单选题 Film Schools A. Film schools and film directing schools provide aspiring film students with a solid understanding of the many facets of the film industry. While graduating from one of the many top film schools or film directing schools does not ensure a film school graduate success in the film industry, it certainly increases the odds in his or her favor. The film industry is becoming much more competitive and graduates of film schools or film directing schools have more doors opened to them because of their film school or film directing school diploma or degree. Because graduating from one of the many film schools and film directing schools requires lots of time and money, make sure that film school or film directing school is, in fact, the option that will best help you reach your film career goals. Choosing the Film School Program That Is Right for You B. The film industry is a lucrative, multi-faceted one. Depending on what part of film production and movie making you would like to learn, there is a film school or film directing school for you. Top film schools and film directing schools are located all over the United States, and choosing the right one can often prove very difficult to a prospective film student. Researching Film School Options C. Due to the increasing demand of film-related jobs, film schools have been increasing in number. However, not all of these film schools issue film degrees or film diplomas that are taken seriously in the film industry. To be sure that you avoid attending one of these film schools, make sure you do plenty of research on the film school. Some questions you may want ask yourself are: ●Has this film school or film directing school been around for a while? ●Is this film school or film directing school affiliated with a major university? ●Does this film school have the credentials to back up its program? ●Have this film school's teachers worked in the industry? D. If the answer to many of these questions is no, you may want to consider another film school. Well-established film schools that have been around for a long time are generally taken more seriously in the film industry. The film students of film schools affiliated with major universities are also more widely accepted. As a prospective film student, you want your film school teachers to have had experience in the film industry. If not, how can you expect to learn from them how to break into the film industry? The film school's credentials are very important. Some film schools give degrees that are almost worthless in the film industry. Make sure that the film school that you choose is one that is respected in the film industry. Film School Location E. Another factor in choosing a film school is location. If you would like to remain closer to home, then check the film schools in your area. Many of the most acclaimed film schools are located in New York and in Los Angeles, as they are the two major film centers in the United States. You may want to choose a film school in one of these or another major city, because it will give you a chance to be close to the film industry. This opens up more opportunities for you to get a film-related internship or job. Film School That Meet Your Career Needs F. Depending on what branch of film most interests you, you will want to select a film school with a degree/program that will aid you in your particular field of interest. G. There are three major types of film schools. Industry film schools are film schools that prepare you for a career in Hollywood and teach you how best to go about selling your movie ideas to producers. Independent film school will help you if you want to produce major films outside of the Hollywood system. Experimental film school does not teach the financial and business side of film, but focuses on the artistic side of film. Film School Degrees vs. Film School Diplomas H. Another very important factor when choosing a film school is knowing what the film schools offer you upon graduation. Some film schools will offer a degree, and some will offer a diploma upon completion of the course, but no degree. That is not to say that the programs are not recognized by the film industry, however. Many of the film degrees available are MFA (Master of Fine Arts) Degrees. To be considered for admission into a film school program of this nature, you must already have an undergraduate degree. I. If possible, visit the film schools or film directing schools you are seriously considering attending. Make sure that you like the campus, city and program they have to offer. You are given many options when looking for a film school. Make sure you choose the one that is right for you. Applying to Film School J. When applying to a film school or a number of film schools, you will be asked to provide them with various items to demonstrate your ability as a film-maker and prospective film school student. You may want to start early accumulating things that will look impressive in order to be admitted to your first choice film school. Preparing Your Film School Résumé K. The first item you will be asked to submit will be a résumé. In addition to the things you would put on any college application, you will want to focus on certain things. Many film schools look for students with advanced writing skills. Taking writing classes will give you an edge. Acting and theater-related classes will also help you, especially if you hope to specialize in directing during your film school career. Directing requires you to be able to relate and effectively communicate with the actors you are working with. Also, be sure to include any previous movie production experience you have, if any. Making an Application Film for Film School L. The other, equally important thing that a film school will want to see is a sample movie. Film schools want to see you in action. They want to see an example of your film production abilities. If you don't have a video camera yourself, try to borrow one from a friend. The movie should not be very long. It should probably be between 5 and 10 minutes. Make multiple movies. Watch them with others and have them give you feedback. Your films will get progressively better as you gain more experience. With this information in mind, you may want to take different extracurricular film programs and attend film camps to give yourself an extra edge in the competition for film school admission. Other Requirements for Film School Applications M. Some film schools may ask for other things, including a screenplay, or other example of your writing, an animation storyboard, or photographs. Much of it depends on the individual film schools, and what area of film you want to enter. For example, if you wanted to enter animation, you would most likely need to send your prospective film school drawings. Be sure to check the admission requirements for your specific film school.

单选题 The planet's wild creatures face a new threat—from yuppies (雅皮士), empty nesters and one parent families. Biologists studying the pressure on the planet's dwindling biodiversity today report on a new reason for alarm. Although the rate of growth in the human population is decreasing, the number of individual households is exploding. Even where populations have actually dwindled in some regions of New Zealand, for instance—the numbers of individual households has increased, because of divorce, career choice, smaller families and longer lifespan. Jianguo Liu of Michigan State University and colleagues from Stanford University in California report in Nature, in a paper published online in advance, that a greater number of individual households, each containing on average fewer people, meant more pressure on natural resources. Towns and cities began to sprawl as new homes were built. Each household needed fuel to heat and light it; each household required its own plumbing, cooking and refrigeration. 'In larger households, the efficiency of resource consumption will be a lot higher, because more people share things,' Dr Liu said. He and his colleagues looked at the population patterns of life in 141 countries, including 76 'hotspot' regions unusually rich in a variety of local wildlife. These hotspots included Australia, New Zealand, the US, Brazil, China, India, Kenya, and Italy. They found that between 1985 and 2000 in the 'hotspot' parts of the globe, the annual 3.1% growth rate in the number of households was far higher than the population growth rate of 1.8%. 'Had the average household size remained at the 1985 level,' the scientists report, 'there would have been 155 million fewer households in hotspot countries in 2000. Dr Liu's work grew from the alarming discovery that the giant pandas living in China's Wolong reserve are more at risk now than they were when the reserve was first established. The local population had grown, but the total number of homes had increased more swiftly, to make greater inroads into the bamboo forests. Only around 1.75 million species on the planet have been named and described. Biologists estimate that there could be 7 million, or even 17 million, as yet to be identified. But human numbers have grown more than sixfold in the past 200 years, and humans and their livestock are now the greatest single consumer group on the planet. The world population will continue to soar, perhaps leveling off around 9 billion in the next century. Environmental campaigners have claimed that between a quarter and a half of all the species on earth could become extinct in the next century.

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 Ameri-can 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 in- staller. 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 re-cession. 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 serf-image as a can-do, inventive, we-can-make-anything people. G. Traditional vocational training in public high schools is gradually declining, stranding thou-sands 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. I. 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. J. '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.' K. 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 in-come. 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). L. '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.' M. 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.' N. 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. O. 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. P. 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. 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 crafts-men 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. 'Our customers may not be building cabinets or out-door decks; we try to do that for them,' Mr. Axelrod says, 'but some are trying to build up skills so they can do more for themselves in these hard times.'

单选题 苏州 苏州市位于长江三角洲中部，江苏省南部，东临上海，南接浙江，西傍无锡，北依长江。苏州是吴文化的发祥地，文坛贤能辈出。昆曲、评弹和苏剧被誉为苏州文化的“三朵花”。已有400多年历史的昆曲是“中国戏曲之母”；评弹是用苏州方言表演的说唱艺术，已在江、浙、沪一带流传了300余年。苏州的工艺美术闻名中外，苏绣与湘、蜀、粤绣同被誉为我国的“四大名绣”。在改革开放的春风下，古老的苏州正焕发勃勃生机。

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay on the importance of concentration by commenting on the proverb 'If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.' You can cite examples to illustrate your views. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

单选题 The Truth about the Environment A. For many environmentalists, the world seems to be getting worse. They have developed a hit-list our main fears: that natural resources are running out; that the population is ever growing, leaving less and less to eat; that species are becoming extinct in vast numbers, and that the planet's air and water are becoming ever more polluted. B. But a quick look at the facts shows a different picture. First, energy and other natural resources have become more abundant, not less so, since the book 'The Limits to Growth' was published in 1972 by a group of scientists. Second, more food is now produced per head of the world's population than at any time in history. Fewer people are starving. C. Third, although species are indeed becoming extinct, only about 0.7% of them are expected to disappear in the next 50 years, not 25-50%, as has so often been predicted. And finally, most forms of environmental pollution either appear to have been exaggerated, or are transient-associated with the early phase of industrialisation and therefore best cured not by restricting economic growth, but by accelerating it. One form of pollution—the release of greenhouse gases that causes global warming-does appear to be a phenomenon that is going to extend well into our future, but its total impact is unlikely to pose a devastating problem. A bigger problem may well turn out to be an inappropriate response to it. D. Yet opinion polls suggest that many people nurture the belief that environmental standards are declining and four factors seem to cause this disjunction between perception and reality. E. One is the lopsidedness built into scientific research. Scientific funding goes mainly to areas with many problems. That may be wise policy, but it will also create an impression that many more potential problems exist than is the case. F. Secondly, environmental groups need to be noticed by the mass media. They also need to keep the money rolling in. Understandably, perhaps, they sometimes overstate their arguments. In 1997, for example, the World Wide Fund for nature issued a press release entitled: 'Two third of the world's forest lost forever'. The truth turns out to be nearer 20%. G. Though these groups are run overwhelmingly by selfless folk, they nevertheless share many of the characteristics of scepticism to environmental lobbying as they do to lobby groups in other fields. A trade organisation arguing for, say, weaker pollution controls is instantly seen as self-interested. Yet a green organisation opposing such a weakening is seen as altruistic, even if an impartial view of the controls in question might suggest they are doing more harm than good. H. A third source of confusion is the attitude of the media. People are clearly more curious about bad news than good. Newspapers and broadcasters are there to provide what the public wants. That, however, can lead to significant distortions of perception. An example was America's encounter with EI Nino in 1997 and 1998.This climatic phenomenon was accused of working tourism, causing allergies, melting the ski-slopes and causing 22 deaths. I. However, according to an article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the damage it did was estimated at US $4 billion but the benefits amounted to some US$19 billion. These came from higher winter temperatures (which saved an estimated 850 lives, reduced heating costs and diminished spring floods caused by meltwaters). J. The fourth factor is poor individual perception. People worry that the endless rise in the amount of stuff everyone throws away will cause the world to run out of places to dispose of waste. Yet, even if the America's trash output continues to rise as it has done in the past, and even if the American population doubles by 2100, all the rubbish America produces through the entire 21st century will still take up only one-12,000th of the area of the entire United States. K. So what of globe warming? As we know, carbon dioxide emissions are causing the planet to warm. The best estimates are that the temperatures will rise by 2℃～3℃ in this century, causing considerable problems, at a total cost ofUS$5,000 billion. L. Despite the intuition that something drastic needs to be done about such a costly problem, economic analyses clearly show it will be far more expensive to cut carbon dioxide emissions radically than to pay the costs of adaptation to the increased temperature increase of 1.9 degrees. Or to put it another way, the temperature increase that the planet would have experienced in 2094 would be postponed to 2100. M. So this does not prevent global warming, but merely buys the world six years. Yet the cost of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, for the United States alone, will be higher than the cost of solving the world's single, most pressing health problem: providing universal access to clean drinking water and sanitation. Such measures would have experienced in 2094 would be postponed to 2100. So this does not prevent global warming, but merely buys and world six years. Yet the cost of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, for the United States alone, will be higher than the cost of solving the world's single, most pressing health problem: providing universal access to clean drinking water and sanitation. Such measures would avoid 2 million deaths every year, and prevent half a billion people from becoming seriously ill. N. It is crucial that we look at the facts if we want to make the best possible decisions for the future. It may be costly to be overly optimistic—but more costly still to be too pessimistic.

单选题 《论语》 作为儒家的经典著作之一，《论语》(The Analects of Confucius)收录了孔子及其弟子(disciples)的言语和思想。传统上认为它是由孔子的弟子编写，并于中汉时期发展成其最终的形式。在汉朝早期，《论语》只被认为是“五经(the 'Five Classics')”的一部“评论”。宋朝晚期，《论语》作为一本哲学著作的重要性已经超越了“五经”，并且被认为是“四书(the 'Four Books')”之一。在过去的两千年里，《论语》是被阅读和研究最多的书籍之一，并在现今继续对中国人的思想和价值观产生重大的影响。

单选题 Old stereotypes die hard. Picture a video-game player and you will likely imagine a teenage boy, by himself, compulsively hammering away at a game involving rayguns and aliens that splatter when blasted. Today a gamer is as likely to be a middle-aged commuter playing 'Angry Birds' on her smartphone. In America, the biggest market, the average game-player is 37 years old. Two-fifths are female. Even teenagers with imaginary rayguns are more likely to be playing 'Halo' with their friends than playing alone Over the past ten years the video-game industry has grown from a small niche business to a huge, mainstream one. With global sales of $56 billion in 2010, it is more than twice the size of the recorded-music industry. Despite the downturn, it is growing by almost 9% a year. Is this success due to luck or skill? The answer matters, because the rest of the entertainment industry has tended to treat gaming as being a lucky beneficiary of broader technological changes. Video gaming, unlike music, film or television, had the luck to be born digital: it never faced the struggle to convert from analogue. In fact, there is plenty for old media to learn. Video games have certainly been swept along by two forces: demography and technology. The first gaming generation—the children of the 1970s and early 1980s—is now over 30. Many still love gaming, and can afford to spend far more on it now. As gaming establishes itself as a pastime for adults, the social stigma and the worries about moral corruption that have historically greeted all new media, from novels to pop music, have dissipated. Meanwhile rapid improvements in computing power have allowed game designers to offer experiences that are now often more cinematic than the cinema. The industry has excelled in two particular areas: pricing and piracy. In an era when people are disinclined to pay for content on the web, games publishers were quick to develop 'freemium' models, where you rely on non-paying customers to build an audience and then extract cash only from a fanatical few. In China, where piracy is rampant, many games can be played online for nothing. Finns instead make money by selling in-game perks and 'virtual goods' to dedicated players. China is now the second-biggest gaming market, but does not even rank in the top 20 markets for the music business. As gaming comes to be seen as just another medium, its tech-savvy approach could provide a welcome shot in the arm for existing media groups. Time Warner and Disney have bought games firms; big-budget games, meanwhile, now have Hollywood-style launches.

单选题 光棍节 在中国大陆，每年的11月11日被称作“光棍节(Single's Day)”。因为这一天的日期有四个“光棍”一样的“1”，所以人们就形象地称其为“光棍节”。光棍节之前只在大学校园流行，现在光棍节已经成为时尚青年们的一个特殊节日。奇怪的是，光棍节也是一些人的爱情告白日。很多人在这一天参加相亲会，甚至有人在这一天结婚。这些人认为四个“1”不仅可以代表单身，还可以代表“唯一”。除此之外，很多商家也在这一天搞促销活动(promotional activities)以吸引消费者的注意。为此，光棍节当天也成了全年中国人消费最多的一天。