Directions: A. Title: On Tourism in Colleges B. Word limit: 160-200 words C

If sustainable competitive advantage depends on work force skills, American firms have a problem. Human resource management is not traditionally seen as 21 to the competitive survival of the firm in the United States. Labor is simply another factor of production to be hired or 22 at the lowest possible cost—much 23 one buys raw materials or equipment. The lack of importance 24 to human resource management can be seen in the corporation hierarchy. In an American firm the chief financial officer is almost always second 25 command. The 26 of head of human resource managements is usually a specialized job, off at the edge of the corporate hierarchy. The executive who 27 it is never consulted on major strategic decisions and has no chance to 28 to Chief Executive Officer (CEO). 29 , in Japan the head of human resource management is central—usually the second most important executive, after the CEO, in the firm's ______. As a 30 , problems 31 when new breakthrough technologies arrive. If American workers, for example, take much longer to learn 32 to operate new flexible manufacturing stations than workers in Germany (as they do), the effective cost of those stations is 33 in Germany than it is in the United Stated. More time is required before equipment is up and running at capacity, and the need for 34 retraining 35 costs and creates bottlenecks that 36 the speed with 37 new equipment can be employed. The result is a slower pace of technological 38 . And in the end the skills of the bottom half of the population 39 the wages of the top half. If the bottom half can't effectively staff the processes that have to be operated, the management and professional jobs that go with these processes will disappear.

A new report by the Pew Research Centre, a think-tank

It was a ruling that had consumers seething with anger and many a free trader crying foul. On November 20th the European Court of Justice decided that Tesco, a British supermarket chain, should not be allowed to import jeans made by America's Levi Strauss from outside the European Union and sell them at cut-rate prices without getting permission first from the jeans maker. Ironically, the ruling is based on an EU trademark directive that was designed to protect local, not American, manufacturers from price dumping. The idea is that any brand-owning firm should be allowed to position its goods and segment its markets as it sees fit: Levi's jeans, just like Gucci handbags, must be allowed to be expensive. Levi Strauss persuaded the court that, by selling its jeans cheaply alongside soap powder and bananas, Tesco was destroying the image and so the value of its brands—which could only lead to less innovation and, in the long run, would reduce consumer choice. Consumer groups and Tesco say that Levi's case is specious. The supermarket argues that it was just arbitraging the price differential between Levi's jeans sold in America and Europe—a service performed a million times a day in financial markets, and one that has led to real benefits for consumers. Tesco has been selling some 15,000 pairs of Levi's jeans a week, for about half the price they command in specialist stores approved by Levi Strauss. Christine Cross, Tesco's head of global non-food sourcing, says the ruling risks "creating a Fortress Europe with a vengeance". The debate will rage on, and has implications well beyond casual clothes (Levi Strauss was joined in its lawsuit by Zino Davidoff, a perfume maker). The question at its heart is not whether brands need to control how they are sold to protect their image, but whether it is the job of the courts to help them do this. Gucci, an Italian clothes label whose image was being destroyed by loose licensing and over-exposure in discount stores, saved itself not by resorting to the courts but by ending contracts with third-party suppliers, controlling its distribution better and opening its own stores. It is now hard to find cut-price Gucci anywhere. Brand experts argue that Levi Strauss, which has been losing market share to hipper rivals such as Diesel, is no longer strong enough to command premium prices. Left to market forces, so-so brands such as Levi's might well. fade away and be replaced by fresher labels. With the courts protecting its prices, Levi Strauss may hang on for longer. But no court can help to make it a great brand again. Which of the following is not true according to Paragraph 1?

Vladimir Putin is facing a dilemma: how can Russia's president fulfil his campaign promises to increase social spending, especially when they were directed toward his political base, while also ensuring that the country's deficit does not become unsustainable? He is keen to prolong the past decade's economic stability, which was his biggest electoral asset. If the direction of the country's pension system is any indication, Mr. Putin and his advisers are choosing short-term social and political stability at the expense of long-term growth and investment. On October 1st Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister and former president, signed a long-expected strategy for reforming the pension system that would, among other things, nearly eliminate the funded component, in which workers pay into a personal investment account they claim upon retirement. The money freed up from this plan is supposed to plug the $50 billion hole in the pay-as-you-go system. The only way forward, argue nearly all experts, is to raise Russia's low pension age of 55 for women and 60 for men. Both the IMF and the members of Strategy 2020, an expert group formed by the Russian government, call for a gradual increase of the pension age to 63. The move is thought to be politically dangerous, if not impossible. Mr. Putin has increasingly relied on the support of the rural population and industrial workers, as well as the 40% or so of the electorate who are elderly. One of Mr. Putin's many pre-election promises, now turned into official directives, was to keep the pension age intact. That order left the government with few options. Mr. Medvedev and his team were thus handed an unenviable task. No one disputes that today's pension system, created in 2002, needs some kind of reform. Part of the problem is demography. Declining birth rates in the 1980s and 1990s have left Russia with too few workers to support those in retirement; birth rates have stabilised in recent years but too late to affect the looming pension crisis. Today there are 100 workers for every 87 pensioners, says Evsey Gurvich of the Economic Expert Group, who led the Strategy 2020 pension task-force; by 2020, that figure will be 100 workers for 100 pensioners. Mr. Gurvich warns of a creeping "gerontocracy". He predicts a deepening of "paternalistic thinking", in which citizens regard the state, and not themselves, as the source of their pensions. Perhaps that's exactly what the Kremlin has in mind. The problem President Putin is facing lies in ______.

In a world where bad news has become everyday news, people are turning to an ancient technique to deal with stress: meditation. At meditation centers, prayer groups and yoga studios around the United States, more and more are finding peace of mind by being quiet. Some use meditation to help deal with life changes; others, to process the painful reality of political and social unrest around the world of the type that has been experienced more recently. Stress from the September 11 terrorist attacks is probably "about 70 percent" of the reason one Chicago man started meditating and practicing yoga with his new wife. He became so emotionally affected that he realized he needed help in managing his stress. The yoga classes he takes begin and end with meditation. This "quiet time" helps him feel a lot more relaxed and gives him more breath control. The fact is, though, that he is not alone. Across the country, many are turning to more meditative exercise as they seek both psychological and physiological relief. In addition to helping people work out their stress, these classes bring people together, in the same way that religious services or other community activities have done in the past. Different schools of meditation teach particular techniques, but they share a common basis—focusing attention on something your mind can return to if you are distracted. This may be the rhythm of breathing, an object such as a candle flame, or a repetitive movement, as in walking or taiji. Regardless of the specific technique or mode that is followed, meditation has well-documented benefits. Medical research indicates that it causes a sharp decrease in metabolic activity, reduced muscle tension, slower breathing, and a shift from faster brainwaves to slower waves, it also reduces high blood pressure. Practitioners are convinced that meditation is good for health because it relaxes the body. For ages, meditation has been a core practice of many groups meeting in their communal or religious centers. However, let's not forget that this is the twenty-first century. So, for those people who are too shy or busy to go to the nearest meditation center, there are Internet sites that offer online guided meditation. One has a variety of meditations from various religious traditions. At another, Jesuit priests post meditations and readings from the Scriptures everyday, and at still another, Buddhist and Hindu practitioners include music and visuals to accompany their offerings. These websites allow anyone with a computer access to meditation at any time. The fact is that whether online, at yoga classes, or at local spiritual centers, more people are turning to the practice of meditation. The increasing popularity of meditation results from people's need for

Directions: Your friend is going to give a public speech

Veterans make up 8

Fifteen years ago

Today, some 30% of small business owners don't have a Web presence at all

Directions: You are going to apply for a position as an assistant in the library

On June 25th, some 120

Roadside billboards

Skyrocketing salaries, foreign workers

"HONOR TO BEETHOVEN" was the motto that appeared at the top of a program

There is nothing quite like falling in love

Directions: Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following drawing. In your essay

Gene therapy and gene based drugs are two ways we could benefit from our growing mastery of genetic science. But there will be others as well. Here is one of the remarkable therapies on the cutting edge of genetic research that could make their way into mainstream medicine in the coming years. While it's true that just about every cell in the body has the instructions to make a complete human, most of those instructions are inactivated, and with good reason: the last thing you want for your brain cells is to start churning out stomach acid or your nose to turn into a kidney. The only time cells truly have the potential to turn into any and all body parts is very early in a pregnancy, when so called stem cells haven't begun to specialize. Yet this untapped potential could be a terrific boon to medicine. Most diseases involve the death of healthy cells—brain cells in Alzheimer's, cardiac cells in heart disease, pancreatic cells in diabetes, to name a few; if doctors could isolate stem cells, then direct their growth, they might be able to furnish patients with healthy replacement tissue. It was incredibly difficult, but last fall scientists at the University of Wisconsin managed to isolate stem cells and get them to grow into neural, gut, muscle and bone cells. The process still can't be controlled, and may have unforeseen limitations; but if efforts to understand and master stem cell development prove successful, doctors will have a therapeutic tool of incredible power. The same applies to cloning, which is really just the other side of the coin. True cloning, as first shown with the sheep Dolly two years ago, involves taking a developed cell and reactivating the genome within, resetting its developmental instructions to a pristine state. Once that happens, the rejuvenated cell can develop into a full-fledged animal, genetically identical to its parent. For agriculture, in which purely physical characteristics like milk production in a cow or low fat in a hog have real market value, biological carbon copies could become routine within a few years. This past year scientists have done for mice and cows what Ian Wilmut did for Dolly, and other creatures are bound to join the cloned menagerie in the coming year. Human cloning, on the other hand, may be technically feasible but legally and emotionally more difficult. Still, one day it will happen. The ability to reset body cells to a pristine, undeveloped state could give doctors exactly the same advantages they would get from stem cells: the potential to make healthy body tissues of all sorts, and thus to cure disease. That could prove to be a true "miracle cure". The writer holds that the potential to make healthy body tissues will ______.

Come July 29th

The effect of the baby boom on the schools helped to make possible a shift in thinking about the role of public education in the 1920's. In the 1920's, but especially 1 the Depression of the 1930's, the United States experienced a 2 birth rate. Then with the prosperity 3 on by the Second World War and the economic boom that followed it, young people married and 4 households earlier and began to 5 larger families than had their 6 during the Depression. Birth rates rose to 102 per thousand in 1946, 106.2 in 1950, and 118 in 1955. 7 economics was probably the most important 8 , it is not the only explanation for the baby boom. The increased value placed 9 the idea of the family also helps to 10 this rise in birth rates. The baby boomers began streaming 11 the first grade by the mid-1940's and became a 12 by 1950. The public school system suddenly found itself 13 The wartime economy meant that few new schools were buih between 1940 and 1945. 14 , large numbers of teachers left their profession during that period for better-paying jobs elsewhere. 15 , in the 1950's, the baby boom hit an antiquated and inadequate school system. Consequently, the custodial rhetoric of the 1930's no longer made 16 ; keeping youths ages sixteen and older out of the labor market by keeping them in school could no longer be a high 17 for an institution unable to find space and staff to teach younger children. With the baby boom, the focus of educators 18 turned toward the lower grades and back to basic academic skills and 19 . The system no longer had much 20 in offering nontraditional, new, and extra services to older youths.