阅读理解When I decided to quit my full time employment it never occurred to me that I might become a part of a new international trend. A lateral move that hurt my pride and blocked my professional progress prompted me to abandon my relatively high profile career although, in the manner of a disgraced government minister, I covered my exit by claiming"I wanted to spend more time with my family".
Curiously,some two-and-a-half years and two novels later,my experiment in what the Americans term "downshifting" has turned my tired excuse into an absolute reality. I have been transformed from a passionate advocate of the philosophy of "having it all", preached by Linda Kelsey for the past seven years in the pages of She magazine, into a woman who is happy to settle for a bit of everything.
I have discovered, as perhaps Kelsey will after her much-publicized resignation from the editorship of she after a build-up of stress, that abandoning the doctrine of "juggling your life", and making the alternative move into "downshifting" brings with it far greater rewards than financial success and social status. Nothing could persuade me to return to the kind of life Kelsey used to advocate and I once enjoyed: 12-hour working days, pressured deadlines, the fearful strain of office politics and the limitations of being a parent on "quality time".
In America, the move away from juggling to a simpler, less materialistic lifestyle is a well- established trend. Downshifting--also known in America as "voluntary simplicity"--has, ironically, even bred a new area of what might be termed anti-consumerism. There are a number of bestselling downshifting self-help books for people who want to simplify their lives; there are newsletters, such as The Tightwad Gazette, that give hundreds of thousands of Americans useful tips on anything from recycling their cling-film to making their own soap; there are even support groups for those who want to achieve the mid-''90s equivalent of dropping out.
While in America the trend started as a reaction to the economic decline--after the mass redundancies caused by downsizing in the late'' 80s--and is still linked to the politics of thrift, in Britain, at least among the middle-class downshifters of my acquaintance, we have different reasons for seeking to simplify our lives.
For the women of my generation who were urged to keep juggling through the '' 80s, downshifting in th mid-''90s is not so much a search for the mythical good life--growing your own organic vegetables, and risking turning into one--as a personal recognition of your limitations.
阅读理解Technically, any substance other than food that alters our bodily or mental functioning is a drug. Many people mistakenly believe the term drug refers only to some sort of medicine or an illegal chemical taken by drug addicts. They don''t realize that familiar substances such as alcohol and tobacco are also drugs. This is why the more neutral term substance is now used by many physicians and psychologists. The phrase" substance abuse" is often used instead of" drug abuse" to make clear that substances such as alcohol and tobacco can be just as harmfully misused as heroin and cocaine.
We live in a society in which the medicinal and social use of substances (drugs) is pervasive: an aspirin to quiet a headache, some wine to be sociable, coffee to get going in the morning, a cigarette for the nerves. When do these socially acceptable and apparently constructive uses of a substance become misuses? First of all ,most substances taken in excess will produce negative effects such as poisoning or intense perceptual distortions. Repeated use of a substance can also lead to physical addiction or substance dependence. Dependence is marked first by an increased tolerance, with more and more of the substance required to produce the desired effect, and then by the appearance of unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when the substance is discontinued.
Drugs (substances) that affect the central nervous system and alter perception, mood, and behavior are known as psychoactive substances. Psychoactive substances are commonly grouped according to whether they are stimulants, depressants, or hallucinogens. Stimulants initially speed up or activate the central nervous system, whereas depressants slow it down. Hallucinogens have their primary effect on perception, distorting and altering it in a variety of ways including producing hallucinations. These are the substances often called psychedelic ( from the Greek word meaning" mind-manifesting" ) because they seemed to radically alter one''s state of consciousness.
阅读理解While disease is present prior to social organization, communal life creates special hazards. While the organization of society can reduce the dangers of disease, trade and urbanization, with their consequent problems of sanitation and pollution, can also aggravate such dangers. Even in the mid-twentieth century, during the brief calm between the polio and AIDS epidemics, epidemic health risks associated with carcinogens (cancer-producing substances ) from polluted air threatened the industrialized world.
To the economist, efforts to combat these risks are at least partially public goods. The benefits from public goods are indivisible among beneficiaries. A sole private purchaser of health care would give others in society a "free ride" with respect to the benefits obtained. To market theorists, such goods are lawful objects of governmental intervention in the market. While the theory of public goods helps explain aspects of public health law and assists in fitting it into modern economic theory, it omits a critical point. Ill health is not a mere byproduct of economic activity, but an inevitable occurrence of human existence. As a result, wherever there is human society, there will be public health. Every society has to face the risks of disease. And because it must, every society searches to make disease comprehensible within the context of the society''s own particular culture, religion, or science. In this sense, health care is public not only because its benefits are indivisible and threats to it arise from factors outside of the individual but also because communal life gives individuals the cultural context in which to understand it.
Governments typically have assumed an active role with respect to health care, acting as if their role were obligatory. How governments have fulfilled that duty has varied throughout time and across societies, according not only to the wealth and scientific sophistication of the culture but also to its fundamental values--because health is defined in part by a community''s belief system, public health measures will necessarily reflect cultural norms and values.
Those who criticize the United States government today for not providing health care to all citizens equate the provision of health care with insurance coverage for the costs of medical expenses. By this standard, seventeenth and eighteenth-century America lacked any significant conception of public health law. However, despite the general paucity (scarcity) of bureaucratic organization in pre-industrial America, the vast extent of health regulation and provision stands out as remarkable. Of course, the public role in the protection and regulation of eighteenth-century health was carried out in ways quite different from those today. Organizations responsible for health regulation were less stable than modern bureaucracies ,tending to appear in crises and fade away in periods of calm. The focus was on epidemics which were seen as unnatural and warranting a response ,not to the many prevalent and chronic conditions which were accepted as part and parcel of daily life. Additionally ,and not surprisingly ,religious influence was significant ,especially in the seventeenth century. Finally, in an era which lacked sharp divisions between private and governmental bodies, many public responsibilities were carried out by what we would now consider private associations. Nevertheless, the extent of public health regulation long before the dawn of the welfare state is remarkable and suggests that the founding generation''s assumptions about the relationship between government and health were more complex than commonly assumed.
阅读理解 Barring an extraordinary change in investor behavior in the largest emerging economies, the role of equities in the global financial system will likely be reduced in the coming decade. That's the central finding of a new report from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). As emerging-market households attain a level of income that enables them to purchase financial assets, they are becoming a powerful new investor class, whose choices will help determine global demand for different asset classes. The actions of these new investors will, in turn, shape how businesses obtain the capital they need to grow, how other investors around the world fare, and how stable and resilient economies will be. The MGI study found that financial assets held by investors in developing nations have been growing at more than three times the rate of assets in developed nations, raising their share of global financial wealth from 7 percent to 21 percent over the past decade, or about $ 41.3 trillion. By the end of the current decade, investors in developing economies will hold as much as 36 percent of global financial wealth, or between $114 trillion and $141 trillion. Emerging-market investors currently behave differently than those in mature economies. Investors in Europe, the United States, and wealthier parts of Asia, hold 30 to 40 percent or more of their financial assets in equities, but the new investors of the emerging economies keep three-quarters of theirs in deposit accounts. While the use of equities in developing economies to finance growth and build savings is increasing, this evolution is taking place slowly. The likely result: a shift in the global allocation of financial assets toward deposits and fixed-income instruments and away from equities in this decade. This shift is being exacerbated by aging and other trends in the developed world that are dampening investor appetite for equities. As a result, equities could decline from 28 percent of global financial assets in 2010 to 22 percent in 2020. What's behind the slow adoption of equity investing in developing markets? For an equity-investing culture to take root, there must be trusted, transparent markets with strong protections for small investors, as well as the institutions and systems to provide easy market access. Rules and regulations may be in place in emerging markets today, but enforcement is often unreliable. When the correct conditions are in place, investors are likely to gravitate to equities for higher returns. In the meantime, even though total investor demand for equities will grow over the next decade, it will fall short of what corporations need by $12. 3 trillion. This imbalance between the supply and demand for equity will be most pronounced in emerging economies, where companies need significant external financing for growth.
阅读理解If ambition is to be well regarded, the rewards of ambition--wealth, distinction, control over one''s destiny--must be deemed worthy of the sacrifices made on ambition''s behalf. If the tradition of ambition is to have vitality, it must be widely shared; and it especially must be highly regarded by people who are themselves admired, the educated not least among them. In an odd way, however, it is the educated who have claimed to have given up on ambition as an ideal. What is odd is that they have perhaps most benefited from ambition--if not always their own then that of their parents and grandparents. There is a heavy note of hypocrisy in this, a case of closing the barn door after the horses have escaped--with the educated themselves riding on them.
Certainly people do not seem less interested in success and its signs now than formerly. Summer homes, European travel, BMWs--the locations, place names and name brands may change, but such items do not seem less in demand today than a decade or two years ago. What has happened is that people cannot confess fully to their dreams, as easily and openly as once they could ,lest they be thought pushing, acquisitive and vulgar. Instead, we are treated to fine hypocritical spectacles, which now more than ever seem in ample supply: the critic of American materialism with a Southampton summer home; the publisher of radical books who takes his meals in three-star restaurants; the journalist advocating participatory democracy in all phases of life, whose own children are enrolled in private schools. For such people and many more perhaps not so exceptional, the proper formulation is," Succeed at all costs but avoid appearing ambitious."
The attacks on ambition are many and come from various angles ;its public defenders are few and unimpressive, where they are not extremely unattractive. As a result, the support for ambition as a healthy impulse, a quality to be admired and fixed in the mind of the young, is probably lower than it has ever been in the United States. This does not mean that ambition is at an end, that people no longer feel its stirrings and promptings, but only that, no longer openly honored, it is less openly professed. Consequences follow from this, of course, some of which are that ambition is driven underground, or made sly. Such then, is the way things stand: on the left angry critics, on the right stupid supporters, and in the middle, as usual, the majority of earnest people trying to get on in life.
阅读理解A great deal of attention is being paid today to the so-called digital divide--the division of the world into the info (information) rich and the info poor. And that divide does exist today. My wife and I lectured about this looming danger twenty years ago. What was less visible then, however, were the new, positive forces that work against the digital divide. There are reasons to be optimistic.
There are technological reasons to hope the digital divide will narrow. As the Internet becomes more and more commercialized, it is in the interest of business to universalize access--after all, the more people online, the more potential customers there are. More and more governments, afraid their countries will be left behind, want to spread Internet access. Within the next decade or two, one to two billion people on the planet will be netted together. As a result, I now believe the digital divide will narrow rather than widen in the years ahead. And that is very good news because the Internet may well be the most powerful tool for combating world poverty that we''ve ever had.
Of course, the use of the Internet isn'' t the only way to defeat poverty. And the Internet is not the only tool we have. But it has enormous potential.
To take advantage of this tool, some impoverished countries will have to get over their outdated anti-colonial prejudices with respect to foreign investment. Countries that still think foreign investment is an invasion of their sovereignty might well study the history of infrastructure (the basic structural foundations of a society) in the United States. When the United States built its industrial infrastructure, it didn''t have the capital to do so. And that is why America'' s Second Wave infrastructure―including roads, harbors, highways, ports and so on--were built with foreign investment. The English, the Germans, the Dutch and the French were investing in Britain'' s former colony. They financed them. Immigrant Americans built them. Guess who owns them now? The Americans. I believe the same thing would be true in places like Brazil or anywhere else for that matter. The more foreign capital you have helping you build your Third Wave infrastructure, which today is an electronic infrastructure, the better off you'' re going to be. That doesn'' t mean lying down and becoming fooled, or letting foreign corporations run uncontrolled. But it does mean recognizing how important they can be in building the energy and telecom infrastructures needed to take full advantage of the Internet.
阅读理解 Crying is hardly an activity encouraged by society. Tears, whether they are of sorrow, anger, or joy, typically make Americans feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. The shedder of tears is likely to apologize, even when a devastating tragedy was the provocation. The observer of tears is likely to do everything possible to put an end to the emotional outpouring. But judging from recent studies of crying behavior, links between illness and crying and the chemical composition of tears, both those responses to tears are often inappropriate and may even be counterproductive. Humans are the only animals definitely known to shed emotiomal tears. Since evolution has given rise to few, if any, purposeless physiological responses, it is logical to assume that crying has one or more functions that enhance survival. Although some observers have suggested that crying is a way to elicit assistance from others (as a crying baby might from its mother), the shedding of tears is hardly necessary to get help. Vocal cries would have been quite enough, more likely than tears to gain attention. So, it appears, there must be something special about tears themselves. Indeed, the new studies suggest that emotional tears may play a direct role in alleviating stress. University of Minnesota researchers who are studying the chemical composition of tears have recently isolated two important chemicals from emotional tears. Both chemicals are found only in tears that are shed in response to emotion. Tears shed because of exposure to cut onion would contain no such substance. Researchers at several other institutions are investigating the usefulness of tears as a means of diagnosing human ills and monitoring drugs. At Tulane University's Tear Analysis Laboratory Dr. Peter Kastl and his colleagues report that they can use tears to detect drug abuse and exposure to medication, to determine whether a contact lens fits properly of why it may be uncomfortable, to study the causes of 'dry eye' syndrome and the effects of eye surgery, and perhaps even to measure exposure to environmental pollutants. At Columbia University Dt. Liasy Faris and colleagues are studying tears for clues to the diagnosis of diseases away from the eyes. Tears can be obtained painlessly without invading the body and only tiny amounts are needed to perform highly refined analyses.
阅读理解 As you try to imagine yourself cruising along in the self-driving car of the future, you may think first of the technical challenges. But the more difficult challenges may have to do with ethics. Recent advances in artificial intelligence are enabling the creation of systems capable of independently pursuing goals in complex, real-world settings—often among and around people. Serf-driving cars are merely the vanguard of an approaching fleet of equally autonomous devices. As these systems increasingly invade human domains, the need to control what they are permitted to do, and on whose behalf, will become more acute. Within the next few decades, our stores, streets and sidewalks will likely be crammed with robotic devices fetching and delivering goods of every variety. How do we ensure that they respect the unstated conventions that people unconsciously follow when navigating in crowds? A debate may erupt over whether we should share our turf with machines or banish them to separate facilities. Will it be 'Integrate Our Androids!' or 'Ban the Bots!' And far more serious issues are on the horizon. Should it be permissible for an autonomous military robot to select its own targets? The current consensus in the international community is that such weapons should be under 'meaningful human control' at all times, but even this seemingly sensible constraint is ethically muddled. The expanded use of such robots may reduce military and civilian casualties and avoid collateral damage. So how many people's lives should be put at risk waiting for a human to review a robot's time-critical kill decision? Even if we can codify our principles and beliefs algorithmically, that won't solve the problem. Simply programming intelligent systems to obey rules isn't sufficient, because sometimes the right thing to do is to break those rules. Blindly obeying a posted speed limit of 55 miles an hour may be quite dangerous, for instance, if traffic is averaging 75, and you wouldn't want your self-driving car to strike a pedestrian rather than cross a double-yellow centerline. People naturally abide by social conventions that may be difficult for machines to perceive, much less follow. Finding the right balance between our personal interests and the needs of others—or society in general-is a finely calibrated human instinct, driven by a sense of fairness, reciprocity and common interest. Today's engineers, racing to bring these remarkable devices to market, are ill-prepared to design social intelligence into a machine. Their real challenge is to create civilized robots for a human world.
阅读理解Emerging from the 1980 census is the picture of a nation developing more and more regional competition, as population growth in the Northeast and Midwest reaches a near standstill.
This development―and its strong implications for US politics and economy in years ahead―has enthroned the South as America''s most densely populate region for the first time in the history of the nation''s head counting.
Altogether, the US population rose in the 1970s by 23.2 million people―numerically the third-largest growth ever recorded in a single decade. Even so, that gain adds up to only 11.4 percent, lowest in American annual records except for the Depression years.
Americans have been migrating south and west in larger numbers since World War Ⅱ , and the pattern still prevails.
Three sun-belt states―Florida, Texas and California―together had nearly 10 million more people in 1980 than a decade earlier. Among large cities, San Diego moved from 14th to 8th and San Antonio from 15th to 10th―with Cleveland and Washington D. C. , dropping out of the top 10.
Not all that shift can be attributed to the movement out of the snow belt, census officials say. Nonstop waves of immigrants played a role, too―and so did bigger crops of babies as yesterday''s "baby boom" generation reached its child-bearing years.
Moreover, demographers see the continuing shift south and west as joined by a related but newer phenomenon: More and more, Americans apparently are looking not just for places with more jobs but with fewer people, too. Some instances:
Regionally, the Rocky Mountain states reproved the most rapid growth rate―37.1 percent since 1970 in a vast area with only 5 percent of the US population.
Among states, Nevada and Arizona grew fastest of all: 63.5 and 53.1 percent respectively. Except for Florida and Texas, the top 10 in rate of growth is composed of Western state with 7.5 million people―about 9 per square mile.
The flight from overcrowdedness affects the migration from snow belt to more-bearable climates. Nowhere do 1980 census statistics dramatize more the American search for spacious living than in the Far West. There, California added 3.7 million to its population in the 1970s, more than any other state.
In that decade ,however, large numbers also migrated from California, mostly to other parts of the West. Often they chose―and still are choosing―somewhat colder climates such as Oregon, Idaho and Alaska in order to escape smog, crime and other plagues of urbanization in the Golden State.
As a result, California''s growth rate dropped during the 1970s, to 18.5 percent―little more than two thirds the 1960s'' growth figure and considerably below that of other Western states.
阅读理解PartADirections:Readthefollowingfourtexts.AnswerthequestionsaftereachtextbychoosingA,B,CorD.MarkyouranswersontheANSWERSHEET.Text3Enlightening,challenging,stimulating,fun.TheseweresomeofthewordsthatNaturereadersusedtodescribetheirexperienceofart-sciencecollaborationsinaseriesofarticlesonpartnershipsbetweenartistsandresearchers.Nearly40%oftheroughly350peoplewhorespondedtoanaccompanyingpollsaidtheyhadcollaboratedwithartists;andalmostallsaidtheywouldconsiderdoingsoinfuture.Suchanencouragingresultisnotsurprising.Scientistsareincreasinglyseekingoutvisualartiststohelpthemcommunicatetheirworktonewaudiences.“Artistshelpscientistsreachabroaderaudienceandmakeemotionalconnectionsthatenhancelearning.”Onerespondentsaid.OneexampleofhowartistsandscientistshavetogetherrockedthesensescamelastmonthwhentheSydneySymphonyOrchestraperformedareworkedversionofAntonioVivaldi’sTheFourSeasons.Theyreimaginedthe300-year-oldscorebyinjectingthelatestclimatepredictiondataforeachseason—providedbyMonashUniversity’sClimateChangeCommunicationResearchHub.TheperformancewasacreativecalltoactionaheadofNovember’sUnitedNationsClimateChangeConferenceinGlasgow,UK.Butagenuinepartnershipmustbeatwo-waystreet.FewerartiststhanscientistsrespondedtotheNaturepoll;however,severalrespondentsnotedthatartistsdonotsimplyassistscientistswiththeircommunicationrequirements.Norshouldtheirworkbeconsideredonlyasanobjectofstudy.Thealliancesaremostvaluablewhenscientistsandartistshaveasharedstakeinaproject,areabletojointlydesignitandcancritiqueeachother’swork.Suchanapproachcanbothpromptnewresearchaswellasresultinpowerfulart.Morethanhalfacenturyago,theMassachusettsInstituteofTechnologyopeneditsCenterforAdvancedVisualStudies(CAVS)toexploretheroleoftechnologyinculture.Thefoundersdeliberatelyfocusedtheirprojectsaroundlight—hencethe“visualstudies”inthename.Lightwasasomethingthatbothartistsandscientistshadaninterestin,andthereforecouldformthebasisofcollaboration.Asscienceandtechnologyprogressed,anddividedintomoresub-disciplines,thecentrewassimultaneouslylookingtoatimewhenleadingresearcherscouldalsobeartists,writersandpoets,andviceversa.Nature’spollfindingssuggestthatthistrendisasstrongasever,but,tomakeacollaborationwork,bothsidesneedtoinvesttime,andembracesurpriseandchallenge.Thereachofart-sciencetie-upsneedtogobeyondthenecessarypurposeofresearchcommunication,andparticipantsmustnotfallintothetrapofstereotypingeachother.Artistsandscientistsalikeareimmersedindiscoveryandinvention,andchallengeandcritiquearecoretoboth,too.
阅读理解With the start of BBC World Service Television, millions of viewers in Asia and America can now watch the Corporation''s news coverage ,as well as listen to it.
And of course in Britain listeners and viewers can tune in to two BBC television channels, five BBC national radio services and dozens of local radio stations. They are brought sport ,comedy ,drama, music, news and current affairs, education, religion, parliamentary coverage, children''s programmes and films for an annual licenee fee of ￡ 83 per household.
It is a remarkable record, stretching back over 70 years―yet the BBC''s future is now in doubt. The Corporation will survive as a publicly-funded broadcasting organization, at least for the time being, but its role, its size and its programmes are now the subject of a nation-wide debate in Britain.
The debate was launched by the Government, which invited anyone with an opinion of the BBC― including ordinary listeners and viewers―to say what was good or bad about the Corporation, and even whether they thought it was worth keeping. The reason for its inquiry is that the BBC''s royal charter runs out in 1996 and it must decide whether to keep the organization as it is, or to make changes.
Defenders of the Corporation―of whom there are many―are fond of quoting the American slogan "If it ain''t broke, don''t fix it. "The BBC " ain''t broke" ,they say, by which they mean it is not broken (as distinct from the word ''broke'' ,meaning having no money), so why bother to change it?
Yet the BBC will have to change, because the broadcasting world around it is changing. The commercial TV channels―ITV and Channel 4―were required by the Thatcher Government''s Broadcasting Act to become more commercial, competing with each other for advertisers, and cutting costs and jobs. But it is the arrival of new satellite channels―funded partly by advertising and partly by viewers'' subscriptions―which will bring about the biggest changes in the long term.
阅读理解Following the explosion of creativity in Florence during the 14th century known as the Renaissance, the modern world saw a departure from what it had once known. It turned from God and the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and instead favoured a more humanistic approach to being. Renaissance ideas had spread throughout Europe well into the 17th century, with the arts and sciences flourishing extraordinarily among those with a more logical disposition. 46 With the Church's teachings and ways of thinking being eclipsed by the Renaissance, the gap between the Medieval and modern periods had been bridged, leading to new and unexplored intellectual territories. During the Renaissance, the great minds of Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei demonstrated the power of scientific study and discovery. 47 Before each of their revelations, many thinkers at the time had sustained more ancient ways of thinking, including the geocentric view that the Earth was at the centre of our universe. Copernicus theorized in 1543 that all of the planets that we knew of revolved not around the Earth, but the Sun, a system that was later upheld by Galileo at his own expense. Offering up such a theory during a time of high tension between scientific and religious minds was branded as heresy, and any such heretics that continued to spread these lies were to be punished by imprisonment or even death. 48 Despite attempts by the Church to suppress this new generation of logicians and rationalists, more explanations for how the universe functioned were being made at a rate that the people could no longer ignore. It was with these great revelations that a new kind of philosophy founded in reason was born. The Church's long-standing dogma was losing the great battle for truth to rationalists and scientists. This very fact embodied the new ways of thinking that swept through Europe during most of the 17th century. 49 As many took on the duty of trying to integrate reasoning and scientific philosophies into the world, the Renaissance was over and it was time for a new era——the Age of Reason. The 17th and 18th centuries were times of radical change and curiosity. Scientific method, reductionism and the questioning of Church ideals was to be encouraged, as were ideas of liberty, tolerance and progress. 50 Such actions to seek knowledge and to understand what information we already knew were captured by the Latin phrase 'sapere aude' or 'dare to know', after Immanuel Kant used it in his essay 'An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?' It was the purpose and responsibility of great minds to go forth and seek out the truth, which they believed to be founded in knowledge.
阅读理解Few creations of big technology capture the imagination like giant dams. Perhaps it is humankind''s long suffering at the mercy of flood and drought that makes the idea of forcing the waters to do our bidding so fascinating, But to be fascinated is also, sometimes, to be blind. Several giant dam projects threaten to do more harm than good.
The lesson from dams is that big is not always beautiful. It doesn''t help that building a big, powerful dam has become a symbol of achievement for nations and people striving to assert themselves. Egypt''s leadership in the Arab world was cemented by the Aswan High Dam. Turkey''s bid for First World status includes the giant Ataturk Dam.
But big dams tend not to work as intended. The Aswan Dam, for example, stopped the Nile flooding but deprived Egypt of the fertile silt that floods left―all in return for a giant reservoir of disease which is now so full of silt that it barely generates electricity.
And yet, the myth of controlling the waters persists. This week, in the heart of civilized Europe, Slovaks and Hungarians stopped just short of sending in the troops in their contention over a dam on the Danube. The huge complex will probably have all the usual problems of big dams. But Slovakia is bidding for independence from the Czechs, and now needs a dam to prove itself.
Meanwhile, in India, the World Bank has given the go-ahead to the even more wrong-headed Narmada Dam. And the bank has done this even though its advisors say the dam will cause hardship for the powerless and environmental destruction. The benefits are for the powerful, but they are far from guaranteed.
Proper, scientific study of the impacts of dams and of the costs and benefits of controlling water can help to resolve these conflicts. Hydroelectric power and flood control and irrigation are possible without building monster dams. But when you are dealing with myths, it is hard to be either proper, or scientific. It is time that the world learned the lessons of Aswan. You don''t need a dam to be saved.
阅读理解 Imagine, says Adair Turner, chairman of the Energy Transitions Commission, that the beneficent God had sent envoys in the night to steal two-thirds of the world's store of fossil fuels, so that mankind knew it would run out of them within 40 years. 'I'm certain that by 2060 we'd have built a zero-carbon economy and the cost of doing so would be small,' he says. Miracles do happen, but it is unwise to rely on them. In the meantime, the challenges of building a global energy system should not be underestimated. It is feasible; the technologies are available and could become a lot cheaper if they were adopted widely. But to have a meaningful global impact, the effort requires a level of political ambition that does not yet exist. To encourage such ambition, it helps to bear three mantras in mind. The first is 'think big'. Don't be distracted by the myth that 'every little helps'. If everyone does a little, we'll achieve only a little. Second, think inside the box, not just outside it. The more that zero-carbon technologies can make use of existing systems built for the fossil age, the less risk there will be of trillions of dollars-worth of wasted assets, or of consumers having to change their habits much. Third, embrace collaboration as well as competition. Competition is still vital. Potential rewards beckon for those who can license the first zero-carbon-steel or aluminium technologies, if the carbon price is high enough. But tackling climate change is a shared mission to overcome a massive market failure: the negligible cost of potentially catastrophic emissions. This is not about 'winner takes all', more about 'we all lose unless we work together'. In the long run, decarbonisation could be a way of reviving capitalism. Carbon-intensive energy, together with capital, ingenuity and cheap labour, has been a driving force of economic growth since the Industrial Revolution. Yet they have also brought huge rewards to tyrannical regimes, encouraged cartels and over-centralised economies, and never borne the cost of their environmental impact. Mass electrification, from zero-carbon sources, could stimulate new industries and further decentralise the global economy. It could absorb some of the surplus savings that exist in parts of the rich world, provide plentiful demand for jobs to meet the engineering challenges and ease energy poverty in poor countries. It might sound unrealistic in an era of fierce competition to think that anything can be done for the common good. But using human ingenuity to build a post-carbon future could be a big economic, as well as environmental, opportunity.
阅读理解PartB题目要求暂无，需要考生总结人物观点然后选择正确选项，类似英语二信息匹配题。【B1】TeriByrdIamaveterinarianwhowasazooandwildlifeparkemployeeforyearsbeforeobtainingmyveterinarydegree.Boththewildlifeparkandzooclaimedtobeoperatingforthebenefitoftheanimalsandforconservationpurposes.Thisclaimwasfalse.Neitheroneofthemactuallyparticipatedinanycontributionstoanimalresearchorconservation.Theyareprofitableinstitutionswhosebottomlineismuchmoreimportantthantheconditionoftheanimals.Animalsdespisebeingcaptivesinzoos.Nomatterhowyou“enhance”enclosures,theydonotallowforfreedom,anaturaldietoradequateexercise.Animalsendupstressedandunhealthyordead.It’spasttimefortransparencywiththeseinstitutions,andit’spasttimetoeliminatezoosfromourculture.【B2】KarenR.SimeAsazoologyprofessorand,thankstomykids,afrequentzoovisitor,IagreewithEmmaMarristhatzoodisplayscanbesadandcruel.Butsheunderestimatestheeducationalvalueofzoos.ThezoologyprogramatmyStateUniversityofNewYorkcampusattractsstudentsforwhomzoovisitswerethecrucialformativeexperiencethatledthemtomajorinbiologicalsciences.Thesearemostlystudentswhohadnoopportunityaschildrentotraveltowildernessareas,wildliferefugesornationalparks.AlthoughgoodTVshowscanhelpstirchildren’sinterestinconservation,theycannotreplacetheexcitementofazoovisitasanintense,immersiveandinteractiveexperience.Theyalsogettomeetadultswhohaveturnedtheirloveforanimalsintoacareer,andwithwhomtheycanidentify.Surelytheremustbesomemiddlegroundthatbalanceszoos’treatmentofanimalswiththeireducationalpotential.【B3】GregNewberryEmmaMarris’articleisaninsultandadisservicetothethousandsofpassionate,dedicatedpeoplewhoworktirelesslytoimprovethelivesofanimalsandprotectourplanet.Ms.Marrisusesoutdatedresearchanddecades-oldexamplestounderminethenoblemissionoforganizationscommittedtoconnectingchildrentoaworldbeyondtheirown.Zoosareattheforefrontofconservationandconstantlyevolvingtoimprovehowtheycareforanimalsandprotecteachspeciesinitsnaturalhabitat.Aretheretragedies?Ofcourse.Buttheyaretheexception,notthenormthatMs.Marrisimplies.Adistressedanimalinazoowillgetasgoodorbettertreatmentthanmostofusatourlocalhospital.【B4】DeanGalleaAsafellowenvironmentalist,animal-protectionadvocateandlongtimevegetarian,IcouldproperlybeinthesamecampasEmmaMarrisontheissueofzoos.ButIbelievethatwell-runzoos,andtheheroicanimalsthatsuffertheircaptivity,doserveahigherpurpose.Wereitnotforopportunitiestoobservethesebeautiful,wildcreaturesclosetohome,manymorepeoplewouldbedrivenbytheirfascinationtotraveltowildareastoseekout,disturbandevenhuntthemdown.Zoosare,inthatsense,similartonaturalhistoryandarchaeologymuseums,servingtosatisfyourneedforcontactwiththeselivingcreatureswhileleavingthevastmajorityundisturbedintheirnaturalenvironments.【B5】JohnFraserEmmaMarrisselectivelydescribesandmisrepresentsthefindingsofourresearch.Ourstudiesfocusedontheimpactofzooexperiencesonhowpeoplethinkaboutthemselvesandnature,andthedatapointsextractedfromourstudiesdonot,inanyway,discountwhatislearnedinazoovisit.Zoosaretoolsforthinking.Ourresearchprovidesstrongsupportforthevalueofzoosinconnectingpeoplewithanimalsandwithnature.Zoosprovideacriticalvoiceforconservationandenvironmentalprotection.Theyaffordanopportunityforpeoplefromallbackgroundstoencounterarangeofanimals,fromdronebeestospringbokorsalmon,tobetterunderstandthenaturalworldwelivein.[A]Zoos,whichsparenoefforttotakecareofanimals,shouldnotbesubjectedtounfaircriticism.[B]Topressurezoostospendlessontheiranimalswouldleadtoinhumaneoutcomesforthepreciouscreaturesintheircare.[C]Whileanimalsincaptivitydeservesympathy,zoosplaysignificantroleinstartingyoungpeopledownthepathofrelatedsciences.[D]Zoossavepeopletripstowildernessareasandthuscontributetowildlifeconservation.[E]Forwildanimalsthatcannotbereturnedtotheirnaturalhabitats,zoosofferthebestalternative.[F]Zoosshouldhavebeencloseddownastheyprioritizemoneymakingoveranimals’well-being.[G]Marrisdistortsourfindingswhichactuallyprovethatzoosserveasanindispensablelinkbetweenmanandnature.
阅读理解 In an ideal world, the nation's elite schools would enroll the most qualified students. But that's not how it works. Applicants whose parents are alumni get special treatment, as so athletes and rich kids. Underrepresented minorities are also given preference. Thirty years of affirmative action have changed the complexion of mostly white universities; now about 13 percent of all undergraduates are black or Latino. But most come from middle-and upper middle-class families. Poor kids of all ethnicities remain scarce. A recent study by the Century Foundation found that at the nation's 146 most competitive schools, 74 percent of students came from upper-middle-class and wealthy families, while only about 5 percent came from families with an annual income of roughly $ 35,000 or less. Many schools say diversity—racial, economic and geographic—is key to maintaining intellectually vital campuses. But Richard Kahlenberg of the Century Foundation says that even though colleges claim they want poor kids, 'they don't try very hard to find them.' As for rural students, many colleges don't try at all. 'Unfortunately, we go where we can generate a sizable number of potential applicants, ' says Tulane admissions chief Richard Whiteside, who recruits aggressively—and in person-from metropolitan areas. Kids in rural areas get a glossy brochure in the mail. Even when poor rural students have the grades for top colleges, their high schools often don't know how to get them there. Admissions officers rely on guidance counselors to direct them to promising prospects. In affluent high schools guidance counselors often have personal relationships with both kids and admissions officers. In rural areas, a teacher, a counselor or even an alumnus 'can help put rural students on our radar screen,' says Wesleyan admissions dean Nancy Meislahn. But poor rural schools rarely have college advisers with those connections; without them, admission ' can be a crapshoot,' says Carnegie Mellon's Steidel. In the past few years some schools have begun to open that door a little wider. At MIT it's something of a mission for Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions. Twenty years ago, 25 percent of each MIT class was first-generation college goers from poor backgrounds who used the celebrated engineering school as a ticket out of the blue-collar world. Five years ago, when that number dipped below 10 percent, Jones began scouring the country for bright kids, and then paired the potential applicants with MIT faculty and students who could answer questions about college life. In four years Jones has doubled the number of poor first-generation students at MT.
阅读理解 Hypothetically, let's say you ran a fancy private elementary school. Like other private schools in the region, you're competing to put out the brightest kids. And one of the ways you engineer this is through your admissions process—you try to select the kids who will get the most out of what your school has to offer, kids who can handle the intellectual challenge, and who don't disrupt the class. So, if you're like other private schools, you bring the five-year-old applicants in for some intellectual assessment, and you also set up some games and playrooms for them so that you can watch them for an hour or two—to monitor their behavior. You're looking for kids who get upset, withdraw, can't wait for their turn, dominate other kids, can't sit still, don't pay attention to the instructions, etc. Then you admit the kids who looked best. This seems innocuous. It's common practice. However, according to an ongoing study in Germany, what you might have done will just reject some of the very best kids. This study, by Gisela Trommsdorff and Antje Von Suchodoletz, is following a group of kids who are making the transition from kindergarten to first grade. At the beginning of kindergarten, the scholars measured these kids' reasoning ability with a test of their nonverbal intelligence. They also measured their goal-oriented self-control with a variation of Mischel's marshmallow task and a persistence test. The persistence test, for kids of this age, goes like this: kids are asked to draw a big circle. Then they're told by a teacher it's not quite circular enough, it's not good enough— do they want to try again? The child tries again. Every time, the teacher responds it's not circular enough. Of course, nobody can draw a perfect circle. What the test measures is how long a child can hang in there, continuing to try, when confronted with negative feedback. Some kids quit quickly, while others keep going through endless trials. The scholars also got teachers to fill out behavioral-rating questionnaires about the children. We would expect that kids with higher reasoning ability plus higher persistence and self-control would have less behavior problems. However, the scholars saw a very dramatic trend in the other direction: High reasoning ability+High persistence/self-control=More behavior problems, not less. What the scholars believe is that Non-Verbal Intelligence disrupts the expected relationship between self-control and behavior. Theoretically, self-control and behavior should go hand in hand, and for low-IQ kids, that's absolutely true. But not for kids who are well above average in reasoning ability. Why this is the case probably has something to do with the distinction between goal-oriented tasks and normal social interactions like playgroups where there is no actual goal to focus upon. Smart kids' behavior in the latter context is probably not a good proxy for their-ability to apply themselves in the former context.
阅读理解In spite of rising concern in the Northeast and Canada, Administration spokesmen have repeatedly insisted that nothing could really be done about acid rain and the industry-produced sulfur emissions until all the scientific facts were in. Suddenly last week, however, facts came raining down, in effect making further scientific debate on what mainly causes the problem all but irrelevant.
What brought about the downpour was a study commissioned by Presidential Science Adviser. The spokesmen plainly called for remedial action even if some technical questions about acid rain were still unanswered. "If we take the conservative point of view that we must wait until the scientific knowledge is definitive," said the spokesman, "the accumulated deposition and damaged environment may reach the point of ''irreversibility''."
When it rains, it pours. Next came a study from the National Research Council. Its definitive conclusion: reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide from coal-burning power plants and factories, such as these in the Midwest, would in fact significantly reduce the acidity in rain, snow and other precipitation(降水) that is widely believed to be worsening the life from fresh-water lakes and forests in the Northeast and Canada. The spokesman did not recommend any specific action.
A pair of remedial measures are already taken before Congress. A Senate committee recently approved a bill that would require reduction over the next decade of sulfur-dioxide emissions by 10 million tons in the States bordering on the east of the Mississippi. A tougher measure was introduced in the House ordering the 50 largest sulfur polluters in the U. S. to cut emissions substantially. To ease the Eastern coal mining industry, which fears a switch to low-sulfur Western coal, the bill requires the installation of expensive "scrubbers", devices for removing sulfur from the smoke, rather than an order that forbids high-sulfur fuel. Still, the legislation is being vigorously opposed by the coal industry and utilities, especially in the Mid-west, where heavy industries are battling to survive. In a survey also released last week, the Edison Electric Institute , an industry group, gravely predicted that electricity rates could rise as much as 50% if the emission-control legislation passed.
Government studies dispute these figures, but Congress has been suspended on acid-rain measures. Now, as a result of the academy study, supporters of the bills are more optimistic. Nevertheless, a major political battle is shaping up.
阅读理解In such a changing, complex society formerly simple solutions to informational needs become complicated. Many of life''s problems which were solved by asking family members, friends or colleagues are beyond the capability of the extended family to resolve. Where to turn for expert information and how to determine which expert advice to accept are questions facing many people today.
In addition to this, there is the growing mobility of people since World War Ⅱ. As families move away from their stable community, their friends of many years, their extended family relationships, the informal flow of information is cut off, and with it the confidence that information will be available when needed and will be trustworthy and reliable. The almost unconscious flow of information about the simplest aspects of living can be cut off. Thus, things once learned subconsciously through the casual communications of the extended family must be consciously learned.
Adding to societal changes today is an enormous stockpile of information. The individual now has more information available than any generation, and the task of finding that one piece of information relevant to his or her specific problem is complicated, time-consuming and sometimes even overwhelming.
Coupled with the growing quantity of information is the development of technologies which enable the storage and delivery of more information with greater speed to more locations than has ever been possible before. Computer technology makes it possible to store vast amounts of data in machine readable files, and to program computers to locate specific information. Telecommunications developments enable the sending of messages via television, radio, and very shortly, electronic mail to bombard people with multitudes of messages. Satellites have extended the power of communications to report events at the instant of occurrence. Expertise can be shared world wide through teleconferencing, and problems in dispute can be settled Without the participants leaving their homes and/or jobs to travel to a distant conference site. Technology has facilitated the sharing of information and the storage and delivery of information, thus making more information available to more people.
In this world of change and complexity, the need for information is of greatest importance. Those people who have accurate, reliable up-to-date information to solve the day-to-day problems, the critical problems of their business, social and family life, will survive and succeed. "Knowledge is power" may well be the truest saying and access to information may be the most critical requirement of all people.
阅读理解 With the usual flood of immigrants from non-English-speaking countries, there comes a multi-cultural work force. Along with this diversity comes resentment felt by natives in the marketplace. Feelings of antagonism surface when accents are strong and foreign languages are used that some workers cannot understand. There is now a clash of forces in the workplace; the battle is centered on English-only policies. A growing number of workers are alleging discrimination on the basis of language. The federal law prohibiting job discrimination comes under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title Ⅶ), which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. National-origin discrimination makes it illegal to discriminate against an individual because of birthplace, ancestry, and culture or linguistic characteristics common to a specific ethnic group. A rule requiring that employees speak only English on the job may violate Title VII unless an employer shows that the requirement is necessary for conducting the business. If the employer believes such a rule is necessary, employees must be informed of when English is required and the consequences for violating the rule. Donna Fernandez, language rights attorney at the Employment Law Center of San Francisco, finds that language discrimination is very prevalent in the workplace. Fernandez states that the biases may include 'English-only policies when the employee's primary language is other than English' or 'some people may be treated differently because they speak with an accent.' It is illegal for an employer to discriminate against an employee because of language. However, the increase in language discrimination suits indicates that employers are treating employees speaking with an accent or in a foreign language differently. 'Many companies don't know they are breaking the law with the English-only policies,' says Fernandez. The law in this area is still developing and many courts consider these policies to be a form of discrimination on the basis of race or national origin. (National origin refers to the country that a person, or that person's ancestors, came from.) Employees can challenge a speak-English-only policy if: the rule is applied to employees who speak no English; they have difficulty speaking English; or the policy creates, or is part of, a work environment that is hostile toward national origin minority employees. An employer must show some 'business necessity' for the policy. Even if there is a business need, the policy is still illegal if there are less discriminatory alternative to the policy. Sibylle Gruber, assistant professor of English at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Ariz., finds that employees may feel they are viewed as less intelligent if they cannot speak English perfectly. 'Workers may miss out on promotions to positions of authority if they can't express themselves or communicate clearly,' says Gruber. Often, there are subtle prejudices against some accents more than others. Speaking with a French or British accent is less frowned upon than a Spanish or Vietnamese accent. By not promoting employees because of an accent or language bias, a ghetto effect is created in the work force, keeping certain accents and immigrants in low-level positions.