Members of the National Union of Teachers strike and march through central London to highlight the discontent felt by those in the profession. The NUT has called the strike to demand increased funding for schools; guaranteed terms and conditions of employment in all types of schools; and the resumption of negotiations on teachers' unsustainable workloads. For showing our concern we stand accused of carelessly treating our students like collateral damage, pitilessly "playing politics" with their futures. Asking for an increase in school funding is an acknowledgment of the negative impact that slashed budgets will have on children. We are doing this because we are at crisis point: the Leeds Schools Forum has calculated that state schools in England are now set to lose ￡1bn a year, roughly the equivalent of 20,000 full-time teaching posts; the Institute for Fiscal Studies forecasts a 7% cut in spending per pupil by 2020—the steepest cut since the 1970s. This is against a backdrop of a commitment to make all schools academies by 2020—a policy favoured because it will ensure no school has to honour national terms and conditions. What's more, the public purse can foot the bill. Apparently a win-win, unless you are a teacher, parent or child. Academies have already meant an explosion in unqualified teachers with wage slips reflecting this, yet they will be expected to put in the weeks of 50 hours plus that are necessary just to tread water. For its part the government will continue to institute botched curriculum changes almost annually but avoid meaningful negotiations over an unsustainable workload. We can't go on this way. Teachers are confronted with larger class sizes, being asked to do more with less, and a threat to whether we can even secure a living wage. Yet when Nick Gibb, the schools minister, was asked about how ministers could assure a "nationally guaranteed level of pay", he responded: "It's odd to hear people complaining that we are going to cut teacher salaries and at the same time stating there is a shortage of teachers and that it is difficult to recruit teachers. The free market will ensure the salaries... We are living in a strong economy and we have to compete for graduates with companies up and down the country. And that is what will secure high salaries for the teaching profession." Schools are facing a 12% cut in real terms to their budgets, the result of pension and national insurance contributions during a funding freeze. Quite how the free market will come to save the day is anyone's guess. The teachers' striking is triggered mainly by ______.

Directions: Professor Wang Wei gave you a hand when your delegation visited his university

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

In general

The past year or two has tested the idea that all publicity is good publicity, at least when it comes to business. Undeserved bonuses, plunging share prices and government bail-outs, among other ills, have aroused the anger of the media and public-and created a windfall for public-relations firms. The recession has increased corporate demand for PR, analysts say, and enhanced the industry's status. "We used to be the tail on the dog," says Richard Edelman, the boss of Edelman. But now, he continues, PR is "the organizing principle" behind many business decisions. PR has done well in part because it is often cheaper than mass advertising campaigns. Its impact, in the form of favorable coverage in the media or online, can also be more easily measured. Moreover, PR firms are beginning to expand into territory that used to be the domain of advertising firms, a sign of their increasing clout. They used chiefly to pitch story ideas to media outlets and try to get their clients mentioned in newspapers. Now they also dream up and organize live events, web launches and the like. "When you look at advertising versus public relations, it's not going to be those clearly different," says Christopher Graves, the boss of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. "It may be indistinguishable at some point where one ends and the other begins." PR has also benefited from the changing media landscape. The withering of many traditional media outlets has left fewer journalists from fewer firms covering business. That makes PR doubly important, both for attracting journalists' attention, and for helping firms bypass old routes altogether and disseminate news by posting press releases on their websites, for example. The rise of the internet and social media has given PR a big boost. Many big firms have a presence on social-networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, overseen by PR staff. PR firms are increasingly called on to track what consumers are saying about their clients online and to respond directly to any negative commentary. Perhaps the best indication of PR's growing importance is the attention it is attracting from regulators. They are worried that PR firms do not make it clear enough that they are behind much seemingly independent commentary on blogs and social networks. In October America's Federal Trade Commission published new guidelines for bloggers, requiring them to disclose whether they had been paid by companies or received free merchandise. Further regulation is likely. But that will not hamper PR's growth. After all, companies that fall foul of the rules will need the help of a PR firm. Richard Edelman's statements indicate that ______.

Since the Nov.4 election

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. In face of the increasing sales of e-books, publishers ______.

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

Directions: Your friend has recently received his doctorate

A. I just don't know how to motivate them to do a better job

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

In his book The Tipping Point

Think of those fleeting moments when you look out of an aeroplane window and realise that you are

Directions: Write a letter to the personnel department of a foreign company

To function well in the world

It amazes me when people proclaim that they are bored. Actually, it amazes me that I am ever bored

Ellie is a psychologist

Recalculating the global use of phosphorus

You can save money

One of the most pressing challenges the world will face in the next few decades is how to alleviate the growing stress that human activities are placing 21 the environment. The consequences are just too great to 22 . Wildlife habitats are being degraded or disappearing altogether as new developments 23 more land. Plant and animal species are becoming 24 at a greater rate now than at any time in Earth's history. 25 many as 30 percent of the world's fish stocks are over-exploited. And the list goes on. 26 , there is reason to have hope for the future. Advances in computing power and molecular biology are among the tremendous increases in scientific capability that 27 helping researchers 28 a better understanding of these problems. Recent development in science and technology could provide the 29 for some major and timely actions that would 30 our understanding of how human activities affect the environment. One priority for research is improving hydrological forecasting. It has been 31 that the world's water use would triple in the next two decades. Already, widespread water 32 have occurred in parts of China, India, and North Africa. The need for water also is taking its toll on fresh water ecosystems in the United States. Only 2 percent of the nations' stream are considered in good 33 , and 34 to 40 percent of native fish species are rare to extinct. To prevent outbreaks of 35 diseases in plants, animals and human, more study is needed on how parasites and disease-carrying species—as 36 as humans and other species they 37 — are affected by changes in the environment. The overuse of antibiotics both in humans and in farm animals has 38 to the growth of antibiotic-resistant micro organism. Researchers can take 39 of new technologies in genetics and computing to better monitor and 40 the effects that environment changes might have on diseases outbreaks.