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

Alcohol use is the number one drug problem among young people. It's easy to understand why. For adults, alcohol is legal, widely 1 in American culture and easily 2 . Many kids can get a drink right in their own homes. 3 are drinking younger and more frequently than 4 , often beginning around age 13, according to studies. The average number of alcoholic drinks among college students is five on a single 5 , according to a recent survey. Among those younger 21, it is 5.5 drinks, and among 6 21 and older, it is 4.2 drinks. Young people almost always begin drinking because of 7 pressure, in an attempt to be accepted and 8 in the group. According to the U.S. Surgeon General, more than half of junior and senior high school students drink alcoholic 9 . More than 40 percent of those who drink admit to drinking when upset, 31 percent admit to drinking 10 , 25 percent admit to drinking when 11 and 25 percent admit to drinking to get " 12 ." This is a 13 , serious problem 14 college campuses today. In 1997 Harvard University's School of Public Health surveyed students at 130 colleges for a college 15 study and found about two of every five college students 16 in binge drinking. 17 binge drinkers at college were 22 times more 18 than non-binge drinkers to have problems, 19 missed classes, falling behind in school work, getting in trouble or hurt and engaging in 20 sexual activity.

In 1693

During the past generation

Could HIV, the virus that causes AIDS

For decades a titan has towered over America's shopping landscape. Walmart is not just the world's biggest retailer but the biggest private employer and, by sales, the biggest company. Last year its tills rang up takings of $482 billion, about twice Apple's revenue. But now the beast of Bentonville must cope with an unfamiliar sensation. After ruling as the undisputed disrupter of American retailing, Walmart finds itself being disrupted. The source of the commotion is online shopping, specifically online shopping at Amazon. E-commerce accounted for $1 in every $10 that American shoppers spent last year, up by 15% from 2014. Amazon's North American sales grew at about twice that rate. Walmart's share of America's retail sales, which stands at 10.6%, is still more than twice Amazon's, but it peaked in 2009 at nearly 12%. In January Walmart said it would close 154 American stores. It may need to shut more. Walmart's "supercentres" once offered an unmatched combination of squeezed prices and expansive choice, but this formula is losing its magic. Discounters and other competitors are rivalling Walmart's low prices at the same time as Amazon's warehouses can beat its range. Amazon is also offering something different. Whereas Walmart has strived to help Americans save money, Amazon is obsessed with helping them save time. Amazon has become a new kind of big-box retailer, with warehouses placed strategically around America to speed deliveries to customers. Innovations such as Dash, which let you press a button in your kitchen to order soap or coffee, could turn Amazon from an online store into something like a utility. Walmart is fighting back. It is spending billions in the hope of growing even larger. It is offering more goods to more customers, in stores and online. With its legendary attention to detail, it is making its operations even more efficient. For instance, it will save more than 35 truckloads of buttercream icing this year, after spotting that its bakers were leaving too much icing in the bottom of their tubs. By using 27 different boxes rather than i2 to deliver online goods, the firm reckons it can save 7.2m cubic feet of cardboard boxes a year. Last month sunny results sent up its share price by 10%. Yet far from offering comfort to other retailers hoping to knit together physical and online businesses, Walmart's fightback shows how hard it will be for them to repel Amazon. From the first paragraph we know ______.

Growing cooperation among branches of tourism has proved valuable to all concerned

Back in 2002 Ben Bernanke

The amount of greenhouse gases we've already pumped into the atmosphere has irreversibly bound us to a certain amount of warming over the next several decades. That means climate change isn't a problem for tomorrow—the effects are happening now. Already raining patterns seem to be changing, making some drier areas even drier, and rainy regions even wetter. As warmer temperatures creep northward, so do insects and other pests that are adapted to the heat. The population of the tiny mountain pine beetle, which infests pine trees in the Rocky Mountain region, used to be controlled by freezing winters. But as temperatures have warmed over the past decade, the mountain pine beetle's territory has spread, destroying millions of acres of Canadian pines. The pine beetle infestation represents the unique challenges that warming will pose for land conservation managers on the front lines of the battle against it. Generations of American conservationists have fought to preserve wildlife and to keep nature pure in the face of a growing population and pollution. But global warming threatens to change all that, by altering the very foundation on which the conservation movement was built. What good is a wildlife reserve if the protected animals can't live there, because climate change pushes them out? What difference does it make to defend trees from logging, if global warming will allow a new pest to ruin the whole forests? The answer is to adapt the way we practice wildlife and land conservation to climate change. There's a term for this—adaptive management. We need to begin making moves today to adapt to changes that warming will bring decades hence. "Climate change will affect anything, you name it," said Lara Hansen of EcoAdapt. "We need to change the way we allocate resources and protect livelihoods." That means that the way we've been carrying out conservation—picking the right land spaces and playing goalie—won't work anymore, as climate change keeps moving the target. Conservationists will have to work even harder, trying to minimize non-climate-related threats to land and species even as the human population grows by billions. Regardless of what we do, the changes will be coming fast and the future will bring increased drought, heat waves, rainstorms, extinctions and more. We need to begin cutting our carbon immediately, but we need to adapt now as well. The world is changing because of us; to save what's left, we'll have to change too. From the passage we can learn that the pine beetle ______.