填空题 {{B}}How ATMs Work?{{/B}} You're short on cash, so you walk over to the automated teller machine (ATM), insert your card into the card reader, respond to the prompts on the screen, and within a minute you walk away with your money and a receipt. Have you ever wondered about the process that makes your bank funds available to you at an ATM on the other side of the country?{{B}}ATM Card vs. Check Card{{/B}} As an alternative to writing checks and using a credit card, most major banks have teamed up with major credit-card companies to issue check cards. Check cards are different from straight ATM cards in a couple of ways. First,check cards are also known as debit cards because of how they work—instead of getting credit for your purchase and receiving a monthly bill,like you do with a credit card, a check/debit card deducts money from your checking or savings account. Also, while you can only use your ATM card at the ATM machine (and some grocery stores), you can use a check card at most retailers that accept credit cards. There are exceptions. Some hotels and rental car services only accept credit cards because it's easier, cheaper, and less of a risk to them than check cards. Those that do accept check cards often put a certain amount of money in your bank account "on hold" (unavailable to you) usually the cost of the room or rental including taxes and other fees, plus a percentage of the total or a fee to cover possible damages. When you check out of the hotel or turn in your rental car, the difference between the"hold'amount and what you're actually billed is released back into your account. This is something to consider when using your debit card to reserve a hotel room or rent a car.{{B}}The Way ATMs Work{{/B}} An ATM is simply a data terminal with two input and four output devices. Like any other data terminal, the ATM has to connect to, and. communicate through, a host processor. The host processor is analogous to an Internet service provider (ISP) in that it is the gateway through which all the various ATM networks become available to the cardholder (the person wanting the cash). Most host processors can support either leased-line or dialup machines. Leased-line machines connect directly to the host processor through a four-wire, point-to-point, dedicated telephone line. Dialup ATMs connect to the host processor through a normal phone line using a modem and a toll-free number, or through an Internet service provider using a local access number dialed by modem. Leased-line ATMs are preferred for very high-volume locations because of their thru-put capability, and dial-up ATMa are preferred for retail merchant locations where cost is a greater factor than thru-put. The initial cost for a dial-up machine is less than half that for a leased-line machine. The monthly operating costs for dial-up are only a fraction of the costs for leased-line. The host processor may be owned by a bank or financial institution, or it may be owned by an independent service provider. Bank-owned processors normally support only bank-owned machines, whereas the independent processors support merchant-owned machines. {{B}}Sensing Bills{{/B}} The cash-dispensing mechanism has an electric eye that counts each bill as it exits the dispenser. The bill count and all of the information pertaining to a particular transaction is recorded in a journal. The journal information is printed out periodically and a hard copy is maintained by the machine owner for two years. Whenever a cardholder has a dispute about a transaction, be or she can ask for a journal printout showing the transaction, and then contact the host processor. If no one is available to provide the journal printout, the cardholder needs to notify the bank or institution that issued the card and fill out a form that will be faxed to the host processor. It is the host processor'a responsibility to resolve the dispute. Besides the electric eye that counts each bill, the cash-dispensing mechanism also has a sensor that evaluates the thickness of each bill. If two bills are stuck together, then instead of being dispensed to the cardholder they are diverted to a reject bin. The same thing happens with a bill that is excessively worn, torn, or folded. The number of reject bills is also recorded so that the machine owner can be aware of the quality of bills that are being loaded into the machine. A high reject rate would indicate a problem with the bills or with the dispenser mechanism. {{B}}Settlement Funds{{/B}} When a cardholder wants to do an ATM transaction, he or she provides the necessary information by means of the card reader and keypad. The ATM forwards this information to the host processor, which routes the transaction request to the cardholder's bank or the institution that issued the card. If the cardholder is requesting cash, the host processor causes an electronic funds transfer to take place from the customer's bank account to the host processor's account. Once the funds are transferred to the host processor's bank account, the processor sends an approval code to the ATM authorizing the machine to dispense the cash. The processor then transfers the cardholder's funds into the merchant's bank account, usually the next bank business day. In this way, the merchant is reimbursed for all funds dispensed by the ATM. {{B}}ATM Security{{/B}} ATMs keep your personal identification number (PIN) and other information safe by using encryption (加密) software such as Triple DES (Data Encryption Standard). But there are lots of things that you can do to protect your information and your money at an ATM. Many banks recommend that you select your own PIN. Visa offers the following PIN tips: Don't write down your PIN. If you must write it down, do not store it in your wallet or purse. Make your PIN a series of letters or numbers that you can easily remember, but that cannot easily be associated with you personally-such as birth dates, initials, house numbers or your phone number. Visa also recommends the following tips for safe ATM usage, Store your ATM card in your purse or wallet, in an area where it won't get scratched or bent. Get your card out before you approach the ATM. You'll be more vulnerable to attack if you're standing in front of the ATM, fumbling through your wallet for your card. Stand directly in front of the ATM keypad when typing in your PIN. This prevents anyone waiting to use the machine from seeing your personal information. After your transaction, take your receipt, card and money away. Do not stand in front of the machine and count your money. If you are using a drive-up ATM, get your vehicle as close to the machine as possible to prevent anyone from coming up to your window. Also make sure that your doors are locked before you drive up to the machine. Do not leave your car running while using a walk-up ATM. Take your keys with you and lock the doors before your transaction. If someone or something makes you uncomfortable, cancel your transaction and leave the machine immediately. Follow up with your bank to make sure the transaction was cancelled and alert the bank to any suspicious people. For safety reasons, ATM users should seek out a machine that is located in a well-lighted public place. Federal law requires that only the last four digits (阿拉伯数字)of the cardholder's account number be printed on the transaction receipt so that when a receipt is left at the machine location, the account number is secure. However, the entry of your four-digit personal identification number (PIN) on the keypad should still be ob- scured from observation, which can be done by positioning your hand and body in such a way that the PIN entry cannot be recorded by store cameras or store employees. The cardholder's PIN is not recorded in the journal, but the account number is. If you protect your PIN, you protect your account.

填空题Save for College A. In this article, we"ll look at the rules for 529 Qualified State Tuition Plans. We"ll explore the difference between this savings vehicle and some of the other traditional education savings methods and see why this plan is the best yet! The cost of college B. You may never have thought you could get excited about big sums of money you won"t be spending on yourself until you read about this new college savings plan. The 529 plan offers the most painless way to save money for higher education to date. And if the child decides not to go to college, you can roll it over to someone else that does want to go, including yourself! The 529 Plan is a savings plan for college education. You have a couple of options when you open an account. ● One option lets you prepay tuition at a qualified educational institution at today"s tuition rates. ● Another option lets you save money in a tax deferred account (earnings only) to be used to pay for education at future tuition rates. C. The idea, with either option, is that the investment earnings will grow to meet the higher costs of future education. The savings account option is typically considered the more attractive of the two and is what we will focus on in this article. The 529 plan is a state sponsored investment program. That is, the state sets up the plan with an asset management company of its choice, and you open a 529 account with that asset management company according to the state"s predetermined plan features. You are the owner of the account, and the child for whom the account is set up is the beneficiary (受益人). You won"t deal directly with the state, but rather with the asset management/investment company. State-to-state variations D. Because each state can control some of the features of its own plan, there are variations from state to state. Most plans follow the same general scheme (and federal requirements), but make sure you compare plans among states other than your own. Most states don"t require residency in order to participate, so shop around different states for the best deal. The benefits: tax treatment E. All of the account"s earnings are exempt from federal tax when they are withdrawn if they are used for qualified education expenses. This means that, unlike the taxes you have to pay on earnings from regular stock investments, you won"t pay any tax on the 529 account earnings unless you end up using the money for something other than higher education. Earnings are currently tax deferred in most states, as well. F. A break on the earnings tax isn"t the only tax advantage, either. Although your contributions aren"t pre-tax (you pay state and federal tax on the money you put into the account), there are some states that let you deduct a portion of your contributions from your state taxes. More states will probably follow suit in the coming years. The benefits: account control G. Unlike Education Savings Accounts (ESA), the account owner always has control of the money. This helps lessen that parental anxiety that the junior will take the money and tour Europe or buy a Porsche instead of going to college. There are no restrictions on who can open an account for whom. You can open an account for your child, a friend"s child, a relative, the paper boy, or even yourself. The benefits: income eligibility H. Did you know that with an ESA, you aren"t eligible to contribute if you make more than $110000 per year ($220000 for married couples)? Unlike ESA, your income does not affect your eligibility to open a 529 account. Contributions to 529 plans also qualify for the $11000 ($22000 for married couples in 2002) annual gift tax exclusion. You can also contribute up to five years of gifts during the first year, meaning you can put in up to $55000 ($110000 for married couples). This is a great benefit in situations where inheritance money enters the picture. Your account can grow up to $268000 in some states. You can contribute as little as $25 to $50 per month. The benefits: how the money can be used I. In most states, there is no age limit or time limit for when the money has to be used. Your child can put off college indefinitely, in which case you have the option of rolling the account over to another child as long as that child is in the same family of the first beneficiary. In case you"re wondering just who is considered "family", the plan defines family members as "the original beneficiary"s spouse, children, sisters, brothers, nephews, nieces, first cousins, and any spouses of those persons". J. Your child can go to any accredited (官方认可的) degree granting educational institution, whether it is public, private, two-year, or four-year. There are even some international schools that qualify. In most states, qualified education costs include tuition, books, room, board, transportation, and even computers. In the event that your child gets a scholarship, then the remainder of the 529 account can be rolled over to another sibling (or relative), or it can be cashed out with no penalty other than the tax paid (at your rate) on the earnings. The same rule applies in the event of the child"s death or disability. The benefits: investment control K. If the thought of turning over your hard earned money to the state makes you a little uneasy, rest assured that the state doesn"t control your money. In fact, most states are signing on with well known, successful investment companies such as TIAA CREF, Vanguard and Fidelity. The number and types of investment options vary by state, and once you select your option you can"t change it. You can, however, roll your money over into another state"s plan if you"re not happy with your chosen investment option. There is no penalty to roll the money over into another state"s plan, and you can do it once every 12 months. Most states have no residence requirement for their 529 plans. L. Many plans are also offering investment choices that are age-based. This means that if you"re starting early, perhaps when your child is age one to three, the investments can begin aggressively in stocks then gradually shift to bonds and money market accounts as your child gets closer to college age. Some state plans offer several levels of options for aggressive, moderate and conservative investments. M. If you can"t reach the risk level you want in one plan, you can always open a second 529 account in the same or another state. You can have as many accounts as you want and can also contribute to both a 529 plan and an ESA. That way, you can diversify your investments in the event that the plan doesn"t offer the investment mix you would like.

填空题 The European Union had approved a number ofgenetically modified crops until late 1998. But growingpublic concern over its supposed environmental and health 62. ______risks led several EU countries to demand a moratorium(暂时禁止) on imports of any new GM produce. By late 1999there were enough such country to block any new approvals 63. ______of GM produce. Last year, America filed a complaint at fileWTO about the moratorium, arguing that it was an illegaltrade barrier because there is no scientific base for it. 64. ______ As more studies have been completed on the effects ofGM crops, the greens' case for them has weakened. 65. ______Much evidence has emerged of health risks from eating them. 66. ______And, overall, the studies have shown that the environmentaleffects on modified crops are not always as serious as the 67. ______greens claim. Nevertheless, environmentalists continue to findfault of such studies and argue that they are inconclusive. 68. ______ While Americans seem be happy enough to consume 69. ______food made from GM crops, opinion polls continue to showthat European consumers dislike the idea. Europeans seem betaking the attitude which, since there remains the slightest 70. ______possibility of adverse consequences and since it is clear how 71. ______they, as consumers, benefit from GM crops, they wouldrather not run the risk.

填空题Directions: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is read for the second time, you are required to fill in the blanks with the exact words you have just heard. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you have written. Drugs have been a part of the American story since the very first day Columbus landed in the New World. The Taino Indians {{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}Columbus with a gift of tobacco, which would go on to become one of the most important drugs in our history. And if drugs have existed since the beginning, so have drug problems. And so {{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}}solve those" drug problems. Since the 19th century when Americans first discovered new {{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}drugs like heroin and cocaine, the whole society has confronted the problem of drug abuse and addiction. When the 20th century began, the United States—struggling with its first drug {{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}—gradually set up effective restrictions: at home through domestic law {{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}and overseas by starting a world movement to limit opium (鸦片) and coca crops. By World War Ⅱ, American drug use had become so rare that it {{U}} {{U}} 6 {{/U}} {{/U}}a social problem. The first epidemic was forgotten. During the 1960s, drugs like marijuana (大麻) and psychedelics (迷幻药) {{U}} {{U}} 7 {{/U}} {{/U}}, and a new generation embraced drugs. With the drug culture exploding, the government developed new laws and agencies to address the problem. In 1973, the US Drug Enforcement Administration was created to enforce federal drug laws. In the 1970s, cocaine reappeared. Then, a decade later, crack appeared, spreading {{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}and violence at epidemic levels. Today, the DEA's biggest challenge is the {{U}} {{U}} 9 {{/U}} {{/U}}change in organised crime. While local criminals once controlled drug {{U}} {{U}} 10 {{/U}} {{/U}}on US soil, today foreign criminal groups control the drug trade in America.

填空题Laura thinks she has the ______ for her to do what elected officials do without running for that herself.

填空题The nature versus nurture issue has been around for ages, and scholars have still not (36) which of the two has a greater effect on a person. Nature, referring to heredity (遗传), and the nurture, referring to the environment, are two very (37) explanations to why we are the people we are today. This (38) has been argued and supported very well for both sides. Each side stresses very important (39) and good explanations for why nature, or nurture, controls how we develop. Nature is believed to be what (40) our personalities, looks, and other things because it's all (41) passed down. Any matter concerning traits relies upon the concept of inborn biology. It has been inferred that a newborn doesn't have a blank slate, of personality, but does have a set of (42) traits. Tests have been done to show that (43) of an infant are influenced more by biology than experiences with their siblings. The other side of the debate claims that nurture is the cause to our behavior as well as characteristics. (44) and make us into the exact opposite. Even the way that certain children are brought up can change how they turn out. (45) , and it's an ongoing confusion as to which one creates a person's personality, looks, etc. I have an eclectic(折中的) view and say that nature and nurture are both important influences to a person as they are developing their traits. (46) , but the environment can alter and develop a person even more.

填空题The most important factors necessary to lower population growth rates in the developing world are ______.

填空题In the United States, most of the electricity is generated from coal or natural gas.

填空题To grade-grubbers, they have more fear of failing than ______.

填空题Why Exercise Won"t Make You Thin A. As I write this, tomorrow is Tuesday, which is a cardio day. I"ll spend five minutes warming up on the Versa Climber, a towering machine that requires you to move your arms and legs simultaneously. Then I"ll do 30 minutes on a stair mill. On Wednesday a personal trainer will work me like a farm animal for an hour, sometimes to the point that I am dizzy—an abuse for which I pay as much as I spend on groceries in a week. Thursday is "body wedge" class, which involves another exercise contraption, this one a large foam wedge from which I will push myself up in various hateful ways for an hour. Friday will bring a 5.5-mile run, the extra half- mile my grueling expiation of any gastronomical indulgences during the week. B. I have exercised like this—obsessively, a bit grimly—for years, but recently I began to wonder: Why am I doing this? Except for a two-year period at the end of an unhappy relationship—a period when I self-medicated with lots of Italian desserts—I have never been overweight. C. One of the most widely accepted, commonly repeated assumptions in our culture is that if you exercise, you will lose weight. But I exercise all the time, and since I ended that relationship and cut most of those desserts, my weight has returned to the same 163 lb. It has been most of my adult life. I still have gut fat that hangs over my belt when I sit. Why isn"t all the exercise wiping it out? D. It"s a question many of us could ask. More than 45 million Americans now belong to a health club, up from 23 million in 1993. We spend some $19 billion a year on gym memberships. Of course, some people join and never go. Still, as one major study— the Minnesota Heart Survey—found, more of us at least say we exercise regularly. The survey ran from 1980, when only 47% of respondents said they engaged in regular exercise, to 2000, when the figure had grown to 57%. E. And yet obesity figures have risen dramatically in the same period: a third of Americans are obese, and another third count as overweight by the Federal Government"s definition. Yes, it"s entirely possible that those of us who regularly go to the gym would weigh even more if we exercised less. But like many other people, I get hungry after I exercise, so I often eat more on the days I work out than on the days I don"t. Could exercise actually be keeping me from losing weight? F. The conventional wisdom that exercise is essential for shedding pounds is actually fairly new. As recently as the 1960s, doctors routinely advised against rigorous exercise, particularly for older adults who could injure themselves. G. Today doctors encourage even their oldest patients to exercise, which is sound advice for many reasons: people who regularly exercise are at significantly lower risk for all manner of diseases—those of the heart in particular. They less often develop cancer, diabetes and many other illnesses. But the past few years of obesity research show that the role of exercise in weight loss has been wildly overstated. H. "In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless." says Eric Ravussin, chair in diabetes and metabolism at Louisiana State University and a prominent exercise researcher. Many recent studies have found that exercise isn"t as important in helping people lose weight as you hear so regularly in gym advertisements or on shows like The Biggest Loser—or, for that matter, from magazines like this one. I. The basic problem is that while it"s true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can stimulate hunger. That causes us to eat more, which in turn can negate the weight-loss benefits we just accrued. Exercise, in other words, isn"t necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder. The compensation problem J. Earlier this year, the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE—PLOS is the nonprofit Public Library of Science—published a remarkable study supervised by a colleague of Ravussin"s, Dr. Timothy Church, who holds the rather grand title of chair in health wisdom at LSU. Church"s team randomly assigned into four groups 464 overweight women who didn"t regularly exercise. K. Women in three of the groups were asked to work out with a personal trainer for 72 min., 136 min., and 194 min. per week, respectively, for six months. Women in the fourth cluster, the control group, were told to maintain their usual physical activity routines. All the women were asked not to change their dietary habits and to fill out monthly medical symptom questionnaires. L. The findings were surprising. On average, the women in all the groups, even the control group, lost weight, but the women who exercised—sweating it out with a trainer several days a week for six months—did not lose significantly more weight than the control subjects did. (The control group women may have lost weight because they were filling out those regular health forms, which may have prompted them to consume fewer doughnuts.) Some of the women in each of the four groups actually gained weight, some more than 10 lb. each. M. What"s going on here? Church calls it compensation, but you and I might know it as the lip-licking anticipation of perfectly salted, golden-brown French fries after a hard trip to the gym. Whether because exercise made them hungry or because they wanted to reward themselves (or both), most of the women who exercised ate more than they did before they started the experiment. Or they compensated in another way, by moving around a lot less than usual after they got home. N. The findings are important because the government and various medical organizations routinely prescribe more and more exercise for those who want to lose weight. In 2007 the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association issued new guidelines stating that "to lose weight... 60 to 90 minutes of physical activity may be necessary." That"s 60 to 90 minutes on most days of the week, a level that not only is unrealistic for those of us trying to keep or find a job but also could easily produce, on the basis of Church"s data, ravenous compensatory eating. O. It"s true that after six months of working out, most of the exercisers in Church"s study were able to trim their waist lines slightly—by about an inch. Even so, they lost no more overall body fat than the control group did. Why not?

填空题By the mid-nineteenth century, the term "icebox" had entered the American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels, taverns (酒馆), and hospitals, and by some forward-looking city dealers in fresh moat, fresh fish, and butter. After the Civil War( 1861-1865 ), as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880, half of the ice sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families for their own use. This had become possible because a new household convenience, the icebox, a precursor of the modem fridge, had been invented. Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as we might now suppose. In the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of the physics of heat, which was essential to a science of refrigeration, was rudimentary (未发展的). The commonsense notion that the best icebox was one that prevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken, for it was the melting of the ice that performed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts to economize ice included wrapping up the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing its job. Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors achieve the delicate balance of insulation and circulation needed for an efficient icebox. But as early as 1803, and ingenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had been on the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown was the market center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidly melting stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium price for his butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks. One advantage of his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer travel to travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.

填空题Any minimal deviation from normal form and function may be ______.

填空题Name two of the animals mentioned in the passage which are dying out?