grip on some of the questions raised by the data revolution: in what situations should we rely on intuitive pattern recognition and in which situations should we ignore intuition and follow the data? What kinds of events are predictable using statistical analysis and what sorts of events are not? I confess I enter this in a skeptical frame of mind, believing that we tend to get carried away in our desire to reduce everything to the quantifiable. But at the outset let me celebrate two things data does really well. First, it's really good at exposing when our intuitive view of reality is wrong. For example, nearly every person who runs for political office has an intuitive sense that they can powerfully influence their odds of winning the election if they can just raise and spend more money. But this is largely wrong. After the 2006 election, Scan Trende constructed a graph comparing the incumbent (在任者的) campaign spending advantages with their eventual margins of victory. There was barely any relationship between more spending and a bigger victory. Likewise, many teachers have an intuitive sense that different students have different learning styles: some are verbal and some are visual; some are linear, some are holistic(整体的). Teachers imagine they will improve outcomes if they tailor their presentations to each student. But there's no evidence to support this either. Second, data can illuminate patterns of behavior we haven't yet noticed. For example, I've always assumed people who frequently use words like "I," "me," and "mine" are probably more self-centered than people who don't. But as James Pennebaker of the University of Texas notes in his book, The Secret Life of Pronouns, when people are feeling confident, they are focused on the task at hand, not on themselves. High-status, confident people use fewer "I" words, not more. Our brains often don't notice subtle verbal patterns, but Pennebaker's computers can. Younger writers use more negative and past-tense words than older writers who use more positive and future-tense words. In sum, the data revolution is giving us wonderful ways to understand the present and the past. Will it transform our ability to predict and make decisions about the future? We'll see.

Birds that are literally half-asleep—with one brain hemisphere alert and the other sleeping—control which side of the brain remains awake, according to a new study of sleeping ducks. Earlier studies have documented half-brain sleep in a wide range of birds. The brain hemispheres take turns sinking into the sleep stage characterized by slow brain waves. The eye controlled by the sleeping hemisphere keeps shut, while the wakeful hemisphere's eye stays open and alert. Birds also can sleep with both hemispheres resting at once. Decades of studies of bird flocks led researchers to predict extra alertness in the more vulnerable, end-of-the-row sleepers. Sure enough, the end birds tended to watch carefully on the side away from their companions. Ducks in the inner spots showed no preference for gaze direction. Also, birds doping(打盹)at the end of the line resorted to single-hemisphere sleep, rather than total relaxation, more often than inner ducks did. Rotating 16 birds through the positions in a four-duck row, the researchers found outer birds half-asleep during some 32 percent of dozing time versus about 12 percent for birds in internal spots. "We believe this is the first evidence for an animal behaviorally controlling sleep and wakefulness simultaneously in different regions of the brain," the researchers say. The results provide the best evidence for a long-standing supposition that single-hemisphere sleep evolved as creatures scanned for enemies. The preference for opening an eye on the lookout side could be widespread, he predicts. He's seen it in a pair of birds dozing side-by-side in the zoo and in a single pet bird sleeping by a mirror. The mirror-side eye closed as if the reflection were a companion and the other eye stayed open. Useful as half-sleeping might be, it's only been found in birds and such water mammals(哺乳动物)as dolphins, whales, and seals. Perhaps keeping one side of the brain awake allows a sleeping animal to surface occasionally to avoid drowning. Studies of birds may offer unique insights into sleep. Jerome M. Siegel of the UCLA says he wonders if birds' half-brain sleep "is just the tip of the iceberg(冰山)." He speculates that more examples may turn up when we take a closer look at other species.

中华人民共和国成立以来，为提高国民素质，政府致力于普及九年义务教育。

BPart III Reading Comprehension/B

长江 (the Yangtze River)是世界第三长河，中国第一长河，全长6380公里。它发源于青海省，一路无数河流汇入，向东注入 东海 (the East China Sea)。作为中国古文化的发祥地，长江在历史、文化和经济上都对中国的发展有着极其重要的作用。长江是中国重要的运输线，被称为 “黄金水道” (the Golden Waterway)，它将内陆和沿海的港口以及其他主要城市连接在一起。长江沿岸的自然风景非常秀丽，有众多的旅游景观。辽阔的 长江流域 (the Yangtze Basin)，拥有丰富的自然资源，自古以来就是中国最重要的农业生产基地。