单选题 Protecting Student Privacy in the Data Age A. In Kentucky, parents, educators and policy makers can track how many students from a high school go to college, and once they are there, how many require remedial classes (补l习班). Massachusetts is one of several states with an early warning indicator system, which notifies school officials when students appear to be at risk for dropping out of high school. And in Georgia, teachers can easily access years of test scores, class grades and attendance rates for any student. B. Student data advocates argue that used correctly data, including student attendance, test scores and demographics (人口统计), can enrich education. Teachers can better personalize instruction for students, principals can view the academic records of students who move across school districts and parents can determine whether a child is on track for college, to name just a few examples. C. But that promise comes with threats to students' privacy. Parents have expressed concerns that if teachers have easy access to students' entire academic histories, they might write off those with poor records, or that student information might fall into the hands of sexual predators (侵害者). Those concerns have led to heated debates about how much data schools should be collecting, how it should be stored and who should have access to it. D. Over the past year, the Common Core State Standards have also triggered discussions about student data, although the standards do not call for the federal government to collect data. 'There's no denying that education technology has the potential to transform learning if it's used wisely,' said Joni Lupovitz, vice president of policy at Common Sense Media, which this fall launched a campaign to raise awareness about student privacy issues. 'What we're working to ensure is that as educators, parents and student embrace more and more education technology, (and) balance the equation by focusing on student privacy to help ensure that we're creating an atmosphere where kids can learn and be engaged and thrive without putting their personal information at risk.' Relying on a 1970s Law E. Until recently, most states weighing privacy questions relied on the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a 1974 law intended to protect student education records. But in recent years, the U.S. Department of Education has made regulatory changes to the law, creating many exceptions. For example, education records now may be shared with outside contractors, such as private companies that track grades or attendance on behalf of school systems. The changes have prompted some states to examine whether they should play a stronger role in protecting student data. F. Paige Kowalski, director of state policy and advocacy for the Data Quality Campaign, a nonprofit that advocates for the effective use of data to improve student achievement, said states are starting to realize they need more sophisticated and comprehensive policies, regulations and practices around student privacy, and that they can't just rely on FERPA. G. 'All states have privacy laws on the books, but a lot of them are old,' Kowalski said. 'A lot of them just don't have modern policies that were written acknowledging that data is even at the state level, let alone stored electronically and because of technology is able to move.' Kowalski added that states' privacy policies might refer to outdated information practices, such as checking out paper documents, while failing to discuss modern needs like encryption(加密). H. Most school districts rely on cloud computing—meaning data are stored on servers that can be accessed through the Internet—for everything from cafeteria payments to attendance records. But a recent study by the Center on Law and Information Policy at Fordham Law School concluded that most cloud-based services are 'poorly understood, nontransparent and weakly governed' by schools. Most school districts fail to inform parents that they are using cloud-based services, and many contracts with web-based vendors (供应商) fail to address privacy issues, the study found. Keeping Parents in the Dark I. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit research group in Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit in February 2012 against the U.S. Department of Education challenging its FERPA changes, but a federal court dismissed the lawsuit for lack of standing. J. Khaliah Barnes, the center's administrative law counsel, said many schools and states are doing a poor job of informing parents of the issues that can arise with technology. She said school districts should tell parents about the kinds of information they collect, to whom that information is disclosed and for what purposes. Parents should also have the right to opt out of disclosing certain types of information, she said, and should be informed how to access and change incorrect information. K. Barnes said schools are using new technology to collect information that goes far beyond attendance records and test scores. Schools have used palm scanners to help students speed through cafeteria lines, and GPS or microchip (微芯片) technology to tell schools when students get on the right school buses or arrive at school, for example. L. One state leading the conversation on student data privacy is Oklahoma, which in June adopted the Student Data Accessibility, Transparency and Accountability Act establishing rules for the collection and transfer of student data by the state. 'It was designed as a system of safeguards to protect student privacy,' said state representative David Brumbaugh, a Republican, who sponsored the legislation. 'It stops the release of confidential (机密的) data to organizations outside of Oklahoma without written consent of parents or guardians.' M. The law prohibits the state from releasing any student-level data without state approval, which means the education department can release only data that is aggregated and cannot be tied to any individual student. 'To my knowledge, we're the only state that doesn't release student-level data,' said Kim Richey, general counsel for the Oklahoma Department of Education. N. Brumbaugh said he's heard from lawmakers around the country interested in proposing similar legislation for their states. The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council has also proposed model legislation similar to the Oklahoma bill. O. Other states also have taken action on student data privacy this year: In New York, where a handful of bills related to student data privacy have been introduced in the legislature, the Senate Education Committee held a series of public hearings (听证会) on topics including student privacy around a planned data collection system. Last week, state senator John Flanagan called for a one-year delay in the launch of the data collection system. The Long Island Republican urged lawmakers to strengthen protections for data on the statewide data portal (门户网站) and set civil and criminal penalties for violations. Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, a Republican, signed an executive order in May prohibiting the state from collecting or sharing personally identifiable data on students and prohibiting student data from being collected for the development of commercial products or services. In October, the Alabama State Board of Education adopted a new policy on student data that allows the state to share student data with the federal government only in aggregate. The policy also calls on school districts to adopt their own policies on the collection and sharing of student data. Republican Gov. Terry Branstad of Iowa signed an executive order in October reaffirming that student data should be collected in accordance with state and federal privacy laws and that only aggregate student data would be provided to the federal government.

单选题 Questions14-16 are based on the passage you have just heard.

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay by referring to the saying 'Storms make trees take deeper roots.' You can give examples to illustrate your point. You are required to write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

单选题 Dealing with Criticism A. No one likes getting criticism. But it can be a chance to show off a rare skill: taking negative feedback (反馈)well. It is a skill that requires practice, humility and a sizable dose of self-awareness. But the ability to learn from criticism fuels creativity at work, studies show, and helps the free flow of valuable communication. B. Tempering an emotional response can be hard, especially 'if you're genuinely surprised and you're getting that flood of anger and panic,' says Douglas Stone, a lecturer at Harvard Law School and co-author of 'Thanks for the Feedback.' C. Gillian Florentine was stunned when a supervisor at a previous employer accused her of working 'under the cover of darkness.' She was gathering internal data for a proposal she planned to present to him on scheduling flexibility for information-technology employees, says Ms. Florentine, a Pittsburgh human-resources consultant. She knew she should respond calmly, acknowledge that she sometimes made decisions on her own and ask specifically what had upset him. Her emotional response overrode her judgment, however. 'I was like, 'Are you kidding me?'' she says. 'I felt offended and personally hurt,' and responded in an angry tone. Ms. Florentine later smoothed over the rift and promised to keep the boss better informed. But she told him that his wording had 'felt like a personal attack on my integrity.' D. Many employees don't get much practice receiving negative feedback, managers say. It is out of fashion, for one thing: Some 94% of human-resources managers favour positive feedback, saying it has a bigger impact on employees' performance than criticism, according to a 2013 survey of 803 employers by the Society for Human Resource Management and Globoforce. Performance reviews are infrequent, with 77% of employers conducting them only once a year. E. When people are criticized, the strong feelings that follow can be tough to control. 'If you end up in a puddle of tears, that's going to be the memorable moment,' says Dana Brownlee, founder of Professionalism Matters, Atlanta, a corporate-training company. F. If tears well up or you feel yourself becoming defensive, ask to wait 24 hours before responding, says Brad Karsh, president of JB Training Solutions, Chicago, a consulting and training company. 'Say, 'thank you very much for the feedback. What I'd like to do is think about it.'' G. People react badly to feedback for one of three reasons, says Mr. Stone: The criticism may seem wrong or unfair. The listener may dislike or disrespect the person giving it. Or the feedback may rock the listener's sense of identity or security. H. Some people distort feedback into a devastating personal critique. Mr. Stone suggests writing down: 'What is this feedback about, and what is it not about?' Then, change your thinking by eliminating distorted thoughts. 'The goal is to get the feedback back into the fight-sized box' as a critique of specific aspects of your current performance, he says. I. Mr. Stone recalls a meeting years ago where a client tossed down on the table a report he and his colleague and co-author Sheila Heen had written and yelled, 'This is a piece of s—!' Mr. Stone says his heart sank: 'I'm thinking, 'This meeting is not going well.'' But Ms. Heen had a comeback: 'When you say s—, could you be more specific? What do you mean?' The questions touched off a useful two-hour discussion, Mr. Stone says. Ms. Heen confirms the account. J. 'What' questions, such as 'What evidence did you see?' tend to draw out more helpful information, says productivity-training consultant Garrett Miller. Questions that begin with 'why,' such as, 'Why are you saying that?' breed resentment and bog down the conversation, says Mr. Miller, chief executive of CoTria, Tranquility, N.J. K. It is tempting to dismiss criticism from a boss you dislike. Lori Kleiman, a speaker and author on human-resource issues in Chicago, finished a sales call several years ago by signing up a new client. A manager who had been listening in called afterward, congratulated her, then delivered a critique: Ms. Kleiman said 'like' too often while talking to the client. Ms. Kleiman felt angry at the call, because she felt this manager frequently 'one-upped' her, and at first dismissed the feedback, she says. But after some thought, she saw that the manager was right. As a result, she says, she began to choose her words more carefully and broke the habit. L. Extra restraint is needed if a boss or colleague issues a critique in a meeting in front of others. 'Don't create a scene. Just nod and keep a smile,' says Mr. Karsh. Later, acknowledge the feedback, but explain that it wasn't appropriate or helpful to receive it in front of others. Ask that in the future, 'we have those discussions one-on-one,' he says. M. Employees tend to become less defensive if they receive frequent feedback, says Catalina Andrade, training and benefits manager at Tris3ct, a Chicago marketing agency. Tris3ct trains managers to give frequent, direct feedback and to show understanding while doing so. N. Some feedback may actually be out of line with your performance or character. It is fair to ask a supervisor about the basis for the critique, Mr. Karsh says. If the boss hasn't bothered to gather estimations from co-workers, clients or customers who know and depend on your work, it may be all fight to ask that their evaluations be included. O. After reflecting on feedback for a while, however, most people realize, 'I can totally see why someone would say that,' Mr. Karsh adds. Mr. Miller, the productivity consultant, says he was angry when a boss on a previous job scolded him for hosting an informal team strategy meeting the night before an all-employee conference. The meeting was productive. But the boss criticized Mr. Miller, reminding him of the boss's directive that no conference gatherings were to begin until the next day. 'I was screaming in my mind,' Mr. Miller says, but he kept quiet. After some thought, he realized that 'it wasn't about whether I made a good business decision. It was about his authority.' He called the boss and left a voice-mail apology, saying he should have cleared his plans in advance. 'All feedback has some truth in it,' even if only to reveal how others think, Mr. Miller says. Before dismissing it, ask yourself, 'What I can learn from this?'

单选题 I've twice been to college admissions wars, and as I survey the battlefield, something different is happening. It's one upmanship among parents. We see our kids college 25 as trophies (奖杯) attesting to how well we've raised them. But we can't acknowledge that our obsession is more about us than them. So we've contrived various 26 that turn out to be half truths, prejudices or myths. We have a full blown prestige panic; we worry that there won't be enough trophies to go around. Fearful parents urge their children to apply to more schools than ever. Underlying the hysteria is the belief that scarce 27 degrees must be highly valuable. Their graduates must enjoy more success because they get a better education and develop better contacts, All that's 28 —and mostly wrong. Selective schools don't systematically 29 better instructional approaches than less-selective schools. Some do; some don't. On two measures—professors feedback and the number of essay exams—selective schools do slightly worse. By some studies, selective schools do enhance their graduates lifetime earnings. The gain is reckoned at 2 percent to 4 percent for every 100 point increase in a school's average SAT scores. But even this advantage is probably a 30 fluke (意外). A well known study by Princeton economist Alan Krueger and Stacy Berg Dale of Mathematica Policy Research examined students who got into highly selective schools and then went elsewhere. They earned just as much as graduates from other schools. Kids count more than their colleges. Getting into Yale may 31 intelligence, talent and ambition. But it's not the only indicator and, 32 , its significance is declining. The reason: So many similar people go elsewhere. Getting into college isn't life's only competition. In the next competition—the job market, graduate school—the results may change. Old boy networks are breaking down. Krueger studied admissions to one top Ph. D. program. High scores on the Graduate Record Exam helped explain who got in; Ivy League degrees didn't. So, parents, lighten up. The stakes have been vastly exaggerated. Up to a point, we can 33 our pushiness (执意强求). America is a competitive society; our kids need to adjust to that. But too much pushiness can be 34 . The very ambition we impose on our children may get some into Harvard but may also set them up for disappointment. One study of students 20 years out found that, other things being equal, graduates of highly selective schools experienced more job dissatisfaction. They may have been so Conditioned to being on top that anything less disappoints. A. advantageous B. contrarily C. destructive D. elite E. employ F. junction G. justifications H. literally I. manipulate J. meditate K. plausible L. ranks M. rationalize N. signify O. statistical

单选题 Video games have become increasingly popular in both arcades and the average American home. People of all ages and from all walks of life are enjoying hours of entertainment by feeding their time and quarters into these flashing, beeping machines. Many skeptics as well as prospective arcade owners have asked what it is that gives Pac Man, Centipede, and a multitude of other popular games their magnetic appeal to millions of players. As a video player myself, I believe there are many answers to that question but three are outstanding. Before a full-scale attack is launched against young video players for 'throwing away' their quarters, one should first consider the rising costs of more traditional forms of entertainment. For instance, eighteen holes of miniature golf or ten frames of bowling will cost the player at least two dollars, and one movie costs four bucks. For just two dollars, a video player can get at least eight games, and the better he gets, the longer he can play. Compare that record with the game of miniature golf, where the better one becomes, the shorter amount of time he gets to play. Not only are the games less expensive than other forms of entertainment, but they are also more in tune with the important issues of the day. Even those people who have never been interested in science are beginning to appreciate how much science influences our lives today. Video games, which are the products of advanced technology and uncontrolled imagination, have brought today's youth closer than ever to the exciting world of science by games. In fact, there are even cartridges which teach garners how to program computers. It is exciting to be involved with the most up-to-date ideas of the day, and video games help provide people with the opportunity to be involved. Besides the fact that they help people to get involved in technology, video games also provide an out-let for the emotions and the ego. If a man gets frustrated with his boss, for example, he can go to the arcade after work to destroy enemy cruisers rather than drown his anxieties in liquor. Also, for those who feel they are not capable of excelling at anything, the games provide challenges which are easily mastered with patience and practice. It gives a person a good feeling to know that he has broken his own record or that of someone else.

单选题 Tricks of the Trade A. As children, we are taught that working hard will get us good grades. When it comes to your job, the same logic should apply: being successful is all about working hard and getting the work done. But what if instead of impressing your new employer with your education, training and skills on your CV, it was your firm handshake and smile that got you hired? Or have you ever considered that those junks on your desk left over are causing your colleagues to doubt your abilities? And did nobody tell you that your chances of getting a raise may rest on whether you ask for it face-to-face or via email? B. If psychology research is anything to go by, the 9-to-5 is a minefield (危险地带), with a subconscious psychological disaster hiding around every corner. C. We're not suggesting that these mental undercurrents govern your work life, but they certainly play a part. Whether it's deciding who to trust, or successfully matting a deal, the workplace decisions we think we make with skill and sense are, in part, affected by mind games we often aren't even aware of. D. If that sounds depressing, look at it another way—use these psychological insights to your advantage and just imagine what they might do for you. 1. Smarten up E. Should your colleagues really care what you look like? Probably not—in an ideal world, we'd all be judged on our ability, not our personal appearance or vital statistics. Yet that's simply not how things work, says V. Bhaskar, a professor of economics at University College London. 'Humans have a bias towards attractive people and lots of research has shown that this can translate into a huge advantage in the labour market,' he says. In other words, good-looking people earn more than their less pretty colleagues. So it pays to look your best in the office. F. One possible explanation for this is that attractive people are generally more healthy and so therefore more productive at work. Unfortunately, this seems unlikely, as Bhaskar showed in a recent study. He invited participants to take part in a game-show. Even when good-looking people performed worse on a task than their less attractive counterparts, Bhaskar found they were still preferentially selected to go through to the next round. G. We don't realise we're doing it but it is human nature to discriminate according to looks, says Bhaskar, perhaps because the pressures of selecting a good mate have ended up as a false analogy (类比) in the work place. Once we become aware that we are prejudicing people in this way, perhaps we can make an effort to address that bias, he adds. But until then, you may as well make an effort to look good at work and use this subconscious preference to your advantage. H. While you're giving yourself a makeover, you could also consider doing the same for your work space. Even if you hadn't noticed the coffee rings on your desk, chances are your colleagues have, and it could have a bigger influence on your relationships than you might think. Psychologists at the University of Plymouth found that cleanliness actually reduces the severity of moral judgements against the person whose hygiene (卫生) is in question. 'Because of its potential to lead people to regard moral actions as pure and good,' the psychologists conclude, 'cleanliness might indeed feel as if it were next to godliness.' I. If you know you're a little untidy, and certainly won't be winning any beauty contests, don't worry, there are plenty of other ways to gain popularity with your co-workers. Try taking some advice from Madonna and 'Express Yourself'. During an experiment in which subjects were shown images of facial expressions, Barbara Wild and colleagues at the University of Tübingen, Germany, found that stronger facial expressions had a more powerful emotional response in the viewer, giving extra meaning to the saying 'smile and the world smiles with you'. 2. Breeze the interview J. The job market hasn't been this competitive for decades, so once you get an interview you'll want to make an immediate impression, and the first step is to get a grip. Anyone who has encountered a limp handshake will likely feel dislike at the thought, and now researchers at the University of Iowa have shown that a firm handshake, along with looking the interviewer in the eye, can boost your chances of getting hired. It's especially good news for the ladies, because the effect is stronger for women than men. A firm handshake subconsciously infers that the candidate is confident, and women capitalise on this to a greater extent simply because men are expected to have a stronger handshake in the first place. K. For those still not convinced that first impressions matter, Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov at Princeton University found that we take one-tenth of a second to look at a face before making a snap decision about qualities such as trustworthiness, liability and competence. Even your facial features can make a difference—faces with upturned mouths and eyebrows that go up in the middle are judged by our brains to be more trustworthy. You can't change your face, of course, but these features are easy enough to imitate, and might give you the edge when you meet the interview panel. L. If the thought that people are making judgements on your personality based on nothing more than a glimpse at your face is getting you hot under the collar, try not to let nerves get the better of you. In fact, you really should try to relax and smile. Because of a phenomenon called the 'halo effect'—whereby one good character trait will influence what people will infer about other traits—simply being warm and friendly can make the interviewer think better of your other attributes. In an experiment run by Richard E. Nisbett and colleagues at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, two interviews were staged with the same interviewee and recorded on video. In one interview he was warm and friendly and in the other cold and distant. When people watched the film in which he was cold and distant, they rated his appearance, accent and mannerisms as irritating, whereas those who watched the warm and friendly video found those exact same attributes to be appealing. M. So don't be tempted to be too serious; just coming across as warm and friendly will have the interviewer imagining all sorts of other good qualities that you may, or may not, possess. 3. Bust that stress N. When work is getting too much, it's a common reaction to cut down on leisure activities to allow more time to get things done. Counter-intuitively, however, keeping up a range of enjoyable interests has been shown to reduce blood pressure, your body-mass index and even levels of the 'stress hormone'. O. Where you take your break also makes a difference. Head to a park for maximum benefits, advises Ross Cameron from the University of Reading-, UK, as a green environment has psychological benefits. P. Most work activities, like reading at your desk, require what psychologists call 'directed attention'. These tasks command all your concentration, which will end up taking a toll, leading to symptoms of stress. Getting out into a green environment helps you switch to a 'distracted' attention mode, where your surroundings can drift in and out of your mind without requiring all your attention at once. This, in turn, helps us to relax. Q. 'There's strong evidence to show that as soon as you step into a park your blood pressure levels come down. Your body relaxes quickly in the natural environment,' says Cameron. Even having green plants on your desk can help to increase attention span and promote enjoyment at work, he adds.

单选题 Questions13-15 are based on the passage you have just heard.

单选题 Like most people, I've long understood that I will be judged by my occupation, that my profession is a gauge people use to see how smart or talented I am. Recently, I was disappointed to see that it also decides how I'm treated as a person. Last year I left a Professional position as a small-town reporter and took a job waiting tables. As someone paid to serve food to people, I had customers say and do things to me I suspect they're never say or do to their most casual acquaintances. One night a man talking on his cell phone waved me away, then beckoned(示意) me back with his finger a minute later, complaining he was ready to order and asking where I'd been. I had waited tables during summers in college and was treated like a peon(勤杂工) by plenty of people. But at 19 years old, I believed I deserved inferior treatment from professional adults. Besides, people responded to me differently after I told them I was in college. Customers would joke that one day I'd be sitting at their table, waiting to be served. Once I graduated I took a job at a community newspaper. From my first day, I heard a respectful tone from everyone who called me. I assumed this was the professional world worked—cordially. I soon found out differently. I sat several feet away from an advertising sales representative with a similar name. Our calls would often get mixed up and someone asking for Kristen would be transferred to Christie. The mistake was immediately evident. Perhaps it was because money was involved, but people used a tone with Kristen that they never used with me. My job title made people treat me with courtesy. So it was a shock to the restaurant industry. It's no secret that there's a lot to put up with when waiting tables, and fortunately, much of it can be easily forgotten when you pocket the tips. The service industry, by definition, exists to cater to other's needs. Still, it seemed that many of my customers didn't get the difference between server and servant. I'm now applying to graduate school, which means somebody I'll return to a profession where people need to be nice to me in order to get what they want. I think I'll take them to dinner first, and see how they treat someone whose only job is to serve them.

单选题 The pace of human evolution has been increasing at a stunning rate since our ancestors began spreading through Europe, Asia and Africa 40000 years ago, quickening to 100 times historical levels after agriculture became widespread, according to a study published today. By examining more than 3 million variants of DNA in 269 people, researchers identified about 1800 genes that have been widely adopted in relatively recent times because they offer some evolutionary benefit. Until recently, anthropologists believed that evolutionary pressure on humans eased after the transition to a more stable agrarian (农业的) lifestyle. But in the last few years, they realized the opposite was true—diseases swept through societies in which large groups lived in close quarters for a long time. Altogether, the recent genetic changes account for 7% of the human genome, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The advantage of all but about 100 of the genes remains a mystery, said University of Wisconsin-Madison anthropologist John Hawks, who led the study. But the research team was able to conclude that infectious diseases and the introduction of new foods were the primary reasons that some genes swept through populations with such speed. 'If there were not a mismatch between the population and the environment, there wouldn't be any selection,' Hawks said. 'Dietary changes, disease changes—those create circumstances where selection can happen.' One of the most famous examples is the spread of a gene that allows adults to digest milk. Though children were able to drink milk, they typically developed lactose (乳糖) intolerance as they grew up. But after cattle and goats were domesticated in Europe and yaks and mares were domesticated in Asia, adults with a mutation that allowed them to digest milk had a nutritional advantage over those without. AS a result, they were more likely to have healthy offspring, prompting the mutation to spread, Hawks said. The mechanism also explains why genetic resistance to malaria has spread among Africans—who live where disease-carrying mosquitoes are prevalent—but not among Europeans or Asians. Most of the genetic changes the researchers identified were found in only one geographic group or another. Races as we know them today didn't exist until fewer than 20000 years ago, when genes involved in skin pigmentation (天然颜色) emerged, Hawks said. Paler skin allowed people in northern latitudes to absorb more sunlight to make vitamin D. 'As populations expanded into new environments, the pressures faced in those environments would have been different,' said Noah Rosenberg, a human geneticist at the University of Michigan, who wasn't involved in the study. 'So it stands to reason that in different parts of the world, different genes will appear to have experienced natural selection.'

单选题 The report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was just as gloomy as anticipated. Unemployment in January jumped to a 16-year high of 7.6 percent, as 598,000 jobs were slashed from U.S. payrolls in the worst single-month decline since December, 1974. With 1.8 million jobs lost in the last three months, there is urgent desire to boost the economy as quickly as possible. But Washington would do well to take a deep breath before reacting to the grim numbers. Collectively, we rely on the unemployment figures and other statistics to frame our sense of reality. They are a vital part of an array of data that we use to assess if we're doing well or doing badly, and that in turn shapes government policies and corporate budgets and personal spending decisions. The problem is that the statistics aren't an objective measure of reality; they are simply a best approximation. Directionally, they capture the trends, but the idea that we know precisely how many are unemployed is a myth. That makes finding a solution all the more difficult. First, there is the way the data is assembled. The official unemployment rate is the product of a telephone survey of about 60,000 homes. There is another survey, sometimes referred to as the 'payroll survey,' that assesses 400,000 businesses based on their reported payrolls. Both surveys have problems. The payroll survey can easily, double-count someone: if you are one person with two jobs, you show up as two workers. The payroll survey also doesn't capture the number of self-employed, and so says little about how many people are generating an independent income. The household survey has a larger problem. When asked straightforwardly, people tend to lie or shade the truth when the subject is sex, money or employment. If you get a call and are asked if you're employed, and you say yes, you're employed. If you say no, however, it may surprise you to learn that you are only unemployed if you've been actively looking for work in the past four weeks; otherwise, you are 'marginally attached to the labor force' and not actually unemployed. The urge to quantify is embedded in our society. But the idea that statisticians can then capture an objective reality isn't just impossible. It also leads to serious misjudgments. Democrats and Republicans can and will take sides on a number of issues, but a more crucial concern is that both are basing major policy decisions on guesstimates rather than looking at the vast wealth of raw data with a critical eye and an open mind.

单选题It is important that scientists be seen as normal people asking and answering important questions. Good, sound science depends on 28 , experiments and reasoned methodologies. It requires a willingness to ask new questions and try new approaches. It requires one to take risks and experience failures. But good science also requires 29 understanding, clear explanation and concise presentation. Our country needs more scientists who are willing to step out in the public 30 and offer their opinions on important matters. We need more scientists who can explain what they are doing in language that is 31 and understandable to the public. Those of us who are not scientists should also be prepared to support public engagement by scientists, and to 32 scientific knowledge into our public communications. Too many people in this country, including some among our elected leadership, still do not understand how science works or why robust, long-range investments in research vitally matter. In the 1960s, the United States 33 nearly 17% of discretionary (可酌情支配的) spending to research and development, 34 decades of economic growth. By 2008, the figure had fallen into the single 35 . This occurs at a time when other nations have made significant gains in their own research capabilities. At the University of California (UC), we 36 ourselves not only on the quality of our research, but also on its contribution to improving our world. To 37 the development of science from the lab bench to the market place, UC is investing our own money in our own good ideas. A. arena B. contextual C. convincing D. devoted E. digits F. hasten G. hypotheses H. impairing I. incorporate J. indefinite K. indulge L. inertia M. pride N. reaping O. warrant

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

单选题 Questions24-27 are based on the recording you have just heard.

单选题 Several years ago I was teaching a course on the philosophical assumptions and cultural impact of massive multi-user online games at Williams College. The students in the course were very intelligent and obviously interested in the topic. But as the semester progressed, I began to detect a problem with the class. The students were working hard and performing well but there was no energy in our discussions and no passion in the students. They were hesitant to express their ideas and often seemed to be going through the motions. I tried to encourage them to be more venturesome with tactics I had used successfully in the past but nothing worked. One day I asked them what was or, perhaps better, was not going on. Why were they so cautious and where was their enthusiasm for lean, g? They seemed relieved to talk about it and their response surprised me. Since pre-kindergarten, they explained, they had been programmed to perform well so they could get to the next level. They had been taught the downside of risk and encouraged to play it safe. What mattered most was getting into a good elementary school, middle school and high school so that they would finally be admitted to a top college. Having succeeded beyond their parents' wildest expectations, they did not know why they were in college and had no idea what to do after graduation. In today's market-driven economy we constantly hear that choice is the highest good and that competition fuels innovation. But this is not always true. Choice provokes anxiety and competition can quell (压制) the imagination and discourage the spirit of experimentation that is necessary for creativity. In a world obsessed with ratings, well-meaning parents all too often train their children to jump through the hoops they think will lead to success. This was a bad bet—the course many young people were forced to take has not paid off. The lucrative jobs they expected as a reward for years of hard work have vanished and show little sign of returning in the near future. The difficult truth is that their education has not prepared them for the world they face. Though many young people have become disillusioned with Wall Street and all it represents and would like to pursue alternative careers, they have neither the educational nor financial resources to do so. The situation is critical—colleges and universities must be reformed in ways that allow students to develop the knowledge and skills they need for creative and productive lives. And parents must give their children the freedom to explore possibilities they never could have imagined.