(l)When does history begin? It is tempting to reply "In the beginning", but like many obvious answers, this soon turns out to be unhelpful. As a great Swiss historian once pointed out in another connection, history is the one subject where you cannot begin at the beginning. If we want to, we can trace the chain of human descent back to the appearance of vertebrates, or even to the photosynthetic cells which lie at the start of life itself. We can go back further still, to almost unimaginable upheavals which formed this planet and even to the origins of the universe. Yet this is not "history". (2)Commonsense helps here: history is the story of mankind, of what it has done, suffered or enjoyed. We all know that dogs and cats do not have histories, while human beings do. Even when historians write about a natural process beyond human control, such as the ups and downs of climate, or the spread of disease, they do so only because it helps us to understand why men and women have lived (and died) in some ways rather than others. (3)This suggests that all we have to do is to identify the moment at which the first human beings step out from the shadows of the remote past. It is not quite as simple as that, though. We have to know what we are looking for first and most attempts to define humanity on the basis of observable characteristics prove in the end arbitrary and cramping, as long arguments about "apemen" and "missing links" have shown. Physiological tests help us to classify data but do not identify what is or is not human. That is a matter of a definition about which disagreement is possible. Some people have suggested that human uniqueness lies in language, yet other primates possess vocal equipment similar to our own; when noises are made with it which are signals, at what point do they become speech? Another famous definition is that man is a tool-maker, but observation has cast doubt on our uniqueness in this respect, too, long after Dr. Johnson scoffed at Boswell for quoting it to him. (4)What is surely and identifiably unique about the human species is not its possession of certain faculties or physical characteristics, but what it has done with them—its achievement, or history, in fact. Humanity's unique achievement is its remarkably intense level of activity and creativity, its cumulative capacity to create change. All animals have ways of living, some complex enough to be called cultures. Human culture alone is progressive: it has been increasingly built by conscious choice and selection within it as well as by accident and natural pressure, by the accumulation of a capital of experience and knowledge which man has exploited. Human history began when the inheritance of genetics and behavior which had until then provided the only way of dominating the environment was first broken through by conscious choice. Of course, human beings have always only been able to make their history within limits. These limits are now very wide indeed, but they were once so narrow that it is impossible to identify the first step which took human evolution away from the determination of nature. We have for a long time only a blurred story, obscure both because the evidence is poor and because we cannot be sure exactly what we are looking for.

You will now be asked a question about a familiar topic. After you hear the question, you will have 15 seconds to prepare your response and 45 seconds to speak.What is the best sort of education system for your country? Be specific about details.

I don't think it is advisable that she _______ her little boy of his freedom to spend the spare time as he wish.

{{B}}SECTION B CONVERSATIONSIn this section you will hear two conversations. At the end of each conversation , five questions will be asked about what was said. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken ONCE ONLY. After each question there will be a ten-second pause. During the pause, you should read the four choices of [A], [B], [C] and [D], and mark the best answer to each question on ANSWER SHEET TWO.You have thirty seconds to preview the questions.{{/B}}

PASSAGE THREE

We made an effort not to leave my friend out in the cold when we were planning the birthday party. The underlined part means ______.

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They are such beautiful vases ______ everybody wants to buy ______ they are sold out in less than half an hour.

It is reported that a couple registered for marriage since they have chatted on Wechat for only one month. Is online romance really reliable? The following are the supporters' and opponents' opinions. Read carefully the opinions from both sides and write your response in about 200 words, in which you should first summarize briefly the opinions from both sides and give your view on the issue. Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization, language quality. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks.YES Online love is very romantic and exciting. How does he/she look like? What is his/her view on Pride and Prejudice? It is the mysteriousness that pushes two strangers from afar to know more about each other. In China, one of the preconditions for couples to get married is that the groom must own a house. Unfortunately, many lovers break up for lack of material affluence. Online romance, compared with realistic love, attaches more emphasis on the appeal to each other in spirit and involves less material conditions. Online romance knows no boundary. Boys and girls can chat with each other once they find they have the same topics, regardless of their physical appearance and geographical limit.NO The Internet is a virtual world, in which there impossibly exists real, enduring love since it is very difficult to tell the real from the fake on the Internet. Everything provided online may be proved untrue. Pursuing online romance is sometimes very dangerous because there are many cheaters on the Net. They disguise themselves as perfect lovers, rich, generous and gentle. They know what you want as a soft woman. But all of these are, in fact, tricks they play to cheat money or sex. Online love grows out of illusion and thus is very infirm. Sometimes, they even don't have an overall understanding of the person they dream about. Yet they know each other better, they break up as quickly as they fall in love.

Which of the following best explains the meaning of"Shall we buy the tickets first"?(2012)

The crowd went______as soon as the singer stepped onto the stage.(2011-67)

PASSAGE FOURWhere is the geographical border between continents and oceans?

My boss ordered that the legal documents____to him before lunch.(2012)

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During the reading lesson, the teacher asked students to read a few ______ from the novel.

Which of the following underlined parts is used as an object complement?

You will now be asked to give your opinion about a familiar topic. After you hear the question, you will have 15 seconds to prepare your response and 45 seconds to speak.Some people prefer to keep in touch with their family members and friends by e-mail, while others prefer to use the telephone. Which do you prefer and why?

Book publishers may modify or______ a work with the permission of the copyright owner.

The committee has anticipated the problems that ______ in the road construction project.

(l)Although numbers of animals in a given region may fluctuate from year to year, the fluctuations are often temporary and, over long periods, trivial. Scientists have advanced three theories of population control to account for this relative constancy. (2)The first theory attributes a relatively constant population to periodic climatic catastrophes that decimate populations with such frequency as to prevent them from exceeding some particular limit. In the case of small organisms with short life cycles, climatic changes need not be catastrophic: normal seasonal changes in photoperiod (daily amount of sunlight), for example, can govern population growth. This theory—the density-independent view—asserts that climatic factors exert the same regulatory effect on population regardless of the number of individuals in a region. (3)A second theory argues that population growth is primarily density-dependent—that is, the rate of growth of a population in a region decreases as the number of animals increases. The mechanisms that manage regulation may vary. For example, as numbers increase, the food supply would probably diminish, which would increase mortality. In addition, as Lotka and Volterra have shown, predators can find prey more easily in high-density populations. Other regulators include physiological control mechanisms: for example, Christian and Davis have demonstrated how the crowding that results from a rise in numbers may bring about hormonal changes in the pituitary (垂体) and adrenal glands (肾上腺) that in turn may regulate population by lowering sexual activity and inhibiting sexual maturation. There is evidence that these effects may persist for three generations in the absence of the original provocation. One challenge for density-dependent theorists is to develop models that would allow the precise prediction of the effects of crowding.(4)A third theory, proposed by Wynne-Edwards and termed "epideictic", argues that organisms have evolved a "code" in the form of social or epideictic behavior displays, such as winter roosting aggregations or group vocalizing; such codes provide organisms with information on population size in a region so that they can, if necessary, exercise reproductive restraint. However, Wynne-Edwards' theory, linking animal social behavior and population control, has been challenged, with some justification, by several studies.