问答题Many animals test their legs and totter forth only hours after they are born, but humans need a year before they take their first, hesitant steps. Is something fundamentally different going on in human babies? Maybe not. (46) A new study shows that the time it takes for humans and all other mammals to start walking fits closely with the size of their brains. (47) In past studies to develop a new animal model for the brain events that support motor development, neurophysiologist Martin Garwicz discovered that the schedules by which ferrets and rats acquire various motor skills, such as crawling and walking, are strikingly similar to each other; the progress simply happens faster for rats. That made them wonder how similar the timing of motor development might be among mammals in general. (48) They compared the time between conception and walking in 24 species and looked at how well this duration correlated with a range of variables, including gestation time, adult body mass, and adult brain mass. As they report in this week's issue of PNAS, brain mass accounts for the vast majority (94%) of the variance in walking time between species. Species with larger brains, such as humans, tend to take longer to learn to walk. (49) Strikingly, a model based on adult brain mass and walking time in the other 23 species almost perfectly predicts when humans begin to walk. "We've always considered humans the exception," Garwicz says, "But in fact, we start walking at exactly the time that would be expected from all other walking mammals. " Two other variables—gestation time and brain mass at birth—also correlate nicely with age of walking for most animals, but not for humans. That makes sense, the researchers say: Humans spend an unusually small portion of their development—and build an unusually small fraction of their brain mass—in the womb. (50) The model is able to accommodate this quirk of human development because it uses the time it takes babies to learn to walk from conception, not birth. (At the other extreme, animals such as horses, who have a long gestation and then walk almost immediately after they are born, also fit the model.) Barbara Finlay, a neuroscientist at Cornell University, says the findings support the existence of a kind of a development "clock" for mammals. In her own work, Finlay has found that various mammals have similar timetables for brain development before birth. But she had imagined that a postnatal milestone such as walking would be more idiosyncratic. "I was surprised," she says. "I thought the clock would start to fracture. " It will be interesting, she says, to see if the clock will keep time for later milestones, such as events related to reproduction.

问答题Directions: Suppose you lived at the Rehabilitation Center and were under tender care. You write a letter to extend your thanks to your staff's consideration. Begin your letter as follows: Dear staff, You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not sign your own name, using "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

问答题I think that a successful old age is easiest for those who have strong impersonal interests involving appropriate activities. It is in this sphere that long experience is really fruitful, and it is in this sphere that the wisdom born of experience can be exercised without being oppressive. It is no use telling grown-up children not to make mistakes, both because they will not believe you, .and because mistakes are an essential part of education. But if you are one of those who are incapable of impersonal interests, you may find that your life will be empty unless you concern yourself with your children and grandchildren. In that case you must realize that while you can still render them material services, such as making them an allowance or knitting them jumpers, you must not expect that they will enjoy your company. Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it—so at least it seems to me—is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river—small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

问答题Directions You have an appointment next Friday with your supervisor about your thesis but you are unable to keep it bemuse something unexpected has happened: Write a letter to him according to the following outline: 1) express your apology for your inability to keep it; 2) give your reasons for it; 3) suggest other remedies. You should write about i00 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Xin" instead. You do not need to write the address.

问答题Write your letter with no less than 100 words on this matter. Write it neatly on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter; use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

问答题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} {{I}}The Students' Union of your university is planning an English Speaking Contest. Write an announcement which covers the following information:{{/I}} 1) the purpose of the contest, 2) time and place of the contest, 3) what is required of the candidates, 4) details of the judges and awards. {{I}}You should write about 100 words neatly on Answer Sheet 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use Students' Union at the end of the announcement.{{/I}}

问答题 Do animals have rights? This is how the question is usually put. It sounds like a useful, ground-clearing way to start. 46){{U}}Actually, it isn't because it assumes that there is an agreed account of human rights, which is something the world does not have.{{/U}} On one view of rights, to be sure, it necessarily follows that animals have none. 47){{U}}Some philosophers argue that rights exist only within a social contract, as part of an exchange of duties and entitlements.{{/U}} Therefore animals cannot have rights. The idea of punishing a tiger that kills somebody is absurd; for exactly the same reason, so is the idea that tigers have rights. However, this is only one account, and by no means an uncontested one. It denies rights not only to animals but also to some people—for instance, to infants, the mentally incapable and future generations. In addition, it is unclear what force a contract can have for people who never consented to it: how do you reply to somebody who says "I don't like this contract"? The point is this: without agreement on the rights of people, arguing about the rights of animals is fruitless. 48){{U}}It leads the discussion to extremes at the outset: it invites you to think that animals should be treated either with the consideration humans extend to other humans, or with no consideration at all.{{/U}} This is a false choice. Better to start with another, more fundamental, question: is the way we treat animals a moral issue at all? Many deny it. 49){{U}}Arguing from the view that humans are different from animals in every relevant respect, extremists of this kind think that animals lie outside the area of moral choice.{{/U}} Any regard for the suffering of animals is seem as a mistake—a sentimental displacement of feeling that should properly be directed to other humans. This view, which holds that torturing a monkey is morally equivalent to chopping wood, may seem bravely "logical". In fact it is simply shallow: the confused centre is right to reject it. The most elementary form of moral reasoning—the ethical equivalent of learning to crawl—is to weigh others' interests against one's own. This in turn requires sympathy and imagination: without which there is no capacity for moral thought. To see an animal in pain is enough, for most, to engage sympathy. 50){{U}}When that happens, it is not a mistake: it is mankind's instinct for moral reasoning in action, an instinct that should be encouraged rather than laughed at.{{/U}}

问答题Directions: Zhang Li is a classmate of yours. He suffered from a serious illness. Write a letter to 1) call on the students to help Zhang Li and 2) tell them how to help Zhang Li. You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. You don' t have to write the address.

问答题You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "James" instead. You do not need to write the address. (10 points)

问答题 Directions: You are a resident living in an urban district Write a letter to the director who is in charge of the estate management, complaining that some people let their dogs run in the lawn, caulking danger and noise to the dwellers in the neighborhoocL Ask him to help stopping this practice. You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead You do not need to write the address.

问答题Directions: Having finished his end-of-term exams, a university student has gone straight home without saying good bye to his roommate. Write a letter explaining the situation to the latter, and invite him home during the vacation. You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

问答题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}}Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET 2. When the Vikings invaded Great Britain, they did more than slaughter the population, ransack the cities and scorch the earth. They also left substantial influence on the English language words like slaughter, ransack and scorch. (46){{U}}Now, a single word in an ancient manuscript has led a U. S. linguist to conclude that the influence of the Norse on the English language may have come as much as a century earlier than most scholars had thought.{{/U}} The find came when English professor Jonathan Evans of the University of Georgia was reading a passage to his Old English class from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and a Norse word, theora, jumped out at him. The 1122 text, according to generations of scholars, was supposed to be too early to contain evidence of Danish influence on Old English. (47){{U}}But the fact that the text used the Nordic form of "their" rather than the Old English hiera or heora, suggested that Norsemen and their English hosts were not only living side-by-side in England's East Midlands but also were in "frequent, peaceful communication", Evans contends.{{/U}} "I thought I had made a mistake," when he first saw the word, he said. "There it was, sitting there in plain sight. Nobody saw this Danish word sitting there. I kept it quiet because I thought I made a mistake." But he was urged to investigate by a visiting Danish scholar, Hans Nielsen. (48){{U}}So Evans spent several years pursuing a hunch that a Roman Catholic monk slipped into the local dialect while copying out the ancient historical work for his monastery.{{/U}} If so, that suggests to Evans that Norse and West-Saxon dialects of Old English had mingled significantly by the 12th century if not earlier. The result of Evans' research is a paper, recently published in the journal North-Western European Language Evolution. (49){{U}}His paper puts forth the theory that the monk's use of the Norse word is the first datable example in English of Scandinavian-derived plural pronouns, antecedents of the modern English words they, them, and their.{{/U}} (50){{U}}" This is a footnote in a much more well-known story—the story of Scandinavian borrowings in the English language." said Evans, who can read texts in Danish, French, Old English and Old Icelandic.{{/U}} "It's going to be interesting to see how other scholars view this discovery but I think I've made my case for it."

问答题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}}Studythefollowingpicturecarefullyandwriteanessayto1)describethepicturebriefly,2)deducethepurposeofthedrawerofthepicture,and3)suggestcounter-measures.Youshouldwriteabout160--200wordsneatlyonANSWERSHEET2.

问答题The mythology of a culture can provide some vital insights into the beliefs and values of that culture. (1) By using fantastic and sometimes incredible stories to create an oral tradition by which to explain the wonders of the natural world and teach lessons to younger generations, a society exposes those ideas and concepts held most important. (2) Just as important as the final lesson to be gathered from the stories, however, are the characters and the roles they play in conveying that message. (3) Perhaps the epitome of mythology and its use as a tool to pass on cultural values can be found in Aesop's Fables, told and retold during the era of the Greek Empire. Aesop, a slave who won the favor of the court through his imaginative and descriptive tales, almost exclusively used animals to fill the roles in his short stories. Humans, when at all present, almost always played the part of bumbling fools struggling to learn the lesson being presented. This choice of characterization allows us to see that the Greeks placed wisdom on a level slightly beyond humans, implying that deep wisdom and understanding is a universal quality sought by, rather than steanning from, human beings. Aesop's fables illustrated the central themes of humility and self-reliance, reflecting the importance of those traits in early Greek society. The folly of humans was used to contrast against the ultimate goal of attaining a higher level of understanding and awareness of truths about nature and humanity. For example, one notable fable features a fox repeatedly trying to reach a bunch of grapes on a very high vine. After failing at several attempts, the fox gives up, making up its mind that the grapes were probably sour anyway. (4) The fable's lesson, that we often play down that which we can't achieve so as to make ourselves feel better, teaches the reader or listener in an entertaining way about one of the weaknesses of the human psyche. (5) The mythology of other cultures and societies reveal the underlying traits of their respective cultures just as Aesop's fables did. The stories of Roman gods, Aztec ghosts and European elves all served to train ancient generations those lessons considered most important to their community, and today they offer a powerful looking glass by which to evaluate and consider the contextual environment in which those culture existed.

问答题The clue lies in the Japanese name that has been adopted for them around the world: tsunami. (46) Formed from the characters for harbour and wave, and commemorated in the 19th-century woodblock print by Hokusai that decorates so many books and articles about the subject, the word shows that these sudden, devastating waves have mainly in the past occurred in the Pacific Ocean, ringed as it is by volcanoes and earthquake zones. Thanks to one tsunami in 1946 that killed 165 people, mainly in Hawaii, the countries around the Pacific have shared a tsunami warning centre ever since. (47) Those around the Indian Ocean have no such centre, being lucky enough not to have suffered many big tsunamis before and unlucky enough not to count the world's two biggest and most technologically advanced economies, the United States and Japan, among their number. So when, on December 26th, the world's strongest earthquake in 40 years shook the region, with its epicenter under the sea near the northernmost tip of the Indonesian archipelago, there was no established mechanism to pass warnings to the countries around the ocean's shores. There would have been between 90 and 150 minutes in which to broadcast warnings by radio, television and loudspeaker in the areas most affected, the Indonesian province of Aceh, Sri Lanka and the Indian chain of the Andaman and Nicobar islands. (48) Had such warnings been broadcast then many of the tens of thousands of lives lost would have been saved. (49) How many, nobody can know, for the task of evacuation would have been far from easy in many of these crowded, poor and low-lying coastal communities. Equally, though, it will probably never be known exactly how many people have died. (50) Whereas in many disasters the initial estimates of fatalities prove too high, the opposite is occurring in this case.

问答题 Directions: You got an invitation to take part in a party. Write a declining letter which should include: 1) the purpose of writing this letter; 2) the reasons for your absence; 3) your good wishes to the participants. You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use 'Li Ming' instead. You do not need to write the address.

问答题When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong. 1 Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit. The studies are analyzed in a new edition of a neurology book, Progress in Brain Research. Some brains do deteriorate with age. Alzheimer"s disease, for example, strikes 13 percent of Americans 65 and older. 2 But for most aging adults, the authors say, much of what occurs is a gradually widening focus of attention that makes it more difficult to latch onto just one fact, like a name or a telephone number. Although that can be frustrating, it is often useful. "It may be that distractibility is not, in fact, a bad thing," said Shelley H. Carson, a psychology researcher at Harvard whose work was cited in the book. "It may increase the amount of information available to the conscious mind." For example, in studies where subjects are asked to read passages that are interrupted with unexpected words or phrases, adults who are 60 and older work much more slowly than college students. 3 Although the students plow through the texts at a consistent speed regardless of what the out-of-place words mean older people slow down even more when the words are related to the topic at hand. That indicates that they are not just stumbling over the extra information, but are taking it in and processing it. 4 When both groups were later asked questions for which the out-of-place words might be answers, the older adults responded much better than the students. "For the young people, it"s as if the distraction never happened," said an author of the review, Lynn Hasher, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist at the Rotman Research Institute. "But for older adults, because they"ve retained all this extra data they"re now suddenly the better problem solvers. They can transfer the information they"ve soaked up from one situation to another." 5 Such tendencies can yield big advantages in the real world where it is not always clear what information is important, or will become important. A seemingly irrelevant point or suggestion in a memo can take on new meaning if the original plan changes. Or extra details that stole your attention, like others, yawning and fidgeting, may help you assess the speaker"s real impact.