单选题Leadership is the most significant word in today's competitive business environment because it directs the manager of a business to focus inward on their personal capabilities and style. Experts on leadership will quickly point out that 'how things get done' influences the success of the outcomes and indicates a right way and a wrong way to do things. When a noted leader on the art of management, Peter Drucker, 28 the phrase 'Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things, ' he was seeking to clarify the 2 29 he associates with the terms. When Stephen Covey, founder and director of the Leadership Institute, explored leadership styles in the past decade, he focused on the habits of a great 30 of highly effective individuals. His Seven Habits of Highly Effective People became a popular bestseller very quickly. His ideas forced a 31 of the early leadership paradigm (范例), which he observed centered on traits found in the character ethic and the personality ethic. The former ethic suggested success was founded on 32 , modesty, loyalty, courage, patience, and so forth. The personality ethic suggested it was one's attitude, not behavior, that 33 success, and this ethic was founded on a belief of positive mental attitude. In contrast to each of these ideas, Covey 34 that leaders need to understand universal principles of effectiveness, and he highlights how 35 it is for leaders to first personally manage themselves if they are to enjoy any hope of outstanding success in their work environments. To achieve a 36 vision for your business, it is important that you have a personal vision of where you are headed and what you value. Business leadership means that managers need to 'put first things first, ' which implies that before leading others, you need to be clear on your own values, abilities, and strengths and be seen as 1 37 . A. inspired B. reexamination C. coined D. contents E. trustworthy F. adequately G. number H. desired I. personality J. integrity K. vital L. deceives M. advocates N. ridiculous O. distinctions

单选题 In a Digital Age, Students Still Cling to Paper Textbooks A. They text their friends all day long. At night, they do research for their term papers on laptops and commune with their parents on Skype. But as they walk the paths of Hamilton College, a poster-perfect liberal arts school in this upstate village, students are still hauling around bulky, old-fashioned textbooks—and loving it. 'The screen won't go blank, ' said Faton Begolli, a junior from Boston. 'There can't be a virus. It wouldn't be the same without books. They've defined ‘ academia' (学术) for a thousand years.' B. Though the world of print is receding before a tide of digital books, blogs and other Web sites, a generation of college students growing up with technology appears to be holding fast to traditional textbooks. That loyalty comes at a price. Textbooks are expensive—a year's worth can cost $ 700 to $ 900—and students' frustrations with the expense, as well as the emergence of new technology, have produced a perplexing array of options for obtaining them. C. Internet retailers like Amazon and Textbooks.com are selling new and used books. They have been joined by several Web services that rent textbooks to students by the semester. Some 1 500 college bookstores are also offering rentals this fall, up from 300 last year. Here at Hamilton, students this year have a new way to avoid the middleman: a nonprofit Web site, created by the college's Entrepreneur Club, that lets them sell used books directly to one another. The explosion of outlets and formats—including digital books, which are rapidly becoming more sophisticated—has left some students bewildered. After completing the difficult job of course selection, they are forced to weigh cost versus convenience, analyze their own study habits and guess which texts they will want for years to come and which they will not miss. D. 'It depends on the course,' said Victoria Adesoba, a student at New York University who was standing outside that school's bookstore, a powder-blue book bag slung over her shoulder. 'Last semester, I rented for psychology, and it was cheaper. But for something like organic chemistry, I need to keep the book. E-textbooks are good, but it's tempting to go on Facebook, and it can strain your eyes.' For all the talk that her generation is the most technologically knowledgeable in history, paper-and-ink textbooks do not seem destined to disappear anytime soon. E. According to the National Association of College Stores, digital books make up just under 3% of textbook sales, although the association expects that share to grow to 10-15% by 2012 as more titles are made available as e-books. In two recent studies—one by the association and another by the Student Public Interest Research Groups—three-quarters of the students surveyed said they still preferred a bound book to a digital version. Many students are reluctant to give up the ability to flip quickly between chapters, write in the margins and highlight passages, although new software applications are beginning to allow students to use e-textbooks that way. F. 'Students grew up learning from print books,' said Nicole Allen, the textbooks campaign director for the research groups, 'so as they transition to higher education, it's not surprising that they prefer a format that they are most accustomed to.' Indeed, many Hamilton students grow passionate about the weighty volumes they still carry from dorm room to lecture hall to library, even as they compulsively (克制不住地) check their smartphones for text messages and e-mails. 'I believe that the codex is one of mankind's best inventions, ' said Jonathan Piskor, a junior from North Carolina, using the Latin term for book. G. That passion may be one reason that Barnes Noble College Booksellers is working so hard to market its new software application, NOOK study, which allows students to navigate e-textbooks on Macs and PCs. The company, which operates 636 campus bookstores nationwide, introduced the free application last summer in hopes of luring more students to buy its electronic textbooks. H. 'The real obstacle is getting them to try it, ' said Tracey Weber, the company's executive vice president. The company is giving away 'College Kick-Start Kits' to students who download NOOK study in the fall semester, with a dozen classic e-books like The Canterbury Tales and The Scarlet Letter. Course Smart is letting students try any e-textbook free for two weeks. But not every textbook is available in digital or rental format. At Hamilton, for instance, only about one-fifth of the titles are sold as e-textbooks this fall. A stroll through the campus store revealed the price difference. A book on constitutional law, for instance, was $189.85 new, $142.40 used and $ 85.45 for rent. (Typically, an e-textbook is cheaper than a used book, though more expensive than a rental.) I. The expense of college textbooks, which is estimated to have risen four times the inflation rate in recent years, has become such a concern that some politicians are taking up the cause. Last month, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York urged more college stores to rent books, after a survey of 38 campus bookstores in New York City and on Long Island by his office found that 16 did not offer the option. J. On Thursday, students at more than 40 colleges nationwide are planning an Affordable Textbooks Day of Action to encourage faculty members to assign texts that are less expensive, or offered free online. K. For now, buying books the old-fashioned way—new or used—prevails. Charles Schmidt, the spokesman for the National Association of College Stores, said that if a campus store sold a new book for $100, it would typically buy the book back for $ 50 at semester's end and sell it to the next student for $ 75.L) The buy-back price plunges, however, if the professor drops the book from the syllabus or if the bookstore has bought enough books to meet demand. When Louis Boguchwal, majoring in economics and math, tried to sell a $100 linear algebra (线性代数) textbook back to the college bookstore, he was offered $15. 'It was insulting, ' he said. 'They give you next to nothing.' M. Thus, the creation of Hamilton's new nonprofit Web site, getmytextbooks.org. So far, traffic has been light: only about 70 books have been sold this fall. But Jason Mariasis, president of the Entrepreneur Club, said he expected sales to pick up as word spread. N. Mr. Begolli, a member of the club, recently sold three German novels for $17 on the site. 'If I had sold them back to the bookstore, I would have gotten $ 7 or $ 8,' he said. 'The bookstore is king when it comes to textbook sales. We felt there should be something for students, by students.' O. Yet some students have to go it alone. Rosemary Rocha, an N. Y. U. student pursuing a degree in hospitality and tourism management, added up her required reading for the semester: $ 600. 'It's harsh,' she said. 'I'm currently collecting unemployment, so that's not going to happen.' P. Instead, she waits to borrow the few copies her professors leave on reserve at the library, or relies on the kindness of classmates. 'My friends will let me borrow their books in exchange for coffee or a slice of pizza, ' she said. 'I very seldom buy the textbooks, but I'm always like a chicken without a head.'

单选题 We've all been there. You wake up in the middle of the night and grab your smartphone to check the time—it's 3 a. m.—and see an alert. Before you know it, you fall down a rabbit hole of e-mail and Twitter. Sleep? Forget it. Well, I've found a $7 solution: an old-fashioned alarm clock. My smartphone has been banished from the bedroom. 'It's a very slippery slope, once you've picked up your phone, to see what time it is, to checking your e-mail, to lying awake with anxiety,' said Dr. David M. Claman, director of the Sleep Disorders Centre at the University of California San Francisco Medical Centre. 'If you wake up in the middle of the night and check your phone, you will inevitably get frustrated and worried by something you've seen, leading your body to tense up.' Then it's game over. You're tossing and turning, thinking about an e-mail, a text or a meeting in six hours. All these sleep interruptions lead to work problems. A 2011 study by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that insomnia costs $2280 in lost productivity per American worker every year. That adds up to $63 billion a year for the nation. The draw of the smartphone is understandable. The alarm clock is a free feature. It's also incredibly convenient—who doesn't like being able to speak to their phone and say, 'Wake me up at 7 a.m.'? Device makers are helping the trend along and hoping these figures rise. Most new alarm clocks made today are designed to be married to a smartphone. This goes against years of research showing that screens, in any capacity, do everything but help us fall asleep. In 2012, the American Medical Association's Council on Science and Public Health said that 'exposure to excessive light at night, including extended use of various electronic media, can disrupt sleep or exacerbate (使恶化) sleep disorders.' Sleep researchers say that looking at a blue light, which is produced by smartphone and tablet screens, sets off brain receptors that are designed to keep us awake and interferes with circadian (生理节奏的) sleep patterns. Experimental research has found that if people use a tablet for up to two hours before bed, it takes an extra hour to fall asleep. Orfeu M. Buxton, a neuroscientist and assistant professor in the division of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School, said the phone in the bedroom could set off what he called 'threat alertness,' which is a type of anxiety that keeps you awake. 'This means that you're never off, you're always watchful, which is a hallmark to insomnia (失眠),' he said.

单选题 Why has crime in the U.S. declined so dramatically since the 1990s? Economists and sociologists have offered a bounty of reasons, including more police, more security technology, more economic growth, more immigration, more imprisonment, and so on. The 'real' answer is almost certainly a combination of these factors, rather than one of them to the exclusion of the rest. But a new paper adds a surprising variable to the mix. What if the decline of crime in America started with the decline of cash? Cash is critical to the health of an underground economy, because it's anonymous, nearly untraceable, and easily stolen. This makes it the lifeblood of the black market. But Americans are rapidly abandoning cash thanks to credit cards, debit cards, and mobile payments. Half a century ago, cash was used in 80 percent of U.S. payments. Now that figure is about 50 percent, according to researchers. In the 1980s, the federal government switched from paper money to electronic benefit transfers. They didn't switch all at once. They switched one county at a time within states. This created a kind of randomly controlled environment for the researchers, who studied Missouri's counties to establish whether the areas that switched from welfare cash to electronic transfers saw a concurrent decline in crime. The results were striking: The shift away from cash was associated with 'a significant decrease in the overall crime rate and the specific offenses of burglary and assault in Missouri and a decline in arrests.' In other words, the counties saw a decline in specific crimes when they switched away from cash welfare. Perhaps most interestingly, they found that the switch to electronic transfers reduced robbery but not rape, suggesting that the move away from cash only had an impact on crime related to getting and spending cash. The move toward cashlessness in the U.S. continues quickly. Google now lets you attach money to emails to send to friends, which means that for some shoppers, pulling out your credit card could become as rare as finding exact change in your coin purse. It might seem absurd to imagine Visa, Square, and Google Wallet as crime-fighting technologies. But with a better understanding of how cash's availability affects crime, perhaps the government should consider killing more than just the penny.

单选题 Parents who consider their kids to be 'more special than other children' and feel that they 'deserve something extra in life' may now be characterized not only as annoying, but also as responsible for bringing one more self-important narcissist into society. New research out of the Netherlands published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that children who were overvalued by their parents scored higher on tests to identify narcissism (自恋) than their peers. 'Children believe it when their parents tell them that they are more special than others. That may not be good for them or for society,' Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and an Ohio State University professor, said in a statement. Eddie Brummelman, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and another author on the study, noted that parents often think telling children how special they are compared with their peers will boost their self-confidence. But narcissism is not just a more extreme form of self-confidence; people with high-esteem do not think they're better than others. According to his research, the more narcissistic children did not necessarily express more self-confidence. 'Rather than raising self-esteem, overvaluing practices may inadvertently raise levels of narcissism,' Brummelman said. Over two years, the team evaluated 565 children in the Netherlands who were between the ages of 7 and 11 years old when the study began. They asked parents how much they agreed with statements like, 'My child is a great example for other children to follow,' and whether or not they believed their children would have knowledge of various historical and cultural figures and topics, like 'Neil Armstrong.' Eventually, the researchers began including entirely fictional figures and topics, 'Queen Alberta.' The parents raising little narcissists would often fall for it. 'Overvaluing parents tended to claim that their children had knowledge of many different topics—even these nonexistent ones,' Brummelman said. While parental 'overvaluing' was associated with narcissistic offspring, parental warmth was not. Children of parents who expressed warmth by telling their children they loved them, but who did not engage in 'overvaluing' behavior, were more likely to agree with statements that suggested they were 'happy with themselves as a person and liked the kind of person they were.' In short, parental warmth appears to be closely linked to self-confident kids, not narcissistic kids. The researchers conclude that expressing warmth is key to promoting healthy self-confidence in children. Bushman, who is a father of three children, said his research has made him rethink his own parenting style. 'When I first started doing this research in the 1990s, I used to think my children should be treated like they were extra-special. I'm careful not to do that now,' he said.

单选题Small dogs generally live longer than big dogs so that a small Yorkshire terrier (猎狐狗) next door could be around for a long time. But body size isn't the only factor that 18 how long dogs survive. Personality influences life span, too, according to a new study that might help explain how animal 19 evolve. Study on animals from ants to apes has found that different 20 have different personalities. Some are timid, others 21 . Biologists have proposed that temperaments (性情) evolved along with life history. Bold, violent animals use a lot of energy fast in 22 short lives, the thinking goes, whereas calmer animals last longer, saving themselves to 23 later in life. But it's hard to run evolutionary researches on these personalities in anything longer lived than a fruit fly. So evolutionary biologist Vincent from Canada 24 an idea about dogs. 'All these breed differences reflect an experiment on artificial selection,' says Vincent. The huge diversity of dogs resulted not from natural selection, but from generations of humans selecting animals with traits they wanted—the ability to chase foxes into holes, or herd sheep, or sit 25 on a sofa. But evolutionary physiologist Joseph Williams of Ohio State University in Columbus isn't 26 that what happened in dogs has anything to do with evolution in nature. 'For me, it still remains to be seen. Dogs are contrary to what you would expect in nature 27 longevity,' he says. Elephants can live for decades, whereas a mouse might make it through only for several seasons. On the other hand, a Chihuahua will generally outlast a Saint Bernard.

单选题 Questions12-15 are based on the passage you have just heard.

单选题 Romance on Campus A. It seems that almost every college student has stories of colossal romantic disasters during his or her college years, but there are still some tales of true love that would bring Hollywood calling. There are also some universal truths that those of us who have been through the experience tend to agree on. So what generalities can be shared about love on the college campus of the twenty-first century? Let's take a look. Consider leaving the relationship from home B. Many college freshmen arrive on campus still tied to a boyfriend or girlfriend from high school or summer camp who is now either still at home or off at another college. They limp through part or all of the first semester wracked with guilt about not visiting or calling often enough; or, worse yet, they spend most weekends on the road visiting each other or, worse yet, cheat on the person with someone else, and then these relationships almost invariably explode. For the lucky ones, this happens within the first few weeks of school, allowing the individuals to go on and have rich and productive college lives. For the less fortunate, the relationships endure long enough to ensure that the individuals have lost out on the early-semester opportunities to bond with their roommates and other freshman new to the campus or, worse, to stigmatize (指责，侮辱) the individuals as people who are 'off-limits' due to a girlfriend or boyfriend 'from home.' As a collective group, we don't know of very many couples whose relationships began in high school and survived both individuals' attending different colleges. I'm sure there are examples out there, but the chances of your relationship being one of them are very small. Your chance of being one of the thousands and thousands of so-to-be bitter people who try to make a long-stance relationship work during part of freshman year (or even longer) only to have it fail is very large. Take our advice C. Have a heart-to-heart talk with your significant other from high school, summer camp, or wherever your relationship began. Talk about the realities, talk about the expense, talk about the inconvenience, and talk about whatever you want to talk about, but make sure that at the end of the talk, you are free to go your separate ways, at least for the first semester. Those who go looking for love don't find it D. The next area of consensus seems to be that you shouldn't burst on to campus as a freshman and go 'looking' for love—either the serious kind or a casual hookup. It does seem that people can smell desperation a mile away. The best advice here is to be friendly, outgoing, and approachable and, most important of all, to be yourself. Put yourself out on the 'scene' simply by going to parties and other campus events in mixed groups of friends from your freshman dorm. While there, just talk to the people you meet. Forget about using clumsy pickup lines or other clever ploys (策略，手法) to 'figure out' how to begin a conversation. The best way to start a conversation is just to walk up and start the conversation. If there is one thing we all learned from our social experiences in college, it is that everyone is waiting for everyone else to make the first move. E. If you find yourself interested in someone in one of your classes, strike up an easy, stress-free conversation about the course material. Don't worry about 'losing the deal' in a single day—you have the whole semester to get to know the person, and the rest of college after that. That's the nice thing about college. You know that anyone you meet there is going to be around awhile. Resist the urge to 'couple up' right away F. The next mistake freshmen seem to make all the time is to look to pair off immediately with the first person who interests them. Resist the urge to do this. Take advantage of this time to meet a lot of people, bond, have some adventures, and make new friends. Chances are, some of these people will end up staying with you through the rest of college and, if you're really lucky, for the rest of your life. Enjoy your newfound freedom awhile before you become connected to another person. Remember that relationships can be isolating. If you couple up right away and start spending all your time with one person, you may find that if that relationship expires, you're lost the opportunity to fall in naturally with a group of friends and you'll then have to work harder to find them. G. For many of you, freshman year in college will be the first time you can come and go as you please, keep whatever hours you want, hang out with whomever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and explore anything and everything you might want to explore within the bounds of the law and your own sense of morality. Safeguard your health, your safety, and your reputation H. As we just said, when you get to college, you are free to explore anything and everything you might want to explore within the bounds of the law and your own sense or morality. I. The problem is that not everyone conform their behavior to the bounds of the law, and people have vastly different senses of morality. Those disconnects can lead to some real perils. Some people are looking for uncomplicated, fleeting encounters without strings or expectations. Some are looking for relationships, or even life partners in connection with those encounters. Some people are good communicators and will let you know what their expectations are. Others won't, and i tcan be hard, particularly in the heat of the moment, to stop to inquire. J. You would hope that everyone would respect your expectations and whatever boundaries you set up, even on the spur of the moment. But the truth is, not everybody will. It is therefore up to you, at all times, to make your expectations known and to protect your health and safety. Home for the holidays K. Freshman couples frequently find themselves asking when it is appropriate to bring a new boyfriend or girlfriend home to share a holiday with the family. How you will answer this question is, like many other things romantic, entirely individual, but here are some general guidelines: L. If you've been dating seriously for less than three months, it is too early. If you haven't spent a weekend away together alone yet, it is too early. M. If your parents don't yet know you are dating, and if you have not yet met your boyfriend or girlfriend's parents in some other capacity—such as on Parents' Weekend or during some other campus visit—it is probably too early. If, when you really think about it, you're not sure that you want to be in a committed relationship with this person for a long time, it is too early. N. If you've cheated on this person already, or thought about doing so, it is too early. If one of the reasons you want to invite the person to come home with you is that you want to show him or her off to your high school friends at the Thanksgiving Day game or at church on Christmas Eve, it is too early. If you're not prepared to face questions from your parents about your sexual involvement and to respect the boundaries they impose with respect to sleeping arrangements in their home, it is too early. O. In other words, if you're still a freshman, chances are, it is too early.

单选题 Many current discussions of immigration issues talk about immigrants in general, as if they were abstract people in an abstract world. But the concrete differences between immigrants from different countries affect whether their coming here is good or bad for the American people. The very thought of formulating immigration laws from the standpoint of what is best for the American people seems to have been forgotten by many who focus on how to solve the problems of illegal immigration. It is hard to look for 'the ideal outcome' on immigration in the abstract. Economics professor Milton Friedman once said, 'The best is the enemy of the good,' which to me meant that attempts to achieve an unattainable ideal can prevent us from reaching good outcomes that are possible in practice. Too much of our current immigration controversy is conducted in terms of abstract ideals, such as 'We are a nation of immigrants.' Of course we are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of people who wear shoes. Does it follow that we should admit anybody who wears shoes? The immigrants of today are very different from those who arrived here a hundred years ago. Moreover, the society in which they arrive is different. To me, it is better to build a wall around the welfare state than the country. But the welfare state is already here—and, far from having a wall built around it, the welfare state is expanding in all directions. We do not have a choice between the welfare state and open borders. Anything we try to do as regards immigration laws has to be done in the context of a huge welfare state that is already a major, inescapable fact of life. Among other facts of life utterly ignored by many advocates of de facto amnesty(事实上得大赦) is that the free international movement of people is different from free international trade in goods. Buying cars or cameras from other countries is not the same as admitting people from those countries or any other countries. Unlike inanimate objects, people have cultures and not all cultures are compatible with the culture in this country that has produced such benefits for the American people for so long. Not only the United States, but the Western world in general, has been discovering the hard way that admitting people with incompatible cultures is an irreversible decision with incalculable consequences. If we do not see that after recent terrorist attacks on the streets of Boston and Lon-don, when will we see it? 'Comprehensive immigration reform' means doing everything all together in a rush, without time to look before we leap, and basing ourselves on abstract notions about abstract people.

单选题 Questions5-8 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay entitled On Aiming Higher by commenting on the saying 'Who aims at excellence will be above mediocrity; who aims at mediocrity will be far short of it.' You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

单选题 “共享经济”(sharing economy)也叫作“协同消费”，在金融和经济危机中被普遍接受并广泛传播。这种利用互联网降低交易成本、提高效率、减少资源浪费的模式是一种可持续发展的经济。共享经济以实现社会资源最优配置为核心目标，是改善不平衡不充分发展的重要手段。共享经济企业创造了大量灵活就业机会，推动了就业方式的改变，使分配机制更加公平。共享经济符合“创新、协调、绿色、开放、共享”新发展理念，必将迎来更加广阔的发展前景。

单选题 Barter (易货贸易), the exchange of goods and services without the use of money, is not a new idea, but over the past decade, this type of transaction has been transformed into a sophisticated business practice. Today, the barter industry is composed of several thousand independent barter exchanges representing an estimated 100000 businesses worldwide turning over US $9 billion per annum. Through bartering, businesses in Asia, US, Australia and Europe have saved millions of dollars and were consistently able to move as much extra inventory (存货) as they want. But why is barter system back in style? There are many good reasons, but underlying them all is one fundamental business motivation: profit. Businesses can use barter to conserve cash, generate new business, and turn excess and idle inventory into useful products and services. Moreover, the rising inflation, job losses and the slowing economy have prompted an explosion of bartering where businesses as well as individuals can get what they want without spending any of their precious cash. The barter system enables traders to find new buyers of their products and services from the targeted universe of participants trading within a particular exchange. Barter exchanges are done by using a trade currency to measure the exchange of goods and services between businesses and individuals. Barter currency give people the ability to purchase a future good or service that equals the amount of barter currency they own. This method allows businesses as well as individuals to get the things they need without having to expend additional money. Instead, they can use the things they no longer need or want to get the things they do need. Bartering can also be used by businesses that are seasonal in nature such as resort hotels. A bartered hotel room is more cost effective than an empty one. Bartering thus allows businesses to capitalize on unproductive assets and spare capacity. With a large exchange, it is possible to barter pretty much anything. There are exchange markets and online auctions that allow businesses to sell or trade their inventory or to purchase items that they want such as: barterplant.com, a free online community for trading items, services, and knowledge; swaptree.com, which specializes in trading books, video games, DVDs, and music and swapstyle.com, which allows members to swap clothes, shoes, cosmetics, and accessories. Although cash still in control, barter industry experts think, there is more room for barter. They predict that the globalization of barter over the next decade will be powered by a universal barter currency. Having a barter currency, which does not go up and down depending on the stability or instability of the world markets, means that the future prospects of the barter industry look pretty bright.

单选题 Getting over Our Preference for Perfect Produce A. Lift, squeeze, sniff. It's a ritual millions of us perform every day in the produce aisle of the grocery store, rejecting the defective and irregular in search of an ideal seldom found on any farm. B. 40 percent of all food is never eaten, and this rejection of 'ugly food'—the misshapen or imperfect produce that gets thrown out before it ever hits the supermarket display—is a major contributor to food waste. Most of that waste happens on the consumer side: food rejected by shoppers or by the markets before it reaches their aisles, or rejected in restaurants before it reaches our tables. Doug Rauch, the former president of Trader Joe's, thinks he has the answer. This summer he is opening a store in Boston, called Daily Table, that will make outdated and defective food friendly and attractive. His 'mixture of a grocery store and a restaurant'—with both fresh produce and prepared, 'speed-scratch' dishes with prechopped vegetables, cooked proteins and rice that's ready to eat, requiring just sauce and seasoning—is a pilot project attempting to recast the social norms of what's fresh, desirable and edible. C. The project grew out of a fellowship Rauch started at Harvard in 2010, following the end of his position at Trader Joe's. One in six Americans, he discovered, is not eating enough nutrients. 'They can't afford to get the food they need,' he explains, adding that what they eat is 'calorically dense, but nutritionally stripped'. The health care tsunami that follows—early-onset diabetes (糖尿病) and heart disease, even in children and teens; additional health care costs of half a trillion dollars over the next two decades due to rising obesity— makes it everyone's problem. Malnutrition, paired with the problem of food waste that he saw firsthand at Trader Joe's, got him thinking. D. At a recent conference in Washington, D.C., put on by the Partnership for a Healthier America, Rauch shared a panel called 'Feed Families Not Landfills' with Tim York of Markon, a company that distributes billions of dollars worth of produce across the U.S. 'He showed a photo of a field of romaine lettuce (长叶生菜)—10 acres of it, beautiful,' Rauch remembers. 'The photo was the field after the harvest. They'd harvested all the lettuce that was the right size for bagged lettuce, but there was a ton out there that was two inches too tall or too short, and that gets plowed under. All of the things that are not the right size, color, shape—a lot goes rotten, gets plowed under or goes to fertilizer.' E. Rauch wondered if he could open an attractive retail store, partner with grocers and producers to source the surplus food that might not be perfectly beautiful, present it well and price it competitively with junk food. A dime for an apple, say, instead of a buck? F. 'We let perfect be the enemy of the good: If we go into store and see a pumpkin that is defective or misshapen, we'll pick the one next to it,' Rauch says, 'but we make exceptions in two cases. One, we call it heirloom (传家宝). It can be ugly, and should be. And two is the farmers' market. You don't expect apples to look like they do at Whole Foods. You'd be suspicious. What's interesting is that we instinctively know that things in nature aren't supposed to look like this.' G. The idea at Daily Table is to create an atmosphere similar to a farmers market. 'In the real world, carrots will often have two legs rather than one, but you never see those in the grocery store, because they're almost always thrown out,' says Nathanael Johnson, food writer for Grist and the author of All Natural, a book that debates when 'natural' is really healthy. 'We've become so alienated from our farms that we can no longer assess the healthfulness of our food. Instead, people are attracted to external perfection.' H. Daily Table will also tackle the problem of sell-by date versus expiration date. 'When a grocer sells you a gallon of milk, if it says sell by April 2, it doesn't mean that you have to go home and drink it that night,' Rauch says. 'Generally, it will last a week after that. Most Americans don't know that. So we are disposing of perfectly good food that's healthy and wholesome.' Consumer education is part of his mission; the store will work with quality assurance food labs and manufacturers to determine conservative 'use-by' dates, giving customers information on what they mean, as well as plenty of time to use products. I. Europe is in the forefront when it comes to tackling ugly food. The EU has designated 2014 the 'European Year Against Food Waste'. After a British member of Parliament, Laura Sandys, set up a company to encourage the sale and use of odd fruits and vegetables—food should be valued for nutrition, she said, 'not whether it is fit for a catwalk'—the supermarket giant Sainsbury's changed rules governing the aesthetic appearance of its fresh produce. Last year, the rebranding of ugly food came to pass in Switzerland and Germany. The produce is cheaper, and goes fast. Recently, three German graduate students cooked up the idea for a fashionable grocery that sells only ugly fruit. J. A recent report commissioned by the U.K. global food security program shows that of a given crop of fruit or vegetables grown in the country, up to 40 percent is rejected because it doesn't meet retailer standards on size or shape. That's a sizable amount of the $31.3 billion of food that gets thrown away in Britain every year. American supermarkets lose $15 billion each year in unsold fruits and vegetables. American consumers like their apples red and their bananas unspotted, so grocery stores comply—sometimes even dyeing and cutting to fit. K. Changing mainstream culture to accept a curved cucumber has bigger implications than just cost. Given that 20 to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, food waste is a huge piece of the global climate problem. Last month, a new study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change revealed scientists' deep concerns about dropping agricultural production—as much as 2 percent per decade for the rest of the century. The panel's researchers have also found that though minor improvements can be made to improve efficiency in agriculture, the real game changers will lie on the consumption side. L. 'The best forecasts I've seen suggest that we are going to have to double agricultural production by 2050,' says Johnson. 'Doing that without cutting down the rain forest is going to be a tremendous challenge— especially given that climate change is actually driving farm productivity down.' The single best idea for solving this problem, with the lowest costs and fewest trade-offs? Stop throwing away so much of the food we grow. M. So in the short term, the issue looks skin-deep: Ugly food is just as good as pretty food, and it's easier on the wallet. In the long term, a preference for ugly may support our global food supply. N. 'Is it possible to tell the story and have people better educated and smarter about buying food?' Ranch asks. 'The difference between that sell-by date and when the food is no longer edible can feed a huge population.' And in an environment in which healthy food is often priced at a premium, he's doing it at a price affordable to people who need it most. 'The doors,' he says, 'are open to everyone.'