Amtrak—the largest railway company in the U.S

Americans today don't place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athletes, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not scholars. Even our schools are where we send our children to get a practical education—not to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Symptoms of pervasive anti-intellectualism in our schools aren't difficult to find. "Schools have always been in a society where practical is more important than intellectual," says education writer Diane Ravitch. "Schools could be a counterbalance." Ravitch's latest book, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms, traces the roots of anti-intellectualism in our schools, concluding they are anything but a counterbalance to the American distaste for intellectual pursuits. But they could and should be. Encouraging kids to reject the life of the mind leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and control. Without the ability to think critically, to defend their ideas and understand the ideas of others, they cannot fully participate in our democracy. Continuing along this path, says writer Earl Shorris, "We will become a second-rate country. We will have a less civil society." "Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege," writes historian and professor Richard Hofstadter in Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, a Pulitzer-Prize winning book on the roots of anti-intellectualism in US politics, religion, and education. From the beginning of our history, says Hofstadter, our democratic and populist urges have driven us to reject anything that smells of elitism. Practicality, common sense, and native intelligence have been considered more noble qualities than anything you could learn from a book. Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children: "We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing." Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn exemplified American anti-intellectualism. Its hero avoids being civilized—going to school and learning to read—so he can preserve his innate goodness. Intellect, according to Hofstadter, is different from native intelligence, a quality we reluctantly admire. Intellect is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of the mind. Intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re-order, and adjust, while intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes and imagines. School remains a place where intellect is mistrusted. Hofstadter says our country's educational system is in the grips of people who "joyfully and militantly proclaim their hostility to intellect and their eagerness to identify with children who show the least intellectual promise." What do American parents expect their children to acquire in school?

The main purpose of a resume is to convince an employer to grant you an interview

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 "earned" media by willingly promoting it to friends, and a company may leverage "owned" media by sending e-mail alerts about products and sales to customers registered with its Web site. The way consumers now approach the process of making purchase decisions means that marketing's impact stems from a 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 BabyCenter, 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. Consumers may create "earned" media when they are ______.

What happens to human cells if you douse them in a Petri dish full of public shame, official reprimands and months of intense stress? An answer came this week when Yoshiki Sasai, a distinguished stem-cell biologist at the R/KEN Centre for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, hanged himself after being blamed over the fabrication of research. Dr. Sasai had been an author, with Haruko Obokata, a younger, female colleague whose work he was supervising and promoting, of two papers published in January in em>Nature/em>. These promised a leap forward in the much-hyped field of regenerative medicine. They purported to show that applying stress to ordinary mouse cells—squeezing them, or dipping them into a bath of mild acid—could turn them into pluripotent stem cells, capable of forming new animal tissue. Many other scientists therefore tried to replicate it in the months following publication. But they could not, and doubts grew. Blogs and websites pointed out irregularities in the images and diagrams in the original papers. Finally, in April, an investigative panel at the RIKEN Centre slammed Dr. Obokata for fabrication and plagiarism, and in July em>Nature/em> retracted the papers. The panel did clear Dr. Sasai of misconduct, but it laid upon him a "heavy responsibility" for failing to verify his star researcher's study. He was a keen fundraiser for stem-cell research at R/KEN, which is one of Japan's biggest research organisations, with laboratories all around the country, and that motive may explain his failure to scrutinise her work properly, according to another probe, by outside experts. Disciplinary action against him was expected, and the outsiders called for the Centre for Developmental Biology to be shut down. In April Dr. Sasai told the em>Wall Street Journal/em> that he was "overwhelmed with shame". But some shame surely also attaches to the scientific establishment's handling of the scandal—particularly in a country where suicide is common. The Knoepfler Lab Stem Cell Blog, a website which has followed the implosion of the papers closely, called this week for all scientists to reflect on the pressure researchers are under to make transformative discoveries. Dr. Sasai became a scapegoat, taking too much responsibility for the troubles, it said. Having been briefly in hospital for stress, and on powerful drugs, he had reportedly asked to step aside from his job, only to be turned down. Suicide, unfortunately, is a response that cannot be gainsaid. The assumption in the first paragraph may indicate ______.

Directions: You are going to recruit three volunteers to work as assistants in the library

A

Climate science is famously complicated

Whether to teach young children a second language is disputed among teachers, researchers and pushy parents. On the one hand, acquiring a new tongue is said to be far easier when young. On the other, teachers complain that children whose parents speak a language at home that is different from the one used in the classroom sometimes struggle in their lessons and are slower to reach linguistic milestones. Would a 15-month-old child, they wonder, not be better off going to music classes? A study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences may help resolve this question by getting to the point of what is going on in a bilingual child's brain, how a second language affects the way he thinks, and thus in what circumstances being bilingual may be helpful. Agnes Kovacs and Jacques Mehler at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste say that some aspects of the cognitive development of infants raised in a bilingual household must be undergoing acceleration in order to manage which of the two languages they are dealing with. The aspect of cognition in question is part of what is termed the brain's "executive function". This allows people to organise, plan, prioritise activity, shift their attention from one thing to another and suppress habitual responses. Bilingualism is common in Trieste which, though Italian, is almost surrounded by Slovenia. So Dr. Kovacs and Dr. Mehler looked at 40 "preverbal" seven-month-olds, half raised in monolingual and half in bilingual households, and compared their performances in a task that needs control of executive function. First, the babies were trained to expect the appearance of a puppet on a screen after they had heard a set of meaningless words invented by the researchers. Then the words, and the location of the puppet, were changed. When this was done, the babies who speak only one language had difficulty overcoming their learnt response, even when the researchers gave them further clues that a switch had taken place. The bilingual babies, however, found it far easier to switch their attention—counteracting the previously learnt, but no longer useful response. Monitoring languages and keeping them separate is part of the brain's executive function, so these findings suggest that even before a child can speak, a bilingual environment may speed up that function's development. Before rushing your offspring into bilingual kindergartens, though, there are a few cautions. For one thing, these extraordinary cognitive benefits have been demonstrated so far only in "crib" bilinguals—those living in households where two languages are spoken routinely. The researchers speculate that it might be the fact of having to learn two languages in the same setting that requires greater use of executive function. So whether those benefits apply to children who learn one language at home, and one at school, remains unclear. Who are probably pushing young children to study a new language?

For hundreds of millions of years

For the first time in history more people live in towns than in the country. In Britain this has had a curious result. While polls show Britons rate "the countryside" alongside the royal family, Shakespeare and the National Health Service (NHS) as what makes them proudest of their country, this has limited political support. A century ago Octavia Hill launched the National Trust not to rescue stylish houses but to save "the beauty of natural places for everyone forever." It was specifically to provide city dwellers with spaces for leisure where they could experience "a refreshing air." Hill's pressure later led to the creation of national parks and green belts. They don't make countryside any more, and every year concrete consumes more of it. It needs constant guardianship. At the next election none of the big parties seem likely to endorse this sentiment. The Conservatives' planning reform explicitly gives rural development priority over conservation, even authorising "off-plan" building where local people might object. The concept of sustainable development has been defined as prof itable. Labour likewise wants to discontinue local planning where councils oppose development. The Liberal Democrats are silent. Only Ukip, sensing its chance, has sided with those pleading for a more considered ap proach to using green land. Its Campaign to Protect Rural England struck terror into many local Conservative parties. The sensible place to build new houses, factories and offices is where people are, in cities and towns where infrastructure is in place. The London agents Stirling Ackroyd recently identified enough sites for half a million houses in the London area alone, with no intrusion on green belt. What is true of London is even truer of the provinces. The idea that "housing crisis" equals "concreted meadows" is pure lobby talk. The issue is not the need for more house but, as always, where to put them. Under lobby pressure, George Osborne favours rural new-build against urban renovation and renewal. He favours out-of-town shopping sites against high streets. This is not a free market but a biased one. Rural towns and villages have grown and will always grow. They do so best where building sticks to their edges and respects their character. We do not ruin urban conservation areas. Why ruin rural ones? Development should be planned, not let rip. After the Netherlands, Britain is Europe's most crowded country. Half a century of town and country planning has enabled it to retain an enviable rural coherence, while still permitting low-density urban living. There is no doubt of the alternative—the corrupted landscapes of southern Portugal, Spain or Ireland. Avoiding this rather than promoting it should unite the left and right of the political spectrum. Britain's public sentiment about the countryside

Before a big exam

Marketplace or peer-to-peer (P2P) lending matches borrowers and lenders on low-cost online platforms. By skirting banks, P2P lending allows borrower and lender alike to achieve better rates of interest. Essentially, P2P lending is a way of capitalising on the network effect of social media and the volumes of data generated therein to allow cheaper access to capital. According to Liberum, P2P lending in the UK will grow at 98 percent year-on-year in 2015, with ￡3.5 billion presently lent out. Worldwide in 2015, it's estimated that $ 77 billion will be lent via P2P platforms—$ 60 billion China, $12 billion USA and $ 5 billion UK. Morgan Stanley's Huw Steenis says, "While marketplace lending is still about 1 percent of unsecured consumer and SME lending in the US, we think it can reach approximately 10 percent by 2020... We forecast the global market to grow to $150-$ 490 billion by 2020." As Liberum's Cormac Leech says, "We are witnessing the biggest changes to the banking sector for 400 years." P2P lending offers huge opportunities, mainly at the expense of banks, whose biggest margins are traditionally in unsecured lending. Herein is the layer of fat P2P platforms guzzling, picking off the banks' best customers. P2P platforms have also proved superior at harvesting and managing big data, and have lower cost bases than banks. A significant development is that institutional money is now alighting. The institutional P2P lender, P2P Global Investment PLC, floated in London last year. It has raised nearly ￡500m and aims to double that this year. As a reward for lofting "transformational" amounts of cash on to various platforms, P2P Global has been accumulating warrants and options on their equity, notably Ratesetter, Zopa, Direct Money and Lending Works. In a twist to this development, Neil Woodford, Britain's most famous fund manager, recently upped his stake in P2P Global. Last August Woodford sold out of a bank, fearing "fine inflation". This seems a ringing endorsement of this disruptive but nascent sector. Perhaps most significantly, in May this year, Zopa, the P2P platform, announced its debut in secured (most P2P lending is unsecured) lending by collaborating with Uber. Of course, the sector presents risks. The credit dries up when interest rates rise. A P2P platform may go bust. But some investors, refugees from the banking sector perhaps, will simply like the idea of being on the right side of regulatory and technological upheaval. And when the banks finally twig, how will they react? Who knows. So far, none of them have. The biggest change brought about by P2P lending to banking is probably ______.

One answer to the question, "What ate dinosaurs?" is, obviously

English has become the world's number one language in the 20th century

Most unintentional shootings of children happen in homes where guns are legally owned, but not stored safely, and 70 percent of them could have been prevented if the gun had been stored safely. In its call last year to consider gun violence "a public health imperative," the American Academy of Pediatrics noted that among people younger than 24 "Gun injuries cause twice as many deaths as cancer, five times as many deaths as heart disease, and 15 times as many deaths as infections. The United States has the highest rate of firearm-related deaths among high-income countries." This is precisely where the health-care system can play a role in curbing gun deaths. Research shows that counseling by doctors can help promote safe gun storage—which is why most medical groups recommend that doctors ask patients whether they have guns, and if so, how they're stored. A new survey of 3,914 Americans, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that two-thirds said it was at least sometimes appropriate for providers to have this kind of discussion with patients. Among firearm owners, about half said these conversations were sometimes appropriate. Despite the seeming openness on the part of patients, few doctors counsel people about gun safety. Their own apprehension and a confusing legal landscape keep them from asking patients about guns just like they would about seat-belts, poison control, or nutrition. Asking about guns seems to make some doctors uncomfortable. Most doctors don't own guns themselves, and laws like those in Florida and elsewhere may prompt fears that they're doing something illegal. (For example, the Affordable Care Act prohibits medical professionals from recording information about the presence of firearms in a patient's home, as the Trace's Kate Masters points out, but not from asking about firearm ownership). Patient resistance might be a factor, too: In the Annals of Internal Medicine study, a third of people said it was "never appropriate" for doctors to ask about guns. Doctors, already short on face time, might worry about needlessly offending their patients. "At times, clinicians may feel uncomfortable or uninformed when discussing certain subjects, and may disagree with a patient's choices or beliefs," they write. "However, this discomfort or disagreement cannot justify either offensive condescension or silent inaction." It can be inferred from the first paragraph that ______.

Student loans are based on a simple idea: that a graduate's future flow of earnings will more than c

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

The domestic economy in the United States expanded in a remarkably vigorous and steady fashion. The revival in consumer confidence was reflected in the higher proportion of incomes spent for goods and services and the marked increase in consumer willingness to take on installment debt. A parallel strengthening in business psychology was manifested in a stepped-up rate of plant and equipment spending and a gradual pickup in expenses for inventory. Confidence in the economy was also reflected in the strength of the stock market and in the stability of the bond market. For the year as a whole, consumer and business sentiment benefited from the ease in East-West tensions. The bases of the business expansion were to be found mainly in the stimulative monetary and fiscal policies that had been pursued. Moreover, the restoration of sounder liquidity positions and tighter management control of production efficiency had also helped lay the groundwork for a strong expansion. In addition, the economic policy moves made by the President had served to renew optimism on the business outlook while boosting hopes that inflation would be brought under more effective control. Finally, of course, the economy was able to grow as vigorously as it did because sufficient leeway existed in terms of idle men and machines. The United States balance of payments deficit declined sharply. Nevertheless, by any other test, the deficit remained very large, and there was actually a substantial deterioration in our trade account to a sizable deficit, almost two-thirds of which was with Japan. While the overall trade performance proved disappointing, there are still good reasons for expecting the delayed impact of devaluation to produce in time a significant strengthening in our trade picture. Given the size of the Japanese component of our trade deficit, however, the outcome will depend importantly on the extent of the corrective measures undertaken by Japan. Also important will be our own efforts in the United States to fashion internal policies consistent with an improvement in our external balance. The underlying task of public policy for the year ahead--and indeed for the longer run-- remained a familiar one.- to strike the right balance between encouraging healthy economic growth and avoiding inflationary pressures. With the economy showing sustained and vigorous growth, and with the currency crisis highlighting the need to improve our competitive posture internationally, the emphasis seemed to be shifting to the problem of inflation. The Phase Three program of wage and price restraint can contribute to reducing inflation. Unless productivity growth is unexpectedly large, however, the expansion of real output must eventually begin to slow down to the economy's larger run growth potential if generalized demand pressures on prices are to be avoided. The author mentions increased installment debt in the first paragraph in order to show

Before a big exam