It is a familiar scene these days: employees taking newly laid-off coworkers out for a comfort drink. But which side deserves sympathy more, the jobless or the still employed?【F1】 Researchers at the University of Cambridge heard data suggesting it"s the latter compared with people who are straight-up laid off, those who keep their job but are under a constant threat of losing it suffer agreater decline in mental well-being. 【F2】 Brendan Burchell, a Cambridge sociologist who presented his analysis based on various surveys conducted across Europe argues that policymakers and employers should prepare for the consequence from the stress and anxiety that the existing workforce is currently suffering. Burchell"s study wasn"t designed to offer direct explanations of the data, but there are established psychological patterns that may suggest them. For example, psychologists have documented an "impact bias in affective forecasting," which is the tendency for people to overestimate how strongly they will react to emotional events. Also pertinent is the theory—backed by so-called positive psychologists—that human beings have an inherited base level of happiness that fluctuates only during periods of change.【F3】 Evolutionary psychologists support this theory by arguing that human beings feel more stress during times of insecurity because they sense an immediate but hard-to-discern threat—the modern-day equivalent of an unseen predator roaring in the trees. It"s better to get the bad news and start doing something about it rather than languish in silence. When the uncertainty is prolonged, people stay in a sustained "fight or flight" response, which leads to damaging stress. But not every employee in insecure industries has such a gloomy view, Burchell says. Entrepreneurs seem to thrive. In general, women fare better too.【F4】 While reporting higher levels of anxiety than men when directly questioned, women scored lower in stress, even when they had a job they felt insecure about losing. As Burchell explains, "For women, most studies show that any job—it doesn"t matter whether it is secure or insecure—gives psychological improvement over unemployment." Burchell hypothesizes that the difference in men is that they tend to feel pressure not only to be employed, but also to be the primary breadwinner, and that more of a man"s self-worth depends on his job. So what kind of advice can Burchell offer to those lucky millions across the globe who are still employed but are worried about losing their job?【F5】 After examining in detail the surveys in search of the key to an even mental health, Burchell came up with, "Nothing. Certainly some individuals cope better, but we don"t know why."

Health care is an extraordinarily obsolete system. A professor of emergency medicine at major university sent me a really heartbreaking (1)_____ lie said that physicians have to start from the (2)_____ beginning with every patient. There is no history, no time to (3)_____—they know nothing about the (4)_____. We have inferior medical service (5)_____ the computer technology that could change it is not being used. The difficulties of just (6)_____ patient records—apart from analyzing them (7)_____—are unnecessary and hinder us from providing (8)_____ service. We have the opportunity to do some wholesale rethinking of (9)_____ we provide health care and turn it into not only medical service, but preventive maintenance that (10)_____ the patient in decision-making. We can begin through pilot and demonstration projects in hospitals, by doctors, and (11)_____ by private doctor participation. Physicians can show patients the (12)_____ of their actions and what the alternatives are. Technologies (13)_____ multimedia and interactive computers can (14)_____ patients, in the privacy of their own homes, to ask questions about these (15)_____. Other countries are moving much more (16)_____ than the United States in medical information. The computerization and redesign of Sweden"s health delivery system has reduced that nation"s (17)_____ on the health care from 12 % of GNP to a little over 7%. More than one-third of the population of the Nether-lands has their medical records computerized. (18)_____ some hospitals in the United States keep computerized patient (19)_____, these records only cover the time the patient is in the hospital and do not include their (20)_____ medical history.

A friend of mine had a grandfather who supervised the payroll at a large company long ago. People who knew him say this man was a paragon of virtue when it came to making sure the employees were treated fair and square on every payday. But he also believed that once wages were disbursed, workers should take full responsibility for their financial security. In his view, honest labor and thrifty habits were basic elements of the free-enterprise system. Nobody should expect any money unless they earned it. He opposed company pension plans, and was thoroughly dismayed by the fiscal structure and benefits of Social Security. I wonder how many people hold the same views now. The debate about changing Social Security is part of a larger question: What obligation, if any, do Americans feel toward fellow citizens who need help? Note, I didn"t say "less fortunate," "disadvantaged," or some other term that might be construed as evidence I"m promoting my own brand of social engineering. I just want to know how much concern people have for what happens outside their own households. Critics of government assistance programs often say they do more harm than good by creating a cycle of dependency for recipients and a gigantic bureaucracy that demoralizes the rest of society by taking money away from us and creating a welfare state of slackers. The term I prefer to describe our current situation is safety-net culture." It has lots of problems, but I also know what life was like before safety nets, because my dad gave me abundant testimony from his 1920s boyhood near San Francisco—it was no Norman Rockwell painting His father worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, so they did have a house. But one neighbor lived in a tent on a vacant lot and another was known for owning only one pair of overalls, which his wife laundered in a tub on the stove on Saturdays while he sat by, wrapped in a blanket. My dad"s family often ate boiled rice for breakfast. The beverage of choice was tea, but if that ran out they made "silver tea"—hot water with milk and sugar. Money for college wasn"t in the family budget. My dad got his degree thanks to the GI Bill. Decades of safety-net culture have removed a lot of anxiety from our lives but we"re still not close to Utopia. Amid all the Social Security debate about aging baby boomers and shrinking worker contributions, I"m most compelled by this statistic: Close to 20 percent of retirees get all of their income from Social Security. Should that number be a source of national pride or embarrassment? Or perhaps a better question: How do you honestly feel about drinking silver tea during your golden years?

Kimiyuki Suda should be a perfect customer for Japan"s car-makers. He"s a young, successful executive at an Internet-services company in Tokyo and has plenty of disposable【C1】______. He used to own Toyota"s Hilux Surf, a sport utility vehicle. But now he uses【C2】______subways and trains."It"s not inconvenient at all," he says.【C3】______, "having a car is so 20th century." Suda reflects a worrisome【C4】______ in Japan; the automobile is losing its emotional appeal, 【C5】______among the young, who prefer to spend their money on the latest electronic devices. 【C6】______mini-cars and luxury foreign brands are still popular, everything in between is【C7】______. Last year sales fell 6.7 percent, 7.6 percent【C8】______you don"t count the mini-car market. There have been【C9】______one-year drops in other nations: sales in Germany fell 9 percent in 2007 【C10】______a tax increase. But experts say Japan is 【C11】______in that sales have been decreasing steadily【C12】______ time. Since 1990, yearly new-car sales have fallen from 7.8 million to 5.4 million units in 2007. Alarmed by this state of 【C13】______ , the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) 【C14】______a comprehensive study of the market in 2006. It found that a 【C15】______wealth gap, demographic changes and【C16】______lack of interest in cars led Japanese to hold their【C17】______longer, replace their cars with smaller ones【C18】______give up car ownership altogether. JAMA【C19】______a further sales decline of 1.2 percent this year. Some experts believe that if the trend continues for much longer, further consolidation in the automotive sector is【C20】______.

A.Studythefollowingpicturescarefullyandwriteanessayinnolessthan160—200words.B.Youressaymustbewrittenclearly.C.Youressayshouldmeettherequirementsbelow:1)Describethepictures,2)interpretthesetofthefollowingpictures,giveyourcomments,and3)pointoutitsimplicationsinourlife.

With the depletion of the cod fishery and so many other coastal fish stocks worldwide, the fishing industry has turned to the high seas to exploit their resources. Fishing operations are now (1)_____ the seamounts, oceanic ridges and plateaus of the deep ocean (2)_____ national jurisdiction, where owner ship and responsibility do not (3)_____ to any nation. (4)_____ a decade or more, we have caused significant damage to (5)_____ unknown ecosystems, depleted species and probably doomed many others to (6)_____.Every day, commercial fishing fleets (7)_____ primarily from just 11 nations venture (8)_____ the high seas to fish the deep ocean. What"s left is truly a lonely, infertile, undersea desert. The high seas are very special. It is here where you can find (9)_____ groupings of animals that (10)_____ their energy from sources (11)_____ the sun around volcanoes on the deep sea floor. It is only here where you can find areas still free from introduced species, (12)_____ in the seas around Antarctica. And it is here where you can find (13)_____ organisms that are more than 8,000 years old, like many of the massive deep-sea corms. But what really sets the high seas (14)_____ from all other areas we know is the (15)_____ lack of protection for any of this natural heritage. A United Nations meeting recently finally pay great attention to the high seas and put them on the (16)_____.Government officials from around the world gathered together with scientists, representatives from the fishing (17)_____, conservation groups and other stake-holders to discuss conservation and (18)_____ use of marine biological diversity in the high seas, (19)_____ 64 percent of the Earth"s surface. They need to move quickly. (20)_____ the fragility of these environments, we simply do hot have the luxury of time, but we can act before it is too late.

Recommending a Movie Write a letter to a friend of yours to recommend one of your favorite movies and give reasons for your recommendation. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

BSection III Writing/B

The 1990s have been designated the Decade Against Drug Abuse by the United Nations. But, (1)_____ less than three years to go before the end of the decade, governments and health organizations (2)_____ that they have made (3)_____ progress in reducing drug, alcohol and tobacco abuse. Today, consumption of all these substances is increasingly steadily worldwide. (4)_____ every country now has problems with (5)_____ drugs. And the world is producing and consuming more alcohol and tobacco than ever. Between 1970 and 1990 beer production (6)_____ rose by over 80 per cent. And, (7)_____ the number of smokers keeps on (8)_____,by the second or third (9)_____ of the next century there could be 10 million deaths each year (10)_____ smoking related illnesses. Drugs are also a huge burden (11)_____ the world economy. In the United States, for example, it"s estimated that alcohol and illegal drug use costs the country tens of billions of dollars each year, mainly (12)_____ health care. When the cost of tobacco related illnesses is added, (13)_____ total more than doubles. Drugs are also closely (14)_____ crime. Many police forces no longer (15)_____ between illegal and legal drugs when fighting crime. In Australia, for example, experts (16)_____ that police in some parts of the country spend between 70 and 80 percent of their time dealing with alcohol-related incidents. One explanation for the increase in drug (17)_____ is simply that people have more money to spend. Tobacco and alcohol companies are now (18)_____ much more on developing countries to take (19)_____ of greater wealth there. And criminals involved in the illegal drug trade are following (20)_____, introducing drugs into countries where they were previously hardly use.

Although there are many skillful Braille readers, thousands of other blind people find it difficult to learn that system. They are thereby【C1】______from the world of books and newspapers, having to【C2】______on friends to read aloud to them. A young scientist named Raymond Kurzweil has now designed a computer which is a major 【C3】______in providing aid to the【C4】______. His machine, Cyclops, has a camera that【C5】______any page, interprets the print into sounds, and then delivers them orally in a robot-like【C6】______through a speaker. By pressing the appropriate buttons on Cyclops"s keyboard, a blind person can "read" any【C7】______document in the English language. This remarkable invention represents a tremendous【C8】______forward in the education of the handicapped. At present, Cyclops costs $50,000. 【C9】______, Mr. Kurzweil and his associates are preparing a smaller【C10】______improved version that will sell for 【C11】______than half that price. Within a few years, Kurzweil【C12】______ the price range will be low enough for every school and library to【C13】______one. Michael Hingson, Director of the National Federation for the Blind, hopes that【C14】______will be able to buy home 【C15】______ of Cyclops for the price of a good television set.Mr. Hingson"s organization purchased five machines and is now【C16】______ them in Maryland, Colorado, Iowa, California, and New York. Blind people have been【C17】______in those tests, making lots of【C18】______suggestions to the engineers who helped to produce Cyclops. "This is the first time that blind people have ever done individual studies【C19】______a product was put on the market," Hingson said. Most manufacturers believed that having the blind help the blind was like telling disabled people to teach other disabled people. In that【C20】______, the manufacturers have been the blind ones.

Vinton Cerf, known as the father of the Internet, said on Wednesday that the Web was outgrowing the planet Earth and the time had come to take the information superhighway to outer space. "The Internet is growing quickly, and we still have a lot of work to do to cover the planet." Cerf told the first day of the annual conference of Internet Society in Geneva where more than 1 500 cyberspace fans have gathered to seek answers to questions about the tangled web of the Internet. 【F1】 Cerf believed that it would soon be possible to send real-time science data on the Internet from a space mission orbiting another planet such as Mars. "There is now an effort under way to design and build an interplanetary Internet. The space research community is coming closer and closer and merging. We think that we will see interplanetary Internet networks that look very much like the ones we use today.【F2】 We will need interplanetary gateways and there will be protocols to transmit data between these gateways." Cerf said. Francois Fluckiger, a scientist attending the conference from the European Particle Physics Laboratory near Geneva, was not entirely convinced, saying: "We need dreams like this. But I don't know any Martian whom I'd like to communicate with through the Internet." Cerf has been working with NASA's Pasadena Jet Propulsion Laboratory—the people behind the recent Mars expedition—to design what he calls an "interplanetary Internet protocol".【F3】 He believes that astronauts will want to use the Internet, although special problems remain with interference and delay. "This is quite real. The effort is becoming extraordinarily concrete over the next few months because the next Mars mission is in planning stages now," Cerf told the conference, "If we use domain names like Earth or Mars ... jet propulsion laboratory people would be coming together with people from the Internet community." He added, "【F4】 The idea is to take the interplanetary Internet design and make it a part of the infrastructure of the Mars mission." He later told a news conference that designing this system now would prepare mankind for future technological advances. "The whole idea is to create an architecture so the design works anywhere. I don't know where we're going to have to put it but my guess is that we'll be going out there some time," Cerf said, "【F5】 If you think 100 years from now, it is entirely possible that what will be purely research 50 years from now will become commercial 100 years from now. The Internet was the same—it started as pure research but now it is commercialized."

The arrival of the mass-produced car, just over a century ago, caused a(n) 【C1】______of business creation. First came the makers of cars and all the parts that go into them. Then came the garages, filling stations and all sorts of other car-dependent【C2】______: car parks, motels, out-of-town shopping centres. Now another revolution on wheels is on the【C3】______: the driverless car. Nobody is sure when it will【C4】______. Google, which is testing a fleet of autonomous cars, thinks in maybe a decade, others【C5】______longer. And, when it does, the self-driving car, like the ordinary kind, could bring【C6】______change. Just imagine. It could, for a start, save the motor industry【C7】______ stagnation. Carmakers are【C8】______about signs that smartphone-obsessed teenagers these days do not【C9】______to get a driving licence and buy their first car, 【C10】______their parents did. But once they are【C11】______the trouble and expense of taking lessons and【C12】______a test, young adults might rediscover the joys of the open road. Another worry for the motor industry is that car use seems to be peaking in the most congested cities. 【C13】______automated cars would drive nose-to-tail, 【C14】______ the capacity of existing roads; and since they would be able to【C15】______their passengers and drive away, the【C16】______of parking spaces in town might not matter so much. All these trends will【C17】______the car business. But when mass-produced cars appeared, they had an impact on the whole of society. Electronics and software firms will be【C18】______the winners: 【C18】______providing all the sensors and computing power that self-driving cars will need, they will enjoy strong demand for in-car entertainment systems,【C20】______cars" occupants will no longer need to keep their eyes on the road.

The baby doubled its weight in a year.

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

But now it is realized that supplies of some of them are limited, and it is even possible to give a reasonable estimate of their"expectation of life", the time it will take to exhaust all known sources and reserves of these materials.

Studythecartoongivenbelowcarefullyandwriteanessayofabout200words.Youressayshouldcoveralltheinformationofthecartoonandmeetthefollowingrequirement:1.interpretthecartoon;2.causesofthephenomenon;3.yourmeasures.

Half of the world's population will be speaking or learning English by 2015, researchers say. Two billion people are expected to start learning English within a decade and three billion will speak it, says a British Council estimate. Other languages, such as French, risk becoming the casualties of this "linguistic globalization".【F1】 But the boom will be over by 2050 and the English language teaching industry will have become a victim of its own success, says David Graddol, author of the report, The Future of English. Mr. Graddol's research was based on a computer model developed to estimate demand for English language teaching around the world.【F2】 The lecturer, who has worked in education and language studies at the Open University for the past 25 years, said the model charted likely student numbers through to 2050. It was compiled by looking at various estimates from the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO)on education provision, demographic projections, government education policies and international student mobility figures.【F3】 The impact of educational innovations and other developments affecting the world population including the Chinese government's policy of one baby per family were also factored in. Based on its findings, Mr. Graddol has predicted that the world is about to be hit by a tidal wave of English. "Many governments, especially in countries which have relatively recently gained independence, are introducing the teaching of English under a utilitarian banner." "But English predominates in the business world, and for such countries to be able to compete for work, including profitable outsourcing contracts, English is being pushed heavily from kindergarten on." Even maths and science are being taught in English at secondary schools in Malaysia.【F4】 But demand for English teaching would drop as children progress through academia, and more universities across the world choose to teach in the language. Mr. Graddol also estimated that the boom would be over by 2050."English-language students will be down from two billion to 500 million then," he said, "Increasingly, as English spread across the globe, more people will become bilingual, even multi-lingual and such skills are highly prized in business. But Britain has not got the best reputation for learning other languages." 【F5】 The report also showed that English was not the only language spreading, and the world, far from being dominated by English, was to become more multi-lingual. Mr. Graddol said, "Chinese, Arabic and Spanish are all popular, and likely to be languages of the future."

In this part, you are required to write an essay on SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY—A BLESSING OR A CURSE? Your essay should be based on the information given below: 科学技术的发展使我们的生活发生了巨大的变化。请具体说明这些积极变化。另一方面，科技的发展也引起了许多麻烦，请举例说明。最后，请你谈谈为解决这问题人类所面临的任务。 You should write about 160—200 words neatly.

He has not more than five dollars on him.

BPart ADirections: Write a composition/letter of no less than 100 words on the following information./B