单选题Directions:Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteanessayentitledTheProportionofMentoWomeninExecutivePositions.Youshouldstartyouressaywithabriefdescriptionofthechartandwriteatleast150wordsbutnomorethan200words.

单选题 Achieving Contentment A. Socrates said contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty. Being a minimalist isn't easy. Living this counter-cultural lifestyle requires quite a determined personality. You have to smile and ignore friends and family who keep saying 'but you could be earning so much more if you took that corporate job.' Or 'why are you driving a 5-year-old car when you can afford a brand new one.' 'Why are you camping in a game reserve, and not staying in a 5-star hotel and casino.' B. It isn't easy to keep the constant pressure to shop and own at bay, but what makes it easy is contentment. When you look happy and your life is one that others envy for its solid relationships, rewarding creative work and annoying glow of health, people's helpful advice on lifestyle tends to sound thin. C. It's worth learning to be content! Not only does contentment provide the opportunity for minimalism, it also reduces your stress level, improves your outlook, relaxes your body, and makes your life enjoyable. There is an unmistakable freedom that follows contentment: a freedom to be who you are, enjoy who you are, and live the life you were destined to live. D. In our consumeristic-culture discontent is promoted and encouraged. If you aren't discontent with your car, why would you buy another one at twice the price? 'They' need to foster discontent with your body, your life, your husband or your job to soften you up for the hard sell. E. If only you bought this product, smoked this drug, drank this poison, used this service you would be happy. Selling starts by first breeding discontent. That is why celebrity shows are all over TV—they are an important foundation for the adverts between shows—no matter how beautiful you are, no matter how rich, there is always that celebrity to show you that you are being positively frugal (节俭的) by only buying a Mercedes and not a Porche. F. On the one hand, your life is enhanced by your dreams and aspirations. On the other hand, these drives can pull you farther and farther from your enjoyment of your life right now. By learning the lessons of gratitude and abundance, you can bring yourself closer to fulfilling the challenge of living in the present. There is no one-size-fits-all, but here are five keys that have helped us further develop contentment in our lives. 1. Be grateful G. Gratitude and contentment are inseparable. Focus on the good things in your life—the things you have—not the things you lack. Are you questioning what you have to be grateful for? Nothing come to mind? After all you are poorer than X, and uglier than Y, not as important as the boss, and suffer more responsibility than your staff. There you go comparing up again. When 90% of the world probably has less than you do, most people still focus on the few 0.2% of lucky souls who are models, superstars, CEOs and plain lucky. H. Come on now, get some perspective. Start making a list of all the good things in your life—even if it's just sunny weather, a nice nose or a great cup of coffee. Don't worry about finishing—the simple discipline of appreciating what you do have will set off a new habit. Try to add one or two items to the list every day. 2. You can't keep shopping your way to happiness I. Advertising has ingrained (使根深蒂固) the belief that the proper way to diffuse discontent is to buy whatever we don't yet have. Almost no energy is spent determining the true root of the discontent. We quickly focus on the nearest product (preferably chocolate based), and avoid thinking about what really makes us feel out of control, frustrated or angry. J. You have to break that habit. Understand that material possessions will never fully satisfy the desires of your heart (that's why discontent always returns). The next time you recognize discontentment surfacing in your life, refuse to give into that bad habit. Instead, commit to better understand yourself. Are you buying a new cell phone, or do you really want to buy 'coolness and popularity, and the envy of friends?' K. A little trick—if you compulsively shop when your world is out of control, buy something really tiny such as the smallest chocolate bar in the shop, a pair of plastic earrings, a cup of coffee. The action of purchasing makes people happy because for a few seconds at least, you have the sole attention of the shop assistant (aren't you an important person!) and you demonstrate through the display of cash or credit cards that you are in control of your life. For most people a 50p pack of gum gives the same pleasure as a $500 pair of shoes. Better in fact, you don't have that dull dread of the let-down when you get them home and can't work out where you will fit them in your cupboard. 3. Take charge of your attitude L. A person who lacks contentment in their life will often engage in 'when and then thinking'—'when I get..., then I will be happy.' Remember, your happiness is not reliant on the acquisition of any possession. The temporary joy of happiness is not contentment—happiness is often externally driven by things that happen to you. That is what you remember and you keep looking for that high in external events and things. Contentment is how you respond to life and situations. Contentment is a decision. 4. Stop comparing yourself to others M. This is a hard one—it's such a daily, hourly habit. I'm smarter than him, and dumber than her. I'm fatter than them, and so much better than him. Comparing your life with someone else's will always lead to discontentment. There will always be people who 'appear' to be better off than you and seemingly living the perfect life. But be advised, we always compare the worst of what we know about ourselves to the best assumptions that we make about others. You are unique. And it's always better that way. Live up to your own expectations of what you can be, and stop living up to the media and friends' expectations. 5. Get off your butt and help N. When you begin helping others, sharing your talents, time and money, you will find yourself learning to be content. You will feel better about yourself. If you don't like people much, volunteer to walk dogs. If you're allergic to cats, help an elderly person with her garden or go shopping with her and carry groceries. Pick up litter, plant a flowing shrub in a wasteland, get someone a cup of coffee without being asked. And while you're at it, stop shirking. Ladies, mow the lawn or change a plug now and then. Men, pick up that laundry before you're asked. O. Be content with what you have, never with what you are. Never stop learning, growing, or discovering. Take pride in your personhood and the progress that you have made, but never become so content that you cannot find room for improvement. Contentment is not the same as complacency (自满).

单选题 The Amazon Mystery: What America's Strangest Tech Company Is Really Up To A. If there's a sentence that sums up Amazon, the weirdest major technology company in America, it's one that came from its own CEO, Jeff Bezos, speaking at the Aspen Institute's 2009 Annual Awards Dinner in New York City: 'Invention requires a long-term willingness to be misunderstood.' In other words: if you don't yet get what I'm trying to build, keep waiting. B. Four years later, Amazon's annual revenue and stock price have both nearly tripled, but for many onlookers, the long wait for understanding continues. Bezos's company has grown from its humble Seattle beginnings to become not only the largest bookstore in the history of the world, but also the world's largest online retailer, the largest Web-hosting company in the world, the most serious competitor to Netflix in streaming video, the fourth-most-popular tablet (平板电脑) maker, and a sprawling international network of fulfillment centers for merchants around the world. It is now rumored to be close to launching its own smartphone and television set-top box. The every-bookstore has become the store for everything, with the global ambition to become the store for everywhere. C. Seriously: What is Amazon? A retail company? A media company? A logistics (物流) machine? The mystery of its strategy is deepened by two factors. First is the company's communications department, which famously excels at not communicating. (Three requests to speak with Amazon officials for this article were delayed and, inevitably, declined.) This moves discussions of the company's intentions into the realm of mind reading, often attempted by the research departments of investment banks, where even optimistic analysts aren't really sure what Bezos is up to. 'It's very difficult to define what Amazon is,' says R. J. Hottovy, an analyst with Morningstar, who nonetheless champions the company's future. D. Second, investors have developed a seemingly unconditional love for Amazon, despite the company's reticence (沉默寡言) and, more to the point, its financial performance. Some 19 years after its founding, Amazon still barely turns a profit—when it makes money at all. The company is pinched between its low margins as a discount retailer and its high capital spending as a global logistics company. Last year, it lost $39 million. By comparison, in its latest annual report, Apple announced a profit of almost $42 billion—nearly 22 times what Amazon has earned in its entire life span. And yet Amazon's market capitalization, the value investors place on the company, is more than a quarter of Apple's, placing Amazon among the largest tech companies in the United States. E. 'I think Amazon's efforts, even the seemingly eccentric ones, are centered on securing the customer relationship,' says Benedict Evans, a consultant with Enders Analysis. The Kindle Fire tablet and the widely rumored phone aren't boring experiments, he told me, but rather purchasing devices that put Amazon on the coffee table so consumers can never escape the tantalizing glow of a shopping screen. F. In a way, this strategy isn't new at all. It's ripped from the mildewed playbooks of the first national retail stores in American history. Amazon appears to be building nothing less than a global Sears, Roebuck of the 21st century—a large-scale operation that aims to dominate the future of shopping and shipping. The question is, can it succeed? G. In the late 19th century, soon after a network of rail lines and telegraph wires had stitched together a rural country, mail-order companies like Sears built the first national retail corporations. Today the Sears catalog seems about as innovative as the prehistoric handsaw, but in the 1890s, the 500-page 'Consumer's Bible' popularized a truly radical shopping concept: the mail would bring stores to consumers. H. But in the early 1900s, as families streamed off farms and into cities, chains like J. C. Penney and Woolworth sprang up to greet them. Sears followed. The company's focus on the emerging middle-class market paid off so well that by mid-century, Sears's revenue approached 1 percent of the entire U.S. economy. But its dominance had deflated by the late 1980s, after more competitors arose and as the blue-collar consumer base it had leaned on collapsed. I. Now that Internet cables have replaced telegraph wires, American consumers are reverting to their turn-of-the-century shopping habits. Families have rediscovered the Consumer's Bible while sitting on their couches, and this time, it's in a Web browser. E-commerce has nearly doubled in the past four years, and Amazon now takes in revenue of more than $60 billion annually. The Internet means to the 21st century what the postal service meant to the late 1800s: it welcomes retailers like Amazon into every living room. J. 'Sears took advantage of the U.S. postal system and railways in the early 20th century just as transportation costs were falling,' says Richard White, a historian at Stanford, 'and Amazon has done the same with the Web.' Its national logistics machine mimics Sears's pneumatic-tube-powered (气动管驱动的) Chicago warehouse, but is more powerful, and much faster. K. Like the mail-order giants did a century ago, Amazon is moving to the city. In the past few years, the company has added warehouses in the most-populous metros to cut shipping times to urban customers. People subscribing to Amazon Prime or AmazonFresh (which, in exchange for an annual payment, provides fast delivery of most goods or groceries you'd like to order) commit themselves financially, with Prime members spending twice as much as other buyers. If those subscriptions grow numerous enough, Amazon's search bar could become the preferred retail-shopping engine. L. At least, that's the vision. Defenders say Amazon is trading the present for the future, spending all its revenue on a global scatter plot of warehouses that will make the company unbeatable. Eventually, the theory goes, investors expect Amazon to complete its construction project and, having swayed enough customers and destroyed enough rivals, to 'flip the switch,' raising prices and profits greatly. In the meantime, they're happy to keep buying stock, offering an unqualified thumbs-up for heavy spending. M. But this theory assumes a practically infinite life span for Amazon. The modem history of retail innovation suggests that even the giants can be overtaken suddenly. Sears was still America's largest retailer in 1982, but just nine years later, its annual revenues were barely half those of Walmart. N. Amazon is not as insulated from its rivals as some think it is. Walmart, eBay, and a bounty of upstarts (新贵) are all in the race to dominate online retail. Amazon's furious spending on new buildings and equipment isn't an elective measure; it's a survival plan. The truth is Amazon has won investors' trust with a reputation for spending everybody to death, and it can spend everybody to death because it has won investors' trust. For now. O. 'Amazon, as best I can tell, is a charitable organization being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers,' Slate's Matthew Yglesias joked earlier this year. Of course, Amazon is not a charity, and its investors are not philanthropists (慈善家). Today, they are funding an effort to fulfill the dreams of the turn-of-the-century retail kings: to build the perfect personalized shopping experience for the modem urban household. For once, families are reaping the dividends of Wall Street's generosity. The longer investors wait for Amazon to fulfill their orders, the less we have to wait for Amazon to fulfill ours.

单选题 Questions18-20 are based on the recording you have just heard.

单选题 How to Duck Cabin Fevers and Other Aches on a Plane? A. On the first leg of this season's holiday travel tour, I had the delightful experience of watching my 20-month-old touch nearly every surface on our airplane, from numerous armrests and people we passed in the aisle to our fingerprint-stained window. As a somewhat uncontrollable germaphobe (洁癖), it took everything I had not to dip my son in hand sanitizer (消毒剂) and then physically restrain him. But I was flying alone with two children and he was happy eating those snacks off the floor, and so, for the sake of my fellow passengers, I let him handle pretty much anything he wanted. Hence, I wasn't surprised when his nose started running shortly after we arrived at our destination, followed by the inevitable cough, which his older brother also picked up. Our 'vacation' ended at a CVS Minute Clinic, with ear infections for both kids. B. Coming down with a cold, cough or other illness after air travel is a common refrain, even from adults who don't try to lick the seatback tray table. But is the plane really to blame? Not particularly, says aviation medicine specialist Mark Gendreau, vice chair of emergency medicine at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass. 'You do have a higher risk of contracting a viral infection while traveling, but you have to remember that it's really the door-to-door experience that's exposing you to germs: the crowds on the subway to the airport, the escalator, the security line, getting on and off the aircraft,' he explains. 'It's almost impossible to say where, exactly, you get sick.' C. In fact, experts point out that the environment of a plane is probably less risky, health-wise, than many other crowded, confined spaces. Given airliners' improved ventilation systems, germs aren't being constantly circulated through the plane, stresses Gendreau. Instead, he says, you are most likely to pick up a bug from close contact with a sick person or by touching a surface that's been coughed or sneezed on or otherwise contaminated, such as an armrest or an overhead bin lock. D. Studies have shown that the highest risk of germ transmission on a plane, by far, comes from those around you, particularly those seated within two rows, says Michael Zimring, director of the Center for Healthy Travel at the Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore. 'The closer the proximity and the longer the time you're confined with someone in a closed compartment—and usually it's at least a couple of hours—the better the chance of catching a cold,' he says. E. Research published last May in the journal BMJ studied a packed, long-haul 747 flight from Los Angeles to New Zealand that had at least nine passengers who were later confirmed to have swine flu. Researchers found that the three additional travelers who appeared to have contracted the virus on the flight were all sitting within two rows of an infected person; that put the chance of transmission at 3.5 percent within two rows and roughly 1.9 percent for anyone in the same section of the plane. F. 'There's no doubt that planes are pretty germy,' says Charles Gerba, a professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona who studies how diseases are transmitted in indoor environments. 'There is no requirement or regulation for the cleaning and disinfection of airplanes—it's up to individual airlines—and it just doesn't get done regularly,' he said. The dirtiest spot on board? By far, the restrooms, according to Gerba, who says that in the course of his research, he has identified E. coli bacteria on almost every toilet surface, with the worst offenders being sink handles and faucets, soap dispensers and door handles. G. Of course, just because such germs are there doesn't mean they're a problem. 'There is definitely an unpleasant factor, but it's one thing to say there's a virus or bacteria on a surface, and another thing for that to make you sick,' says Katherine Andrus, assistant general counsel for the Air Transport Association, a trade group representing major U.S. airlines. 'Most of us, if we're relatively healthy and have good immune systems, don't have to worry that much about all of the surfaces in the world that may be contaminated.' She adds that frequent, proper hand washing goes a long way toward preventing illness in any crowded environment. H. There are several other steps you can take. Zimring, author of 'Healthy Travel: Don't Travel Without It,' says it's important get enough sleep, eat healthfully, exercise and get a flu shot to build up immunity before traveling. Gendreau suggests the following to stay healthy while flying: I. Drink up. Proper hydration (水合作用) is critical to optimal immune function. Given that the relative humidity in a passenger cabin can be as low as 10 percent on long flights, it's essential to drink as much water while in the air as possible; avoiding alcohol will help, too. Staying well hydrated can also help prevent mild altitude sickness, with symptoms such as headache, lightheadedness and nausea (恶心), which people often mistake for a post-flight cold or flu. J. Pack a hand sanitizer. Soap and water do a great job, but the restroom's sink handle, soap dispenser and doorknobs may be contaminated with germs. So use alcohol-based sanitizer after leaving the restroom and throughout the rest of your flight. And think twice before you rub, scratch or otherwise pat your face during a flight; those simple acts can provide ample opportunity for the transmission of bacteria and viruses. K. Be wary about that tray. Air carriers with flight turnover times of less than an hour do not routinely disinfect the trays or other surfaces such as the armrests and windows. So wipe them down with an alcohol-based sanitizer when you first take your seat. L. Keep the air turned on at your seat. When people cough, sneeze or speak, they eject up to 30,000 droplets, which can travel several feet. To minimize the chance of infected droplets landing on you, turn your air vent to medium flow and position it so that the air current is directed just slightly in front of your face. That will help direct germs away from your eyes, nose and mouth. M. As for me, I think I will run with my germaphobic tendencies from now on, forbidding floor snacks, using a great amount of sanitizer on both my children and wiping down our immediate surroundings as soon as we board. The travel might not be happier—for me or for my fellow passengers—but if it's even slightly more healthful, I think it's worth it.

单选题Ideas about 'spoiling' children have always involved consideration of just what is a spoiled child, how does spoiling occur, and what are the consequences of spoiling; they have always included 26 of a child's nature, the ideal child and the ideal adult. The many mothers of 1820 who belonged to the early 'maternal (母亲的) associations' struggled to 27 the ideas about child raising that had been 28 in the 18th century. They had always been told that the spoiled child stood in danger of having trouble later in life (when exposed to all the 29 of the world) and, more importantly, stood in danger of 30 ruin. The approach these mothers knew was to 'break the will' of the child. This approach, coming 31 from the theology (神学) of Calvin, the French protestant reformer, was 32 from the stern outlook of the Puritans. As one mother wrote, 'No child has even been known, since the earliest period of the world, destitute(缺乏的) of an evil disposition however sweet it appears.' Infant depravity (堕落), by which meant the child's 33 , could be curbed only by breaking the will so that the child 34 implicitly to parental guidance. By freeing the child from its evil nature, parents believed they could then guide the child into acquiring the right character traits, such as honesty, industriousness, and society. These moral 35 , fixed in the child's character, were to govern it throughout life, in a society where free enterprise, individual effort, and competition were believed to be the ruling forces. A. spiritual B. impulses C. eventually D. principles E. denounce F. prevalent G. temptations H. initially I. concepts J. segregated K. uphold L. authentic M. submitted N. descriptions O. inherited

单选题 筷子 几千年来，我们中国人一直将筷子视为一种将饭送入口中的最简单、有效的工具。早在周朝时期，筷子便被人们用来夹取荤、蔬菜，而米饭在那时则用手来取食。筷子的大小基本一样，而制作筷子的材料则各有不同，所选材料有竹子、木材、玉石等。中国人使用筷子的方法很有艺术性，各人有各人的方法，就好像签名一样，不尽一致。中国人一般都能随心所欲地用筷子夹起一粒米饭，一粒豌豆，甚至一只滑溜溜的丸子。

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled Flea Markets on Campus. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words following the outline given below. 1．近年来，大学校园跳蚤市场兴起 2．有人支持跳蚤市场，有人反对 3．你的观点

单选题 Questions10-12 are based on the passage you have just heard.

单选题 Is It Worth Eating an Organic Diet? Organic or Inorganic A. Sales of organic food have been rising steadily over the past decade, reaching almost $30 billion in 2011, or 4.2% of all U.S. food and beverage sales, according to the Organic Trade Association. Many of the consumers who purchase these products say paying more for organic produce, milk and meat is a trade-off they are willing to make in order to avoid exposure to chemical pesticides and fertilizers and milk from cows given bovine growth hormone (牛生长激素). Some experts say common sense should tell us that food grown without the help of synthetic chemicals is probably safer and healthier to consume than food containing those substances, even in trace amounts. They believe Americans should try to substitute organic products for conventional ones whenever possible. B. However, other families, especially those whose food budgets may be more limited wonder if organic food is really worth its hefty price tag. Other experts point out that there isn't enough scientific evidence to say for sure that eating organic food leads to better health. As such, they say the most important dietary advice they can give Americans is to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables and less processed food. C. Alex Leo, associate professor of environmental exposure biology at the Harvard School of Public Health, argues for eating more organic food. Janet H. Silverstein, a professor of endocrinology (内分泌学) at the University of Florida and a co-author of an American Association of Pediatrics (儿科学) study on the health benefits of an organic diet, takes the skeptic's view. So far, researchers haven't been able to provide them with a definitive answer. Short Exposure to Pesticide D. Is there definitive scientific proof that an organic diet is healthier? 'Not yet,' said Leo. Robust scientific studies comparing food grown organically and food grown conventionally don't exist, thanks to a lack of funding for this kind of research. 'The lack of definitive evidence combined with the higher price of organic food has given skeptics a golden opportunity to argue that organic isn't worth the cost and effort,' he added. E. While studies in recent years have delivered a decidedly mixed message about the healthfulness of organic food, those on both sides of the debate generally agree that organic produce typically contains fewer pesticides than conventional produce, and that people may be able to reduce or eliminate agricultural chemicals from their bodies by adopting an organic diet. This was illustrated in a study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives in 2006. That study, which was led by Leo, showed that within five days of substituting mostly organic produce for conventional produce in children's diets, pesticides disappeared from the children's urine(尿液). Protective Effect F. Many say the pesticides found in our food are nothing to fear because the levels fall well below federal safety guidelines and thus aren't dangerous. Similarly, they say the bovine growth hormone used to increase cows' milk yield is perfectly safe. But federal guidelines don't take into account what effect repeated exposure to low levels of chemicals might have on humans over time. And many pesticides were eventually banned or restricted by the federal government after years of use when they were discovered to be harmful to the environment or human health. G. Pesticides, in particular, are made to kill organisms, and the President's Cancer Panel in 2010 made clear that it sees them as a threat, advising Americans to 'reduce their cancer risks by choosing, to the extent possible, food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers.' H. Recent field studies showed that organic produce, such as strawberries, leafy vegetables and wheat, not only tastes better but contains much higher levels of phenolic acids(酚酸) than conventional produce. Phenolic acids can prevent cellular damage, and offer some protection against oxidative stress (氧化应激), inflammation and cancer. The Price Debate I. Yes, organic food typically costs more and can be harder to find than traditional food, but one could argue that the price of conventional food is artificially low because of all the subsidies that organic farmers don't get and that the government could do more to help organic farmers lower their costs. Nevertheless, when bought in-season, organic produce is often comparable in price to conventional produce. J. A good strategy for consumers on limited budgets is to buy the organic versions of foods on the Environmental Working Group's 'Dirty Dozen' list, as they typically contain the most pesticides. Or, consumers could focus on buying the organic versions of the foods they eat most. Knowing that we could reduce our exposure to pesticides and increase our exposure to antioxidants (抗氧化剂) by eating organic food, it makes great common sense to consume more of it. K. Organic food is more expensive than conventional offerings, which could make it cost-prohibitive for families on limited food budgets. Given the lack of data showing that organic food leads to better health, it would be counterproductive to encourage people to adopt an organic diet if they end up buying less produce as a result. If families can afford to buy organic and still put a good amount of healthy food on the table, then the decision about whether to spend the extra money on organic produce, milk and meat should be based on a solid understanding of what we do and don't know about the benefits. Pesticides and Safety L. It is difficult to compare the nutritional value of organic versus conventional food because the soil, climate, timing of harvest, and storage conditions all affect the composition of produce. Still, published studies have found no significant differences in nutritional quality between organic and nonorganic produce or milk. Similarly, there is no evidence that giving bovine growth hormone (BGH) to cows changes the composition of milk or affects human health. BGH is inactive in humans and degrades in the acidic environment of the stomach. As for pesticide exposure, the U.S. in 1996 established maximum permissible levels for pesticide residues in food to ensure food safety. Many studies have shown that pesticides levels in conventional produce fall well below those guidelines. M. While it's true that organic fruits and vegetables in general contain fewer traces of these chemicals, we can't draw conclusions about what that means for health as there haven't been any long-term studies comparing the relationship between exposure to pesticides from organic versus nonorganic foods and adverse health outcomes. It may seem like 'common sense' to reduce exposure to these chemicals, but there are currently no good evidence-based studies to answer the question. N. While awaiting definitive studies, families on limited budgets who are concerned about pesticide exposure can refer to the Environmental Working Group's list of the 'Dirty Dozen,' those foods with the highest pesticide residues, and the 'Clean 15', the foods with the lowest pesticide concentrations. A good strategy would be to focus on buying organic versions of the foods on the 'Dirty Dozen' listing. Don't Trust Labels O. We would like to think that organic food is grown locally, put in a wheelbarrow and brought directly to our homes. However, much of it comes from countries where regulations might not be as tightly enforced as in the U.S., and labeling of the foods might be misleading. P. And just because food is labeled organic doesn't mean it is completely free of pesticides. Contamination can occur from soil and ground water containing previously used chemicals, or during transport, processing and storage. Organochlorine insecticides(有机氯杀虫剂) were recently found in organically grown root crops and tomatoes even though these pesticides haven't been used for 20 years.

单选题 A Nation That's Losing Its Toolbox A. The scene inside the Home Depot on Weyman Avenue here would give the old-time American craftsman pause. In Aisle 34 is precut plastic flooring, the glue already in place. In Aisle 26 are prefabricated windows. Stacked near the checkout counters, and as colorful as a Fisher-Price toy, is a not-so-serious-looking power tool: a battery-operated saw-and-drill combination. And if you don't want to do it yourself, head to Aisle 23 or Aisle 35, where a help desk will arrange for an installer. B. It's all very handy stuff, I guess, a convenient way to be a do-it-yourselfer without being all that good with tools. But at a time when the American factory seems to be a shrinking presence, and when good manufacturing jobs have vanished, perhaps never to return, there is something deeply troubling about this dilution of American craftsmanship. C. This isn't a lament (伤感)—or not merely a lament—for bygone times. It's a social and cultural issue, as well as an economic one. The Home Depot approach to craftsmanship—simplify it, dumb it down, hire a contractor—is one signal that mastering tools and working with one's hands is receding in America as a hobby, as a valued skill, as a cultural influence that shaped thinking and behavior in vast sections of the country. D. That should be a matter of concern in a presidential election year. Yet neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney promotes himself as tool-savvy (使用工具很在行的) presidential timber, in the mold of a Jimmy Carter, a skilled carpenter and cabinet maker. E. The Obama administration does worry publicly about manufacturing, a first cousin of craftsmanship. When the Ford Motor Company, for example, recently announced that it was bringing some production home, the White House cheered. 'When you see things like Ford moving new production from Mexico to Detroit, instead of the other way around, you know things are changing,' says Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council. F. Ask the administration or the Republicans or most academics why America needs more manufacturing, and they respond that manufacturing gives birth to innovation, brings down the trade deficit strengthens the dollar, generates jobs, arms the military and brings about a recovery from recession. But rarely, if ever, do they publicly take the argument a step further, asserting that, a growing manufacturing sector encourages craftsmanship and that craftsmanship is, if not a birthright, then a vital ingredient of the American self-image as a can-do, inventive, we-can-make-anything people. G. Traditional vocational training in public high schools is gradually declining, stranding thousands of young people who seek training for a craft without going to college. Colleges, for their part, have since 1985 graduated fewer chemical, mechanical, industrial and metallurgical (冶金的) engineers, partly in response to the reduced role of manufacturing, a big employer of them. H. The decline started in the 1950s, when manufacturing generated a sturdy 28% of the national income, or gross domestic product, and employed one-third of the workforce. Today, factory, output generates just 12% of G.D.P. and employs barely 9% of the nation's workers. Mass layoffs and plant closings have drawn plenty of headlines and public debate over the years, and they still occasionally do. But the damage to skill and craftsmanship—what's needed to build a complex airliner or a tractor, or for a worker to move up from assembler to machinist to supervisor—went largely unnoticed. I. 'In an earlier generation, we lost our connection to the land, and now we are losing our connection to the machinery we depend on,' says Michael Hout, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley. 'People who work with their hands,' he went on, 'are doing things today that we call service jobs, in restaurants and laundries, or in medical technology and the like.' J. That's one explanation for the decline in traditional craftsmanship. Lack of interest is another. The big money is in fields like finance. Starting in the 1980s, skill in finance grew in importance, and, as depicted in the news media and the movies, became a more appealing source of income. K. By last year, Wall Street traders, bankers and those who deal in real estate generated 21% of the national income, double their share in the 1950s. And Warren Buffett, the good-natured financier, became a homespun folk hero, without the tools and overalls (工作服). 'Young people grow up without developing the skills to fix things around the house,' says Richard Curtin, director of the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. 'They know about computers, of course, but they don't know how to build them.' L. Manufacturing's shrinking presence undoubtedly helps explain the decline in craftsmanship, if only because many of the nation's assembly line workers were skilled in craft work, if not on the job then in their spare time. In a late 1990s study of blue-collar employees at a General Motors plant (now closed) in Linden, N.J., the sociologist Ruth Milkman of City University of New York found that many line workers, in their off-hours, did home renovation and other skilled work. 'I have often thought,' Ms. Milkman says, 'that these extracurricular jobs were an effort on the part of the workers to regain their dignity after suffering the degradation of repetitive assembly line work in the factory.' M. Craft work has higher status in nations like Germany, which invests in apprenticeship (学徒) programs for high school students. 'Corporations in Germany realized that there was an interest to be served economically and patriotically in building up a skilled labor force at home; we never had that ethos (风气),' says Richard Sennett, a New York University sociologist who has written about the connection of craft and culture. N. The damage to American craftsmanship seems to parallel the steep slide in manufacturing employment. Though the decline started in the 1970s, it became much steeper beginning in 2000. Since then, some 5.3 million jobs, or one-third of the workforce in manufacturing, have been lost. A stated goal of the Obama administration is to restore a big chunk of this employment, along with the multitude of skills that many of the jobs required. O. As for craftsmanship itself, the issue is how to preserve it as a valued skill in the general population. Ms. Milkman, the sociologist, argues that American craftsmanship isn't disappearing as quickly as some would argue—that it has instead shifted to immigrants. 'Pride in craft, it is alive in the immigrant world,' she says. P. Sol Axelrod, 37, the manager of the Home Depot here, fittingly learned to fix his own car as a teenager, even changing the brakes. Now he finds immigrant craftsmen gathered in abundance outside his store in the early morning, waiting for it to open so they can buy supplies for the day's work as contractors. Skilled day laborers, also mostly immigrants, wait quietly in hopes of being hired by the contractors. Q. Mr. Axelrod 'also says the recession and persistently high unemployment have forced many people to try to save money by doing more themselves, and Home Depot in response offers classes in fixing water taps and other simple repairs. The teachers are store employees, many of them older and semi-retired from a skilled trade, or laid off. R. 'Our customers may not be building cabinets or outdoor decks; we try to do that for them,' Mr. Axelrod says, 'but some are trying to build up skill so they can do more for themselves in these hard times.'

单选题 家庭是社会的基本单位，它的结构随着社会的发展而变化。在中国几千年的封建社会里，自给自足的(self-sufficient)经济占主导地位。家庭不仅是日常生活的基本单位，也是生产的基本单位。那时，理想的、令人羡慕的家庭是五世同堂，家里的大事由男人做主。近百年来，中国发生了巨大变化，中国社会经过漫长的封建时期进入了社会主义社会。这具有历史意义的变化使中国家庭的结构也改变了。人口众多的大家庭开始分成较小的家庭和直系家庭，总的趋势是出现了越来越多的核心家庭。

单选题 Less News, Much Better A. In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognized the hazards of living with an overabundance of food (obesity, diabetes) and have started to change our diets. But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don't really concern our lives and don't require thinking. That's why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike reading books and long magazine articles (which require thinking), we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-colored candies for the mind. Today, we have reached the same point in relation to information that we faced 20 years ago in regard to food. We are beginning to recognize how toxic news can be. B. News misleads. Take the following event (borrowed from Nassim Taleb). A car drives over a bridge, and the bridge collapses. What does the news media focus on? The car? The person in the car? Where did he come from? Where did he plan to go? How he experienced the crash (if he survived). But that is all irrelevant. What's relevant? The structural stability of the bridge? That's the underlying risk that has been lurking, and could lurk in other bridges. C. But the car is flashy, it's dramatic, it's a person (non-abstract), and it's news that's cheap to produce. News leads us to walk around with the completely wrong risk map in our heads. So terrorism is over-rated. Chronic stress is under-rated. The collapse of Lehman Brothers is overrated. Fiscal irresponsibility is under-rated. Astronauts are over-rated. Nurses are under-rated. D. We are not rational enough to be exposed to the press. Watching an airplane crash on television is going to change your attitude toward that risk, regardless of its real probability. If you think you can compensate with the strength of your own inner contemplation, you are wrong. Bankers and economists—who have powerful incentives to compensate for news-borne hazards—have shown that they cannot. The only solution: cut yourself off from news consumption entirely. E. News is irrelevant. Out of the approximately 10,000 news stories you have read in the last 12 months, name one that—because you consumed it—allowed you to make a better decision about a serious matter affecting your life, your career or your business. F. The point is: the consumption of news is irrelevant to you. But people find it very difficult to recognize what's relevant. It's much easier to recognize what's new. The relevant versus the new is the fundamental battle of the current age. Media organizations want you to believe that news offers you some sort of a competitive advantage. Many fall for that. We get anxious when we're cut off from the flow of news. In reality, news consumption is a competitive disadvantage. The less news you consume, the bigger the advantage you have. G. News has no explanatory power. News items are bubbles popping on the surface of a deeper world. Will accumulating facts help you understand the world? Sadly, no. The relationship is inverted. The important stories are non-stories: slow, powerful movements that develop below journalists' radar but have a transforming effect. The more 'news factoids' you digest, the less of the big picture you will understand. If more information leads to higher economic success, we'd expect journalists to be at the top of the pyramid. That's not the case. H. News is toxic to your body. It constantly triggers the limbic system. Panicky stories spur the release of cascades of glucocorticoid (cortisol). This deregulates your immune system and inhibits the release of growth hormones. In other words, your body finds itself in a state of chronic stress. High glucocorticoid levels cause impaired digestion, lack of growth (cell, hair, and bone), nervousness and susceptibility to infections. The other potential side-effects include fear, aggression, tunnel-vision and desensitisation. I. News increases cognitive errors. News feeds the mother of all cognitive errors: confirmation bias. In the words of Warren Buffett: 'What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.' News exacerbates this flaw. We become prone to overconfidence, take stupid risks and misjudge opportunities. J. News inhibits thinking. Thinking requires concentration. Concentration requires uninterrupted time. News pieces are specifically engineered to interrupt you. They are like viruses that steal attention for their own purposes. News makes us shallow thinkers. But it's worse than that. News severely affects memory. K. There are two types of memory. Long-range memory's capacity is nearly infinite, but working memory is limited to a certain amount of slippery data. The path from short-term to long-term memory is a choke-point in the brain, but anything you want to understand must pass through it. If this passageway is disrupted, nothing gets through. Because news disrupts concentration, it weakens comprehension. L. News works like a drug. As stories develop, we want to know how they continue. With hundreds of arbitrary storylines in our heads, this craving is increasingly compelling and hard to ignore. Scientists used to think that the dense connections formed among the 100 billion neurons inside our skulls were largely fixed by the time we reached adulthood. Today we know that this is not the case. Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. M. The more news we consume, the more we exercise the neural circuits devoted to skimming and multitasking while ignoring those used for reading deeply and thinking with profound focus. Most news consumers—even if they used to be avid book readers—have lost the ability to absorb lengthy articles or books. After four, five pages they get tired, their concentration vanishes, they become restless. It's not because they got older or their schedules became more onerous. It's because the physical structure of their brains has changed. N. News wastes time. If you read the newspaper for 15 minutes each morning, then check the news for 15 minutes during lunch and 15 minutes before you go to bed, then add five minutes here and there when you're at work, then count distraction and refocusing time, you will lose at least half a day every week. Information is no longer a scarce commodity. But attention is. You are not that irresponsible with your money, reputation or health. Why give away your mind? O. News makes us passive. News stories are overwhelmingly about things you cannot influence. The daily repetition of news about things we can't act upon makes us passive. It grinds us down until we adopt a worldview that is pessimistic, desensitized, sarcastic and fatalistic. The scientific term is 'learned helplessness'. It's a bit of a stretch, but I would not be surprised if news consumption, at least partially contributes to the widespread disease of depression. P. News kills creativity. Finally, things we already know limit our creativity. This is one reason that mathematicians, novelists, composers and entrepreneurs often produce their most creative works at a young age. Their brains enjoy a wide, uninhabited space that emboldens them to come up with and pursue novel ideas. I don't know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie—not a writer, not a composer, mathematician, physician, scientist, musician, designer, architect or painter. On the other hand, I know a bunch of viciously uncreative minds who consume news like drugs. If you want to come up with old solutions, read news. If you are looking for new solutions, don't. Q. Society needs journalism—but in a different way. Investigative journalism is always relevant. We need reporting that polices our institutions and uncovers truth. But important findings don't have to arrive in the form of news. Long journal articles and in-depth books are good, too. I have now gone without news for four years, so I can see, feel and report the effects of this freedom first-hand: less disruption, less anxiety, deeper thinking, more time, and more insights. It's not easy, but it's worth it.