单选题For admissions officers reviewing applications is like final-exam week for students--except it lasts for months. Great applications tell us we've done our job well, by attracting top-caliber students. But it's challenging to maintain the frenetic pace without forgetting these are all real people with real aspirations--people whose life stories we are here to unravel, if they will let us. The essay is a key piece of learning those life stories. I live near Los Angeles, where every day screenplays are read without regard for human context. The writer's life and dreams don't matter--all that mat ters is the writing, the ideas, the end product. On the other hand, in reading essays, context does matter: who wrote this? We are driven to put the jigsaw puzzle together because we think we are building a community, not just choosing neat stories. When I pick up a file, I want to know whether the student has siblings or not, who his parents are, where he went to high school. Then I want the essay to help the rest of the application make sense, to humanize all the numbers that flow past. I am looking for insight. A brilliantly written essay may compel me to look beyond superficial shortcomings in an application. But if no recommendation or grade or test score hints at such writing talent, I may succumb to cynicism and assume the writer had help--maybe too much. In the worst cases, I may find that I have read it before--with name and place changed--on the Internet, in an essay-editing service or a "best essays" hook. The most appealing essays take the opportunity to show a voice not rendered homogeneous and pasteurized. But sometimes the essays tell us too much. Pomona offers this instruction with one essay option: "We realize that not everything done in life is about getting into college. Tell us about something you did that was just plain fun." One student grimly reported that nothing was fun because in his family everything was about getting into college. Every activity, course choice and spare moment. It did spark our sympathy, but it almost led to a call to Child Protective Services as well. Perfection isn't required. We have seen phenomenal errors in essays that haven't damaged a student at all. I recall a student who wrote of the July 1969 lunar landing of--I kid you not--Louis Armstrong. I read on, shaking my head. This student was great--a jazz trumpeter who longed to study astronomy. It was a classic slip and perhaps a hurried merging of two personal heroes. He was offered admission, graduated and went on for a PhD in astrophysics. He may not have been as memorable if he had named "Nell" instead of "Louis" in his essay's opening line. Hey, we're human, too. An essay that is rough around the edges may still be compelling. Good ideas make an impression, even when expressed with bad punctuation and spelling errors. Energy and excitement can be communicated. I'm not suggesting the "I came, I saw, I conquered" approach to essay writing, nor the "I saved the world" angle taken by some students who write about community-service projects. I'm talking about smaller moments that are well captured. Essays don't require the life tragedy that so many seem to think is necessary. Not all admission offers come out of sympathy! Admissions officers, even at the most selective institutions, really aren't looking for perfection in 17-and 18-year-olds. We are looking for the human being behind the roster of activities and grades. We are looking for those who can let down their guard just a bit to allow others in. We are looking for people whose egos won't get in the way of learning, students whose investment in ideas and words tells us--in the con-text of their records--that they are aware of a world beyond their own homes, schools, grades and scores. A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. To us, an essay that reveals a student's unaltered voice is worth much, much more.

单选题We see distant galaxies as they were long ,long ago because

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单选题Whendidthewomangiveupsmoking?[A]Tendaysago.[B]Justthismorning.[C]Aweekago.[D]Justyesterday.

单选题Who is the speaker?

单选题{{B}}Part B{{/B}} In the following article some paragraphs have been removed. For Questions 66～70, choose the most suitable paragraph from the list A~F to fit into each of the numbered gaps. There is one paragraph which does not fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. The press is constantly reminding us that the dramatic increase in the age of our population over the next 30 or so years will cause national healthcare systems to collapse, economies to crumple under the strain of pension demands and disintegrating families to buckle under increasing care commitments. Yet research at Oxford is beginning to expose some of the widespread myths that underlie this rhetoric. Demographic ageing is undoubtedly a reality. Life expectancy in developed countries has risen continuously over the past century, increasing the percentage of those over the age of 60 relative to those under the age of 15. By 2030 half the population of Western Europe will be over the age of 50, with a predicted average life expectancy of a further 40 years. By then, a quarter of the population will be over 65 and by 2050 the UK's current number of 10,000 centenarians are predicted to have reached a quarter of a million. Some demographers have even suggested that half of all baby girls born in the West today will live to see the next century. 66.______ Indeed, if this could be achieved throughout the world, it would surely count as the success of civilization, for then we would also have conquered the killers of poverty, disease, famine and war. Decreasing mortality rates, increasing longevity and declining fertility mean smaller percentages of young people within populations. Over the past 20 years life expectancy at birth in the UK has risen by four years for men (to75) and three years for women (to 80). Meanwhile fertility rates across Europe have declined more or less continuously over the past 40 years and remain well below the levels required for European populations to be able to replace themselves without substantive immigration. But again, rather than seeing this as a doom and gloom scenario, we need to explore the positive aspects of these demographics. The next 50 years should provide us with an opportunity to enjoy the many advantages of a society with a mature population structure. 67.______ The first of these is the current political rhetoric which claims that health services across the Western world are collapsing under the strain of demographic ageing. 68.______ The second myth is the view that the ratio of workers to non-workers will become so acute that Western economies will collapse, compounded by a massive growth in pension debt. While there are undoubted concerns over current pension shortfalls, it is aiso clear that working lives will themselves change over the next few decades, with a predicted increase in flexible and part-time work and the probable extension of working life until the age of 70. Indeed, we have to recognize that we cannot expect to retire at the age of 50 and then be able to support ourselves for another 40 or so years. Neither a solid pension scheme nor savings can carry people that long. 69.______ A further myth is that we will all live in loose, multigenerational families, experiencing increased emotional distancing from our kin. Evidence from a variety of studies across the developed world suggests that, if anything, the modem family is actually becoming more close-knit. Work carded out by the Oxford Institute in Scandinavia and in a Pan-European Family Care Study, for example, shows that despite the influence of the welfare state, over the past 10 years, people have come to value family relationships more than previously. 70.______ In the developed world, therefore, we can see actual benefits from population ageing: a better balance between age groups, mature and less volatile societies, with an emphasis on age integration. The issues will be very different in other parts of the world. Herein lies another myth: that the less developed world will escape from demographic ageing. Instead, the massive increase in the age of populations facing these countries-predicted to be up to one billion older people within 30 years--is potentially devastating. The problem is not only that demographic ageing is occurring at a far greater pace than we have seen'in Western nations, but also that few if any developing countries have the economic development and infrastructure necessary to provide widespread public pensions and healthcare to these growing elderly populations. As a result, older people are among the poorest in every developing country. They have the lowest levels of income, education and literacy, they lack savings and assets, have only limited access to work, and even in times of crisis are usually the last to be cared for under emergency aid programmes. Perhaps of most concern is healthcare, for as we conquer acute diseases, we are going to see a rapid increase in levels of chronic illness and disability, but no long-term care programmes or facilities to tackle this. A. Since it is likely that a longer active working life will coincide with a predicted labor shortage resulting from a lack of younger workers, we need to provide the opportunities and training to encourage older men and women to remain economically productive. Our studies show that there are benefits from having an age-in-tegrated workforce. It is another myth that older workers are less productive than younger ones. In fact, the combined energy of younger workers with the experience of older ones can lead to increased productivity—something from which young and old alike will benefit. B. In 2001, in recognition of the significance of these demographic changes and the global challenges and opportunities that will accompany them, the Oxford Institute of Ageing was established at the University. It is made up of researchers in demography, sociology, economics, social anthropology, philosophy and psychology, with links to other specialists in medicine, biology, law and policy in research units across the University. This cross-disciplinary approach has made it possible to challenge some of the most pervasive myths about ageing societies. C. As Institute healthcare ethicist Kenneth Howse points out, family obligations towards older relatives may change over the next 20 years, but current indications are that families are retaining a strong responsibility to care. Furthermore, as societies age, the contributory role of older people as grandparents becomes more important. Work by Institute researchers on another European Union study on multi-generational families has highlighted the role that grandparents play by freeing up the responsibilities of the younger reproductive population. D. It is clear that the changing demographic landscape poses challenges for the future. The necessity now is to develop appropriate economic, social and political structures to take advantage of the opportunities that mature societies will bring, while ensuring that there are appropriate safety nets for those left vulnerable within these populations—which will include both young and old alike. E. Rather than fearing such a future, however, we should see this trend as a great success. It must undoubtedly be a major achievement of civilization that most individuals within a society can expect to enjoy a long and healthy lifespan. F. George Leeson, a demographer at the Institute, points out that while a number of cross-national studies have considered the determinants of spiraling healthcare costs, only one has found the explanatory factor to be the proportion of the population aged 65 and over. Rather, it is growth in income, lifestyle characteristics and environmental factors such as technology and drugs that are driving up healthcare costs. In addition, the costs are shifting between population groups. The key here, he adds, is to develop sufficiently flexible health service structures to shift not only economic resources but also personnel.

单选题{{I}} Questions 18 to 20 are based on the following talk between two students about campus life. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 18 to 20.{{/I}}

单选题Why does the Western movie especially have such a hold on our imagination? Chiefly, I think, because it offers serious insights into the problem of violence such as can be found almost nowhere in our culture. One of the well-known peculiarities of modern civilized opinion is its refusal to acknowledge the value of violence. This refusal is virtue, but like many virtues it involves a certain willful blindness and it encourages hypocrisy. We train ourselves to be shocked or bored by cultural images of violence, and our very concept of heroism tends to be a passive one: we are less drawn to the brave young men who kill large numbers of our enemies than to the heroic prisoners who endure torture without capitulating. And in the criticism of popular culture, the presence of images of violence is often assumed to be in itself a sufficient ground for condemnation. These attitudes, however, have not reduced the element of violence in our culture but have helped to free it from moral control by letting it take on the aura of " emancipation". The celebration of acts of violence is left more and more to the irresponsible. The gangster movie, with its numerous variations, belongs to a cultural "underground" which glamorizes violence and sets it against all our higher social attitudes. It is more "modern" genre than the Western movie, perhaps even more profound, because it confronts industrial society on its own ground — the city — and because, like much of our advanced art, it gains its effects by a gross insistence on its own narrow logic. But it is anti-social, resting on fantasies of irresponsible freedom. If we are brought finally to ''acquiesce'' in the denial of these fantasies, it is only because they have been shown to be dangerous, not because they have given way to higher values of behaviour. In war movies, to be sure, it is possible to present violence within a framework of responsibility. But there is the disadvantage that modern war is a co-operative enterprise in which violence is largely impersonal and heroism belongs to the group more than to the individual. The hero of a war movie is most often simply a leader, and his superiority is likely to be expressed in a denial of the heroic: you are not supposed to be brave, you are supposed to get the job done and stay alive (this too, of course, is a kind of heroic posture, but a new — and "practical"— one). At its best, the war movie may represent a more civilized point of view than the Western, and if it, were not continually marred by ideological sentimentality we might hope to find it developing into a higher form of drama. But it cannot supply values we seek in the Western movies. These values are in the image of a single man who wears a gun on his thigh. The gun tells us that he lives in a world of violence, and even that he "believes in violence". But the drama is one of self-restraint: the moment of violence must come in its own time and according to its special laws, or else it is valueless. He is there to remind us of the possibility of style in an age which has put on itself the burden of pretending that style has no meaning, and, in the midst of our anxieties over the problem of violence, to suggest that even in killing or being killed we are not freed from the necessity of establishing satisfactory models of behaviour.

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单选题 In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on your answer sheet.

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单选题 Questions 14 to 16 are based on a talk on pruritus, so called "severe itching"—why and how body parts itch. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 16.

单选题______ is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. [A] Linguistics [B] Language [C] Psycholinguistics [D] Applied linguistics

单选题Questions 17 to 20 are based on the following talk about Immanuel Kant, who played art important role in the development of geographical thought. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 17 to 20.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Painting your house is like adding something to a huge communal picture in which the rest of the painting is done either by nature or by other people. The picture is not static; it changes as we move about, with the time of day, with the seasons, with new planting, new buildings and with alterations to old ones. Any individual house is just a fragment of this picture, nevertheless it has the power to make or mark the overall scene. In the past people used their creative talents in painting their homes, with great imagination and in varied but always subtly blending colors. The last vestiges of this great tradition can still be seen in the towns of the extreme west of Ireland. It has never been recognized as an art form, partly because of the physical difficulty of hanging a street in a gallery and partly because it is always changing, as paint fades and is renewed. Also it is a communal art which cannot be identified with any person, except in those many cases where great artists of the past found inspiration in ordinary street scenes and recorded them in paint. Following the principles of decoration that were so successful in the past, you should first take a long look at the house and its surroundings and consider possible limitations. The first concerns the amount of color and intensity in the daylight in Britain. Colors that look perfectly in keeping with the sunny, clear skies of the Mediterranean would look too harsh in the grayer light of the north. Since bright light is uncomfortable for the eyes, colors must be strong in order to be seen clearly. Viewed in a dimmer light they appear too bright. It is easy to see this if you look at a brick house while the sun is alternately shining and then going behind a cloud. The brick work colors look much more intense when the sun is hidden. The second limitation is the colors of the surroundings: the colors which go best with Cotswold stone and a rolling green countryside will be different from those that look best by the sea or in a red - brick/ blue - slate industrial town. In every area there are always colors that at once look in keeping. In many areas there are distinctive traditions in the use of color that may be a useful guide. The eastern countries of England and Scotland, particularly those with a local tradition of rendering of plastering, use colors applied solidly over the wall. Usually only the window frames and doors are picked out in another color, often white or pale grey. Typical wall colors are the pink associated with Suffolk and pate buffs. Much stronger colors such as deep earth red, orange, blue and green are also common. In the coastal villages of Essex, as well as inland in Hertfordshire, the house - fronts of over - lapping boards are traditionally painted black originally tarred like ships with windows and doors outlined in white. In Kent these weather boarded houses are usually white. In stone areas of Yorkshire and farther north, color is rare; the houses are usually left in their natural color, though many are painted white as they probably all were once.

单选题The service in this restaurant is very poor；　there are not enough waiters to wait ______ customers.

单选题We have had an industrial civilization for only 200 years and already we're stockpiling nuclear weapons, overpopulating the planet, poisoning the air, the water and the soil, destroying fertile land, developing an energy crisis, and running low on resources. Many think glumly that there is no solution to all this--that we are headed on a collision course with damnation and that we are the last generation of civilization. It can even be argued that this is the inevitable consequence of intelligence: that intelligent beings anywhere gradually develop a greater and greater understanding of the laws of nature until their power exceeds their wisdom and they destroy themselves. If that is so, we may find no evidence of civilizations elsewhere, not because none have developed, but because none have endured. But if we: do find evidence of a civilization, one that is further advanced than our own (or its signals would not be so powerful as to reach us, since we can't dispose of enough power to reach it), it would mean that at least one civilization had reached the crisis of power, surmounted it and survived. Perhaps it was differently constituted from our own and its beings were wiser---but perhaps it is just that the crisis that now seems so deadly to us is surmountable, given good will and strenuous effort. The receipt of such signals could give us hope, then and remove the currently gathering despair just a little. Perhaps, if we are tottering on the brink, that hope can provide the added bit of strength that can pull us through and supply the crucial feather's weight to swing the balance toward survival and away from destruction. It is impossible to get no information at all from the signal. At the very least, its characteristics should tell us the rate at which the signal-sending planet revolves about its star and rotates about its axis, together with other physical characteristics of interest. Even ff a message seems unintelligible, astronomers can still try to interpret it, and that in itself is an interesting challenge, a fascinating scientific game. Even ff we cannot reach any conclusion as to specific items of information, we might reach certain generalizations about alien psychology and that, too, is valuable knowledge. Besides, even the tiniest breaks in the code could be of interest. Suppose that from the message we get one single hint of some relationship unsuspected by ourselves that, if true, might give us new insight into some aspect of physics. Scientific advances do not exist in a vacuum. That one insight could then stimulate other thoughts and, in the end, greatly accelerate the natural process by which our scientific knowledge advances.

单选题At present, a probable inducement for countries to initiate large-scale space ventures is ______.

单选题 {{B}}{{I}} Questions 11 to 13 are based on the following talk on hygiene. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11 to 13.{{/I}}{{/B}}

单选题According to the passage, the teens in Village Green can be called