阅读理解 Robert F. Kennedy once said that a country's GDP measures 'everything except that which makes life worthwhile.' With Britain voting to leave the European Union, and GDP already predicted to slow as a result, it is now a timely moment to assess what he was referring to. The question of GDP and its usefulness has annoyed policymakers for over half a century. Many argue that it is a flawed concept. It measures things that do not matter and misses things that do. By most recent measures, the UK's GDP has been the envy of the Western world, with record tow unemployment and high growth figures. If everything was going so well, then why did over 17 million people vote for Brexit, despite the warnings about what it could do to their country's economic prospects? A recent annual study of countries and their ability to convert growth into well-being sheds some light on that question. Across the 163 countries measured, the UK is one of the poorest performers in ensuring that economic growth is translated into meaningful improvements for its citizens. Rather than just focusing on GDP, over 40 different sets of criteria from health, education and civil society engagement have been measured to get a more rounded assessment of how countries are performing. While all of these countries face their own challenges, there are a number of consistent themes. Yes, there has been a budding economic recovery since the 2008 global crash, but in key indicators in areas such as health and education, major economies have continued to decline. Yet this isn't the case with all countries. Some relatively poor European countries have seen huge improvements across measures including civil society, income equality and environment. This is a lesson that rich countries can learn: When GDP is no longer regarded as the sole measure of a country's success, the world looks very different. So what Kennedy was referring to was that while GDP has been the most common method for measuring the economic activity of nations, as a measure, it is no longer enough. It does not include important factors such as environmental quality or education outcomes—all things that contribute to a person's sense of well-being. The sharp hit to growth predicted around the world and in the UK could lead to a decline in the everyday services we depend on for our well-being and for growth. But policymakers who refocus efforts on improving well-being rather than simply worrying about GDP figures could avoid the forecasted doom and may even see progress.

阅读理解 The iPad's impending arrival has created a commercial intrigue. A group of big publishers, including Macmillan and HarperCollins, have been using Apple's interest in e-books to persuade Amazon to renegotiate its pricing model. Like many other parts of the media industry, publishing is being radically reshaped by the growth of the Internet. Online retailers are already among the biggest distributors of books. Now e-books threaten to undermine sales of the old-fashioned kind. Mobclix, an advertising outfit, reckons the number of programs, or apps, for books on Apple's iPhone recently surpassed that for games, previously the largest category. In response, publishers are trying to shore up their conventional business while preparing for a future in which e-books will represent a much bigger chunk of sales. For some time they have operated a 'wholesale' pricing model with Amazon under which the online retailer pays publishers for books and then decides what it charges the public for them. This has enabled it to set the price of many new e-book titles and bestsellers at $ 9.99, which is often less than it has paid for them. Amazon has kept prices low in order to boost demand for its Kindle, which dominates the e-reader market but faces stiff competition from Sony and others. Publishers fret that this has conditioned consumers to expect lower prices for all kinds of books. And they worry that the downward spiral will further erode their already thin margins—some have had to close imprints and lay off staff in recent years—as well as bring further dismay to struggling bricks-and-mortar booksellers. As a result, publishers have turned to Apple to help them twist Amazon's arm. Keen to line up lots of titles for new iPad owners, the company has agreed to an 'agency model' under which publishers get to set the price at which their e-books are sold, with Apple taking 30% of the revenue generated. Faced with these deals, Amazon has reportedly agreed similar terms with several big publishers. As a result, the price of some popular e-books is expected to rise to $12.99 or $14.99. Once Apple and Amazon have taken their cut, publishers are likely to make less money on e-books under this new arrangement than under the wholesale one—a price they seem willing to pay in order to limit Amazon's influence and bolster print sales. Yet there are good reasons to doubt whether this and other strategies, such as delaying the release of electronic versions of new books for several months after the print launch, will halt the creeping commoditization of books. The publishing firms that survive what promises to be a wrenching transition will be those whose bosses and employees can learn quickly to think like multimedia impresarios rather than purveyors of perfect prose. Not all of them will be able to turn that particular page successfully.

阅读理解Which of the following would be the best title of the text?

阅读理解 This year has turned out to be a surprisingly good one for the world economy. Global output has probably risen by close to 5%, well above its trend rate and a lot faster than forecasters were expecting 12 months ago. Most of the dangers that frightened financial markets during the year have failed to materialize. China's economy has not suffered a hard landing. America's mid-year slowdown did not become a double-dip recession. Granted, the troubles of the euro area's peripheral economies have proved all too real. Yet the euro zone as a whole has grown at a decent rate for an ageing continent, thanks to oomph from Germany, the fastest-growing big rich economy in 2010. The question now is whether 2011 will follow the same pattern. Many people seem to think so. Consumer and business confidence is rising in most parts of the world; global manufacturing is accelerating; and financial markets are buoyant. The MSCI index of global share prices has climbed by 20% since early July. Investors today are shrugging off news far more ominous than that which rattled them earlier this year, from the soaring debt yields in the euro zone's periphery to news of rising inflation in China. Earlier this year investors were too pessimistic. Now their breezy confidence seems misplaced. To oversimplify a little, the performance of the world economy in 2011 depends on what happens in three places: the big emerging markets, the euro area and America. These big three are heading in very different directions, with very different growth prospects and contradictory policy choices. Some of this divergence is inevitable: even to the casual observer, India's economy has always been rather different from America's. But new splits are opening up, especially in the rich world, and with them come ever more chances for friction. Begin with the big emerging markets, by far the biggest contributors to global growth this year. Where it can, foreign capital is pouring in. Isolated worries about asset bubbles have been replaced by a fear of broader overheating. With Brazilian shops packed with shoppers, inflation there has surged above 5% and imports in November were 44% higher than the previous year. Cheap money is often the problem. Though the slump of 2009 is a distant memory, monetary conditions are still extraordinarily loose, thanks, in many places, to efforts to hold down currencies. This combination is unsustainable. To stop prices accelerating, most emerging economies will need tighter policies next year. If they do too much, their growth could slow sharply. If they do too little, they invite higher inflation and a bigger tightening later. Either way, the chances of a macroeconomic shock coming from the emerging world are rising steeply.

阅读理解Text 1 How can the train operators possibly justify yet another increase to rail passenger fares? It has become a grimly reliable annual ritual: every January the cost of travelling by train rises, imposing a significant extra burden on those who have no option but to use the rail network to get to work or otherwise

阅读理解What can be learned from the last paragraph?

阅读理解Much of the language used to describe monetary policy, such as" steering the economy to a soft landing" or" a touch on the brakes", makes it sound Like a precise science. Nothing could be further from the truth. The link between interest rates and inflation is uncertain. And there are long, variable lags before policy changes have any effect on the economy. Hence the analogy that likens the conduct of monetary policy to driving a car with a blackened windscreen, a cracked rear-view mirror and a faulty steering wheel. 　　Given all these disadvantages, central bankers seem to have had much to boast about of late. Average inflation in the big seven industrial economies fell to a mere 2.3% last year, close to its lowest level in 30 years, before rising slightly to 2.5% this July. This is a long way below the double-digit rates which many countries experienced in the 1970s and early 1980s. 　　It is also less than most forecasters had predicted. In late 1994 the panel of economists which The Economist polls each month said that America''s inflation rate would average 3.5% in 1995. In fact, it fell to 2.6% in August, and is expected to average only about 3% for the year as a whole. In Britain and Japan inflation is running half a percentage point below the rate predicted at the end of last year. This is no flash in the pan, over the past couple of years, inflation has been consistently lower than expected in Britain and America. 　　Economists have been particularly surprised by favourable inflation figures in Britain and the United States, since conventional measures suggest that both economies, and especially America''s ,have little productive slack. America''s capacity utilisation, for example, hit historically high levels earlier this year, and its jobless rate (5.6% in August) has fallen below most estimates of the natural rate of unemployment―the rate below which inflation has taken off in the past. 　　Why has inflation proved so mild? The most thrilling explanation is, unfortunately, a little defective. Some economists argue that powerful structural changes in the world have up-ended the old economic models that were based upon the historical link between growth and inflation.

阅读理解 Forget Iraq and budget deficits. The most serious political problem on both sides of the Atlantic is none of these. It is a difficulty that has dogged the ruling classes for millennia. It is the servant problem. In Britain David Blunkett, the home secretary, has resigned over an embarrassment ( or one of many embarrassments, in a story involving his ex-girlfriend, her husband, two pregnancies and some DNA) concerning a visa for a Filipina nanny employed by his mistress. His office speeded it through for reasons unconnected to the national shortage of un skilled labour. Mr Blunkett resigned ahead of a report by Sir Alan Budd, an economist who is investigating the matter at the government' s request. In America Bernard Kerik, the president' s nominee for the Department of Homeland Security, withdrew last week because he had carelessly employed a Mexican nanny whose Play-Doh skills were in better order than her paperwork. Mr Kerik also remembered that he hadn' t paid her taxes. The nominee has one or two other 'issues' ( an arrest warrant in 1998, and allegations of dodgy business dealings and extra-marital affairs). But employing an illegal nanny would probably have been enough to undo him, as it has several other cabinet and judicial appointees in recent years. There is an easy answer to the servant problem--obvious to economists, if not to the less clear-sighted. Perhaps Sir Alan, a dismal scientist of impeccable rationality, will be thoughtful enough to point it out in his report. Parents are not the only people who have difficulty getting visas for workers. All employers face restrictive immigration policies which raise labour costs. Some may respond by trying to fiddle the immigration system, but most deal with the matter by exporting jobs. In the age of the global economy, the solution to the servant problem is simple: rather than importing the nanny, offshore the children.

阅读理解A report consistently brought back by visitors to the US is how friendly, courteous, and helpful most Americans were to them. To be fair, this observation is also frequently made of Canada and Canadians ,and should best be considered North American. There are, of course, exceptions. Small- minded officials, rude waiters, and ill-mannered taxi drivers are hardly unknown in the US. Yet it is an observation made so frequently that it deserves comment. 　　For a long period of time and in many parts of the country, a traveler was a welcome break in an otherwise dull existence. Dullness and loneliness were common problems of the families who generally lived distant from one another. Strangers and travelers were welcome sources of diversion, and brought news of the outside world. 　　The harsh realities of the frontier also shaped this tradition of hospitality. Someone travelling alone, if hungry, injured, or ill, often had nowhere to turn except to the nearest cabin or settlement. It was not a matter of choice for the traveler or merely a charitable impulse on the part of the settlers. It reflected the harshness of daily life: if you didn''t take in the stranger and take care of him, there was no one else who would. And someday, remember, you might be in the same situation. 　　Today there are many charitable organizations which specialize in helping the weary traveler. Yet, the old tradition of hospitality to strangers is still very strong in the US, especially in the smaller cities and towns away from the busy tourist trails. "I was just traveling through, got talking with this American, and pretty soon he invited me home for dinner―amazing. "Such observations reported by visitors to the US are not uncommon, but are not always understood properly. The casual friendliness of many Americans should be interpreted neither as superficial nor as artificial, but as the result of a historically developed cultural tradition. 　　As is true of any developed society, in America a complex set of cultural signals, assumptions, and conventions underlies all social interrelationships. And, of course, speaking a language does not necessarily mean that someone understands social and cultural patterns. Visitors who fail to" translate" cultural meanings properly often draw wrong conclusions. For example, when an American uses the word "friend", the cultural implications of the word may be quite different from those it has in the visitor''s language and culture. It takes more than a brief encounter on a bus to distinguish between courteous convention and individual interest. Yet, being friendly is a virtue that many Americans value highly and expect from both neighbors and strangers.

阅读理解 Texting has long been lamented as the downfall of the written word, 'penmanship for illiterates,' one critic called it. To which the proper response is LOL. Texting properly isn't writing at all-it's actually more akin to spoken language. And it's a 'spoken' language that is getting richer and more complex by the year. Historically, talking came first; writing is just an artifice that came along later. While talk is largely subconscious and rapid, writing is deliberate and slow. Over time, writers took advantage of this and started crafting sentences such as this one, from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: 'The whole engagement lasted above 12 hours, till the gradual retreat of the Persians was changed into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by the principal leaders and the Surenas himself. ' No one talks like that casually-or should. But it is natural to desire to do so for special occasions. In the old days, we didn't much write like talking because there was no mechanism to reproduce the speed of conversation. But texting and instant messaging do-and a revolution has begun. It involves the brute mechanics of writing, but in its economy, spontaneity and even vulgarity, texting is actually a new kind of talking. There is a virtual cult of concision and little interest in capitalization or punctuation. The argument that texting is 'poor writing' is analogous, then, to one that the Rolling Stones is 'bad music' because it doesn't use violas. Texting is developing its own kind of grammar. Take LOL. It doesn't actually mean 'laughing out loud' in a literal sense anymore. LOL has evolved into something much subtler and sophisticated and is used even when nothing is remotely amusing. Jocelyn texts 'Where have you been?' and Annabelle texts back 'LOL at the library studying for two hours.' LOL signals basic empathy between texters, easing tension and creating a sense of equality. Instead of having a literal meaning, it does something— conveying an attitude—just like the -ed ending conveys past tense rather than 'meaning' anything. LOL, of all things, is grammar. Civilization is fine—people banging away on their smartphones are fluently using a code separate from the one they use .in actual writing, and there is no evidence that texting is ruining composition skills. Worldwide people speak differently from the way they write, and texting-quick, casual and only intended to be read once—is actually a way of talking with your fingers.

阅读理解 The rough guide to marketing success used to be that you got what you paid for. No longer. While traditional “paid” media–such as television commercials and print advertisements–still play a major role, companies today can exploit many alternative forms of media. Consumers passionate about a product may create “owned” media by sending e-mail alerts about products and sales to customers registered with its Web site. The way consumers now approach the broad range of factors beyond conventional paid media. Paid and owned media are controlled by marketers promoting their own products. For earned media , such marketers act as the initiator for users' responses. But in some cases, one marketer's owned media become another marketer's paid media–for instance, when an e-commerce retailer sells ad space on its Web site. We define such sold media as owned media whose traffic is so strong that other organizations place their content or e-commerce engines within that environment. This trend ,which we believe is still in its infancy, effectively began with retailers and travel providers such as airlines and hotels and will no doubt go further. Johnson Johnson, for example, has created Baby Center, a stand-alone media property that promotes complementary and even competitive products. Besides generating income, the presence of other marketers makes the site seem objective, gives companies opportunities to learn valuable information about the appeal of other companies' marketing, and may help expand user traffic for all companies concerned. The same dramatic technological changes that have provided marketers with more (and more diverse) communications choices have also increased the risk that passionate consumers will voice their opinions in quicker, more visible, and much more damaging ways. Such hijacked media are the opposite of earned media: an asset or campaign becomes hostage to consumers, other stakeholders, or activists who make negative allegations about a brand or product. Members of social networks, for instance, are learning that they can hijack media to apply pressure on the businesses that originally created them. If that happens, passionate consumers would try to persuade others to boycott products, putting the reputation of the target company at risk. In such a case, the company's response may not be sufficiently quick or thoughtful, and the learning curve has been steep. Toyota Motor, for example, alleviated some of the damage from its recall crisis earlier this year with a relatively quick and well-orchestrated social-media response campaign, which included efforts to engage with consumers directly on sites such as Twitter and the social-news site Digg.

阅读理解 In general, our society is becoming one of the giant enterprises directed by a bureaucratic management in which man becomes a small well-oiled cog in the machinery. The oiling is done with higher wages, well-ventilated factories and piped music, and by psychologists and 'human relations' experts; yet all this oiling does not aver the fact that man has become powerless, that he is bored with it. In fact, the blue-collar and the white-collar workers have become economic puppets who dance to the tune of automated machines and bureaucratic management. The. worker and employee are anxious not only because they might find themselves out of a job, they are anxious also because they are unable to acquire any real satisfaction of interest in life. They live and die without ever having confronted the fundamental realities of human existence as emotionally and intellectually independent and productive human beings. Those higher up on the social ladder are no less anxious. Their lives are no less empty than those of their subordinates. They are even more insecure in some respects. They are in a highly competitive race. To be promoted or to fall behind is not a matter of salary but even more a matter of self-respect. When they apply for their first job, they are tested for intelligence as well as for the right mixture of submissiveness and independence. From that moment on then are tested again and again by the psychologists, for whom testing is a big business, and by their superiors, who judge their behavior,soeia bitity, capacity to get along, etc. This constant need to prove that one is as good as or better than one's fellow competitor ereates constant anxiety and stress, the very causes of unhappiness and illness. Am I suggesting that we should return to the pre-industrial mode of production or to nineteenth century 'free enterprise' capitalism? Certainly not. Problems are never solved by returning to a stage which one has already outgrown. I suggest transforming our social system from a bureaucratically-man-aged industrialism in which maximal production and eonsumption are ends in themselves into a humanist industrialism in which man and full development of his potentialities—those of all love and of reason-are the aims of social arrangements. Production and consumption should serve only as means to this end, and should be prevented from ruling man.

阅读理解It can be inferred from the last paragraph that

阅读理解 Roadside billboards, posters on buses and subway escalators, ads in airport terminals—a type of publicity known as out-of-home advertising—used to be the dull end of the industry. No more. The falling price and improving quality of flat-screen displays mean that static posters printed on paper are being replaced by stylish digital commercials with moving pictures, sound and sometimes interactive features. William Eccleshare, who runs the international operations of Clear Channel, an American firm which is one of the largest out-of-home ad companies, thinks that in some countries more than 90% of its business will be digital by the decade's end. His arch-rival, Jean-Charles Decaux, the boss of France's JCDecaux, agrees that there will be a significant switch to digital, but mainly inside airports, railway stations, shopping malls and other controlled environments. Ads in bus shelters and other outdoor spots at risk of vandalism will take a lot longer to move away from paper, Mr. Decaux thinks. Digital displays already account for about one-quarter of his company's sales in transport hubs, but for less than 5% in street furniture and billboards. Clear Channel is so optimistic about digital posters because it believes they offer enormous potential for making advertisements more effective. McDonald's can advertise its sausage and egg McMuffin at breakfast time, change to its regular Big Mac fare at lunch and follow that with ads for apple pie and ice cream during teatime. When Spain won the football World Cup last year, digital billboards in Madrid, sponsored by Nike, showed the result within seconds. Advertisers constantly talk about wanting to 'engage' with consumers, so they are taking great interest in the potential for interactivity that digital technology will bring. JCDecaux, for example, is offering a free iPhone application called U snap: when a consumer sees a poster (paper or digital) for something that attracts his interest and takes a photo of it on his phone, the app recognises it, gives him product information and discount vouchers and directs him to the nearest retailer. Then there is 'gladvertising' and 'sadvertising', an idea in which billboards with embedded cameras, linked to face-tracking software, detect the mood of each consumer who passes by, and change the advertising on display to suit it. Such Big Brotherish software would no doubt detect a satisfied grin on the faces of out-of-home advertising bosses as they contemplate the next 18 months, in which a string of big events will boost their business: the Rugby World Cup, the American presidential election, the Euro 2012 football championship and the London Olympics. Wherever you go, there will be no escape from ads linked to these events, and the out-of-home advertising firms will be raking it in.

阅读理解 For a century, urban commotion has been treated as a moral failing of individuals. Fixing it will require systemic changes to environmental noise. What are your ears hearing right now? Maybe the bustling sounds of a busy office, or your partner cooking dinner in the next room. Whatever the texture of the sonic landscape of your life may be, beneath it all is the same omnipresent din: the sound of cars. That might seem benign, or perhaps even endearing—the sound of the bustle of the big city. But the din of vehicles, along with transit and industrial activity, is making people sick. People forget that noise pollution is still pollution. And noise pollution is everywhere. Unlike many other injuries, hearing damage is irreparable. It also functions differently. People tend to assume that hearing loss is akin to turning down the volume in one's head—that everything just sounds quieter. But it's more complex than that. Sound at certain frequencies just vanishes—birdsong, intelligible human speech, the gentle rustling of leaves, the crispy highs of brushes on jazz cymbals. People can avoid using earbuds excessively or attending loud concerts. But people do not necessarily have the ability to avoid high levels of environmental noise—it's in their neighborhoods, near their schools, at their workplaces. That makes noise pollution a matter of bodily autonomy. Solving the environmental-noise problem has been difficult, partly because for more than a century anti-noise advocates have fought for the right to silence rather than the right to hear. Concerns about hearing loss largely focus on excessive noise exposure. But environmental noise is just as unsafe. People living in cities are regularly exposed (against their will) to noise above 85 decibels from sources like traffic, subways, industrial activity, and airports. That's enough to cause significant hearing loss over time. If you have an hour-long commute at such sound levels, your hearing has probably already been affected. Urban life also sustains average background noise levels of 60 decibels, which is loud enough to raise one's blood pressure and heart rate, and cause stress, loss of concentration, and loss of sleep. Sirens are a particularly extreme example of the kind of noise inflicted on people every day: They ring at a sound-pressure level of 120 decibels—a level that corresponds with the human pain threshold, according to the World Health Organization. But since the turn of the 20th century, protecting human hearing has taken a back seat to securing quiet for those with means, and punishing those without. Noise-abatement laws transformed an objective concern about environmental and health conditions into a subjective fight over aesthetic moralism.

阅读理解What accounts for the great outburst of major inventions in early America―breakthroughs such as the telegraph ,the steamboat and the weaving machine? 　　Among the many shaping factors, I would single out the country''s excellent elementary schools; a labor force that welcomed the new technology ;the practice of giving premiums to inventors; and above all the American genius for nonverbal," spatial" thinking about things technological. 　　Why mention the elementary schools? Because thanks to these schools our early mechanic, especially in the New England and Middle Atlantic states, were generally literate and at home in arithmetic and in some aspects of geometry and trigonometry. 　　Acute foreign observers related American adaptiveness and inventiveness to this educational advantage. As a member of a British commission visiting here in 1853 reported," With a mind prepared by thorough school discipline ,the American boy develops rapidly into the skilled workman." 　　A further stimulus to invention came from the "premium" system, which preceded our patent system and for years ran parallel with it. This approach, originated abroad, offered inventors medals, cash prizes and other incentives. 　　In the United States, multitudes of premiums for new devices were awarded at country fairs and at the industrial fairs in major cities. Americans flocked to these fairs to admire the new machines and thus to renew their faith in the beneficence of technological advance. 　　Given this optimistic approach to technological innovation, the American worker took readily to that special kind of nonverbal thinking required in mechanical technology. As Eugene Ferguson has pointed out, "A technologist thinks about objects that cannot be reduced to unambiguous verbal descriptions; they are dealt with in his mind by a visual, nonverbal process... The designer and the inventor... are able to assemble and manipulate in their minds devices that as yet do not exist." 　　This nonverbal "spatial" thinking can be just as creative as painting and writing. Robert Fulton once wrote," The mechanic should sit down among levers, screws, wedges, wheels, etc., like a poet among the letters of the alphabet, considering them as an exhibition of his thoughts, in which a new arrangement transmits a new idea." 　　When all these shaping forces―schools, open attitudes, the premium system, a genius for spatial thinking―interacted with one another on the rich U. S. mainland, they produced that American characteristic, emulation. Today that word implies mere imitation. But in earlier times it meant a friendly but competitive striving for fame and excellence.

阅读理解 It is difficult for outsiders to gauge people's sense of well-being, simply by viewing their lives. And yet despite the difficulty, economists seem increasingly determined to do just that, by trying to wrestle life's intangibles into measurable data. Forty years after the Gross National Happiness index was invented by the King of Bhutan, happiness is finally gaining attraction as a serious national indicator. Last week, economists at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which represents 34 major economies, told a packed auditorium in Paris that they hoped their Better Life Index—launched a year ago—would persuade governments to focus as much on factors like environment and community cohesiveness, as on GDP measurements like productivity and income. 'The index of material conditions is still extremely important,' the OECD's chief statistician Martine Durand told the audience of about 350 people, including economists and officials from around the world. 'But what we are saying is that there is more to life than just money.' Now several countries seem to have taken note. The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services is working on a national happiness index for Americans (whose 'pursuit of happiness,' The Washington Post noted, is fundamental to the country) that the U. S. would then track, much as it does income and working hours. And last year, in the midst of massive spending cuts, Britain's Office of National Statistics began a Well-Being Index, at a cost of $ 3 million a year, collecting statistics on people's levels of anxiety and confidence. Surprisingly, the first index showed Brits being generally happy with life, with older people being happiest of all. But no effort seems to match the ambition and scope of the OECD's Better Life Index. Launched in May last year, it collates statistics in 36 countries (Russia and Brazil signed on this month) on 24 indicators; as of this year, those include gender and inequality. There are factors on the list that seem tricky to quantify, like 'work-life balance,' and 'life satisfaction,' as well as the more obvious ones like education, health, and income. Having worked for years to design the index, OECD statisticians then confronted the complexities of measuring factors which were subjective and vague. So they launched an online tool called 'Your Better Life Index,' allowing people anywhere to rank how important each factor on the list is to them, and then compare how their ideal stacks up against real-life statistics. In effect, the Better Life Index is now whatever each person decides it should be. If education is the most important thing to you, go live in Finland, not Mexico; if work-life balance is most important, Denmark is your place, while the U. S. ranks near bottom.

阅读理解Why crime has risen so much further and faster in Britain than in any other rich country over the past half-century is anybody''s guess. Maybe it''s the result of near-American levels of relative poverty and family breakdown combined with a European reluctance to bang up quite such a large proportion of the population as America does. Anyway, the long-term causes are of less immediate interest to the government than a short-term solution. Popular concern about crime is rising:23% of people rated it as one of the most important issues for the govenment at the beginning of this year;34% do now. 　　An official report concluding that the criminal justice system is failing has added to the government''s problems. The Audit (审计) Commission, the government''s watchdog, says that the police too often charge suspects with the wrong offences, use inaccurate computerized information and face serious inefficiencies in the forensic science (the use of scientific methods by the police) service. Court delays alone are costing taxpayers ￡ 80m( ＄120m) a year. The result is that few criminals are brought to justice and even fewer convicted. Only 6% of the more than 5m offences recorded by the police last year resulted in a conviction. Hardly surprising, then, that more than half the public believes that the criminal justice system is ineffective. 　　The main purpose of the White Paper published last year is to address concerns that the procedures of the court are weighted too heavily against the prosecution, It includes many sensible and uncontroversial proposals. It asks for more support for witnesses, many of whom are frightened of testifying. A survey of one London court found that, of 140 witnesses called in a two-week period, only 19 actually turned up. 　　Making juries more representative must also make sense. Getting off jury service is too easy. In some London courts, two-thirds of those called for jury service fail to turn up. As a result ,juries are often composed of housewives, the unemployed and the retired. The White Paper recommends a check on professionals'' getting off service, who can excuse themselves by saying their work is too important, and proposes penalties for those who fail to comply. 　　Other proposed reforms will be more controversial. At present, no defendant can be tried for the same offence twice even if compelling new evidence emerges. The government''s plan to scrap that law will be resisted by civil liberties campaigners, as will the proposal that previous convictions should be disclosed in open court where they are relevant to the case being heard. 　　Whether or not such proposals make it into law, the White Paper did not do much to address public concerns. The reason why 94% of crimes do not result in a conviction is that three-quarters of them are not cleared up, and so nobody is charged. That is the fault of the police, not the courts; and that is the part of the criminal justice system that the government needs to focus on if it is to make a difference.

阅读理解 'The ancient Hawaiians were astronomers,' wrote Queen Liliuokalani, Hawaii's last reigning monarch, in 1897. Star watchers were among the most esteemed members of Hawaiian society. Sadly, all is not well with astronomy in Hawaii today. Protests have erupted over construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), a giant observatory that promises to revolutionize humanity's view of the cosmos. At issue is the TMT's planned location on Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano worshiped by some Hawaiians as the piko, that connects the Hawaiian Islands to the heavens. But Mauna Kea is also home to some of the world's most powerful telescopes. Rested in the Pacific Ocean, Mauna Kea's peak rises above the bulk of our planet's dense atmosphere, where conditions allow telescopes to obtain images of unsurpassed clarity. Opposition to telescopes on Mauna Kea is nothing new. A small but vocal group of Hawaiians and environmentalists have long viewed their presence as disrespect for sacred land and a painful reminder of the occupation of what was once a sovereign nation. Some blame for the current controversy belongs to astronomers. In their eagerness to build bigger telescopes, they forgot that science is not the only way of understanding the world. They did not always prioritize the protection of Mauna Kea's fragile ecosystems or its holiness to the islands' inhabitants. Hawaiian culture is not a relic of the past; it is a living culture undergoing a renaissance today. Yet science has a cultural history, too, with roots going back to the dawn of civilization. The same curiosity to find what lies beyond the horizon that first brought early Polynesians to Hawaii's shores inspires astronomers today to explore the heavens. Calls to disassemble all telescopes on Mauna Kea or to ban future development there ignore the reality that astronomy and Hawaiian culture both seek to answer big questions about who we are, where we come from and where we are going. Perhaps that is why we explore the starry skies, as if answering a primal calling to know ourselves and our true ancestral homes. The astronomy community is making compromises to change its use of Mauna Kea. The TMT site was chosen to minimize the telescope's visibility around the island and to avoid archaeological and environmental impact. To limit the number of telescopes on Mauna Kea, old ones will be removed at the end of their lifetimes and their sites returned to a natural state. There is no reason why everyone cannot be welcomed on Mauna Kea to embrace their cultural heritage and to study the stars.

阅读理解 I came across an old country guide the other day. It listed all the tradesmen in each village in my part of the country, and it was impressive to see the great variety of services which were available on one's own doorstep in the late Victorian countryside. Nowadays a superficial traveler in rural England might conclude that the only village tradesmen still flourishing were either selling frozen food to the inhabitants or selling antiques to visitors. Nevertheless, this would really be a false impression. Admittedly there has been a contraction of village commerce, but its vigor is still remarkable. Our local grocer's shop, for example, is actually expanding in spite of the competition from supermarkets in the nearest town. Women sensibly prefer to go there and exchange the local news while doing their shopping, instead of queuing up anonymously at a supermarket: And the proprietor knows well that personal service has a substantial cash value. His prices may be a bit higher than those in the town, but he will deliver anything at any time. His assistants think nothing of bicycling down the village street in their lunch hour to take a piece of cheese to an old-age pensioner who sent her order by word of mouth with a friend who happened to be passing. The more affluent customers telephone their shopping lists and the goods are on their doorsteps within an hour. They have only to hint at a fancy for some commodity outside the usual stock and the grocer, a red-faced figure, instantly obtains it for them. The village gains from this sort of enterprise, of course. But I also find it satisfactory because a village shop offers one of the few ways in which a modest individualist can still get along in the world without attaching himself to the big battalions of industry or commerce. Most of the village shopkeepers I know, at any rate, are decidedly individualist in their ways. For example, our shoemaker is a formidable figure: a thick-set, irritable man whom children treat with marked respect, knowing that an ill-judged word can provoke an angry eruption at any time. He stares with contempt at the pairs of cheap, mass-produced shoes taken to him for repair: has it come to this, he seems to be saying, that he, a craftsman, should have to waste his skills upon such trash? But we all know he will in fact do excellent work upon them. And he makes beautiful shoes for those who can afford such luxury.