单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write your answer in a word processing program on your computer. The table below shows the results of a survey to find out what members of a city sports club think about the club's activities, facilities and opening hours. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make any comparisons where relevant. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words. Write your essay on Answer Sheet 1. Range of activities Very satisfied Satisfied Not satisfied Female members 35% 35% 30% Male members 55% 40% 5% Female members 64% 22% 14% Male members 63% 27% 10% Female members 72% 25% 3% Male members 44% 19% 37%

单选题 Moving far more quickly than many had thought likely or possible, lawmakers in the 10-member House-Senate committee announced the agreement after less than 24 hours of negotiations. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: 'Like any negotiation, this involved give and take, and if you don't mind my saying so that is an understatement.' The agreement drops the total to ＄789 billion, while both Senate and House-passed measures exceeded ＄800 billion. A combination of low and middle income tax cuts, malting up about 35 percent of the bill, and domestic spending, its supporters say it meets President Barack Obama's goal of creating or saving as many as 4 million jobs. Susan Collins of Maine was among only 3 moderate Senate Republicans who joined the Democratic majority there. She says money trimmed from the bill reflects an effort to focus it more sharply to help the economy. 'It is a fiscally-responsible number that reflects our efforts to truly focus this bill on programs, and policies and tax relief that will help turn our economy around, create jobs and provide relief to the families of our country,' she said. Collins also pointed out the agreement increases spending on infrastructure projects, more than ＄150 billion in the proposed measure. Republican opponents kept up their criticisms, primarily that the measure contains untargeted spending and not the right level of tax relief. House Republican leader John Boehner voiced disappointment with the agreement, repeating his assertion that the measure will not create jobs quickly enough. 'It appears that they have made a bad bill worse by reducing the amount of tax relief for American families and small businesses, and adding more wasteful Washington spending,' he said. But Senator Arlen Specter, another moderate Republican who worked with Democrats, said action was required. 'This is obviously a very difficult vote in view of the large deficit and national debt which we have, but I believe it is indispensable, that strong action be taken,' he said. White House aides, including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, joined in the negotiations on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers behind the agreement hope a final conference report will be ready in the next 2 days that the House and Senate will vote on. Approval would send the legislation to President Obama for signature. An eventual Senate vote is expected to mirror earlier results in which majority Democrats, with help from the 3 Republicans, achieved the 60 votes needed to overcome any procedural block. It remains to be seen how a vote will turn out in the House, where no Republicans supported a House-passed measure, but where Democrats hold a strong enough majority to pass measures easily. House Republican leaders declined to predict Wednesday how many in their party might support final legislation.

单选题 That Louis Nevelson is believed by many critics to be the greatest twentieth-century sculptor (雕刻家) is all the more remarkable because the greatest resistance to women artists has been, until recently, in the field of sculpture. Since Neolithic (新石器时代的) times, sculpture has been considered the privilege of men, partly, perhaps, for purely physical reasons: it was faultily assumed that women were not suited for the hard manual labor required in sculpting stone, carving wood, or working in metal. It has been only during the twentieth-century that women sculptors have been recognized as major artists, and it has been in the United States, especially since the decades of the fifties and sixties, that women sculptors have shown the greatest originality and creative power. Their rise to prominence (声望) parallels the development of sculpture itself in the United Sates: while there had been a few talented sculptors in the United States before the 1940's, it was only after 1945—when New York was rapidly becoming the capital of the world—that major sculpture was produced in the United States. Some of the best was the work of women. By far the most outstanding of these women is Louis Nevelson, who in the eyes of many critics is the most original female artist alive today. One famous and influential critic Hilton Kramer, said of her work, 'For myself, I think Ms. Nevelson succeeds where the painters often fail. ' Her works have been compared to the Cubist (立体主义的) constructions of Picasso, the surrealistic (超现实主义的) objects of Miro and the Merzhau of Schwitters. Nevelson would be the first to admit that she has been influenced by all of these, as well as by African sculpture, and by Native American and pre-Columbian art, but she has absorbed all these influences and still created a distinctive art that expresses the urban landscape and the aesthetic (审美的) sensibility of the twentieth century. Nevelson says, 'I have always wanted to show the world that art is everywhere, except that it has to pass through a creative mind. ' Using mostly discarded wooden objects like packing crates (板条箱), broken pieces of furniture, and abandoned architectural ornaments, all of which she has collected for years, she assembles architectural constructions of great beauty and power, creating very freely with no sketches, she glues and nails objects together, paints them black, or more rarely white or gold, and places them in boxes. These assemblages, walls, even entire environments create a mysterious, almost awe-inspiring atmosphere. Although she has denied any symbolic or religious intent in her works, their three-dimensional grandeur and even their titles, such as Sky Cathedral and Night Cathedral, suggest such connotations (涵义). In some ways, her most ambitious works are closer to architecture than to traditional sculpture, but then neither Louis Nevelson nor her art fits into any neat category.

单选题 The poor old consumer! We'd have to pay a great deal more if advertising didn't create mass markets for products. It is precisely because of the heavy advertising that consumer goods are so cheap. But we get the wrong idea if we think the only purpose of advertising is to sell goods. Another equally important function is to inform. A great deal of the knowledge we have about household goods derives largely from the advertisements we read. Advertisements introduce us to new products or remind us of the existence of ones we already know about. Supposing you wanted to buy a washing machine, it is more than likely you would obtain details regarding performance, price, etc., from an advertisement. Lots of people pretend that they never read advertisements, but this claim may be seriously doubted. It is hardly possible not to read advertisements these days. And what fun they often are, too! Just think what a railway station or a newspaper would be like without advertisements. Would you enjoy gazing at a blank wall or reading railway bylaws while waiting for a train? Would you like to read only closely-printed columns of news in your daily paper? A cheerful, witty advertisement makes such a difference to a dull wall or a newspaper full of the daily ration of calamities. We must not forget, either, that advertising makes a positive contribution to our pockets. Newspapers, commercial radio station and television companies could not survive without this source of revenue. The fact that we pay so little for our daily paper, or can enjoy so many broadcast programs is due entirely to the money spent by advertisers. Just think what a newspaper would cost if we had to pay its full price! Another thing we mustn't forget is the 'small ads', which are in virtually every newspaper and magazine. What a tremendously useful service they perform for the community! Just about anything can be accomplished through these columns. For instance, you can find a job, buy or sell a house, announce a birth, marriage or death in what used to be called the 'hatch, match and dispatch' column but by far the most fascinating section is the personal or 'agony' column. No other item in a newspaper provides such entertaining reading or offers such a deep insight into human nature. It's the best advertisement for advertising there is!

单选题The other day I was listening to a Christian radio program on the way to the gym. Each day they ask a question for their listeners to respond to, either 27 phone or their Facebook page, and the topic that day was 'What do you 28 to?' The answers that listeners were sending in were simple, yet 29 . For example, one woman said she looked forward to having a cup of tea at night once her children were in bed. It got me thinking about the simple things in life. Essentially, that's what we all generally look forward to—the little things. A hug after a long day. A cup of something hot in the morning. The sun shining again after a rainy patch, 30 us to finally hang our 31 . A comfortable bed to 32 into at night. A refreshing shower. A freshly 33 lawn. A meal out. I like to see these small things as being as much a part of God's love for me as the bigger gifts. He sometimes sends my way. As Robert Louis Stevenson put it: 'The best things in life are nearest: breath in your 34 , light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the 35 of right just before you. Then do not 36 at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.' A. seize B. upon C. via D. slide E. look forward F. mowed G. refreshing H. nostrils I. enabling J. anticipate K. notorious L. path M. laundry N. estate O. grasp

单选题 Questions2-5 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

单选题 Only two countries in the advanced world provide no guarantee for paid leave from work to care for a newborn child. Last spring one of the two, Australia, gave up that dubious distinction by establishing paid family leave starting in 2011. I wasn't surprised when this didn't make the news here in the United States—we're now the only wealthy country without such a policy. The United States does have one explicit family policy, the Family and Medical Leave Act, passed in 1933. It entitles workers to as much as 12 weeks' unpaid leave for care of a newborn or dealing with a family medical problem. Despite the modesty of the benefit, the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups fought it bitterly, describing it as 'governmentrun personnel management' and a 'dangerous precedent.' In fact, every step of the way, as (usually) Democratic leaders have tried to introduce work-family balance measures into the law, business groups have been strongly opposed. As Yale law professor Anne Alstott argues, justifying parental support depends on defining the family as a social good that, in some sense, society must pay for. In her book No Exit: What Parents Owe Their Children and What Society Owes Parents, she argues that parents are burdened in many ways in their lives: there is 'no exit' when it comes to children. 'Society expects—and needs—parents to provide their children with continuity of care, meaning the intensive, intimate care that human beings need to develop their intellectual, emotional, and moral capabilities. And society expects—and needs—parents to persist in their role for 18 years, or longer if needed.' While most parents do this out of love, there are public penalties for not providing care. What parents do, in other words, is of deep concern to the state, for the obvious reason that caring for children is not only morally urgent but essential for the future of society. The state recognizes this in the large body of family laws that govern children's welfare, yet parents receive little help in meeting the life-changing obligations society imposes. To classify parenting as a personal choice for which there is on collective responsibility is not merely to ignore the social benefits of good parenting; really, it is to steal those benefits because they accrue(不断积累) to the whole of society as today's children become tomorrow's productive citizenry(公民). In fact, by some estimates, the value of parental investments in children, investments of time and money (including lost wages), is equal to 20-30% of gross domestic product. K these investments generate huge social benefits-as they clearly do—the benefits of providing more social support for the family should be that much clearer.

单选题 中国的官方语言普通话(Mandarin)在美国的学校中突然热起来。由于中国经济在21世纪的快速发展，美国的公立和私立学校纷纷在外语教学中加入汉语这一科目，或将已有的汉语教学项目进行扩展。据统计，在美国的学校中，有5万名孩子在学习汉语。推动汉语项目的发展不是没有遇到困难。由于缺乏受过专业训练、持有证书的教师，一些学校很难加入汉语教学的竞争。当学校聘用教师时，它们通常直接从中国招聘，这种方式为文化冲突埋下了隐患。

单选题 孔子(Confucius)是春秋时期(the Spring and Autumn Period)的大思想家、大教育家和儒家学派(Confucianism)的创始人，是古代中国人心目中的圣人。孔子的言论和生平活动记录在由他的弟子或再传弟子编成的《论语》(The Analects)一书中。《论语》是中国古代文化的经典著作。在孔子之后几千年的中国历史上，没有哪一位思想家、文学家和政治家不受《论语》的影响。不研究《论语》，就不能真正把握中国几千年的传统文化。

单选题 Banking is about money; and no other familiar services or commodities arouse such excesses of passion and dislike. Nor is there any other about which more nonsense is talked. The type of thing that comes to mind is not what normally called economics, which is inexact rather than nonsensical, and only in the same way as all scientists are at the point where they try to predict people's behavior and its consequences. Indeed most social sciences and, for example, medicine could probably be described in the same way. However, it is common to hear assertions of the kind 'if you were marooned (孤立无援) on a desert island a few seed potatoes would be more useful to you than a million pounds' as though this proved something important about money except the undeniable fact that it would not be much used to anyone in a situation where very few of us are at all likely to find ourselves. Money in fact is a token, or symbolic object, exchangeable on demand by its holders for goods and services. Its use for this purpose is universal except within a small number of primitive agricultural communities. Money and the price mechanism, i.e., the changes in prices expressed in money terms of different goods and services, are the means by which all modern societies regulate demand and supply for these things. Especially important are the relative changes in price of different goods and services compared with each other. To take random examples: the price of house building has over the past five years risen a good deal faster than that of domestic appliances like refrigerators, but slower than that of motor insurance or French Impressionist paintings. This fact has complex implications for students of the brick industry, trade unionism, town planning, insurance companies, fine art auctions, and politics. Unpacking these implications is what economics is about, but their implications for bankers are quite different. In general, in modern industrialized societies, prices of services or goods produced in a context requiring a high service-content (e.g., a meal in a restaurant) are likely to rise in price more rapidly than goods capable of mass-production on a large scale. It is also a characteristic of highly developed economies that the number of workers employed in service industries tends to rise and that of workers employed in manufacturing to fall. The discomfort this truth causes the big general trade unions as they contrast their own situation with that of the rapidly growing white-collar unions has been an important source of tension in western political life for many years and is likely to remain so for many more.

单选题 孟子(Mencius)是战国时期(the Warring States Period)一位伟大的思想家、教育家。他的哲学思想与孔子(Confucius)是一脉相承的，孔子去世100年后，孟子传授并发展了孔子的学说，这使得他在儒家思想(Confucianism)领域的地位仅次于孔子本人。孟子认为“人性本善”，是社会的影响引发了道德的堕落，因此十分重视道德教育。孟子的母亲在他的生命中扮演了重要的角色，她曾三度迁居，只为了帮助她的孩子找到一个合适的成长环境。

单选题 You should write an essay entitled The Power of Unity by commenting on the remark 'A snowflake is one of God's most fragile creations, but look what they can do when they stick together!' You can cite examples to illustrate your point. 写作导航 1．诠释名言来表示团结的力量； 2．进一步阐述团结在人们生活中的重要性，并以中国共产党来举例说明； 3．得出结论，呼吁大家培养团结意识。