单选题 裸婚(down-to-earth marriage)是一种新型的结婚方式，指的是一对恋人没有房子，没有汽车，不办婚礼，不度蜜月，甚至没有婚戒，只领取结婚证(marriage certificate)。这种结婚方式的成本只有9元钱那么少。现代年轻人的生活压力较大，而且强调爱情的独立。因此，必须有房再结婚和大行操办婚事的传统在年轻一代的婚姻中被削弱。许多人都相信裸婚是两个恋人纯粹爱情的有力见证。有社会学家认为，裸婚是一种打破旧观念束缚的结婚方式。

单选题Welcome, Freshmen. Have an iPod. A. Taking a step that many professors may view as a bit counterproductive, some colleges and universities are doling out Apple iPhones and Internet-capable iPods to their students. The always-on Internet devices raise some novel possibilities, like tracking where students gather together. With far less controversy, colleges could send messages about canceled classes, delayed buses, campus crises or just the cafeteria menu. B. While schools emphasize its usefulness—online research in class and instant polling of students, for example—a big part of the attraction is, undoubtedly, that the iPhone is cool and a hit with students. Being equipped with one of the most recent cutting-edge IT products could just help a college or university foster a cutting-edge reputation. Apple stands to win as well, hooking more young consumers with decades of technology purchases ahead of them. The lone losers, some fear, could be professors. C. Students already have laptops and cell phones, of course, but the newest devices can take class distractions to a new level. They practically beg a user to ignore the long-suffering professor struggling to pass on accumulated wisdom from the front of the room—a prospect that teachers find most irritating and students view as, well, inevitable. 'When it gets a little boring, I might pull it out,' acknowledged Naomi Pugh, a first-year student at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn., referring to her new iPod Touch, which can connect to the Internet over a campus wireless network. She speculated that professors might try even harder to make classes interesting if they were to compete with the devices. D. Experts see a movement toward the use of mobile technology in education, though they say it is in its infancy as professors try to come up with useful applications. Providing powerful hand-held devices is sure to fuel debates over the role of technology in higher education. E. 'We think the is this way the future is going to work,' said Kyle Dickson, co-director of research and the mobile learning initiative at Abilene Christian University in Texas, which has bought more than 600 iPhones and 300 iPods for students entering this fall. Although plenty of students take their laptops to class, they don't take them everywhere and would prefer something lighter. Abilene Christian settled on the devices after surveying students and finding that they did not like hauling around their laptops, but that most of them always carried a cell phone, Dr. Dickson said. F. It is not clear how many colleges and universities plan to give out iPhones and iPods this fall; officials at Apple were unwilling to talk about the subject and said that they would not leak any institution's plans. 'We can't announce other people's news,' said Greg Joswiak, vice president of iPod and iPhone marketing at Apple. He also said that he could not discuss discounts to universities for bulk purchases. At least four institutions—the University of Maryland, Oklahoma Christian University, Abilene Christian and Freed-Hardeman—have announced that they will give the devices to some or all of their students this fall. G. Other universities are exploring their options. Stanford University has hired a student-run company to design applications like a campus map and directory for the iPhone. It is considering whether to issue iPhones but not sure it's necessary, noting that more than 700 iPhones were registered on the university's network last year. H. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, iPhones might already have been everywhere, if ATT, the wireless carrier offering the iPhone in the United States, had a more reliable network, said Andrew Yu, mobile devices platform project manager at M. I. T. 'We would have probably gone ahead with this, maybe just getting a thousand iPhones and giving them out,' Mr. Yu said. I. The University of Maryland at College Park is proceeding cautiously, giving the iPhone or iPod Touch to 150 students, said Jeffrey Huskamp, vice president and chief information officer at the university. 'We don't think that we have all the answers,' Mr. Huskamp said. By observing how students use the gadgets, he said, 'We're trying to get answers from the students.' J. At each college, the students who choose to get an iPhone must pay for mobile phone service. Those service contracts include unlimited data use. Both the iPhones and the iPod Touch de-vices can connect to the Internet through campus wireless networks. With the iPhone, those net-works may provide faster connections and longer battery life than ATT's data network. Many cell phones allow users to surf the Web, but only some newer ones are capable of wireless connection to the local area computer network. K. University officials say that they have no plans to track their students (and Apple said it would not be possible unless students give their permission). They say that they are drawn to the prospect of learning applications outside the classroom, though such lesson plans have yet to surface. L. 'My colleagues and I are studying something called augmented reality (a field of computer research dealing with the combination of real-world and virtual reality),' said Christopher Dede, professor in learning technologies at Harvard University, 'Alien Contact,' for example, is an exercise developed for middle-school students who use hand-held devices that can determine their location. As they walk around a playground or other area, text, video or audio pops up at various points to help them try to figure out why aliens were in the schoolyard. 'You can imagine similar kinds of interactive activities along historical lines,' like following the Freedom Trail in Boston, Professor Dede said. 'It's important that we do research so that we know how well something like this works.' M. The rush to distribute the devices worries some professors, who say that students are less likely to participate in class if they are multi-tasking. 'I'm not someone who's anti-technology, but I'm always worried that technology becomes an end in and of itself, and it replaces teaching or it re-places analysis,' said Ellen Millender, associate professor of classics at Reed College in Portland, Ore. (She added that she hoped to buy an iPhone for herself once price fails.) N. Robert Summers, who has taught at Cornell Law School for about 40 years, announced this week—in a detailed, foot-noted memorandum—that he would ban laptop computers from his class on contract law. 'I would ban that too if I knew the students were using it in class,' Professor Summers said of the iPhone, after the device and its capabilities were explained to him. 'What we want to encourage in these students is an active intellectual experience, in which they develop the wide range of complex reasoning abilities required of good lawyers.' O. The experience at Duke University may ease some concerns. A few years ago, Duke began giving iPods to students with the idea that they might use them to record lectures (these older models could not access the Internet). 'We had assumed that the biggest focus of these devices would be consuming the content,' said Tracy Futhey, vice president for information technology and chief information officer at Duke. But that is not all that the students did. They began using the iPods to create their own 'content,' making audio recordings of themselves and presenting them. The students turned what could have been a passive interaction into an active one, Ms. Futhey said.

单选题Even plants can run a fever, especially when they are under attack by insects or disease. But 30 humans, plants can have their temperature taken from 3,000 feet away—straight up. A decade ago, 31 the infrared (红外线的) scanning technology developed for military purpose and other satellites, physicist Stephen Paley came up with a quick way to take the temperature of crops to determine 32 ones are under stress. The goal was to let farmer precisely target pesticide spraying 33 rain poison on a whole field, which invariably include plants that don't have the pest problem. Even better, Paley's Remote Scanning Services Company could detect crop problem before they became 34 to the eye. Mounted on a plane flown at 3,000 feet at night, an infrared scanner measured the heat emitted by crops. The data were 35 into a color-coded map showing where plants were running 'fevers'. Farmers could then spot spray, using 50 to 70 percent less pesticide than they 36 would. The bad news is that Paley's company closed down in 1984, after only three years. Farmers 37 the new technology and long-term backers were hard to find. But with the renewed concern about pesticides on produce, and refinements in infrared scanning, Paley hopes to get back into operation. Agriculture experts have no doubt the technology works. 'This technique can be used 38 75 percent of agricultural land in the United States', says George Oerther of Texas AM. Ray Jackson, who recently retired from the Department of Agriculture, thinks remote infrared crop scanning could be adopted by the end of the decade. But only if Paley finds the financial backing 39 he failed to obtain 80 years ago. A. unlike I. extremely B. adopting J. rather than C. deliberately K. which D. transformed L. how E. invariably M. visible F. on N. otherwise G. extraordinarily O. resisted H. which

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay on the importance of perseverance by commenting on the saying 'Perseverance is failing nineteen times and succeeding the twentieth.' You can cite examples to illustrate your views. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

单选题 For most of the 20th century, Asia asked itself what it could learn from the modern, innovating West. Now the question must be reversed. What can the West's overly indebted and sluggish(经济滞长的) nations learn from a flourishing Asia? Just a few decades ago, Asia's two giants were stagnating(停滞不前) under faulty economic ideologies. However, once China began embracing free-market reforms in the 1980s, followed by India in the 1990s, both countries achieved rapid growth. Crucially, as they opened up their markets, they balanced market economy with sensible government direction. As the Indian economist Amartya Sen has wisely said, 'The invisible hand of the market has often relied heavily on the visible hand of government'. Contrast this middle path with America and Europe, which have each gone ideologically over-board in their own ways. Since the 1980s, America has been increasingly clinging to the ideology of uncontrolled free markets and dismissing the role of government—following Ronald Regan's idea that 'government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.' Of course, when the markets came crashing down in 2007, it was decisive government intervention that saved the day. Despite this fact, many Americans are still strongly opposed to 'big government'. If Americans could only free themselves from their antigovernment doctrine, they would begin to see that the America's problems are not insoluble. A few sensible federal measures could put the country back on the right path. A simple consumption tax of, say, 5% would significantly reduce the country's huge government deficit without damaging productivity. A small gasoline tax would help free America from its dependence on oil imports and create incentives for green energy development. In the same way, a significant reduction of wasteful agricultural subsidies could also lower the deficit. But in order to take advantage of these common-sense solutions, Americans will have to put aside their own attachment to the idea of smaller government and less regulation. American politicians will have to develop the courage to follow what is taught in all American public-policy schools: that there are good taxes and bad taxes. Asian countries have embraced this wisdom, and have built sound long-term fiscal(财政的) policies as a result. Meanwhile, Europe has fallen prey to a different ideological trap: the belief that European governments would always have infinite resources and could continue borrowing as if there were no tomorrow. Unlike the Americans, who felt that the markets knew best, the Europeans failed to anticipate how the markets would react to their endless borrowing. Today, the European Union is creating a $ 580 billion fund to ward off sovereign collapse. This will buy the EU time, but it will not solve the bloc's larger problem.

单选题 The College Essay: Why Those 500 Words Drive Us Crazy A. Meg is a lawyer-morn in suburban Washington, D.C., where lawyer-moms are thick on the ground. Her son Doug is one of several hundred thousand high-school seniors who had a painful fall. The deadline for applying to his favorite college was Nov. 1, and by early October he had yet to fill out the application. More to the point, he had yet to settle on a subject for the personal essay accompanying the application. According to college folklore, a well-turned essay has the power to seduce (诱惑) an admissions committee. 'He wanted to do one thing at a time, ' Meg says, explaining her son's delay. 'But really, my son is a huge procrastinator (拖延者). The essay is the hardest thing to do, so he's put it off the longest.' Friends and other veterans of the process have warned Meg that the back and forth between editing parent and writing student can be traumatic (痛苦的). B. Back in the good old days—say, two years ago, when the last of my children suffered the ordeal (折磨)—a high-school student applying to college could procrastinate all the way to New Year's Day of their senior year, assuming they could withstand the parental pestering (烦扰). But things change fast in the nail-biting world of college admissions. The recent trend toward early decision and early action among selective colleges and universities has pushed the traditional deadline of January up to Nov. 1 or early December for many students. C. If the time for heel-dragging has been shortened, the true source of the anxiety and panic remains what it has always been. And it's not the application itself. A college application is a relatively straightforward questionnaire asking for the basics: name, address, family history, employment history. It would all be innocent enough—20 minutes of busy work—except it comes attached to a personal essay. D. 'There are good reasons it causes such anxiety, ' says Lisa Sohmer, director of college counseling at the Garden School in Jackson Heights, N.Y. 'It's not just the actual writing. By now everything else is already set. Your course load is set, your grades are set, your test scores are set. But the essay is something you can still control, and it's open-ended. So the temptation is to write and rewrite and rewrite.' Or stall and stall and stall. E. The application essay, along with its mythical importance, is a recent invention. In the 1930s, when only one in 10 Americans had a degree from a four-year college, an admissions committee was content to ask for a sample of applicants' school papers to assess their writing ability. By the 1950s, most schools required a brief personal statement of why the student had chosen to apply to one school over another. F. Today nearly 70 percent of graduating seniors go off to college, including two-year and four-year institutions. Even apart from the increased competition, the kids enter a process that has been utterly transformed from the one baby boomers knew. Nearly all application materials are submitted online, and the Common Application provides a one-size-fits form accepted by more than 400 schools, including the nation's most selective. G. Those schools usually require essays of their own, but the longest essay, 500 words maximum, is generally attached to the Common Application. Students choose one of six questions. Applicants are asked to describe an ethical dilemma they've faced and its impact on them, or discuss a public issue of special concern to them, or tell of a fictional character or creative work that has profoundly influenced them. Another question invites them to write about the importance (to them, again) of diversity—a word that has assumed magic power in American higher education. The most popular option, write on a topic of your choice. H. 'Boys in particular look at the other questions and say, 'Oh, that's too much work, '' says John Boshoven, a counselor in the Ann Arbor, Mich., public schools. 'They think if they do a topic of their choice, 'I'll just go get that history paper I did last year on the Roman Empire and turn it into a first-person application essay!' And they end up producing something utterly ridiculous.' I. Talking to admissions professionals like Boshoven, you realize that the list of 'don'ts' in essay writing is much longer than the 'dos.' 'No book reports, no history papers, no character studies, ' says Sohmer. J. 'It drives you crazy, how easily kids slip into clichés (老生常谈), ' says Boshoven. 'They don't realize how typical their experiences are. 'I scored the winning goal in soccer against our arch-rival.' 'My grandfather served in World War II, and I hope to be just like him someday.' That may mean a lot to that particular kid. But in the world of the application essay, it's nothing. You'll lose the reader in the first paragraph.' K. 'The greatest strength you bring to this essay,' says the College Board's how-to book, 'is 17 years or so of familiarity with the topic. YOU. The form and style are very familiar, and best of all, you are the world-class expert on the subject of YOU... It has been the subject of your close scrutiny every morning since you were tall enough to see into the bathroom mirror.' The key word in the Common Application prompts is 'you.' L. The college admission essay contains the grandest American themes—status anxiety, parental piety (孝顺), intellectual standards—and so it is only a matter of time before it becomes infected by the country's culture of excessive concern with self-esteem. Even if the question is ostensibly (表明上) about something outside the self (describe a fictional character or solve a problem of geopolitics), the essay invariably returns to the favorite topic, what is its impact on YOU? M. 'For all the anxiety the essay causes, ' says Bill McClintick of Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, 'it's a very small piece of the puzzle. I was in college admissions for 10 years. I saw kids and parents beat themselves up over this. And at the vast majority of places, it is simply not a big variable in the college's decision-making process.' N. Many admissions officers say they spend less than a couple of minutes on each application, including the essay. According to a recent survey of admissions officers, only one in four private colleges say the essay is of 'considerable importance' in judging an application. Among public colleges and universities, the number drops to roughly one in 10. By contrast, 86 percent place 'considerable importance' on an applicant's grades, 70 percent on 'strength of curriculum.' O. Still, at the most selective schools, where thousands of candidates may submit identically high grades and test scores, a marginal item like the essay may serve as a tie-breaker between two equally qualified candidates. The thought is certainly enough to keep the pot boiling under parents like Meg, the lawyer-morn, as she tries to help her son choose an essay topic. For a moment the other day, she thought she might have hit on a good one. 'His father's from France, ' she says. 'I said maybe you could write about that, as something that makes you different. You know: half French, half American. I said, 'You could write about your identity issues.' He said, ‘I don't have any identity issues! ‘ And he's right. He's a well-adjusted, normal kid. But that doesn't make for a good essay, does it?'

单选题How do we get more people to increase their consumption of iron-rich foods? Many nutritionists 27 the increase of a number of foods. This may help, but I contend that we should also 28 our efforts in nutrition education among our young people. I simply do not buy the argument that it is 29 to try to change eating habits. Once an intelligent person—and this includes adolescents—understands the need for a healthy diet, I think he or she will act 30 . As for specific actions, I suggest that blood should be checked as a 31 part of a youngster's yearly physical. It should contain at least 11 grams iron per 100 milliliters of blood for a girl and at least 12 grams for a boy. If it is any lower, the physician probably will 32 an easily absorbed iron supplement. Adolescents—and everyone else—should cut out highly processed foods and drinks, which may be low in iron and other nutrients. Read the labels for iron 33 . Especially make sure that all bakery products are made with 34 flour or whole grains. Try adding liver (chicken, beef or any other variety) to the weekly 35 . Finally, even when you are trying to lose weight, always eat a 36 , well-balanced diet made up of a variety of flesh or very lightly processed foods. This way, you stand a good chance of getting not only enough iron, but also adequate amounts of all the other essential nutrients. A. access I. ineffective B. accordingly J. intensify C. advocate K. menu D. automatic L. particularly E. contend M. prescribe F. content N. routine G. enhanced O. sensible H. enriched

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay entitled The Importance of Company by commenting on the saying 'If you live with a lame person you will learn to limp.' You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

单选题 “土豪” “土豪”(Tuhao)一词最早可追溯到1500年前的南朝(the Southern Dynasty)时期，其含义随时间的推移而改变。20世纪20至50年代初，它被广泛用于形容那些在中国农村有钱有势的地主。最近，极富创造性的中国网民赋予了这个词新的含义，他们借用该词来形容那些十分有钱却品味差的人。2013年9月上旬以来，“土豪”一词在中国社交媒体上出现了1亿多次。在BBC近期一档关于中国热词(influential Chinese words)的栏目播出后，该词引起了《牛津词典》编著团队的关注，明年可能会被收入词典中。

单选题The industrial age has been the only period of human history in which most people's work has taken the form of jobs. The industrial age may now be coming to an end, and some of the changes in work 34 which it brought may have to be reversed. This seems a 35 thought. But, in fact, it could offer the 36 of a better future for work. Universal employment, as its history shows, has not meant economic freedom. Employment became 37 when the enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries made many people dependent on paid work by depriving them of the use of the land, and thus of the means to provide a living for themselves. Then the factory system destroyed the cottage industries and 38 work from people's homes. Later, as transport improved, first by rail and then by road, people commuted longer distances to their places of employment until, 39 , many people's work lost all connection with their home lives and the places in which they lived. Meanwhile, employment put women at a disadvantage. It became 40 for the husband to go out to paid employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and families to his wife. It was not only women whose work status 41 . As employment became the dominant form of work, young people and old people were 42 All this may now have to change. The time has certainly come to switch some effort and resources away from the idealist goal of creating jobs for all, to the urgent practical task of 43 many people to manage without full-time jobs. A. amazing F. discouraging K. prospect B. concepts G. eventually L. removed C. customary H. excluded M. suffered D. definitely I. helping N. vision E. deprived J. patterns O. widespread

单选题 Questions24-26 are based on the recording you have just heard.

单选题 中国的语言文字 中文即汉语，通常用来指汉族人使用的语言，包括官方语言和各种方言。中文是中国的通用语言，也是联合国五种官方工作语言之一。中国的其他主要书面语言包括藏语、维吾尔语和蒙古语。据考证，藏语的使用有1300多年的历史，维吾尔语的使用有1000多年的历史，蒙古语的使用有700至800年的历史。近年来，少数民族中使用汉语的人数在不断增加。许多少数民族没有文字，因此他们选择使用汉字或其他相近民族的文字。

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 Questions23-26 are based on the recording you have just heard.