E-mail—can"t live with it, can"t live without it. Con artists and real artists, advertisers and freedom fighters, lovers and sworn enemies-they"ve all flocked to email as they would to any new medium of expression. E-mail is convenient, saves time, brings us closer to one another, helps us manage our ever-more-complex lives. Books are written, campaigns conducted; crimes committed-all via e-mail. But it is also inconvenient, wastes our time, isolates us in front of our computers and introduces more complexity into our already too-harried lives. To skeptics, E-mails just the latest chapter in the evolving history of human communication. A snooping husband now discovers his wife"s affair by reading her private e-mail—but he could have uncovered the same sin by finding letters a generation ago. Yet E-mail—and all online communication—is in fact something truly different; it captures the essence of life at the close of the 20th century with an authority that few other products of digital technology can claim. Does the pace of life seam ever faster? E-mail simultaneously allows us to cope with that acceleration and contributes to it. Are our attention spans shriveling under barrages of new, improved forms of stimulation? The quick and dirty E-mail is made to order for those whose ability to concentrate is measured in nanoseconds. If we accept that the creation of the globe spanning Internet is one of the most important technological innovations of the last half of this century, then we must give E-mail—the living embodiment of human connections across the Net—pride of place. The way we interact with each other is changing; E-mail is both catalyst and the instrument of that change. The scope of the phenomenon is mind-boggling. Worldwide, 225 million people can spend and receive E-mail. Forget about the Web or e-commerce or even online pornography: E-mail is the Internet"s true killer app—the software application that we simply must have, even if it means buying a $2,000 computer and plunking down $20 a month to America Online. According to Donna Hoffman, a professor of marketing at Vanderbilt University, one survey after another finds that when online users are asked what they do on the Net, "E-mail is always No. 1." Oddly enough, no one planned it, and one predicted it. When research scientists first began cooking up the Internet"s predecessor, the Arpanet, in 1968, their primary goal was to enable disparate computing centers to share resources. "But it didn"t take very long before they discovered that the most important thing was the ability to send mail around, which they had not anticipated at all", says Eric Auman, chief technical officer of Sendmail, Inc.

[A]Set a Good Example for Your Kids [B]Build Your Kids" Work Skills [C]Place Time Limits on Leisure Activities [D]Talk about the Future on a Regular Basis [E]Help Kids Develop Coping Strategies [F]Help Your Kids Figure Out Who They Are [G]Build Your Kids" Sense of Responsibility Mothers and fathers can do a lot to ensure a safe landing in early adulthood for their kids. Even if a job"s starting salary seems too small to satisfy an emerging adult"s need for rapid content, the transition from school to work can be less of a setback if the start-up adult is ready for the move. Here are a few measures, drawn from my book Ready or Not, Here Life Comes, that parents can take to prevent what I call "work-life uneasiness". 【C1】______ You can start this process when they are 11 or 12. Periodically review their emerging strengths and weaknesses with them and work together on any shortcomings, like difficulty in communicating well or collaborating. Also, identify the kinds of interests they keep coming back to, as these offer clues to the careers that will fit them best. 【C2】______ Kids need a range of authentic role models—as opposed to members of their clique, pop stars and vaunted athletes. Have regular dinner-table discussions about people the family knows and how they got where they are. Discuss the joys and downsides of your own career and encourage your kids to form some ideas about their own future. When asked what they want to do, they should be discouraged from saying "I have no idea." They can change their minds 200 times, but having only a foggy view of the future is of little good. 【C3】______ Teachers are responsible for teaching kids how to learn; parents should be responsible for teaching them how to work. Assign responsibilities around the house and make sure homework deadlines are met. Encourage teenagers to take a part-time job. Kids need plenty of practice delaying gratification and deploying effective organizational skills, such as managing time and setting priorities. 【C4】______ Playing video games encourages immediate content. And hours of watching TV shows with canned laughter only teaches kids to process information in a passive way. At the same time, listening through earphones to the same monotonous beats for long stretches encourages kids to stay inside their bubble instead of pursuing other endeavors. All these activities can prevent the growth of important communication and thinking skills and make it difficult for kids to develop the kind of sustained concentration they will need for most jobs. 【C5】______ They should know how to deal with setbacks, stresses and feelings of inadequacy. They should also learn how to solve problems and resolve conflicts, ways to brainstorm and think critically. Discussions at home can help kids practice doing these things and help them apply these skills to everyday life situations. What about the son or daughter who is grown but seems to be struggling and wandering aimlessly through early adulthood? Parents still have a major role to play, but now it is more delicate. They have to be careful not to come across as disappointed in their child. They should exhibit strong interest and respect for whatever currently interests their fledging adult(as naive or ill conceived as it may seem)while becoming a partner in exploring options for the future. Most of all, these new adults must feel that they are respected and supported by a family that appreciates them.

You are going to read a text about how to keep your job, followed by a list of important examples. Choose the best examples from the list A—F for each numbered subheading. There is one extra examples which you do not need to use. As companies continue to cut costs, the days of frequent promotions are a distant memory. So are the days of endless opportunities to show off your skills. Layoff survivors, faced with fewer options are finding themselves in career purgatory—there"s no way up and no way out. After talking to career coaches, managers, recruiters, and psychologists, Fortune put together eight tips to help workers break free from the inertia. (41) Avoid taking cover Don"t hide out behind your computer. "You should really work to increase or maintain the visibility that you have", says David Opton, founder and CEO of career management firm ExecuNet. Build a circle of allies Fortify your current relationships and work on making new ones, both within and outside the office. "Allies will be helpful in terms of letting you know information, like if there"s a job possibility that comes up", says Dee Soder, founder of the CEO Perspective Group. Who you know can make a big difference, especially in difficult times. (42) Load up on new tools This is the perfect time to acquire new expertise. (If the boss can"t pay, do it on your own.) (43) Look beyond your job description People don"t get promotions just because they do their jobs well; they get promotions because they take initiative. Lauren Doliva, a partner at recruiting firm Heidrick identify your weaknesses and work on them; find better ways to harness your strengths. For nontangible skills—leadership, management, communication-coaches recommend hiring a coach. A client of Soder"s was put into a new management role, but didn"t feel like she had what it took to oversee a bigger team. She went out and hired a coach who helped her learn how to interact with top executives as well as how to run a bigger territory. She has since been promoted again. Taking responsibility for your own success is something everyone should do, regardless of external factors. Otherwise you"re heading straight for burnout. (45) Adjust your attitude Don"t panic. Even though the economy is in a recession, your career is not coming to an end. How you look at the situation will have a big impact on whether you stay stuck or move ahead. "One can choose to say there is no opportunity or one can choose to look for it", says Doliva. In fact, many coaches believe that being stuck is just a state of mind.A. Let people know when you accomplish something or when you put in the extra effort to get a project done early. Without being cheesy, make sure that you"re giving off the right vibes by keeping a positive attitude, avoiding emotional outbursts, and appearing calm and organized. And don"t forget to look the part. Many didn"t get promotions because of their professional presence—grooming, clothes, and body language.B. When someone brought up the VP of operations, who was the obvious candidate for the job, the CEO rejected him outright. "He said no because the VP only does what"s expected", says Doliva. "The CEO didn"t see him as someone who would take the risks and the time to do the job better". Now is not the time for complacency, even if you"re not gunning for a spot in the executive suite. Coaches suggest that employees come in early, stay late, and take on extra projects. Little things can make a big difference. C. Brush up on computer skills, audit a class, or get a certificate or degree in your field and when jobs do open up, you"ll be ready.D. "What you don"t want to do is start getting depressed", adds Melissa Karz, founder of Kadima Coaching. "Be what you want to attract". It might be helpful to hunt for motivation in other places. "Now is the time to start taking a look at how fulfilling your life is-outside of work", says Lois Frankel, president of Corporate Coaching International. Find exciting activities to replenish yourself with and then bring that positive spirit into the office.E. Amid all of the layoffs, you"ve managed to keep your job but the chances of moving up are slim to none. Nobody above you is going to leave now, and there"s no money for special projects to prove yourself. You"re stuck. Here"s how to avoid fading into the woodworkF. Speak up in meetings, join task forces, and volunteer for difficult projects that coworkers aren"t willing to tackle.

All around the world, lawyers generate more hostility than the members of any other profession—with the possible exception of journalism. But there are few places where clients have more grounds for complaint than America. During the decade before the economic crisis, spending on legal services in America grew twice as fast as inflation. The best lawyers made skyscrapers-full of money, tempting ever more students to pile into law schools. But most law graduates never get a big-firm job. Many of them instead become the kind of nuisance-lawsuit filer that makes the tort system a costly nightmare. There are many reasons for this. One is the excessive costs of a legal education. There is just one path for a lawyer in most American states: a four-year undergraduate degree in some unrelated subject, then a three-year law degree at one of 200 law schools authorized by the American Bar Association and an expensive preparation for the bar exam. This leaves today"s average law-school graduate with $ 100, 000 of debt on top of undergraduate debts. Law-school debt means that they have to work fearsomely hard. Reforming the system would help both lawyers and their customers. Sensible ideas have been around for a long time, but the state-level bodies that govern the profession have been too conservative to implement them. One idea is to allow people to study law as an undergraduate degree. Another is to let students sit for the bar after only two years of law school. If the bar exam is truly a stern enough test for a would-be lawyer, those who can sit it earlier should be allowed to do so. Students who do not need the extra training could cut their debt mountain by a third. The other reason why costs are so high is the restrictive guild-like ownership structure of the business. Except in the District of Columbia, non-lawyers may not own any share of a law firm. This keeps fees high and innovation slow. There is pressure for change from within the profession, but opponents of change among the regulators insist that keeping outsiders out of a law firm isolates lawyers from the pressure to make money rather than serve clients ethically. In fact, allowing non-lawyers to own shares in law firms would reduce costs and improve services to customers, by encouraging law firms to use technology and to employ professional managers to focus on improving firms" efficiency. After all, other countries, such as Australia and Britain, have started liberalizing their legal professions. America should follow.

To understand the roughly 100,000 genes in the human genome, researchers say they must investigate an even more complicated set of molecules-proteins. Genes are the blueprints for making proteins, and the "sequence" of a gene—its structural pattern—determines the kind of protein it makes. Some proteins become building blocks for structural parts of the cell. Other proteins become molecular "machines" enzymes, hormones, antibodies that carry out the myriad activities necessary to keep the cell and the body working properly. With an understanding of human proteins (or the proteome), scientists will be able to fight disease on many fronts. For example, scientists at the Center for Proteome Analysis in Odense, Denmark, have isolated a protein, galectin, that may fight diabetes. Diabetes seems to be caused when insulin-producing cells in the pancreas are inadvertently killed by the body"s immune system. The Danish scientists spent years analyzing the proteins present in diabetes-prone and diabetes-resistant cells, and they tentatively concluded that galectin protects diabetes-prone cells from being attacked by the immune system. Preliminary animal tests, in which the galectin gene has been inserted into diabetes-prone cells, seem to confirm the hypothesis. Effective cancer drugs may also arise from a deeper understanding of genes and proteins, says Ken Carter, president of Therapeutic Genomics, one of the many biotech companies working to devise new drugs based on genetic knowledge. Soon, scientists will be able to quickly and accurately compare cancer tissue with normal tissue to see which genes are "switched on" and making proteins and which genes are not, he says. "If you found a gene that was highly expressed in prostate cancer cells but not other tissues, you could deduce that gene was involved in prostate cancer," according to Carter. "We would try to develop in the lab a way to block the expression of that gene." One possibility would be a "small molecule" drug that would attach to and inactivate that gene"s protein. Finally, drugs themselves will likely become safer and more effective because they will be tailored to an individual"s genetic ability to process medicines, predicts Robert Waterston, director of the Human Genome Project sequencing center at Washington University in St. Louis. In the future, a blood test could show how much of a particular drug-processing enzyme a person has, Waterston explains. The doctor would then adjust the dose accordingly or prescribe a drug custom designed for that person"s genetic makeup. This new field, called pharmacogenomics, should eliminate many of the drug side effects that result from our current, cruder methods of determining dosage.

Within economic theory, there are in any case quite different assumptions about individual behaviour. Some neoclassical models assume that individuals' expectations are rational, that is, they draw economically optimal conclusions from available information. In other models, expectations are more slowly "adaptive", or there is uncertainty about the future. Yet experimental research shows that most people are remarkably bad at assessing their own economic best interest, even when they are given clear information and time to learn. Faced with a simple economic dilemma, people are quite likely to make the wrong decision because of "bounded rationality" (the effect of misleading preconceptions or emotions) or basic computational mistakes (the inability to calculate probabilities and discount rates). Psychologists have also identified the phenomenon of "myopic discounting": our tendency to prefer a large reward later to a small reward soon—a preference we then switch as the small reward becomes irresistibly imminent. 【F1】 Prospect theorists have shown that people are risk-averse when choosing between a certain gain and a possible bigger gain—they will choose the certain but smaller gain—but not when offered a choice between a certain loss and a possible bigger loss. Most economic institutions, if they depend on credit, also depend in some measure on credibility. But credibility can be based on credulity. 【F2】 In late nineteenth-century France, Therese Humbert enjoyed a glittering career on the basis of a chest supposedly containing a hundred million francs in bearer bonds, which it was claimed she had inherited from her natural father, a mysterious Portuguese (later American) millionaire named Crawford. Borrowing against these securities, she and her husband were able to buy a luxurious hotel in the avenue de la Grande Armee, to gain a controlling interest in a Parisian newspaper and to engineer his election as a socialist deputy. Ten thousand people gathered outside the house when the box was finally opened in May 1902. It was found to contain "nothing but an old newspaper, an Italian coin and a trouser button." 【F3】 Even when we are not miscalculating—as the Humberts' creditors plainly did—our economic calculations are often subordinated to our biological impulses: the desire to reproduce, rooted(according to neo-Darwinian theories) in our "selfish genes", the capacity for violence against rivals for mates and sustenance—to say nothing of the erotic or morbid forms of behaviour analysed by Freud, which cannot always be explained by evolutionary biology. Man is a social animal whose motivations are inseparable from his cultural milieu. 【F4】 As Max Weber argued, even the profit motive has its roots in a not wholly rational asceticism, a desire to work for its own sake which is as much religious as economic. Under different cultural conditions, human beings may prefer leisure to toil. Or they may win the esteem of their fellows by economically irrational behaviour; for social status is seldom the same as mere purchasing power. And man is also a political animal. The groups into which human beings divide themselves—kinship groups, tribes, faiths, nations, classes and parties ( not forgetting firms)—satisfy two fundamental needs: the desire for security (safety, both physical and psychological, in numbers) and what Nietzsche called the will to power: the satisfaction that comes from dominating other weaker groups. No theory has adequately described this phenomenon, not least because individuals are plainly capable of sustaining multiple, overlapping identities; and of tolerating the proximity of quite different groups, and indeed co-operating with them. 【F5】 Only occasionally, and for reasons which seem historically specific, are people willing to accept an exclusive group identity. Only sometimes-but often enough-does the competition between groups descend into violence.

BPart CDirections: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese./B

We have to put the meeting off because so many people are absent today.

Extrapolating from the adage "two heads are better than one", a group of economists at the University of Iowa has learned how to turn the instincts of individuals into useful predictions of the future. So far, the researchers have tested their method by predicting the outcome of such events as the American presidential election and the number of books sold on the first day of a Harry Potter re lease. Now, they have turned their sights to influenza. The influenza in question is not the pandemic bird-flu-related sort that is currently a cause for concern but the quotidian bug that lays people low, particularly in winter. Even this disease is not trivial, it kills, for instance, about 36,000 people in America and possibly as many as 12,000 people in Britain every year. If outbreaks could be predicted, patients at particular risk could be vaccinated and medical personnel redeployed in anticipation. So Philip Polgreen and his colleagues wondered if they could succeed where medical science had failed, and give adequate warning of influenza outbreaks. America"s Centres for Disease Control(CDC) track influenza cases in the country as they hap pen. A week later, they release the data, in part by using a colour-coded map. The colours reflect the level of influenza activity in each state on a five-point scale, with yellow representing "no activity" and red representing "widespread activity". In their study, Dr. Polgreen and his colleagues gave 60 doctors and nurses based in Iowa 100 "flu dollars" each. The participants used these to buy and sell shares coded according to the CDC"s colours for a particular week in the future, based on how many cases they thought would occur in the state during that week. For example, if a physician saw three young children with flu symptoms in his office, he might sell any yellow shares he had for the following week and buy red ones. Conversely, if no one he saw seemed to have trouble with influenza, he might buy more yellow or green (sporadic activity) shares for each of the next few weeks. Over the course of the flu season from October 2004 to April 2005, 52 participants logged into the market as traders. They were able to buy and sell up to seven weeks in advance. At the end of the experiment, each flu dollar was converted into a real one and given to the participants in the form of an educational grant.

Though unemployed longer when seeking work, older women job hunt harder, hold a job longer with less absenteeism, perform as well or better, are more reliable, and are more willing to learn than men or younger women.

To some, John Lennon"s piano is sacred. Most married people consider their wedding rings sacred. Kids with no notion of sanctity will bust a lung wailing over their lost blanky. Personal investment in inanimate objects might delicately be called sentimentality, but what else is it if not magical thinking? There"s some invisible meaning attached to these things: an essence. A wedding ring or a childhood blanket could be replaced by identical or near-identical ones, but those impostors just wouldn"t be the same. What makes something sacred is not its material makeup but its unique history. And whatever causes us to value essence over appearance becomes apparent at an early age. Psychologists Bruce Hood at Bristol University and Paul Bloom at Yale convinced kids ages 3 to 6 that they" d constructed a "copying machine. " The kids were fine taking home a copy of a piece of precious metal produced by the machine, but not so with a clone of one of Queen Elizabeth II"s spoons—they wanted the original. In many cases the value of an object comes from who owned it or used it or touched it, an example of "magical contagion". In one, study, 80 percent of college students said there was at least a 10 percent chance that donning one of Mr. Rogers" sweaters, even without knowing it was his, would endow wearers with some of his "essence"—improve their mood and make them friendlier. Gloria Steinem once related a tale from before she was famous. Another girl had seen her touch members of the Beatles. In turn, the girl asked Steinem for her autograph. Paul Rozin at the University of Pennsylvania and Nemeroff contend that magical contagion may emerge from our evolved fear of germs, which, like essences, are invisible, easily transmissible, and have far-reaching consequences. Well before humans had any concept of germ theory, we quarantined the ill and avoided touching dead bodies. The deep intuition that moral or psychological qualities can pass between people, or that an object carries its history with it, could just be an extension of the adaptive tendency to pay close attention to the pathways of illness. But that doesn"t mean we"re good at evaluating sources of contagion. Nemeroff found that people draw the germs of their lovers as less scary-looking than those of enemies, and they say those germs would make them less ill. She also found that undergrads base condom usage on how emotionally safe they feel with a partner more than on objective risk factors for catching STDs.

Pretty in pink: adult women do not remember being so obsessed with the colour, yet it is pervasive in our young girls' lives. It is not that pink is intrinsically bad, but it is such a tiny slice of the rainbow and, though it may celebrate girlhood in one way, it also repeatedly and firmly fuses girls' identity to appearance. Then it presents that connection, even among two-year-olds, between girls as not only innocent but as evidence of innocence. Looking around, I despaired at the singular lack of imagination about girls' lives and interests. Girls' attraction to pink may seem unavoidable, somehow encoded in their DNA, but according to Jo Paoletti, an associate professor of American Studies, it is not. Children were not colour-coded at all until the early 20th century, in the era before domestic washing machines all babies wore white as a practical matter, since the only way of getting clothes clean was to boil them. What's more, both boys and girls wore what were thought of as gender-neutral dresses. When nursery colours were introduced, pink was actually considered the more masculine colour, a pastel version of red, which was associated with strength. Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness, symbolized femininity. It was not until the mid-1980s, when amplifying age and sex differences became a dominant children' s marketing strategy, that pink fully came into its own, when it began to seem inherently attractive to girls, part of what defined them as female, at least for the first few critical years. I had not realised how profoundly marketing trends dictated our perception of what is natural to kids, including our core beliefs about their psychological development. Take the toddler. I assumed that phase was something experts developed after years of research into children' s behavior: wrong. Turns out, according to Daniel Cook, a historian of childhood consumerism, it was popularized as a marketing trick by clothing manufacturers in the 1930s. Trade publications counselled department stores that, in order to increase sales, they should create a "third stepping stone" between infant wear and older kids' clothes. It was only after "toddler" became a common shoppers' term that it evolved into a broadly accepted developmental stage. Splitting kids, or adults, into ever-tinier categories has proved a sure-fire way to boost profits. And one of the easiest ways to segment a market is to magnify gender differences—or invent them where they did not previously exist.

Mr. Porter, a professor at Harvard Business School, is one of the world"s most respected business thinkers. He made his name and fortune teaching companies his theories of competitive advantage. Mr. Porter argues that competition can save even America"s troubled health-care system, the largest in the world. He and Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg argue in "Redefining Health Care" that competition, if properly applied, can also fix what ails this sector. That is a bold claim, given the horrible state of America"s health-care system. Just consider a few of its failings: America pays more per capita for health care than most countries, but it still has some 45m citizens with no health insurance at all. While a few receive outstanding treatment, the authors show in heart-wrenching detail that most do not. The authors conclude that it is "on a dangerous path, with a toxic combination of high costs, uneven quality, frequent errors and limited access to care". The authors offer a mix of solutions to fix this mess, and thereby to put the sector on a genuinely competitive footing. First comes the seemingly obvious(but as yet unrealised)goal of data transparency. Second is a redirection of competition from the level of health plans, doctors, clinics and hospitals, to competition "at the level of medical conditions, which is all but absent". The authors argue that the right measure of "value" for the health sector should be how well a patient with a given health condition fares over the entire cycle of treatment, and what the cost is for that entire cycle. If there is a failing in this book, it is that the authors sometimes stray toward naive optimism. They argue, for example, that their solutions are so commonsensical that private actors in the health system could forge ahead with them profitably without waiting for the government to fix its policy mistakes. That is a tempting notion, but it falls into a trap that economists call the fallacy of the $ 20 bill on the street. If there really were easy money on the pavement, goes the argument, surely previous passers-by would have bent over and picked it up by now? In the same vein, if Mr. Porter"s prescriptions are so sensible that companies can make money even now in the absence of government policy changes, why in the world have they not done so already? One reason may be that they can make more money in the current sub-optimal equilibrium than in a perfectly competitive market—which is why government action is probably needed to sweep aside the many obstacles in the way of this book"s powerful vision. In the end, though, that is small criticism of a very big book.

On the ground floor of the Federal Reserve building in Washington, DC, there is an electronic game which tests a visitor"s skill at setting interest rates. You have to decide how to respond to events such as rising inflation or a stockmarket crash. If you get all the answers right, the machine declares you the next Fed chairman. In real life, because of huge uncertainties about data and how the economy works, there is no obviously right answer to the question of when to change interest rates. Nor is there any easy test of who will make the best Fed chairman. So who would The Economist Select for the job? Alan Greenspan will retire as Fed chairman on January 31st, after a mere 18 years in the job. So George Bush needs to nominate a successor soon. Mr. Bush has a penchant for picking his pals to fill top jobs: last week he nominated his personal lawyer Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. But his personal bank manager really would not cut the mustard as Fed chairman. This is the most important economic-policy job in America—indeed in the whole world. The Fed chairman sets interest rates with the aim of controlling inflation, which in turn helps determine the value of the dollar, the world"s main reserve currency. It is hardly surprising that financial markets worldwide can rise or fall on his every word. Financial markets are typically more volatile during the first year after the handover to a new chairman than during the rest of his tenure. In October 1987, barely two months after Mr. Greenspan took office, the stockmarket crashed. Current conditions for a handover are hardly ideal. America"s economy has never looked so unbalanced, with a negative household savings rate, a housing bubble, a hefty budget deficit, a record current-account deficit and rising inflation. Figures due on October 14th are expected to show that the 12-month rate of inflation has risen above 4%—its highest since 1991.

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

StrikeaBalancebetweenWorkandRestWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

Human beings are animals. We breathe, eat and digest, and reproduce the same life (1)_____ common to all animals. In a biological laboratory, rats, monkeys, and humans seem very much the same. However, biological understanding is not enough: (2)_____ itself, it can never tell us what human beings are. (3)_____ to our physical equipment—the naked human body—we are not an (4)_____ animal. We are tropical creatures, (5)_____ hairless and sensitive to cold. We are not fast and have neither claws nor sharp teeth to defend ourselves. We need a lot of food but have almost no physical equipment to help us get it. In the purely physical (6)_____, our species seems a poor (7)_____ for survival. But we have survived—survived and multiplied and (8)_____ the earth. Some day we will have a (9)_____ living on the moon, a place with neither air nor water and with temperatures that mm gases into solids. How can we have done all these things? Part of the answer is physical. (10)_____ its limitations, our physical equipment has some important (11)_____. We have excellent vision and hands that can (12)_____ objects with a precision unmatched by any other (13)_____ Most importantly, we have a large brain with an almost (14)_____ number of neural (15)_____. We have used this physical equipment to create culture, the key to our survival and success. If we live in the Arctic, we supply the warmth for our tropical bodies need (16)_____ clothing, shelter, and (17)_____ heat. If a million people want to live in a desert that supplies natural food for only a few hundred, we find water to grow food and (18)_____ deficits by transporting supplies from distant places. Inhabitants of our eventual moon colony will bring their own food and oxygen and then create an artificial earth environment to supply necessities. With culture, we can overcome our natural limitations. It was not always (19)_____ Our distant ancestors were just animals, faced with the limits of their physical equipment. They had no (20)_____ and lacked the physical Capacity to use it.

Most economists in the United States seem excited by the spell of the free market. Consequently, nothing seems good or normal that does not accord with the requirements of the free market. A price that is determined by the seller or, for that matter, established by anyone other than the aggregate of consumers seems harmful. Accordingly, it requires a major act of will to think of price-fixing (the determination of prices by the Seller) as both "normal" and having a valuable economic function. In fact, price-fixing is normal in all industrialized societies because the industrial system itself provides, as an effortless consequence of its own development, the price-fixing that it requires. Modern industrial planning requires and rewards great size. Hence, a comparatively small number of large firms will be competing for the same group of consumers. That each large firm will act with consideration of its own needs and thus avoid selling its products for more than its competitors charge is commonly recognized by advocates of free-market economic theories. But each large firm will also act with full consideration of the needs that it has in common with the other large firms competing for the same customers. Each large firm will thus avoid significant price-cutting, because price-cutting would be prejudicial to the common interest in a stable demand for products. Most economists do not see price-fixing when it occurs because they expect it to be brought about by a number of explicit agreements among large firms; it is not. Moreover, those economists who argue that allowing the free market to operate without interference is the most efficient method of establishing prices have not considered the economies of non-socialist countries other than the United States. These economies employ intentional price-fixing, usually in an overt fashion. Formal price-fixing by cartel and informal price-fixing by agreements covering the members of an industry are commonplace. Were there something peculiarly efficient about the free market and inefficient about price-fixing, the countries that have avoided the first and used the second would have suffered drastically in their economic development. There is no indication that they have. Socialist industry also works within a framework of controlled prices. In the early 1970"s, the Soviet Union began to give firms and industries some of the flexibility in adjusting prices that a more informal evolution has accorded the capitalist system. Economists in the Unites States have hailed the change as a return to the free market. But Soviet firms are no more subject to prices established by a free market over which they exercise little influence than are capitalist firms; rather, Soviet firms have been given the power to fix prices.Notes: spell 魔力; 一阵。aggregate 总体。

During McDonald"s early years French fries were made from scratch every day. Russet Bur-bank potatoes were【C1】______, cut into shoestrings, and fried in its kitchens.【C2】______the chain expanded nationwide, in the mid-1960s, it sought to【C3】______labour costs, reduce the number of suppliers, and【C4】______that its fries tasted the same at every restaurant. McDonald"s began【C5】______to frozen French fries in 1966—and few customers noticed the difference.【C6】______the change had a profound effect【C7】______the nation"s agriculture and diet. A familiar food had been transformed into a highly processed industrial【C8】______. McDonald"s fries now come from huge【C9】______plants that can process two million pounds of potatoes a day. The expansion of McDonald"s and the【C10】______of its low-cost, mass-produced fries changed the way Americans eat. The【C11】______of McDonald"s French fries played a【C12】______role in the chain"s success— fries are much more profitable than hamburgers—and was long【C13】______by customers, competitors, and even food critics. Their distinctive taste does not【C14】______the kind of potatoes that McDonald"s【C15】______the technology that processes them, or the restaurant equipment that fries them: other【C16】______use Russet Burbank, buy their French fries from the same large processing companies, and have【C17】______fryers in their restaurant kitchens. The taste of a French fry is【C18】______determined by the cooking oil. For decades McDonald"s cooked its French fries in a【C19】______of about 7 per cent cottonseed oil and 93 per cent beef fat. The mixture gave the fries their【C20】______flavour.

Some people are friendly drunks, whereas others are hostile, potentially posing a danger to themselves and others. The difference may【C1】______in their ability to foresee the consequences of their actions, according to a recent study-Brad Bushman, a psychologist at Ohio State University, and his colleagues asked nearly 500 volunteers to play a simple game. The subjects, an even mix of women and men, believed they were【C2】______against an opponent to press a button as quickly as possible. In【C3】______, they were simply using a computer program that randomly decided【C4】______they had won or lost When they lost, they【C5】______a shock. When the "opponent" lost, the participant gave the shock and chose how long and【C6】______it should be. 【C7】______playing, the participants completed a survey designed to【C8】______their general concern for the【C9】______consequences of their actions. Half the participants then received enough alcohol mixed with orange juice to make them legally【C10】______, and the other half received a drink with a very【C11】______amount of alcohol in it Subjects who expressed little interest in consequences were more likely to【C12】______longer, stronger shocks. In the【C13】______group, they were slightly more aggressive than people who【C14】______about consequences. When drunk,【C15】______, their aggressiveness was off the charts. "They are【C16】______the most aggressive people in the study," Bushman says. The good news is that this【C17】______can be changed. Michael McKloskey, a psychologist at Temple University, explains that if【C18】______people can learn to see the【C19】______more realistically, they're able to stay calmer and develop a sense of【C20】______over their consequences.