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莫高窟 (the Mogao Caves)是中国四大著名石窟之一，位于中国甘肃省敦煌市，以精美的 壁画 (wall painting)和塑像闻名于世。莫高窟始建于前秦时期，历经多个朝代的不断扩建，是世界上现存规模最大、保存最完好的艺术宝库。莫高窟现有洞窟735个，壁画4．5万平方米， 彩塑 (painted sculpture)2400多个。莫高窟壁画形象逼真、主题丰富，描绘的内容涉及中国古代政治、经济、文化、艺术、宗教、民族关系等各个方面，具有很高的历史研究价值。莫高窟在1987年被列入《 世纪遗产名录 》(World Heritage List)。

互联网在中国被用于公共服务大约有二十年。目前，中国网民人数已经超过5．9亿。互联网在中国被广泛使用，已经渗透到了生活的各个方面。中国使用最多的互联网业务是电子邮件、新闻、搜索引擎、网页浏览、在线音乐、即时消息、在线娱乐等。互联网正逐步改变着人们的消费理念、娱乐方式、社交模式、以及思维方式。现在互联网信息技术比人类历史上的任何一项科学发明都更加深刻地影响着人们的生活。

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the proverb "Knowledge makes us humble, ignorance makes us proud. " You can give an example or two to illustrate your point of view. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

Trading Modernist for Mcmansion [A]In 1949 W. Clinton Backus and his wife hired a 43-year-old designer named Greta Magnusson Grossman to build a house in the hills of Bel Air. The Los Angeles community was well-to-do even then, but it wasn't particularly extravagant. Grossman, a Swedish emigre(移居者), had achieved some fame as a trader of modern design; her furniture was often mentioned in the same breath and sold at the same stores as Charles Eames's, George Nelson's, and Eero Saarinen's—a rare distinction, at the time, for a woman. [B]For the Backuses, Grossman designed a tasteful two-story modernist home sit on a private slope, with sharp lines, walls of glass, and far-reaching views. It was 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and 1,800 square feet—500 square feet smaller than today's average American home—and it fit right in. [C]Not anymore. The Backus House still hovers on the same Bel Air hillside where Grossman built it. But because of the sprawling megamansions that have sprung up around the property, and because of the increasingly overheated state of the Southern California real estate market, Grossman's elegant modernist creation—one of the few surviving examples of residential architecture by an innovative woman now ranked among the finest designers of her era—may not survive much longer. [D]There's an irony here. Starting in the 1920s, the combination of climate, terrain, and a young, progressive community of architects and clients triggered a flowering of modern residential design in Los Angeles that culminated in the famous Case Study House Program(1945-66)—a series of experimental model homes sponsored by the local magazine Arts Architecture and designed by some of the period's greatest architects. The modern single-family dwelling may have been invented in Europe, but many believe it was perfected in Southern California [E]Now, decades later, modernist architecture has never been more popular. Dwell magazine is a monthly love letter to the style, and homes designed by any of the region's numerous architectural giants—Richard Neutra, R.M. Schindler, John Lautner—tend to command considerable premiums whenever they materialize on the market. [F]But a certain kind of modernist property—namely, a lesser-known house situated on a prime lot in an expensive neighborhood—is still at risk, and may be especially jeopardized in Los Angeles's current residential market, which has posted the nation's largest increase in average sale price over the last year. "An economic downturn is always a good thing for preservation," says Regina O'Brien, chairperson of the Modern Committee of the Los Angeles Conservancy. "A lot fewer developers are making a lot less money, and therefore they have a lot less motivation to pursue these profit-oriented flips(翻新). But the problem is that the opposite is true when the market picks back up." [G]As aging owners realize their aging homes can now fetch top dollar, the buyers most inclined to preserve these modernist gems(珍品)are outbid by those most inclined to replace them with tastelessly showy Mediterranean super-villas. [H]"Most modernist homes are considered very modest by the standards of these neighborhoods, where people want far more house than they need," says Nate Cole of Unique California Property, a Long Beach brokerage specializing in modernist architecture. "Buyers see anything that they deem a compromise, and out come the tractors." [I]A drive by the Backus House tells the story. After rolling through the imperial gates of Bel Air, you wind your way north past abundant banks of bougainvillea(叶子花属植物), Federer-level tennis courts, and ever-more elaborate estates until you finally reach Nimes Road. Down the block from the Backus House is a 19-bedroom, 24-bathroom, 38,000-square-foot mansion. Next door is a 39,000-square-foot castle with 25 bedrooms and 32 bathrooms. Across the street, meanwhile, is the 48,000-square-foot Le Belvedere, featuring a 1,000-foot-long hand-chiseled(手工凿的)Jerusalem stone wall, a swan pond, a 5,000-bottle wine cellar, and an $85 million price tag. The most extravagant property, however, is directly behind the Backus House: a mysterious hilltop Versailles surrounded by 100-foot-tall concrete walls and half a dozen razed(被拆毁的)lots. [J]Boosted by its luxurious neighbors, the relatively modest Backus House is now for sale for $6.9 million, or nearly $4,000 per square foot.(In 2012 the average American home sold for $86.30 per square foot.)At that price, whoever purchases it won't want to live in a house with "only" three bathrooms. They will want to keep up with the legendary Joneses—the listing practically begs you to crush the Backus House in order to "build your dream home on one of the most distinguished streets... in Los Angeles"—and another piece of the city's rich architectural history will likely be leveled. [K]That's what happened earlier this year to the Kingsley Residence(1947). Designed for an ocean-facing site in the Pacific Palisades by J.R. Davidson, a friendly German who was responsible for the first of the Case Study Houses, the property seemed from the street to be an undistinguished builder's cattle farm. But inside it was a marvel: a "house without halls," as requested by the clients, with airy rooms, ingenious custom lighting and furniture, and large sliding glass doors that opened onto elevated terraces. [L]When it went up for sale for $4.2 million in February, the Kingsley Residence was the last unaltered Davidson house in the city. Two weeks later it was in contract, and on April 2 it sold for $360,000 over the asking price. Now, as a recent visit confirmed, the Kingsley Residence is well on its way to becoming a pile of rubble; the garage is filled with broken boards and crushed plaster, and appliances are scattered across the yard. The buyer evidently believes that a grander, newer estate would better suit the neighborhood, which, in the decades since Davidson's time, has become home to the likes of Steven Spielberg, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. [M]At-risk modernist houses don't always meet such a sad fate. In April the Schairer House, designed in 1949 by the great California architect Gregory Ain for a RAND Corporation aerospace engineer, went up for sale. Another posh neighborhood, another multimillion-dollar price tag. At the time, observers were certain that the Schairer House was destined for destruction. "1949 Gregory Ain in Brentwood Hits the Market for the First Time, Probably as a Teardown," read the headline on real estate site Curbed LA. But now, 80 days after it sold, the Schairer House is still standing—and a source with knowledge of the transaction tells that the new owners have hired an architect to supervise a complete restoration. [N]Whether that news warms your heart or leaves you cold is a matter of perspective and taste; not everyone loves modernist architecture. But in Los Angeles, at least, there may be more at stake than architectural fancy. The history and character of the city are reflected in each of these purebred homes. [O]Right now, another Gregory Ain property is up for sale: the Feldman House(1953)in Beverly Hills. In a perfect world, the Feldman House would survive for another 60 years or more. But even the listing agent, Joyce Rey, is worried. "I want to find someone who will restore it," she says. "But here's the thing: all the buyers who want to restore it can't afford it right now, and the buyers who can afford it are the ones who want to replace it with something else. It's heartbreaking."?

汉字蕴含古代中国人的智慧，体现中国悠久的历史。

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避暑山庄原为清代皇帝避暑和从事各种政治活动的场所，见证了清朝二百多年的繁荣与衰败。

Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteashortessaybasedonthepicturebelow.Youshouldstartyouressaywithabriefdescriptionofthepictureandthenelaborateyourownopiniontowardsfoodbanonthesubway.Youshouldwriteatleast150wordsbutnomorethan200words.

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It is no good dwelling on the past. What existed or happened in the past may have been beautiful or exciting and may now bring profound and precious memories, but the past is dead, and it is not healthy for living spirits to linger over a world inhabited by ghosts. The past may also be a place of horror, of regret, of unfortunate deeds that "cannot be undone". It is painful and pointless to fix on the period which cannot be relived or repaired. It is unproductive self-punishment. The past must be kept in its place, outlived and outgrown. It is also useless to worry about the future. Why fly to heaven before it's time? What anxious visions haunt the person who thinks too much about the future? He may envision the horrible mushroom cloud, the earth shriveling from radiation, the overpopulated, abused earth gone dead. He may imagine his own life going away, appointments missed, advancements given to someone else, his house burned to the ground, his love lost, everything in his life, as in a nightmare, slipping away from him. There is no end to the disasters a person can worry about when he focused anxiously on the future. There are events in his future, including his own death, over which he has little or no control, but he can ruin his life worrying about them. There are some disasters he may be able to prevent, but he must do that by living well in the present, not simply by worrying about the future. The present moment which is even now moving into the past, is the only reality I know, and I don't want to miss it. The wild-cherry cough drop dissolving in my mouth is sweet and soothing. Even my sore throat and backache have meaning. The cool night air, the crackling noises of my furnace, my cat yawning and stretching—these are the tangible realities I can recognize. They exist in this moment, together with my own breathing. Along with these are the realities of other people and of all life on this earth that matters to me now, not at some past or future time. Everyone needs a sense of history, but history needs to keep its distance to be appreciated. It is also vital to leave some sense of direction, which means making plans for the future but not becoming preoccupied with them. What is most important, I believe, is living in the present, that is, being alive now.

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Trust Me, I'm a Robot[A] With robots now emerging from their industrial cages and moving into homes and workplaces, roboticists are concerned about the safety implications beyond the factory floor. To address these concerns, leading robot experts have come together to try to find ways to prevent robots from harming people. Inspired by the Pugwash Conferences—an international group of scientists, academics and activists founded in 1957 to campaign for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons—the new group of roboethicists met earlier this year in Genoa, Italy, and announced their initial findings in March at the European Robotics Symposium in Palermo, Sicily.[B] "Security and safety are the big concerns," says Henrik Christensen, chairman of the European Robotics Network at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Should robots that are strong enough or heavy enough to crush people be allowed into homes? Is "system malfunction" a justifiable defence for a robotic fighter plane that contravenes (违反) the Geneva Convention and mistakenly fires on innocent civilians?[C] "These questions may seem hard to understand but in the next few years they will become increasingly relevant," says Dr. Christensen. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe's World Robotics Survey, in 2002 the number of domestic and service robots more than tripled, nearly surpassing their industrial counterparts. By the end of 2003 there were more than 600,000 robot vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers—a figure predicted to rise to more than 4m by the end of next year. Japanese industrial firms are racing to build humanoid robots to act as domestic helpers for the elderly, and South Korea has set a goal that 100% of households should have domestic robots by 2020. In light of all this, it is crucial that we start to think about safety guidelines now, says Dr. Christensen. Stop right there[D] So what exactly is being done to protect us from these mechanical menaces? "Not enough," says Blay Whitby. This is hardly surprising given that the field of "safety-critical computing" is barely a decade old, he says. But things are changing, and researchers are increasingly taking an interest in trying to make robots safer. One approach, which sounds simple enough, is try to program them to avoid contact with people altogether. But this is much harder than it sounds. Getting a robot to navigate across a cluttered room is difficult enough without having to take into account what its various limbs or appendages might bump into along the way.[E] "Regulating the behaviour of robots is going to become more difficult in the future, since they will increasingly have self-learning mechanisms built into them," says Gianmarco Veruggio. "As a result, their behaviour will become impossible to predict fully," he says, "since they will not be behaving in predefined ways but will learn new behaviour as they go."[F] Then there is the question of unpredictable failures. What happens if a robot's motors stop working, or it suffers a system failure just as it is performing heart surgery or handing you a cup of hot coffee? You can, of course, build in redundancy by adding backup systems, says Hirochika Inoue. But this guarantees nothing, he says. "One hundred per cent safety is impossible through technology," says Dr. Inoue. This is because ultimately no matter how thorough you are, you cannot anticipate the unpredictable nature of human behaviour, he says. Or to put it another way, no matter how sophisticated your robot is at avoiding people, people might not always manage to avoid it, and could end up tripping over it and falling down the stairs.Legal problems[G] In any case, says Dr. Inoue, the laws really just summarize commonsense principles that are already applied to the design of most modern appliances, both domestic and industrial. Every toaster, lawn mower and mobile phone is designed to minimize the risk of causing injury—yet people still manage to electrocute (电死) themselves, lose fingers or fall out of windows in an effort to get a better signal. At the very least, robots must meet the rigorous safety standards that cover existing products. The question is whether new, robot-specific rules are needed—and, if so, what they should say.[H] "Making sure robots are safe will be critical," says Colin Angle of iRobot, which has sold over 2m "Roomba" household-vacuuming robots. But he argues that his firm's robots are, in fact, much safer than some popular toys. "A radio-controlled car controlled by a six-year old is far more dangerous than a Roomba," he says. If you tread on a Roomba, it will not cause you to slip over, instead, a rubber pad on its base grips the floor and prevents it from moving. "Existing regulations will address much of the challenge," says Mr. Angle. "I'm not yet convinced that robots are sufficiently different that they deserve special treatment."[I] Robot safety is likely to surface in the civil courts as a matter of product liability. "When the first robot carpet-sweeper sucks up a baby, who will be to blame?" asks John Hallam, a professor at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. If a robot is autonomous and capable of learning, can its designer be held responsible for all its actions? Today the answer to these questions is generally "yes". But as robots grow in complexity it will become a lot less clear cut, he says.[J] "Right now, no insurance company is prepared to insure robots," says Dr. Inoue. But that will have to change, he says. Last month, Japan's Ministry of Trade and Industry announced a set of safety guidelines for home and office robots. They will be required to have sensors to help them avoid collisions with humans; to be made from soft and light materials to minimize harm if a collision does occur; and to have an emergency shut-off button. This was largely prompted by a big robot exhibition held last summer, which made the authorities realize that there are safety implications when thousands of people are not just looking at robots, but mingling with them, says Dr. Inoue.[K] However, the idea that general-purpose robots, capable of learning, will become widespread is wrong, suggests Mr. Angle. It is more likely, he believes, that robots will be relatively dumb machines designed for particular tasks. Rather than a humanoid robot maid, "it's going to be a heterogeneous (不同种类的) swarm of robots that will take care of the house," he says.

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保护好京杭大运河，对于传承人类文明、促进社会和谐发展具有极其重大的意义。

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay about the phenomenon of the adaption of classics. You can give examples to illustrate your point. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

Occasional self-medication has always been part of normal living. The making and selling of drugs have a long history and are closely linked, like medical practice itself, with the belief in magic. Only during the last hundred years or so has the development of scientific techniques made it possible for some of the causes of symptoms to be understood, so that more accurate diagnosis has become possible. The doctor is now able to follow up the correct diagnosis of many illnesses with specific treatment of their causes. In many other illnesses, of which the causes remain unknown, it is still limited, like the unqualified prescriber, to the treatment of symptoms. The doctor is trained to decide when to treat symptoms only and when to attack the cause: this is the essential difference between medical prescribing and self-medication. The advance of technology has brought about much progress in some fields of medicine, including the development of scientific drug therapy. In many countries public health organization is improving and people's nutritional standards have risen. Parallel with such beneficial trends have two adverse effects. One is the use of high-pressure advertising by the pharmaceutical industry, which has tended to influence both patients and doctors and has led to the overuse of drugs generally. The other is the emergence of the sedentary society with its faulty ways of life: lack of exercise, over-eating, unsuitable eating, insufficient sleep, excessive smoking and drinking. People with disorders arising from faulty habits such as these, as well as from unhappy human relationships, often resort to self-medication and so add the taking of pharmaceuticals to the list. Advertisers go to great lengths to catch this market. Clever advertising, aimed at chronic sufferers who will try anything because doctors have not been able to cure them, can induce such faith in a preparation, particularly if steeply priced, that it will produce—by suggestion—a very real effect in some people. Advertisements are also aimed at people suffering from mild complaints such as simple colds and coughs, which clear up by themselves within a short time. These are the main reasons why laxatives, indigestion remedies, painkillers, tonics, vitamin and iron tablets and many other preparations are found in quantity in many households. It is doubtful whether taking these things ever improves a person's health; it may even make it worse. Worse because the preparation may contain unsuitable ingredients; worse because the taker may become dependent on them; worse because they might be taken in excess; worse because they may cause poisoning, and worse of all because symptoms of some serious underlying cause may be masked and therefore medical help may not be sought.

Once they decided to have children, MiShel and Carl Meissner tackled the next big issue: Should they try to have a girl? It was no small matter. MiShel's brother had become blind from a hereditary(遗传的)condition in his early 20s, and the Meissners had learned that the condition is a【C1】______passed from mothers to sons. If they had a boy, he would have a 50 per cent chance of having the condition. A girl would be【C2】______ The British couple's【C3】______about gender selection led them to Virginia, US where a new sperm(精子)-separation technique, called MicroSort, was under【C4】______When MiShel became pregnant, she gave birth to a daughter. They will try to have a second daughter using the technique later this year. This is not only a【C5】______effective way to select a child's gender. It also brings a host of ethical(伦理的)and practical considerations—especially for the majority of families who use the technique for【C6】______reasons. The clinic offers sex selection for two purposes: to help couples【C7】______passing on a gender-linked【C8】______disease and to allow those who already have a child to "balance" their family by having a baby of the opposite sex. The technology is still【C9】______However, Blauer says the company has an【C10】______success rate: 91 per cent of the women who become pregnant after sorting for a girl are successful, while 76 per cent who sort for a boy and get pregnant are successful. A)genetic B)overlapped C)impressive D)unaffected E)perpetually F)investigation G)inquiries H)feats I)disorder J)gropes K)experimental L)seemingly M)elicit N)nonmedical O)avoid