单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay entitled Man and Computer by commenting on the saying, The real danger is not that the computer will begin to think like man, but that man will begin to think like the computer.' You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

单选题 胡同 胡同，是北京特有的一种古老的城市小巷，在世界上是独一无二的。北京胡同已有800多年的历史，纵横交错于皇城周围。胡同不仅是城市的交通脉络，更是百姓生活的场所。作为北京历史和文化发展的舞台，它见证了历史的变迁(vicissitudes)和风貌，留下了许多社会生活的印记，保留了原汁原味的(authentic)老北京民俗风情。要想真正了解胡同，体味胡同，最好的办法就是亲自去走走、看看。那些古老的胡同，犹如滋味醇厚的佳肴，应当细细咀嚼、慢慢品味。

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

单选题 据中国古代史书记载，治水有功的大禹通过禅让制接替舜成为部落联盟首领。但大禹死后，他的儿子夏启却破坏禅让的传统，自立为国王，建立了中国历史上第一个奴隶制国家——夏。从此，王位实行世袭制度，中国社会从此步入阶级社会。夏代处在中国社会从原始社会向奴隶社会过渡的时期，社会生活的各个方面依然保存着原始社会的种种痕迹。

单选题 西藏自治区(Tibet Autonomous Region)平均海拔4000米以上，是青藏高原的主体部分，有着“世界屋脊”(the roof of the world)之称。西藏是国际河流分布最多的一个中国省区，雅鲁藏布江(Brahmaputra River)是西藏的第一大河。它全长2057公里，流域面积24万多平方公里。西藏气候具有西北严寒干燥、东南温暖湿润的特点。对于许多未去过西藏旅游的游客来说，西藏的地理位置和气候特点很容易使人产生畏惧心理，其实只要了解西藏的气候特点，能够正确地保护自己，放松心情，就一定会在西藏度过一段美好又难忘的时光。

单选题 Plastic Surgery A better credit card is the solution to ever larger hack attacks A. A thin magnetic stripe(magstripe)is all that stands between your credit-card information and the bad guys. And they've been working hard to break in. That's why 2014 is shaping up as a major showdown: banks, law enforcement and technology companies are all trying to stop a network of hackers who are succeeding in stealing account numbers, names, email addresses and other crucial data used in identity theft. More than 100 million accounts at Target, Neiman Marcus and Michaels stores were affected in some way during the most recent attacks, starting last November. B. Swipe(刷卡)is the operative word: cards are increasingly vulnerable to attacks when you make purchases in a store. In several recent incidents, hackers have been able to obtain massive information of credit-, debit-(借记)or prepaid-card numbers using malware, i.e. malicious soft-ware, inserted secretly into the retailers' point-of-sale system—the checkout registers. Hackers then sold the data to a second group of criminals operating in shadowy corners of the web. Not long after, the stolen data was showing up on fake cards and being used for online purchases. C. The solution could cost as little as $2 extra for every piece of plastic issued. The fix is a security technology used heavily outside the U. S. While American credit cards use the 40-year-old magstripe technology to process transactions, much of the rest of the world uses smarter cards with a technology called EMV(short for Europay, MasterCard, Visa)that employs a chip embedded in the card plus a customer PIN( personal identification number)to authenticate(验证)every transaction on the spot. If a purchaser fails to punch in the correct PIN at the checkout, the transaction gets rejected. (Online purchases can be made by setting up a separate transaction code.) D. Why haven't big banks adopted the more secure technology? When it comes to mailing out new credit cards, it's all about relative costs, says David Robertson, who runs the Nilson Report, an industry newsletter. 'The cost of the card, putting the sticker on it, coding the account number and expiration date, embossing(凸印)it, the small envelope—all put together, you're in the dollar range.' A chip-and-PIN card currently costs closer to $3, says Robertson, because of the price of chips. (Once large issuers convert together, the chip costs should drop.) E. Multiply $3 by the more than 5 billion magstripe credit and prepaid cards in circulation in the U. S. Then consider that there's an estimated $12.4 billion in card fraud on a global basis, says Robertson. With 44% of that in the U. S. American credit-card fraud amounts to about $5.5 billion annually. Card issuers have so far calculated that absorbing the liability for even big hacks like the Target one is still cheaper than replacing all that plastic. F. That leaves American retailers pretty much alone the world over in relying on magstripe technology to charge purchases—and leaves consumers vulnerable. Each magstripe has three tracks of information, explains payments security expert Jeremy Gumbley, the chief technology officer of CreditCall, an electronic-payments company. The first and third are used by the bank or card issuer. Your vital account information lives on the second track, which hackers try to capture. 'Malware is scanning through the memory in real time and looking for data,' he says. 'It creates a text file that gets stolen.' G. Chip-and-PIN cards, by contrast, make fake cards or skimming impossible because the information that gets scanned is encrypted (加密). The historical reason the U. S. has stuck with magstripe, ironically enough, is once superior technology. Our cheap, ultra-reliable wired net-works made credit-card authentication over the phone frictionless. In France, card companies created EMV in part because the telephone monopoly was so maddeningly inefficient and expensive. The EMV solution allowed transactions to be verified locally and securely. H. Some big banks, like Wells Fargo, are now offering to convert your magstripe card to a chip-and-PIN model. (It's actually a hybrid(混合体)that will still have a magstripe, since most U. S. merchants don't have EMV terminals.) Should you take them up on it? If you travel internationally, the answer is yes. I. Keep in mind, too, that credit cards typically have better liability protection than debit cards. If someone uses your credit card fraudulently(欺炸性地), it's the issuer or merchant, not you, that takes the hit. Debit cards have different liability limits depending on the bank and the events surrounding any fraud. 'If it's available, the logical thing is to get a chip-and-PIN card from your bank,' says Eric Adamowsky, a co-founder of CreditCardInsider. com. 'I would use credit cards over debit cards because of liability issues. 'Cash still works pretty well too. J. Retailers and banks stand to benefit from the lower fraud levels of chip-and-PIN cards but have been reluctant for years to invest in the new infrastructure(基础设施)needed for the technology, especially if consumers don't have access to it. It's a chicken-and-egg problem: no one wants to spend the money on upgraded point-of-sale systems that can read the chip cards if shoppers aren't car-tying them—yet there's little point in consumers' carrying the fancy plastic if stores aren't equipped to use them. (An earlier effort by Target to move to chip and PIN never gained progress.) According to Gumbley, there's a 'you-first mentality. The logjam(僵局)has to be broken.' K. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently expressed his willingness to do so, noting that banks and merchants have spent the past decade suing each other over interchange fees—the percentage of the transaction price they keep—rather than deal with the growing hacking problem. Chase offers a chip-enabled card under its own brand and several others for travel-related companies such as British Airways and Ritz-Carlton. L. The Target and Neiman hacks have also changed the cost calculation: although retailers have been reluctant to spend the $6.75 billion that Capgemini consultants estimate it will take to convert all their registers to be chip-and-PIN compatible, the potential liability they now face is dramatically greater. Target has been hit with class actions from hacked consumers. 'It's the ultimate nightmare,' a retail executive from a well-known chain admitted to TIME. M. The card-payment companies MasterCard and Visa are pushing hard for change. The two firms have warned all parties in the transaction chain—merchant, network, bank—that if they don't become EMV-compliant by October 2015, the party that is least compliant will bear the fraud risk. N. In the meantime, app-equipped smartphones and digital wallets—all of which can use EMV technology—are beginning to make inroads(侵袭)on cards and cash. PayPal, for instance, is testing an app that lets you use your mobile phone to pay on the fly at local merchants—without surrendering any card information to them. And further down the road is biometric authentication, which could be encrypted with, say, a fingerprint. O. Credit and debit cards, though, are going to be with us for the foreseeable future, and so are hackers, if we stick with magstripe technology. 'It seems crazy to me,' says Gumbley, who is English, 'that a cutting-edge-technology country is depending on a 40-year-old technology.' That's why it may be up to consumers to move the needle on chip and PIN. Robertson says 'When you get the consumer into a position of worry and inconvenience, that's where the rubber hits the road.'

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the saying 'A man's best friends are his ten fingers.' You can cite examples to illustrate the importance of personal struggle. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

单选题 Questions9-12 are based on the passage you have just heard.

单选题 Now listen to the following recording and answer questions17-19.

单选题 Countries Rush for Upper Hand in Antarctica A. On a glacier-filled island with fjords (峡湾)and elephant seals, Russia has built Antarctica's first Orthodox church on a hill overlooking its research base. Less than an hour away by snowmobile, Chinese labourers have updated the Great Wall Station, a vital part of China's plan to operate five bases on Antarctica, complete with an indoor badminton court and sleeping quarters for 150 people. Not to be outdone. India's futuristic new Bharathi base, built on stilts (桩子) using 134 interlocking shipping containers, resembles a spaceship. Turkey and Iran have announced plans to build bases, too. B. More than a century has passed since explorers raced to plant their flags at the bottom of the world, and for decades to come this continent is supposed to be protected as a scientific preserve, shielded from intrusions like military activities and mining. But an array of countries are rushing to assert greater influence here, with an eye not just towards the day those protective treaties expire, but also for the strategic and commercial opportunities that already exist. C. The newer players are stepping into what they view as a treasure house of resources. Some of the ventures focus on the Antarctic resources that are already up for grabs, like abundant sea life. South Korea, which operates state-of-the-art bases here, is increasing its fishing of krill (磷虾), found in abundance in the Southern Ocean, while Russia recently frustrated efforts to create one of the world's largest ocean sanctuaries here. D. Some scientists are examining the potential for harvesting icebergs from Antarctica, which is estimated to have the biggest reserves of fresh water on the planet. Nations are also pressing ahead with space research and satellite projects to expand their global navigation abilities. E. Building on a Soviet-era foothold, Russia is expanding its monitoring stations for Glonass, its version of the Global Positioning System (GPS). At least three Russian stations are already operating in Antarctica, part of its effort to challenge the dominance of the American GPS, and new stations are planned for sites like the Russian base, in the shadow of the Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity. F. Elsewhere in Antarctica, Russian researchers boast of their recent discovery of a freshwater reserve the size of Lake Ontario after drilling through miles of solid ice. 'You can see that we're here to stay,' said Vladimir Cheberdak, 57, chief of the Bellingshausen Station, as he sipped tea under a portrait of Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, a high-ranking officer in the Imperial Russian Navy who explored the Antarctic coast in 1820. G. Antarctica's mineral, oil and gas wealth are a longer-term prize. The treaty banning mining here, shielding coveted (令人垂诞的) reserves of iron ore, coal and chromium, comes up for review in 2048. Researchers recently found kimberlite (金伯利岩) deposits hinting at the existence of diamonds. And while assessments vary widely, geologists estimate that Antarctica holds at least 36 billion barrels of oil and natural gas. H. Beyond the Antarctic treaties, huge obstacles persist to tapping these resources, like drifting icebergs that could jeopardise offshore platforms. Then there is Antarctica's remoteness, with some mineral deposits found in windswept locations on a continent that is larger than Europe and where winter temperatures hover around minus 55 degrees Celsius. I. But advances in technology might make Antarctica a lot more accessible three decades from now. And even before then, scholars warn, the demand for resources in an energy-hungry world could raise pressure to renegotiate Antarctica's treaties, possibly allowing more commercial endeavours here well before the prohibitions against them expire. The research stations on King George Island offer a glimpse into the long game on this ice-blanketed continent as nations assert themselves, eroding the sway long held by countries like the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. J. Being stationed in Antarctica involves adapting to life on the planet's driest, windiest and coldest continent, yet each nation manages to make itself at home. Bearded Russian priests offer regular services at the Orthodox church for the 16 or so Russian speakers who spend the winter at the base, largely polar scientists in fields like glaciology and meteorology. Their number climbs to about 40 in the warmer summer months. China has arguably the fastest-growing operations in Antarctica. It opened its fourth station last year and is pressing ahead with plans to build a fifth. It is building its second ice-breaking ship and setting up research drilling operations on an ice dome 13,422 feet above sea level that is one of the planet's coldest places. Chinese officials say the expansion in Antarctica prioritises scientific research, but they also acknowledge that concerns about 'resource security' influence their moves. K. China's newly renovated Great Wall Station on King George Island makes the Russian and Chilean bases here seem outdated. 'We do weather monitoring here and other research,' Ning Xu, 53, the chief of the Chinese base, said over tea during a fierce blizzard (暴风雪) in late November. The large base he leads resembles a snowed-in college campus on holiday break, with the capacity to sleep more than 10 times the 13 people who were staying on through the Antarctic winter. Yong Yu, a Chinese microbiologist, showed off the spacious building, with empty desks under an illustrated timeline detailing the rapid growth of China's Antarctic operations since the 1980s. 'We now feel equipped to grow,' he said. L. As some countries expand operations in Antarctica, the United States maintains three year-round stations on the continent with more than 1,000 people during the southern hemisphere's summer, including those at the Amundsen-Scott station, built in 1956 at an elevation of 9,301 feet on a plateau at the South Pole. But US researchers quietly complain about budget restraints and having far fewer icebreakers than Russia, limiting the reach of the United States in Antarctica. M. Scholars warn that Antarctica's political drift could blur the distinction between military and civilian activities long before the continent's treaties come up for renegotiation, especially in parts of Antarctica that are ideal for intercepting (拦截) signals from satellites or retasking satellite systems, potentially enhancing global electronic intelligence operations. N. Some countries have had a hard time here. Brazil opened a research station in 1984, but it was largely destroyed by a fire that killed two members of the navy in 2012, the same year that a diesel-laden Brazilian barge sank near the base. As if that were not enough, a Brazilian C-130 Hercules military transport plane has remained stranded near the runway of Chile's air base here since it crash-landed in 2014. O. However, Brazil's stretch of misfortune has created opportunities for China, with a Chinese company winning the $100 million contract in 2015 to rebuild the Brazilian station. P. Amid all the changes, Antarctica maintains its allure. South Korea opened its second Antarctic research base in 2014, describing it as a way to test robots developed by Korean researchers for use in extreme conditions. With Russia's help, Belarus is preparing to build its first Antarctic base. Colombia said this year that it planned to join other South American nations with bases in Antarctica. Q. 'The old days of the Antarctic being dominated by the interests and wishes of white men from European, Australasian and North American states are over,' said Klaus Dodds, a politics scholar at the University of London who specialises in Antarctica 'The reality is that Antarctica is geopolitically contested.'

单选题One of our expectations about education is that it will pay off in terms of upward mobility. Historically, the correlation between education and income has been strong. But in the early 1970s, a contradiction 26 between education and the economy. Our value of education and our average educational attainment outstripped the capacity of the economy to 27 the graduates. Experts have argued that this contradiction is at the heart of the problem of public education today. It is not, as business leaders claim, that the schools are failing to 28 educate students. The real problem is a dearth (缺乏) of economic 29 for students who are not continuing on to college. College graduates also are having difficulty finding jobs. Even when they do, the jobs may not be commensurate (相称的) with their 30 and expectations. Part of the problem is that too many young Americans aspire to have professional jobs, making disappointment and frustration 31 for some. Another part of the problem is the assumption that greater educational attainment guarantees career 32 . In fact, employers do not routinely reward educational attainment; 33 , they reward it only when they believe it will contribute to the employee's productivity. We should not overlook the fact that there is still a strong correlation between education, occupation, and income. College graduates have a strong advantage over those with less education. Despite the fact that the payoff is neither as large nor as 34 as it once was, we could still argue that all or at least the majority of Americans would 35 by some degree because higher education can enable them to think more deeply, explore more widely, and enjoy a greater range of experiences. A. absorb B. advancement C. benefit D. certain E. created F. developed G. failure H. gain I. inevitable J. opportunities K. properly L. rather M. thus N. timely O. training