Studythefollowingpicturecarefullyandwriteanessayentitled"Cultures—NationalandInternational".Intheessayyoushould1)describethepictureandinterpretitsmeaning,and2)giveyourcommentonthephenomenon.Youshouldwriteabout200wordsneatlyonANSWERSHEET2.(20points)

"We find that the fleeting uses of the words "penis", "vaginal", "ass", "bastard" and "bitch" uttered in the context of the programs cited in the complaints, do not render the material patently offensive under contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium." Making decisions like this is one of the more thankless tasks of America"s media regulator, the Federal Communications Commission. Since 1927 the FCC has tried to protect children from "indecency"—sexual content and swear words—on broadcast television and radio. Under pressure from social conservatives, America"s politicians are now threatening to extend indecency regulation further. If they get their way, not just broadcast television and radio but cable and satellite TV, and possibly satellite radio, would be monitored by the FCC for indecency. America"s media firms have been shaken by this threat. Every society, of course, has the right to protect children from adult material. But increasing censorship by the central government is the wrong way to go about this. A wiser course would be to eliminate the government"s role and rely more on parents. Fortunately, changes in technology and the media industry itself now make this approach more feasible than ever. Television has changed beyond recognition since indecency rules were first imposed. In 1978 the Supreme Court upheld the FCC"s right to punish indecency on the grounds that broadcasters had what it called a "uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans." Back then, that was a plausible argument. But with television fragmenting in to so many outlets such unique pervasiveness no longer prevails. Over four-fifths of American households, for instance, subscribe to cable or satellite television. They are just as likely to be watching one of the hundreds of cable channels they have at home as one of the main six broadcast networks. With so much choice, avoiding the indecent is easier than it was 30 years ago when most people had only three channels. At the same time, new technology now allows families to filter the television they receive. Cable and satellite TV come with set-top boxes that can screen out individual channels. Digital cable set-top boxes are particularly precise, and allow parents to block individual programmes at the touch of a button on their remote control. Every new television set sold in America since 2000 is equipped with a "v-chip", a blocking device that Bill Clinton forced on the media industry in 1996. It is only thanks to the v-chip and set-top boxes, in fact, that children get any protection from violence, since the FCC regulates only sex and bad language. America is the only country where blocking technology is already in the vast majority of homes, thanks to the ubiquity of pay television. But it is likely soon to be available elsewhere as well.

You are what you eat, or so the saying goes. But Richard Wrangham, of Harvard University, believes that this is true in a more profound sense than the one implied by the old proverb. It is not just you who are what you eat, but the entire human species. And with Homo sapiens, what makes the species unique in Dr. Wrangham"s opinion is that its food is so often cooked. Cooking is a human universal. No society is without it. No one other than a few faddists tries to survive on raw food alone. And the consumption of a cooked meal in the evening, usually in the company of family and friends, is normal in every known society. Moreover, without cooking, the human brain (which consumes 20-25% of the body"s energy) could not keep running. Dr. Wrangham thus believes that cooking and humanity have developed alongside. In fact, as he outlined to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in Chicago, he thinks that cooking and other forms of preparing food are humanity"s "killer application": the evolutionary change that underpins all of the other—and subsequent—changes that have made people such unusual animals. Humans became human, as it were, with the emergence 1.8 million years ago of a species called Homo erectus. This had a skeleton much like modern man"s—a big, brain-filled skull and a narrow pelvis and rib cage, which imply a small abdomen and thus a small gut. Hitherto, the explanation for this shift from the smaller skulls and wider pelvises of man"s apelike ancestors has been a shift from a vegetable-based diet to a meat-based one. Meat has more calories than plant matter, the theory went. A.smaller gut could therefore support a larger brain. Dr. Wrangham disagrees. When you do the sums, he argues, raw meat is still insufficient to bridge the gap. He points out that even modern "raw foodists", members of a town-dwelling, back-to-nature social movement, struggle to maintain their weight—and they have access to animals and plants that have been bred for the table. Pre-agricultural man confined to raw food would have starved.Start cooking, however, and things change radically. Cooking alters food in three important ways. It breaks starch molecules into more digestible fragments. It "denatures" protein molecules, so that their amino-acid chains unfold and digestive enzymes can attack them more easily. And heat physically softens food. That makes it easier to digest, so even though the stuff is no more calorific, the body uses fewer calories dealing with it.

The rigid higher-education business is about to experience a welcome earthquake. Traditional universities now face a new【C1】______in the form of massive open online courses, or MOOCs. These digitally-delivered courses, which teach students via the【C2】______or tablet apps, have big【C3】______over their established rivals. With low startup costs and powerful economies of scale, online courses【C4】______lower the price of learning and【C5】______access to it, by【C6】______the need for students to be taught at set times or places. The low cost of【C7】______courses—creating a new one costs about $70,000— means they can be sold【C8】______, or even given away. Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School considers MOOCs a【C9】______"disruptive technology" that will kill off many【C10】______universities. "Fifteen years from now more than half of the universities in America will be in bankruptcy," he【C11】______last year. 【C12】______, traditional universities have a few favorable aspects. As well as teaching, examining and certification, college education creates social capital. Students learn how to【C13】______present themselves, make contacts and roll joints. How can a digital college experience give all of that? The answer may be to【C14】______the two. Anant Agarwal, who runs edX-, one of established MOOCs, proposes an alternative to the【C15】______American four-year degree course. Students could spend an introductory year learning via a MOOC,【C16】______by two years attending university and a final year starting part-time work while【C17】______their studies online. This sort of【C18】______learning might prove more attractive than a four-year online degree. It could also【C19】______those who want to integrate learning with work or child-rearing, freeing them from timetables assembled to【C20】______academics.

OnSupportingParentsWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)interpretitsintendingmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

We all thought it a pity that the conference should have been cancelled.

Playing organized sports is such a common experience in the United States that many children and teenagers take them for granted. This is especially true【B1】______children from families and communities that have the resources needed to organize and【B2】______sports programs and make sure that there is easy【B3】______to participation opportunities. Children in low-income families and poor communities are【B4】______likely to take organized youth sports for granted because they often 【B5】______ the resources needed to pay for participation【B6】______, equipment, and transportation to practices and games 【B7】______ their communities do not have resources to build and 【B8】______ sports fields and facilities. Organized youth sports 【B9】______ appeared during the early 20th century in the United States and other wealthy nations. They were originally developed【B10】______some educators and developmental experts【B11】______that the behavior and character of children were【B12】______influenced by their social surrounding and everyday experiences. This【B13】______many people to believe that if you could organize the experiences of children in【B14】______ways, you could influence the kinds of adults that those children would become. This belief that the social【B15】______influenced a person' s overall development was very【B16】______to people interested in progress and reform in the United States【B17】______the beginning of the 20th century. It caused them to think about【B18】______they might control the experiences of children to【B19】______responsible and productive adults. They believed strongly that democracy depended on responsibility and that a【B20】______capitalist economy depended on the productivity of worker.

OutsidetheExaminationVenueWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

In order to understand, however imperfectly, what is meant by "face", we must take【1】of the fact that, as a race, the Chinese have a strongly【2】instinct. The theatre may almost be said to be the only national amusement, and the Chinese have for theatricals a【3】like that of the Englishman【4】athletics, or the Spaniard for bull-fights. Upon very slight provocation, any Chinese regards himself in the【5】of an actor in a drama. He throws himself into theatrical attitudes, performs the salaam, falls upon his knees, prostrates himself and strikes his head upon the earth,【6】circumstances which to an Occidental seem to make such actions superfluous,【7】to say ridiculous. A Chinese thinks in theatrical terms. When roused in self-defense he addresses two or three persons as if they were a multitude. He exclaims: "I say this in the presence of You, and You, and You, who are all here present. " If his troubles are adjusted he【8】of himself as having "got off the stage" with credit, and if they are not adjusted he finds no way to "retire from the stage". All this,【9】it clearly understood, has nothing to do with realities. The question is never of facts, but always of【10】. If a fine speech has been【11】at the proper time and in the proper way, the requirement of the play is met. We are not to go behind the scenes, for that would【12】all the plays in the world. Properly to execute acts like these in all the complex relations of life, is to have "face". To fail them, to ignore them, to be thwarted in the performance of them, this is to "【13】face". Once rightly apprehended, "face" will be found to be in itself a【14】to the combination lock of many of the most important characteristics of the Chinese. It should be added that the principles which regulate "face" and its attainment are often wholly【15】the intellectual apprehension of the Occidental, who is constantly forgetting the theatrical element, and wandering【16】into the irrelevant regions of fact. To him it often seems that Chinese "face" is not unlike the South Sea Island taboo, a force of undeniable potency, but capricious, and not reducible to rule, deserving only to be abolished and replaced by common sense. At this point Chinese and Occidentals must agree to【17】, for they can never be brought to view the same things in the same light. In the adjustment of the incessant quarrels which distract every hamlet, it is necessary for the "peace-talkers" to take a careful account of the【18】of "face" as European statesmen once did of the balance of power. The object in such cases is not the execution of even-handed justice, which, even if theoretically desirable, seldom【19】to an Oriental as a possibility, but such an arrangement as will distribute to all concerned "face" in due proportions. The same principle often applies in the settlement of lawsuits, a very large percentage of which end in what may be called a【20】game.

Maintaining classroom discipline is a growing problem for many schools. (46) Some children seem incapable of following the rules, perhaps because they feel they are unreasonable or unclear. There can be no such excuse at Bebington High School on the Wirral. When children misbehave at Bebington, the teacher immediately writes their names on the classroom board. They know they are in trouble and they know what the penalty is likely to be. Their classmates know too that the choice to break the rules was their own. (47) The effect, claim the proponents of this American system of discipline, has been to improve behaviour, allowing more time to be spent on teaching. "Assertive discipline" was introduced into Bebington last September and Margaret Hodson, a science teacher, says the results are "little short of a miracle". Since the program was introduced into England two years ago, 450 schools, 80 per cent of them primary have adopted the scheme. Whether the program spreads more widely depends to some extent on the government"s attitude. (48) Adrian Smith, of Behaviour Management, the Bristol—based company marketing the scheme in Brian, will this week meet Eric Forth, the Junior Schools Minister, to tell him of the benefits achieved by schools using the program. Bebington, a 1000-pupil ll-to-18 secondary modern school, was always considered good for a school of its type, but staff claim that standards of behaviour increased dramatically last term, with an improvement in the work rate of the children and less stress on the teachers. (49) The basis of the programme, which costs schools $22 a day for each person trained, is that all children have a right to choose how they behave but they must face the consequences of that choice. A set of straightforward rules is displayed on a wall in each classroom, together with a set of rewards and consequences. (50) The rules at Bebington are: arrive on time to lessons and enter the room quietly; remain in your seat unless asked to move; come to lessons properly equipped; listen to and follow instructions the first time they are given; raise your hand before answering or speaking; and treat other, their work and equipment with respect.

What would the world look like without the dollar domination? US officials are【C1】______out a deal to end the government shutdown and【C2】______its debt limit, hoping to avoid a global【C3】______crisis. Meanwhile, some eyed【C4】______to the US dollar to avoid a repeat. Earlier this week, an editorial from Xinhua news agency, called【C5】______a new international reserve currency to【C6】______the dollar. "It is perhaps a good time for the【C7】______world to start considering building a de-Americanized world," it said. An organization like the International Monetary Fund could theoretically【C8】______an entirely new international currency, says Benjamin Cohen of the University of California, but political disagreement would raise its ugly【C9】______again "Think of all the trouble the European Monetary Union has had【C10】______with just 17 countries. Now【C11】______by ten." "I think it much more likely that another【C12】______currency becomes more important in international markets," says Menzie Chinn of the University of Wisconsin. "The Chinese are, with mixed【C13】______, pursuing a path of making their own currency more international." 【C14】______don"t expect to be cashing in renminbi any time soon. The last big【C15】______in reserve currency, from British pounds to the US dollar, began in the 1950s and【C16】______two decades. Even if we could just【C17】______the dollar overnight, no other currency, including the renminbi, can currently【C18】______it, says Cohen. "Governments still use the dollar,【C19】______the current political difficulty in Washington, because of its【C20】______availability, deep liquidity and wide acceptability."

The proportion of works cut for the cinema in Britain dropped from 40 percent when I joined the BBFC in 1975 to less than 4 percent when I left. But I don"t think that 20 years from now it will be possible to regulate any medium as closely as I regulated film. The Internet is, of course, the greatest problem for this century. (46) The world will have to find a means, through some sort of international treaty or United Nations initiative, to control the material that"s now going totally unregulated into people"s homes. That said, it will only take one little country like Paraguay to refuse to sign a treaty for transmission to be unstoppable. Parental control is never going to be sufficient. (47) I"m still very worried about the impact of violent video games, even though researchers say their impact is moderated by the fact that players don"t so much experience the game as enjoy the technical maneuvers that enable you to win. But in respect of violence in mainstream films, I"m more optimistic. Quite suddenly, tastes have changed, and it"s no longer Stallone or Schwarzenegger who are the top stars, but Leonardo Di Caprio—that has taken everybody by surprise. (48) Go through the most successful films in Europe and America now and you will find virtually none that are violent. Quentin Tarantino didn"t usher in a new, violent generation, and films are becoming much more pre-social than one would have expected. Cinemagoing will undoubtedly survive. The new multiplexes are a glorious experience, offering perfect sound and picture and very comfortable seats, things which had died out in the 1980s. (49) I can"t believe we"ve achieved that only to throw it away in favour of huddling around a 14-inch computer monitor to watch digitally-delivered movies at home. It will become increasingly cheap to make films, with cameras becoming smaller and lighter but remaining very precise. (50) That means greater chances for new talent to emerge, as it will be much easier to learn how to be a better film-maker. Careers will be shorter in the future, and once retired, people will spend a lot of time learning to do things that amuse them—like making videos. Fifty years on we could well be media-saturated as both producers and audiences: instead of writing letters, one will send little home movies entitled My Week.

【F1】 I can"t help wondering what Charles Darwin would think if he could survey the state of his intellectual achievement today. 200 years after his birth and 150 years after the publication of "On the Origin of Species" , the book that changed everything. His central idea evolution by means of natural selection—was in some sense the product of his time, as Darwin well knew. He was the grandson of Erasmus Darwin, who grasped that there was something wrong with the conventional notion of fixed species. And his theory was hastened into print and into joint presentation by the independent discoveries of Alfred Russel Wallace half a world away. But Darwin"s theory was the product of years of patient observation.【F2】 We love to believe in science by epiphany, but the work of real scientists is to rigorously test their epiphanies after they have been boiled down to working hypotheses. Most of Darwin"s life was devoted to gathering evidence for just such tests. He writes with an air of incompleteness because he was aware that it would take the work of many scientists to confirm his theory in detail. I doubt that much in the subsequent history of Darwin"s idea would have surprised him.【F3】 The most important discoveries—Mendel"s genetics and the structure of DNA—would almost certainly have gratified him because they reveal the physical basis for the variation underlying evolution. It would have gratified him to see his ideas so thoroughly tested and to see so many of them confirmed. He could hardly have expected to be right so often. Perhaps one day we will not call evolution "Darwinism". After all, we do not call classical mechanics Newtonism . As for the other fate of so-called Darwinism—the reductionist controversy fostered by religious conservatives—well, Darwin knew plenty about that, too. The cultural opposition to evolution was then, as now, scientifically irrelevant.【F4】 Perhaps the persistence of opposition to evolution is a reminder that culture is not biological, or else we might have evolved past such a gnashing of sensibilities. 【F5】 In a way, our peculiarly American failure to come to terms with Darwin"s theory and what it"s become since 1859 is a sign of something broader: our failure to come to terms with science and the leaching of science.

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

It does not alter the fact that he is the man responsible for the SARS.

"I've never met a human worth cloning," says cloning expert Mark Westhusin from the cramped confines of his lab at Texas A&M University. "It's a stupid endeavor."【F1】 That's an interesting choice of adjective, coming from a man who has spent millions of dollars trying to clone a 13-year-old dog named Missy. So far, he and his team have not succeeded, though they have cloned two calves and expect to clone a cat soon. They just might succeed in cloning Missy later this year—or perhaps not for another five years. It seems the reproductive system of man's best friend—dog is one of the mysteries of modern science. Westhusin's experience with cloning animals leaves him vexed by all this talk of human cloning.【F2】 In three years of work on the Missyplicity project, using hundreds upon hundreds of canine eggs, the A&M team has produced only a dozen or so embryos carrying Missy's DNA. 【F3】 The wastage of eggs and the many spontaneously aborted fetuses may be acceptable when you're dealing with cats or bulls, he argues, but not with humans. "Cloning is incredibly inefficient, and also dangerous," he says. Even so, dog cloning is a commercial opportunity, with a nice research payoff. Ever since Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1997, Westhusin's phone at A&M College of Veterinary Medicine has been ringing busily. Cost is no obstacle for customers like Missy's mysterious owner, who wishes to remain unknown to protect his privacy. He's plopped down $3.7 million so far to fund the research because he wants a twin to carry on Missy's fine qualities after she dies. But he knows her clone may not have her temperament.【F4】 In a statement of purpose, Missy's owners and the A&M team say they are "both looking forward to studying the ways that her clone differs from Missy." The fate of the dog samples will depend on Westhusin's work.【F5】 He knows that even if he gets a dog viably pregnant, the offspring, should they survive, will face the problems shown at birth by other cloned animals: abnormalities like immature lungs and heart and weight problems. "Why would you ever want to clone humans," Westhusin asks, "when we're not even close to getting it worked out in animals yet?"

As many people hit middle age, they often start to notice that their memory and mental clarity are not what they used to be. We suddenly can"t remember【C1】______we put the keys just a moment ago, or an old acquaintance"s name, or the name of an old band we used to love. As the brain【C2】______, we refer to these occurrences as "senior moments."【C3】______seemingly innocent, this loss of mental focus can potentially have a(n)【C4】______ impact on our professional, social, and personal【C5】______. Neuroscientists, experts who study the nervous system, are increasingly showing that there"s actually a lot that can be done. It【C6】______out that the brain needs exercise in much the same way our muscles do, and the right mental【C7】______can significantly improve our basic cognitive【C8】______. Thinking is essentially a【C9】______of making connections in the brain. To a certain extent, our ability to【C10】______in making the connections that drive intelligence is inherited.【C11】______, because these connections are made through effort and practice, scientists believe that intelligence can expand and fluctuate 【C12】______mental effort. Now, a new Web-based company has taken it a step【C13】______and developed the first "brain training program" designed to actually help people improve and regain their mental【C14】______. The Web -based program【C15】______you to systematically improve your memory and attention skills. The program keeps【C16】______of your progress and provides detailed feedback【C17】______your performance and improvement. Most importantly, it【C18】______modifies and enhances the games you play to【C19】______on the strengths you are developing—much like a (n)【C20】______exercise routine requires you to increase resistance and vary your muscle use.

Please write a notice about holding a short-term oral English class during the summer holidays. Your notice should cover these five points given below: 1) time 2) textbook for this class; 3) students who are qualified to attend this class; 4) office to sign in; 5) publishing time of your notice. By the way, Mrs. Connie, an American professor who is working in Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, will come and have talks with us twice a week. You should write about 100 words.

Do people get happier or more foul-tempered as they age? Stereotypes of irritable neighbors 【B1】______, scientists have been trying to answer this question for decades, and the results have been 【B2】______. Now a study of several thousand Americans born between 1885 and 1980 reveals that well-being 【B3】______ increases with age but overall happiness【B4】______when a person was born. 【B5】______studies that have【B6】______older adults with the middle-aged and young have sometimes found that older adults are not as happy. But these studies could not 【B7】______ whether their 【B8】______ was because of their age or be cause of their【B9】______life experience. The new study, published online January 24 in Psychological Science, 【B10】______out the answer by examining 30 years of data on thousands of Americans, including【B11】______measures of mood and well-being, reports of job and relationship success, and objective measures of health. The researchers found, after controlling for variables【B12】______health, wealth, gender, ethnicity and education, that well-being increases over everyone' s lifetime.【B13】______people who have lived through extreme hardship, such as the Great Depression,【B14】______much less happy than those who have had more【B15】______lives. This finding helps to【B16】______why past studies have found conflicting results—experience【B17】______, and tough times can【B18】______an entire generation's happiness for the rest of their lives. The【B19】______news is,【B20】______we've lived through, we can all look forward to feeling more content as we age.

You are a senior student and are going to graduate next year. Write a letter to the Graduate School of a university expressing your will to purchase Master degree there. Please introduce yourself and inquire about information you think necessary. Write your letter with no less than 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter; use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.