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.

In the two decades between 1929 and 1949

Walter Schloss was by no means a celebrity

Brands began as badges of product quality

A. Entering international markets B. Satisfying global customers C

Directions: Write a letter to invite students to participate in a book donation activity organized

"THE SERVANT'(1963) is one of those films that it is impossible to forget. The servant exploits his master's weaknesses until he turns the tables: the story ends with the a cringing master ministering to a lordly servant. It is hard to watch it today without thinking of another awkward relationship—the one between business folk and their smartphones. Smart devices are sometimes empowering. They put a world of information at our fingertips. But for most people the servant has become the master. Not long ago only doctors were on call all the time. Now everybody is. Bosses think nothing of invading their employees' free time. Work invades the home far more than domestic chores invade the office. Hyper connectivity exaggerates the decline of certainty and the general cult of flexibility. Smartphones make it easier for managers to change their minds at the last moment. Employees find it ever harder to distinguish between "on-time" and "off-time"—and indeed between real work and make-work. None of this is good for business people's marriages or mental health. It may be bad for business, too. When bosses change their minds at the last minute, it is hard to plan for the future. How can we reap the benefits of connectivity without becoming its slaves? One solution is digital dieting. Banning browsing before breakfast can reintroduce a small amount of civilization. Banning texting at weekends or, say, on Thursdays, can really show the iPhone who is boss. The problem with this approach is that it works only if you live on a desert island or at the bottom of a lake. Leslie Perlow of Harvard Business School argues that for most people the only way to break the 24/7 habit is to act collectively rather than individually. One of the world's most hard-working organisations, the Boston Consulting Group, introduced rules about when people were expected to be offline, and encouraged them to work together to make this possible. Eventually it forced people to work more productively while reducing burnout. Ms Perlow's advice should be taken seriously. The problem of hyper connectivity will only get worse, as smartphones become smarter and young digital natives take over the workforce. But ultimately it is up to companies to outsmart the smartphones by insisting that everyone turn them off from time to time. The author mentions the film in the first paragraph in order to ______.