Older people must be given more chances to learn if they are to contribute to society rather than be a financial burden, according to a new study on population published recently. The current approach which【C1】______ on younger people and on skills for employment is not【C2】______ to meet the challenges of demographic (人口结构的) change, it says. Only 1% of the education budget is【C3】______ spent on the oldest third of the population. The【C4】______ include the fact that most people can expect to spend a third of their lives in【C5】______ , that there are now more people over 59 than under 16 and that 11.3 million people are【C6】______ state pension age. 【C7】______ needs to continue throughout life. Our historic concentration of policy attention and resources【C8】______ young people cannot meet the new【C9】______ ," says the report's author, Professor Stephen McNair. The major【C10】______ of our education budget is spent on people below the age of 25.【C11】______ people are changing their jobs,【C12】______ , partners and lifestyles more often than【C13】______ , they need opportunities to learn at every age.【C14】______ , some people are starting new careers in their 50s and later. People need opportunities to make a "midlife review" to【C15】______ to the later stages of employed life, and to plan for the transition【C16】______ retirement, which may now happen【C17】______ at any point from 50 to over 90, says McNair. And there should be more money【C18】______ to support people in establishing a【C19】______ of identity and finding constructive【C20】______ for the " third age" , the 20 or more years they will spend in healthy retired life.

Directions: You are writing a master's thesis and need some reference materials. Write a letter to Professor Richard and ask for his help, for he is the distinguished authority and has published quite a few important books related to your thesis. You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not use your own name at the end of the notice. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write your address. (10 points)

BSection III Writing/B

In this section, you are asked to write an essay based on the following information. Make comments and express your own opinion. You should write at least 150 words. 拼写在英语学习里是非常重要的。但如今，很多学生忽略自己的拼写错误。他们认为自己不必去记忆单词的拼写，因为总有电脑软件可以自动检查拼写并且进行更正。你的看法如何?

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

In 1930, when the world was "suffering from a bad attack of economic pessimism" , John May-nard Keynes wrote a broadly optimistic essay, "Economic Possibilities for our Grand-children". It imagined a middle way between revolution and stagnation that would leave the grandchildren a great deal richer than their grandparents. But the path was not without dangers. One of the worries Keynes admitted was a "new disease" : "technological unemployment due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour. " His readers might not have heard of the problem, he suggested—but they were certain to hear a lot more about it in the years to come. For the most part, they did not. Nowadays, the majority of economists confidently wave such worries away. By raising productivity, they argue, any automation which economises on the use of labour will increase incomes. That will generate demand for new products and services, which will in turn create new jobs for displaced workers. To think otherwise has meant being tarred a Luddite— the name taken by 19th-century textile workers who smashed the machines taking their jobs. For much of the 20th century, those arguing that technology brought ever more jobs and prosperity looked to have the better of the debate. Real incomes in Britain scarcely doubled between the beginning of the common era and 1570. They then tripled from 1570 to 1875. And they more than tripled from 1875 to 1975. Industrialisation did not end up eliminating the need for human workers. On the contrary, it created employment opportunities sufficient to absorb the 20th century"s exploding population. Keynes" vision of everyone in the 2030s being a lot richer is largely achieved. His belief they would work just 15 hours or so a week has not come to pass.

Aging poses a serious challenge to OECD (Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, in particular, how to pay for future public pension liabilities. And early retirement places an【C1】______ burden on pension financing. There is no easy solution, but【C2】______ retirement could help. Early retirement may seem like a worthy individual goal, but it is a socially【C3】______ one, and makes the present public pension system difficult to sustain for long. The【C4】______ reason is that more people are retiring early and living longer. That means more retirees depending on the【C5】______ of those in work for their income. The【C6】______ is worrying. In the next 50 years, low fertility rates and【C7】______ life expectancy in OECD countries will cause this old-age dependency rate to roughly double【C8】______ size. Public pension payments, which afford 30%~80% of total retirement incomes in OECD countries, are【C9】______ to rise, on average, by over three percentage points in GDP and by as much as eight percentage points in some countries.【C10】______ is the pressure on pension funds that there is a danger of today's workers not getting the pensions they expected or felt they【C11】______ for. Action is needed,【C12】______ simply aiming to reduce the【C13】______ (and cost) of public pensions, or trying to【C14】______ the role of privately funded pensions within the system, though necessary steps, may be【C15】______ to deal with the dependency challenge. After years of【C16】______ early retirement schemes to avoid【C17】______ and higher unemployment, many governments are now looking【C18】______ persuading people to stay in work until they are older. Surely, the thinking goes, if we are healthier now and jobs are physically less【C19】______ and unemployment is down, then perhaps the【C20】______ rate should rise anew.

BPart CDirections: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese./B

Ellen Pao spent the last few years spotlighting the technology industry's lack of diversity, in court and beyond. Erica Baker caused a stir at Google when she started a spreadsheet last year for employees to share their salaries, highlighting the pay disparities between those of different genders doing the same job. Laura I. Gomez founded a start-up focused on improving diversity in the hiring process. Now the three are starting an effort to collect and share data to help diversify the rank-and-file employees who make up tech companies. The nonprofit venture, called Project Include, was unveiled on Tuesday. As part of Project Include, the group plans to extract commitments from tech companies to track the diversity of their work forces over time and eventually share that data with other start-ups. The effort will focus on start-ups that employ 25 to 1,000 workers, in the hope of spurring the companies to think about equality sooner rather than later. The project will also ask for participation from venture capital firms that advise and mentor the start-ups. Project Include aims to have 18 companies as part of its first cohort; a few have already signed up. The group will meet regularly for seven months to define and track specific metrics. At the end of that period, the group will publish an anonymized set of results to show the progress—or lack thereof—that the start-ups have made around diversity. The group' s push is intended to cut through tech' s slow pace of change on diversity. Large companies, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft, have openly admitted their failings in creating diverse work forces, and some have started programs to move the needle . But that has not seemed to spur much movement in views on the issue. In December, for instance, Michael Moritz, a partner at the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, made headlines when he said in an interview that his firm—which had no female investment partners in the United States—would focus on hiring women but would not "lower its standards" to do so. He also said the firm was blind to gender and race. "It is this incredibly self-serving mythology that we are the best and the brightest, and that the best ideas rise to the top and will get funded," said Ms. Kapor Klein, noting there is plenty of data to show that minority access to tech programs and networks is worse than that of white males. "Despite an avalanche of rigorous data to the contrary, the belief in pure meritocracy persists."

More than 45 million Americans now belong to a health club. We spend some $19 billion a year on gym memberships. Of course, some people join and never go. According to a survey, the number of people who said they【C1】______regular exercise, has been rising. And yet obesity【C2】______have risen significantly: a third of Americans are obese, and another third【C3】______as overweight by the Federal Government"s【C4】______. Yes, it"s entirely possible that those of us who regularly go to the gym would weigh even more if we exercised【C5】______. But like many other people, I get hungry after I exercise,【C6】______I often eat more on the days I work out than on the days I don"t. Could exercise actually be keeping me from losing weight? The【C7】______wisdom that exercise is essential for shedding pounds is actually fairly【C8】______. As recently as the 1960s, doctors routinely advised against【C9】______exercise, particularly for older adults who could【C10】______themselves. Today doctors encourage even their oldest patients to exercise, which is sound advice for many reasons: People who regularly exercise are at significantly lower risk for all manner of【C11】______—those of the heart in particular. They less often develop cancer, diabetes and many other illnesses. But the past few years of obesity research show that the role of exercise in weight loss has been wildly【C12】______. "In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty【C13】______," says Eric Ravussin, chair in diabetes and metabolism at Louisiana State University and a prominent exercise researcher. Many recent studies have found that exercise isn"t as important【C14】______helping people lose weight as you hear so regularly in gym advertisements or on【C15】______like The Biggest Loser. The basic problem is that【C16】______it"s true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can【C17】______hunger. That causes us to eat more, which【C18】______can deny the weight-loss benefits we just【C19】______. Exercise, in other words, isn"t necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it【C20】______.

With polished stone floors and a plate-glass roof, a shining multi-storey shopping mall has just opened beside a motorway north of Paris. Named Qwartz, and costing 300m, it houses 165 shops and what developers call " eating concepts". Two other American-style shopping malls opened in the greater Paris region last year, and a third, So Ouest, in 2012. A country that prides itself on fashion designer boutiques and artisanal shops seems to be turning into one of mall rats. Partly this is just catching up. Until recently, strict planning rules stopped big out-of-town shopping centres around the French capital. Most malls that existed, such as Velizy 2 or Rosny 2, dated from the 1970s, when five new towns were built in the Paris suburbs. But a new relaxed attitude has now let more modern projects go ahead. It also points to two features of French society that escape the gaze of historic Paris. One is most shoppers' suburban way of life. Only 2. 2m people live in the capital itself. Yet the greater Paris region, excluding the city, counts over four times more inhabitants, many in small towns and car-dependent suburbs. The new malls, ringed by car parks, are handy, even alluring. Fully 62% of the French told one poll that malls were their favourite places to shop, ahead of the high street or traditional department stores. The other trend is the global taste of consumers. Besides a huge French hypermarket, Qwartz's big pull is Primark, an Irish cheap-fashion retailer, and Marks & Spencer, a British chain. Just down the road, So Ouest boasts Hollister, an American surfwear brand, Starbucks, an American coffee house, and foreign fashion chains such as H&M and Zara. In today's temples of consumption, global is a la mode . This is not quite the France favoured by Arnaud Montebourg, the industry minister and architect of a "Made in France" campaign. He is now trying to keep American hands off Alstom, the French maker of TGV fast trains. He once posed cheerfully for a magazine, dressed in a striped Breton top and holding a Moulinex food-blender. Yet even French brands are not always home-made, as Benjamin Carle, a reporter, discovered filming a television documentary about his efforts to live for a year using only products made in France. The result was comic—and sobering. Not only was it impossible to find some items, including a fridge and coffee. Mr Carle initially had to empty his flat of anything that did not meet the test of 50% of its value being made in France. Out went the bicycle, computer, guitar, most of the furniture, beer, clothes, toothbrush and more. The share of his stuff that qualified as French-made? Just 4.5%.

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

The relationship between formal education and economic growth in poor countries is widely misunderstood by economists and politicians alike. Progress in both areas is undoubtedly necessary for the social, political and intellectual development of these and all other societies; however, the conventional view that education should be one of the very highest priorities for promoting rapid economic development in poor countries is wrong. We are fortunate that it is, because building new educational systems there and putting enough people through them to improve economic performance would require two or three generations. The findings of a research institution have consistently shown that workers in all countries can be trained on the job to achieve radically higher productivity and, as a result, radically higher standards of living. Ironically, the first evidence for this idea appeared in the United States. Not long ago, with the country entering a recession and Japan at its pre-bubble peak, the U.S. workforce was derided(嘲笑) as poorly educated and one of the primary cause of the poor U.S. economic performance. Japan was, and remains, the global leader in automotive-assembly productivity. Yet the research revealed that the U.S. factories of Honda, Nissan, and Toyota achieved about 95 percent of the productivity of their Japanese counterparts—a result of the training that U.S. workers received on the job. More recently, while examining housing construction, the researchers discovered that illiterate, non-English-speaking Mexican workers in Houston, Texas, consistently met best-practice labor productivity standards despite the complexity of the building industry's work. What is the real relationship between education and economic development? We have to suspect that continuing economic growth promotes the development of education even when governments don't force it. After all, that's how education got started. When our ancestors were hunters and gatherers 10 000 years ago, they didn't have time to wonder much about anything besides finding food. Only when humanity began to get its food in a more productive way was there time for other things. As education improved, humanity's productivity potential increased as well. When the competitive environment pushed our ancestors to achieve that potential, they could in turn afford more education. This increasingly high level of education is probably a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for the complex political systems required by advanced economic performance. Thus poor countries might not be able to escape their poverty traps without political changes that may be possible only with broader formal education. A lack of formal education, however, doesn't constrain the ability of the developing world's workforce to substantially improve productivity for the foreseeable future. On the contrary, constraints on improving productivity explain why education isn't developing more quickly there than it is.

BPart CDirections: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese./B

We already know that gender balanced senior teams are not only better for business, the economy and society, but also crucial to women's continuing success in the workplace. The visibility of women at the top demonstrates to other women that it is possible for them to get there too. For this reason, senior women are often presented as role models to inspire others to follow in their footsteps. Having said this, I believe it is important to recognise that role models and visibility are not one and the same. Role models tend to be more personal, while visibility has a more widespread effect when it comes to changing working culture. It isn't fair to put the pressure of being a perfect role model on the women who have made it to the top of their field. Most female employees are more inspired by realistic, relatable and attainable traits—not just seniority. When women are asked to describe their ideal role model, they often reveal a wide variety of sought-after characteristics, traits and behaviours. From being decisive, intelligent and confident to warm, approachable and inclusive, what makes an ideal role model is often personal and might change over time. We must work instead to normalise gender-balanced leadership, shifting away from the preoccupation with role models. Once we achieve this, the gender of role models becomes redundant anyway: we will simply see them all around. The visible balance of power between women and men sends a clear message to women and girls of all ages that they can climb the career ladder too. This visibility of women in traditionally male-dominated roles and industries cannot be underestimated. This is beautifully illustrated by photographer Leonora Saunders in her series "10%. . . and rising" , which challenges preconceptions of what women can or can't do in the world of work. Once girls and boys see people like themselves employed in all industries, their choices in life will be much greater— and employers will benefit from their capability and talent, not their gender. We need to focus increasingly on visible, balanced leadership at the highest levels of business. This is not to say that senior level women can't be role models to other women in their organisation, but that true role models should be found at all levels, in line managers or even junior staff. Perhaps in time, when it becomes normal to see as many women as men in senior roles, the search for role models will be less about gender and will simply celebrate good leadership—whatever that may look like.

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

BSection III Writing/B

BSection III Writing/B

The price of a bitcoin topped $900 last week, an enormous surge in value that arrived amidst Congressional hearings where top U.S. financial regulators took a surprisingly optimistic view of digital currency. Just 10 months ago, a bitcoin only sold for $13. The【C1】______increase was big news across the【C2】______, from Washington to Tokyo to China, and it left many asking themselves: "What on earth is a bitcoin?" It"s a good question. Bitcoin is a digital currency, meaning it"s money controlled and stored entirely by computers【C3】______across the internet, and this money is finding its way to more and more people and businesses around the world.【C4】______it"s much more than that, and many people—【C5】______the sharpest of internet【C6】______as well as seasoned economists—are still【C7】______to come to terms【C8】______its many identities. Bitcoin isn"t just a currency, like dollars or euros or yen. It"s a way of making【C9】______, like PayPal or the Visa credit card network. It lets you hold money, but it also lets you spend it and【C10】______it and move it from place to place, almost as cheaply and easily as you"d send an email. As the press so often points out, bitcoin lets you do all this without【C11】______your identity. But at the same time, it"s a system that operates【C12】______in the public view. All bitcoin【C13】______are recorded online for anyone to see, lending a certain transparency to the system, a transparency that can drive a new【C14】______in the economy. Bitcoin is much more than a money service. It"s a re-imagining of【C15】______finance, something that【C16】______barriers between countries and frees currency from the control of federal governments. Bitcoin is controlled by open source software that operates according to the【C17】______of mathematics—and by the people who collectively supervise this software. The software【C18】______on thousands of machines around the world, but it can be changed It"s just that a majority of those supervising the software must【C19】______to the change.【C20】______, bitcoin is kind of like the internet, but for money.

Are passwords outdated? It's starting to seem like it. Everybody hates them, and nobody can remember all the ones they've【C1】______. These days a typical internet user has dozens of online accounts. If you really want to be safe, you need to have a different password for each one, and each password needs to be incredibly【C2】______, with a mix of capital letters,【C3】______, and numbers. Who can keep all that stuff in their head? Most people don't【C4】______. Some just make up one password and use it everywhere while others might have a few passwords for different usages. Problem is that【C5】______one site gets attacked by hackers, they now have the password that you use elsewhere. In one recent attack on Sony, millions of accounts were exposed. Computer scientists realize the system is【C6】______and they're looking for alternatives. But most【C7】______haven't been very good. Fingerprint readers require special hardware, and smart cards can be lost or【C8】______. "We've tried【C9】______other approaches, but we end up back with passwords. They're the least【C10】______in a series of bad options," says a security consultant. Markus Jakobsson, a veteran security researcher with a Ph.D. in computer science, has come up with something he calls "fastwords." Instead of【C11】______a meaningless and obscure password, you join three simple words that come from a【C12】______known only to you. If one day you were driving to work and【C13】______a frog that ended up flat, you might choose "frog work flat." Some【C14】______: You can enter the three words【C15】______any order ("flat frog work"), and the system【C16】______knows that you're you. If you totally【C17】______, the fastword system will tell you one of the three words, which should enable you to remember the【C18】______idea and thus the three keywords. Jakobsson says one large service provider is evaluating the fast-words concept. Fastwords【C19】______a step in the right direction, 【C20】______it's not the promised land. Someone, somehow, needs to come up with something completely different— and radically better—than what we have today.