By 1830 the former Spanish and Portuguese colonies had become independent nations. The roughly 20 million【C1】______of these nations looked【C2】______to the future. Born in the crisis of the old regime and Iberian colonialism, many of the leaders of independence【C3】______the ideals of representative government, careers【C4】______to talent, freedom of commerce and trade, the【C5】______to private property, and a belief in the individual as the basis of society.【C6】______there was a belief that the new nations should be sovereign and independent states, large enough to be economically viable and integrated by a【C7】______set of laws. On the issue of【C8】______of religion and the position of the Church,【C9】______, there was less agreement 【C10】______the leadership. Roman Catholicism had been the state religion and the only one【C11】______by the Spanish Crown.【C12】______most leaders sought to maintain Catholicism【C13】______ the official religion of the new states, some sought to end the【C14】______of other faiths. The defense of the Church became a rallying【C15】______for the conservative forces. The ideals of the early leaders of independence were often egalitarian, valuing equality of everything. Bolivar had received aid from Haiti and had【C16】______in return to abolish slavery in the areas he liberated. By 1854 slavery had been abolished everywhere except Spain"s【C17】______colonies. Early promises to end Indian tribute and taxes on people of mixed origin came much【C18】______ because the new nations still needed the revenue such policies【C19】______. Egalitarian sentiments were often tempered by fears that the mass of the population was【C20】______self-rule and democracy.

Fenghua is one of your good friends and schoolmates. He has been addicted to smoking for a long time. During a lecture this week, you learned a lot about great dangers involved in heavy smoking, and now you decide to write a letter to him. Your letter should be based on the following outline: 1) your concern about his health, 2) and your advice and suggestions. Write your letter in no less than 100 words and write it neatly. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter, use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

BPart B/B

Picture-taking is a technique both for reflecting the objective world and for expressing the singular self. Photographs depict objective realities that already exist, though only the camera can disclose them. And they depict an individual photographer"s temperament, discovering itself through the camera"s cropping of reality. That is, photography has two directly opposite ideals, in the first, photography is about the world and the photographer is a mere observer who counts for little; but in the second, photography is the instrument of fearlessness, questing subjectivity and the photographer is all. These conflicting ideals arise from uneasiness on the part of both photographers and viewers of photographs toward the aggressive component in "taking" a picture. Accordingly, the ideal of a photographer as observer is attracting because it implicitly denies that picturetaking is an aggressive act. The issue, of course, is not so clear-cut. What photographers do cannot be characterized as simply predatory or as simply, and essentially, benevolent. As a consequence, one ideal of picture-taking or the other is always being rediscovered and championed. An important result of the coexistence of these two ideals is a recurrent ambivalence toward photography"s means. Whatever are the claims that photography might make to be a form of personal expression just like painting, its originality is closely linked to the power of a machine. The steady growth of these powers has made possible the extraordinary informativeness and imaginative formal beauty of many photographs, like Harold Edgerton"s high-speed photographs of a bullet hitting its target or of the swirls and eddies of a tennis stroke. But as cameras become more sophisticated, more automated, some photographers are tempted to disarm themselves or to suggest that they are not really armed, preferring to submit themselves to the limit imposed by pre-modern camera technology because a cruder, less high-powered machine is thought to give more interesting or emotive results, to leave more room for creative accident. For example, it has been virtually a point of honor for many photographers, including Walker Evans and Cartier Bresson, to refuse to use modern equipment. These photographers have come to doubt the value of the camera as an instrument of "fast seeing". Cartier Bresson, in fact, claims that the modern camera may see too fast. This ambivalence toward photographic means determines trends in taste. The cult of the future (of faster and faster seeing) alternates over time with the wish to return to a purer past when images had a handmade quality. This longing for some primitive state of the photographic enterprise is currently widespread and underlies the present-day enthusiasm for daguerreotypes and the work of forgotten nineteenth-century provincial photographers. Photographers and viewers of photographs, it seems, need periodically to resist their own knowingness.Notes:crop vt. 播种,修剪(树木)收割count for little 无关紧要predatory 掠夺成性的champion n. 冠军；vt.支持benevolent 好心肠的ambivalence 矛盾心理make (+不定式) 似乎要: He makes to begin.(他似乎要开始了)swirls and eddies 漩涡cult 狂热崇拜daguerreotypes (初期的)银板照相法

A.Studythefollowingpicturecarefullyandwriteanessayofabout160—200words.B.Youressaymustbewrittenclearly.C.Youressayshouldmeettherequirementsbelow.1)Describethepictures,2)deducewhatisintendedinthepicture,and3)pointoutitsimplicationsinourlife.

Before a big exam, a sound night's sleep will do you more good than poring over textbooks. That, at least, is the folk wisdom. And science, in the form of behavioral psychology, supports that wisdom. But such behavioral studies cannot distinguish between two competing theories of why sleep is good for the memory. One says that sleep is when permanent memories form.【F1】 The other says that they are actually formed during the day, but then"edited" at night to flush away what is superfluous. To tell the difference, it is necessary to look into the brain of a sleeping person, and that is hard. But after a decade of painstaking work, a team led by Pierre Maquet at Liege University in Belgium has managed to do it.【F2】 The particular stage of sleep in which the Belgian group is interested in is rapid eye movement sleep, when the eyes move back and forth behind the eyelids as if watching a movie, and brainwave traces resemble those of wakefulness. It is during this period of sleep that people are most likely to relive events of the previous day in dreams. Dr. Maquet used an electronic device called PET to study the brains of people as they practiced a task during the day, and as they slept during the following night. The task required them to press a button as fast as possible, in response to a light coming on in one of six positions. As they learnt how to do this, their response times got faster.【F3】 What they did not know was that the appearance of the lights sometimes followed a pattern—what is referred to as "artificial grammar". Yet the reductions in response time showed that they learnt faster when the pattern was present than when there was not. What is more, those with more to learn(i.e., the "grammar", as well as the mechanical task of pushing the button)have more active brains. The "editing" theory would not predict that, since the number of irrelevant stimuli would be the same in each case.【F4】 And to eliminate any doubts that the experimental subjects were learning as opposed to unlearning, their response times when they woke up were even quicker than when they went to sleep. The team, therefore, concluded that the nerve connections involved in memory are reinforced through reactivation during REM sleep, particularly if the brain detects an inherent structure in the material being learnt.【F5】 So now, on the eve of that crucial test, maths students can sleep soundly in the knowledge that what they will remember the next day are the basic rules of algebra and not the incoherent talk from the radio next door.

It Pays to Be Honest

The following paragraphs are given in a wrong order. For Questions 41-45, you are required to reorganize these paragraphs into a coherent article by choosing from the list A-G. Some of the paragraphs have been placed for you. (10 points)A. He predicted electoral voting on the net would eventually become popular, but said tensions existed between being able to authenticate a vote and still maintain voter anonymity.B. Referring to his early days with the internet, he said: "We were just geeks." Dr. Cerf spent time with the US Department of Defence in the late 1970s and early 1980s and is now looking to the future and the development of an interplanetary internet. Asked if he ever expected the internet to become so popular, Dr. Cerf said the staggering number of users was a surprise. He identified one of the key issues facing the net today as privacy and said surveillance of e-mails and the internet was almost inevitable.C. There"s no way to stop it technically—but the internet is a mirror of mankind. If we don"t like what we see in the mirror then touching up the mirror is not the answer."D. Internet pioneer Dr. Vinton Cerf carries the affectionate label of being Father of the Internet. Almost everybody he encounters has a question for him—and the self-confessed geek-turned-celebrity loves to answer them. Twenty years ago Cerf and Robert Kahn developed the architecture for the internet, known as the TCP/IP protocols. Their innovation sparked the dramatic growth of the internet from 50,000 users in 1983 to more than 360 million today.E. "I need to authorize you as a voter but I also need to know you only voted once. Somewhere I need to keep your vote secret. I"m optimistic about being able to do it in the future."F. "It happened with the telephone system and it will certainly happen with email. There are tools to combat that—one is encryption—but the problem is that right now it"s not easy enough to use. Perhaps the pressure and desire for privacy will be sufficient to cause us to develop better tools to secure the communication." Dr. Cerf said the level of objectionable material available on the internet was a worry but it was difficult to stop.G. Result: wherever Dr Cerf presents seminars around the world he is quickly set on by eager fans. He admits that he finds some of the attention, though not the questioning, a bit strange. "The part that"s most weird is that teenagers come up and want to have their T-shirts autographed."Order: D is the first paragraph and E is the last.

Clothes play a critical part in the conclusions we reach by providing clues to who people are, who they are not, and who they would like to be. They tell us a good【B1】_______ about the wearer' s background, personality, status, mood, and 【B2】_______ on life. People tend to agree on what certain types of clothes 【B3】_______. Newscasters, or the【B4】______who read the news on TV, are considered to be more【B5】______, honest, and competent when they are【B6】______conservatively. And college students who【B7】______themselves as taking an active role in their interpersonal relationships say they are【B8】______about the costumes they must wear to play these roles successfully.【B9】______, many of us can relate instances in【B10】______the clothing we wore changed the way we felt about ourselves and how we acted. Perhaps you have used clothing to gain confidence when you anticipated a【B11】______situation, such as a job interview, or a court appearance. In the workplace, men have long had well-defined precedents and role models for achieving success. It has been【B12】______for women. A good many women in the business world are uncertain about the appropriate mixture of "masculine" and "feminine"【B13】______they should convey by their professional clothing. The【B14】______of clothing alternatives to women has also been greater than that 【B15】______ for men. Male administrators tend to judge women more favorably for managerial【B16】______when the women display【B17】______"feminine grooming"—shorter hair, moderate use of make-up, and plain【B18】______clothing. As one male administrator confessed, "An【B19】______woman is definitely going to get a longer interview,【B20】______she won't get a job."

William Appleton, author of a recent book entitled Fathers and Daughters, believes that it is a woman"s relationship with her father (1)_____ decides how successful she will be in her (2)_____ life. According to Appleton there are three important steps a girl must (3)_____ in her relationship with Daddy. The (4)_____ is the "little girl" stage in which the daughter loves and idolizes her father (5)_____ he were a god or hero without (6)_____ And her father loves his daughter (7)_____ blindly, seeing her as an "oasis of smiles" in a hard, cold world. Then comes the second stage. It starts during adolescence and (8)_____ for many years. Here, the little girl begins to rebel against Daddy and (9)_____ his authority. He reacts with anger and (10)_____ And the final stage comes (11)_____ a woman reaches the age of about thirty. At this time, the daughter sees her father not-as a hero (12)_____ as a fool, but learns to accept him (13)_____ he is, for better or worse. And Daddy forgives her, too, for not being the (14)_____ little girl he had once hoped for. But not all daughters go through all three stages, and it is here that the key to a woman"s career (15)_____. Those girls who never get past the first "oasis of smiles" stage, (16)_____ all their lives seek out their fathers" love and approval, will never (17)_____ in the business world. They will remain at the secretarial (18)_____ all their lives. It is only those women who get to the final stage, those who (19)_____ and accept Daddy"s faults, who can even hope to be (20)_____ enough and independent enough to become a candidate for top-management.

The death of the actress Natasha Richardson after a fall on a ski slope has further publicized an ugly truth that millions of Americans already know: Hardly anyone outside of an emergency room knows how to respond to brain trauma. There isn"t a standard response system that has been adequately promulgated in high school or college athletics, boxing rings or ski resorts. We"re fascinated by the inner workings of the brain and marvel at its mysteries, yet we aren"t very serious about protecting our most prized organ. According to a 2008 list put together by the American Academy of Certified Brain Injury Specialists, there isn"t a single certified brain injury specialist working on America"s ski slopes. Brain injury prevention and research has been notoriously underfinanced for decades now. In 2007, the federal AIDS budget was $22. 8 billion, and Parkinson" s disease received $250 million. In contrast, the Health and Human Services Department"s traumatic brain injury program, the most substantive public health program targeting this problem, was allotted only $ 8. 5 million, and last year President George W. Bush even proposed eliminating it.(President Obama recently added around $ 1 million to the program.) There has been some good news, too. The Department of Defense has increased allocations for brain injury research in recent years. One of the most promising neurotrauma protocols comes from an Emory University researcher, Donald Stein, whose work suggests that a dose of the hormone progesterone administered within 24 hours of a brain injury could have a profound protective effect. In three years, an injection of progesterone might be standard procedure in every emergency response arsenal. The best hope for legislative reform comes from the National Neurotechnology Initiative Act, introduced last year, which calls for $200 million toward "science and technology that allows an individual to analyze, understand, treat and heal the brain and nervous system". Each year, 1. 4 million Americans sustain a brain injury. Some of them, like Natasha Richardson, will wave off the trauma and continue as before, only to be permanently—or mortally—injured as a result. With more than 300,000 troops possibly affected by brain injury, the military is creating a sophisticated neurotrauma response system. How many millions of civilian brains must be injured before our nation provides a similar response?

Although many factors affect human health during periods in space, weightlessness is the dominant and single most important one. The direct and indirect effects of weightlessness lead to a series of related responses. Ultimately, the whole body, from bones to brain, kidneys to bowels, reacts. When space travelers grasp the wall of their spacecraft and jerk their bodies back and forth, they say it feels as though they are stationary and the spacecraft is moving. The reason is based in our reliance on gravity to perceive our surroundings. The continuous and universal nature of gravity removes it from our daily notice, but our bodies never forget. Whether we realize it or not, we have evolved a large number of silent, automatic reactions to cope with the constant stress of living in a downward-pulling world. Only when we decrease or increase the effective force of gravity on our bodies do our minds perceive it. Our senses provide accurate information about the location of our center of mass and the relative positions of our body parts. Our brains integrate signals from our eyes and ears with other information from the organs in our inner ear, from our muscles and joints, and from our senses of touch and pressure. The apparatus of the inner ear is partitioned into two distinct components: circular, fluid-filled tubes that sense the angle of the head, and two bags filled with calcium crystals embedded in a thick fluid, which respond to linear movement. The movement of the calcium crystals sends a signal to the brain to tell us the direction of gravity. This is not the only cue the brain receives. Nerves in the muscles, joints, and skin—particularly the slain on the bottom of the feet—respond to the weight of limb segments and other body parts. Removing gravity transforms these signals. The inner ear no longer perceives a downward tendency when the head moves. The limbs no longer have weight, so muscles are no longer required to contract and relax in the usual way to maintain posture and bring about movement. Nerves that respond to touch and pressure in the feet and ankles no longer signal the direction of down. These and other changes contribute to orientation illusions, such as a feeling that the body or the spacecraft spontaneously changes direction. In 1961 a Russian astronaut reported vivid sensations of being upside down; one space shuttle specialist in astronomy said, "When the main engines cut off, I immediately felt as though we had inverted 180 degrees." Such illusions can recur even after some time in space.

Before a big exam, a sound night"s sleep will do you more good than poring over textbooks. That, at least, is the folk wisdom. And science, in the form of behavioral psychology, supports that wisdom. But such behavioral studies cannot distinguish between two competing theories of why sleep is good for the memory. One says that sleep is when permanent memories form.【F1】 The other says that they are actually formed during the day, but then"edited" at night to flush away what is superfluous. To tell the difference, it is necessary to look into the brain of a sleeping person, and that is hard. But after a decade of painstaking work, a team led by Pierre Maquet at Liege University in Belgium has managed to do it.【F2】 The particular stage of sleep in which the Belgian group is interested in is rapid eye movement sleep, when the eyes move back and forth behind the eyelids as if watching a movie, and brainwave traces resemble those of wakefulness. It is during this period of sleep that people are most likely to relive events of the previous day in dreams. Dr. Maquet used an electronic device called PET to study the brains of people as they practiced a task during the day, and as they slept during the following night. The task required them to press a button as fast as possible, in response to a light coming on in one of six positions. As they learnt how to do this, their response times got faster.【F3】 What they did not know was that the appearance of the lights sometimes followed a pattern—what is referred to as "artificial grammar". Yet the reductions in response time showed that they learnt faster when the pattern was present than when there was not. What is more, those with more to learn(i.e., the "grammar", as well as the mechanical task of pushing the button)have more active brains. The "editing" theory would not predict that, since the number of irrelevant stimuli would be the same in each case.【F4】 And to eliminate any doubts that the experimental subjects were learning as opposed to unlearning, their response times when they woke up were even quicker than when they went to sleep. The team, therefore, concluded that the nerve connections involved in memory are reinforced through reactivation during REM sleep, particularly if the brain detects an inherent structure in the material being learnt.【F5】 So now, on the eve of that crucial test, maths students can sleep soundly in the knowledge that what they will remember the next day are the basic rules of algebra and not the incoherent talk from the radio next door.

Don"t talk: your cell phone may be eavesdropping. Thanks to recent developments in "spy phone" software, a do-it-yourself spook can now wirelessly transfer a wiretapping program to any mobile phone. The programs are inexpensive, and the transfer requires no special skill. The would-be spy needs to get his hands on your phone to press keys authorizing the download, but it takes just a few minutes—about the time needed to download a ringtone. This new generation of user-friendly ipyphone software has become widely available in the last year— and it confers stunning powers. The latest programs can silently turn on handset microphones even when no call is being made, allowing a spy to listen to voices in a room halfway around the world. Targets are none the wiser: neither call logs nor phone bills show records of the secretly transmitted data. More than 200 companies sell spy-phone software online, at prices as low as $50. Vendors are loath to release sales figures. But some experts claim that a surprising number of people carry a mobile that has been compromised, usually by a spouse, lover, parent or co-worker. Many employees, experts say, hope to discover a supervisor"s dishonest dealings and tip off the top boss anonymously. Max Maiellaro, head of Agata Christie Investigation, a private-investigation firm in Milan, estimates that 3 percent of mobiles in France and Germany are tapped, and about 5 percent or so in Greece, Italy, Romania and Spain. James Atkinson, a spy-phone expert at Granite Island Group, a security consultancy in Gloucester, Massachusetts, puts the number of tapped phones in the U.S. at 3 percent. Even if these numbers are inflated, clearly many otherwise law-abiding citizens are willing to break wiretapping laws. Spyware thrives on iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smart phones because they have ample processing power. In the United States, the spread of GSM networks, which are more vulnerable than older technologies, has also enlarged the pool of potential victims. Spyware being developed for law-enforcement agencies will accompany a text message and automatically install itself in the victim"s phone when the message is opened, according to an Italian developer who declined to be identified. One worry is that the software will find its way into the hands of criminals. The current embarrassment is partly the result of decisions by Apple, Microsoft and Research In Motion(producer of the BlackBerry)to open their phones to outside application-software developers, which created the opening for spyware. Antivirus and security programs developed for computers require too much processing power, even for smart phones. Although security programs are available for phones, by and large users haven"t given the threat much thought If the spying keeps spreading, that may change soon.

BloodDonationWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

Plastic is the panacea of the ages. Nearly every man-made object (1)_____ (2)_____ of, or at least (3)_____ its very structure, to this wonder compound. Rain slickers, computer terminals, automobile engine parts, coffee cups (and the sugar stirrers too), breast implants, toy soldiers—they are all made up of plastic, or one of its many (4)_____ Since the (5)_____ of civilization, humankind bas been experimenting (6)_____ a multifunctional material—one that had to be equally strong and lightweight—to carry, contain and protect valuables. (7)_____ it could carry, contain and protect humans too, even better. Generations of tinkerers and scientists set off (8)_____ the challenge, striking gold some 170 years ago. By mixing natural rubber with sulphur they created the world"s most utilized material ever. In developing a (9)_____, malleable and durable substance, the most important inventions of the industrial age were to follow shortly thereafter. The automobile and airplane industries, to (10)_____ just two, owe their very existence to plastic. And, (11)_____ celluloid plastic strips, the Lumiere Brothers would never have brought moving pictures to the big screen. The development of plastic is a story of human (12)_____, ingenuity and luck. (13)_____ the legend now goes, in 1839, the American inventor Charles Goodyear (the famous tyre company would later use his name) was experimenting with the sulphur treatment of natural rubber when he dropped a piece of sulphur-treated rubber on a stove. The heat seemed to give rubber (14)_____ properties. It was stronger, more (15)_____ to abrasions more elastic, much less (16)_____ to temperature, (17)_____ to gases, and highly resistant to chemicals and electric (18)_____ Eyeing this as a cheaply and easily reproduced construction material, a whirlwind of work (19)_____ and the birth of (20)_____ plastic and plastic-derivatives were born from camphor to celluloid to rayon; cellophane, polyvinyl chloride (or PVC); styrofoam and nylon were soon to follow.

The professor talked to American and Brazilian students about lateness in both an informal and a formal situation: lunch with a friend and in a university class, respectively. He gave them an example and asked them how they would (1)_____ if they had a lunch appointment with a friend, the average American student (2)_____ lateness as 19 minutes after the (3)_____ time. On the other hand, the average Brazilian student felt the friend was late after 33 minutes. In an American university, students are expected to arrive at the appointed (4)_____ Classes not only begin, but also end at the (5)_____ time in the United States. In the Brazilian class, only a few students left the class at noon; many (6)_____ past 12:30 to discuss questions. (7)_____ arriving late may not be very important in Brazil, (8)_____ is staying late. The (9)_____ for these differences is complicated. People from Brazilian and North American (10)_____ have different feeling about lateness. In Brazil, the students believe that a person who usually (11)_____ than a person who is always (12)_____. In fact, Brazilians expect a person with (13)_____ or prestige to arrive late, while in the United States lateness is usually (14)_____ disrespectful and unacceptable. (15)_____, if a Brazilian is late for an appointment with a North American, the American may misinterpret the (16)_____ and become angry. As a result of his study, the professor learned that the Brazilian students were not being (17)_____ to him. Instead, they were simply be having in the (18)_____ way for a Brazilian student in Brazil. Eventually, the professor was able to (19)_____ his own behavior so that he could feel (20)_____ in the new culture.

In spite of "endless talk of difference", American society is an amazing machine for homogenizing people. There is "the democratizing uniformity of dress and discourse, and the casualness and absence of deference" characteristic of popular culture. People are absorbed into "a culture of consumption" launched by the 19th-century department stores that offered "vast arrays of goods in an elegant atmosphere. Instead of intimate shops catering to a knowledgeable elite" these were stores "anyone could enter, regardless of class or background. This turned shopping into a public and democratic act." The mass media, advertising and sports are other forces for homogenization. Immigrants are quickly fitting into this common culture, which may not be altogether elevating but is hardly poisonous. Writing for the National Immigration Forum, Gregory Rodriguez reports that today's immigration is neither at unprecedented levels nor resistant to assimilation. In 1998 immigrants were 9.8 percent of population; in 1900,13.6 percent. In the 10 years prior to 1990, 3.1 immigrants arrived for every 1, 000 residents; in the 10 years prior to 1890, 9.2 for every 1, 000. Now, consider three indices of assimilation—language, home ownership and intermarriage. The 1990 Census revealed that "a majority of immigrants from each of the fifteen most common countries of origin spoke English 'well' or 'very well' after ten years of residence." The children of immigrants tend to be bilingual and proficient in English. "By the third generation, the original language is lost in the majority of immigrant families." Hence the description of America as a "graveyard" for languages. By 1996 foreign-born immigrants who had arrived before 1970 had a home ownership rate of 75.6 percent, higher than the 69.8 percent rate among native-born Americans. Foreign-born Asians and Hispanics "have higher rates of intermarriage than do U.S.-born whites and blacks." By the third generation, one third of Hispanic women are married to non-Hispanics, and 41 percent of Asian-American women are married to non-Asians. Rodriguez notes that children in remote villages around the world are fans of superstars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Garth Brooks, yet "some Americans fear that immigrants living within the United States remain somehow immune to the nation' s assimilative power." Are there divisive issues and pockets of seething anger in America? Indeed. It is big enough to have a bit of everything. But particularly when viewed against America's turbulent past, today's social indices hardly suggest a dark and deteriorating social environment.

A teenager was unable to call an ambulance after her parents were shot in February because the family"s internet phone service did not offer access to the 911 emergency number. A baby died in March for the same reason. Sad tales such as these led America"s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to vote on May 19th to require internet phone companies to offer a 911 service. In so doing, the FCC seemed to have taken its first, big step towards imposing traditional telecoms rules on the internet—a contentious move given the fears that this will strangle what many still regard as an infant industry, especially if regulators elsewhere follow suit. But are the new rules really so bad? The new rules uphold a subset of telecoms policy, social objectives, which is much less burdensome than the FCC"S hugely unpopular economic regulation. Many providers of internet telephony—strictly, Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP)—have for years sought the technical ability to provide an emergency service, knowing that such a feature would be essential were internet telephony ever to become a truly credible alternative to the traditional phone service. Incumbent operators that manage the emergency-service sys tem have not always made it easy for the upstarts to interconnect, which costs a provider almost $10m a year for nationwide service. The FCC has signaled that incumbent operators had better now act fairly. Moreover, the new rules apply only to certain firms, are easy to implement, and pro vide flexibility for future technical improvements. Only firms that offer VOIP via the public telephone network will have to provide 911, and to use it their customers will have to register their addresses. Only when internet technology is developed to allow the network to tell where a phone is connected to it will other VOIP operators be required to introduce this facility. Significantly, services based mainly on software, such as voice-enabled instant-messenger programs or online video games, which do not try to resemble regular phone service, are exempt. All in all then, the new policy is unlikely to do much to slow a business now growing rapidly worldwide. In America, VOIP is on track to exceed $1 billion in revenue this year, with over 3m users. Many ordinary phone firms now use the technology to connect calls, helping VOIP to account for a growing slice of international phone traffic. Having found an elegant way to impose 911 rules on VOIP, the FCC"s next challenge will be to secure wire-tapping capability for law-enforcement surveillance. This is an issue that similarly has been quietly debated for years. It may take another set of tragedies before it is mandated in a quick, unanimous vote by the regulators.

Studythefollowingsetofdrawingscarefullyandwriteanessayinwhichyoushould1)describethesetofdrawings,interpretitsmeaning,and2)pointoutitsimplicationsinourlife.Youshouldwriteabout200wordsneatlyonANSWERSHEET2.(20points)